Part 4
“He was fortunate somebody kept pressure on the wound,” she said.
Leah nodded.
The doctor asked whether Thomas drank.
“He used to,” Leah said.
“Recently?”
“I haven’t seen him in fifteen years.”
The doctor’s expression shifted, not toward judgment but recalculation.
“Is there someone who knows him better?”
Leah looked through the glass panel beside the emergency doors.
Cal sat alone on a molded plastic chair in the other waiting area, elbows on his knees. His leather vest was zipped now. A nurse spoke to him, and he answered with his hands clasped tightly between his boots.
“Yes,” Leah said. “Apparently.”
Thomas woke near dawn.
Leah entered his room alone.
The light above his bed had been dimmed. Adhesive pads dotted his chest beneath the open hospital gown. A clear tube ran beneath his nose. His beard looked grayer against the white pillow.
For years, she had pictured meeting him again.
In some versions she walked past him without recognition. In others she told him everything his absence had cost. Sometimes he begged. Sometimes he had become successful and clean, and she took pleasure in refusing him. In the worst versions, he did not remember her.
She had never imagined a plastic cup of ice chips on the tray table or a nurse’s name written in blue marker on the wall.
Thomas opened his eyes.
They found her stomach first.
His face broke in a way she did not trust.
“You’re having a baby.”
“You knew that.”
He swallowed.
The oxygen tube shifted beneath his nose.
“Cal sent a picture.”
The room seemed to contract.
“What picture?”
Thomas glanced toward the door.
Leah stepped closer to the bed.
“What picture did he send you?”
“One from your shower. You were holding up a little yellow sweater.”
The sweater had been knitted by Cal’s mother. Leah had posted no photographs from the shower because she disliked the way pregnancy had changed her face. Molly had taken the picture on Leah’s phone.
Only Cal had a copy.
Thomas saw the answer in her expression.
“He shouldn’t have sent it.”
“No.”
“I asked.”
“He should have said no.”
“Probably.”
The word carried a hint of defensiveness, and for an instant he sounded like the man who used to explain missed birthdays by listing every obstacle except the bottle in his hand.
Leah reached into her pocket and placed the tags on the tray table.
“You dropped these.”
Thomas looked at them.
“I wondered.”
“You were holding them?”
“They were in my hand.”
“Why?”
He breathed slowly before answering.
“Nerves, I guess.”
“You came to the lodge holding your dog tags because you were nervous.”
“I carry them.”
“Every day?”
“Most days.”
“That’s new.”
“A lot is new.”
She almost laughed. He said it as though he had changed brands of coffee.
Thomas touched the tags with two fingers.
“I didn’t mean for you to see me like that.”
“How did you mean for me to see you?”
His hand stopped.
“I wasn’t sure I would.”
“You drove four hours to the place where I’m getting married.”
“Cal said you came up early.”
“He told you where I was.”
“I knew where the wedding was.”
“How?”
Thomas closed his eyes.
The answer did not require speech.
Cal had told him.
Leah pulled the visitor chair closer but did not sit.
“Start at the beginning.”
“I wrote him.”
“How did you find him?”
“Your engagement announcement.”
“We didn’t publish an announcement.”
“His shop has a website. There was a picture. You were standing next to a blue motorcycle.”
Cal’s business partner had uploaded the photograph after their engagement. Leah had been wearing sunglasses, one hand on Cal’s shoulder, the ring visible as she tried to keep her hair from blowing across her mouth.
“You searched for me.”
Thomas’s gaze stayed on the blanket.
“Sometimes.”
“How long?”
“A while.”
“That is not a number.”
“Years.”
The anger she had carried into the room shifted. It did not lessen. It found a deeper place.
“You knew where I was.”
“Not exactly.”
“You knew enough to find the man I was going to marry.”
“I didn’t know if you’d want me contacting you.”
“You knew I didn’t.”
“I suspected.”
“I told you the last time we spoke.”
“You were seventeen.”
“I said never call me again.”
“You were seventeen.”
“You disappeared for fifteen years and decided my age invalidated the last thing I said to you?”
Thomas winced as he moved.
Pain tightened his hand around the blanket.
“I deserved that.”
“Do not agree with me like it makes you honest.”
He looked at her then.
His eyes were the same pale gray as hers. She had spent years pretending that resemblance belonged to no one.
“I wrote Cal because I wanted to know if you were all right,” he said. “That’s the truth, even if it isn’t a good enough reason.”
“What did he say?”
“At first? Nothing. Then he told me not to contact you.”
Leah finally sat.
The chair squeaked against the floor.
“He told you that?”
“More than once.”
“And then?”
“I kept writing.”
“To him.”
“Yes.”
“What changed his mind?”
Thomas looked toward the window. Dawn had begun to thin the darkness beyond the glass, though the parking lot lights still burned.
“He wanted proof I was sober.”
“So you gave him medical paperwork.”
“Program records. Meeting slips. Whatever he asked for.”
“He had no right to investigate you for me.”
“No.”
“But you let him.”
“Yes.”
“Because it got you closer.”
Thomas rubbed his thumb over one stamped edge of the tag.
“Yes.”
The direct answer unsettled her more than an excuse would have.
“What happened last night?”
“I came to leave something.”
“What?”
“A box.”
“Where is it?”
“In Cal’s truck.”
“What is in it?”
“Things that belonged to your mother. Some letters. Photographs.”
Leah felt the baby move again. She placed her palm low on her stomach.
“You kept her things.”
“I kept a few.”
May you like
“Did you steal them?”
Thomas’s mouth tightened.
