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“Be careful,” I warned. “I’ve seen this before.” I wanted to say more, but I knew Xavier was on the other side of the curtain, and I didn’t think he’d appreciate me spilling all the details of his personal life to a client.
The outline was almost finished. Even though it lacked both color and detail, Nathan’s name was already obscured.
Emma seemed pleased with the result. Her skin was red and angry, but it would heal within the next few days.
“I love it,” she said, as I covered it with a non-stick dressing. She dressed carefully, foregoing the bra and tank for the blazer, which she buttoned at her waist.
“Thank you,” she said, after I gave her a tube of healing cream and a pamphlet on tattoo aftercare. “What was your name again?”
“Jackson,” I said, and led her to the front counter. “Let’s book your next appointment in six weeks — we can reschedule it if today’s work is still healing.”
Emma smiled, and her ice-blue eyes focused on mine.
“Thanks, Jackson.”
I watched through the window as they reversed out and drove away. It wasn’t like I didn’t think Emma and her friend couldn’t take care of themselves, but after those messages she’d received, I was worried.
I held my phone, ready to text her if another car followed them, but the traffic flowed normally.
5
EMMA
As a volunteer, I knew I wasn’t supposed to have favorite clients, but I couldn’t help it.
Helen was fifty-six. She had dark curly hair, blue eyes, and a wicked sense of humor. And she was in remission from an aggressive form of breast cancer.
In other words, she reminded me of my mom.
After I broke up with Nathan, I’d suspended most of my appointments, but I still visited Helen because helping her made me feel like I was, in a way, helping my mom. I couldn’t cure her cancer, obviously, but I could at least make her life easier.
I arrived at her house with bags of groceries that I’d bought from the list she gave me: chicken, beef, vegetables, milk, tea, cat food and a few bits and pieces. Her cats, Salt and Pepper, greeted me before I reached the door, and weaved around my feet as I walked.
Helen opened the door a few seconds after I knocked, wearing jeans and a sweater that she’d knitted herself.
“Good morning,” I said cheerfully. “How are you today?”
“As good as always,” Helen said, and stood back to let me in the door. “Come on in.”
She led me through the house to the kitchen, walking with a slight limp from an old hip injury. A soap opera was on the television in the living room, its volume so soft that once we reached the kitchen, I could no longer hear the dialogue. I placed the bags on the kitchen counter, and the cats jumped up, sniffing everything.
“How are you going?” Helen asked with a maternal expression on her face. She knew about my break-up with Nathan, but I tried not to go into too much detail because I didn’t want to be the person who turned a visit to a cancer patient into a conversation about myself.
“Good,” I said, as I fished a new lightbulb out of one of the bags. “Would you like some help with changing this?”
“It’s for the hallway,” Helen said. “Would you mind?”
“Of course not,” I said. Helen had a ladder in the backyard, leaning against the house, and I brought it inside and set it up. The old lightbulb was easy enough to unscrew, and I replaced it with the new one. It wasn’t hard work, but I liked knowing that I was making her day a bit easier.
When my mom was sick, volunteers like me made her life so much easier at the end. I tried my hardest to help, but I was just a teenager — a child, really. A scared child. To me, the volunteers were like a ray of sunshine. When I finished school and didn’t know what else to do with my time, I decided to become one myself, so I could make a difference too, even if it was only a small one.
“You’re an angel,” Helen said, as I climbed back down. “Would you like some tea?”
“That sounds lovely,” I answered. I collapsed the ladder and picked it up carefully, trying not to scrape it against any of the walls.
By the time I’d placed it back outside, the kettle had boiled and Helen poured steaming water into two yellow cups with matching saucers.
“How’s your family?” I asked, and Helen smiled.
