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I sip my coffee, grateful for the long-awaited caffeine. “My mom had a lot of visitors?”
“Oh, and I wanted to say,” Lucas continues, “I’m really sorry again that I called you out of the blue after she died like that, and didn’t call you earlier. She’d been going downhill for a couple of nights, and I suggested to her that I call you. But she wouldn’t let me. I have to respect my patients’ wishes, but . . .” He sighs. “I should have called anyway. I’m sorry I didn’t. I wanted to come to the wake, pay my respects and tell you that, but I had to work.”
I’m still stuck on “plentyof visitors.”
“It’s okay. You were doing your job.” I sip my coffee again, trying to seem casual. “Who visited my mom?”
“Some of her church friends came by on their own. I offered to call whoever she wanted, but she only had me call two people to come see her. Father Preston and Noah Sawyer.”
I go still, the coffee halfway to my mouth. “Noah Sawyer? Why him?”
Lucas spreads one arm along the top of the booth. “No idea. She was asleep the first time he visited, so he came back a second time, the night before she passed.”
Silence settles between us.
“Did they talk?” I ask.
“I’m not sure. I left shortly after he arrived. My shift was over. I wasn’t working a double for a change.”
Lucas and I chat some more, and he finishes up eating while I get my caffeine fix. He’s good company, or at least he would be if I were able to stop thinking about Noah visiting Mom in the hospital. It’s a small town, and sure, they attend the same church—but it’s strange. Unless Mom knew we were fooling around and wanted to chew him out about it. But I can’t imagine she did, andwhy the hell wouldn’t he mention that to me if he wasn’t hiding something?
The bill comes, and Lucas pays before I can object. I dig for cash, but he presses a hand over mine, grins. “I got this, Elizabeth. If I have the pleasure of your company for another meal, you can pay next time, if you want. Fair?”
I hesitate, but Lucas paying feels different from when Sam or some other man I dated paid. “Okay. Thank you.”
We step outside together. A misting rain has begun, slowly turning the world gray and foggy. Lucas pulls up the hood of his sweatshirt. “I almost forgot. I wanted to ask if you’ve picked your mom’s things up from the hospital. Sometimes people don’t bother because it’s just more to sort through, but your mom had rosary beads with her. They seemed importantto her. ”
“I didn’t realize I needed to.”
Lucas frowns. “The hospital should have called. But they’re so short-staffed lately, a lot falls through the cracks. Everything should still be there.”
“Thank you.” We give each other another hug.
“I hope I get to see you again before you leave.”
“I’d like that,” I say. And I mostly mean it.
“I’ll text you.”
“Okay.”
“Be careful driving. The back roads still get slick when they’re first wet, especially the country roads where your mom lives.”
“I will.” Though I already know it won’t be an issue. Because Mom’s house is not where I’m going.
CHAPTER
37
Hi. Can you tell me where I go to pick up a person’s belongings, a patient who died?”
The volunteer in the pink smock leans forward over the desk and points down the hall. “The clerk’s office in the admissions department should be able to help you out. You make a right after the elevator bank. They’re doing some painting in that area at night, so the floors are covered in brown paper, and it looks like you’ve made a wrong turn, but you haven’t.”
“Thank you.”
I head in that direction, but when I reach the elevator bank and one of the car doors slides open, I make a last-minute decision. I step inside and push a button on the panel. It’s pretty crazy to think that barely over a month has gone by since my first visit up to the ICU, when I found out just how sick my mother was. It feels more like a year. The last few weeks have really taken a toll on me. At the fourth floor, I step off and walk to the nurses’ station.
“Hello. My mother was a patient here in the ICU, Theresa Davis. She passed away last week, and I didn’t think to come collect her things until now. Is this where they would be kept?”