The more Debra thought about it, the more irritated she became. In fact, she hadn’t said quite enough. She spun around and stalked back to the firehouse, in time to see Sean’s car turn the corner and vanish down the street. Jack was standing outside the firehouse, a worried frown on his face.
“What’s wrong?” Debra asked.
Jack glanced over his shoulder. “He got a call just after you left, and had to go back to Elkins His…” Jack faltered. “Someone was admitted to the hospital. Doesn’t look good.”
The lump clogging her throat made it hard to swallow. His…what? Family? Friend? Obviously, it was someone close to Sean. What was he feeling? How was he handling it?
Guilt edged into the cracks in her heart and dogged her steps all the way back to the café. The squabble with Sean seemed trite in comparison—a minor squall that would blow over by dinnertime.
Except that Sean would not be home for dinner. More likely than not, he would still be at the hospital, dealing with real life-and-death issues.
She pushed open the door to the café. Marcia stood behind the counter, chatting with the store’s only customer. Business was slow, which was normal for the end of the day. “Will it be okay if I take the rest of the afternoon off? Something came up and I’ll need to take care of it.”
“Sure. You run along, hon.”
Debra hurried home and arranged for Aidan to hang out at the neighbor’s house, before cooking up a quick meal of shepherd’s pie. The layers of whipped potatoes spread over ground beef and servings of mixed vegetables would be warm and filling—comfort food for any occasion. She filled a large container with food, and then poured black coffee—the way Sean liked it—into a thermos.
Before getting into her car, she looked up the address of the only hospital in Elkins. She could be there in an hour.
The trip to Elkins took scarcely over sixty minutes, and the nurses at Davis Memorial Hospital ushered Sean into a private room in the Intensive Care Unit. Machines filled the room, each one blinking and beeping, but the sound was inaudible over the raised voices coming from the room.
Sean paused, his hand on the door handle, listening.
“It should never have come to this!” a man shouted. The deep bellow, roughened by years of cigarette smoking, belonged to Garry, Romina’s father.
“Look, I’ve been away for five years,” a familiar voice retorted. Brian—Sean’s older brother. “This isn’t about me. It was never about me.”
“Stop fighting!” Bettina, Romina’s mother, sobbed. “Why are you still fighting over this?”
“Because it destroyed her!” Garry yelled.
Gritting his teeth, Sean opened the door and stepped into the room.
Three pairs of eyes turned to him. Romina lay in the bed, her eyes closed, face pale.
“How is she?” Sean asked quietly.
Garry rushed Sean. His ham-sized fists seized Sean’s shirt and slammed Sean back against the wall. “Where were you? Where were you all these months when she needed you?”
“We broke up. I left.”
“She cried for you. Every damned day. She called you. She left message after message. You never called back.”
“Your daughter needed help far beyond what I could provide. Did you take her to the doctor like I told you to?”
Garry’s jaw stuck out like a pugnacious bulldog, but guilt flickered into his eyes. His hands loosened their grip on Sean’s shirt.
“Romina has major psychological problems. She didn’t need me. She didn’t need a pep talk. She needed therapy and maybe drugs. The right drugs.”
“She was just upset.”
“She’s been upset for years.” Sean flung his arm out at Brian. “She was like that long before she met Brian. She was like that long before he left her.”
“That’s not true!” Garry yelled. “You got her pregnant and left!”
Brian’s eyes narrowed. “It wasn’t my baby.”
Sean’s jaw dropped. The baby Romina had been pregnant with five years ago hadn’t been Brian’s? “But—”
“You thought it was mine?” Brian’s gaze flashed to Sean. “Is that why you stayed around? Not because it was yours?”
“Mine? She was your girlfriend. I never touched her. If it wasn’t yours or mine, then…whose was it?”
“Was there even a baby?” Brian asked, his voice bitter. “She miscarried, didn’t she, conveniently before her first doctor’s appointment? She was a heck of a liar. She never thought twice about it.”
Sean nodded. He could not find the words, not with the air punched out of his lungs.
Brian’s gaze darted to the woman on the bed. “She’d know.” He turned back to Sean. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“What was there to tell? You abandoned your pregnant girlfriend. I was your brother. I felt like I had to do something about it.”
“It wasn’t your problem to fix.”
“She was a goddamned wreck. And I? I was the fool who thought she would get over it, that it was something I could fix by being around for her. I wasted five years of my life. Nothing I did changed anything about her life.”
Garry scowled. “That’s not true. She was happy with you.”
“She was miserable. She did nothing but complain. She was a vampire; she sucked all the joy out of my life. I left because I couldn’t take it anymore.”
“She loved you.”
Sean shook his head. “She loved the attention I gave her, because you gave her none. It’s not the same thing.”
“She called you every day.”
“And left messages about how the spa attendants didn’t wait on her immediately, or how the valet wasted her time by taking three minutes to deliver her car. Her sour view on life soured my view on life. I found myself arguing with a girl at the checkout counter because my order wasn’t served the way I wanted. I’d left that girl in tears, terrified that she was going to lose her job. It hit me then. I realized I’d become like your daughter. In caring for her, I’d become like her. I lost myself.”
Bettina shook her head. “But how could you leave her when you knew she needed you?”
“She didn’t
