Chapter 66 Odette’s Health
St. Clement’s was twenty minutes from the apartment.
Zael drove like a man who had somewhere to be and no patience for anything that stood between him and it. I sat beside him and didn’t say anything because there was nothing to say that would help and I understood that well enough not to try.
Damien was already in the waiting area when we arrived.
He stood the moment he saw us. “She’s stable,” he said immediately. “Conscious. The doctor says it’s cardiac related… her heart rate dropped suddenly.” He looked at Zael. “She’s asking for you.”
Zael was already moving toward the desk.
The nurse took him through first.
I sat with Damien in the waiting area… two plastic chairs, a low table with magazines nobody reads, the institutional quiet of a hospital corridor that has absorbed too many difficult hours to feel neutral anymore.
“How bad?” I asked.
“The doctor used the word manageable,” Damien said.
“Which means real but not immediately catastrophic.” He looked at the corridor door. “She’s been having symptoms for weeks apparently. Told no one.” He shook his head slightly. “Classic Odette. Information on a need-to-know basis including information about her own health.”
“She didn’t want to distract from everything happening,” I said.
“Obviously.” He looked at his hands. “Zael is going to be furious about that.”
“Zael is going to be terrified about that,” I said. “The fury comes second.”
Damien looked at me.
“Yes,” he said quietly. “You’re right.”
We sat.
The corridor was quiet.
At some point Damien got two cups of coffee from a machine down the hall and handed me one without asking. I drank it without tasting it and watched the door and thought about Zael sitting in a hospital room with the woman who had been his entire family since he was seven years old.
Forty minutes passed.
The door opened.
Zael came out.
He walked to where we were sitting and stood for a moment without speaking. His jacket was still on. His hands were in his pockets. His face was the most unguarded I had ever seen it in a setting outside the apartment… not broken, not performing composure. Just present. Just him.
“She’s resting,” he said. “The doctor wants to run tests overnight.” He sat down. “They think it’s manageable with medication and monitoring.” A beat. “She’s been ignoring symptoms since last month.”
“That’s true,” I nodded.
“She knew she was unwell and chose not to tell me.”
“She was protecting you from worrying while everything else was running,” I said. “That’s who she is.”
“I know who she is.” His voice was flat but not cold. “It doesn’t make it acceptable.”
“No,” I agreed. “It doesn’t.”
He looked at the corridor door.
“She wants to see you,” he said. To me. “She asked specifically.”
I looked at him.
“Go,” he said. “She’s awake.”
Odette was propped against pillows with a monitor attached and an IV line in her left arm and the expression of a woman who found the entire situation mildly inconvenient rather than frightening.
She looked up when I came in.
“Close the door.”
I closed it. Sat in the chair beside the bed.
“You gave him a fright,” I said.
“He recovers quickly.” She adjusted her position slightly. “How is he actually?”
“Managing,” I said. “Furious underneath it.”
“Good.” She nodded. “Fury means he’s not falling apart. Zael falls apart quietly and alone which is considerably more dangerous.” She looked at me.
“He’ll want to stay tonight.”
“Then he’ll stay tonight.”
“You should stay too.”
“Absolutely, I intend to.”
She studied me for a moment with the focused attention she brought to everything. “You two are still dancing around it,” she said.
“He almost said it tonight,” I said. “Before your housekeeper called.”
“Almost.” She exhaled. “That man.” She shook her head. “David used to say… the people who feel the most say it last. Because they understand the weight of it better than anyone.” She met my eyes. “Zael has been carrying it for months.”
“I know,” I said.
“Then stop letting him carry it alone.” She said it simply. Not as a command. Just a fact she had been waiting for the right moment to deliver. “You’re both so busy being careful with each other that you’re missing the part where being careful isn’t required anymore.”
I looked at my hands.
“He needs to say it in his own time,” I said.
“He needs someone to make it safe to say.” She held my gaze. “There’s a difference.” A pause. “You of all people should understand that. You spent eleven years in a house where nothing was safe to say.”
The room held that.
She was right.
And she knew she was right, which was the most Odette thing possible.
The door opened quietly.
Zael came in.
He looked at Odette first… a fast complete check, the way you looked at someone after a fright to confirm they were still there. Then at me.
He pulled a second chair close to the bed and sat down.
Odette looked at both of us.
Then she reached out her hands.
Both of them. One toward Zael. One toward me.
We each took one.
She held on with the grip of a woman who was smaller than she appeared and stronger than anyone accounted for.
“I didn’t arrange this marriage by accident,” she said. Her voice was quieter than usual but entirely certain. “I knew what I was doing. I knew who you both were. I knew what you needed and I knew what David hoped for.” She looked between us. “I have been watching the two of you find each other in the middle of everything Gerald threw at you and I have been very patient.” Her eyes settled on Zael specifically. “My patience has limits. And I have just spent forty minutes attached to a cardiac monitor which clarifies one’s sense of urgency considerably.” She held his gaze. “Don’t waste it Zael. Whatever you’ve been almost saying… stop almost saying it.”
Zael looked at her.
Then at me.
His hand tightened around Odette’s.
“I hear you,” he said quietly.
“Good.” She released both our hands and settled back against her pillows. “Now one of you get me proper tea. This hospital version is an insult.”