AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He told me the police said it was too mangled after the hit-and-run accident for viewing. Instead, he said hegave them her dental records, and they identified her that way.
But what about the bracelet the woman dropped on the ground before running out of here? Everyone who knew her knew she wore a bracelet with a lima bean charm—she never took it off. It’s in every picture of her for the fifteen years after I was born. Someone trying to get to me who knew that specific detail about her could weaponize it to hurt me. But who would that person be?
The ice pack is thawing. Wet droplets drip onto my ankle. I focus on them instead of the bracelet staring at me from the white carpet. The sunlight from the window catches on the gold chain, making it sparkle.
I memorized every centimeter of Mom’s bracelet when I was little. Dad bought it for her after she held me for the first time at the hospital and dubbed me her “little bean.” My name and birthdate were engraved on the lima bean, and there was a small scratch on the top left-hand corner.
I can’t tell from my desk whether the engravings or the scratch are there. And I’m scared to check. Because a sense is taking hold that this may be the last moment before everything I know to be true about my life is turned upside down. Before I find out that the person I thought loved me more than anyone else on the planet possibly abandoned me.
Courage, I tell my patients, is not the same as fearlessness. Courage is action in the face of fear. I close my eyes, take a deep breath, and stand up.
I limp over to the carpet, my throbbing ankle providing little distraction from my thumping heart pounding so forcefully that it feels like it might break my chest wide open right here, right now.
I close my eyes and pick up the bracelet, first holding it tightly in my fist and then slowly opening my eyes and the palm of my hand.
My name, birth date, and the small scratch in the left-hand corner are all there.
My head suddenly feels heavy. The room starts to spin. I collapse on the couch to buffer myself, clutching Mom’s bracelet, and trying to calm down by taking a deep breath and exhaling slowly.
Could she really be alive? And, according to the fake patient, living in the same state as me? My mind can’t wrap itself around this possibility.
I reach for my cell phone with a shaking hand and cancel all my morning sessions. I can barely form thoughts, let alone give anyone advice.
I don’t know what to do next, but I know I don’t want to do it alone.
I’m standing in front of Eddie’s house off Pico Boulevard, pounding on his door. He opens it, clearly confused to see me here on a weekday morning at this hour.
“Everything okay?” he asks. “We’re about to leave for school.”
Sarah appears behind him, holding her pink and purple tie-dyed backpack. “Hi, Beans!”
“Wanna join us?” he asks me.
I’m temporarily pulled back into the reality of my life. If I accompany Sarah and Eddie to her school, he might think I’m getting closer to saying yes to moving in together. I don’t want to mislead either of them, but I’m struggling to find an excuse for why I can’t.
Sarah looks up at me with her wide, blue eyes. “Triple please,” she says.
Her words tug at my heart. Whenever Eddie and I take her to get ice cream, we get a triple scoop cone and share it because of a story I once told her about the last trip I took with my parents before Mom died. Mom, Dad, and I hadgone to Italy for the summer, and whatever town or city we were in, we would order a triple scoop of gelato, which the three of us shared.
Mom used to carry a picture in her wallet of the three of us sitting on the Spanish Steps in Rome, sharing a cone. Her purse was stolen along with her bracelet after she was killed, so we never recovered that photo. And I haven’t looked at any others from that trip since she died. They are memories of before times, when my family was complete and I still wanted to eat ice cream.
Sarah’s still standing in front of me, waiting for an answer.
“Sure,” I say.
She slips her hand into mine, and we walk to Eddie’s car together.
We drive along Pico Boulevard until we reach her charter elementary school. Eddie pulls up in the drop-off line, gets out, and walks around to the back to open Sarah’s door. She climbs out of her car seat, and he hugs her goodbye.
“I love you,” he says.
“Love you, Daddy,” she says back.
She waves at me through the window, and I wave back.
Eddie gets back in the car and turns to me. “What’s going on? Why aren’t you at work?”
“Something happened,” I say.
