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CHAPTER 34
publish date:
2026-11-03 14:27:04
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Too Late To Say Sorry, Mr. Hartwell   CHAPTER 35
(D)The photograph is already everywhere by Sunday night.Damien reads it on Mrs. Ortegaâs 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 doesnât say anything. She has been saying nothing for forty minutes, which, for Mrs. Ortega, is a form of violence.HARTWELL HEIRâS 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 werenât fighting the urge to be sick.âIs it yours?â Mrs. Ortega asks at last, in a quiet, steady voice. âThe baby.ââI donât know.ââMijo.ââI donât know, Mrs. Ortega.â He closes his eyes. âIâve been told yes. Iâve been shown nothing. I held her for four seconds and I felt⊠I d
Too Late To Say Sorry, Mr. Hartwell   CHAPTER 34
The Riverbend Fall Festival is Mrs. Ortegaâs 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.Thatâs me.Itâs 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. Iâm wearing a loose yellow dress that Marisol bullied me into buying, and my back aches in a way Marisol swears is normal.Iâm almost happy.Across the square, Damien is hauling crates of oranges for Mrs. Ortegaâs stall, sleeves rolled to the elbow. He doesnât look at me. He hasnât, since the scan, not directly, as though loo
Too Late To Say Sorry, Mr. Hartwell   CHAPTER 33
By the twentieth week, I canât hide it anymore.The hoodie no longer works. Iâve let out my scrubs twice, and the curve under my palm has gone from a rumor to a fact. Mr. Alvarez calls it âthe little drum.â Dr. Hollis pretends not to notice with such elaborate courtesy that Iâd like to hug him.âYouâre showing,â Marisol announces, on a Tuesday, over a plate of tamales. âLike, showing showing. Like a basketball in a sweater.ââThank you for that.âThe 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.Iâve done this scan a hundred times from the other side of the screen. Iâve never been so afraid of a picture.âReady?â 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. Hartwell   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 âthe intensity of a woman defusing a bomb.â 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 babyâs heartbeat, and I donât cry until Iâm alone.On Thursday night, at a quarter past eleven, my prepaid phone rings.Iâm sitting on the edge of my bed in the dark, shoes off, my hand on my stomach. Iâve been in this position for an hour. I donât remember deciding to.âDr. Vance.â Priyaâs voice is low and tight. âAre you alone?ââYes.ââSit down.ââIâm already sitting.ââThen hold on to something.âI grip the edge of the mattress.âI ran it twice,â she says. âI ran it a third time, because I didnât believe the first two. Same compound as the original. The anti-progestin. Same carrier, same
Too Late To Say Sorry, Mr. Hartwell   CHAPTER 31
The package arrives on a Friday, in the middle of a fever.Not mine. A little boyâs, three years old, flushed and whimpering in his motherâs lap in Exam Room Two. Iâm holding a thermometer and murmuring nonsense when Marisol appears at the door with a cardboard box balanced on one hip.âCourier,â she says. âSignature required. I signed for you.ââPut it on my desk.ââItâs heavy.ââMarisol. Iâm busy.ââItâs from your mother.âThe 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.âIâll finish here,â she says quietly. âGo.âI find the box on my desk in the back office. Itâs 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. Hartwell   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.âVictor?âHe 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.âSerena.â His voice is low and a little rough, the way I remember. âI hoped Iâd catch you. I didnât want to come in and frighten everyone.âVictor Hartwell.Damienâs cousin. Thirty-four years old, with Edward Hartwellâs 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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