Page 47 of Dear Henry, Love Edith
“Sharon’s your mom?” Of course. Now Edith could see the resemblance. But that still didn’t explain anything.
“Considering all you’ve done to help out at the crisis nursery home and considering your brother didn’t really hurt anyone—other than himself—my mom begged me to let it go.”
“I’m sorry, but did you just say my brother?” Edith held up a palm. “Right. Okay. About that.”
A knock interrupted them, and a young blonde-haired woman wearing large black-framed glasses and a nice pantsuit popped her head past the curtain. “Sorry to interrupt, but are you Edith Sherman?”
Edith nodded.
“Perfect. I’m Suzy, the social worker. Steve kept screaming your name before he got intubated yesterday, so I feel like I know you already. Do you mind if I ask you a few questions about your brother? And is it okay if we appoint you as his surrogate and decision maker?”
“Yes.” Edith did mind.
“Great!” Suzy’s phone started ringing. “Sorry.” She dug itout of her pocket. Held up a finger. “That was mostly all I needed for now. This is Suzy,” she said, turning and walking away from the room.
Edith started to follow her, then spun back to James. “Why do I feel like she just appointed me to be his surrogate?”
“Probably because you just agreed to be his surrogate.”
“No, I said yes. But I didn’t mean yes. I said yes, meaning yes, I mind, which is way different thanyes.”
“Riiight.” The walkie-talkie clipped to James’s shoulder squawked with static.
“We’ve got a reported burglary call coming from Alice Murphy’s house,” a woman’s voice said. “Based on the description, I’m fairly certain her husband just forgot his keys and is trying to get in the back door again.”
James sighed. “I’m on my way.” He nodded goodbye to Edith and disappeared out of Steve’s room.
Edith longed to do a disappearing act of her own. Or better yet, make Steve disappear. He was not her problem. Wait. Hewasn’ther problem. What was she even doing here? And why didn’t she think to give anybody his parents’ number yesterday? Maybe the heat had gotten to her more than she realized.
Edith dug out her phone and searched her contacts. Thankfully she’d never deleted his mom’s phone number. She’d certainly deleted his dad’s after that last conversation they had at the funeral. Ah, here it was. She wrote down his mom’s number beneath the wordSURROGATEin all caps, then slid it to the social worker, still on her phone next to the nurses’ station, and sprinted for the exit.
“Good luck, Steve,” Edith muttered. “And good riddance.”
Outside the hospital and halfway across the street to the visitor parking lot, Edith’s phone rang. Good gravy, if it was already the social worker trying to dispute Edith passing the buck on the whole surrogacy issue... “Hello?”
“You sound out of breath. Did I call at a bad time?”
It didn’t sound like the social worker. But it also didn’t sound like anybody Edith knew. A car tooted its horn to suggest Edith should ponder the identity somewhere other than the middle of the road.
“I’m sorry—who is this?” Edith waved an apology to the driver and scurried out of the way.
Her sandaled foot tripped on the curb just as the woman responded, “Kaya Reddy.”
“Argh,” Edith growled, clutching her big toe.
“This is a bad time.”
“No. No, this is a great time. Hi, Kaya. I’m so happy to hear from you.” Now she recognized the accented voice. Kaya was Ithemba’s operational manager.
“Are you in labor? I can call back.”
Edith huffed out a laugh, realizing yes, she might have started some purse-lipped breathing as she hobbled to an iron bench surrounded by a commemorative plaque and a small garden of flowers. “I’m fine,” Edith said, massaging her foot. “I just stubbed my toe and wanted to die for a couple seconds, but the will to live is already back in full force.”
Now it was Kaya’s turn to laugh. “What a relief,” she said in her South African accent, which always sounded to Edith’s untrained ear somewhere between British and Australian.“We hate it when our volunteers lose the will to live before they even get here.”
“Yeah, I can see how that might be bad for morale.” Now that the pain in her toe had ebbed to a dull throb, Edith lowered her foot to the ground. “So what’s going on?”
“Mostly just checking in. Making sure you haven’t changed your mind,” she said, a soft tease in her voice.
