Page 116 of Pride, Prejudice, & Pretense

"Dr. James says they will, but how well they will function will be determined by nature and therapy."

"Thanks, Dr. McTaggart."

He took a long moment to look at her. "You need sleep, Miss Bennet. This was a traumatic night."

"After I've seen him."

"All right. I'm going to check on your mother again." He nodded and went into her mother's room.

"Lizzy!" It was Aunt Christine. Behind her by a step or two was Uncle Hubert. She ran the final steps toward Lizzy, her shoes echoing on the polished floor, and swept her niece into a hug?or as close to sweeping her into one as could be done cautiously.

In her aunt's arms, Lizzy suddenly let go, and she wept.

"It's okay, Lizzy. It's okay. We're here." She felt her uncle's hand rubbing her back.

On the phone, she had kept the details sparse, only relating what was essential. Now, led back into the empty waiting room by her aunt's warm, caressing hand, she sat down and quietly told them all that happened. She told it the way a Company agent might tell it. Exact and unemotional, the tone of a debrief.

That did not keep the Gardiners from being horrified and deeply concerned about her. Her aunt hugged her again. Uncle Hubert hugged her and shook his head, having previously learned Lizzy's CIA job from his wife. He and Lizzy had not acknowledged it to each other before now. "You're a remarkable woman, Elizabeth. We're proud of you." His words touched her deeply, helping to ease the nausea she had felt since the van.

The three sat together in silence for a while until a nurse came and told Lizzy that she could see Fitzwilliam. Her aunt leaned toward her with a broad wink before Lizzy stood. "TellNedwe love him already."

A nurse seated at the nurses' station waved at the nurse walking with Lizzy. "Is that Miss Bennet?"

"Yes, that's me," Lizzy answered for her.

"There's a call for you here. A Director Kellynch." The woman said the name as if she were unsure whether “Director” was a first name or a title.

As little as Lizzy wanted to talk to him right now, she changed direction and walked to the station. The woman hit a button on the phone, handed the receiver to Lizzy, and walked a few steps away to give her a bit of privacy.

"Director?"

"Lizzy, sorry to bother you, but how is Agent Darcy?"

"Okay, as far as I know. I'm about to go in to see him now."

"Did the locals trouble you? I threw my weight around?my considerable weight?and rather violently."

"No. The Rochester Chief of Police radioed the patrolmen on the scene. Everything was…fine after that. They were deferential."

"Good! Very good. I won't keep you long. I just wanted to know how he was doing—and I wanted to tell you something."

"What's that, sir?" The old habits of deference were hard to break.

"Tonight was…unpleasant, I know. But doesn't it prove to you that this is where you belong, that you are a Company woman? That this is your life? Come back home, Agent Bennet."

She exhaled slowly, and the very thing that Kellynch asked about flashed before her eyes. Her life.

Except that years of it had not really been hers. They belonged mostly to Kellynch and aliases, just as her weeks inChicago had belonged to Kellynch and Fanny. If her Company years were divided between the director and the aliases, the remainder did not amount to much. She had sacrificed enough of herself, enough of her life, enough of her lifetime.

Finitude. She had one life, a finite life. It occurred to her, standing there with the receiver to her ear and Kellynch waiting on the line, that to choose the Company was to choose a life too close to death.

She wanted a life close to life. Mother, wife, and teacher.

She now chose. "No, thank you, sir."

She hung up the receiver quietly.

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