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"I'm sorry." The words weren't enough, but they were all she had. "He's … I love him."
"Yes. I can see that." Karl hadn't moved from the end of the bed, and in the midst of the incredible calm that had overtaken her, Sarah had to admire his sheer physical beauty.
How could a woman turn a man like that away? asked that little voice in the back of her head that liked to make comments on her life choices. Her mother's voice, she thought of it as, wanting her to choose happiness, take risks, be bold and decisive. Sarah had never been able to convince her mother that she was none of those things. Michael was. Or he had been. It was hard to explain to anyone now what a light he'd had, before his illness took hold of him, what an adventurer he'd been. After a while, she'd stopped trying, and now she didn't talk about him at all. Even her boss didn't know about Michael.
But now Karl did. That moment when he had forgiven her for answering the phone, and understood why she had needed to, would be one she would hold in her heart for a long time to come, curling around it alone at night like she did her old Chunky Bear. For that one sparkling minute, she had believed she could have it all, that she could have the love of a man like Karl, even for a short time, and still fulfill her responsibilities to her darling brother.
That moment was gone now. And while Sarah had made her choice with her eyes wide open, and she was at peace with it, Karl hadn't had the chance to make a choice. She supposed he could have chosen to wait until she went over to the hospital and dealt with Michael's troubles for the night and come back … but no man was that patient. Nor should he be. If you were with someone, you should be with them, and tonight had been a stark reminder that Sarah didn't have that kind of freedom, and never would.
"I'm going to go get a glass of water," she said. "Do you want one?"
"What? No. Thank you. I'm fine. I'll …" He gestured vaguely toward his clothes, which was what she had intended when she offered to absent herself from the room.
In the kitchen, Sarah ran the tap and filled a glass and drank the water down, even though she didn't want it, in order to give Karl time to pull himself together without her standing there watching him and waiting for him to be ready to go. Staring down into her sink, she let the hurt come for a moment, the loss of the fantasy that had sustained her through so many lonely nights. She was almost angry with Karl for letting it come true, even for a moment, because now she couldn't have it anymore.
Coming upstairs, she found him mostly dressed, shrugging into his suit jacket. Strange to think that she was hungrily stripping him out of those clothes less than an hour ago, and now here she was hurrying him out the door.
Karl found his coat, picking it up, and stood poised to go, but not sure about it.
The look in his eyes sent a shiver through her, telling her everything she had ever wanted to know about whether he returned her feelings. For the first time it occurred to her that maybe he had curled up with thoughts of her every night the way she had with thoughts of him, that he might have had dreams of them together to match the ones she had held close to her heart. She had never thought of herself as someone a man like Karl might dream about, and the reality of it was shocking and arousing and—heart-breaking, because she was the one turning him away.
"I … suppose I'll see you at work."
"Yes." Sarah realized she was still wearing only that bright pink slip, and she felt naked and chilled and a little bit ridiculous. "Drive safely." It was the lamest possible thing to say, and she winced inwardly.
"Right. Yes. Thank you." He offered her a smile, generous and gentlemanly to the last, and turned to go. Sarah followed him to the door. Karl stopped in the open doorway, looking down at her. "Good-night, Sarah."
"Good-night, Karl." She smiled back, finishing the familiar ritual, thinking painfully of all the nights she had so carefully made up her face for that final good-night, all the times she had hoped that just this once he might stop and talk and invite her out for a drink and the drink would turn to dinner and dinner would turn to going home together—but she'd never do that again, and the drink and the dinner and all the rest had come and gone and she had said no to it all.
Karl nodded and turned to go. Sarah watched his tall, slim figure until he was out of sight, then closed the door on everything she had wanted all these years.
Her phone was ringing, still on the nightstand upstairs, and she hurried up to grab it. "Yes, little darling. I'm on my way. Wait for me, all right? I'm coming. It'll be all right, I promise."
As she spoke, reassuring him, she was hurrying into clothes, the first ones she had grabbed, a far cry from the critical eye she had used when trying to dress for tonight's party.
"I'm on my way right now. Oh, hold on, my darling, please, wait for me."
On the other end of the line, Michael grumbled, but the terrible shrill urgency had left his voice for now, and he would be all right until she could get to him. Sarah shrugged into her coat, wrapped a scarf around her neck, and rushed back down the stairs, grabbing her keys on the way out.
All the way there she worried. Delusions of possession weren't new. Michael had believed in so many different causes of his illness, from spider bites to voodoo curses, anything to explain away the accident of brain chemistry that had taken his life from him so effectively. But every time he thought he had an answer it became so urgent that if he wasn't talked down quickly he could hurt himself, and the idea that even now he was reaching the end of his patience and thinking about that had Sarah's heart pounding in fear.
She was well known to the staff, who hurried her through the sign-in process and brought Michael into the visitors' room as soon as she was settled. The staff were good to him, and they took the best care of him they could, but no one calmed him the way she did.
His face brightened for a moment when he saw her, the old Michael looking out at her briefly, and Sarah smiled at him, seeing not the heavy, shambling man he had become in the throes of his illness, but the bright-eyed baby she had held, the chubby toddler running after her, the lean laughing teenager, the strong, confident young man who had been such fun to go adventuring with. How she missed him. She held out her arms. "Come here, little darling. We're going to make the pain go away."
She couldn't, not really, but she could help him sleep tonight, and she would be here tomorrow and every day after that for as long as he needed her. He was the life, the love, she had chosen, and while she would mourn the loss of her dream, she couldn't have had it any other way.