Page 39 of Wired Ghost

Sophie

Two days later

Sophie settledherself on the leather couch in Dr. Wilson’s cozy little office in a small, older plantation home off the campus of the University of Hawaii, Hilo. She looked around the space as the psychologist shuffled some papers at her desk in the corner of the room. The amateurish paintings were still on the walls and the sand garden on the coffee table was neatly raked. “I never expected to be here again.”

Dr. Wilson looked up. Her bright blue eyes were prettily set off by a modern-looking blonde shag that fell to her shoulders. “Life has a way of being full of surprises.”

“Some surprises are welcome. Some, terrible.” Sophie’s lips felt numb and tingly; an odd side effect left over from the sulfur dioxide exposure, the doctor had said. She rubbed her cheekbone, where the gunshot scar still gave off similar sensations. She’d worked for years to stop touching that area; today, feeling the rough ridge of tissue under her fingertips was oddly comforting.

“Yes, some surprises are terrible. Lei called me and told me about Jake.” Dr. Wilson picked up her clipboard and came around her desk to seat herself in her puffy recliner across from the couch. “I’m so deeply sorry.”

“I’m glad I don’t have to be the one to tell you.” Sophie met Dr. Wilson’s gaze with difficulty. “It was hard enough to make this appointment, and keep it—but Bix said I had to do a stress debrief meeting. Gave me a choice of you, or Dr. Kinoshita.”

“I’m glad you chose me,” Dr. Wilson smiled. “Now. Where do you want to begin?”

Sophie leaned forward to drag the tiny wooden rake through the smooth surface of the sand in the tray. “It seemed like any other Security Solutions operation when we started out. Jake and I were excited. We hadn’t worked with each other closely since we lived together on the Big Island. And we had a lot of relationship excitement mixed in, too, because we hadn’t slept together since we reconnected and he broke up with Felicia.”

“Oh, interesting. I thought you’d have jumped in the sack first thing.”

Sophie shook her head. “No. I wanted to take it slow. Begin again. Clear the past up first. I needed time. Jake wanted to move faster, but he was willing to let me take the lead. So, we’d been dating. Spending time together. We’d kissed a couple of times, but that was all.”

“What changed?”

“Jake and I talked honestly once we were trapped in the lava tube. I was still angry with him for leaving me when I was so vulnerable, caring for a newborn, and for not believing me that Connor and I weren’t a couple.” Sophie sighed, adding a pebble or two from a handy bowl to her design. “I wanted him to prove himself. Show me that he loved me, take time to rebuild the trust between us. . . Not just appear out of nowhere when his girlfriend kicked him out, and jump into my bed. Jake understood that. He told me he accepted that Connor would always be in my life, and so would Alika. But he still reacted jealously when he found out Connor had chipped me with a GPS, even though that’s what ended up saving our lives.”

“Whoa! Now I need the story of what happened. All the gritty details.”

Sophie told her the sequence of events. “We eventually found a place to clean up and sleep. A geothermal pool.”

Dr. Wilson’s brows went up. “How perfectly delicious.”

Sophie smiled. “We’d said what we needed to say to each other and cleaned up the past. So yes, we made love. It was incredible.” Tears pooled in her eyes, and she pressed the backs of her fists against them. “I can’t believe the time we lost. That we’ve lost, now, forever.”

Dr. Wilson held up a hand. “Maybe yes, maybe no. He’s in a deep coma, that’s what I heard.”

“Worse than that. They can’t find steady brain activity.” Sophie looked down—she was holding the little rake hard so that the tines stabbed her in the palm. She opened her fist. “He has an IV to get him the nourishment he needs. He’s still on the ventilator, but has a system-wide infection. His mother is in charge of his health care, but according to Patty, his sister, he has a Do Not Resuscitate order in place for a situation like this. He wants the plug to be pulled, and then they can harvest his organs for donation.”

“Oh, no, Sophie. I’m so sorry.” Dr. Wilson reached for a tissue from the box between them and dabbed her eyes.

“And to make things worse, I’m not allowed to see him.” Sophie watched her restlessly moving hands as they made designs with the rake: arcs, swirls, lines. “His mother blames me. Patty, his sister, texts me to keep me informed. They are planning to take him off all life support tomorrow. The organ donation is set to go the minute he dies.”

“My God.” Dr. Wilson got up, clearly agitated. She went to her little refrigerator in the corner of the room and removed a couple of bottles of water. She handed one to Sophie. “Drink. Please. I need to give you something.”

Sophie unscrewed the lid and took a long drink.

She felt numb. Everything was happening around her in a distant way, a mere echo of reality.

At the same time, her conscious mind was alive and well, bargaining like hell for something else to happen for Jake. “It would have been so much better if he and Felicia had never broken up.”

“You’d never have taken this job together if that were the case.” Dr. Wilson sat down and sipped her water. “What ifs don’t serve us.”

“And if he’d been with Felicia, likely I’d have taken this job with Raveaux. The outcome would have been different.”

“How so?” Dr. Wilson cocked her head. “Tell me about Raveaux.”

Sophie wriggled, settling deeper into the cushions. “Raveaux is a good man, a complicated man. I like him. But he is not as big physically as Jake. I passed out early when the sulfur dioxide filled the chamber. Jake carried me up, all the way to the top of the wall, and pushed me onto the ledge nearest the ceiling. I got more good air because of that. Jake ended up where he was, lower than me on the cavern’s wall where we were trapped, because he carried me.” A giant, gasping sob overtook Sophie. “He gave his life to get me there. And it saved me.” She crumpled, folding her arms over her waist and belly, giving way at last to the grief. “I’m alive because he put me above himself, literally.”

Dr. Wilson handed her a handful of tissues, and she sobbed into them, great hacking coughing sobs that hurt her lungs and throat.

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