Strangewood by Christopher Golden

him . . . she felt the bile rise in the back of
her throat.
    So softly she barely heard him, Joe spoke her name.
    "Sorry," she said, though she wasn't quite certain
if she was sorry for closing him out or for drifting off like that. Maybe both.
She felt as though she spent far too much of her life apologizing. To others. To
herself.
    An orderly wheeled a new patient by, a girl of no more than
thirteen, whose face and arms were cut and bruised and stitched, and told the
story of a car accident or similar tragedy. The girl's eyes were open, but she
didn't seem to be looking at anything. There was a small gold chain around her
wrist with a little fish or dolphin dangling from it. Emily imagined it was a
token of someone's affection, a parent or other relative, or maybe a boyfriend,
if the girl was old enough to have one.
    Then again, what was old enough, these days?
    "You'd better get back in there, hmm?" Joe asked. "I
know you're distracted. You should be with Nathan now."
    "Yeah, I really should," she agreed, but couldn't
seem to move.
    "If you need me, just to talk, or to do errands, go by
the house for any reason, you know you can call anytime," Joe reminded
her.
    Emily nodded.
    When he bent to kiss her, his lips passed lightly over her
own numb mouth as if they realized they weren't welcome.
    "Thanks for coming," she said, dimly aware she was
even speaking, her mind full of lilacs and nurses and stitches and the smell of
dying.
    When she blinked again and looked up, she expected Joe to be
gone. She'd zoned out again, and instantly was feeling guilty about it. But he
wasn't gone, just a step or two away. Burnt blond hair, with a tinge of almost
red. Those gray eyes that in the sun could turn green or blue. A college
professor at twenty-six, intelligent and ambitious. He lifted her chin with two
fingers, gently, and leaned over to give a her a kiss that she would notice.
    She noticed, and she closed her eyes and kissed him back.
    "Thank you," she said again, whispering into his
mouth, and meaning it this time. She was glad he had come and was just as happy
that he was leaving. "I'll call you in the morning," she promised.
    "Call when you can," he said to her, brows knit
with concern.
    Joe turned and moved down the hall and Emily watched him go
with a lover's pause. Then she turned, steeling herself once more for the sight
of Nathan lying so still in that bed and anticipating a return to the
unexpected comfort she had felt in the presence of Nathan's father. At least,
with Thomas there, she wasn't alone in her anguish.
    Emily glanced up at the door to Nathan's room.
    Thomas stood, frozen halfway across the threshold, staring
at her.
    "So that's him, huh?"
    With a sad tilt of her head, blonde hair tumbling over her
shoulder, she opened her mouth to respond, to tell Thomas what she was feeling.
Then she only sighed, gave a barely perceptible shake of her head, and pushed
past him into Nathan's hospital room.
    "I know you go for younger guys, Em, but he's pushing
it a bit, isn't he?" Thomas asked bitterly.
    Ignoring the swirl of color in a mural on the wall behind
her, Emily sank down into a chair at the edge of her son's bed. When she
finally replied to her ex-husband, she couldn't bring herself to face him
— not from shame, but surrender.
    "I know you want this right now, Thomas," Emily
said weakly. "Maybe you need it, I don't know, to distract you. Whatever. When
Nathan . . . when Nathan wakes up, I'll be happy to waste my time telling you
that what I do with my life is none of your business."
    Finally, she did turn to regard him, saw that some of the
anger and righteousness had left his face, his stance.
    "I just don't have the strength right now," she
concluded.
    Emily turned away and reached out for Nathan, caressed his
pale cheek with the backs of her fingers, ran them through his always unruly
hair, wished he would look at her. Smile. Laugh. Anything to let her know that
he was still in there.
    Slowly, she lay her head