Eric’s face relaxed. “Oh, I can handle Shawn,” he said. “He’s the last thing you need to worry about.”
“What’s the first thing?”
“Huh?”
“Nothing.” She sat back down. He sat across from her, taking both her hands in his. “Renee’s life is more important than Shawn,” Eric said. “You’re more important than Shawn.”
Robin gripped Eric’s hands and shut her eyes and thought of her mother, the rise and fall of her chest. “I hope she makes it.”
“She will,” said Eric. “I told you. She has to.”
Robin opened her eyes and gazed across the table at her husband—those sparkling blue eyes that had roped her in from the first time she’d seen him, sitting across the table from her in RW1, which stood for Reporting/Writing 1—the most time-consuming class injournalism school. He’d winked at her—winked—and she’d told herself that he was too pretty, a player, not to be trusted. He’d spent the better part of that year convincing her otherwise. He’d been single-minded back then. Believing fully that if he willed it, it would happen. And it had happened. Of course it had. They’d had sex for the first time after talking all night, sharing their corniest dreams, their most embarrassing experiences, their goals, their fears, their deepest wishes... Unrealistic as only young, in-love people can be.This is going to make me sound like a jackass, Eric had said,but I want to write stories that save lives.
She smiled at him, remembering the earnestness in his voice, wishing she could bring back that night, when there were no filters between them and no secrets, when there were no unexplained late nights or suspicious Twitter exchanges. When nothing went unsaid and all they both wanted was to know each other thoroughly.
Eric said, “I think it’s going to be hard for her to go home.”
“Huh?”
“Your mom... I mean. Because of everything that happened there. Your dad...”
“Yes. You’re probably right.”
“If she wants to stay with us for a while. For as long as she wants, really, it’s fine with me.”
“Eric.”
“I know, I’m putting the cart before the horse. She’s not out of the woods after all, and... man, could I use any more pastoral-themed clichés?”
Robin smiled. She stroked Eric’s stubbled cheek. “Thank you,” she said.
She heard her name called again—by Verity this time. She knew it without looking up. “Ms. Diamond,” Verity said, and the sound of it made her heart pound.
Verity had piercing dark eyes, a downturned mouth. She was a naturally somber-looking person, but when Robin looked up at her, she was smiling. “Mom’s off the tube and alert,” she said. “She wants to see you.”
Robin jumped up from her seat, Eric along with her. His arm stayed around her shoulders as they followed Verity to the elevators, and Robin breathed deeply, thinking of new beginnings.
Once they reached their floor and the elevator doors opened, Quentin Garrison crossed her mind—the fact that he’d never shown up for their meeting. But it was one fleeting thought of many. And when Verity briefly stopped her, showing her the old Polaroid she’d found under her mother’s bed and asking if it was hers, Robin was so intent on slipping it into her purse before Eric noticed that Quentin disappeared from her thoughts entirely.
Twenty
Robin
“HI, SWEETIE.” MOM’Svoice sounded deep and croaky, as though she were just getting over a terrible case of laryngitis. She looked frail still. But awake, animated. Without that tube taped to her lips, Renee White Bloom looked like herself again. It was thrilling, really, to see her breathing on her own.
Eric squeezed Robin’s hand, and her eyes started to blur. “You’re back, Mom,” she said. “You’re back with me.”
Robin moved toward the bed and took her mother’s hand in hers. She wanted to hug her, but she was aware of how frail she was.
“You look so thin,” Mom said. “Have you not been eating?”
Robin glanced at Eric. He smiled, and she smiled back. Classic Renee Bloom. Lying in a hospital bed having just come off life support, yet still fretting over her only daughter.
“Where’s Mitchell?” Renee said.
Eric’s smile dropped away.
One of the doctors stepped forward—a tall, distinguished surgeon with silver-framed glasses that matched the streaks in his black hair. He’d introduced himself to Robin in the hallway as “Dr. Wu, like the Steely Dan song”—an icebreaker he’d no doubt used hundreds of times in his career, but one that Robin still appreciated. She was positive she’d seen and spoken to Dr. Wu at some point earlyin her mother’s hospitalization, and he hadn’t bothered introducing himself at all. But now that Mom was officially no longer a goner, it was as though a human decency switch had been flicked and Robin merited not only introductions but classic rock mnemonic devices. “Mrs. Bloom,” Dr. Wu said. “Do you know why you’re here?”
