Eric and most of all to Jack - but I don't hate her. I want her healthy Sarah, for all of our sakes, but I can't do that if I'm missing pieces of information."
Sighing, she sank down into the chair and wiped tiredly at her eyes. "She had a lot of morphine before-"
"In Tanzania?" he interjected.
She nodded. "And it gives her....it gave her nightmares in the hospital - bad ones."
Moving from the desk to the chair beside her, he turned to face her. "Nightmares about what happened to her?"
All she could do was nod as her eyes filled past the brim with tears.
"Sarah" he called to her softly. "What happened to her?"
"She almost died" she whispered.
"The fire?" he prodded.
"Yeah. Andrew..." Lifting her head, she gave him a pleading look. "I don't know all the details and the ones I do know are not mine to tell. Please don't ask me to violate yet another trust of my sister's."
In the rare moments where she allowed herself to be vulnerable - truly vulnerable - he found himself almost unspeakably drawn to her. Andrew had known a lot of women, all of whom were a lot less trouble than Sarah Grant. Interestingly, that didn't seem to matter to his heart or head. Reaching out, he took her hand in his and rubbed his thumb against her palm.
"I...I got a phone call one morning at work" she said quietly as she began to tell of those long ago events for the first time. "It was a doctor with a thick, rich African accent. He apologized for calling but I was listed as next of kin for Doctor Nathalie Grant and she had been badly hurt. He told me he knew it was a long way to come but if I could make it I should as they didn't expect her to survive."
Knowing how rare it was to get a Grant sister to open up, he said nothing but simply continued to rub her hand.
"It was more than a week," she whispered as the secrets she could not longer hold at bay, began to rush out. "More than a week before she opened her eyes. She...she would scream with nightmares Drew. It...it was awful and I couldn't do anything to help her."
"Sarah, I'm sure you helped her just by being there. You two were always close."
Slowly pulling her hand away from his, she smiled weakly. "It's nice of you to say."
Taking a deep breath, she sat up straight. "So you think her tumor is bigger?"
Having experienced it several times before, Andrew recognized that the moment was over and Sarah's walls were back up. In response, he leaned back in the chair, away from her. "Yes. I'm sure the MRI will bear me out. Surgery is going to have to be sooner than we expected - probably this weekend."
Getting to her feet, she smoothed the imaginary wrinkles from her skirt and headed for the door. "I should get going. I have to pick up Jack from Eric's." At the door she paused and turned around. "Don't give her too much morphine" she requested softly.
Andrew smiled kindly at her. "I'm going to take good care of her Sarah. You can trust me."
Returning his smile ever so briefly, she paused as though she were going to answer but thinking better of it, closed her mouth and left.
#
Eric could not keep from staring at Jack as the young boy, curled into the corner of the couch, read his book. He had always seen Nathalie in him but having seen her again, it was like looking at his son with a fresh set of eyes. He had so many of her traits - her eyes, her laugh, the way he would pull at his fingers when he was nervous. He wondered what Nathalie would think if she could - when she would - see him. Would she recognize him without even knowing who he was? Would she be able to see those parts of her in him?
Jack was a smart, funny and very adaptable young boy and he supposed Sarah was right, that Jack would be over the moon to know that Eric was his father. But on some level that revelation would have to destroy much of the trust he had for the adults in his life. What possible explanation that would make sense to a grade schooler could be offered for the lies and half-truths he had been told during the span of his young life? He wasn't