Safe with Me: A Novel

When Zoe Parker first walked into Emily’s hospital room, she was the last person Hannah wanted to see. It was her job, as the transplant coordinator, to go over the entire process with Hannah, to talk with her about where Emily’s corneas and heart and lungs would go. Later, Zoe was the one who forwarded the thank-you notes from the organ recipients’ families and tried to push Hannah into attending one of the donor family support groups, which Hannah repeatedly, but politely, refused to do. Hannah was not a joiner. Growing up, she didn’t play on any teams or become part of any clubs. The idea of sitting in a room, staring at other parents who had lost their children, bemoaning their mutual misery, made Hannah feel like her skin was suddenly too tight for her body.

“Talking about your grief helps process it,” Zoe gently suggested. “I know you’re keeping busy, but I’m afraid that if you don’t learn how to sit with your pain over losing Emily, it’s going to come crashing down on you when you least expect it. I want you to be ready for that.”

“I’ll manage,” Hannah responded, wondering how, exactly, Zoe thought a person could be “ready” for grief—as though it were an Olympic event one could train for with tear-duct-strengthening exercises and emotional sit-ups. The grief Hannah felt about Emily’s death wasn’t a momentary event; it was a constant, aching throb in her body, a sliver lodged deep in her heart. From the first moment she saw her child lying motionless in the street, no matter how hard she worked, how busy she kept, it had never left her. She couldn’t imagine that it ever would.

After too many conversations like that one, she stopped answering Zoe’s calls. So on Thursday morning, after she gets back from her morning run and sees Zoe’s name on her caller ID, she hesitates before answering. But curiosity gets the better of her and she picks up before the call goes to voicemail.

“I just want you to know that I forwarded you a thank-you note from the liver recipient yesterday,” Zoe says after Hannah says hello. “You should get it today.”

Hannah’s stomach spasms, and she wonders if it’s too much of a coincidence that she will get this letter just over a week after meeting the Bell family. Have they guessed who she is? She wouldn’t put it past James to run a background check on her. No matter what Olivia said, it was pretty clear from his behavior the night she went to their house for dinner that he didn’t like her. At the very least, he was wary of her. The entire evening had felt like the two of them were boxers, carefully circling each other in the ring. “Is it the recipient or the parents?” she asks, thinking this is the best way to find out if James had anything to do with the timing of the letter.

“The recipient,” Zoe says. It is her job to read through the thank-you notes before sending them on, vetting them for any identity-revealing or otherwise inappropriate information. “She sounds like a sweet, smart girl who’s still trying to figure out who she is after the transplant. A lot of kids struggle with that issue. They’ve spent their lives totally defined by their illness, and suddenly, they’re not sick and have no idea who they are without a diagnosis. Getting well mentally and emotionally is a whole different ball game from their physical recovery.”

“I can only imagine,” Hannah says. Olivia said that James basically forbade them from contacting the donor family. If this was true, the letter couldn’t be from Maddie . . . could it? Maybe I’m wrong about everything. Maybe I was just telling myself what I wanted to believe. There will be no way to know until she holds the letter in her hands. She glances at the clock. It’s eight fifteen and her first client is due downstairs at nine—she needs to get dressed. “Thanks for the heads-up, Zoe. I really appreciate it.”

“Of course,” Zoe says, but she hesitates a moment before ending the call. “How are you doing? Have you given any more thought to joining one of our groups?”

“Not really,” Hannah says, trying to repress a sigh but failing. “I’m fine. Thank you. Really busy with the new salon, and I’ve made a great new friend.” She says this to prove to Zoe that she’s moving forward with her life—new friendships must serve as evidence of that. Her mother clearly thinks so, but that’s only because she doesn’t know who Hannah’s new friend actually is. Sophie has a different opinion on the matter, and because of this, Hannah has deliberately avoided her since the awkward night her friend took her out for drinks; for now, she is communicating with Sophie through text messages and emails only.

“That’s great, Hannah. I’m happy to hear it. We’re here if you need us, okay? Any time at all.”

Hannah thanks her again, then hurriedly hangs up so she’ll be able to shower and get the salon open in time for her client. Veronica and Peter don’t typically schedule their clients until after ten, which is fine with Hannah. She’s glad she has a reason to make herself get out of bed.

A few minutes before nine, Hannah jogs down the stairs and unlocks the front door. Just as she is opening it to go check the mail—which usually doesn’t come until the afternoon, but her excitement over the news of the letter makes her optimistic—she sees a man at the bottom of the steps, his hand on the railing. It takes a moment for it to register, but then it comes to her—he’s the psychologist, Seth. “It’s you,” she says, keeping her hand on the doorknob. She feels the heat rise to her cheeks and a sudden twist in her stomach; she’s unsure if these are symptoms of attraction or annoyance.

He looks up at the sound of her voice and smiles, his eyes crinkling in the exact way she remembers. “I think so. If I’m not me, then I put on the wrong man’s underwear this morning.”

She can’t help it—she laughs. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m your nine o’clock appointment,” he says, taking the steps two at a time, then stands in front of her.

“You are?” She gives a brief shake of her head. “I don’t remember putting you on my schedule.”

“A nice girl named Veronica set it up for me yesterday, when I called.” He runs his fingers through his slightly overgrown dark hair, then drops his arm back to his side. “I usually just buzz it myself with the clippers at home, but I figured since you have two salons, I should come see what all the fuss is about.” He grins and tilts his head just the slightest bit to the left, in a charming, I’m-accustomed-to-getting-what-I-want fashion. “Do I get to come inside, or do we do this on the porch?”

Hannah waits a moment before opening the door. Just showing up like this, unannounced, seems a little presumptuous on his part. Cocky, even. She really isn’t ready to date anyone and wonders if she’s sending him the wrong message by letting him in. Sensing her hesitation, Seth holds up his hands, palms facing her. “Just here for the haircut, I swear.” He pauses. “Also? I’m an excellent tipper.”

“Oh well, in that case,” she says, smiling as she swings open the door. It can’t hurt to cut his hair, she reasons. I can keep it professional. A minute later, he is seated at her station. She wraps the black protective cape around his neck, then takes a moment to push her fingers through his thick locks, checking the length. “Just a trim, then? Or are you wanting to do something different?”

“Is there more a man can do with his hair?” he asks, scrunching his dark eyebrows together. “I usually just set the clippers to three and go for it.”

“I could give you a faux-hawk,” she suggests.

“Um, no,” he says. “My clients will think their shrink needs a shrink.”

“Okay,” Hannah says, feeling more comfortable talking with him than she thought she would. It’s probably a therapist thing—a test they have to pass before getting their licenses, knowing how to set other people at ease. “Do you trust me?” she asks. He says that he does, and she proceeds to shampoo him, which she has always secretly thought an oddly intimate thing to do for a person she’s just met.

As he leans back in the chair and lets her firmly massage his scalp with the tips of her fingers, he closes his eyes and releases a low, guttural groan. “I should prescribe this as a treatment for my clients suffering from anxiety.”

“What kind of counseling do you do?” Hannah asks, figuring the least she can do is make small talk with the man. She does this with all of her clients—even the ones she doesn’t particularly like.

“Individual, mostly. Some marriage and family, but I tend to avoid couples.”

“Why’s that?” She checks the temperature on the water with the edge of her hand before rinsing off the shampoo, taking a moment to examine Seth’s face more closely. A few feet away, it had convinced her it was perfect, but in fact, one eye is a little higher than the other and his nose is a little big for the rest of his features. He has full lips and he trims his nose hair, which is more than Hannah can say about some of her male clients.

“Well, because by the time most couples wind up in counseling, it’s too late.”

“So you’re telling me you’re an optimist,” Hannah says wryly.

Seth chuckles. “With some things, yes. But couples experiencing a crisis in their marriage usually have such deeply rooted resentments it’s almost impossible to untangle the truth of their issues. I sometimes have luck if they see me separately first, then together, but I have the most success with people who are motivated to work on themselves, not change the behaviors of another person.” He opens his eyes as Hannah finishes rinsing him, and she wraps a towel around his head. “Have you ever been married?”

Furrowing her brow, she motions him back toward her station. “I thought you were just here for the haircut.”

“I am,” he says, walking over to the chair and sitting back down. He grins at her in the mirror. “Just making idle conversation. Isn’t that what I’m supposed to do with my hairstylist? Or should we be gossiping about movie stars and reality TV?”

“Have you ever been married?” she asks, grabbing her comb and sharpest scissors from her drawer.

“Ah, answering a question with a question. Classic deflection technique.” She finds herself mildly irritated by his observation, so she doesn’t respond, only runs the comb through his hair and begins snipping. Seeming to register her annoyance with him, he continues. “Yes, I was married. I’ve been divorced almost ten years now, though. No children. I wanted them, she didn’t.”

“Didn’t you talk about that before you got married?” Hannah asks, grudgingly interested in what he has to say.

“Yeah, but I was stupidly convinced that she must have had some trauma in her childhood that made her not want to have a baby. That if we could just figure out what it was, she could deal with it and then she’d change her mind.” He pauses and lets loose an almost inaudible sigh. “I couldn’t accept that some people just aren’t wired to be parents. I pushed and pushed until she couldn’t take it anymore. It ended.”

Hannah pauses before taking the next cut, a little surprised—but oddly appreciative—that he is being so open with her. “Do you still want them?”

“Theoretically? Yes. I love kids. But I also don’t want to be one of those guys who needs a walker to attend his children’s high school graduations. So it’s probably not going to happen.” There is a tangible sadness behind these words, and Hannah decides to take it a little easier on him and share a bit about her past.

“I’ve never been married,” she says, as she carefully trims the hairline over his ears. “At first, it was more of a rebellion against my parents, you know? They met when they were thirteen and have been happily together for over fifty years. It all seemed so boring, being with the same person day in and day out . . . forever.”

“And you didn’t want to be bored.” Seth listens to her intently, his brown eyes never leaving the reflection of her face as she speaks. She imagines his clients feel that he hangs on their every word.

“Exactly,” she says. She tells him how she moved away from the farm, went to beauty school, met Sophie, and eventually opened the salon. “I dated quite a bit throughout my twenties . . . you know, just having fun . . . and then I got engaged. It didn’t end well.”

“What happened?” He pauses. “If you don’t mind my asking.”

She shrugs, thinking if he could be so honest about the reasons behind his failed marriage, the least she can do is return the favor. “Well, when one of you wants to get married and the other wants to sleep with another woman, it’s really not meant to be.”

“What a fucker,” Seth mutters.

“Yes,” Hannah says, laughing. “As a matter of fact, he was. Literally.” She sighs, surprised at how easy it is to talk with him. “I thought I was going to be with him for the rest of my life, you know? Marriage, babies, the whole deal. And after what he did, I started really thinking about what I wanted for my life besides my career, and I realized it was having a baby. On my own.”

“And did you?” he asks, an unmistakable lift of hope in his words. She suspects he is imagining dating her and meeting her children—maybe someday, if all worked out between them, becoming a stepfather. When Emily was alive, Hannah had played this fast-forward game with some of the men she dated, picturing what their life together might be like, what each one would look like standing next to her and Emily, but none of them ever seemed right to her. They didn’t fit into her daughter’s future, and now that Emily is gone, Hannah has stopped planning a future of her own. That is the real reason it wouldn’t be fair to date Seth—because she knows at this point, no matter how sweet and smart and funny he might be, she doesn’t have it in her to commit to anything more than a haircut.

“My daughter died last year,” she says, a familiar tension gripping the muscles in her chest. She doesn’t know why she has decided to tell him this, but then he reaches up and grabs her hand, stopping her from her work.

“Oh my god, Hannah. I’m so sorry.” He says this simply and with so much sincerity, it makes her want to cry. She bobs her head once in acknowledgment. “Was she ill?” he asks.

“She was hit by a car.” The moment of the accident flashes in front of Hannah and she has to close her eyes and swallow hard to contain the sharp sob she feels building in her throat. She wonders if it will ever get easier to say these words—to tell someone the truth.

“What was her name?”

“Emily.” Hannah whispers her daughter’s name like a prayer and forces her eyes open to look down at Seth. They hold each other’s gaze for a moment before Hannah finally drops hers to the floor, then resumes the final touches on his cut. When she’s done, she adds a dab of styling paste to hold his hair in place. He is quiet while she does this, and it’s not until the front door opens and Veronica and Peter walk through it together that Seth speaks again, examining his reflection in the mirror.

“I look like a new man,” he says. “Thank you.” She gave him a George Clooney style—close cropped, pushed forward, and slightly spiked and messy in the front. It suits him.

“You’re welcome.” Grateful that he seems to intuit that she can’t talk any more about Emily and doesn’t press her for details, Hannah carefully removes the cape, and Seth stands up, smiling at her.

“Good morning!” Peter says cheerfully as he takes off his coat and proceeds to his station. Veronica waves, too, as she walks past them toward the kitchen for her morning coffee. When she’s sure Seth’s back is to her, she points at him, widens her eyes, and mouths the word “cute!” at Hannah, who chooses to ignore her.

“Good morning,” Seth says to Peter, then he and Hannah step over to the reception desk, where she runs his credit card and takes what she hopes are imperceptible deep breaths to calm her racing pulse. She’s not sure if the anxiety she feels is over telling Seth about Emily or about the way he looked at her when she told him—like he understood something deep within her core. As he puts his wallet in his back pocket, Hannah struggles to find the right words to express how she feels. She finally lands on “I’m happy you came in.”

“Me, too,” he agrees, then runs a light hand over his newly shorn hair. “I’ll never buzz it again.” They briefly discuss when he should schedule his next appointment, and just as he is about to leave, Sophie breezes in through the front door.

“Good morning!” she says, then stops short when she sees Seth. “Well, now. Hello.” She gives Hannah a pointed look, then takes a step over to kiss Seth’s cheek. “Remember me?”

“How could I forget?” Seth says. “Robert hasn’t stopped talking about you.”

Sophie flushes and lowers her eyes, clearly pleased to hear Robert has been discussing her with his friend. From their limited communication over the past week, Hannah knows Sophie has seen Robert several times since the night they met, but her friend hasn’t gone into much detail. Hannah was assuming that he was just another one of Sophie’s casual flings, but from the look on her face, she wonders if the relationship might have the potential to be something serious.

“What’s up, Soph?” Hannah asks lightly. “Don’t you have clients this morning?”

“My partner’s been avoiding me,” Sophie answers in an equally cool tone. “So I cleared my schedule for a visit.”

Seth’s gaze ping-pongs between them before he grabs his coat from the rack by the door. “I need to get to the office, too,” he says, then looks at Hannah. “Thanks, again.”

She smiles at him as he leaves, then turns her eyes back to Sophie. “I have another client in half an hour,” she says, purposely not telling her friend who that appointment is. She might not have looked at her schedule closely enough for it to register that Seth would be her nine o’clock this morning, but she does know Olivia will be there at ten thirty—she made that appointment herself the day she first called Olivia. Knowing Sophie disapproves of Hannah’s interactions with Olivia, she can’t imagine that the two of them meeting would go well. She needs to get Sophie out of here as quickly as possible.

“Plenty of time,” Sophie says. “Let’s go upstairs.” Reluctantly, Hannah tells Peter where she’ll be, and a moment later, she and Sophie are seated on the love seat in her small living room. “So . . . Seth?” Sophie says, raising a perfectly plucked eyebrow. “What else haven’t you been telling me?”

Hannah shrugs. “I didn’t know he was coming. Veronica made the appointment.”

“Mmm-hmm,” Sophie murmurs. “He’s very handsome. Robert says he’s a good guy.”

“I’m sure he is.”

“Did you sleep with him?”

“No!” Hannah says. She doesn’t say anything more, waiting to hear whatever it is Sophie came to say. All she can think about is the letter Zoe said would arrive today, and she wonders how having Seth show up could have so easily distracted her. She needs to check the mail.

“Then what aren’t you telling me?”

“Nothing.” Hannah shifts her body, turning it slightly away from Sophie. Her friend knows her well enough to recognize when she’s lying, so when she feels Sophie try to catch her gaze, she looks down, suddenly very interested in picking at a loose thread on the love seat.

“Your mom told me you went to someone’s house for dinner the other night.”

“When did you talk with her?” Hannah says, finally looking up.

“She called me Monday, just to check in. And Isaac emailed me.” Sophie gives Hannah a pointed look. “He said you’ve been avoiding him, too.”

Hannah tries to think if this is exactly true. Isaac had shot her a few texts over the last week, but she’s been so distracted by meeting Maddie and Olivia, she can’t remember whether or not she answered them. And she just spoke with her mother Friday night on the way over to Olivia’s house. Why was she “checking in” with Sophie after that? The idea that they were talking about her behind her back infuriates Hannah, so she stays silent, giving Sophie what she knows is a defiant look.

Seeing this, her friend sighs. “We’re just worried about you. That’s all.”

“Don’t be,” Hannah says. “I’m fine.” Am I really so dysfunctional? What’s next? Some kind of intervention?

“Fine spending time with the family you’re stalking?”

“Jesus, Soph. I’m not stalking anyone. I just had dinner with them.” She decides to keep quiet about the fact that she also had lunch with Olivia and that they’ve been texting back and forth every day since. “I like Olivia and Maddie,” she continues. “James Bell is different story. He’s kind of an ass.” She waits for Sophie to ask for details—her friend is usually anxious to gossip about anyone and anything—but Sophie only frowns.

“Hannah, you know I love you, but if they’re the family you think they are, then you definitely need to be honest with them. What you’re doing isn’t fair. To them or you.” She reaches over and tries to grab Hannah’s hand, but Hannah jerks out of her reach.

“I’m fine,” she snaps again. “I wish everyone would please stop telling me what to do.” She grips the edge of the cushion between her fingers. “I’m going to tell them, okay? When I know for sure, one way or the other.” A few tears slip down her cheek and she angrily wipes them away. “I can’t do this right now, Soph. I have a client, okay? Can we talk later? I’ll come over, I promise. We’ll have dinner and catch up. I know I’ve been distant . . . I just . . .” She trails off and her bottom lip trembles before she can go on. “I’m finding my way through this as best I can.”

“I know,” Sophie says. “But I wish you’d stop thinking you have to go through it alone.”