بخش 02 - فصل 15

15

She’s standing outside the 7-Eleven near the office, holding a pack of Winstons in one hand and plucking at the cellophane with the other. She hasn’t had a cigarette in almost five months, a new record, and she doesn’t want to start again now, but what she saw on Bill’s computer has torn a hole in the middle of a life she has spent the last five years mending. Bill Hodges is her touchstone, the way she measures her ability to interact with the world. Which is only another way of saying that he is the way she measures her sanity. Trying to imagine her life with him gone is like standing on top of a skyscraper and looking at the sidewalk sixty stories below.

Just as she begins to pull the strip on the cellophane, her phone rings. She drops the Winstons into her purse and fishes it out. It’s him.

Holly doesn’t say hello. She told Jerome she didn’t think she could talk to him on her own about what she’s discovered, but now—standing on this windy city sidewalk and shivering inside her good winter coat—she has no choice. It just spills out. “I looked on your computer and I know that snooping’s a lousy thing to do but I’m not sorry. I had to because I thought you were lying about it just being an ulcer and you can fire me if you want, I don’t care, just as long as you let them fix what’s wrong with you.”

Silence at the other end. She wants to ask if he’s still there, but her mouth feels frozen and her heart is beating so hard she can feel it all over her body.

At last he says, “Hols, I don’t think it can be fixed.”

“At least let them try!”

“I love you,” he says. She hears the heaviness in his voice. The resignation. “You know that, right?”

“Don’t be stupid, of course I know.” She starts to cry.

“I’ll try the treatments, sure. But I need a couple of days before I check into the hospital. And right now I need you. Can you come and pick me up?”

“Okay.” Crying harder than ever, because she knows he’s telling the truth about needing her. And being needed is a great thing. Maybe the great thing. “Where are you?”

He tells her, then says, “Something else.”

“What?”

“I can’t fire you, Holly. You’re not an employee, you’re my partner. Try to remember that.”

“Bill?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m not smoking.”

“That’s good, Holly. Now come on over here. I’ll be waiting in the lobby. It’s freezing outside.”

“I’ll come as fast as I can while still obeying the speed limit.”

She hurries to the corner lot where she parks her car. On the way, she drops the unopened pack of cigarettes into a litter basket.