A Time for Us - By Amy Knupp Page 0,19
may have pushed her to go to that first planning meeting last week, but there was nothing in the universe that could get her to stand up in front of thousands of people and speak about her sister.
“Just a suggestion,” Mariah said, filling the silence. “A genius idea if I do say so myself, but Cale’s right. No pressure.”
Again, a heavy expectance hung in the room—they were waiting for her to respond. Rachel made the mistake, as she placed the lid back on her bottle and slid it away from her nervously, of meeting Cale’s gaze. Of seeing his sympathy. That set off her defenses like nothing else could, and she mentally recoiled from even pondering the possibilities.
“I...I don’t think so.” She shook her head emphatically one time. “I just don’t think I could do it. Not without losing it and embarrassing myself completely.”
“It would be so amazing,” Mariah gushed, as if she hadn’t heard Rachel’s answer. “It’d be hard but we’d be there with you. Behind you all the way.” She reached across the table and grabbed Rachel’s wrist lightly. Overenthusiastically.
“She said no, Mariah.” Cale leaned forward, steel in his voice.
“Okay, okay.” Mariah released Rachel’s arm and sagged into her chair like a chastised puppy. “Got it, big brother. You can relax.” To Rachel, she said with an embarrassed half grin, “Sorry. I get carried away sometimes.”
“Sometimes?” Cale said. “Like a shark sometimes goes after a drop of blood?”
“It’s okay,” Rachel said quickly, hoping to prevent an ongoing battle between them. She just wanted the subject dropped completely.
Thankfully, Eddie seemed to grasp her intentions and moved on to discussing TV appearances and other god-awful things. Cale and Mariah were easily swayed into changing the subject, but Rachel was unable to pay attention to much of anything. She’d hit overload at the mere thought of Mariah’s suggestion.
On the bright side, she checked her watch and realized her work shift started in less than five hours. She could get away with going to the hospital an hour early or so, under the pretense of getting ready for her shift. With any luck, maybe the emergency room would be hopping tonight—it was a full moon, after all—and she could enjoy a good twelve or thirteen hours of escape from the nagging thoughts that she was somehow failing her sister.
CHAPTER SEVEN
EMERGENCY MEDICINE WAS a live, ongoing demonstration of the saying “You win some, you lose some,” Rachel thought as she got into her car after her shift ended Tuesday morning.
She had become well acquainted with that reality as a resident and had received all kinds of advice on how to handle losing patients. Generally speaking, she was able to swallow a patient’s death more easily if she was secure in the fact that she’d done everything possible and had made no mistakes in her treatments. She knew she wasn’t God. The kids were the hardest to take, though. Even if she’d done every procedure called for and administered treatments that nine times out of ten would work, she couldn’t walk away from a child who’d lost his or her fight without feeling as if she’d had a reminder from the universe that “fair” had nothing to do with anything.
The seven-month-old girl who’d suffered a venomous bite had been particularly hard to take last night. Didn’t matter that too much time had passed before her parents had brought the baby in, or that the treatments Rachel had given the baby had only a slim chance to succeed. After calling that beautiful girl’s death a few hours ago, Rachel couldn’t reason her way out of the anger or the sadness that had weighed her down ever since.
She started the car but couldn’t bring herself to put it into Reverse to go home. These days, home offered no comfort, a fact that was especially true when Rachel found herself there by herself. It was too quiet. She was too sensitive to the fact she hadn’t so much as looked at the door since she’d opened it on Sunday morning.
Knowing her mother would already be at work, Rachel finally pulled out of the hospital lot, drove the short distance to the bridge, crossed to the island and drove right on past the turn that would have led her home.
Just the sight of the old, increasingly lopsided, formerly bright yellow boathouse had Rachel sitting up straighter and breathing more easily. Why hadn’t she managed to come here since she’d moved back to San Amaro?
There were a handful of