Chapter 18
Chapter 18: The Waiting World
Six months later, Skye treats a critically ill patient with a festering monkey bite and exotic disease, forcing a four-day quarantine. Dale spirals into sleepless worry, his imagination conjuring futures without her. On the third day, Marcus and Eleanor intervene, taking over care of Margaret and tidying the house so Dale can go to the hospital. He falls asleep in a chair outside the quarantine glass, and Skye, watching him, realizes the depth of their bond.
Six months had passed since the garden was planted, and the world had turned from summer’s green to the deep gold of autumn, then to the brittle chill of winter, and now to the tentative green of early spring again. The garden had yielded its harvest—tomatoes that tasted of sun, basil that perfumed the kitchen, sunflowers that had dried and been fed to the birds. Margaret had grown from a newborn into a curious, babbling infant who pulled herself up on furniture and put everything in her mouth. The Whitfield memorial was complete, delivered with a flourish that brought Dale a commission for a private library restoration in Vermont. The French furniture line had its first six orders. Life, in its messy, beautiful way, had settled into a rhythm of ordinary miracles.
But ordinary miracles did not prepare you for the moment when the woman you loved walked into a room and did not walk out.
It began on a Tuesday. Skye had a late shift, and Dale had just put Margaret down for her afternoon nap when his phone buzzed. He saw it was Skye, but when he answered, it was not her voice.
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