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Yet, here she was, back at the hospital, climbing the stairs up to the sixteenth floor so that no one would see her as she made her way to ICU.
She felt responsible for not doing a more thorough examination on Anna when the woman was first brought into the emergency room. X-rays, MRIs, ultrasounds, body scans. Almost every surgeon in the hospital had laid hands on the woman and they had all missed the eleven trash bags. The CDC had even been called in to culture the infection and had come up empty-handed. Anna had been tortured, cut, torn—damaged in countless ways that would not heal because the plastic was inside of her. When Sara removed the bags, the stench had filled the room. The woman was starting to rot from the inside. It was a wonder she hadn't gone into toxic shock.
Logically, Sara knew this was not her fault, but in her gut, she felt that she had done something wrong. All morning as she folded clothes and scrubbed dishes, her mind wandered back to two nights ago when Anna was brought in. Sara saw herself fashioning an alternate reality where she was able to do more than hand the woman off to the next doctor. She had to remind herself that even unbending the woman to do X-rays had caused her excruciating pain. Sara's job had been to stabilize the woman for surgery, not do a full gynecological exam.
And yet, she still felt guilty.
Sara stopped at the sixth-floor landing, slightly winded. She was probably the most fit she had ever been in her life, but the treadmill and elliptical machine at her gym were hardly good preparation for real life. Back in January, she had vowed that she would run outside at least once a week. The gym near her building, with its televisions and treadmills and temperature-controlled atmosphere, negated one of the key benefits of running: time alone with yourself. Of course, it was easy to say you wanted time alone with yourself and quite another thing to actually do it. January had passed into February, and now they were already in April, yet this morning was the first time Sara had taken an outside run since she'd made the promise.
She grabbed the railing and heaved herself up the next flight. By the tenth floor, her thighs were burning. By the sixteenth, she had to stop and bend over to catch her breath so the ICU nurses didn't think a madwoman was in their midst.
She tucked her hand in her pocket for some Chapstick, then stopped herself. A flash of panic filled her chest as she checked her other pockets. The letter was not there. She had been carrying it forever, a talisman that she touched every time she thought about Jeffrey. It always brought a reminder of the hateful woman who had written it, the person who had been responsible for his murder, and now it was gone.
Sara's mind raced as she tried to remember where she left it. Had she washed it with the rest of the laundry? Her heart leapt into her throat at the thought. She scanned her memory, finally recalling that she'd put the letter down on the kitchen counter yesterday when she'd gotten home from Jacquelyn Zabel's autopsy.
Her mouth opened, a sharp huff of air coming out. The letter was at home. She'd moved it this morning to the mantel, which seemed an odd place to put it. Jeffrey's wedding ring was there, the urn with some of his ashes beside it. The two things should not be together. What had she been thinking?
The door opened, and a nurse came out with a pack of cigarettes in her hand. Sara recognized Jill Marino, the ICU nurse who had been taking care of Anna the morning before.
Jill asked, "Isn't today your day off ?"
Sara shrugged. "Can't get enough of this place. How is she?"
"Infection's responding to antibiotics. Good catch on that. If you hadn't taken out those bags, she'd be dead by now."
Sara nodded off the compliment, thinking if she'd seen them in the first place, Anna would have had much more of a fighting chance.
"They took out the breathing tube around five." Jill held open the door for Sara to pass through. "Brain scan results came back. Everything looked good except for the damage to the optic nerve. That's permanent. Ears are fine, so at least she can still hear. Everything else is fine. No reason she's not waking up." She seemed to realize the woman had plenty of reasons not to wake up, and added, "Well, you know what I mean."
"Are you off ?"
Jill guiltily indicated the cigarettes. "Up to the roof to ruin the fresh air."
"Should I waste my breath and tell you those things will kill you?"
"Working here will kill me first," the nurse countered, and with that, she began a slow trudge up the stairs.
Two cops still guarded Anna's room. Not the same as the day before, but they still both tipped their hats to Sara. One even pulled back the curtain for her. She smiled her thanks as she went into the room. There was a beautiful arrangement of flowers on the table by the wall. Sara checked them and found no card.
She sat in the chair and wondered about the flowers. Probably someone had checked out of the hospital and given the flowers to the nurses to distribute as they saw fit. They looked fresh, though, as if they'd just been plucked this morning from someone's backyard garden. Maybe Faith had sent them. Sara quickly dismissed the thought. Faith Mitchell didn't strike her as particularly sentimental. Nor was she very smart—at least not about her health. Sara had called Delia Wallace's office that morning. Faith had yet to make an appointment. She would be running out of insulin soon. She'd either have to risk another fainting spell or come back to Sara.
She leaned her arms on Anna's bed, staring at the woman's face. Without the tube down her throat, it was easier to see what she had looked like before all of this had happened. The bruises on her face were starting to heal, which meant they looked worse than the day before. Her skin was a healthier shade now, but it was swollen from all the fluids they were giving her. The malnourishment was so pronounced that it would take several weeks before her bones receded under a healthy layer of flesh.
Sara took the woman's hand, feeling her skin. It was still dry. She found a bottle of lotion in a zippered bag by the flowers. It was the usual kit they gave out at the hospital, filled with the things some administrative committee thought patients might need—slip-proof socks, lip balm, and lotion that smelled faintly of antiseptic.
Sara squirted some into her palm and rubbed her hands together to warm the lotion before taking Anna's frail hand in her own. She could feel each bone of the finger, the knuckles like marbles. Anna's skin was so dry that the lotion disappeared almost as soon as Sara put it on, and she was squirting more into her palms when Anna stirred.
"Anna?" Sara touched the side of the woman's face with a firm, reassuring pressure.
Her head moved just slightly. People in comas did not just magically wake up. It was a process, usually a drawn-out one. One day, they might open their eyes. They might speak without making sense, picking up on some conversation started long ago.
"Anna?" Sara repeated, trying to keep her voice calm. "I need you to wake up now."
Her head moved again, a distinct tilt toward Sara.
Sara made her voice firm. "I know it's hard, sweetie, but I need you to wake up." Anna's eyes slit open, and Sara stood, putting herself directly in her line of vision even though she knew that the woman could not see her. "Wake up, Anna. You're safe now. No one is going to hurt you."
Her mouth moved, the lips so dry and chapped that the skin broke.
