The Moon Around Sarah (17 page)

She was in
love
.

And all of it was a desperate longing with no possible resolution whatever. Sarah believed deeply that it was somehow her own fault, and she wept when the nurse touched her on the shoulder and took her back to the
colorless
rooms filled with sad, gray people. And Sarah had just become one of them.

She didn’t stop crying for a long while.

‘Hello?’

‘Mr Edward Tucker?’

There was a long pause as Edward tried to organize his thoughts, knowing that the voice on the telephone was one he should recognize. An almost inaudible sigh breached his lips. In the background, office machinery clicked and
whispered
.

‘Do you know who this is?’

‘I do now. Why are you calling me?’

‘I just had a fist-fight with your father … excuse me if my speech is a little indistinct. My mouth is sort of swollen.’

‘I don’t understand, March.’

‘Raymond and I ran into each other at the hospital.’

‘Listen, I don’t need this.’

‘Nor do I, Edward. Nor does Sarah.’

‘
Why
are you calling me?’ Edward asked wearily. His
irritability
was mounting. ‘I’m very busy right now.’

‘Yes – look, Edward, I know you’ve been through a lot lately, but so has your sister.’

‘What do you want?’

‘To be able to go and see her. Your father has told the people at Northshore that I’m not allowed in.’

‘March – I’m busy.’

‘So you said.’

‘Why don’t you just…?’

‘Back off? That’s what your father suggested. No, I won’t do that.’

‘Why?’ Exasperation flowed down the telephone line.

‘As simply as I can put it, Edward: I love her. I love Sarah. I love your sister.’

‘Don’t be stupid.’

‘It would only be stupid to deny it. I tried that; it didn’t work. Edward, are you too old to love?’

The silence on the line this time was deep and interminable.

‘All right,’ Edward said finally, ‘what is it you want?’

‘You are her guardian, Edward. I found that out. All I want is this – on a sheet of your legal letterhead paper send a statement to the hospital that you definitely are allowing me to see Sarah. There should be a copy of your power of attorney attached.’

‘March, what good can any of this do Sarah?’

‘Mr Tucker, as of this moment I couldn’t tell you, honestly, but my worst efforts have to be better than what your family has done for her over the last twenty years.’

With utter rigidity Edward replied, ‘The letter will be in the mail, Mr March.’

And so, on a day following, Don walked from glitter-bright sunlight into the dark and secret confines of the hospital and was allowed to sit beside Sarah on a bench in the garden, while the cryptic voices of the unwell drifted around them.

Her hand seemed so small and warm, and her eyes lifted eagerly to his, bright and distant and deep with all that Sarah was and could have been, before she had been taken to live on a dread gray moonscape.

Don said, ‘I love you, Sarah. I have so many things I have to try to do, to find a way for us. But I will try. I will, girl.’

And from out of her tangled moon a wish broke free and Sarah said:

‘I will wait for you.’