Safe With Me (37 page)

“Noah’s dad is freaking out that my dad did this to us,” Maddie says. “They’ve worked together for like, a hundred years or something.” She tears up again. “He thought my dad was kind of a jerk, but he never suspected . . . this. No one did.”

Hannah puts her hand over the top of Maddie’s. “A lot of the time, people see what they want to see. And no one wants to think someone they spend time with can do something like this.” She waits a beat. “Your dad is a good actor, too, isn’t he?”

Maddie nods, then releases a long sigh, her eyelids fluttering. “I’m so tired. I don’t think I’ve ever been this tired, even when I was sick.”

Hannah reaches for Maddie’s blankets and tucks them up around her shoulders. “Why don’t you try and sleep for a bit? I’ll wake you when the nurse says you can see your mom.”

“Promise?”

“Cross my heart.”

“Okay,” Maddie says with a weak smile, then closes her eyes. Only a moment later her breaths deepen, and Hannah watches
her while she sleeps, remembering how many times she did this same thing with Emily. Especially in the months preceding the accident, when her daughter seemed to be pulling further and further away. Hannah would tiptoe into her room after she was certain Emily was asleep, staring at her daughter’s relaxed, beautiful face, charmed by the odd way she pushed out bits of air between her lips like she was trying to blow up a balloon. Those stolen moments, when sleep robbed Emily of the ability to throw up walls between them and she was still just a little girl, are among the things Hannah misses most.

It strikes Hannah now that her brother was right when he said that at one point or another, everyone pretends to be something they’re not. This tendency starts so young—just as it did with Emily, when she first began to push Hannah away. We try on personalities like second skins, learning to present only the best version of ourselves to the world, fearful of what might happen if we reveal just how imperfect and vulnerable we really are. But it’s those imperfections, Hannah realizes, those struggles, that truly connect us. It’s what linked her and Olivia so quickly when they first met. It’s the reason she’s sitting here next to Maddie’s bed, worried for this child as much as she once worried for her own.

After a while, Hannah begins to nod off, too, only to be awakened by the same nurse who had brought Hannah back to Maddie’s bed. “Olivia’s in her room now,” she says. “She’s conscious, and asking for Maddie.”

Together, Hannah and the nurse gently shake Maddie awake, then help Maddie ease herself into a wheelchair. Hannah pushes the chair, following the nurse down a long corridor lighted by cool blue, fluorescent bulbs. They take the elevator
to the fourth floor, and the nurse leads them to a private room at the end of the hall. She opens the door, but Hannah hesitates before entering.

“Maybe you should go in alone, first,” Hannah says, her hands suddenly sweaty as they grip the handles of the wheelchair. She isn’t sure if Olivia will want to see her.

“I want you to come with me,” Maddie insists, so Hannah steadies herself and does as Maddie asks. Olivia lies in a bed against the far wall, tubes stringing out from her body just as they had from Emily’s last year. Hannah swallows hard, trying not to cry at the memory, trying to be strong for Maddie. And Olivia, too.

“Mama,” Maddie says, and Olivia opens her eyes, turning her head toward her daughter’s voice.

“Baby girl,” she whispers. Her voice is raw, and it looks to Hannah as though it hurts her to speak; her throat must be raw from the intubation tube they used in surgery. And, Hannah realizes, from James’s hands around her neck. “Come here,” Olivia says, and Hannah pushes Maddie over to her mother.

Olivia’s eyes are swollen, black and blue like her daughter’s, but it’s clear she sees Hannah standing behind the wheelchair. “You’re here?” she says quietly. Not angry, not accusing. Just a question.

“I called her,” Maddie says, her words made fragile by tears. “I asked her to come.”

Hannah holds Olivia’s gaze with hers for a long moment. She understands why Olivia asked her to stay away from them—to protect them all from James should he find out who Hannah is to their family. But Olivia was also hurt that Hannah kept the truth from her—dishonesty, even if it is for a
justifiable reason, is far from an ideal foundation for a friendship. But Hannah hopes that after the events of this night, Olivia might be willing to start over.

But instead of saying anything to Hannah, Olivia looks at her daughter again. She visibly flinches as she takes in Maddie’s bruises and swollen flesh. “Oh, honey, your
face,
” she whispers, trying to lift her arm to reach out to her daughter, but realizes the cast she’s wearing prevents the movement. “Your father . . . ?” Maddie nods, and Olivia clenches her eyes shut. “What happened?” she asks, looking back at Maddie. “The last thing I remember is being in the living room . . . James hitting me . . .” Her voice breaks, and Maddie puts her hand through the railing on the bed to touch her mother’s leg. Slowly, she explains to Olivia what she told Hannah and the police officer earlier—how she and Noah managed to fight James off and called the police to take him away.

“He’s in jail, now, Mama,” Maddie says. “He can’t hurt us anymore.”

Olivia swallows carefully, clearly still struggling to speak through the pain in her throat. “I should have left him before . . . you were right.” She looks at Hannah. “Both of you were right.”

“That doesn’t matter now,” Hannah says gently, not wanting Olivia to feel any worse than Hannah suspects she already does. “What matters is that you’re both alive and that he pays for what he did.”

“I’ll tell the police everything,” Olivia says. “Do you think it will be enough? My word? That he’ll go to prison and I can divorce him?”

“You can divorce him either way,” Hannah says, wanting
to touch Olivia but not knowing where to put her hand that won’t hurt her.

“Noah and I will testify, too, Mom,” Maddie adds. “It won’t be just your word anymore.”

Olivia presses her split, swollen lips together and nods her head once. Hannah decides to place just the tips of her fingers on Olivia’s white blankets before she speaks again. “I think the best plan for right now is to take things one step at a time. First, you need to focus on getting better.” She pauses, unsure what Olivia will say to what she’s going to offer next, but knowing it’s what she wants to do. “And if you want . . . if you’re okay with it, Maddie can stay with me until you’re back on your feet. Anything else you need, anything at all, I’m here.”

Maddie looks at Hannah and then back to her mother again. “It’s okay with me, Mom,” she says, reaching out to take Hannah’s free hand.

Olivia is quiet a moment, still gazing at Hannah. There is a hesitance in her eyes and a slight stitch between her brows, making it clear that she’s trying to sort out how she feels. “Thank you,” she finally whispers, and Hannah knows she means this for so much more than just tonight.

And then Hannah smiles, realizing that no matter how quickly sorrow can demolish a life, a moment of kindness, a pure and simple act of forgiveness, can just as quickly save it.

The idea for this book came to me over a decade ago, and at the time, I tried to wrench the story onto the page with little success. Maybe it wasn’t ready to be told. Maybe I wasn’t ready to tell it. Whatever the case, I am so grateful to my wise and wonderful agent, Victoria Sanders, who trusted me enough to give it another chance when I suggested I wanted to try again, and who later called me twice on a Sunday as she finished reading to say how much she loved it. She is a remarkable and savvy advocate in this crazy business, and I’m so lucky to have both her and her formidable staff—Bernadette Baker-Baughman and Chris Kepner—on my side.

Thanks to my editor, Greer Hendricks, who possesses brilliant insight into the stories I want to tell and always finds the kindest, most effective ways to challenge me and help make my writing better. Her support is an unparalleled gift.

Thanks to so many others at Atria Books—Judith Curr, Ben Lee, Paul Olsewski, Sarah Cantin, Lisa Sciambra, Hillary Tisman, Carole Schwindeller, Isolde Sauer, and Carly Sommerstein. This list could go on and on—to every member of the sales team, the art department, and marketing, I extend my
most sincere gratitude for taking such good care of me and my books. Special thanks to Cristina Suarez-Krumsick, my publicist at Atria, for her belief in my work.

Organ donation is a complex, variable experience for every individual or family member who goes through it, and while it would be impossible to adequately describe each of those experiences in a single story, my goal was to capture overall emotional truths. While conducting my research, I was fortunate enough to come in contact with Valerie Maury, family program manager at LifeCenter Northwest, a nonprofit organ procurement organization. Her patient and knowledgeable answers to my many, many questions about the psychological effects the process has on the recipients and the families involved were invaluable in the shaping of this book. (Any procedural inaccuracies are my own.)

I’m so grateful for the enthusiasm of my social media friends, who cheer me on through the tough writing days and say such kind things about my books. I cannot express how much it means to connect with you all. For this book in particular, I must especially thank Joanie Mack, who when I cried out for help on Facebook, gave me the perfect French-themed name for Hannah’s salon.

I must also thank social media for bringing Laura Meehan into my life, not only as a valuable editorial professional but as a dear and hysterically funny friend.

And finally, I could not live this writing life without the love and support of my family—heartfelt thanks to Anna, Scarlett, and Miles for being so proud that I’m a writer, and thanks to Stephan, always—for everything.

1. Consider the title of the novel, and the idea of safety—both of a physical and emotional nature—in the story. Who is keeping whom safe in this book?

2. If you had been in Hannah’s position, do you think you could have donated your child’s organs? Why or why not?

3. Did Olivia and James’s relationship change how you viewed domestic abuse? Does Olivia match your vision of an abuse victim?

4. What is the book saying about the relationship between one’s physical exterior and their emotional and psychological state? How does each character try to project an outward appearance that is different from their internal feelings?

5. Read the novel’s epigraph as a group. What does the concept of destiny, or fate, mean to you?

6. Olivia has many reasons for not leaving James, not the least of which are financial. Consider the power dynamics at play in their marriage. How does James make Olivia feel helpless—and how does he also make her feel special?

7. Dishonesty is a theme throughout the novel. Do you think that there are degrees of dishonesty? For example, is there a difference between fabricating a story and obscuring the
truth? What qualifies as lying? And is dishonesty that has good intentions more excusable?

8. As a group, read
the scene where James brings Olivia breakfast in bed
. Can you empathize with Olivia’s thinking that, “even though she knows better, even though she’s been through this with him a hundred times before, Olivia can’t help but wonder if she really needs to leave him after all.”

9. Maddie’s experience at the mall with Hailey and her friends highlights the perils of being a teenage girl. Do you have any memories from this age that are similar? Do you think the challenges of being an adolescent girl have inherently changed?

10. Olivia acknowledges that she worries sometimes, “
that Maddie spends so much time interacting with what
other
people’s imaginations have dreamed up that she’ll never learn to imagine things on her own.
” For those of you who have children, do you worry about this as well?

11. Discuss the role that technology plays in this narrative. In what ways does it have an empowering, connective impact? In what ways does it have a distancing effect?

1. Do you know anyone who has received a donor organ? Learn more about organ donation at:
http://www.organdonor.gov/index.html
.

2. If you haven’t read
Heart Like Mine
yet, consider reading it as a group. Discuss how Hatvany uses three alternating perspectives for different purposes in both
Heart Like Mine
and
Safe with Me
. What are some of the devices she uses to create unique voices for each of her narrators in these novels?

3. Many domestic abuse shelters accept items that we routinely replace and then have no further need for—like computers, cell phones, cameras, or even magazines. Consider bringing a few of these items to your next meeting and then find a local shelter to donate them to.