Code Triage Novel – After we got married, I found out that he had intercourse with another woman behind my back. He claimed that it was a short-lived relationship, but I don’t believe it. If he cheated once, he would cheat countless times. Love is worth fighting for, but this marriage is not worth it. I want a divorce. – I asked tremblingly: “Explain it.” He scratched his hair with his hands and said impatiently, “Sam is the sister of my late friend. I should take care of her more. I owe her.” I smiled sarcastically: “Do you need to take care of her like this? In bed?” He said, “Leigh, this was just a momentary impulse. I treat her as my sister. Don’t let this affect our relationship, okay?” I took off my wedding ring and threw it to him, “Screw you, prick.”
Leigh stared at her husband’s lover. Samantha Gordon’s lilac blue eyes were unblinking, her expression composed. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry.” Leigh breathed through her nose, fighting an alarming wave of nausea. Was this really the shadowy apparition who crowded so many ugly, angry nightmares? Her gaze moved over the woman’s face. Sharp, narrow. Too much makeup, short hair . . . Nick likes long hair. Why, why . . . ? “Sorry?” Leigh rose to her feet, finding satisfaction in the fact that despite her modest height, she still topped the Child Crisis investigator by at least two inches. “You’re sorry? Now that’s . . . a word.” Sam chewed her gum for moment. “I don’t expect you to believe me.” Leigh’s heart thudded in her ears, shouting escape as insistently as Frisco’s hoofbeats against a clay trail. “What exactly do you expect from . . . this?” Sam glanced away and sighed, her breath a humid waft of cinnamon. She ran her fingers through her hair and met Leigh’s gaze again.
“I expect that we—all of us; you, me, Nick—can be adults.” For the first time, her expression showed a hint of vulnerability. “And I expect that things will get easier for Nick soon. So he can move on with his life. My brother’s death hit him hard. And coming so soon after your separation . . .” She nodded, the softness in her expression gone. “Being with me and my little daughter helps him.” She has a child? Leigh’s breath stuck. Sam saw it and smiled. “Elisa’s three. Nick’s good with her. I’m sure you know how much a family means to him. Losing his mother the way he did, being raised in foster care—” “Don’t.” Leigh raised her palm. “Don’t you dare.” The nausea swirled again. “Don’t stand there and presume to explain my husband to me.” She realized with horror that she’d started to tremble. Sam took a step backward but kept her gaze leveled at Leigh. “All I’m saying is that I understand where he’s coming from. We’re very much alike. And I want you to know that I think you’re doing the right thing. With the divorce. It’s hard on Nick right now; he’s confused.
But that won’t last forever. It never does.” Leigh bit into her lower lip, grateful for the wail of a siren in the distance. “Looks like you’ve got more work to do,” Sam said, her voice completely matter-of-fact. As if their entire conversation had been that way. “So do I.” She patted her briefcase and then leave. She hugged her arms around herself. Then why, oh why, was she having such a hard time with this now? Why did seeing that woman standing there today make her feel so . . . Oh, please no. Leigh clapped her hand over her mouth and raced toward the restroom as her stomach, empty since Mrs. Thomas’s home-baked cookies, finally refused to cope. Afterward, she washed her face, rinsed her mouth, and walked back to the ER to finish her shift. She didn’t want to delay any longer, the marriage had to end sooner rather than later, and she returned to their previous home. “You’re still here?” Leigh crossed the shadowy lawn to the hedge, careful to avoid the scattered rakes, bundled leaf bags, and wheelbarrow piled high with clippings.
Nick turned, shirtless and wearing faded Levis, holding a pair of heavy-duty pruning shears. Behind him the full moon, ember orange in the fading sunlight, climbed in the early evening sky. “I thought you’d be finished by now.” “Took longer than I figured.” He swiped a hand across his perspiring forehead and laughed. He shifted beside her and cleared his throat. Her pulse quickened and she spoke before he could. “Did you get those last boxes packed?” “I don’t want to talk about boxes.” There was another stretch of silence, filled only by the muted sounds of Geary Street traffic and faint sprinklings of childish laughter from the Chan house two doors down. She calculated the risk of dashing through the deepening twilight. “The lemon tree looks bad,” he said, his tone remarkably similar to the one she used to inform family members of a grim prognosis.
“I could take it, trim the branches back. Get it some of that citrus food.” “No.” She rubbed her arms again, blaming the chill on encroaching bay fog. “It’s okay where it is.” “It’s dying. You’re letting it die, Leigh.” “I’m what?” she asked, hearing the accusation in his tone and feeling the ruthlessly unfair barb of it strike deep. “Let me get this straight: I’m killing the lemon tree. I’m taking lousy care of my sister. What’s next? I’m failing to roll out the red carpet so your girlfriend can waltz through my ER anytime she wants?” She raised a palm, saw that it was trembling. “And wait—let me guess. Next I’ll be a shrew for saying that I hate it—hate it—that you’re stuffing her down my throat at the stables.” He took a step closer and started to reach out but stopped. “C’mon. I’m not saying any of that. You know I’m not. You know me.”
Tears stung her eyes. “I thought I did, once. But . . .” She shook her head. “The only thing I know now is that I’m not going to have to deal with this much longer. You can’t know how good that makes me feel. And here’s all you need to know.” She raised her hand and touched her fingers one by one as if she were instructing a patient for aftercare. “The lemon tree doesn’t matter. Caro is doing great.” She took a breath and looked him full in the face as she ticked off her last point. “I need the last of your boxes out before the leasing agency—” “They’re out.” “Good.” He stared at her for a moment before retrieving his shirt and yanking it over his head. “I’ll bag up what’s in the wheelbarrow and put the tools away. Then I’ll go.” “Good,” she said again, her heart cramping as she walked back to the house. Twenty minutes later, she heard his car start. She held her breath as it idled at the curb and pulled away. Family. Leigh spread her hands over her abdomen, imagining once again how it would have felt to have carried the baby to term. To have him or her in this house now.
Three months old, beginning to smile, blinking up at her with eyes as dark as Nick’s. Her throat squeezed around the ache of the what-ifs: What if she’d told him as soon as she’d suspected she was pregnant? What if planning for a baby had stopped the arguments? prevented Nick’s downward spiral of grief after Toby’s death—kept him from turning to Sam? She stood, angry with herself for going down that path again. She hadn’t wanted a baby; that had been one of the reasons they’d argued. The timing in her career, the danger in his; she hadn’t felt ready. To imagine that telling him would have changed anything, stopped things from ending up where they were right now . . . The image of his face came to her.
His expression as he’d stood near the hedge, talking about the lemon tree. “You’re letting it die.” It had felt like he’d been talking about so much more than a tree. As if he was blaming her for all of it. After what he did? The familiar anger swept back, and she welcomed the way it wrestled down the painful doubts. A baby wouldn’t have changed things. Their marriage had been floundering. They’d separated; it was ending though they hadn’t dared to say it aloud. Even if she’d agreed to stick with the Christian couple’s counseling, it wouldn’t have helped. Their marriage had been as doomed as that lemon tree.