The_Color_of_Love_-_Radclyffe (Рэдклифф) - страница 66

If only she could talk to Henrietta. For the last half dozen years, Henrietta had been her sounding board, professionally and personally, and she hadn’t realized until now just how much she counted on her. If Winfield was her family, Henrietta was the heart. No wonder they all felt so lost.

She cut through the crowd as if guided by radar, reflexively avoiding the slowly ambling groups of early-morning tourists, the commuters as focused as she on getting to their destinations, the throngs of street vendors setting up stands, and delivery people pushing handcarts across the sidewalk laden with cases of beer and boxes of food and all the other commodities that kept New York running twenty-four hours a day. When she finally reached St. Luke’s, slightly out of breath but no longer on the verge of raging, she put Donatella from her mind. Time for all of that later. Now was only about Henrietta. As she pushed through the double doors into the bustling lobby, she wished as she hadn’t in a long time that she could call her mother, just to hear the comforting welcome in her voice and know there was one place in the world everything would be all right. A wish as foolish as wanting to undo the past.

She closed her eyes in the elevator, waiting for the pain to settle into a dull ache in the recesses of her soul, as it always did. Composed again, she followed the crowd into the hall and turned right toward the intensive care unit. Out of nowhere, she thought of Derian. Did her directional dyslexia make something as simple as remembering which way to turn a challenge? What kind of effort did it take to navigate an increasingly complex physical world when faced with an inherent block to one’s place in it? Derian would not want her sympathy, nor did she have any—only respect for a challenge met and conquered. She had never heard or seen one word about Derian’s condition, which only spoke to how well she handled it, since nothing else about her life seemed free from public scrutiny. Emily flushed with unexpected pleasure, realizing Derian had shared something so private with her.

She glanced at her watch, not exactly sure when visiting hours started, but it didn’t really matter. She’d wait.

“Emily?”

Emily peered into the waiting room. “Aud! Good morning.” Even as she spoke, fear flashed through her. “God, is it Henrietta? Has something happened?”

Aud, looking stylish and composed, rose quickly and hurried toward her. “No, no, at least no emergency. But Dere got a call this morning at breakfast, and the surgeons want to operate right away. She’s inside. I haven’t heard anything more than that.”