“Zoë, can you get the door,
please?” Morgan asks. “I have to get this bird out of the oven.”
“Sure.”
I welcome his family. The kids come
rushing in followed by José. Hairs on my body stand on end when Jodi walks in.
She gasps when she sees me. Looking at her with a blank stare, I cast a dry hi
in her direction.
Barney hugs me. He’s wearing one of
his cute argyle ensembles again, this time in rust and khaki. “Nice to see you’re
back up on your feet.”
“Thanks, Barney. Happy
Thanksgiving.” I give him a warm squeeze.
In the background, I hear José say
to Morgan, “I hope you don’t mind. Just as we were leaving the house, Jodi
dropped by. I invited her to join us.”
What’s he supposed to do, José?
Say she’s not welcome in front of her? Not as if the bitch didn’t already know
that, yet still she accepted the invitation.
“Oh… Hi, Jodi,” Morgan replies.
“Where’s Robin?”
“She’s on her way. She had to stop
by the store to pick up some things for our trip tomorrow.”
By now, I’ve joined them as they
sit around the island facing Morgan.
Standing next to Morgan, I say
sweetly, “Since Jodi’s joining us, I’ll set another place at the table.”
“Zoë, I didn’t know you’d be here,”
Jodi continues in a rather provocative tone.
I know she’s trying to antagonize
me—the cantankerous bitch that she is.
“Oh
,
Robin didn’t tell you?”
Morgan responds. “We live together now.” He smiles and winks at me.
I wish I had a camera to capture
the look on that woman’s face. Her mouth drops open.
My chest flutters at his response
and for a second he looks at me. My eyes lock onto his, and it feels like the
drama of the last few weeks didn’t happen. The spark in his eyes has returned.
Stammering, she says, “Oh… oh really?
No, she didn’t tell me.”
I head to the dining room and make
sure I put her tableware right next to Barney, two empty spaces between her and
myself. I figure Robin will want to sit next to her husband and the kids.
I wonder what Jodi’s intentions are
coming here tonight, especially considering the
good riddance
she got
the last time she was here.
Then I remember that she works with
Morgan at the clinic, although I’m not sure in what capacity. I wonder if
things have changed between them since the party. For a second, I start to lose
control of my thoughts, but when I remember how things backfired the last time
I didn’t trust Morgan, I make the decision to trust him to handle this.
Besides, he’s already done a bang up job with his first response to her tonight.
“Mommy’s here! Mommy’s here!”
I hear the screams from the twins.
“Zoë,” Morgan says minutes later.
“I’d like you to meet my sister, Robin Fuente.”
I glance up. Her red hair is neatly
tucked into a ballerina bun at the back of her head. When her emerald green
eyes meet mine, I freeze.
The woman before me is
Dr.
Fuente.
Oh Mon Dieu!
The glass slips from my hand and
crashes on the floor.
Dr. Fuente
was
one of the doctors who lied
to me about my brother’s death.
Immediately, Morgan and I lean
over to pick up the shattered pieces.
I’m torn and confused, and I’m not
sure exactly what I should say or do. As I pick up the broken glass, a shard goes
into my finger.
“Zoë, be careful,” Morgan says,
pulling my hand away. Blood drips onto the rug.
“Oh gosh,” I finally blurt out,
wanting it to seem like an accident and not shock. “I’m such a klutz. It’s a
pleasure to meet you. I’ve heard so much about you. It’s too bad that it’s
taken all this time.” I reach out to shake her hand.
She stares at me for a moment then
quickly breaks eye contact with me. “I… I know. It’s been a crazy few months. I’ve
been travelling a lot for medical conferences.”
“You look familiar. Have we met?”
“No. I don’t think so.”
“Excuse me while I get a bandage on
this. Morgan, can you clean up the glass please?”
“Sure. I’ll come to check on you in
a sec.”
Morgan heads to the kitchen while I
go to the bathroom upstairs to get a pair of tweezers.
I sit on the toilet seat and try
not to panic. I feel like I’m about to go off the deep end. How do I handle
this? Do I even tell Morgan that his sister—
Dr. Fuente
—accompanied the
doctors who lied to me about the cause of my brother’s death?
Can I even trust Morgan with that?
Wouldn’t he want to protect his sister from legal trouble? And why didn’t he
tell me she worked at the hospital, too? Is it possible he doesn’t know?
Am I too eager to judge her on
this? Could she be innocent in all this? Perhaps not, otherwise she would not
have lied about our meeting. Is it possible she just doesn’t remember me? How
can I sit with a smiling face and pretend everything is okay, knowing what I
know?
“Zoë, are you okay?” Morgan pushes
the bathroom door open. “Did you get it out?”
I barely look him in the eye. “No.
Not yet,” I murmur.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” I say, digging through my
cosmetic case and coming up with a pair of tweezers.
He takes them from me. “You need to
be careful. In addition to those burns, you could have cut yourself tonight.
Give me your hand.”
I don’t respond. I place my hand in
his and try to think of the best way to handle things.
“Zoë… Zoë…”
“Yes?”
“What’s going on with you? Your
hands are trembling.”
“I don’t feel well.”
“What’s wrong?”
“I have a queasy stomach. Let’s go
have dinner. We shouldn’t keep your family waiting.”
“Is this about Jodi?”
“Well, I’m not pleased she’s here,
but you had no control over that. Let’s go. I’ll lie down after everyone
leaves.”
For now, he agrees. After pulling
the glass from my finger, we return to the table downstairs.
“Everything okay?” Barney asks.
“Yes, it just took us some time to
find a pair of tweezers,” Morgan responds.
“I’m okay. Thanks, Barney.” He
looks at me questioningly and smiles, but I think he senses something is wrong.
I fake it through dinner, mostly
pushing food around on my plate.
My thoughts run wild as I ponder
all the implications of this. This will definitely ruin any chance of a future
that I might have had left with Morgan and coming to that realization hurts. He’s
going to have to pick a side, and I’m scared whose side that might be, given
the choice.
Soon, it’s time to say goodbye. It
takes every ounce of self-control for me to pretend that I had a wonderful time
and bid farewell to Robin and her family.
“Don’t forget, I’m just a phone
call away,” Barney whispers in my ear as he hugs me goodbye. Smiling at him, I
don’t respond. I know he sees through my façade.
“I’m going to lie down,” I say as
Morgan shuts the front door.
“I want you to tell me what’s
wrong, Zoë. Something happened here tonight, and I want to know what it is.”
Evidently, Morgan sees through it,
too. I refuse to look into his eyes. “I’m sorry. I can’t talk about it now.”
“Can’t or won’t?”
“I just want to go to bed,” I say,
walking toward the stairs.
“You don’t trust me, do you?”
Continuing up the stairs, I
respond. “I’m sorry, Morgan. I’ll talk to you in the morning.”
I could use a friend and some good
advice now, but Jada doesn’t answer any of her phones when I call.
I need to get out. I need to find
some way to clear my head. Before, I would have gone for a drive and I’d be
fine, but now I can’t so much as step outside without eyes or attention on me.
I collapse in the egg chair in the corner of the room and gaze at the view… and
the guards. Peaches is coiled up at the foot of the bed.
A knock sounds on the door and
Morgan enters. His eyes are dark, and his skin is deep red.
“Zoë, I’m only going to ask you one
time,” he says calmly. “What is going on with you?”
I look out at the view and mutter,
“I can’t tell you.”
“Why?”
“I just can’t.”
He walks over and places his arms
on either side of the chair. Leaning into me, his eyes are boring into mine.
“Tell me.”
I’ve never seen him angry, and
although his voice is low, I feel the fury that emits from his body.
I remain quiet.
He paces the floors and eventually
settles in front of the desk. With his back to me, he leans over on his
clenched fists. Then he turns to face me and after taking another huge breath
of air, he says quietly. “You have to tell me.”
I shake my head in response.
“Now, Zoë!” he shouts, ramming his
hand into the wall.
I jolt at the sound of his fist
colliding with the concrete.
“What are you going to do? Beat me
up if I don’t tell you?” I shout. “Just try it, and I’ll introduce you to a
whole new Zoë Jenkins. You don’t intimidate me. I’m not scared of you.”
Raking his hands through his hair
and softening his tone, he responds, “Stop being ridiculous. I’d never lay a
hand on you.”
I gaze at him in silence.
“Zoë, I’m sorry,” he says, stepping
back. He closes his eyes, leans his head back and takes a deep breath. “Zoë, I
can’t help you if you don’t talk to me,” he says softly, squatting before me.
“You have to trust me. Please.”
“Morgan, you can’t help me with
this. I have to figure it out on my own, and as much as I’d like to trust you—right
now, I can’t.”
“After all this time? Why do you
continue to shut me out? Why can’t you see that I’m here for you? That I’ll
always be here for you?”
Searching his eyes, I so
desperately want to believe him. Yet, if I tell him, I’m risking this whole
investigation. He will at the very least want to question Robin about this. And
with the police wanting to conduct this investigation undercover, I can’t be
certain that him approaching her won’t tip the hospital off or make all sorts
of evidence conveniently disappear.
A huge part of me feels guilty.
None of this is his fault, and I’m sure he would be just as shocked if he knew.
For a moment, he closes his eyes
and massages his temples. Placing his hand over mine, he says softly. “Zoë, you
can’t continue to always bottle up everything inside and push people away.
Please, tell me what’s wrong.”
Gazing at him for a few moments, I’m
unable to find the words. This is it. I have to make a decision, to trust or
not to trust. I want to trust him but…
“Your sister… your sister…” I
respond, trying to maintain a calm voice and not completely fall apart.
“What about my sister?”
“She was the doctor who was with
Doctor Roberts and Doctor Francis when he lied to me about the cause of Zach’s
death.”
Slowly, he rises to his feet, then
sinks to the edge of the bed, staring at me. “What?”
“I’m positive it’s her.”
“Zoë, that doesn’t make sense,” he
says softly. “She doesn’t even work at Mount Sierra.”
“I’m not lying about this. You
think I want this? You think I’d make this up?”
“I don’t think you’re lying. Maybe
you’re just mistaken, or maybe if she was there, there’s some logical
explanation.”
“Just like I was mistaken about
them telling me anaphylactic shock killed my brother?”
“All I’m saying is there must be
some reasonable explanation.”
“Defend her if you want, but I know
what I saw, and I’m not crazy. Same red hair. Same ballerina bun. Same green
eyes, and tonight she wore the same black earrings she wore then.”
“If it
was
her, there must
be some logical explanation.”
“Explain to me what kind of logical
explanation there might be for doctors to fabricate an autopsy report and give
it to me. It’s fine if you want to stick with her, that’s what families are
supposed to do, but you shouldn’t expect me to back off on this just because
your sister is involved in my brother’s death.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I knew this would happen if I told
you. You want to know what I
do
know? I know my brother died, at the
hospital you work for. And three doctors, Doctor Fuente, Doctor Francis and
Doctor Roberts, gave me a falsified document, lying to me about how my brother
died.”
“Zoë, you can’t expect to give me
all this information and not give me any time to process it.”
“Process what? How do we fix this?
Don’t you think it’s strange that your sister would work at the same hospital
as you and not tell you? The sister you’re
supposed
to be so close to.
Even if she just happened to be visiting, don’t you think that’s something she
would have mentioned? That’s like me coming to the clinic or the hospital and
never saying a word to you. Doesn’t that seem at all suspicious?”
“I admit that is peculiar, but I
owe it to her to hear her side. She’s my sister. I can’t just make assumptions.
Why won’t you trust me?”
“Because blood is thicker than
water, and I don’t want to be the one responsible for the rift this is certain
to cause. One way or another, the truth is going to come out. When it does, I
don’t want to put you in a position where you have to pick between your family
and me.”
“Wait a minute, Zoë. You’re getting
way ahead of yourself. We haven’t even heard her side. And if that time comes,
shouldn’t that be my decision to make?”
“All I know is that the
circumstances of our lives seem to cause each other hurt and pain. I’m tired of
this roller coaster ride. I’ve lost everything that’s important to me, and I
don’t think I can handle any type of disappointment or loss again anytime
soon.”
“You never lost me.”
I stare at him. This afternoon,
that statement would have been music to my ears. Now…
My phone rings, and it’s Jada at
the other end of the line.
“Hi…” I answer.
“What’s wrong?”
“Do you think you could come pick
me up? I need a ride to Zach’s house, please.”
“Zoë, that’s not necessary,” Morgan
mutters.
“That’s not safe,” Jada says. “Is
something going on with you and Morgan?”
“Yes, I need to get out of here.”
“Then you’ll stay with me; but
Jonathan and I won’t let you stay at Zach’s alone.”
“Fine.”
“Sweetie, it will be okay. Get your
things together. We’re close by. We’ll be there as soon as possible.”
Ending the call, I rise to my feet.
So does Morgan.
“I don’t want you to go. You
shouldn’t be out there. You’re risking your safety.”
“Morgan, thank you for everything
you’ve done for me, but I can’t continue to do this anymore.”
“Can’t you give me some time to
deal with this?”
“What will you do? Go talk to her,
as Christina Hernández asked you
not
to?”
“I don’t know. I need some time to
think.”
“Great. Then think about it, but I
don’t see how we could ever fix this. If you talk to her and she is involved in
this, it would tip off the hospital. I’m not going to stand by and knowingly
let you interfere in the investigation into my brother’s death.”
“Look, I want answers, too.”
“And you don’t think Robin’s
involvement in this presents a conflict of interest?”
“I admit that it does, but I need
to try and figure this out.”
“You do that. But I’m going to tell
Christina Hernández about this.”
“I’d never ask you to lie or
withhold details of an investigation. I want to know what happened to Zach and
Catherine Modene just as much as you. More so. Regardless of what unfolds, I
will always be here for you.”
I’m overcome by his statement.
“I really want to believe that
Morgan, but I have no idea how we could ever move forward without one of us
getting hurt. I don’t want to hurt you or Barney or any of the rest of your
family, but I need to know what happened to Zach. As the investigation moves
forward, I just don’t see how it’s possible that I could ever avoid that.”
“Can I ask you a huge favor?”
“What’s that?”
“Please don’t make any decisions
about the future, at least not until you return from Cabo.”
“I don’t know, Morgan…”
“I don’t want you going out there.”
“It’s not your decision to make, is
it?”
“Zoë, I don’t want you to get
hurt.”
“Why are you making this so
difficult?” I cry, resting my forehead against his muscular chest. “I’ll only
end up hurting you and your family. And there’s no need for you to worry. I’ll
stay with Jada and Jonathan tonight.”
His phone goes off, and I know what
that means—Jada must be here. He sighs, answers in frustration, and quickly
ends the call.
“Zoë, please don’t go…” he
whispers, leaning over, slipping his hand to the side of my face then brushing
his lips past mine. My lips meet his, I want this but… Turning my head, I lean
my forehead against his then pull away. I’m a mess of emotions right now.