Code Triage (8 page)

“Pull yourself together, Leigh!” her mother had hissed after sending the man—her new employer, Alton Evers—to the bathroom and wrapping herself in a flowered bedsheet. With her lipstick smeared and eyes narrowed, she’d grabbed hold of her daughter’s trembling chin, insisting that she stop crying, stop wailing about her father. Things were over between them. Leigh was smart enough to know that.

“You’re twelve years old now,” her mother said, breath bitter with alcohol, “and it’s high time you stopped believing in fairy tales. Nothing . . . nothing lasts forever!” She’d glanced over her bare shoulder toward the sound of the running shower, then calmly instructed Leigh about etiquette, as if they were pulling on tidy white gloves to attend their church’s annual mother-daughter tea.

“Mr. Evers and his wife will be joining us for dinner. He’s an important man, so everything must go well. We’ll eat in the dining room, the way we do on holidays. You’ll sit at the table and smile pretty; you’ll pass the gravy and you’ll cope. You’ll keep on as if none of this happened. Do you understand?”

She didn’t understand but helped her father put the leaf in their big mahogany dining table, laid out the linen napkins and silverware—forks to the left, spoons and knives to the right. And she coped, though her hands were trembling so badly she scratched the surface of the table, leaving a mark that forever reminded her of that awful day. Then, not quite five years later, she watched her mother leave her baby half sister’s father for the next man. And the next. Each time she remembered her mother’s words:
“Nothing lasts forever.”
Leigh supposed it was part of the reason she’d stalled when Nick proposed marriage and why she hadn’t been completely surprised about Sam Gordon. On some level, Leigh had been expecting it all along.

She hugged her arms around herself. Then why,
oh why
, was she having such a hard time with this now? Why did seeing that woman standing there today make her feel so . . .
Oh, please no.
Leigh clapped her hand over her mouth and raced toward the restroom as her stomach, empty since Mrs. Thomas’s home-baked cookies, finally refused to cope.

Afterward, she washed her face, rinsed her mouth, and walked back to the ER to finish her shift.

+++

Nick set the packing box down and knelt beside the lemon tree, gingerly touching a fingertip to one of the yellowed leaves. It separated from the stem and dropped onto the pile of others, withered and dying, on the hardwood floor. He thought of seeing Leigh at the hospital, how he’d briefly taken hold of her arm—seen her, touched her, after so long—and how it had ended with her running away when he warned her about Sam. Had he really expected anything else? Had he been foolish to ever believe that she wanted their marriage—wanted him? He glanced toward the adjacent dining room, his throat constricting. No table. Never had been. Never would be, now.

In the two years since they bought the home, he’d taken Leigh shopping at least a dozen times. Everywhere. From the 45,000-square-foot Limn showroom in Mission Bay, to that Moroccan place Tazi Designs, to dusty, dark antique stores, then IKEA, and finally, in desperation, driving to addresses he’d found on craigslist. To see tables outgrown and replaced. Some with scratches, layers of wax, teething marks—the rich patina of families. Each time they came home empty-handed, having discussions that sounded like a ridiculous porridge scene from “The Three Bears.” With Leigh, like Goldilocks, shaking her head: “Too dark, too heavy, too much glass, not comfortable, just . . . not . . . right.” It became an issue somehow.
Another
issue. He hadn’t wanted that to happen; he’d simply wanted a table. Her horse had two stalls, for pete’s sake. Couldn’t he have a dining room table?

Nick lifted the fallen leaf and ran his thumb over the surface. The truth was he’d wanted far more than a table and chairs. He wanted what he’d always believed came with that table, what he’d missed in his patchwork life of foster care: family, permanence, a home with a solid center. A place to join hands for a blessing at dinner, a spot to linger over afterward with coffee. A place where, someday, he’d help his children with their homework. He glanced at the empty room: bay window, waxed hardwood floor, a framed watercolor they’d bought in Capri, the vintage crystal chandelier with its chain tied up like a hanging victim so it wouldn’t bump them in the head when they passed by. Because it belonged over a table, and there wasn’t one.

Leigh said she’d know the right table when she saw it, asked him over and over what the rush was. They weren’t formal people, and their few guests always stood in the kitchen to watch Nick cook; their schedules were hectic and they rarely had time to linger at the table; they had the breakfast bar. They’d find a table . . . in time.

He was nearly thirty-nine years old. And time had run out.

He picked up his packing box and stood, looking down at the dying lemon tree. If he took it, rescued it, he was sure Leigh would consider it an accusation. That Nick didn’t trust her with a plant. Criticism . . . from a man who couldn’t be trusted to keep his marriage vows. Best to avoid that ugly irony. And best to finally try to accept the truth. It never was about choosing a table. Leigh regretted choosing him.

+++

“For coffee then? After your basketball game?” Sam leaned against the kitchen counter and watched Elisa play with LEGOs on the floor near the dining room table. A small, round oak table prepared for three, with flowers, the new set of brightly colored stoneware, and a plastic booster seat. Her brother’s table, now hers. And maybe someday . . .

“Thanks, but I can’t,” Nick said, his voice breathless. In the background there was the echoing thump of balls dribbled against a hardwood floor—the SFPD youth program. “I said I’d help one of the boys with his math, and . . . I can’t.”

Because you haven’t accepted the fact that you need me. But you will.
Sam traced a finger across the folded
San Francisco Chronicle
she’d placed on the breakfast bar beside the bottle of merlot and two glasses. “Sure,” she said, keeping her tone casual, “I understand. I’m not trying to put pressure on you. It’s just that Elisa made you something. Macaroni pasted onto paper. It’s supposed to be a butterfly. She used to give all her art projects to Toby, and . . . she misses you.”

There was an awkward silence punctuated by distant thumping and boyish shouts.

“Nick?”

“After I left the hospital today . . .” His voice suddenly sounded less like he was breathless from playing hoops and more like he was choking. She knew why. “Did you talk with Leigh?”

She pressed her lips together and glanced toward the dining room table. She’d never see him sitting there until he gave up on his marriage. And giving up wasn’t something Nick Stathos did well; but then neither did she. “Yes,” she answered lightly, as if meeting his wife was as benign as sitting with Kristi Johnson and her little daughter. “Though it turned out I was able to get most of the information I needed from the hospital charts.”

“How did she react?” The basketballs thumped like a spray of bullets.

“React?”

“You know,” he said, rare impatience creeping into his voice, “to meeting you. C’mon, Sam. You know what I’m asking.”

She exhaled slowly. “Like a professional. Nothing other than that. We talked about the case; I let her know I’d be around . . . the hospital, I mean. It was businesslike and basically cordial. Nothing more, nothing less.” She traced her finger down the bottle of wine and measured her words carefully. “It’s obvious that she’s moved on, Nick.”

She couldn’t hear him breathing, and for a minute she thought he’d disconnected.

“I’d better get back in the game.”

“Right. We’ll keep the macaroni butterfly for next time.”

She disconnected from the call before he could tell her that there wouldn’t be a next time. She uncorked the wine and poured herself a glass. Then reminded herself that Leigh Stathos had made things clear all along. She wanted the marriage over with. She’d insisted on a separation long before the tragedy of Toby’s death brought Nick . . .
here to me, for those few precious days.

If Leigh had wanted Nick, she’d have taken him back. He’d tried so hard. Sam took a long swallow of the wine, remembering his gut-wrenching remorse. He’d told Leigh the truth immediately afterward, begged her forgiveness, asked the police chaplain to intervene when she wouldn’t accept his pleas. He’d slept in his car outside their house for days, left messages, sent texts. And kept it up. All but ripped out his heart and left it thumping on that Victorian’s painted doorstep. And his wife’s response? A threat of a restraining order if he didn’t leave her alone. Telling him she’d complain to his superiors, essentially ruin his career. Cold, heartless. Still, he’d probably have persisted and risked his badge if the chaplain hadn’t intervened again. Just days before she packed up and left the city without a word.

Sam watched Elisa add a yellow block to her LEGO castle, light from the modest chandelier splashing over her curls. She wondered what it would be like to have a man pursue her with such single-minded fervor as Nick did Leigh. To be wanted that much. Elisa’s father would never have done that, even if he hadn’t been married. Sam shook her head. Despite all the education, the privileged upbringing, and that starched white coat, Leigh Stathos was a stupid fool. And Sam had never been more grateful for anything. The doctor may have been shocked at their meeting today, angry as the devil, but she was nothing more than a wimpy quitter. Sam saw it in her eyes: she didn’t have the guts to keep trying. Even for a man like Nick.

She picked up her wineglass and walked to the foyer to flip the porch light on in case Nick changed his mind and came by. His visits had been infrequent over the past year: brief stops to see Elisa, fix a faucet—nothing else. He’d made it clear he couldn’t offer more. But Sam wasn’t giving up. He had to be tired of the pullout bed at the police chaplain’s cramped apartment. Nick was a man who wanted a home, and at one time her brother’s house had been as much a home to him as the one he’d shared with Leigh. She’d taken over this lease knowing that—counting on it. What she and Nick had together, even for a few grief-shrouded days, had to mean something to him. He’d be back. She’d do whatever it took to make that happen.

Sam set her wineglass on the dining room table before joining Elisa on the floor. She tousled her daughter’s silky curls and smiled. “Mommy will help you finish the castle. Then we’ll sit at the table and make a macaroni butterfly for our handsome prince.”

+++

Kurt Denton slouched down in his car when the porch light went on, grateful he’d parked beside the bushes. The Child Crisis investigator wouldn’t be able to see him, and even if she did, she wouldn’t know who he was. He was being paranoid, jumpy again. He hated the feeling; being high—flying, invincible as Superman—was so much better. And right now that know-it-all, controlling
witch
made him want to . . . He sniffed, rubbing his nose across the back of his hand. His pulse hammered in his ears as a grim smile stretched his scab-dry lips.

It would take like thirty seconds to sprint across that investigator’s lawn, pound down her door, and show her what a real “crisis” was. She’d never know what hit her. And she deserved it for convincing Kristi to take out the restraining order and keep him from seeing his kids. He hadn’t seen them in months. Not without hiding behind bushes and buildings. Sneaking around like vermin.

He swore, thinking of how he’d watched the apartment these last weeks, seen Kristi leaving for the night shift, her scrawny, clueless girlfriend coming in to babysit. And then last Sunday—his teeth clamped together so fast, he snared his tongue and tasted blood—he’d seen Kristi coming out of a church, smiling and talking with a guy. That jerk with a smile like a toothpaste commercial, wearing a sport coat and carrying a Bible. Looking down at Kristi like she was somebody special. Like she’d moved on, moved up, gotten her whole pathetic life figured out, now that Kurt wasn’t in the picture anymore. He laughed out loud. Until yesterday, that is, when she’d screwed up royally and the cops came down on her like the loser she was. He’d seen the news. She was being investigated again. Stupid, stupid girl. But still . . .
My girl. My kids.
Nobody was going to change that. Or keep him away. No court, no Child Crisis investigator, no old geezer of a guard in some hospital.

He looked down at his scrubs, the ones he’d taken from Kristi’s closet before trashing the place. Good thing she wore them baggy; they almost fit him. It had been easy to slip into Golden Gate Mercy. He’d gotten to the pediatrics floor without a problem, slick as snot. And he’d been close enough to see his kids in that room. Not close enough to violate the restraining order, but near enough to see the look in Kristi’s eyes when she caught a glimpse of him. She’d seemed confused, uncertain—he looked different: hair, beard, and weight too, probably—and then he’d seen what he’d wanted: a small flicker of fear.

She should be afraid. They all should. No one was going to make him give up and go away. He was a man. And even if those kids didn’t have his name, they were his family.

He sniffed, rubbed at his nose, and then fumbled in the folds of the 49ers jacket on the seat beside him. Until he found the gun.

He squinted at the porch light once more, then started the car’s engine and drove away.