Cold truth

Chapter 41

Mason kicked his legs, extending his arms in long strokes, pulling the water past him, kicking again, bubbles erupting from his nose and mouth as the surface beckoned, a gleaming light fracturing the water, voices breaking through his anesthesia-induced dream.

"He's coming out of it," Claire said.

Mason blinked, opening his eyes, the room shifting, his mouth a desert, his limbs deadweights, sensation returning in slow motion. His arm itched, an IV drip taped over his wrist, his chest tingling from electrodes tracking his heartbeat. Turning his head, seeing the equipment surrounding his bed, he broke out into a loopy grin.

"Not dead," Mason said, his tongue getting in the way.

"Not yet," Claire said, sitting on the edge of the bed, her hands cupping his, Blues, Harry, and Mickey hovering behind her.

"Abby," Mason said.

"She's fine. Rest easy. We'll be back," Claire told him. Mason was too weak to argue, drifting again, Samantha watching him from the foot of his bed the next time he woke, ignorant of the day or passage of time.

"I'm tired of watching you wake up in the hospital," Samantha said, "but you look great."

"You're a lousy liar," he told her.

"You can't stand the truth," she said.

"Thank you, Jack Nicholson. What happened at Abby's?"

Samantha breathed deeply, the memory still raw. "Iowa Highway Patrol stopped the car Evans had rented, only Evans wasn't driving."

"Hitchhiker," Mason said.

"That's right. Based on what Carol Hackett told you, we figured Evans was still in town looking for you and we assumed you were at Abby's."

"You got there pretty quick."

"Blues and Harry figured it the same way and were out the door as soon as I got word from Iowa. I had to catch up to them. We didn't want to barge in without knowing what was going on, so I called Abby from the first floor of her building. She told me what I needed to know."

Mason laughed, his chest begging him to stop. "You didn't mind being the other woman?"

"At least I'm in the equation, even if it's on the wrong side," she said.

"Was it you?" Mason asked her.

"Yeah," Samantha said softly. "It was me. Ortiz called it a justifiable shooting all the way. I'm back on duty tomorrow."

"Your first time?"

"Yeah," she said again. "First time. Can't say that anymore."

"I'm sorry, but thanks," Mason told her, Samantha waving him off.

"Lou," she said.

"I know," he interrupted. "Time off."

After Samantha left, Mason found the controls for his hospital bed, raised himself up far enough to see the television, turning it on with the remote control just to find out what day it was. CNN convinced him that it was Monday morning. He'd been in the hospital since early Sunday morning, with no memory of the surgery to repair the damage Evans had inflicted.

He'd seen doctors, nurses, orderlies, friends, and relatives, but not Abby. He'd been poked, prodded, and palpated, but had not felt Abby's touch. The only information he had about her was Claire's promise that she was fine, and he wasn't certain whether he'd heard that in one of his dreams.

Mason reached for the call button, hoping the nurse would know or find out what had happened to her, his gut twisting as he speculated why she hadn't been to see him and why no one had told him more about her condition. The moment he pushed the button, the door to his room swung open, a nurse pushing Abby in a wheelchair, her dark hair pulled back from her bandaged neck, her skin as gray as her hospital gown, the nurse parking her next to his bed, leaving them alone.

Abby took his hand, Mason covering hers with both of his. "Hey," she said.

"Hey yourself," Mason answered, neither one letting go, Mason biting back tears, Abby's leaping off her cheeks.

"I don't remember the last time I made a turkey," Claire said, as she sat down at the new dining room table Mason had bought in time for Thanksgiving.

"I was sixteen," Mason said. "I brought a girl home for dinner you didn't like and you roasted the turkey until it tasted like leather. My girlfriend thought you were sending her a message and dumped me."

"This turkey tastes great," Abby said, passing the large serving plate to Jordan Hackett.

Abby never told Jordan that she had thought she might be her mother, deciding that Jordan needed a friend, not someone else with an uncertain title. She helped Jordan find a new doctor, and Jordan was going back to school, working part-time for Abby, putting her life together a day at a time before she tried to find her baby.

Mason delivered his closing argument to Abby as they walked around Loose Park two weeks after they were released from the hospital, the last apple and gold leaves clinging to the trees, the sun battling the first hard frost to a draw. He told her about the dark water, promising he wouldn't go back, telling her he couldn't take the chance of losing her.

"Don't make a promise you can't keep. It's who you are," she told him. "You can't be anyone else."

"I can be anyone I have to be for you," he answered.

"No you can't," Abby said, "because I can only love the one you are."

Their wounds healed faster than their souls, Abby trading her loft for an apartment, grieving privately for a child she never knew, Mason not pushing her, understanding the nightmares that shattered her sleep. Work provided an anchor, normal gradually feeling normal again, Mason turning down criminal cases, Mickey starting a pool betting on when he'd relent, Blues winning the pool a week before Thanksgiving, Mason telling Abby, Abby nodding.

"Be careful. Make the case about the client, not about you," she said, Mason trying to figure out how.

Mason bought the dining room table and the living room furniture after Abby explained that she could never be with a man that used his dining room as a dock for a rowing machine and his living room as a kennel for his dog. Mason moved the rowing machine to the basement and Tuffy's pillow to the master bedroom.

Mason looked around his new table, covered with a Thanksgiving spread. Mickey spun trash to the amusement of Rachel Firestone and her partner, Mickey's girlfriend sticking her finger in her mouth, pretending to be sick. Claire read Harry an article Rachel had written, Harry struggling with the small print, listening close, learning to accept Claire's eyes as his own. Blues came without a date, saying this was family time, talking jazz with Jordan. Tuffy roamed the room in table-scrap heaven. Mason's picture of his great grandparents hung on the wall, Mason sure they were smiling.

Each conversation rose from the table, punctuated by laughter and the clink and clang of crystal, china, and silver, verbal notes mixing, a beautiful noise. Mason reached for Abby's hand. She covered his with hers.