The landline rang in the kitchen. “Hurry,” Sienna said, and went to answer the phone. It was her mother, Barbara. Sienna was unable to hide her surprise. Her mother was usually too busy at the Mayo Clinic to call except on birthdays or at Christmas. Instinctively Sienna stood straighter, glancing at her reflection in the windows to see if her hair was neat. “How’s Dad? Nothing’s wrong, is there?”
“Everything’s fine,” Barbara said. “I got your email that you were moving. Sorry I haven’t got back to you before now. Where is Summerside? Is it a long commute to City Hospital?”
“I quit the hospital. I’m head of a general practice clinic now.”
“What? You didn’t tell me that.”
“I’m telling you now.”
“Really, Sienna.” Disapproval tinged her mother’s voice. “If you’d stuck it out at the hospital another five years or so you could have been head of orthopedics.”
Sienna pressed two fingers to her temple. No matter what she did, or how well she did it, it was never enough. “I made the move for Olly’s sake.” Tears burned the backs of her eyes. He was upstairs, packing to leave the place she’d moved to for him. “How
is
Oliver? I hope you didn’t take him out of Wesley College and enroll him in a local public school.”
“The train line runs right past the Wesley.” Sienna could just imagine what her mother would say about Olly’s plan to drop out of school entirely. But why give any more information than she had to? Once Oliver was living at Anthony’s, he would go back to his old private school, temporarily at least.
“Are you coming back to Australia for Christmas?” Sienna asked. “I have plenty of room, and Summerside is lovely in summer.”
“I’d like to, but we may have to work through the holiday,” Barbara said. “I’ll let you know. I’d better go. Your father sends his love.”
“Is he there?” Sienna asked. “Can I talk to him?”
“We’re on our way out the door. Maybe next time.”
Sienna suppressed a sigh. “I’m in a rush, too. Bye, Mum.”
In the car Oliver sat in stony silence for the first half hour. Then he said, “Erica’s sick and she’s having a baby. She won’t want me there.”
“Erica’s fine with whatever your father wants. Your dad wants you with him. He feels bad about canceling the ski trip.” It felt as if she was reciting something in a book—not quite real. “
You
want me gone.”
“No, I—” Sienna stopped. No more lies. No more pretending. “I just think you need to take a step back, think about who you are and where you’re going. You didn’t have crazy ideas about quitting school when you were living in the city and attending Wesley College.”
“Robotics isn’t a crazy idea. Maybe I’m just finding out who I am because I’m older now.”
Sienna didn’t want their last conversation for a while to be an argument, so she let a beat go by and then changed the subject. “It’ll be fun when the baby comes home.”
“Oh, yeah, a laugh a minute.” Oliver turned and gazed out his side window.
Sienna glanced at his profile—shut down—then at the blue waters of the bay, visible between the town houses flashing by on the beach side of the highway. She wondered if Jack was kayaking today or if he was getting the Men’s Shed rolling.
Tears blurred her vision, and the car in front of theirs smeared into red and silver streaks. Furiously she blinked them away. She was only trying to do what was right for her son. Someday he would realize that. It didn’t matter what Jack thought anymore.
Oliver seemed as lost in his own thoughts as she was and the miles ticked away until she was pulling up in front of Anthony’s apartment building. She rang his mobile. “We’re here. Could you come down and give us a hand with Oliver’s bags?”
“I’m at the hospital.” Anthony sounded harried.
“Did something come up?” Sienna glanced at Olly, afraid he’d take this as a sign his dad wasn’t interested in him.
“Sorry, I should have called. Erica was induced this afternoon. She had the baby.”
“Is she all right? Is the baby okay?” At the thought of a preemie her maternal instincts won out over jealousy.
“Erica’s doing fine, considering. Tamara’s in a humidicrib, but she’s breathing on her own.” His voice was filled with pride. “Why don’t you and Oliver come here? You can see Erica and the baby, then Olly can go home with me.”
“Uh…” Excuses ran through her mind. But her last encounter with Jack had left her feeling mean-spirited. She would like to think she was capable of more generosity. “We’ll be there shortly.”
“Wonderful.” The genuine pleasure in Anthony’s voice made her glad she’d said yes. When all was said and done he was still the father of her child.
Twenty minutes later, standing outside Erica’s hospital room, Sienna felt her doubts come rushing back. She wasn’t sure she could face the woman who’d betrayed her friendship. If she couldn’t be sincerely happy for Erica she had no business being here.
“Are we just going to stand out here in the hall?” Oliver asked, shuffling in his size-twelve sneakers. “I want to get this over with.”
“You go in,” Sienna said. “I’m going to the nursery.”
Anthony poked his head out the door. “I thought I heard your voices.” He gave Sienna a peck on the cheek and Oliver a quick hug. Then he was ushering them inside the ward before Sienna could utter a word of protest. “Look who’s here, Erica.”
“I really can’t stay—” Sienna broke off.
Erica’s eyes were closed, her face puffy with edema. Dark skin below her eyes gave her a bruised appearance. She was hooked up to an IV and a catheter. An oxygen monitor was clipped to her right index finger. Her eyelids fluttered open and she smiled weakly. “Thanks for coming.”
Sienna managed to nod. She picked Erica’s chart off the end of the bed and scanned it, giving herself time to adjust. Erica’s blood pressure was elevated and there was protein in her urine. She was still very ill.
“Say hello, Oliver,” Anthony prompted.
Oliver grunted something that sounded like a greeting, then retreated to a chair beside the window.
Sienna approached the bed, not sure what to say.
“Anthony, why don’t you take Oliver to the nursery to see Tamara?” Erica suggested.
Panic fluttered through Sienna as Anthony and Oliver left the room. The silence between Sienna and Erica grew and grew, until Sienna felt crushed by the weight of everything they weren’t saying.
“I didn’t mean for it to happen,” Erica said at last. “Anthony and I.”
“Don’t talk about that now,” Sienna said quickly, not wanting to talk about it
ever.
“You’re ill.”
“I need to say it. We were friends once and I owe you that much.” Erica paused to catch her breath. “If I die—”
“You’re not going to die,” Sienna said automatically, though she knew it was a possibility. As a doctor she was used to dealing with reality. But suddenly it was terrifying to think that Erica, a new mother, could actually pass away.
She lowered herself into the chair beside the bed, twisting her hands together. “Go on if you want to.”
“There’s nothing to say, really. I’m just sorry.”
“Sorry you broke up my marriage?” Sienna heard the words come from her lips, harsh and unforgiving. How was it possible for compassion to exist alongside anger?
“At first we just talked. He wasn’t happy.”
“So what if he was unhappy?” Sienna demanded fiercely. “You could have told him to go home and sort things out with his wife. If he was that unhappy he should have talked to
me.
”
Erica’s gaze sharpened. “He said he tried. You were never available.”
“That’s not true,” Sienna shot back.
“Wasn’t it?” Erica asked, unwavering.
Sienna forced herself to try to see the past objectively.
Had
Anthony tried to talk about their relationship? She thought of all her late nights on duty, of how she’d insisted on Oliver accompanying them everywhere, of the many times she’d fallen into bed too exhausted for anything but sleep. She had to admit she’d avoided spending time alone with Anthony. Had she been so used to papering over the cracks in her marriage that she hadn’t seen how deep they’d become?
“Sienna?” Erica said.
Sienna gazed at the woman straddling the razor’s edge between life and death. She could play the aggrieved first wife or she could be honest with herself and Erica.
“I didn’t love him,” Sienna admitted. “Not even at first. I liked him a lot. But I didn’t love him. I got pregnant in med school. We married because in my family daughters didn’t become single mothers.” It was so simple, yet so huge. How was it possible she’d never admitted it to herself before? How had Anthony lived with that? “My whole marriage was a lie.”
“I envied you so much,” Erica said slowly. “A brilliant husband, a stellar career, a son. If that wasn’t enough there was the fabulous apartment, trips to Europe, fine restaurants. You had the perfect life, the perfect marriage.”
Perfect. There was that word again.
“I worked so many hours I didn’t have time to enjoy anything.” Sienna gazed at her palms wondering irrelevantly which was the life line and which the heart line.
“You went from success to success, while I was a childless screwup with a broken marriage and a crappy job.”
“Now
I
have the broken marriage, a job my mother doesn’t respect and my son hates me.” Sienna gave Erica a humorless smile. “Funny, huh?”
Erica reached out. With all the tubes running into her hand she could touch Sienna’s only with the tips of her fingers. “You’re still
you.
And you’re pretty exceptional, warts and all.”
“But I’m not perfect.” That sounded childish. But she
felt
like a child, petulant and spoiled. Also constrained and pressured. Sienna burst into tears.
“No one’s perfect,” Erica said quietly.
“I tried to be. What an idiot I was.” She took a tissue from the box on Erica’s bedside table and blew her nose. “Please don’t tell me that you only had an affair with Anthony because you were envious of me. It would be so unfair to him if you don’t love him, either.”
“I love him,” Erica said. “I didn’t want him out of envy or to take something away from you.”
“Good.” Sienna balled up the tissue, dabbed her eyes and took a deep breath. “So, how are you feeling?”
“I’m so afraid,” Erica whispered.
“You’re going to be fine,” Sienna said, automatically using her doctor’s voice, confident and reassuring. “Your baby is receiving the best possible care—” Seeing Erica’s eyes glaze over, she broke off. Erica had plenty of doctors; right now she needed a friend.
“It sucks, you being sick while Tamara is in neonatal intensive care,” she said softly.
“I just want to go home with my baby.”
“You will, in a few weeks.” Sienna reached out and massaged warmth into Erica’s cold fingers. “Anthony was great when Olly was born. He’ll take good care of you and Tamara.”
“Thank you.” Erica clung to Sienna’s hand. “Glyneth said you’ve settled in to Summerside. Nice friends, a new man?”
“Oh, well.” Sienna wiped away her tears with the back of her hand. “I screwed up there, too.”
“How do you mean?”
“It seems I pressure people with high expectations. I pushed him away. And this time…” She let out a deep sigh. “I really love the guy.”
“Then you should let him know.”
Sienna shook her head. “Too late.”
“If he loves you, he’ll forgive you.”
“It’s not just that. He doesn’t let me in, not completely.” Sienna wasn’t sure how to explain, or if she even understood it herself. “He’s got some emotional block about his wife’s death. I’ve tried to talk to him.”
“Maybe you should listen instead.” Yawning, Erica closed her eyes. Her face was pale and drawn.
“I’m going to go,” Sienna said. “You need to rest up for when you see your daughter later.” She hesitated, then leaned through the wires and drips to touch Erica on the cheek. “Take care.”
Erica’s eyes fluttered open. “It’s okay for Olly to stay with us. I hope I didn’t hurt his feelings. I’ve been pretty anxious about the baby and everything.”
“He’s going through some teen stuff. He’s okay,” Sienna said. “But I’m not sure I want to let him go. I’ll talk to Anthony.”
She found him and Oliver at the neonatal intensive care unit, standing over a humidicrib. Her steps slowed. This was another milestone—Anthony’s baby with another woman. Her friend Erica’s baby, she reminded herself. Anthony and Oliver stepped aside as she approached.
She gazed into the Plexiglas crib. The infant was no bigger than Anthony’s hand and wore only a tiny diaper and knit cap. Eye patches protected her vision from the fluorescent bilirubin lights. As Anthony had said, she was breathing on her own. But she had an umbilical catheter and a nasogastric tube inserted for feeding. An IV needle dangled from her limp arm for administering medicine.
Life was so fragile. Yet so tenacious. Tamara’s pulse, visible through translucent skin, beat away despite all the odds.
Her gaze shifted to
her
baby, Oliver. He was already moving out of her home. It was what she’d dreaded, yet
she’d
been the one to initiate it. How could she have been so wrong?