Truth and Justice - Fern Michaels Page 0,13

done with this mess, and I am never going to think about it again. Never!” To drive home her point, she scrolled down on her phone until she found the number of the clinic and dialed the number. She was given an appointment for the following day at noon with a one-hour window of time.

Bella wondered why she didn’t feel something—angst, relief, anything—now that she’d done something concrete and made a decision she was going to follow through on.

Now that the last thread binding her to this place was set to be unknotted, Bella changed the channel on the television and watched the soap opera she swore she was never going to watch again. It was either that or some silly game show. Other than that, her only other choice was one of the twenty-four-hour news shows, and all they did was talk about Afghanistan and Syria and all things war and more war. She knew in her gut that if she lived to be a hundred, they would still be fighting over there. Andy had said that at least once a day and believed it implicitly. She was done with that, too. Hopefully forever.

Bella blinked when a thought raced through her weary brain. Be careful what you wish for, because you just might get it. “Yeah, right,” she muttered to herself, as she forced herself to concentrate on the drama playing out in front of her on the television screen.

* * *

At twenty minutes to twelve, anxious and antsy, Bella was walking to the boulevard, where she was more likely to be able to hail a cab to take her to the fertility clinic, which was thirty or so blocks from her apartment. It was clear and cold, with a blustery wind that bit right through her jacket. She shoved her hands in her pockets and walked with her head down so the stinging wind wouldn’t make her eyes water. Three more blocks to go. Maybe she’d stop at the Taco Bell that was directly across the street from the clinic and have some lunch. She’d take a seat near the window so she could watch who went in and out of the clinic, which would be directly in her line of vision if she was lucky enough to get a window seat. She did have an hour window, so it was doable if that is how she wanted to play it. Then she remembered how much she detested that particular Taco Bell and decided just to go right into the clinic when the cab dropped her off. She finally reached the boulevard and hailed a passing cab. What would normally be a ten-minute ride turned out to take twenty minutes given the heavier-than-usual midday traffic. She wondered what was going on to account for such traffic.

The Samaritan Clinic looked just like all the office buildings on Michigan Avenue. There was nothing about it that was special in any way. A lot of plate glass, shiny gray bricks with charcoal mortar between the bricks, no fancy doors, just your regular turnstile entrance. No doorman, but there was a courtesy desk in the lobby, and one had to check in before heading for the bank of elevators.

The building had twenty-one floors. The clinic was located on the top five floors. A very, very busy place. For some reason, she had no recollection of any of this. Probably, she had blocked it out because she had hated what she was doing. And now, here she was, still hating being at the clinic.

She did stop to wonder if she would come back to the District to visit Andy’s grave at Arlington Cemetery. Veterans Day, Memorial Day, laying the grave blanket at Christmas. Lordy, lordy, that was three times a year. She could never do that, torture herself like that. Obviously, she needed to do some serious thinking. In years to come, visiting might be easier, but right now she was almost certain that it would be too painful to bear. Things were too raw. Not to mention the awful guilt that still wracked her whole being.

Six sessions with a therapist told her it wasn’t going to get any better, and the only person who could help her was herself, so she’d buckled down and filled every waking hour of the day with some activity. That way, at night she fell into bed, exhausted, so she could wake up the following day and do it all over again.

Transferring her eggs from the Samaritan