Free The Remedy for Regret by Susan Meissner Page A

but my body willingly gives in to the pull of sleep.

Seven
    I am barefoot on a deserted street on Terceira. In one hand I hold my canvas bag, in the other, the smaller hand of my half-brother, Zane. I am young. Too young to have the canvas bag that I carry as an adult and too young to have a little brother named Zane. I realize both of these things at the same moment that I drop the bag and pull Zane close to me.
    “Watch out!” I yell as the pounding of hooves fills my dream.
    I pull Zane away from the bulls as they race past us down the empty street, angry and afraid. The sound of my voice yelling out a warning to Zane wakes me. The pounding of hooves is replaced by a pounding at my hotel room door.
    “Pizza delivery!” I hear someone yell from the other side, perhaps not for the first time.
    I am disoriented as I grab my wallet out of my bag on the bed beside me. I make my way to the door and open it.
    “Sorry,” I mutter to the young man standing there holding a flat box with a spinach, black olive and feta cheese pizza inside it. I hand him fifteen dollars for the nine-dollar small pizza, telling him to keep the change and hoping my generous tip will make up for my slow response. He pretends not to be surprised by it.
    “Have a good evening,” he says as he stuffs the bills in his pocket and hands me a receipt.
    “You do the same.” I close the door as he walks away.
    The bottle of water I’d brought with me on the plane is warm and half-empty but I don’t feel like leaving the room to get ice or a fresh drink. I fill the bottle the rest of the way with tap water from the bathroom.
    I eat the pizza slowly, trying to clear my head. I dismiss the dream and concentrate my thoughts, as I chew, on making the call to Simon. When the small pizza is half-gone and I feel somewhat satisfied, I close the lid on the pizza box and push it away from me. I hold my cell phone for several minutes before pressing the button that will speed dial my phone at home in Chicago.
    I can’t seem to shake the dread I feel. I’m afraid that Simon won’t be there and equally afraid that he will be. I’m painfully aware that the last spoken words between us were unkind words. Words meant to wound.
    “Don’t let him leave me,” I whisper to no one as I press the button.
    I nearly collapse in relief as Simon answers the phone by saying my name as if he’s been waiting to say it all day. I know caller ID has allowed him to see I’m calling, that he answers by saying my name because he knew it was me, not because he hoped that it would be. But it sounds like there is hope in his voice and I have not heard such a thing in quite awhile.
    “Oh, it is good to hear your voice,” I say to him, because it is.
    “Is everything all right? Are you with Blair?”
    “No and no.” I relax back on the headboard of the bed. “I’m actually at a Holiday Inn by the airport. Brad died half an hour before I got here. His employer got this room for me. I won’t be seeing Blair until tomorrow. She’s sedated right now.”
    “Oh, Tess,” he says, but nothing else. We are both weary of bad news.
    “I feel so bad for Blair,” I continue without thinking. “She’s so young to be a widow.”
    But of course Simon doesn’t want to contemplate Blair’s future without her husband. It must surely remind him of the man whose wife and daughter died when Simon’s phone-fumbling and ill-timed pass sent them to their deaths. I am wishing I could take back what I just said. I am about to apologize when Simon asks me how long I think I will be gone. I am only too happy to change the subject.
    “I’m not sure yet, Simon. If Blair wants me to stay through the funeral, well, I think I should.”
    “Yeah, I suppose that would be the right thing to do,” he says, and I can tell he wants me to come home but I can’t tell why. I decide I cannot bear another moment not knowing.
    “Simon, is it good news or bad news?” I ask.
    “What?”
    “Whatever it