Chapter 6 - The Unopened Room
Claire did not wake for three days.
She was transferred to the Intensive Care Cardiac Unit, surrounded by a forest of intravenous drips, an arterial line monitoring her fragile blood pressure, and a mechanical ventilator gently rising and falling in rhythm with her chest.
Nathan never left her side.
He didn't change his clothes. He didn't shower. The multi-million-dollar buyout of the Wilmington shipping terminals expired without his signature, causing panic among the board members of Mercer Logistics, but Nathan didn't care. When his senior adviser, Martin Sloan, arrived at the hospital with a briefcase full of urgent legal filings, Nathan didn't even look up from Claire’s pale hand, which he held gently between both of his palms.
""Nathan, you need to sign these,"" Martin urged in a hushed, nervous tone. ""The Whitmores are threatening to pull their credit line over the scene Vanessa made in the press. If you don't release a statement about Claire’s condition—""
""Fire Martin,"" Nathan said softly.
Martin froze. ""Excuse me?""
""You're fired, Martin. Clear your desk by noon."" Nathan turned his head, his stubbled jaw rigid, his eyes hollowed out by sleepless nights. ""You're the one who drew up our prenuptial agreement. You're the one who told me she was an opportunist looking for an easy out for her family’s debt. You treated her like a transaction. And I let you.""
""Nathan, I was protecting your assets!""
""She was my wife,"" Nathan snarled, standing up slowly. ""And while I was protecting my assets, she was suffocating in an empty house. Get out of my sight before I ruin you.""
Martin backed out of the room, white as a sheet, and fled down the hall.
That evening, Nathan returned to the Mercer mansion for the first time in seventy-two hours, driven by Samuel. The house was cold and echoing. He walked up the sweeping grand staircase and stopped outside the door across from the master bedroom.
Claire’s room.
In two years, he had never crossed that threshold. He had considered it a matter of respect, a gentleman's agreement to give her privacy. Now, turning the brass handle, he realized it was nothing more than cowardice.
The room smelled faintly of lavender and old paper. It was immaculately tidy. On the mahogany writing desk sat a neat stack of Mercer corporate financial reports, every ledger balanced to the penny. Beside them lay her wedding band, placed carefully upon a single sheet of paper containing the dissolution of their marriage.
And next to the ring sat a worn, cloth-bound copy of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s poetry.
Nathan opened the book with trembling fingers. Inside the front cover, carefully preserved within plastic film, was another pressed gardenia, and beneath it, written in his late mother’s elegant script:
To my dearest son Nathan—may you find a love that endures all storms. 2001.
May you like
Tucked behind the flower was a photograph taken twenty-three years ago in the hospital lobby: a fifteen-year-old Nathan sitting alone with his bouquet of gardenias, his face turned toward the rain. In the corner of the frame, reflected in the glass, was a little eight-year-old girl holding her mother’s hand, looking back at him with enormous, sorrowful eyes.
Claire hadn't just remembered him. She had carried his grief with her for half a lifetime.
