Safe with Me: A Novel

On Friday night, Hannah’s cell phone rings just as she’s locking the front door to the salon. She fumbles for it, worried that it’s Olivia, canceling their plans for the evening. After their lunch earlier in the week, Olivia invited Hannah to her house for dinner, and for the first time in months—even if it is for the wrong reasons—Hannah is actually looking forward to something other than going to sleep.

“Hi, honey!” her mother chirps. “Did I get you at a bad time?”

Hannah wedges the phone between her shoulder and ear as she makes her way to her car. “I’m just locking up,” she says. “And I’m on my way to a friend’s house for dinner.” Friend might not be the exact right term, she thinks. But what else should she call Olivia? She wants to tell Olivia about her suspicions of who they are to each other—she knows she has to—but she doesn’t know how. She’s worried now, too, considering that Olivia said James doesn’t want any contact with the donor family. The way Olivia talked about him, Hannah got the distinct impression that James’s word was pretty much law in the Bell household, and she wonders what would happen if Olivia went against it. Hannah doesn’t want to do anything that might put Olivia in a bad place with her husband, so until she’s absolutely positive Emily was Maddie’s liver donor, she’s decided to keep her mouth shut.

“How nice!” her mother says, sounding as enthused as she might have if Hannah had just told her she won the lottery. “I won’t keep you long. I just want to know if we’ll see you for Thanksgiving this year.”

Leave it to her mother to be planning a holiday meal almost three months ahead of time. “I’m not sure yet. I’ll have to see how busy things get at the salon.” Hannah climbs into her car and starts the engine, slipping her earpiece on so she can continue their conversation while she drives. “Is Isaac planning to come?” She feels like the only way she’ll survive the holiday with her parents is having the protective layer of her brother there, too.

“Oh, you know your brother. It’s always last minute with him.” There is a melancholy edge to her mother’s voice, and immediately, Hannah slips into an all too familiar sense of I’m-a-bad-daughter guilt for living so far away from her parents. She thinks about how much she misses Emily—how it feels as though there is a gaping, aching hole in her life—and she wonders if, even though she and Isaac are still alive, her mother feels the same way when they both can’t wait to escape the confines of the farm. She has always seemed supportive of their decisions and proud of their accomplishments, but Hannah knows all too well that parents often wear a mask to protect their children from how they really feel.

“I’ll try to make it work, okay, Mom? I promise.” Hannah slowly backs out of her driveway, more of a cautious driver than she ever was before Emily’s accident. It took her almost a month after the funeral to be able to get behind the wheel of a car, and now, she tends to ride her brakes and take corners in slow motion.

“Okay, honey. Thank you.” Her mom pauses a moment to clear her throat. “So, your father had his yearly checkup the other day.”

“Is everything okay?”

“Well, mostly. His blood pressure is a little elevated and his cholesterol levels could be better. Dr. Warren thinks he needs to slow down. That he shouldn’t be doing this much heavy labor at his age.” She pauses again, for effect. “I told him we’ve asked you to move home to help out, but it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen anytime soon.”

“God, Mom.” As though Hannah isn’t already feeling guilty enough.

“What? I’m simply telling you about my conversation with your father’s doctor.”

“Uh-huh.” Hannah leaves her response at this, knowing the more she engages her mother on this subject, the more her mother will push.

“Who are you having dinner with?” her mother asks brightly, apparently satisfied that she’s accomplished whatever she meant to with the story about her father’s checkup.

“Just a woman I met at the salon,” Hannah says, thinking the fewer details she gives, the better. Even over the phone, her mom has a way of sniffing out when Hannah is hiding something. “We hit it off and she invited me over.”

“Well, I think it’s wonderful you’re making new friends.” Hannah hears her father’s voice in the background, and then her mother speaks again. “Dad sends his love, honey. Call me soon, okay?”

“Okay,” Hannah says, grateful to hang up. As she drives along, the guilt Hannah felt during the phone call nags at her. She worries that she is being too selfish. If her parents did lose their farm, would she be able to live with her decision to stay in Seattle? She isn’t sure that she could. Now that the second salon is up and running, could she find a way to make living back in Boise work? Maybe she could let herself be lulled into the simplicity of planting a garden and watching it grow. She loved helping her parents when she was a child—riding on the tractor with her dad and pulling weeds with her mother—but as soon as she turned fourteen, all she could think about was a life beyond digging her hands in the dirt, a life without the constant scent of manure in the air. For years she was happy—happy living in Seattle with Emily, happy with her career and being a mother. But now that Emily is gone and Isaac still traveling so much, is there really anything keeping her here? Sophie could easily buy out Hannah’s interest in their business and run both salons, then Hannah could put the profits from the sale into the farm. She could lose herself in learning how to manage a new business, just as she lost herself in the renovation. She could keep her parents happy and her mind busy. She could keep her grief at bay.

Her GPS spouts off navigation instructions to Olivia’s Medina address, interrupting her thoughts. Hannah takes several deep breaths, trying to prepare herself for the evening. She’s a little concerned she might say something to give herself away—that she might mention Emily’s real age or the fact that her daughter was an organ donor. She promises herself that once she is certain, one way or the other, she’ll tell them the truth.

“Your destination is on the right,” Hannah’s GPS informs her as she pulls up to a tall, black iron gate and presses a blue button on the wall, as Olivia instructed.

“You made it!” Olivia’s voice comes through the speaker, and the gates slowly begin to swing open. Part of Hannah wants to turn her car around and make a run for it. She shouldn’t be here. She shouldn’t be doing this. But the other, more desperate part of her convinces her to stay.

“I did,” Hannah says, placing her hands directly on ten and two on the steering wheel.

“I’ll see you in a minute,” Olivia says, and Hannah pulls through the gate and tries not to gasp at what she sees. The house rises atop perfectly manicured grounds—a red-brick mansion better suited for an English moor than the Eastside of Seattle. There is a huge fountain in the center of the circular driveway and a vast collection of giant rosebushes in front of the house. Hannah suddenly wishes she’d taken the time to wash her dingy blue Honda, and that she’d picked out a better outfit than jeans and a faded black sweater. She turns off the engine and stares at the front door, wondering if she shouldn’t just sit Olivia down the minute she walks inside and tell her the truth, but then Olivia appears on the porch, wearing jeans and a poet-style white blouse. She looks happy to see Hannah.

“Hey, there,” Hannah says, smiling as she climbs out of her car. “I think you might need a nicer house. This place is clearly bringing down property value in the neighborhood.”

Olivia laughs. “I know, right? When James first brought me here, I felt like I should have worn a ball gown. Or remembered to shave my legs, at least.” She trots down the steps and walks over to Hannah’s car, giving her a quick hug. “I’m so glad you’re here.”

“Me, too,” Hannah says with what feels like a somewhat shaky smile.

Olivia loops her arm through Hannah’s and they make their way inside. “By the way, James’s business trip got cut short so he’s here. He can’t wait to meet you,” she says, but the high-pitched trill of her voice makes Hannah think this might not be exactly true. She suddenly feels anxious about meeting him.

“Let me go get Maddie,” Olivia says. “I can’t seem to get that girl off the computer lately. Or the phone.”

“That’s like most teenagers . . . isn’t it?” Hannah asks, knowing full well that Emily would have spent entire days online or texting if Hannah had allowed it.

“I suppose so,” Olivia says, putting her hand on the end of the curved railing that edges the stairway. “I guess I was just hoping once she got out of the hospital she would want to spend time with real people instead of imaginary ones.” She sighs. “Wishful thinking, I suppose . . . I’ll be right back.”

She runs up the stairs, and Hannah takes a moment to let her eyes wander over the subtle elegance of the entryway. She feels dwarfed by its vaulted ceilings and elaborate crystal chandelier, and she wonders if the gold-framed Van Gogh The Starry Night hanging on the wall is an original.

“You must be Hannah.” A man’s resonant voice jolts Hannah out of her thoughts, and she looks up to face James Bell standing about ten feet away from her. He is taller than she thought he’d be, well over six feet, broad shouldered, and unlike in most of the pictures she has seen of him online, his hair is definitely more salt than pepper. He wears Levi’s, a wrinkle-free, short-sleeved blue linen shirt, and no shoes. His bare feet throw Hannah a bit—she imagined him as always fully dressed, topped off by coordinating belts and expensive Italian loafers.

“I am,” she says, smiling. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“You, too.” He takes a step toward her and holds out his hand, which she shakes. His skin is cool, and she shivers not because of that but because of the appraising look he gives her. She suddenly feels as though she’s too tall, too plain, too flat chested.

“So . . . you’re the magician who transformed my Maddie into a woman?”

Hannah hesitates before answering what seems more like an accusation than a question. Does James not like Maddie’s new hair color and style? “I’d say at sixteen, she’s still very much a young woman,” Hannah finally says. “But yes, that’s me.”

James bobs his head once, as though satisfied with her response, and Hannah wonders if she’s passed some kind of test. “I wasn’t supposed to be home from San Francisco until much later tonight,” he says, “but my dinner meeting was canceled so I caught an earlier flight. What a surprise to learn you were coming over.” He pauses to give her another look loaded with some kind of meaning—what kind, Hannah isn’t sure. She holds his gaze, though, feeling like they are in some weird game of chicken—whoever blinks first, loses. She doesn’t blink.

“A bad surprise?” she asks evenly.

“Not at all.” He pauses. “You’ve made quite the impression on my wife. Maddie, too.”

“A good one, I hope.” Hannah gets the feeling that James wants her to bow to him somehow, to thank him for honoring her with his presence. She guesses he’s the kind of man who needs a lot of adulation, and all other matters aside, this is reason enough not to like him.

“It’s a beautiful night,” he says, not commenting on what kind of impression she’s made on his wife and daughter. “Shall we go sit on the patio?”

“Sure,” Hannah says, following him through an ornate dining room and already wide-open French doors. The backyard is as beautiful as the front, every shrub and clump of flowers expertly arranged, the lawn lush and closely clipped. James gestures for her to sit in one of the padded Adirondack chairs, and she complies. “Can I get you a drink?” he asks. “A cocktail or some wine?” He steps behind an outdoor bar, where there is already a half-gone martini resting on the counter. Maybe that explains the slightly glassy look in his eyes.

“No, thank you,” Hannah says. Her nerves are jittery enough that she’d love a drink to take the edge off, but she knows she needs to keep her head clear so she doesn’t end up saying something she’ll regret. She needs to stay in control. “I’d love some iced tea, though, if it’s not too much trouble.”

“Not at all,” he says and quickly brings her a glass with a wedge of lemon on the side, carrying his drink in the other hand. He sits down next to Hannah, uncomfortably close, but she doesn’t want to offend him, so she doesn’t scoot away. She wonders if this is part of his professional success, creating the subtle illusion of power over his business rivals by invading their personal space.

She experiences a brief moment of panic that perhaps James is acting like this with her because he already knows who she is. Does someone with his kind of power have the connections to unseal confidential medical records?

He looks her over again, this time more slowly, and again, Hannah feels uncomfortable. “My wife says you live above your salon in an apartment?” He says this like it couldn’t possibly be true.

“I do. It was easier to oversee the renovation that way. The whole place needed to be gutted, so my contractors did the apartment first, then tackled the downstairs.” Hannah remembers how, at Isaac’s request, Carl and his crew quickly transformed what had been a three-bedroom second story of the house into what is now a cozy, five-hundred-square-foot studio. She guesses from this line of questioning that James doesn’t like his wife making friends with women not already in their social circle—that she has to somehow earn his approval. She also gets the impression that this is likely an impossible task.

“Ah, a businesswoman who likes control over her projects.” He gives her a pointed look. “Am I right?”

Hannah cocks her head at him. “If you mean I like to make sure things are done correctly, then yes. But I also think it’s important to trust the people I hire to do their job.”

“You’re a better boss than me, then,” James says with a low chuckle and takes a sip of his drink. “Olivia also tells me you’ve never been married.”

“That’s right.” Hannah holds her breath, waiting for him to bring up Emily next. But he doesn’t.

“Are you not interested in the institution?” he asks, setting his glass on the table and staring at her with bright green eyes. “Or are you just picky?” He smiles as though he is joking, but there is a hint of mockery in his voice. He strikes her as the kind of man who thinks that women who choose to be single are either man-haters or lesbians, and Hannah briefly toys with the idea of telling him she’s both, just to mess with his head, even though she’s neither.

“God, Dad,” Maddie says, as she and Olivia join them on the patio. “Leave poor Hannah alone. So she’s not married. Who cares?”

Hannah stiffens a bit, certain Maddie’s challenging her father will lead to some sort of immediate parental backlash, but James only chuckles. “I was just making conversation with our new friend.” He looks at Olivia, who remains silent, and then back at Hannah. “Right, Hannah?”

Before Hannah can respond, Maddie flops down in the chair next to her and slings one leg up and over the armrest. “Please. You were interrogating her.” She looks at Hannah. “Ignore him, okay? He thinks that every woman needs a man to be happy.”

“And you think I haven’t heard you on the phone this week, giggling?” James asks his daughter, but there is a teasing edge in his voice. “You think I don’t know you’re talking to a boy?” Maddie blushes, and she drops her gaze to the ground. “Aha!” James continues, triumphantly. “I thought so. What’s his name? Do we know his family?”

“James, honey,” Olivia finally says, though her voice is muted, less bubbly than it is when she speaks to Hannah. She sounds like Hannah used to when she attempted to talk Emily down from an impending tantrum—placating and vaguely pleading. “We have a guest. Maybe we should talk about this later.”

“Maybe we should talk about it now,” James says to his wife, and though on the surface, his tone seems playful, Hannah can hear the condescension shadowing the words. Olivia cringes and looks at the ground. No wonder she keeps secrets from him, Hannah thinks. She can only imagine what might happen if Olivia said something James didn’t want to hear.

“His name is Noah,” Maddie says, quietly. “And he’s just someone I met at school. We have a class together. That’s all.” She looks at her father with a strange light in her eyes. “You wanted me to make friends, didn’t you? Isn’t that why you made me go there?”

“Maddie,” Olivia begins, but James holds up a hand to cut her off. “And what is Noah’s last name?” he asks, ignoring his daughter’s questions.

“Bedford,” Maddie answers, and James smiles. “I know his father,” he says. “Good man. Real estate investor.”

“What’s your favorite subject?” Hannah asks Maddie, hoping to rescue her from her father’s focus. Maddie seems more willing to challenge her father than Olivia is, though there is still a hint of fear in her face when she speaks to him. Hannah wonders if she keeps secrets from her father, too. And maybe more important, what secrets he might be keeping from them.

“Math and computer science, definitely,” Maddie says. “I think I might want to get into computer programming. Or digital graphic arts.”

“Like CGI for movies, you mean?” Hannah asks, but James interrupts before Maddie can respond.

“Maddie has always had a fascination with technology.”

“Dad . . .” Maddie begins, but James interrupts her.

“No, honey. It’s true. Remember when you were five and snuck my cell phone out of my briefcase and tried to take it apart to see how it worked?”

Maddie grins and looks at Hannah. “I thought he was going to be mad at me, but instead he took it to work to brag to his friends about what I’d done. Of course, I couldn’t put it back together.”

James laughs, and Hannah smiles, happy to see that he has a softer side—at least, when it comes to Maddie.

“I’m sorry about the loss of your daughter, Hannah,” James says quietly. “A car accident, I understand?”

Hannah snaps to attention, once again panicked. “That’s right,” she says, making sure to keep her voice steady.

“James, honey,” Olivia says. “I’m sure Hannah doesn’t want talk about that right now.”

Talk about what, exactly? Hannah wonders. What in the hell had she been thinking, coming here like this? What was she expecting to happen? The truth is that she genuinely likes Olivia and Maddie and wants to spend more time with them. Yes, there is the possibility of them being linked through Emily, but even without that, Hannah would want to get to know them better. She decides to focus on that, and nothing else.

“I’m just expressing my condolences, Liv,” James responds.

“Thank you, James,” Hannah says. “Like I told Olivia, I’m not really comfortable talking about the details, but I do appreciate your kind thoughts.”

“See that?” he says, turning to Olivia, who nods in submission. “How’s dinner coming along?”

“Almost ready, I think,” Olivia says, flashing him a toothy smile that matches his own. Their gestures appear false to Hannah like Here, look at us, gleefully smiling at each other. Olivia glances at Hannah. “Will you excuse me a minute? I should check the temperature on the roast.”

Hannah rises from her seat. “Let me help you,” she says, leaving Maddie in the company of her father. She follows Olivia through the dining room into the elaborate kitchen, which is full of restaurant-size stainless-steel appliances and an eight-burner stove. And even though the garlicky aroma of roasted meat wafts through the air and several pots simmer on the stove, the space is immaculate, not a splatter of sauce or bread crumb to be found. “Your house is spotless,” Hannah says.

“James likes things clean,” Olivia says with a small shrug.

I’ll bet he does, Hannah thinks as she slides onto one of the barstools at the marble-topped breakfast bar. I’ll bet he runs his fingers over the top shelves, looking for dust.

Olivia reaches into a drawer and rifles around until she pulls out an electronic meat thermometer. “I’m sorry if he made you uncomfortable.” She opens the oven and slips the metal prong into an enormous prime rib roast, then turns to look at Hannah. “He can be a little direct.”

“That’s okay,” she says, thinking “direct” is a polite way to say “rude.” She wants to ask what’s really beneath James’s smooth exterior, but instead she asks about Maddie. “So, if she’s already talking to a boy, things must have gone better for Maddie the rest of the week at school?”

“I think it was the hair,” Olivia says, seemingly relieved that Hannah has abandoned the topic of her husband. “Or at least, how she felt after getting it done. Thank you, again, for that.”

“Just doing my job,” Hannah says. “And it was my pleasure.” Despite the brief moment of apprehension she felt when Maddie first sat in her chair, Hannah realizes this is the truth. She sees a bit of her daughter in Maddie—not in a weird, Maddie-might-be-possessed-by-Emily’s-soul kind of way, but rather, in the way Maddie projects a sense of fragility laced through with defiance—the lift of her chin when she challenged her father a few minutes ago, but also, the way it trembled.

Olivia removes the thermometer, grabs a pair of oven mitts, and pulls the roast from the oven, setting it on the counter to rest. “I imagine that being around her isn’t the easiest thing for you.” She takes a sheet of foil and tucks it around the meat, then turns her gaze to Hannah, her palms resting flat on the counter in front of her. She looks a little shaky, and Hannah wonders why.

“The years when Maddie was so sick,” Olivia continues, “when she couldn’t even get out of bed to go to the bathroom, seeing other children in the park or just walking down the street was sheer torture. I resented their health, the way their mothers just seemed to take for granted the fact that they could run and jump and play.” She sighs. “And then when we came so close to losing her, I thought about how if we did, I’d never want to see another little girl again. How hard it would be.”

Hannah grips the edge of her stool, just as she had gripped the edge of her chair in the waiting room of the ER last year, desperate for Emily to survive. “It’s not always easy,” she says in a ragged voice, then clears her throat. “Maddie is the first one I’ve spent any time with, really, but she’s older than Emily was.” She waits a beat, wondering just how much she should share about how she feels, but then the truth comes tumbling out. “But they’re everywhere, you know? I can’t avoid them. I’ll be jogging and see a little girl with black hair and skinny arms and think she’s Emily. And then my heart will just stop. It literally skips a beat. For an instant, I’ll think the doctors were wrong—that they made a mistake and it wasn’t Emily who died.” Her bottom lip quivers as she gives Olivia a wan smile. “Ridiculous, right?”

Olivia shakes her head. “Not at all.” She walks around the island in the center of the kitchen, joins Hannah at the breakfast bar, and takes her hand. Hannah holds her breath, waiting for her to say something about the mother of the child who saved Maddie—she wants Olivia to be the one who brings the subject up—but then Maddie enters the room.

“I think Dad’s head is going to explode if he doesn’t have dinner soon,” Maddie says, stopping short when she sees Hannah and Olivia holding hands. “Is everything okay?”

“Everything’s fine,” Hannah says, pulling her hand back to her own lap. “Your mom and I were just talking about how great your hair looks. And I love your outfit.” Maddie is wearing black leggings, which flatter her thinner limbs, and a lace-edged, Kelly-green peasant blouse, which camouflages her thicker middle and brings out the color of her eyes. “It’s very hippie-chic.”

“Mom took me shopping this afternoon,” Maddie says, rocking from her heels to her toes and back again, clearly pleased by the compliment. “The woman at Macy’s was way helpful in picking things out. I basically got a whole new wardrobe.”

“A new wardrobe for your new life,” Olivia says, and Hannah can’t help but feel a biting twinge of grief in her chest. A life Emily might have made possible, she thinks. After meeting James tonight, she’s become even more determined not to share her suspicion about their families’ possible connection unless she’s absolutely positive she’s right. Then it can be Olivia’s decision to tell James or if, in the end, she’ll just have one more secret to keep.