Reunion in October (The Calendar Girls Book 2) (17 page)

“Thanks, honey.”

I would have liked a kiss, but knew better than to ask. Teenagers would rather eat live squid than be seen in public showing affection to their parents.

Once the kids were gone, Margie turned on her television, giving my husband and me some semblance of privacy. After replacing her chair and drawing the curtain that separated us, Roy sat at my bedside and cupped my hand. “Melissa didn’t mean it, Em. She’s just scared, you know.”

“I know.” Although, I admit, I never expected him to show that kind of insight about his daughter. I glanced at the closed curtain as if Melissa might come bounding around the corner, sunny and sorry, rather than sullen and sniping.

“So am I.”

My gaze swerved to him. “What?”

He’d bowed his head to stare at his feet, but didn’t lift his eyes to meet mine. “I don’t think I’ve ever been so scared.
My
heartbeat slowed to a crawl while I sat in the waiting area until the trauma team had you stable and would let me see you.”

“Roy, I’m fine. Really.” I squeezed his fingers.

Leaning forward, he placed his other hand over mine. “You weren’t, at first. They worked on you for over an hour. The whole time, I sat outside in the waiting area, barely able to breathe. I couldn’t move—I was literally frozen. I kept asking myself, ‘What the hell am I gonna do without her?’ The weirdest thoughts raced through my mind. Like, I don’t even know what Luke’s favorite toy is. And Melissa…she’s gonna want you to take her shopping for a prom dress this year, and what the hell would I know about that stuff? And what kind of laundry detergent do we use? I know it’s some kind of special formula or something because of the type of washing machine we have, but I have no idea about the details.”

A chill rippled through me, and I eased my hand from his clasp. “Those were your thoughts?”

“Well, yeah.” He looked up at me, a puzzled expression pleating his brow. “I mean, I had others, but the ones I just told you were the sensible ones.”

The sensible ones. Like I was the nanny-slash-housekeeper. “Tell me the crazy ones,” I said slowly. Inside my chest, my poor battered heart hiccupped.

He shook his head. “No. They were stupid.”

“Tell me anyway.” I had to know. Hope flourished inside me. Roy had always been one of those he-man football player kinda guys who didn’t admit to any gushiness. So, maybe that he-man side of him refused to consider how much losing me would hurt by focusing his thoughts on the mundane.

“I wasn’t thinking clearly,” he replied.

“I understand that. Just tell me.”

“You already know. I kept thinking about that Ambrose guy and trying to figure out what you saw in him. Just stupid stuff. I was angry. It was nothing major.”

No, nothing major. Nothing about how he loved me or would be lost without me—not because of the laundry detergent but because we’d been a couple for nearly twenty years. Nothing about love at all. Just childcare, laundry, and suspicion. Awesome.

My dream rushed back to me in vivid clarity.
I want a divorce
.

Did I? I wasn’t sure. But I definitely didn’t want this stranger in my room right now. I rolled over so my back was to him. “You should take the kids home.”

“You’re mad.”

“No.” I’d bypassed mad and careened straight to devastated.

No wonder Melissa had cracked that callous remark about the camping trip. The rotten apple didn’t fall far from the dead tree.

“I’m tired,” I added. “Take care of my kids. The staff here will take care of me.”

“I knew I shouldn’t have told you,” he mumbled. His shadow fell over my face as he rose, blocking the overhead light.

If he even
tried
to kiss me, I’d slug him. To avoid a violent scene, I squeezed my eyes shut and pulled the sheet up to my ear, leaving almost no flesh for him to place his lips against. “Goodnight,” I bit out.

His sigh pierced the stillness above me. “See you tomorrow, Em.” His tone carried that lost little boy lilt he always used to charm me. Not tonight.

I didn’t need to open my eyes to know when he’d gone. After seventeen years of marriage, I could sense the change in the air that signaled I was, once again, alone. Only then did I allow the tears to slip down my cheeks while Margie’s television show hummed in the background.

****

Francesca

The E.R. came alive shortly after midnight with calls for a full trauma team. I raced down the hall with Gerald on my heels. “What’s up?”

“Don’t know yet,” I replied. “Guess we’ll find out together.”

“House fire,” Dr. Reeves said as we approached the ambulance bay. “Bad one. Fourteen people in the residence at the time, ranging in age from thirty-three years to two months.”

“Fourteen people?” Gerald asked. “What was it, a party?”

“Don’t know.”

I did. Real estate in Snug Harbor sold for diamond prices, which meant that most of the people who worked here couldn’t actually afford to live here. Many of those in domestic employment—chambermaids, wait staff, and janitors—took up residence in rental properties which they could only afford when crowds of them lived together. These types of living arrangements were illegal, for health and safety reasons, but the residents themselves lived on the fringe, often in the country illegally, few of them able to speak English.

My stomach plummeted. “Burns?”

“Mostly smoke inhalation,” Dr. Reeves replied. “We’ve got half a dozen ambulances on the way in.”

“Let’s get to it,” I said as the doors to the ambulance area whooshed open.

Three hours later, I collapsed in an empty exam room and fought back tears. Four years old. Lucia Espinosa was only four years old when she died tonight. We’d done all we could for her. The ambulance crew had administered CPR and brought her back from death once before they even arrived here. But in the end, we couldn’t save her. According to the EMTs, the fire had begun in the hallway outside the bedroom she shared with her mother, two brothers, and cousin. Unfortunately, at the time, Lucia was asleep alone, and no one could get past the heat and flames to rescue her. A firefighter finally reached her through the window, but by then, she was unconscious and wheezing with every breath.

As long as I lived, I would never forget the horror, the absolute defeat, on Zuleika Espinosa’s face when I told her that her only daughter hadn’t survived. She’d turned as white as the sheet, crossed herself, and begun wailing in rapid Spanish. Two gentlemen with her had to grab her arms as she flailed in her hospital bed, nearly ripping out her I.V. lines in her distraught state. She and her sons would survive. Their lungs would heal. But their lives had been altered irrevocably, and a huge gaping wound would always remain in their hearts.

I wanted to throw myself onto the exam table and pound my fists. I wanted to scream out my own anger at the unfairness of life that a precious, innocent child, with so much to live for, had died tonight. No. I glanced at the glowing red numbers on the digital clock near the door. This morning. Lucia had died at exactly 1:53 a.m.

The door flew open and another night nurse peeked in. “Dr. Florentino? You’ve got a patient in Exam Room One.”

On a deep sigh, I gathered my emotions and continued my night’s rounds of drunken hallucinations, babies who’d spiked fevers, and minor injuries. All the while, Lucia’s death haunted me. The rest of my shift passed in a numb blur. I might as well have encased myself in an iceberg. Nothing penetrated me. Whenever I closed my eyes, little Lucia’s pale and soot-covered face swam in my mind. I couldn’t wait to go home, to break down, and give in to the emotional turmoil swirling inside me. My conscience stabbed me with penetrating reminders that I’d hoped for something to take my mind off Michael’s perfidy. But I’d never wanted a child’s suffering to ease my selfish thoughts.

At eight a.m., I turned the E.R. over to the morning staff, took some time to catch up on unfinished paperwork, and finally dragged myself toward home around nine-thirty. Once I stepped inside my front door, I turned off my cell and the ringer to my house phone, pulled the blackout shades, and collapsed in my bed. Sleep, however, eluded me. After thirty minutes of tossing and turning, I grabbed the remote control. Maybe I could attempt to distract myself with mindless daytime television. With Election Day only a few weeks away, political pundits filled the news stations. Morning talk shows confirmed or denied paternity on a dozen children with less-than-stellar mothers, often with violent results. Cable channels offered a twenty-year-old slasher flick, the obligatory “battered wife takes the law into her own hands” movie for women, teenagers behaving horribly, and out-of-control pets that needed professional help. I clicked off and tossed the remote on my nightstand.

Again, I squeezed my eyes shut. No matter how I tried, I couldn’t erase the memory of poor little Lucia. Nothing could take my mind off the loss of that beautiful angel.

About an hour after I first landed on my mattress, Mrs. Spinelli’s scratchy voice crackled through my head.
You need someone to make you smile.

Josh. I needed Josh. Not for a smile. I doubt I could muster up the energy for a smile at the moment. But Josh would listen, would understand why I felt so burdened by Lucia’s death. That alone might ease my torment enough for me to sleep for a while. Decision made, I tossed off the blankets and padded downstairs where I’d left my cell. Curling up on the sofa in my den, I dialed his number.

“Good morning,
principessa,
” he greeted me.

“Hey,” I said.

“Uh-oh.” He must have sensed the despair in my tone because he immediately dropped the silken song for his normal voice tinged with urgency. “What’s wrong?”

I sighed. “Bad night. I lost a little girl in the E.R.”

“Give me twenty minutes.”

Warmth spread through me at the sound of his concern. I’d made the right decision in calling him, but that didn’t mean I expected him to drop everything to race to my side. “No, Josh, you don’t have to come here.”

“Yeah, I do. I know you. You wouldn’t call me if you didn’t need me. I’m on a site in East Hampton today. Let me just tell the foreman that I need to leave—”

“Stop. Really, I’ll be fine. I don’t want you to get in trouble with your boss.”

His laughter bubbled through my earpiece. “Still don’t get it, do you? I’m the boss, Frannie. The foreman answers to me.”

Heat washed my cheeks, and I glanced down at my bare feet. “Oh.”

“I’ll swing by the McNeills’ place to check the progress on the dormer, be at your house in less than half an hour. I’ll bring soup from Ciro’s, and we’ll talk.”

Soup from Ciro’s Deli, the ideal comfort food. “It’s ten-thirty in the morning. Ciro’s is probably still serving breakfast.”

“For tourists, yes. But for those of us who work hard for a living, he’s always got a vat of some magic potion on the stove in the cold months. Trust me, one phone call from me, and he’ll have something special whipped up, designed just to make you feel better.”

The more he talked, the more ridiculous I felt. Jeez, some poor woman lost her
child
, and here I was making the situation all about me. “Forget it, Josh. I don’t expect you to drop everything and coddle me because I had a bad night. I’m a big girl.”

“Okay, then. Tell me what happened. Who was this girl? Anybody I know?”

Curled in a fetal position on the sofa, I broke down. “I didn’t know her until last night. She was in a house fire.” I told him all of it, reliving every minute of the time I spent with Lucia Espinosa from the moment we wheeled her in, right up to the agonizing scene when I informed her mother, who was being treated in the exam room next door, that the child didn’t make it. “She died before two this morning. She was only four years old, for God’s sake.” My voice cracked on the last word, and tears rushed to my eyes.

He said nothing for a long moment while I wept, and then on a long, shuddering breath, he remarked, “I don’t get it. Did you do something wrong? Screw up the CPR or forget to intubate her or something?”

“Of course not!” And I thought he’d support me? Boy, had I overestimated him. “I did everything I could for that child. The damage was just too extensive. She died once before she even reached me, and the EMTs brought her back. Nothing I did or didn’t do would have changed the outcome. She got to us too late.” I stopped, struck dumb by the words I’d spilled with so much passion.

“And at last, we have realization and acceptance. My psych professor would be so proud.” His satisfaction made his voice purr. “Feel better now?”

The weight of a thousand worlds fell off my shoulders. “Yeah. I do.”

“Good. Then I’ll see you tonight. Get some sleep, Frannie.”

I hung up, staring at the phone in wonder. As I climbed upstairs again, I realized the more time I spent with Josh Candolero, the more he surprised me. In a good way. I had one last conscious thought before sleep dragged me under.

There was a lot more to Josh than I ever realized, and I really wanted to discover every aspect of this man.

Chapter 13

Emily

The “divorce” word danced through my head the rest of the night, making sleep impossible. On Thursday morning, my mother-in-law returned for her daily torture fest, which only served to hammer home how much happier I could be if I seriously pursued the divorce idea. Since Roy’s mother already hated me, my leaving him would only give her another reason to justify her animosity. All the blue-haired ladies in her Florida community would tsk and shake their heads, convinced I was a hopeless, soulless case. Sylvia Handler would have her neighbors’ sympathy and enjoy a little celebrity at my expense. Win/win for her.

Once again, my imaginary checklist of pros and cons for continuing my marriage popped into my head. Eventually, I would have to actually put this list on paper and consider it. But not yet.

“Melissa snapped at me last night.” Sylvia’s tone could’ve been a dead ringer for six-year-old Gabriella’s when tattling on a schoolmate. “In my day, children were taught to respect their elders.”