“I didn’t help. I should have handled… everything… better.”

“Well, none of us helped, either.” He rubbed his face. “I don’t want to go into it now, but… we all should have handled everything differently. Starting a long time ago.”

While her father fell silent, Therese refocused on her mahmen’s frail face, the closed eyes, the veins that were showing under the skin. As she considered her righteous anger, she saw a truth that, like her selfishness, she had been blinded to.

She’d thought she had endless time with them. In spite of the fact that she had known about her mahmen’s heart condition and the reason why her parents were moving somewhere warmer, she had never considered the possibility that she wouldn’t be able to talk to her mahmen again. Never, not once. And as a result of there being an infinite opportunity to fix things, she had been totally inclined to let the situation fester.

Which was ridiculous.

Yet there had been no pressure to fix the rift. No super ordinal to wipe away the hurt and betrayal to reveal the love underneath. She had assumed she could dwell forever in the state of separation that she had created, justified in her hurt and anger—and in doing so, she had squandered a gift she hadn’t realized she’d been given.

And now, as she sat at the bedside of her dying mahmen, the anger she had felt toward her parents and her brother was transmuted… and placed upon herself.

“I am so sorry,” she said as she looked at her mahmen’s hollow face.

“You’re here now,” her father repeated for the third time. “That is all that matters.”

Okay, that was so untrue.

She had learned her lesson, however. There was still time to make amends.

It would be an imperfect attempt, however, as who knew whether her mahmen could hear.

Oh, and then there was Gareth. She wasn’t sure how much she had to work with when it came to him.

No, that was a lie.

Given where he was at, she had less than nothing to go on with her brother.

* * *

Sitting in the waiting room, Trez hit up Xhex’s cell and put his phone to his ear. One ringy-dingy. Two ringy-dingies. Three—

Down at the far end of the hall, a big male walked out of one of the patient rooms with an expression on his face like someone had just taken a hammer to the hood of his car. He was a sweatshirt-and-jeans kind of guy, and when he took a pack of Marlboros out of the back pocket of said Levi’s, somehow it wasn’t a surprise.

He looked like he could use a cigarette.

Or several hundred.

—four ringy-dingies. Five—

The male stopped in front of the nurse. “I need to have a smoke. There has to be somewhere in here that I can light up.”

The female behind the counter opened her mouth like she was going to out-of-the-question, against-regulations the guy. Except then she seemed to take pity on him.

“Just go out in the hall and down to the right,” she said. “No one should bother you. But take this.”

She handed him over a soda bottle with a screw top. “Do not ash on the linoleum. And if anyone asks you, do not tell them I said you could.”

“Thank God,” the male said with relief. Then he leaned in. “How long have you been trying to quit?”

“Three years, seven months, four nights…” She checked her watch and tacked on dryly, “and twenty-three minutes. And yes, I’ve done the patches and the gum, and nothing beats the real thing.”

“Bless you.”

As the male left, Xhex’s voice mail kicked in. Which was to say an automated voice announced her number and instructed any callers to leave a message.

Trez killed the connection and stared at his phone. For no good reason, he thought about how much he hated people who didn’t personalize their answering message. It made him feel like he was tossing whatever he wanted to leave on there into a trash can, never to be retrieved or replied to. At least his head of security had a reason to keep her ID on lockdown. But still.

Although even if she had recorded some kind of Hey, this is Xhex, leave a message, he didn’t know what he would have said.

And actually, Xhex would be more likely to put out something like, “This is Xhex, I’m not going to tell you to leave a goddamn message. What the hell do you think this is for, asshat. Christ on a crutch, if I have to tell you what to do here you got more problems than me not answering your stupid call.”

Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep.

As he debated whether to try again—and found progress in the fact that at least he was not trying to phone his symphath friend just to be reassured about a fallacy he had created—he was also tempted to call iAm. Even though, as with whatever he was going to say to Xhex, he didn’t have anything worked out in his head. The urge to hit them up was more a reflex born out of him feeling so adrift. But this was what people did, right? When things got off track, they called their nearest and dearest.

Maybe Rehv was right. Maybe he needed to get on meds and go for a little vacation—and not in a hang-himself-in-the-closet sense.

Or in a drown-in-the-Hudson kind of fashion.

As he shifted to the side and put his phone away, he looked down at his silk shirt and remembered his female—that female… Therese, he made himself say in his head… pointing out that he wasn’t wearing a jacket. It made him realize that he had a matching double-breasted masterpiece to go with these slacks. He’d been in such a rush to get out of the house, to see that female, that he hadn’t bothered to grab it and pull it on.

Which was kind of his theme song of late, was it not.

Moving so fast, he missed necessary pieces.

Glancing at the double doors of the unit, he told himself to stay put. For one, the female would be coming back out at some point, and she would want to know where he was. For another…

Oh, what did it matter. What did any of this matter?

“Therese,” he said softly, trying out the syllables.

The sound of the name in his ears carried along with it a raftload of anxiety, and with a curse, he got to his feet and walked out of the unit, unable to stand still. In the corridor beyond, he put his hands on his hips and took some deep breaths—

“You got someone in there, too?”

As a male voice spoke up, he looked over to the right. It was the guy who had walked by the nursing station, the one who had been given permission to smoke on the DL. The one who had the same coloring as Therese. Who seemed to have come out of the same patient room she had gone into.

Trez nodded. “In a way, yes.”

“You want one?” the male asked as he held out a packet of Marlboros.

“I don’t smoke.” He went over. “But sure.”

“You don’t smoke, or you don’t want to smoke.”

Trez accepted the soft pack and drew one of what was left out. “Does it matter.”

“Nope, not in the slightest.”

Catching the red Bic lighter that was tossed at him, Trez lit the tip of the cigarette and exhaled while he returned the flame-delivery device to its owner.

“I’m trying to quit,” the male said.

“Not going well, huh?” Trez turned the cigarette around and stared at the glow. “I work in a club, so I’m used to smoke.”