I called before she involved the police.
“You absolute idiot!” she shouted, already crying. “A hospital called me and said motorcycle accident. Do you know what that does to a person?”
“Raises blood pressure?”
“Caleb.”
“I’m okay.”
“You are in the emergency room.”
“Okay-ish.”
She exhaled shakily. In the background, one of her kids asked if Uncle Caleb was dead.
“Tell Owen I said not yet,” I said.
“Do not joke about that.”
“Sorry.”
Her voice softened. “Are you alone?”
I looked at the security guard outside my curtain. “No. Long story.”
“A woman?”
“How did you—”
“You have a tone.”
“I have cracked ribs. I don’t have a tone.”
“You have many tones. This one is trouble with pretty eyes.”
I closed mine.
Rachel knew about Savannah. Not every detail. But sisters have a way of knowing the names that live in the quiet parts of you.
“Is it her?” she asked.
I didn’t answer.
“Oh, Caleb.”
“She works here.”
“Of course she does.”
“And her family apparently stole our letters.”
There was a long silence.
Then Rachel said, “I’m coming.”
“No. You have three sleeping children.”
“I will wake them.”
“Do not bring children into an ER drama involving hospital security and stolen mail.”
Another pause. “Hospital security?”
“I said long story.”
“Caleb, listen to me. You got hurt tonight. You’re lonely. You’re divorced. You’re vulnerable. Don’t let the past look like destiny just because it arrived in scrubs.”
I wanted to argue.
But she wasn’t wrong. My divorce from Natalie had been quiet, almost polite. No cheating. No screaming. Just two tired people who discovered one day that love could leave without slamming the door. Since then, I had lived in a one-bedroom apartment in North Park with one balcony chair, one coffee mug I liked, and a silence I pretended was peace.
“I hear you,” I said.
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“And I think she was in love with me too.”
Rachel whispered something I couldn’t hear.
“What?”
“I said, God help you.”
After we hung up, the curtain shifted.
Not Savannah.
Eleanor Reed stepped into my bay as if security were ornamental.
The guard moved. “Ma’am, you can’t—”
“It’s fine,” I said, though every nerve in my body disagreed.
Eleanor looked down at me with the same polished cruelty I remembered from fifteen years ago.
“You need to leave my daughter alone.”
I laughed once, and pain stabbed through my ribs. “I’m in a hospital bed.”
“Don’t be clever.”
“Hard not to be. I’m heavily medicated and emotionally cornered.”
Her mouth tightened. “Savannah has responsibilities you can’t understand.”
“You mean the board? The clinics? Grant’s family money?”
Her eyes flickered.
I smiled without humor. “He mentioned enough.”
“She was raised for more than a small life with a man who works airport gates.”
“There it is.”
“What?”