Evan

For someone who is pregnant and wearing heels, Chloe can walk faster than most people in sneakers.

We said goodbye at the diner and as she walked away, my phone rang. It was Jordan with a rundown of an update of one of my patients. I cut him off with the promise that I’d be at the hospital in ten minutes but that plan hit a snag when I realized that Chloe had left her scarf on the bench next to the table.

I could have tucked it in my pocket until the next time I saw her.

It would have been easy to call or text her to tell her that I had it, but I chased after her instead.

She had a good half block on me before I was stopped by a light. By the times I caught up to her she was stopped on a sidewalk talking to a man. He’s older, distinguished and from what I can make out, he looks a hell of a lot like someone I’ve met.

I stand silently near the corner watching as she takes something from his hand before she turns and walks into an office building.

He shakes his head before his hands rake through his dark hair.

When he starts walking in my direction, I approach him. I rarely forget a face and his has become imprinted in my brain because of one conversation we had years ago.

I wait until he’s just about to pass me by before I call out to him. “Hey. I know you don’t I?”

He turns then and I see no recognition in his eyes. “I don’t think so.”

I push because I’m sure this is the same guy that I sat next to in the hospital chapel. “I’m Dr. Evan Scott. You’re Chris, right? I swear we met at the hospital a couple of years ago. I was in the chapel and you sat down…”

“Next to you,” he interrupts me. “What the hell are you doing in this neighborhood?”

What the hell were you doing talking to Chloe?

I glance down the block to see if Chloe has exited the building but she’s not there. “I’m visiting a friend. Do you work around here?”

His gaze darts to the street next to us. “I work uptown. I’m waiting for my driver to circle the block to pick me up. He’s new and apparently slow as fuck.”

Arrogance. I have it and use it wisely. This guy doesn’t wear it well at all.

“That night at the hospital,” I begin trying to find the right words. “I remember you had a lot on your mind. Did it all work out?”

He glances back over his shoulder to where he was standing with Chloe not more than three minutes ago. “You could say that. I took your advice and I didn’t look back until now.”

“You took my advice?” I question as I watch a black town car slow to a stop on the street next to us.

He moves toward it. “I divorced my wife. She couldn’t give me what I wanted so I ended it that night. I had her things packed up before she got home from the hospital.”

“Your wife was at the hospital too?”

He nods as the driver rounds the car to open the back door. “My wife’s mother died that night. I was in the chapel praying to God that he’d give me a sign to leave Chloe. You asked if I needed anything and when you told me to think about what would make me happy, I knew that leaving her was the only choice I had.”

What the fuck?

“Your wife is named Chloe?”

He lowers himself into the backseat, smoothing his suit jacket with his hand. “Chloe Newell, although she’s dropping that to go back to her maiden name. It’s career suicide but she’s never been bright.”

My hand fists.

“I just saw her.” He sighs deeply. “I’d still fuck her brains out but knowing that she’ll never give me a son makes it a waste of my time.”

The driver slams the car door shut and I try and resist the urge to open it back up, haul him out of the and make him feel every ounce of pain he’s caused Chloe.

***

“I need you to check on something for me, Jordan.” I approach him from behind.

“What?” He doesn’t turn to face me and it pisses me off. That’s not on him. I’m still mad as fuck at Chris Newell and myself for sitting next to him at the hospital chapel two years ago.

My mind has been reeling since he drove away. I didn’t go into the building that I saw Chloe enter. I couldn’t. I’m the fucked up reason her husband left her. He goddamn left her the night her mother died.

I need the big picture before I can go to her and confess that I’m the guy who told her husband to look out for himself and leave her.

The conversation I had with him has always stayed with me.

He was alone in the chapel when I walked in. I sat next to him because he looked like he could use a shoulder and I needed one.

Solace can be found in the walls of that place with strangers.

I’ve sought counsel there on many times and I’ve offered advice to the families of patients who are either praying for a miracle or trying to accept the unthinkable.

When he started talking about life, death and regret I listened. He said his wife couldn’t give him what he needed and it was tearing him apart. He hated her for it and the resentment that had started as a drop had grown into an ocean.

I wasn’t in a good place so I told him to do whatever the fuck made him happy. I told him that life was too short to waste it on relationships that weren’t fulfilling.

He mentioned leaving his wife, I gave him my friend Griffin’s name and number and he told me he’d call him that night to start the process of divorcing his wife.

Chloe. That was Chloe.

She was the woman who couldn’t give him what he needed and I now know with certainty that he was talking about a child.

“I said what do you need?” Jordan spins around and looks right at me.

I ignore his freshly plucked brows because I don’t have time to ask him what the fuck happened to his face. “I’m trying to find a patient. It was around two years ago. Her last name would have been Jones. She collapsed on a street. I need to know her cause of death. You know someone in records, right? You can give them that and they’ll figure it out?”

He holds my gaze. “I don’t need to go to records. I was there when she died. You were too.”

Tension tightens my shoulders. There’s no fucking way. “I wasn’t there.”

“She was brought in after collapsing on a sidewalk,” Jordan begins.

“You’re not thinking of the woman with the abdominal aortic aneurysm?” I interrupt.

“That’s her.” He rests his hand on my shoulder. “Irena Jones, aged fifty-five. I’ll never forget that one. She coded on the table right after we opened her up. We were too late, Evan. She died right in front of us.”

She did. I remember everything about that night. The piercing sound of the monitor as her pulse stopped; the wails from the waiting room when Jordan went to tell her family that she was gone. I’ll never forget the sight of a woman with her head buried in the chest of her father while she wept for the mother that she’d never see again.

I caused all of that. I was the man who changed Chloe’s life forever that night and fuck if I know how I’m going to tell her.