The Chair Beside the Bed

By Friday, Damian knew the sound of Tessa's laugh through a speaker.

It irritated him more than it should have.

She laughed differently with the cook than with his mother. With Rosa in the kitchen, it was quick and unrestrained. With Beatrice, she softened it, leaving room for his mother to join her or ignore her.

With Damian, she did not laugh at all.

"Perhaps you're not funny," Paul suggested.

Damian looked up from the monitor.

Paul deposited a shipping manifest on the desk. "There's a possibility."

"I want a fuller background on Miller."

The humor disappeared. "Something happen?"

"That's what I'm asking you to find out."

Paul's gaze went briefly to the screen. "How full?"

"Debt. Family. Anyone who might have put her here. Check the staff locker, too. Quietly."

"She's been cleared once."

"Then it should be easy."

Paul left without another joke.

Damian went back to his work. He approved a legitimate purchase of refrigerated trucks, declined an invitation from a city councilman, and told a harbor intermediary that threatening his drivers was a mistake the man had until evening to correct.

At two eighteen, the east wing alert appeared on his phone.

This time he went upstairs.

He heard the crash before he reached the corridor.

Leah stood inside the bedroom door, speaking in a low voice. A second nurse was moving a wheeled table out of reach. His mother stood beside the bed in her nightdress, trembling.

"You locked me in," she said.

"The door is open, Mrs. Costa," Leah answered. "We're giving you some space."

Damian stepped forward.

Beatrice recoiled.

"Don't let him near me."

The words stopped him more effectively than a hand against his chest.

A water pitcher lay shattered by the dresser. Tessa stood beyond it, a stack of clean towels pressed against her waist.

"Mr. Costa," Leah said softly. "Give her a moment."

He hated being spoken to like a problem. He hated more that she was right.

His mother reached toward the bedside table. A damaged picture frame lay there, one corner split by the fall.

Tessa set down the towels.

"Let me move that, Beatrice."

She caught the frame before the older woman closed her fingers around the exposed edge. Glass scraped her palm. Damian saw the line open.

He moved before he thought.

"Stay back," Tessa said.

Not sharply. Not to him, he realized a moment later. Her attention was on his mother.

"It's all right. I've got it."

Beatrice's face crumpled.

"I don't know where I am."

Tessa put the frame safely on the dresser. Blood marked the pale wood.

"I know. It feels strange today. Leah's right here. Would you like to sit down?"

His mother looked toward the bed, then the door.

Damian remained where she could see him without having to pass him.

It took several minutes. There was no single sentence that fixed it. Leah offered her arm. Tessa retrieved a familiar blue cardigan. His mother resisted the cardigan, then clutched it against her chest.

Eventually she sat.

Damian had faced men who wanted him dead with less uncertainty than he felt standing in that doorway.

When Beatrice began to cry, Tessa sat beside her. She let the older woman lean against her shoulder.

Damian looked at the blood on Tessa's hand.

"You're hurt."

She glanced down. "It's not deep."

"You don't know that."

Leah looked over. "I'll take care of it as soon as Mrs. Costa's settled."

"Get someone else."

Tessa lifted her eyes to his. For the first time since he had met her, there was no caution in them, only impatience.

"You're upsetting her."

He looked at his mother. Her breathing had quickened again.

He stopped speaking.

Twenty minutes later, Leah led Tessa into the adjoining sitting room with a first-aid tray. Damian followed.

"Sit," he said.

Tessa looked at the chair, then at him. "That was my plan."

Leah hid a smile while rinsing the cut.

There was blood on Tessa's sleeve. The sight made something ugly and protective move inside him. He wanted the glass gone, the frame replaced, every sharp thing in the room removed before anyone else could be hurt.

Instead he stood still while the nurse dressed her palm.

"You may need it checked if the pain increases," Leah told her. "I'll write down what to watch for. Keep it clean and tell Mrs. Alvarez you can't do wet work with that hand today."

"She's going home," Damian said.

Tessa's chin lifted. "I'm not leaving three hours early without pay."

"With pay."

"Then say that part first."

He stared at her.

Leah became very interested in closing the first-aid kit.

"With pay," Damian repeated.

Tessa looked down at her bandage. "Thank you."

The nurse went back to the bedroom.

Damian expected Tessa to gather her things. Instead she looked through the open doorway at Beatrice, who was staring at the empty chair beside her bed.

"Are you going to sit with her?"

"Leah's there."

"I know."

He understood the question then.

"She didn't want me near her."

Tessa's expression changed. She looked younger without the quick answer ready.

"She was frightened."

"Of me."

"Maybe. But she's calmer now. You could ask."

He had employees to issue instructions, doctors to explain the disease, security to manage every door. None of them had ever made walking six feet into a bedroom seem like something he might fail at.

Tessa stepped out of his way.

He went in.

"May I sit here?"

His mother looked at him suspiciously.

"Do you have to stand over me like that?"

He sat.

For a while neither spoke. Through the window he could see a cargo ship moving toward the harbor. Somewhere downstairs, a phone was ringing for him.

"Your hair," his mother said.

His hand rose before he could stop it.

"You always had that piece sticking up."

He looked at her.

Beatrice reached toward him, uncertainly, and he leaned forward until her fingers touched his temple.

"My boy."

His throat closed.

He held himself still beneath her hand. When she drew it back, he wanted to catch it, to insist she look again and remember him for another minute.

Instead he let her rest.

After she fell asleep, he stayed in the chair.

Tessa returned wearing her jacket. She paused at the door, saw him, and did not interrupt.

He stood to follow her into the hall.

"Does that happen often?"

"What part?"

"Her remembering."

"Sometimes."

"Nobody tells me."

Tessa adjusted the strap of her bag with her uninjured hand.

"You could be here when it happens."

The answer hurt because it contained no accusation.

He watched her leave.

Downstairs, Paul was waiting outside the office with a sealed folder.

"The background you asked for."

Damian took it.

On the first page was a photograph of Tessa outside a hospital. Her hair was shorter. Beside her stood a thin young woman with the same eyes and a grin so wide it made the family resemblance unmistakable.

Under the photograph was a name.

Emily Miller.

And below it, a date of death.