SEVEN
Dom
Present Day
THE NURSE AT THE STATION gave me a flirty smile as I walked past. I wasn’t normally on this floor, but on the rare occasions that I was, the nurses always stopped and tried to flirt with me. I never paid them any attention, barely gave them a second thought, but today, I wanted to blend into the background.
The woman I was going to see wasn’t even my patient, and I didn’t know how Triss would react if she knew I was visiting her mother.
I had used my connections to find out what room Savanna Everest was in. I knew that she was going to my stepfather’s house the next morning, so I wanted to check on her before she left.
I walked to the end of the corridor and lifted my hand to tap on the partially closed door to one of the more luxurious private rooms the hospital had to offer.
“Come in,” a small, fragile-sounding voice called out at my knock, and I cautiously stepped inside, unsure of how welcome I was going to be with Savanna.
As I entered the room, I saw a tiny woman sitting up in bed, looking out at the gray clouds and the busy city below. The room was decorated with many pictures that looked as if one of her young daughters had drawn them, as well as a few that looked almost professional. A bouquet of flowers sat on the small nightstand, and a single balloon floated above it that read “Get Well Soon.”
Savanna had always been a small woman and just as beautiful as her daughter. Vivacious and full of life. Triss had always talked about her with a look of utter love in her eyes when she would tell me how her months with her mother and stepfather were going. I knew the two were close, possibly closer than most mother/daughter relationships. Certainly closer than my own mother and sister were.
Now her skin was yellow with jaundice, and she looked like a skeleton with skin stretched tight over her body. She wore a bright floral scarf around her head, and when she turned to look at me, I saw the pain that she fought hard to mask quickly when she realized who I was.
“Triss isn’t here,” she told me in a cold tone, scooting up in bed and clasping her hands together on top of the handmade quilt that covered her legs.
I closed the door and crossed to the foot of her bed. “I know, Mrs. Everest. I made sure she wasn’t before I came.”
Surprise flicked in her blue-gray eyes before she put up a wall. Like mother, like daughter. Triss had always been good at putting up her walls, especially whenever my mother had been around. I had thought she was overreacting where my mother was concerned. Apparently, I hadn’t taken it nearly as serious as I should have.
Not for the first time, regret churned in my gut. I pushed it down as Savanna turned her cold eyes up to me.
“Then why are you here?”
I still didn’t know the full answer to that question. I had told myself I wanted to check on Triss’s mother, that it was just the doctor in me that wanted to see if I could do anything for this sick woman. Nevertheless, I knew deep down it was more complicated than that. I wanted to find a way back into Triss’s life, and the only way I knew to do that was to go through her mother.
“How are you feeling today?” I stepped closer, scanning over her in a quick examination.
The whites of her eyes were yellow, telling me the jaundice was worse than I had originally thought. She had a heart monitor attached to her, but it was on silent so the constant beeping from it wouldn’t disturb her. There was an IV in the back of her left hand that was giving her fluids, as well as meds. I had spoken with her doctor once I had found out who he was, and after hearing his prognosis, I knew that Savanna was on borrowed time.
“I’m dying, or didn’t your snoops tell you that?” She rolled her eyes at me, yet again reminding me of her daughter.
Seeing the resemblance of the woman I had never been able to get out of my head in this dying woman made my heart hurt with compassion. “Triss told me you were losing the battle to cancer. I just didn’t know how bad it was. I’m sorry.”
A long sigh left her lips, and she gave me a grim smile. “Triss.” She shook her head. “She thinks that now that she has the money to help me, she can work miracles. She lies to me and herself, and says she only wants to make me comfortable, but I know my daughter too well. I can see the hope in her eyes. She wants to pull some kind of magic out of the new bag of tricks her father’s money has opened up to her, but it’s too late for that.”
“I’m sorry,” I murmured again, knowing it wasn’t enough, but it was all I could offer her right then.
It was obvious to me that she had accepted she was going to die, quite possibly sooner than she was telling her daughter from what her oncologist had told me.
“You didn’t answer my question. Why are you here?”
I thrust my hands into my pants pockets. “Maybe I want some clarity. For seven years, I thought that Triss was responsible for Kim’s overdose. Now—”
“Now your eyes have been forced open and you regret not listening to your heart in the first place?” Her forehead wrinkled as her hairless brows lifted. “You want me to tell you it’s okay that you threw my daughter out of your life when everyone else who she trusted and loved did?”
“No,” I assured her. “I realize I made a huge mistake, but I’m not looking for you to absolve me of my sins for what I did. What I’m asking of you is to tell me how she has been over those seven years. I thought Robert was still giving her an allowance, paying for college—all the things she was used to.”
“He cut it all off,” she said with a twist of her lips. “It was like she didn’t even exist to him any longer. She wasn’t spoiled, but her father took care of her up until then. She never wanted for anything. Then, suddenly she had to fight against the real world. College became a pipe dream for her. Her car was taken away from her, her bank account emptied, and her cards canceled. Overnight, she went from a comfortable life to nothing.”
My hands balled into fists in my pockets. “What did she do?”
Savanna shrugged her thin shoulders. “She pulled up her big girl panties and found herself a job. She saved up and got herself an apartment. Derrick and I hated for her to be on her own in that place, but she needed some independence.”
“And Robert never reached out to her, not once?”
“No. She tried to reach out to him a few times, but he wouldn’t take her calls.” An emotion I couldn’t explain flashed in her eyes for a moment before she masked it again. “Your mother reached out to her twice, but it wasn’t to check on how she was doing, if that’s what you’re getting at.”
“My mother? Why?”
She turned her head away, once again looking out the window. It had started to rain, and she shivered as if she were freezing. “You mean, you don’t know?”
“I wouldn’t be asking if I did.”
She was quiet for a long moment, scanning the clouds and the city below. “It’s not my place,” she finally said. “You should ask your mother.”
“I’m asking you.” Frustrated, I crossed to the side of the bed that was closest to the window, making her look at me. “Why did my mother reach out to Triss?”
Angry fire replaced the coldness in her eyes, the flames shooting out at me. “If you don’t know, then I’m not going to tell you. I assumed you knew, seeing as Nancy said she was doing so on your behalf.”
“No. I don’t know why she did it, but it wasn’t for me.” And now I was even more confused than before. Nothing made sense, but I was seeing my mother with new eyes now, and what I was discovering about her was that she was a two-faced evil bitch.
Savanna stared up at me for a long moment, her eyes hooded as she seemed to come to a decision. “You should go, Dominic. I’m tired, and I know Triss would be upset if she knew you were here.”
I scrubbed a hand over my slightly scruffy jaw. “I’m sorry if I upset you, Mrs. Everest. That wasn’t my intention.”
Her sigh was one of a world-weary, tired soul. “You should talk to Triss. And I mean, really talk. Not throw accusations at her. Ask her what happened after your mother kicked her out. Ask her … about the check your mother gave her.”
--
An hour later, when I should have been driving over to my mother’s new apartment, I found myself outside of my stepfather’s house. Well, Triss’s home now. I needed to remember that.
I sat out in the driveway for a long time, just staring through the rain up at the house that had been home for so many years. It had been a happy home for me up until that damn weekend when my sister had nearly died. What should have been the best weekend of my life turned into a living nightmare, and I hated to relive the memories, but as I sat there, they came back to haunt me …