Page 118 of Prelude To You

Miss Leyland smiled. “Goodnight, Isabel,” she replied. “I hope you have a lovely evening.”

Outside the room, I remembered I hadn’t written down the last short story I read on the wall planner. I walked back into the room and pulled up short, my breath catching in my throat as I took in the scene before me, one I wasn’t supposed to see.

Miss Leyland was stroking Henry’s cheek as she gently kissed him. “Hello my darling, have I told you how much I love you today?”

Suddenly she sensed the pair of eyes watching her and looked up at me where I stood frozen in the doorway. Then she smiled. “I suppose you were bound to find out at some point.”

My first reaction was swearing to secrecy and taking this straight to my grave. “I will never tell a soul, ever, Miss Leyland. You have my word—”

She interrupted me with a soothing voice. “It’s fine Isabel. This is no secret, but thank you for your loyalty nonetheless.”

“Oh okay, so I’ll be leaving now. And I won’t be coming back… I mean I’m coming back tomorrow just not now… Goodnight.”

I caught a glimpse of her on the brink of laughing before I fled the scene. That was probably not the most eloquent of departures but damn if anything in my life had ever prepared me for all the weird things that had been happening the last three days.

I climbed in the back of the Navigator, lingering currents of shock still rattling my insides. For the boring place I thought this was, it harbored some interesting secrets. Before the Navigator’s windows went dark, I wanted to ask George some questions and see which ones he was willing to answer.

“George?” I said carefully, testing the waters. “How long has Henry been in a coma?”

George looked at me in the rearview mirror. “It’s been about a month.”

“Is he going to get better?”

George hesitated, then sighed. “You should ask Miss Leyland those types of questions.”

“I’ve tried but I don’t want to push my luck.”

Again George met my gaze in the mirror. This time he looked miserable. “It’s really sad, the whole thing. There hasn’t been any improvement from what I hear. And there’s even been rumors of the machines being shut down at some point.”

My heart stopped. “What do you mean?”

“It means if he doesn’t get better, it won’t help to keep him going with machines.”

I was stunned into silence, and the sudden spurt of adrenaline made me feel sick to my stomach. George tried to give me a reassuring smile but it didn’t work. He turned aroundin his seat to face me. “I shouldn’t have told you that, I’m sorry. You seem to have enough going on without worrying about that as well.”

“No, it’s fine,” I said unconvincingly. “It’s just a bit shocking to know that. I think if more people cared about him getting better, he’d actually put the effort in.”

George started the car, and we made our way down the long driveway with its moss-draped trees. All the while I contemplated the things I’d learned at my new place of employment. Henry’s unpromising prognosis explained Miss Leyland giving me free rein to change things in Henry’s room; she was clinging to slivers of hope for his recovery.

I sat back in the leather seat, but found no comfort in the luxury. I had to seriously consider whether I would be swept up in pessimism, or invest in efforts to get Henry better. I’d already made up my mind that he would wake up, and talk of switching off the machines irritated me no end.

When we stopped at the mansion’s black gates, waiting for them to open, George handed me my phone back.

“Isn’t it a little early for that?” I asked.

“I don’t want to leave you there in the back alone with your thoughts. The last time we had to wipe your tears.”

I smiled. George could get in a lot of trouble for this, and I appreciated the gesture.

“Thank you, George.”

As we passed through the gate, I waved at the guard inside his brick post. Soon after, the windows went dark and the partition went up. I switched on my phone, and for someone who didn’t have a blazing online presence it was terrifying when my phone detonated in a flurry of dings.

There were emails and text messages all blasting me simultaneously, having stacked up during the day. After a frantictwenty minutes of sorting through it all, I had a decision to make.

Ditch Henry and go back to Le Petit Chateau as pastry chef for double the salary, or ditch the pastry chef job I really loved and stay with Henry. Before I realized that Henry’s life was dangling by a very thin thread, that might have been an easy decision. Now the choice had become impossible to make.

There was a blizzard of texts from Marguerite and they became somewhat belligerent that I hadn’t replied. I texted her first, explaining that I had no way to know since they took my phone during the day. She texted back immediately.

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