Long Time Running (10 page)

"We're setting up an i.v. of morphine," he told
her quietly "and that'll go a long way to relieving the pain. Once you're ahead of the pain, I'm going to send you for another MRI. I think your tumor is probably growing."

"No morphine," she whispered, painfully opening
her eyes to look at him. "Please."

Andrew shook his head. "No deal. We need to get your pain under control and this is the only way."

"Sarah" she croaked.

Her sister was by her side, softly stroking her hair as the nurse set up the i.v. "It'll be okay," she reassured her. "It won't be like last time. I promise."

"It can't," she cried softly. "I can't."

"I know" she sighed. "I know Nat."

She was quiet for several beats as the drug dripped from the bag and into her veins. "He...kissed...me..." she mumbled.

"Who? Keith?"

"No" she replied groggily. "Eric."

Sarah and Andrew exchanged shocked looks.

"I....love....you Sarah" she mumbled before
falling under the effects of the medication.

Her eyes welled with tears and she kissed her cheek again. "And I love you too baby sister."

Gently rising from the bed she jerked her head in the
direction of the hallway as she looked at Andrew. "I'd like to speak to you."

"That works out well for me," he muttered as he followed her out.

The door had barely closed before Sarah launched an attack.
"He kissed her?" she hissed. "He KISSED her? What the hell is that?!"

Andrew fixed her with a steely glare. "Whatever it is, it is between the two of them. I'm not responsible for Eric and I won't answer
for him. But perhaps now would be a good time for you to tell me what her opposition to morphine is."

She folded her arms across her chest and shook her head. "It's none of your business."

Well familiar with Sarah's petulance and stubbornness, Andrew took her by the elbow and led her down the hall to his office. Letting go of her, he kicked the door shut behind him before perching himself on the
edge of his desk.

"That's where you are wrong Sarah - it is my business. I'm her doctor and her health is my only concern."

"If she wants you to know, she'll tell you" she snapped.

"God Dammit!" he swore. "Believe it or not I am actually trying to help her."

"You hate her."

Exhaling loudly, he rubbed his hand over his face. "No, I don't. I hate what she did - to you, to Eric and most of all to Jack - but I don't hate her. I want her healthy Sarah, for all of our sakes, but I can't do that if I'm missing pieces of information."

Sighing, she sank down into the chair and wiped tiredly at
her eyes. "She had a lot of morphine before-"

"In Tanzania?" he interjected.

She nodded. "And it gives her....it gave her nightmares in the hospital - bad ones."

Moving from the desk to the chair beside her, he turned to face her. "Nightmares about what happened to her?"

All she could do was nod as her eyes filled past the brim with tears.

"Sarah" he called to her softly. "What happened to her?"

"She almost died" she whispered.

"The fire?" he prodded.

"Yeah. Andrew..." Lifting her head, she gave him a
pleading look. "I don't know all the details and the ones I do know are not mine to tell. Please don't ask me to violate yet another trust of my sister's."

In the rare moments where she allowed herself to be
vulnerable - truly vulnerable - he found himself almost unspeakably drawn to her. Andrew had known a lot of women, all of whom were a lot less trouble than Sarah Grant. Interestingly, that didn't seem to matter to his heart or head.
Reaching out, he took her hand in his and rubbed his thumb against her palm.

"I...I got a phone call one morning at work" she said quietly as she began to tell of those long ago events for the first time.
"It was a doctor with a thick, rich African accent. He apologized for calling but I was listed as next of kin for Doctor Nathalie Grant and she had been badly hurt. He told me he knew it was a long way to come but if I could make it I should as they didn't expect her to survive."

Knowing how rare it was to get a Grant sister to open up, he said nothing but simply continued to rub her hand.

"It was more than a week," she whispered as the secrets she could not longer hold at bay, began to rush out. "More than a
week before she opened her eyes. She...she would scream with nightmares Drew. It...it was awful and I couldn't do anything to help her."

"Sarah, I'm sure you helped her just by being there.
You two were always close."

Slowly pulling her hand away from his, she smiled weakly. "It's nice of you to say."

Taking a deep breath, she sat up straight. "So you
think her tumor is bigger?"

Having experienced it several times before, Andrew recognized that the moment was over and Sarah's walls were back up. In response, he leaned back in the chair, away from her. "Yes. I'm sure the
MRI will bear me out. Surgery is going to have to be sooner than we expected - probably this weekend."

Getting to her feet, she smoothed the imaginary wrinkles from her skirt and headed for the door. "I should get going. I have to pick
up Jack from Eric's." At the door she paused and turned around. "Don't give her too much morphine" she requested softly.

Andrew smiled kindly at her. "I'm going to take good care of her Sarah. You can trust me."

Returning his smile ever so briefly, she paused as though she were going to answer but thinking better of it, closed her mouth and left.

#

Eric could not keep from staring at Jack as the young boy,
curled into the corner of the couch, read his book. He had always seen Nathalie in him but having seen her again, it was like looking at his son with a fresh set of eyes. He had so many of her traits - her eyes, her laugh, the way he
would pull at his fingers when he was nervous. He wondered what Nathalie would think if she could - when she would - see him. Would she recognize him without even knowing who he was? Would she be able to see those parts of her in him?

Jack was a smart, funny and very adaptable young boy and he supposed Sarah was right, that Jack would be over the moon to know that Eric was his father. But on some level that revelation would have to destroy much of the trust he had for the adults in his life. What possible explanation that
would make sense to a grade schooler could be offered for the lies and half-truths he had been told during the span of his young life? He wasn't even sure what explanation could be offered to him that would make sense.

Eric did battle internally as their kiss replayed over and over again in his mind. It had always felt right to kiss her in the past and that feeling had not changed.. But kissing her and loving her were two
different things. Kissing her was a long way from forgiving her or understanding her or starting again with her. But much to his own surprise he was discovering that kissing her was making him consider doing all those things.

He wanted to know what had happened to her with a ferocity
that bordered on desperation. He had seen the brutal scars she bore on the outside and knew the ones on the inside were even more vicious. Ruefully, he acknowledged that even if he could one day understand why she had willingly
given up her -their- child, it would still not explain why she had run from him. Why raising their child alone was a better option to her than raising Jack together.

While he had always been clear he never wanted children, he
had once believed that they loved each other enough to get through anything. She told him she loved him today with a clarity and certainty that took his breath away. And maybe she did. Maybe it just wasn't enough to believe in him. Or them.

"Eric?" Jack asked carefully, uncharacteristically subdued.

Pulled from his thoughts he looked over at his son. "Yeah buddy?"

"I need to ask you a question" he began seriously.
"And....and if you don't know that's cool but will you promise to answer it if you can?"

Raising his eyebrows, he nodded. "If I know the answer, I will tell you."

Jack scrambled down from the couch and ran to his backpack.
Unzipping it, he reached inside and pulled out a small picture frame. Walking back to the couch, he passed it to Eric before climbing up and sitting next to him.

A cold sweat trickled down Eric's back as he looked down at
the photo. It was a photo of Sarah and Nathalie on the steps of the Art Institute of Chicago; he had been the photographer. The frame was burnished silver with the word 'sisters' engraved along the bottom.

"Is that Nathalie?" Jack asked pointing to her picture.

Not trusting himself to speak, Eric simply nodded.

The young boy eyed him carefully before diving into his next question. "Is she my mom?"

It felt as though the world landed on his shoulders with his questions. Sarah had only ever answered the questions Jack put to her about his parentage without revealing more than she was willing to. Neither of them had
ever said Nathalie's name because until this moment he had never asked.

"Wh-what makes you think that?" he stumbled.

"Because Aunt Sarah said my mom is her sister. Her sister's name is Nathalie and she has this picture in her bedroom and it says
'sisters' and so I was wondering if that meant that Nathalie was my mom and this is what she looks like?"

He couldn't lie to him, not about this. It was hard enough
to lie about being his father but Jack had managed to piece together all the information he had been given and come up with a reasonable question: he owed him the truth.

"Yes" he answered cautiously, "Nathalie is
Aunt Sarah's sister and that makes her your mom."

The young boy pulled nervously at his fingers and bit down on his lip. Seeing the worry etched on his face, Eric slipped his arm around his shoulder and tugged him towards his body.

"I can see a question on your lips Jack, what is it?"

Sucking in a breath, he looked up at him. "Where...where is she?"

Eric's tongue felt suddenly fat in his mouth as he struggled
to find the right answer. "Have you...have you asked Aunt Sarah?"

He nodded.

"And what does she say?"

"She says she's in a far away country helping
people."

Exhaling slowly, Eric nodded. "That's true."

Jack said nothing for several minutes. Taking the frame from Eric's lap, he looked down at the photo and traced Nathalie's outline with his
finger.

"She's very pretty" he finally said.

Swallowing the acrid lump in his throat, Eric agreed, "Yes, she is."

Climbing down from the couch, he crossed the room to his backpack
and stuck the frame back inside. "Eric?"

"Yes?"

"Can we...can we keep it between us guys?"

Cocking his head to the side, he gave him a curious look.
"You don't want Aunt Sarah to know? How come?"

"Cause I don't wanna make her sad."

Patting the seat beside him, he beckoned Jack to join him. "What makes you think your question will make her sad?"

Shrugging, he climbed up next to Eric and curled in to him. "I dunno but she's been kinda sad lately."

"Are you being good and keeping your room clean?"

"Yeah" he nodded solemnly.

"Okay," he agreed. "It's just between us guys for now."

#

After Sarah picked up Jack, he reflected on their
conversation and there was a part of him that wanted Nathalie to know that his son knew who she was; that he thought she was pretty. And then before he could stop himself, he walked to the hospital and headed straight for her room.

He had no clue what he was going to say when he saw her.
There was no plausible explanation for him to be there other than he wanted to see her but telling her that felt almost cruel.

Low moans emanated from her room and as he pushed open the
door to her room he was stunned by what he saw. Nathalie, clearly asleep, was in the grips of some kind of nightmare. She was thrashing about the bed, crying out with tears streaming down her face.

Crossing the room in two easy strides, he gently shook her
trying to wake her. "Nat! Nathalie, wake up! You're having a bad dream"

"Jack" she whimpered. "Don't let them hurt Jack"

He tried again, in vain, to wake her but she would not be
pulled from her nightmare. At a loss but feeling like his heart was in a vice grip as he watched her flail at imaginary aggressors, he did the only thing that came to mind. Sliding his arms underneath her, he pulled her to a sitting
position and wrapped her in his arms. She fought, at first, her body rigid and trembling but he continued to hold her hoping the heat from his body would soothe her. Her body was racked with soundless sobs as her tears splashed
against his shoulder.

He rubbed her back and pressed his mouth to her ear. "Jack is safe," he whispered. "He's not hurt, he's safe." It was risky for him to say anything about Jack - she could wake up at any moment and everything could unravel - but her anguish was so great that he was
willing to risk anything to console her.

"Th-the h-h-house" she stammered, gulping for air as she gripped his shirt. "It's on f-f-f-fire. I h-have to g-g-get
him."

His own heart hammered inside his chest as another piece of the puzzle fell in to place. He knew there was a link between the scar on her back and Jack but he had not quite imagined this. Murmuring against her hair,
he continued to rub her back.

"Jack is okay," he repeated. "He's safe. You're safe too," he added.

She slumped against him, exhausted. The soft exhalation of her breath against his shoulder told him that the nightmare, or the terror, had
receded back into the darkness. He was beginning to understand what Keith meant about the nights being hard for her. With infinite care, he leaned her back against the pillows.