asked, I called Connie and told her the whole story, she’ll tell Carl to pick you up tomorrow. It’ll be fine.”
"I hope so," Raylene choked from her gurney.
"I know so,” he said, handing her his card and the bag with her cotton frock he’d been holding all night. “You call me when you can, leave a message with my service. I want to know you’re OK."
She gave him the smallest smile. Pat squeezed her good hand, gave her a friendly kiss as she was pushed toward surgery, and was gone. Raylene was too tired, in too much pain to be disappointed or hear him say as he left, “Goddammit to hell. Why am I always the lucky bastard?”
Next day, stitches in place, her inflammation was down enough to go home. Carl was coming, having left meetings early to pick her up. Raylene dreaded his questions, her mind stuck as she slowly pulled on her cotton dress.
"Don't miss this," the nurse said as she offered Raylene's Carnelian necklace.
"Where—"
"Fell out of your dress last night when you were woozy. You remember Rita, who helped you? She found it. Here, let me." The nurse fastened the clasp around Raylene's neck. "Now don't cry hon, you got it back safe and sound."
* * *
Raylene had gone back to the life she thought she’d lost, almost as if nothing had changed. Perhaps because of the accident, Carl had never questioned Connie’s tale that she and Raylene were at the Grove that night. Now Connie had Alzheimer’s and couldn't speak much sense, and Carl would no longer care even if she could. Even Raylene might not have believed it had actually happened but for Pat’s card, yellowed and creased, pasted in her scrapbook, labeled “Torrance Dog Show, 1967.”
* * *
Raylene stood motionless in the old cabaret. No one except these walls remembered the time when for one shining minute, she might have changed her life. If she hadn't lost the necklace, maybe she would have run away with Pat. Yes, then she would never have got the cancer, because Pat didn't smoke, and she could have gone on training dogs wherever Pat went. Maybe then she wouldn't have gotten so ugly. She closed her arms over her flat chest and stood with her head down, breathing deeply in the bright empty space.