“I didn’t mean to, Granny. You know I didn’t.” Charm sounded genuinely contrite, and Miss Pearl chuckled in response.
“I do know you didn’t mean to. I’m just teasing you.”
“Sit here, Miss Pearl,” Mina said, having already got up from the lone chair in the room. “I’ll see if I can find another chair from somewhere.”
Kiah hadn’t looked at her, after that first glance, but now he knew he needed to vent some of the ire still filling his chest, and the one who seemed to deserve it most had just walked away.
“I’ll be right back, Charm,” he said. “Granny, stay with her for me, please?”
“Uncle, wait.” Charm caught hold of his hand, making Kiah pause. “Can you bring me something to eat? I’m hungry.”
“Okay, love.” He bent to kiss her forehead again, and then strode out of the room, looking for Mina.
When there was no sight of her, he went over to the nurses’ desk.
“Did you see which way Dr. Haraldson went?”
The nurse on duty pointed toward the door leading to the stairs, and Kiah made a beeline for it.
When he opened the door, he didn’t hear footsteps, but there was a soft, almost imperceptible sound echoing in the stairwell. It seemed to be coming from above him and so, although the rising staircase led only to the roof access, which was always locked, he went up, instead of down. Turning the corner on the landing, he could see her, sitting on the top step, her hand to her face, rocking back and forth.
She must have heard his footsteps, because she looked up, but her tear-stained face and reddened eyes couldn’t melt the icy fury in his heart.
It must have shown in his eyes, or expression, because she got up, the tears still rolling down her cheeks.
“Kiah, please don’t be angry with me right now. I don’t think I could stand it.”
She sounded so defeated, so sad, and it was then he realized: he wasn’t angry with her.
All the fury inside was aimed squarely at himself.
He was the one who’d put her in a position to make the heart-wrenching decision about the lumbar puncture, who’d caused her the pain so clearly etched on her face.
“I did what I thought was right, for Charm.” The words came out in little bursts, in between her sobs. “You know I’d never do anything to hurt her, if I could h-help it.”
He wanted to tell her he knew, and understood, but all the old terror and agony he’d carried through the years clogged his throat.
All the fear came back, beating at him, as though to break him. Swamping him, until he thought he might drown.
Suddenly he was twelve again, watching his father die, impotent to help. Having his mother blame him, although he’d done the only thing he’d known how, which was call for an ambulance. And then he was thirty, getting the call about Karlene and Roy, learning he’d failed to give them the help and support they’d needed to get through the toughest of times.
And now, he’d put the responsibility of Charm’s care on Mina’s shoulders, instead of taking it on his own, the way he should. Making Mina cry, in a way he’d only seen her break down once before, at the loss of her hand.
Then, to make it worse, he’d gotten angry, when it was all his fault.
How could he do that? Cause so much pain, and translate that into the kind of rage that made him want to punch the walls, shout at the top of his lungs? It was all he could do to close his eyes, stand motionless, lock his knees, so as not to kick and scream.
“Kiah—”
Mina’s voice broke through the bombardment of his thoughts, and he realized she was holding him, her arm around his waist, her hand cupping his cheek, her worried gaze searching his.
She was holding him, as if he was the one in need of sympathy, of reassurance.
Once more he’d failed at doing the right thing.
Unable to speak, to articulate everything swirling and snapping in his chest, he bent and kissed Mina’s forehead, his heart breaking all over again, as tears filled her eyes once more.
“Kiah, she’s going to be okay. That’s what’s important.”
But he couldn’t hear that right now, not with any kind of equanimity. All he could do was ease out of Mina’s embrace and walk away, hoping to get some kind of control over himself, before he did any more harm.
Mina made it as far as the ladies’ room before she lost it again, hiding in a stall to shed some more tears, although they made her feel worse than before.
Damn Kiah. Damn him straight to hell and back, for making her feel as though she hadn’t done her best. As though she had somehow failed him and Charm.
She couldn’t find it in her heart to forgive him. Not yet. Maybe never.
All the years of friendship and understanding, the connection they’d shared, had been shattered, because he apparently didn’t trust her to do right by a little girl she loved, probably almost as much as he did.
How else could she interpret his actions, the anger she’d seen in his expression?
While staying with Charm as she had the lumbar puncture, hearing her cry and trying to soothe her, she’d hardly been able to stand it. The love she had for Charm was so strong it almost rivaled that which she had for Kiah himself.
Had he forgotten all she’d been through with his niece, or not understood how special it was to her? Not recognized Mina would never, ever do anything to harm the little girl?
She’d thought she’d been hurt before, but somehow this was bigger, more painful than even the loss of her hand. And she wasn’t sure how she was going to face Kiah, after how he’d made her feel.
How could he have placed so much trust
