“Tell them, Dr. Wickham!” my mother said, wheeling to face Sean, her face imploring.
And with that she gave a kind of a wail and collapsed into the arms of the guard who’d been doing the talking.
“Aw, lady, for Chrissake …” He tried to paw her away, like she was contagious, keeping his head back and his chin tucked in. Finally, he managed to get a grip on my mother’s upper arms and hoisted her away. “Go on, get him out of here,” he said to me in desperation. “But if anyone asks, you ain’t seen us and we ain’t seen you! Okay?”
“Okay,” I agreed gravely. “Don’t worry, you won’t see us.”
The four of us disappeared along the corridor as fast as we could manage, round a corner and out through the first exit we came to that didn’t claim to be alarmed.
“My God, Elizabeth,” my father muttered, and his voice might have been shaky and breathless purely because we were all but running across the car park towards the Navigator, but that wouldn’t account for the note of wonder I heard there, too. “My God …”
Sean hit the remote and the locks popped. We piled in and he had the engine cranked and the vehicle already rolling before the last door was slammed shut behind us.
My mother fastened her seat belt and smoothed her skirt, frowning a little at a crease in the material. Then she looked up and smiled and, just for a moment, there was a distinct twinkle in her eye—a frisson of pleasure, excitement, even pure thrill.
“That was nicely played—well done,” Sean said, but his praise was guarded. “You took quite a risk, though. If they’d tagged even one genuine member of staff, we’d all have been sunk.”
I glanced at him, surprised by the downbeat tone. “Come on, Sean,” I said. “It was inspired and, anyway, it worked! Isn’t that what counts?” I smiled at him, but he didn’t return it. “Anyway, what alternatives did we have?”
He didn’t answer right away, concentrating on his driving. He was making a series of random turns, fast enough to put distance between us and the hospital, unobtrusive enough not to get us pulled over.
I frowned. Sean was cautious, yes, but he’d never been mean when it came to giving due credit, and he admired inventiveness. At that moment he glanced sideways and the brooding darkness of his gaze almost made me flinch.
My father leaned forwards in his seat. “What’s the matter, Sean?” he said in a clipped, almost taunting tone. “Did Elizabeth’s actions disappoint you in some way?”
I fired my father a warning look but his eyes were locked onto the narrow slot of the rearview mirror, which was all he could see of Sean’s set face, and he didn’t catch the gesture. Or, if he did, he chose to ignore it.
“You were about to start a fight,” my father said on a note of disdain. “It seems to be your first instinctive response to any difficult situation. Then Charlotte and Elizabeth managed to talk our way out—rather successfully, I thought. Does that fact wound your ego in some way?”
I was torn between pleasure at the unexpected praise, and anger at his attack on Sean.
“It never hurts to plan for the worst,” was all Sean said. “And I think you’ll find that Charlie was just as prepared to take direct action.”
“Hm,” my father said. He let his eyes slide over me, and there was something vaguely dissatisfied in that brief appraisal. “How much of that is due to your influence, I wonder.”
“Some,” Sean said. “But have you considered how much of it is down to you?”
“Oh, cut it out—both of you,” I snapped. “Stop talking about me like I’m not damn well here. Or at least have the decency to wait until I really
“I think you’ll find what we’re doing is vivisection,” Sean said, showing his teeth in a tight little smile totally devoid of humor. “For it to be dissection, I believe you’d have to be dead.”
“Well then,” I said coldly, thinking back to February, to a few long seconds in a frozen forest in the snow when my heart had briefly given up the fight. “In that case you missed your chance, both of you.”
Despite Sean’s evasive driving techniques—or perhaps because of them—there were no signs of anyone following us after we left the hospital. Eventually, we headed back towards the Back Bay area, stopping at a little Japanese noodle bar, little more than a storefront cafe, for an early meal.
My father and Sean kept up their quietly confrontational stance throughout, leaving me and my mother to play peacemaker. My mother was, understandably, still invigorated by her performance at the hospital. I had to keep trying to muffle her enthusiastic recall.
It was fortunate that we were the only customers in at that hour, and the blank-faced girl who took our order didn’t seem able to process more than the basics in English. Still, I didn’t like the idea of anyone being close enough to eavesdrop on our conversation.
Stopping my mother chattering on about every thought process she’d gone through, however, proved easier said than done. In the end I had to distract her with talk of distant family holidays and old school friends I’d long since lost touch with, but who, for some strange reason, still seemed to be in regular contact with my mother.
And even that turned out to be a bit of a double-edged sword as far as topics went. Every single damn one of them, it seemed, had married well and produced hordes of startlingly precocious and beautiful children for their grandparents to dote on.
Eventually, her excitement dimmed enough even for her to recognize the static silence that clung between Sean and my father. The pauses grew longer, then joined up into one long pause, unpunctuated by speech altogether. By that time I was thankful for the respite.
When we’d finished our last pot of green tea, my mother pushed her chair back and announced she needed the ladies’ room. When I rose to join her, she gave me a blank look, then nodded gravely as she realized why.
The waitress didn’t understand that question, either, but she caught the general gist and jerked her head towards a doorway near the rear of the restaurant. The little girls’ room turned out to have two cubicles with a tiny sink wedged to the side of them. There was barely room to turn on the tap and, when you’d managed that, you struggled to get both hands in the bowl at once.
To my surprise, perhaps, my mother didn’t seem perturbed by her surroundings. Neither did she seem desperate to use the facilities, but instead fussed around washing her hands and tidying her hair in the mirror on the wall next to the sink. I got the distinct impression she was stalling.
Eventually, she glanced up and met my eyes in the reflection.
“I do wish you wouldn’t keep sniping at each other, Charlotte,” she said, attempting to soften the slightly pained note with a hesitant smile. “Nothing good will come of provoking him.”
“Me?” I said, feeling an annoyed twitch run sharply across my shoulders. “I’m not provoking anyone.”
Her sigh brought me back. “You’re provoking each other.”
“I see. And are you planning on also having this conversation with him about not winding
She frowned. “I wouldn’t dream of it,” she said in a slightly affronted tone, bending to peer at the little strip of paper towel that was sticking out of the bottom of the dispenser on the wall. “I just think you should be careful not to push him too far, that’s all.” She tugged ineffectually at the towel, but it wouldn’t budge.
It was my turn to sigh. I took a step forwards and pumped the handle on the side of the dispenser, twice. It rolled out two sheets, which I tore off and dumped in her hands.
“I’m not the one who’s doing the pushing,” I said then, aware that I was scowling. “But if he shoves me, he can only expect me to shove back.”
“Two pigheaded people …” She shook her head. “He only does it because he cares. I didn’t realize just how
