Page 84 of Tear Me Apart

She points to the hall, and he nods, and their silent dance continues until they are well away from Mindy’s door, the dog padding along beside them, nails clicking on the floor.

“She has the stomach flu,” Lauren says finally. “She’s been sick for several hours.”

“She’s so small,” Armstrong says.

“The last few days have been hard on her. Finding out she’s adopted, now getting sick on top of the treatments. She’s tough, but even the strongest can be laid low. I’m Lauren Wright. Mindy’s mother.” She puts out a hand. There is a touch of defiance in her tone.She’s mine, even though she’s yours, too.

“I’m Zack Armstrong. This is Kat.” The dog’s tail thumps against his leg.

Lauren notices Juliet hanging back, almost as if she wants to see how the two will handle things. What is she expecting, Lauren to scream and yell and clutch Mindy to her breast, not let him approach for fear of her child being stolen away? This man represents their best hope of saving Mindy’s life, and at this point, Lauren has abandoned all pretense, except for the tiny voice yellingmine mine minein the background.

“She’s a beautiful dog,” Lauren says.

“She’s a beautiful child,” Armstrong replies, and the raw pain in his voice almost makes her flinch.

“Let’s sit down.” Juliet points toward the family room at the end of the hall, but Lauren demurs.

“Mindy’s asleep now, but she’s been vomiting for five hours straight, and I don’t want to be too far away. Let’s talk here if you don’t mind.” That last bit is directed at Armstrong, who simply nods. “When she wakes up, we can introduce you.”

“Is she ready for that? Will the stress make her sicker? I don’t want to harm her in any way.” His voice catches, and Lauren touches his arm gently. It feels strange to touch him. He is warm and solid, and she snatches her hand back.

“Mr. Armstrong. She knows you’re out there, somewhere. I think we might be past stressing her out at this point. Besides, she has your eyes. That is going to fascinate her to no end.”

“Still. And please, it’s just Zack.”

Juliet checks her watch. “It’s nearly ten.I wish Cam would call. How long is this going to take?”

They stand awkwardly for a few moments, then Lauren smiles timidly. “Do you want to hear a story about her?”

His face transforms, forbidding to eager in a split second. “I would like to hear all her stories.”

“Okay. She was—is—terribly precocious. When she was five, we caught her scaling a bookshelf because she liked the cover of one of the books on the highest shelf. It was black and had stars on the spine, and she was completely fascinated. I pulled it down and handed it to her. It was one of Juliet’s astronomy texts from school that she’d left behind at our house—did Juliet tell you she wanted to go into the space program?”

Zack shakes his head. “We haven’t talked about much other than Mindy, Lauren.”

“Well, she did. She should have been an astronaut. She missed the cut by a fraction of a point.”

“Moving on,” Juliet says, blushing.

“Sorry, it still upsets me that you didn’t get in. Anyway, Mindy sits down on the couch with this huge book in her lap, so big it’s sticking out past her knees, and starts turning the pages. She can’t read well at this point, can handle some of the kid books by herself but not this. I sit down next to her, and she looks up at me and says, ‘Show me the Milky Way, Mommy. I want to see the candy bars in the sky.’”

Zack smiles, and Lauren grins at him. “She was so mad when she found out that the sky didn’t have chocolate in it. Milky Ways are her favorite, but she hardly ever eats them because they’re not good for her. She’s a health nut, it’s part of her training regimen. Nothing processed, nothing that isn’t natural. She’s an expensive eater.”

“Then we won’t talk about the things she’s been eating since she’s been in here,” Juliet says. “I will cop to handing over another box of Hot Tamales the other day.”

Zack has gone oddly quiet. Juliet notices.

“What’s wrong?”

He shakes himself like he’s coming awake. Maybe for the first time in years, he is, she thinks.

“Oh. It’s nothing. Milky Ways are my favorite candy, too. What else does she love?”

“Dogs, for one. She’s going to go mad for Kat. Sunflower seeds. She eats them from the bag like a baseball player, putting in a handful and spitting out the shells. Avocados, she puts them on everything. She hates watermelon, though. We can’t figure that one out.”

He looks stunned. “Vivian was allergic to watermelon.”

“I suppose that answers that.”