Stranger Read online

  “Don’t you know what time it is?”

  “Sure. I thought you’d be up by now.”

  “You must be joking. It’s the ass crack of dawn.”

  “Just getting in then?”

  My eyes snapped open. “Seriously. Are you stalking me?”

  “No. I’m just guessing that if you didn’t just get up, you’re just getting in. Because I know you don’t take men to your place.”

  “You are so fucking annoying.”

  “And you’re delightfully charming when you’re exhausted.”

  I rubbed the sand gritting into my eyeballs. “What do you want!”

  “To talk to you.”

  “Talk to me in a few hours,” I mumbled, burying my face against my pillow.

  “Grace.”

  I waited, but he said nothing else. I groaned. “What?”

  “Remember what I said about me not caring if you had a boyfriend?”

  It was my turn to be silent. “Yes.”

  “I’m ashamed to tell you, I lied.”

  “He wasn’t my boyfriend.” I paused, and went for it, with only exhaustion and emotion as my excuse. “He’s just someone I fuck on occasion.”

  Sam made a small noise. “Uh-huh.”

  “How about that?” I challenged. “Do you care about that?”

  “I’d be lying if I said I didn’t.”

  The night had been an up-and-down roller coaster, and the ride wasn’t over yet, even though my stomach had gone sick with the loop-dee-loops. “Goddammit, Sam!”

  “Do you love him?”

  “No!”

  “Does he love you?”

  I sighed. “I hope not.”

  “Good.”

  I wanted to scream at the smile I heard in his voice, but I bit it back. “I’m hanging up now.”

  “I’ll call later.”

  “Oh. My. God.” I writhed in my bed in an agony of frustration. “Why? Why would you do that?”

  “Because I want to talk to you,” came his mild answer. “Maybe take you to lunch. What do you say?”

  “I say I still stink from sex with another man!” I shouted into the phone. “What in the fucking holy seven layers of hell do you want to take me to lunch for?”

  “I thought a sandwich, maybe a bowl of soup—”

  I burst into laughter that sounded suspiciously like tears. “You are insane.”

  “Not insane. Crazy, maybe.”

  “Sam…” I trailed off. “This attention is flattering, if not a little creepy…”

  “Only a little though, right? Mostly flattering.”

  “You’re crazy,” I whispered, and yawned. “What kind of man says things like that for serious?”

  “A patient one.”

  “Patience implies waiting for something.”

  Sam laughed. “Don’t forget. I remember exactly what I’m waiting for.”

  He hadn’t said it seductively, but somehow that made it sexier. “I told you I don’t do that regularly.”

  “Yet you do have men you fuck on occasion. Why can’t I be one of them?”

  “If that’s all you want,” I told him, “why bother with lunch?”

  “Because I also like to eat. I figured I could kill two birds with one stone, as the saying goes.”

  “You…you are…” My mind refused to provide my tongue with what, exactly, I thought Sam was.

  “Yeah. I know.”

  “I have to go to sleep, Sam. I really do.”

  “Me, too.”

  I paused on the brink of unconsciousness, my finger poised over the disconnect button.

  “Tell me you stayed up all night.”

  “Oh, yeah. I just got home a little while ago.”

  This shook me into wakefulness. “You did?”

  “You’re not the only one who fucks on occasion, Grace.”

  This was not what I wanted to hear, though I had absolutely no right to complain. “The blonde.”

  “Was she blond? I don’t remember.”

  “Are you messing with me?” I asked, suspicious.

  “Does it matter to you if I am?” Sam said. “Ask yourself why.”

  I grunted. “You are not only crazy, you are a pain in the ass.”

  “Oh, my aim is much better than that.”

  Dammit. He made me laugh again, though it quickly trailed into a whine. “Sam, c’mon, I have to get some sleep.”

  “Lunch with me later?”

  “You’re taking advantage of my exhaustion. You know that, right?”

  “I’m shameless that way.”

  “I’ll call you,” I said finally, the words slurring. “Don’t call me. If you wake me up, I’ll seriously kill you.”

  “You’ll call me,” he said. “Promise?”

  “Yes, you annoying pain, yes. I promise.”

  “I’ll wait.”

  My chest got tight again. “Oh, Sam. Don’t wait too long.”

  “Oh, Grace,” he mimicked. “I have nothing better to do.”

  “Fine. I’ll call.”

  “Jesus doesn’t like liars, Grace.”

  “Jesus—” I coughed. “I thought you were Jewish.”

  “You’re not, though.”

  “I’m not particularly religious at all.”

  “Okay, fine. Kiki doesn’t like liars.”

  “Kiki?” It took me a few seconds for the sleep syrup in my brain to drain long enough for me to get it. “Oh, God.”

  “Go to sleep, Grace. And call me later. You promised.”

  “I promised,” I muttered, thumbing off the phone and falling asleep without another word.

  I didn’t sleep long enough, but the next time the phone rang it was the answering service and not Sam. I fought my way out of dreams to grab it up, listened to the message and fell back onto my pillow wishing this was a nightmare. That, at least, wouldn’t be real.

  I didn’t know the man who’d called me, but I knew the waver in his voice well enough. I didn’t have to say much, or lead him. He had all the information I needed. I was grateful for that, at least. It didn’t make it easier, but it made it faster.

  I showered fast and dressed, then took the van to the Hershey Med Center alone. I wouldn’t need Jared with me for this. I didn’t need help lifting the body of a child.

  They met me in the hospital lobby. A young couple, both about my age. Grief had stolen the color from their faces and left them pale, but the man’s handshake was firm when he greeted me. They wanted to know if they could meet with me right away to plan the service for their son.

  They didn’t want to wait, he said, his wife silent but nodding beside him. They had no family to come in from out of town and wanted to bury him as soon as they could.

  “It’s for my wife,” he said when she excused herself to use the bathroom. “It’s killing her, you see? We didn’t even know he was sick until two days ago. We need to…”

  He choked on the word bury, but though his gaze flared bright with tears, he didn’t weep.

  “I understand.” I rubbed his shoulder through the fleece of his pullover jacket and he put his face in his hands for a moment before pulling it together.

  “I have to be strong for her,” he muttered.

  He spoke to me, but the words were meant for himself.

  When his wife returned, it took only half an hour and a few phone calls to arrange for the service and burial the next day. The chief of the cemetery crew wasn’t happy about coming in on a Sunday. When I explained the need, he went silent on the phone for a moment before he agreed.

  The wife gave me a paper grocery sack filled with clothes. I left the couple, neither of them crying, in the lobby and picked up my young charge in the morgue. I’ve made hundreds of similar journeys and will admit to having gained a certain degree of callousness about my silent passengers, but not this time.

  I had never taken care of a child before. A few teenagers, a few young adults. But never a child.

  He was four years old when he died,