“No,” said Hollis. “Some of the sailors carry fixed blades for their jobs. Those can be sturdy.”
“I’ve sewn up his subcutaneous tissue and the surface laceration separately, with some staples, given how jagged the injury was. I’ve also typed him and given him a unit of blood. Plus antibiotics.” She shook her head in judgment of my field care. “If anything kills him it will be the imminent infection. His vitals are good but we’ll have to watch him through the night to make certain.”
“We?” Hollis said. “I’m no medic.”
“You can manage to work a blood pressure cuff,” the doctor said, dry as parchment, “and check his pupils. I’m not confident that he doesn’t have a concussion. It’s disturbing that he’s been unconscious most of the night. That’s not normal, even for someone in shock from being stabbed.”
“What’s wrong with Bilal Nath?” I said.
Claybeck looked uncertain. “I can’t—”
“I promised the fucker I would forget he was ever here. That includes forgetting you said anything about him. Why would he pay Ondine Long to see you?”
She glanced reprovingly at Hollis. He’d been indiscreet. “Nath has ALS.”
“Lou Gehrig’s disease.”
Claybeck nodded. “He had an attack last night and couldn’t breathe properly. And for whatever reason, he refused hospital care.”
“Perhaps he doesn’t want anyone knowing he’s sick,” Hollis mused.
“That’s possible. Or he won’t admit it to himself. He’s on riluzole and other medications, but he’s going to go downhill quickly without full treatment.”
“How quickly?” I said.
The doctor raised an eyebrow at my tone. “Hoping your problem will solve itself?”
I grunted. “I won’t be that lucky. Bilal has something specific in mind for me. He won’t waste a second if he’s going to die soon.”
“The progression of ALS can vary hugely. Stephen Hawking lived for over fifty years after his diagnosis. But”—Claybeck shrugged—“most patients succumb within five. I believe Bilal was diagnosed at least three years ago, and his limbs are showing signs of recent atrophy. My best guess is that he has a year at most.”
“So we all take a long vacation,” Hollis said, trying to break the mood. “Maybe Jaak can arrange a sea voyage. Speaking of our friend . . .”
“I’ll take first watch,” I said.
“No,” said Claybeck. “I won’t be sleeping anytime soon. And I want to stay close to the patient for another couple of hours in case he needs another unit of blood.”
I wasn’t so sure sleep was in the cards for me, either. But after the doctor led us past the door with her ravenous dogs and down the hall to the house’s spare rooms, I lay down on one of the beds and closed my eyes. An old habit from the Rangers: Rest whenever you can, because the next opportunity might be a long time coming.
Eight
Dr. Claybeck shook me awake. Her face so slack with fatigue I thought she might collapse onto the bed next to me.
“Jaak is stable,” she said. “You shouldn’t have to do more than check his pressure every hour. You know how?”
I did. The doctor left immediately for her own room, her dogs padding after her. I washed my face in the guest bathroom sink and headed downstairs.
Jaak looked about the same as when I’d last seen him, save for a much cleaner bandage strapped to his side. He was snoring lightly. I took that for a good thing.
My watch read five minutes past three in the morning. I checked my phone and remembered that it had rung earlier in the night, during all the chaos. Stasia Llewellyn-Wiler, from Philadelphia. Moira’s school friend had left a brief voice mail saying she was happy I’d gotten in touch and that she’d try me again tomorrow. Which was today. I texted to let her know I was awake on the West Coast.
The other cell phone, the one Bilal had given me, felt hot in my chest pocket. Right over my heart.
Goddamn it. A day ago I had my life in order. A tenuous state, but at least I was putting the recent past behind me. Now I was keeping watch on one of Hollis’s smuggling cronies and owed a favor to some gangster connected to Ondine Long, of all people. What the fuck was I doing wrong?
Maybe it was karma. My ex, Luce, for all her pragmatism, had liked the idea of karmic balance. Do some good, and trust in the ripple effect to benefit you and yours somehow. I didn’t believe justice worked so efficiently.
I didn’t believe in ghosts, either. But somehow the men I’d killed in Oregon managed to haunt me, at least a little.
My pocket buzzed. For an instant I thought it was Bilal, wasting no time in putting me to work. But the vibration came from the other pocket, and my own phone. Stasia, calling back right away.
“It’s Van,” I said. “Moira’s son.” Those last two words sounded very strange coming out of my mouth.
“Van, it’s Stasia Wiler. This is amazing. Truly. It might sound very odd to you, but I’ve thought of you so many times over the past twenty years or so. Almost every time I remembered Moira. How are you? Or maybe who are you would be a better question, after so long.”
“I’m good,” I broke in. “I wanted to ask you some questions about Moira.”
“Naturally. I could talk for an hour about she and I and barely scratch the surface. Wait—” Stasia interrupted herself. “All I can think about is how much you might look like her. Could we switch to video?”
Her call was already sending a request to activate my camera. Best that Stasia didn’t see Dr. Claybeck’s clinic and the sleeping trauma patient. “Give me a second,” I said.
I’d spotted a set of baby monitors on the rack of medical equipment earlier in the night—an odd fit with the rest of the gear—and now I had an inkling of how Claybeck used them. I set the monitor next to the sleeping Jaak and brought the parent unit with me as I jogged back up to the cavernous living room to turn on the lights. If his snoring changed, I’d come running.
I accepted the video request. Stasia’s face came into the frame. Lean and equine, with subtle makeup in place despite the early hour and auburn locks barely tamed with a large tortoiseshell clip. Her eyebrows popped into view over the lenses of her glasses.
“Oh, my God!” Stasia said. “You are very definitely Moira’s boy. Your hair. And something in the mouth, too. Those are so her. Not your eyes. Hers were brown, too, but not nearly so dark . . .”
“The eyes skipped a generation.”
“Her father, yes, yes. Donny? Is he still alive?”
“Dono. Donovan, I’m named for him. He died a couple of years ago.”
Stasia rubbed her forehead with a fingertip. Behind her, I could make out a bookshelf loaded with thick three-ring binders and framed degrees on the wall next to family photos. A home office, maybe. “I’m very sorry.” She sighed. “Man. Moira’s dad. He was . . . an intimidating guy. Of all the ways Moira impressed me, the biggest might have been standing up to her father.”
“When she became pregnant? I was also hoping you knew something about her boyfriend back then. Dono—and I—never found out who he was.”
She laughed, a little shakily. “Well, nothing like starting a conversation with the easy topics. I don’t know how much you know about Moira—”
“Just north of zip. Don’t worry about offending me.”
“Then I’ll begin at the beginning. Moira and I met in middle school. She was very smart. We both liked to get good grades and had our hands raised in class constantly, even if the teachers called on the boys nine times out of ten.” Stasia paused to reflect.
The storm outside had finally passed. A low cloud cover cast an ashen pall over the night sky.
“We were closest then,” Stasia said. “High school sort of tugged us apart. Even though she’d already skipped a grade in elementary, Moira was enrolled in AP courses. And there were boys.”
“She dated a lot?”
“Not her, me. I had the hormone crazies and didn’t make as much time for Moira.
We still saw each other, but . . .” Stasia made a face. “Between my having fun and her being such a private person, it wasn’t the same. She sort of withdrew.”
That was the Shaw way. Keep to yourself and guard your flank. My own circle of friends in school could have been counted on the tines of a pitchfork.
“Not your fault,” I said. “Kids drift around.”
“That’s why it was so surprising when Moira asked if she could come stay with me and my family, just before our senior year. I was stunned. But happy she’d asked, even if I didn’t really know why. All she would tell me was that she couldn’t live at home anymore. That she and Dono were arguing all the time. She implied without actually lying to me that their fights were about whether Moira would go to college right away or take some time off.”
“And you took her in.” My glass of rye whiskey was still sitting on the coffee table, half full. I picked it up, less to drink than to feel its solidity.
“My parents were fine with Moira living with us for a while. She was still pulling all As and they considered her a good influence, you know? And they might have been nervous to talk to Dono about what was going on.”
“I could see that.”
“So we started school and came home each day and that was pretty much all for two weeks. Then I found Moira crying in the closet, not for the first time, and I told her I was going to go to the police unless she told me what was happening. That did it. She fessed up that she was four months pregnant. Of course I insisted that she tell me who the boy was, but no way. She hadn’t even told Dono who he was. Hence her extended visit.”
“Dono kicked her out.” My fingers were tight around the whiskey glass. I made myself set it down.
“No. At least I don’t think so. My guess is that their fights were about him pressuring Moira to give up the boy’s name. She seemed scared of what Dono might do.”
I could understand that, too. My grandfather was scary enough when he was calm.
“And she never hinted at who he was?” I said.
“No. Not for lack of my asking. But Moira wrote letters. I found her scribbling feverishly at my desk once, and she swept the letter into her backpack and made me promise that I’d never go hunting through her stuff. And I never did. She was so furious. I’d already seen the words at the top of the page but pretended I hadn’t: ‘Dear Sean. I’m sorry but I can’t. If Dad ever asks you—’ That was all I caught.”
Sean. My father’s name was—might be—Sean.
Then the other critical point hit me.
“ʻIf Dad ever asks you’?” I said. “So Dono knew this kid?”
“I suppose he must have. But that doesn’t mean Dono ever realized Sean was dating Moira. I remember thinking about that and mentally going through every boy I had ever met, trying to recall one named Sean. I’d promised Moira I wouldn’t look through her things, but not that I wouldn’t try my best to figure out who her secret boyfriend was. It was pointless. Eventually I accepted that if I wanted to stay friends with Moira I had to let it drop.”
Dono would have done the same, I realized. Considered every boy in Moira’s life, trying to figure out who was to blame. Moira must have been damn good at keeping her life private.
“Moira stayed with us first semester,” Stasia said. “She kept up with school, too, even though—people were cruel. Students and even some of the teachers. I don’t know how she stood it. But the longer it went on, the tougher Moira seemed to get. She was so brave. I remember she was going to church every week. I suppose that helped her.”
“Church?” I said. “Like, Catholic?”
“Yes. We were Presbyterian, so I don’t know if we’re talking about attending full Mass, or if Moira was just going to a cathedral to sit and contemplate. It was new for her. Discovering or rediscovering her faith. Did she take you to church as a boy?”
“I don’t think so. At least I don’t remember that.” Dono had rejected religion early on, a collision of tough corporal schooling and his tougher defiance. I suppose Grandma Fi might have been closer to the church. And that Moira would have been christened or baptized or whatever it was when she was a baby.
Damn, maybe I had been, too.
“Wait, you said Moira stayed with you first semester?” I said. “Where was she after that?”
“Her own place. Before Christmas, when she was just a few weeks away from popping, Moira told my parents and me that she’d be getting an apartment starting in January. We thought that was crazy. She was still sixteen. How could she live alone? How could she pay for it? But there it was.”
“It must have been Dono’s doing. A compromise, if Moira wouldn’t return to their house on Roy Street.”
“You’re probably right. I couldn’t change her mind about moving out. Moira’s apartment was only a few blocks away from school. I visited her at least once every week through the rest of the year. Partly to see the baby—you—but also to study. It wasn’t completely selfless: I brought her homework when she had to skip, and Moira got me through Physics.” Stasia shook her head. “She was so proud of you. Babies don’t do much during their first months, but man, she talked to you like you could understand every word. You’d babble back and she’d pretend you were interrogating her like on a cop show. I would fall over laughing. She could be very funny, Moira. Very wry.”
More droll than Stasia knew. Dono had played a game like that with me, too, one where he was the cop and I had to avoid being trapped by questions. It had been good practice. Had he taught Moira the same lessons?
“What about other friends?” I hoped my mother had another confidante, anyone she might have talked to about Sean.
“If there was anyone, I never met them. I’m sorry.”
“And Sean never came around.”
“No. I don’t think he did. Perhaps Moira thought she was better off without him.”
Perhaps. Dono knew Sean: my thoughts kept circling back to that. Most of the people Dono had known were not straight citizens.
Stasia asked me what I’d been doing with myself since I’d learned to walk. I gave her a sanitized version of my life, as quickly as politeness allowed, and turned the conversation back to my mother.
“After graduation things trailed off,” Stasia explained. “I headed to college at Penn. I know Moira was aiming for college herself when you were a little older, but I don’t recall her ever taking any classes.” Her voice trailed off.
“Before she died,” I finished for her.
“When I heard, I was so upset. I called around and someone told me Dono had taken you in, so I assumed that Moira and Dono had healed their relationship.”
No way to ask either of them now.
“Oh, wait,” Stasia said quickly. “You’ll want to see this.” She left the frame for a moment. “Here. From our junior year, before all the trouble started.”
She held up an open book to the camera lens. A yearbook, the headshots of the students in black and white. It took some trial and error for Stasia to position the heavy book so that I had a clear view of the second row, last picture.
Moira Shaw.
Dono hadn’t kept family photos. I was seeing my mother’s face for the first time all over again. She was fifteen years old, and a stranger to me.
Except. The black hair and the cheekbones and just the way she was smiling at the camera, with a hint of can-you-believe-we’re-doing-this in her tilted eyebrow, rang as true as a sledgehammer on a gong. Embarrassed and awkward and beautiful in spite of and because of all those things.
“I’ll take a picture and send it to you,” Stasia was saying, “and if I find any others—”
“Thanks,” I said, my voice thick. And then again: “Thanks.”
“You never got to know her.” Stasia caught a tear as it rolled from under her glasses. “You should have.”
I coughed to clear my throat. Stasia Llewellyn-Wiler and I both took a moment.
Stasia wished me a happy new year. I returned the sentiment. We ende
d the call. I picked up the glass of whiskey and downed its contents without tasting a drop.
My mother. Barely half the age I was now, with an infant son, living on her own and finishing high school. Whatever trials I’d conquered in my own personal life, they were vying for second place behind Moira’s survival.
“Miz Cullen?” I said.
She looked up from the stack of math assignments on her desk. “Hello, Van. Davey wasn’t here today.” Ms. Cullen was my best friend Davey’s homeroom teacher. I had Mr. Rigby this year.
“No. I mean, I know. I wanted to—” I glanced outside at the hallway, making sure again that it was empty. “Um. You knew my mom? When she was here? Moira Shaw?”
Ms. Cullen blinked. “Moira?” She looked past me at the open door to the hallway herself. “Well, yes. Of course.”
“And, did she—was she, like, good in school?”
Ms. Cullen looked at me for a moment, then motioned to the door. “Why don’t you close that, Van? We can talk better.”
I didn’t really want to shut the door, though I wasn’t sure why. Maybe because if it stayed open I could turn around and leave faster. But I closed it anyway and sat down in the first row where Ms. Cullen pointed.
“Your mom was a very good student,” Ms. Cullen started. “She liked to read a lot. You read, too, don’t you?”
I nodded. Granddad made me, keeping the TV off, but I probably would have read, anyway. We had a lot of books in the house.
“Well, Moira was especially good at book reports. She would tell the class about scenes she had read and get other children excited to read the same book. That was a real gift.” Ms. Cullen took her glasses off, which made her squint a little. She opened her drawer to get a cloth and began cleaning the lenses. “Moira’s father: Do you live with him now? I think I heard that.”
“Uh huh.”
“I see.” She finished wiping the glasses and set the cloth down. She cleared her throat. “Do you and he ever talk about your mother? Or your grandmother?”
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