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CHAPTER 26
publish date:
2026-10-28 23:15:54
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Too Late To Say Sorry, Mr. HartwellĀ Ā Ā CHAPTER 35
(D)The photograph is already everywhere by Sunday night.Damien reads it on Mrs. Ortegaās tablet, in the kitchen, under a yellow light, while she stands behind him with her arms folded and her mouth in a flat line. She doesnāt say anything. She has been saying nothing for forty minutes, which, for Mrs. Ortega, is a form of violence.HARTWELL HEIRāS SURPRISE FAMILY REUNION IN TEXAS!His own face looks back at him. Shirt sleeves rolled. A baby in his arms. And on his expression, caught in a single sharp frame, a naked, helpless tenderness he has never meant for anyone but one woman.Bianca stands beside him, laughing, her hand on his shoulder.It is a very good photograph. He would admire the composition, if he werenāt fighting the urge to be sick.āIs it yours?ā Mrs. Ortega asks at last, in a quiet, steady voice. āThe baby.āāI donāt know.āāMijo.āāI donāt know, Mrs. Ortega.ā He closes his eyes. āIāve been told yes. Iāve been shown nothing. I held her for four seconds and I feltā¦ I d
Too Late To Say Sorry, Mr. HartwellĀ Ā Ā CHAPTER 34
The Riverbend Fall Festival is Mrs. Ortegaās idea of heaven.She has been planning it since August. Paper flags crisscross the town square. The fountain is wrapped in marigolds. There are tables of tamales and candied pecans and a man with a guitar playing the same three songs, and in the middle of it all, a booth with a hand-lettered banner that reads FREE BLOOD PRESSURE CHECKS, ASK THE DOCTORA.Thatās me.Itās a perfect autumn Saturday. The light is golden, the air smells of woodsmoke and sugar, and for two uninterrupted hours I take the blood pressure of every grandmother in the county and tell each one to eat less salt. Nobody has asked me to forgive anybody. Iām wearing a loose yellow dress that Marisol bullied me into buying, and my back aches in a way Marisol swears is normal.Iām almost happy.Across the square, Damien is hauling crates of oranges for Mrs. Ortegaās stall, sleeves rolled to the elbow. He doesnāt look at me. He hasnāt, since the scan, not directly, as though loo
Too Late To Say Sorry, Mr. HartwellĀ Ā Ā CHAPTER 33
By the twentieth week, I canāt hide it anymore.The hoodie no longer works. Iāve let out my scrubs twice, and the curve under my palm has gone from a rumor to a fact. Mr. Alvarez calls it āthe little drum.ā Dr. Hollis pretends not to notice with such elaborate courtesy that Iād like to hug him.āYouāre showing,ā Marisol announces, on a Tuesday, over a plate of tamales. āLike, showing showing. Like a basketball in a sweater.āāThank you for that.āThe anatomy scan is that evening.Elias arranged it, in a quiet room at the end of a corridor in his hospital where the lights hum and the floors smell of wax. I lie on the narrow table in a paper gown, a blanket pulled to my chin, with Marisol on a plastic chair at my side and my heart beating in my throat.Iāve done this scan a hundred times from the other side of the screen. Iāve never been so afraid of a picture.āReady?ā Elias asks gently.I nod.He squeezes warm gel across my stomach, and the probe presses cool and firm. Gray swirls res
Too Late To Say Sorry, Mr. HartwellĀ Ā Ā CHAPTER 32
It takes Priya four days.I mail one of the bottles under the name Anna Lane, overnight, sealed in three layers of bubble wrap and a box that Marisol swears she wrapped with āthe intensity of a woman defusing a bomb.ā Then I wait. I take blood pressures. I vomit quietly into the clinic sink. I smile at Lucia when she comes in for her thirteen-week check, and I hold her hand while we listen to her babyās heartbeat, and I donāt cry until Iām alone.On Thursday night, at a quarter past eleven, my prepaid phone rings.Iām sitting on the edge of my bed in the dark, shoes off, my hand on my stomach. Iāve been in this position for an hour. I donāt remember deciding to.āDr. Vance.ā Priyaās voice is low and tight. āAre you alone?āāYes.āāSit down.āāIām already sitting.āāThen hold on to something.āI grip the edge of the mattress.āI ran it twice,ā she says. āI ran it a third time, because I didnāt believe the first two. Same compound as the original. The anti-progestin. Same carrier, same
Too Late To Say Sorry, Mr. HartwellĀ Ā Ā CHAPTER 31
The package arrives on a Friday, in the middle of a fever.Not mine. A little boyās, three years old, flushed and whimpering in his motherās lap in Exam Room Two. Iām holding a thermometer and murmuring nonsense when Marisol appears at the door with a cardboard box balanced on one hip.āCourier,ā she says. āSignature required. I signed for you.āāPut it on my desk.āāItās heavy.āāMarisol. Iām busy.āāItās from your mother.āThe thermometer slips from my fingers.The little boy howls. His mother soothes him, shushing, and I bend down automatically to pick it up, and my hands are shaking so hard I miss it twice. When I straighten, Marisol is still standing in the doorway with her head tilted.āIāll finish here,ā she says quietly. āGo.āI find the box on my desk in the back office. Itās plain brown cardboard, no larger than a shoebox, wrapped in careful twine. The return label is printed in a hand I would know anywhere, neat and slanting, the loops of a woman trained since childhood to
Too Late To Say Sorry, Mr. HartwellĀ Ā Ā CHAPTER 30
The man on the clinic steps is holding a thermos.I see him from the end of the block on Wednesday at noon, on my way back from the pharmacy. A tall figure in a soft gray sweater, sitting on the second step with his elbows on his knees and a canvas bag at his feet. Sunlight catches his hair, a dark gold, a little too long. He looks like a man waiting for a bus that stopped running years ago.Then he lifts his head, and I stop walking.āVictor?āHe rises at once, and a smile breaks across his face so warm and so genuinely delighted that something in my chest loosens before I can stop it.āSerena.ā His voice is low and a little rough, the way I remember. āI hoped Iād catch you. I didnāt want to come in and frighten everyone.āVictor Hartwell.Damienās cousin. Thirty-four years old, with Edward Hartwellās jaw and none of his coldness. He was always at the edges of that house when I lived in it. At Christmas dinners, at board retreats, standing by the fireplace with a glass of club soda,
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