Chapter 5: The Woman in the Lobby
I didn't sleep that night.
Daniel was kept in for observation.
Tina refused to leave the hospital, so I drove home, changed, and came back with a bag of things she'd need — a change of clothes, her toothbrush, the phone charger she always forgot.
Mom went home around midnight, promising to come back in the morning with food.
I sat in the waiting room outside Daniel's room for most of the night with the unknown text open on my phone.
*Don't tell him I reached out.*
I ran it through my head in every direction.
An ex.
A friend with bad news.
Someone from his family.
Someone from his past.
The message had come through on Tina's number, which meant whoever sent it had her contact information but hadn't used their own name.
At six in the morning, Tina came out to find me.
"You stayed," she said.
"Of course I stayed."
She sat down beside me.
She'd changed into the clothes I'd brought and scrubbed the makeup off her face.
Without it she looked younger.
Tired and young and more like herself.
"How is he?" I asked.
"Sleeping.
The doctor came in at five.
Said the swelling is down.
They might let him go home tomorrow."
"That's good."
"Yeah." She leaned her head back against the wall.
"Sarah, I know this is a lot to ask — but can you not be angry at me yet?
I know I should have told you.
I know.
I just can't—" Her voice thinned.
"I can't hold any more right now."
"I'm not angry," I said.
And I meant it.
I was something, but it wasn't anger.
I thought about the text again.
"Tina.
Does Daniel have any family?
Besides his mother?"
She thought for a moment.
"A brother.
Older.
They don't really talk."
"Why not?"
"Daniel doesn't say much about it.
Just that things got difficult after their father died.
Something about the estate." She frowned.
"Why?"
"What's the brother's name?"
"Marcus." She looked at me more carefully now.
"Sarah, why are you asking?"
I almost showed her the text.
I had my phone in my hand.
But she looked so hollowed out.
So raw around the edges.
"Just trying to understand who he is," I said.
"Go back in with him.
I'll get us coffee."
She held my gaze for a second longer than was comfortable.
Then she nodded and went back through the door.
I took the elevator down to the lobby.
The hospital coffee was terrible, but I got two cups and stood near the window looking out at the early morning street.
The rain had stopped.
The pavement was still wet, catching the pale light.
"Are you Sarah?"
I turned.
A woman was standing a few feet away.
Mid-forties, well-dressed in a way that looked deliberate — like she'd thought carefully about what to wear before coming here.
Dark coat.
Hair pulled back.
She was watching me with an expression I couldn't immediately read.
Not hostile.
Not warm.
Careful.
"Who are you?" I said.
"My name is Carol Marsh." She paused.
"Daniel is my son."
I set the coffee cups down on the nearest surface.
"I thought you were in a care facility."
Something moved across her face.
"Is that what he told Tina?"
"That's what Tina told me."
Carol was quiet for a moment.
She looked down at her hands, then back up.
"I was, for a time.
After my husband passed.
I had a very difficult year." She said it plainly, without asking for sympathy.
"I've been home for eight months.
I live forty minutes from here." She looked at me steadily.
"Daniel doesn't know."
The lobby felt very still suddenly.
"He doesn't know you're out?"
"He doesn't know where I am.
I reached out to Tina because I found out about the wedding through a mutual contact.
I wanted to come.
I wanted to meet her." Her voice was controlled but something underneath it was not.
"But I needed to know if it was safe to."
"Safe from what?"
Carol's jaw tightened.
May you like
"From Marcus," she said.
"My older son."
