Page 51 of The Suit

I glanced into the one we’d stopped outside; a mother holding a little girl on her knee, both of them crying.

I thumbed to the window, “Is everything okay?”

His expression turned somber, and I could almost feel the heaviness of his sigh, “We lost one of our kids this morning, and they’re taking it hard.”

My heart plummeted; I couldn’t even begin to imagine the level of grief that would weigh on a person. “I’m so sorry to hear that, doc. Is that the mother?”

He shook his head, his near constant smile returning in force. “Oh no, that’s Beulah. She’s come in a couple of times to read to the foster kids, she…”

My head spun so hard my neck cracked. I squinted, trying to make out what I was looking at, what I was witnessing, but my brain had suddenly short circuited with the volume of questions firing around it that I was unable to think clearly. She was almost unrecognizable without the trademark slash of red across her lips, her hair scraped back instead of the perfectly styled blow-dried waves, sneakers and jeans in lieu of tight pencil skirts and sky-high heels.

“What is Beulah Holmes doing here?”

“You know her?” Boyson’s smile grew to a size I was absolutely certain had never been associated with Beulah Holmes before, “She’s so great, isn’t she? She reads to the kids.”

I’m not sure how good a job I did of trying to keep the utter confusion out of my tone or face, because I was having trouble understanding, or maybe I hadn’t asked the correct question. “But what is she doing here?”

“One of my old med school buddies introduced us. She’s just here while she’s working in New York. She’s awesome and they love her in Chicago; she goes every Saturday to read to their long-term sick foster kids.”

My head was about to explode with information I couldn’t compute. Beulah Holmes…

“But she’s visited a couple of evenings this week too, stayed late when the little one, Zoe, was having trouble sleeping after Jayden died. She sits and works by their beds once they’ve drifted off, just in case they wake up again.”

“Seriously? For real? Beulah Holmes?” Even in my new discovery of her - that perhaps her evil was closer to skin deep than ingrained in her marrow, I was really struggling to process what I was seeing and hearing.

“Yes, she’s been wonderful for the kids, so comforting. They love her. It’ll be hard when she goes back to Chicago.”

“Beulah Holmes… comforting?”

Though even as I looked, took in her wet cheeks as she gently rocked the little girl in her lap, I could maybe see it. But it was one of those things where you had to squint, tilt your head at an angle, and reallyreallywant to see it.

A dawning and horrifying realization gripped me in its cold fist. I slapped the envelope on Dr. Boyson’s chest, needing to get the hell out and decompress what I was witnessing. Having her fall apart on my dick was one thing, but this… this was too much for my brain to cope with… like the rug had been pulled out from under me, and I’d been punched in the face with the cold, hard truth.

Beulah Holmes had a conscience.

More than that, she had a heart.

I tried to rub away the clogging tension in my chest.

“Okay, doc, I’m outta here.”

I ran back down the stairs, avoiding another fist pump with Chuck before getting into my car. The engine roared, I shifted into gear, hit the gas, and found myself driving round the block before parking up in the same space I’d left exactly four minutes before.

What the fuck was I doing? I should be halfway to the Hamptons by now, or at least halfway to getting off Manhattan.

Before last Friday I’d seen exactly two emotions on Beulah Holmes. Unadulterated anger if she lost, and undiluted smugness if she’d won. Friday had been a turning point, where I’d added a third: ecstasy.

But this… this was something I could have never prepared for when I’d woken up this morning, or any morning.

A plethora of questions skidded around my brain; how long was she going to be? What the fuck was I doing? What were her weekend plans? And more importantly, what the fuck did I think I was doing?

I hadn’t heard from her since she’d snuck out on Wednesday morning, and I’d been taken by surprise at how much it bothered me. It was also more than likely she’d tell me to fuck off as soon as she saw me, and I didn’t like how much that thought bothered me either.

I was still on the losing side of an argument with myself, when the hospital doors slid open and she walked out. She didn’t stride off at her usual pace; instead, made it only as far as the nearest bench and almost collapsed onto it as her face dissolved into giant heaving sobs.

Fuck.

I got out of the car.

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