Chương 3
Maya looked at her.
“Would you have?”
“No.”
“That’s why you’re the supervisor.”
“That’s why I have acid reflux.”
Maya laughed despite herself.
Lena pointed down the corridor.
“Cabin.”
Maya went.
In the observation salon, Adrian waited until the service door closed before allowing his face to change.
His right leg burned from hip to calf.
The standing had been a bad idea.
Dr. Benton would have called it predictable. His physical therapist, Erin, would have used a less polite word.
Adrian locked the wheelchair brakes and leaned forward with his elbows on his knees.
The blanket lay over his lap again.
A year earlier he would have hated that.
Tonight he was simply cold.
The crash had happened on a wet interstate outside Baltimore eleven months ago, though Adrian rarely remembered the impact itself. What returned instead were smaller things. The smell of hot plastic. A paramedic cutting through his trousers. Someone asking him whether he could feel her touching his left foot.
He had been able to feel it.
He had not been able to move it.
That distinction had dominated the next four months of his life.
Pelvic fractures. Nerve damage. Two surgeries. A third procedure. Rehabilitation. Infection. A second round of rehabilitation. Good days that convinced him he was recovering and bad mornings when buttoning a shirt felt like evidence that optimism was a form of stupidity.
Vanessa had been excellent during the first month.
She had arranged private rooms, spoken to specialists, brought his favorite coffee, criticized hospital pillows, and slept in an ugly chair beside him three nights in a row.
During month two, she began taking calls in the hallway.
During month four, she stopped attending therapy sessions.
By month seven, she had developed a habit of discussing his recovery in the future tense.
When you’re walking again.
When this is over.
When we get our life back.
Adrian had noticed the language.
He had pretended not to.
The previous afternoon, aboard the Meridian, he had stood from the chair during a private therapy session in the gym and crossed eight feet between parallel bars. Later he had managed eleven feet with forearm crutches.
It was the most he had walked since the crash.
He had cried afterward.
Not dramatically.
He had sat alone in the gym after Erin left, pressed his thumb and index finger into his eyes, and let two tears fall onto his shirt cuff because the body could apparently make joy hurt almost as much as grief.
He had planned to tell Vanessa at dinner.
Then she had spent dinner complaining that he had refused to let the crew carry him down the stairs to the lower lounge because he preferred the elevator.
Something in him had closed.
He told himself he was waiting for a better moment.
That was not entirely true.
Part of him had wanted to know.
Know what, exactly, he could not have said without sounding childish.
Whether she still loved the version of him who might never walk through a room the way he used to.
Whether her tenderness survived uncertainty.
Whether he was a person to her or a delayed renovation.
He hated himself a little for turning silence into a test.
He hated her more for failing it.
The service door opened.
Lena returned alone.
“Where is Maya?”
“Off duty.”
“Because of me?”
“Because I told her to go off duty.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
Lena folded her hands in front of her.
“With respect, Mr. Cole, this is a crew matter.”
Adrian looked toward the champagne table.
Vanessa’s ring remained beside the glass.
“You’re going to fire her.”
“I did not say that.”
“Will the charter company?”
“I don’t know.”
“She intervened because someone moved a mobility device without consent.”
Lena’s expression changed slightly.
Adrian caught it.
“Is that the language in your incident policy?”
“It is language our safety policy recognizes.”
“So write that.”
“I will write what happened.”
“Good.”
She regarded him for a moment.
“Are you injured?”
“Not by the chair.”
“That is not what I asked.”
His mouth twitched.
“No.”
“Would you like the ship’s medic?”
“No.”
“Your physical therapist?”
“She’s asleep, and I would like to preserve that relationship.”
Lena’s mouth almost curved.
The room shifted beneath them.
Adrian looked toward the dark windows.
“Where did Vanessa go?”
“Forward guest salon.”
“With Grant?”
“Yes.”
He nodded.
The old version of himself would have stood up immediately.
Not physically.
Socially.
He would have gone after them, demanded explanations, controlled the room until uncertainty became impossible. Before the accident, Adrian had believed calmness and control were basically the same thing.
The chair had taught him otherwise.
You could be perfectly calm and completely powerless.
You could also be furious and choose not to move.
“Leave them,” he said.
Lena nodded once.
She moved toward the door.
“Ms. Ortiz.”
She turned.
“Please don’t fire Maya because I’m embarrassed.”
“I wouldn’t.”
“Good.”
“I may fire her because she told a guest to leave her fiancé.”
Adrian looked down.
“That would be harder to argue with.”
“Yes.”
Lena went out.
Adrian sat alone.
For nearly a minute, all he heard was rain, engine vibration, and the low hum of the salon refrigeration.
Then he began laughing.
It hurt his ribs.
He covered his mouth.
He had no idea what was funny.
Maybe Grant’s face.
Maybe the absurdity of spending months worrying whether his fiancée could tolerate a wheelchair only to have a stranger in a black vest summarize the entire relationship in twelve seconds.
He stopped laughing when he saw Vanessa’s ring again.
The next morning the storm had moved east.
The Atlantic remained gray and unsettled, but sunlight appeared in thin strips between clouds. The Meridian was anchored in a protected bay off the coast of Rhode Island, waiting for clearance to return to Newport.
Maya woke at six out of habit.
May you like
For ten seconds she forgot she had been taken off duty.
Then she saw her uniform hanging on the narrow cabin door.
