Iris Johansen - Eve

“I can’t be easy. It’s not my nature. But it’s my nature to love you.”

And it was her nature to love Joe.

She had reached the ICU and braced herself as she walked slowly to the glass window.

Please, be better, Joe. Be awake. At least, have more color.

“Hello, Ms. Duncan.” The ICU nurse, Karen Norton, was coming out of the ICU unit. “May I get you anything?”

“Yes, permission to go sit with him.”

She shook her head. “It’s not visiting hours.” She hesitated. “But the doctor said that maybe we should ignore the visiting hours and just let you go to him. Dr. Jarlin wants to talk to you.”

She stiffened, her heart leaping. “He’s better?”

The nurse shook her head. “I shouldn’t have said anything,” she said quickly. “Dr. Jarlin will talk to you.”

Fear surged through Eve. “You talk to me, dammit. He’s worse?”

The nurse was looking at her with that same sympathy and kindness that struck terror into her heart. “Dr. Jarlin will talk to you. I’ll call him and tell him that you’re concerned.” She hurried back toward the nurses’ station.

Concerned? She was sick with fear.

Joe was dying, and they weren’t going to be able to save him. That was why they were going to let Eve go to him. To say good-bye.

She couldn’t say good-bye. He had to stay with her.

She leaned her head on the plate-glass window and closed her eyes. She felt the tears running down her cheeks as the agony flowed through her.

Look at him. Surely she’d be able to know, to sense some change. Maybe they were wrong. Doctors didn’t know everything.

She took a deep breath and opened her eyes. She stiffened in shock.

Bonnie.

Bonnie standing by Joe’s bed, looking down at him.

Her expression… Love. Perfect love.

Why was she here?

The fear became terror.

To take him away, to ease the transition from this life to the next?

“No, Bonnie!”

Bonnie looked across the room at Eve standing behind the glass.

She smiled luminously, but then turned back again to gaze down at Joe with that same expression of love.

Oh God, what did that smile mean?

Could she help him to live?

Or could she only help him to die?

Eve’s palms pressed against the cold glass as tension and sorrow tore through her.

“Joe!”