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She tried again. ‘Call my eldest daughter.’
What if she died before she had a chance to fix things?
‘Eldest…?’ Cole looked nervous. ‘She doesn’t have one daughter, let alone more. Ms Mitchell—Gayle—how many fingers am I holding up? Can you tell me?’
Right at that moment she wanted to hold up her own finger. Her middle one.
‘Call my daughter.’
‘She isn’t confused. Gayle Mitchell has two daughters,’ Rochelle said. ‘I did a deep dive into her background before the interview. My research suggests they’re estranged.’
Estranged? No, that wasn’t right. True, they hadn’t seen each other for a while. Maybe a few years. All right, perhaps it was at least five years… Gayle couldn’t remember. But she did remember their last encounter. When she thought about it—which she tried not to—she felt affronted and hurt.
None of it had been her fault. She’d been doing her best for them—which was all she’d ever done. She’d worked hard at being the best mother possible. She’d made sure she’d equipped her children to deal with the real world. It wasn’t her fault that her girls had made bad choices. That they preferred the fairy tale to the reality. It wasn’t her fault that they were unable to appreciate how well she’d prepared them for adulthood.
Yes, relations between them were tense, but they weren’t estranged. That was a truly horrible word. A word with razor-sharp edges.
Cole appeared to be suffering from shock.
‘She has kids? But that means that she— I mean she must have had—’
The fact that he was struggling to picture her having sex wasn’t flattering. He clearly thought his boss was a robot.
‘All right. If you’re sure, then we should call the daughters.’ His voice was strangled. ‘Is there a phone number, Ms Mitchell?’
Would Samantha have changed her number?
She hadn’t called, so Gayle had no way of knowing. She’d been waiting for both of them to call her and apologise.
But if she admitted that, would her judgemental staff and the medical team decide she wasn’t worth saving?
Instea
d of answering, she moaned.
That caused more consternation among the people gathered around her.
‘She’s struggling to speak—can we find out her daughter’s number?’
‘I’m searching…’ Rachel tapped away on her phone. ‘One of her daughters is called Samantha.’
Gayle gasped as the EMT and his assistant transferred her to a gurney.
Cole was searching too. ‘There’s a Samantha Mitchell in New Jersey. Comedian. No way.’
Was he implying that she didn’t have a sense of humour? That laughter didn’t figure in her DNA?
‘There’s a Samantha Mitchell in Chicago…a Samantha Mitchell, dog walker, in Ohio. Samantha Mitchell CEO of a bespoke travel company in Boston…’ He looked up as Gayle made a sound. ‘That’s her? She runs a travel company?’
Boston? Samantha had moved cities? It wasn’t enough not to speak to her mother—she clearly didn’t want to risk running into her on the street.
Gayle tried to ignore the pain. She was willing to be the bigger person. Kids disappointed you. It was a fact of life. She would forgive and move on. She wanted to do that. She wanted them in her life. Their relationship never should have reached this point.
And CEO!
Gayle felt a glow. You go, girl.
Whether Samantha admitted it or not, there was plenty of her mother in her.
