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“Some try to crack jokes,” Aubree adds. “And some can’t come into this room at all.”
“You’re experiencing a brand-new trauma right now,” Mayet concludes. “Whether you want to admit it to yourself or not, this is a distressing moment you’ll never truly forget. Losing your mom. Seeing her in death.” She pauses as we come to a stop by the table and look down at the woman who eternally sleeps. Beautiful. Youthful. Forever paused in this stage of her life. “You’re allowed to respond however you want to respond. And there’s no one on this planet who can tell you you’re wrong for it.”
Rory licks her lips and takes her arm from my hold, choosing to set her left hand on the steel table instead to support her weight. Bringing her right hand forward, and working hard to still the tremors visible to every man and woman in this room, she swallows and chokes out a silent sob as fresh tears stream onto her cheeks and a single one drops to her mother’s chest.
It lands with a splat, marking the blue and white gown her mother has been dressed in.
“Does it feel traumatic to you?” she asks, clarifying who she’s speaking to when she glances up and looks to Mayet. “When you see people like this every single day. Is it a trauma for you?”
“Uh…” Mayet looks to me, questioning, I think, whether she should answer. Before dropping her gaze again and shaking her head. “No. This is my job. I’ve trained to work with those who’ve passed. Usually, it’s to find justice for them. That’s where I focus my energies.”
“Do you dream of them?” Silently crying, Rory reaches into the opened bag and takes her mother’s hand in hers. Eleanor’s is too thin. Too bony. There’s nothing left on her body that could be considered fat or muscle. The cancer took everything. Which is why she could no longer fight. “If it’s not a trauma, then maybe they visit you in your sleep?”
“Yes. Sometimes.” Mayet reaches behind herself to a small steel table she, or someone she works with, already prepared for today. Taking out a handful of tissues, she offers the lot to Rory and sets her hands in her pockets when Rory accepts. “I dream of the children, mostly. They haunt me.”
“Is that what drives you to find justice?” Rory brings her mother’s hand up to cup her own cheek. “When someone ends up here when they shouldn’t. When it’s not fair.”
“Yes.” Mayet inclines her chin. “That drives me. I can’t stand the unfairness that results when one person harms another for no reason except personal gain.”
“How do you find justice when the bad guy is cancer?” Rory chokes out a sob and closes her eyes, her shoulders bouncing and her chest heaving in its search for air. “How do you let it go, when there’s no clear villain? There’s no one to punish?”
“I don’t know.” Out of her depth, Mayet’s soulful brown eyes search mine for help. A reprieve. An SOS. “I don’t typically deal with patients like your mom, Rory. So I don’t have a lot of experience with—”
“I think it’s a matter of finding peace within yourself.” Aubree steps forward to save her boss. “It’s about accepting what has happened and acknowledging the unfairness of it. There’s no one to fight,” she adds softly. “There’s no law to cite. No court room to find hope in. There’s just…” She takes Eleanor’s other hand and strokes her fingers. “There’s just an empty seat where someone special once sat.”
“But that’s not fair,” Rory cries. “The seat is still there. And the table. The house. The bed. And the little girl who has no one left anymore.”
“Aurora.” I want to pull her in and wrap her up tight. Crush her against my chest and hold her together when she can’t quite seem to manage on her own.
But I can’t. Because this is her moment. This is her last chance with her mom. This can’t be about me, or my driving need to make the world prettier for her. Less painful. Less mean.
“Um…” Aubree clears her throat and drops a hand into her coat pocket, drawing our eyes to hers in curiosity. “I didn’t know your mom.” She swallows, so the movement of her throat is noticeable and the mystery inside her pocket grows more demanding. “I didn’t get to meet her. But I know Brenda Williams.”
Rory’s eyes shimmer with heartbreaking tears. “B-Brenda?” she stammers. “You knew my mom’s nurse?”
“It’s a small world when you work in the industry we do.” Slowly drawing her hand from her pocket, she takes out a glistening gold chain that intrigues Rory enough to slow her tears. “My brother… Eli,” she starts. “He’s a jeweler. He has his own store across town, and though he rarely accepts commissions, and never on such short notice, he doesn’t tell me no.” Sweetly, her lips curl into a small smile. “He’s a sucker for anything I ask for.”
“That must be nice,” Rory rasps. “To have a brother who cares so deeply for you.”
“I have four brothers,” Aubree counters. “And three sisters. We love hard. And we keep each other on our toes. But Eli…” she plays with the chain in her hand before finally, extending her arm across the table and offering it. “Well, he can’t help but emotionally involve himself in other people’s relationships.”
“I don’t…” Rory cups the chain in her palm and studies each glittering link. “I don’t understand.”
“Well, see, he made anklets for me and my best friend. A while ago. It was, like, the middle of the night, and I had to have themthen and there. No other jeweler would do, and no other day would be acceptable. I needed them that night, and I needed them soldered on, so neither of us could take them off. Then he went and made necklaces for my same friend. She was getting married, but she held a job that didn’t work out so well with wearing a wedding band. Her husband, too. His job made it difficult to wear a ring. So Eli made them chains and bands. Because he loves love, and he knew their request was important.”
“So…” Gently, Rory sets her mom’s hand down to rest on her stomach, before bringing hers up again and turning the charm on the bracelet over. She takes only a moment to scan the charm, then bursts out in noisy tears. “You made this for us?”
“Brenda,” finally, Aubree brings her story around and smiles, “she told me about you and your mom. How you talked all the time, and how you loved each other so much. She said that you’re working hard in medical school, and how you’ll be a surgeon someday. Or a nurse. Or maybe even like me and Doctor Mayet. Most of all,” she slips her hand into her pocket again and comes out with a second chain, “she said that you and your mom were better than mother and daughter. You werebestfriends.”
“So you had best friend bracelets made up?” Rory cries. “You did this for us?”
“Eli did.” A soft blush fills Aubree’s cheeks and humanizes a woman who could so easily remain completely detached from this case. But like me, and Malone, and everyone else Rory meets, we care. We get sucked in until we’re climbing off the edge of a cliff to bring her back to safety or sitting by her hospital bed just to watch her sleep after surgery.
Fuck, but maybe this is the only reason Vallejo is coming after her the way he is.
Maybe it’s just who she is in her soul. A magnet. And we’re the guys on the outside, completely and utterly unable to not get dragged closer.
“With your permission,” Aubree murmurs softly, looking down at Eleanor’s arm. “I thought maybe you could keep one. And she could keep the other. And although I know it won’t be the same as keeping the woman herself, I thought it might be a small consolation, and a connection you might not otherwise have.”
