Chapter 7 - Palm Up
Six months later, Emmett returned to bed twelve.
This time, nobody was dying.
Ashgrove Memorial had changed leadership. Several former administrators were awaiting trial. Families whose loved ones had died under suspicious circumstances were finally receiving answers.
The west wing had been renovated.
Bed twelve was now part of a patient-family consultation suite funded by the Maeve Kavanaugh Foundation.
Faye stood near the window.
“You're late.”
Emmett checked his watch.
“Forty seconds.”
“Late.”
“You've become impossible.”
“I was impossible when you met me.”
“You were pointing a syringe at my neck.”
“And you still approached me.”
“I've made mistakes.”
She smiled.
Emmett walked beside her.
On the wall was a small photograph of Maeve Kavanaugh.
Not the elegant society photograph Emmett had expected.
Faye had chosen one showing Maeve laughing.
“Where did you find that?”
“Your aunt.”
“You contacted Aunt Bridget?”
“She likes me.”
“She likes nobody.”
“She likes me.”
Emmett shook his head.
“Terrifying.”
Faye looked at Maeve’s photograph.
“Do you remember what I told you that morning?”
“What morning?”
“The morning your mother died.”
Emmett became quiet.
“I remember what you did.”
He turned his hand palm upward.
“But I never remembered the sentence.”
Faye looked at his hand.
“I told you, ‘You don't have to hold someone tightly to keep loving them.’”
Emmett stared at her.
For three years, he had tried to recover those words.
Now they were finally back.
“My mother heard that?”
“Yes.”
“What did she do?”
“She squeezed your hand.”
Emmett looked toward Maeve’s photograph.
Faye waited.
She had learned something important about him.
Silence did not always need to be filled.
Finally he said, “Patrick pleaded guilty this morning.”
“I heard.”
“Sully gets sentencing next month.”
“I know.”
“He wrote to me.”
“Are you going to answer?”
“Eventually.”
Faye nodded.
That was enough.
They walked downstairs.
Outside the hospital, rain had begun falling.
Emmett stopped beneath the entrance canopy.
“You hate rain now?”
Faye asked.
“No.”
“You're staring at it.”
“The last time I found you in the rain, you threatened to inject me.”
“I was having a bad night.”
“You were bleeding beside an overturned truck.”
“I said it was bad.”
He laughed.
A black sedan waited at the curb.
But instead of approaching it, Emmett held out his hand.
Faye looked down.
Palm upward.
She placed her hand in his.
Not trapped.
Not held too tightly.
Just resting there.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“Dinner.”
“You made reservations?”
“Yes.”
“At a normal restaurant?”
“Yes.”
“No private dining room?”
“No.”
“No armed men at the next table?”
Emmett hesitated.
Faye stopped.
“Emmett.”
“They're across the street.”
She pulled her hand away.
“Absolutely not.”
“Faye—”
“Send them home.”
“One.”
“Home.”
“Two?”
“Home.”
“Do you understand how security works?”
“Do you understand how dating works?”
“No.”
“Clearly.”
He stared at her.
Then he pulled out his phone.
“Go home,” he said when someone answered.
A pause.
“Yes, all of you.”
Another pause.
“Because she said so.”
Faye covered a laugh.
Emmett ended the call.
“Happy?”
“Very.”
She took his hand again.
They walked into the rain.
Six months earlier, Faye Corbin had believed she had nobody.
She had been wrong.
The families she helped had become part of her life.
The nurses who stood beside her had become friends.
And Emmett had become something neither of them had expected.
Not her rescuer.
Not her protector.
Her partner.
Emmett had changed too.
The south docks still knew his name.
But fear was no longer the only thing attached to it.
The foundation carrying Maeve’s name had helped hundreds of patients.
His legitimate businesses employed men who once believed crime was their only future.
And every November nineteenth, Emmett and Faye visited Maeve’s grave together.
That first year, Faye placed flowers beside the stone.
Emmett stood silently beside her.
Then Faye felt his hand touch hers.
Palm upward.
She rested her hand inside it.
“Still holding too tightly?” he asked.
Faye smiled.
“No.”
“Good.”
She leaned against him.
“You finally learned.”
Emmett looked at his mother's name carved into the stone.
Then at the woman beside him.
“Apparently I had a good nurse.”
Faye squeezed his hand.
For once, Emmett Kavanaugh did not need to control what happened next.
May you like
He simply held on gently.
And this time, the person he loved wasn't leaving.
