“He told you.”
“He told me.”
“Laur, you can’t let him—”
“He’s going to Voss on Friday.”
Nate stood up so fast his chair fell over.
“No.”
“He’s going to tell him the truth.”
“He has a three-month-old son.”
“He’ll lose his license.”
“He’ll lose everything.”
“Then that’s his choice.”
“No, it’s not—”
“Yes,” I said.
“It is.”
“It’s his choice.”
“It was always his choice.”
“You just took it from him.”
“The same way you took mine.”
He stared at me like he’d never seen me before.
Maybe he hadn’t.
Maybe I’d never really seen me either.
On Thursday, I went to Four West.
I didn’t sneak.
I didn’t need to.
I signed in at the desk like any other visitor.
I wrote Lauren Cole.
Nobody stopped me.
Denise saw me and just nodded toward the end of the hall.
Room 412.
The door was open.
A little girl sat up in the bed with a sketchpad on her knees.
Thin.
Pale.
A pink knit hat pulled down over her ears.
A line taped into her arm.
She was drawing a horse.
The same kind of horse Poppy draws.
Legs too long.
Mane like a bonfire.
A woman slept in the chair beside the bed.
Diner uniform.
Name tag still pinned on.
Rachel.
The girl looked up at me.
“Are you a doctor?”
“No.”
“Are you a social worker?”
“No.”
“Good,” she said.
“The social worker talks too much.”
I laughed.
I couldn’t help it.
“I’m Lauren,” I said.
Her eyes got huge.
“Dr. Nate’s Lauren?”
My heart stopped.
“You know about me?”
“He talks about you all the time.”
“He says you can plan a party for three hundred people in a week.”
“He says you make the best meatloaf in the world.”
She tore a page out of her sketchpad.
She held it out.
“This is for Poppy.”
It was a card.
Two girls holding hands.
One in a hospital bed.
One in a birthday hat.
Across the top, in purple marker: HAPPY BIRTHDAY TWIN.
“We have the same birthday,” Maddie said.
“Dr. Nate told me.”
“He says Poppy’s braver than me.”
