by A J Rivers
The words make my heart ache.
“Where was she?” I ask.
Dean shakes his head.
“I never found out. She wouldn’t tell me.”
“You were just alone for four days?” I ask.
“No. A man was there when I got home from school. He told me I was safe, and he would watch over me, but I told him I didn’t want him in the house. My mother’s note told me to be good and that she would be back. I trusted her.”
“So, you didn’t call the police?” Sam asks, sounding something between angry and horrified.
“My mother didn’t trust the police. One betrayed her once, and since then, she was afraid. She taught me to fear them.”
“What happened with the police officer?” I ask.
“I don’t know. But I do know the man who came to check on me was wearing a dog tag.”
Our eyes meet, and I nod.
Chapter Six
Ian
Seventeen years ago …
He couldn’t do it. He’d been standing at the edge of the bed looking at the suit spread out across the pale green comforter for those two hours. His eyes stung. They were so dry from barely blinking. The corners of his mouth were cracked with tears pooling there. When he’d first took the suit out of the garment bag that morning, he’d noticed the shirt was wrinkled. He took it off the hanger and examined it. Without even thinking, he called out to her.
Her name had fallen out of his mouth so naturally. He didn’t even have to think about it. It was as if the syllables were already waiting on his tongue and they just tumbled out when he parted his lips. It was habit, the closest thing to instinct. As soon as he saw the wrinkles, he called out for her, wanting her to take the shirt and iron it. Part of him even expected her to show up at the door with that smile, the one that said she knew a grown man should know how to iron his own shirt, but she would never want him to. The name echoed in his head long after his voice faded.
He could only hope Emma didn’t hear him call out for Mariya.
It was getting late by the time he finally managed to put on the suit. He walked out of the bedroom and found Emma standing in the living room. Her hair hung tangled down her back, and she was wearing her pajamas.
“Come on. You need to get ready,” Ian said, taking his daughter by the hand and guiding her into the bedroom where she slept the night before.
It would never be home. When this was over, he never wanted to see this place again.
“Where is she?” Emma asked, staring imploringly into his eyes. “Where’s Mama?”
His breath felt like knives sliding down his throat.
“She’s gone, darling. I told you.”
At least, he thought he did. The time since he saw the blood was a blur. He couldn’t actually remember the words he said to Emma to tell her life was never going to be the same. He must have. At some point when they were sitting on the floor dreading the sunrise or when she woke up in the house she didn’t fall asleep in, he must have told her what was happening.
“But where is she? What happened to her?” Emma asked.
The question hung crystallized in the air between them. He could have reached out and taken it into his palm. Held it like a talisman. Mariya would have wanted her to know, and yet he didn’t. The answer was so much more than what happened in the moments just before her mother took in her last breath. It was more than the bullets that violated their home and her body. He didn’t know the rest.
Emma turned to look at the dark purple dress, and he took advantage of this silence.
“Get dressed, Emma. We’re going to be late,” he told her.
“Where is she?”
That was an easier question. One Ian could answer, though he didn’t want to.
“You’ll see her at the memorial service. That’s where she is,” he said, before even thinking about how the words came out.
That wasn’t what he meant to say. He should have been more careful. Emma was detached. When he looked at her, it was like he was looking through a screen. Like she wasn’t quite real. There had only been a few tears, and he only knew about those because he’d felt them soak through the shirt he was wearing that night. But he hadn’t seen any of them. His daughter looked at him through still, cool eyes and waited. She waited for an explanation. She waited for something to change. He didn’t want to confuse her any more than he knew she already was, but his grasp on his own reality was so thin. He felt like he was slipping from the edge of the Earth. He clawed into everything in him, digging down to his very bones just to stay conscious rather than letting himself slip into memories and let himself fade away.
Emma was silent as they drove. She didn’t know this car. Usually, that would mean she spent the ride exploring it like a cave, finding all the little buttons and cubby holes, comparing the seal of the stitches in the leather seats to the fabric of the last one. But this time, she just sat, staring between the two front seats at the windshield. The sunlight was a lie. Just looking through the window, the bright yellow glow looked like heat. It was the kind of sunlight that should warm upturned faces and soothe muscles into a nap stretched across a picnic blanket. Instead, it poured down from the sky like ice.
The house on the hill was white, a shrunken version of a mansion, with columns on the porch and glass on either side of the door. Emma hesitated in front of the door. Not like she didn’t want to go in, but like she didn’t know she could. There was no one else there yet. The long driveway kept the house at a distance, making it look like they were the only ones who existed. Ian knew the door was unlocked, so he stepped inside without hesitating.
It was a strange moment walking into the foyer. He knew what to expect, and yet he didn’t. It was all taken care of for him. He didn’t have to make any arrangements or plans. Mariya had done it all. It was so much like her. She ironed out the wrinkles on his shirts and the details of her own funeral.
She never wanted him to worry or to have to answer impossible questions. The day they got married was the day they created their living wills, and she went a step further by putting down every final wish she could think of. She ensured that if the time came when this burden dropped into his hands, he would know how to carry it. Ian looked at them a long time ago, but he stopped before getting all the way through. He couldn’t bear the thought of ever having to use them.
But that was Mariya. Precise, measured. Everything perfectly laid out in its right place.
It meant everything to him to have people who would handle it for him. He had an idea of what would be waiting for them in that room, but not enough to be able to fully envision it. At least they weren’t in a funeral home. Mariya hated them. She didn’t want to be a spectacle. She knew there would already be one. Somewhere there was a crowd, chairs in the grass, a canopy over a gaping hole. Here, she only wanted warmth.
Seeing the urn took his breath away. He didn’t want to look at it. It was all Emma could see.
“Where is she?” Emma asked. “You said Mama would be here.”
He held her hand tighter. The other was balled in the pocket of her jacket. She could take it off, but he wouldn’t make her. He couldn’t cry now. He couldn’t let himself feel anything. This moment couldn’t be about him. It had to be about Emma and easing her into awareness. He guided her up to the urn, close enough for her to touch it if she wanted to. Mariya had never been shy about the urns that held her parents. She didn’t treat them like relics, afraid to breathe near them. She regularly took them down and held them, talking to each of her parents as she dusted them and adjusted their positions on the mantle. She would want Emma to feel the same way about her.
“Emma, she is,” he told her gently, but firmly enough for there to be no question.
It was agony watching his daughter stare at the urn, wondering how her mother got in there. Ian never wanted her to have the pictures in her head he couldn’t run away from. He saw her lying there; the blood tinting her hair. He saw her lifted and covered, know
ing it would be the last time he saw her before she’d be treated as only a remnant. They didn’t understand. None of them did. Not the emergency responders, not the doctors. They didn’t know he was the remnant; he was the remains left behind.
Emma couldn’t bear the idea of not being able to see her mother’s face again. That she was in that urn, and there was nothing that could be done to change it. Ian couldn’t explain it to her yet. One day she would be old enough to understand this is what Mariya wanted. He would never say it was what he wanted. What he wanted was his wife. He wanted to take hold of time as it rushed past it and drag it back by the sheer force of his will and the love he felt for her. He wanted to hold her in his arms rather than his palms.
But this was the only way he could make sense of what was happening. It was the only way he could survive it. He would never be able to put her in the ground and leave her. She needed to be home. She needed to be with them.
Chapter Seven
Now
I know Sam suggested I get a shower in hopes that it would put me to sleep, but there’s no way that’s happening. There’s so much adrenaline rushing through me right now; nothing can stop the rushing of my brain and the sharp, acute awareness of every part of my body. It’s like I’m more awake than I ever have been before, but I know the time will come soon that exhaustion will hit me, and I won’t be able to keep my eyes open. I only have one choice. I have to drain every second for all it has to offer. Time is ticking. I can’t let it run out.
I stuff myself in a pair of stretchy black pants and a sweatshirt still in my dresser from before I left for Sherwood. It was hot then. I had no need for the heavier clothes and didn’t pack any. I had no reason to think then that so many months later, I would have made the decision to permanently relocate to my hometown. When I left this house, it was just before my birthday. June heat had burned the tips of the grass in the yard. I was looking ahead to a vacation that had just one purpose. To stop me from having to think about my birthday or have anyone try to celebrate it.
But that trip never happened. Sam needed me. The first time in seven years I’d even seen his face, much less had anything to do with him. I would only be gone a few days. That’s what I told myself as I filled a bag with clothes and headed out for the town I thought I’d never see again. My winter clothes were left behind. I figured by the time the chill rolled back in; I would be here. I’d be back home. Being here now isn’t the same.
Dean’s sitting on the couch in the living room when I walk in. The smell of coffee in the air is the promise he’s as committed to burning every bit of midnight oil as I am. Sam lurks in the corner. His posture is tense, and his eyes keep moving to the dark window. He’s waiting for something I know isn’t coming. My uncle won’t come here when there are two men in the house with me. Whatever it is he wants, he’s only willing to come close when there’s no one around.
“Show me what you found,” I say, sitting on the couch beside Dean.
“The hospital was pretty much what I thought it was going to be. Old and boarded up. It looks like it had been there for a long time before they decided to upgrade to new facilities, and like a lot of hospitals, when the day came for them to close up, they pretty much just walked out. There isn’t a whole lot of point in trying to transfer equipment or fixtures or anything from one hospital to another. When they are upgrading an old facility, there’s little if anything they can salvage, much less would want to. Everything at the new hospital is cutting edge and brand new. So they just walk out and board it up with everything inside. That includes things they don’t think are relevant anymore, like paper patient records,” he says.
“Isn’t that against privacy laws?” I ask. “Don’t they have to protect the information in these?”
“Technically, yes. But only if the patient is living. A person’s medical information belongs to them, even after death. It’s not like anything else they possess. It’s not a part of their estate, which is why they won’t give it over to somebody who isn’t a legal representative, like a power of attorney. It’s also why facilities often don’t care about medical records like this. They don’t want to have to deal with the hassle of transferring them; they don’t really have any use for them, so they just leave them behind and hope no one throws a fit about it.”
“I guess their laziness is a blessing in disguise this time around,” I note.
“In a way. I was able to get them because they were there… but so was he,” Dean points out.
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“The only way Catch Me could get the scans of your mother’s medical records in the first place was by accessing them at the hospital. We should have known they would be there because they had to be. He would have no other way of getting them.”
I let out an exasperated sigh and raked my fingers through my hair.
“I can’t believe I didn’t think about that. Of course they were there. He knew we would go after them.”
“At least he thought you might. It’s like hidden treasure. He wasn’t just going to hand it to you. You had to actually look for it. Fortunately for us, I did. And what I found was pretty interesting.”
“I remember you telling me something about a nurse,” I say. “Everything’s a little fuzzy after that. But you said something about finding Alice.”
Dean smiles and nods.
“I did. Your mother visited Rolling View Hospital a few times. Not for emergency reasons, but for medical care. The hospital had a women’s center, similar to the one in the hospital where Greg is. Just much smaller. When she was seen there, she frequently had a nurse with a very familiar name. Alice Logan.”
The name makes my heart drop to the bottom of my stomach.
“Logan?” Sam asks. My eyes snap to him, and he glares with a violent edge to his usually sparkling eyes. “As in Jake Logan?”
“That’s his last name,” I confirm. “But I never heard him say the name, Alice.”
“You probably wouldn’t,” Dean tells me. “He’d have called her Mom.”
He pulls a sheet of paper out of another one of the folders and shows it to me. I take it into shaking hands and stare at Jake’s birth certificate. It’s surreal, looking at it. This piece of paper marked a change in the universe. When Jake was born, more than a dozen timers were set. Lives both already begun and not even thought of yet had potential before that moment. But as soon as Jake was born, that potential was gone. Their end was written.
“My mother’s nurse was Jake’s mother?” I ask.
At first, I’m not sure if the words even had any volume, but then Dean nods, and my head spins.
“He was already born,” I say. “She’d already had him when she was my mother’s nurse. I wonder if she already hated him.”
“You feel sympathy for him,” Dean observes.
“Yeah, she does,” Sam mutters.
There’s vitriol in his voice. He’ll never understand. I can’t expect him to.
“That woman destroyed him,” I tell Dean. “She had an affair with her husband’s best friend but passed Jake off as belonging to her husband, rather than the other man. She despised him and tormented him his whole life. Abused him, beat him, starved him. People in Feathered Nest didn’t even know where he lived or that his grandmother lived in that cabin. She systematically dismantled him as a human being until all that was left was raw emotion and primal instinct, including taking his sister and deserting him with an even more abusive father. I won’t ever condone what he did or say that he doesn’t deserve to be punished for it. But the blood of every single one of those people is on Alice Logan’s hands too.”
“Well, she might have been a horrible mother, but it seems she was a good nurse. Your mother has a note in her file that she preferred Alice to any of the other nurses.”
I shake my head, trying to reconcile the vile woman Jake described to me with a nurse gentle and caring enough to have earned my mother’s trust.
“I still don’t unders
tand why my mother was at this hospital. Why would she go there to see a doctor?” I ask.
“There are several visits over the years, but the one on the paper flower had a specific date on it, remember?” Dean asks.
I nod. “Yes. It was the year before I was born. Right before she would have gotten pregnant with me. Near the end of August.”
“That’s what makes it especially interesting.”
“What do you mean?” I ask.
Dean reaches into the medical record and pulls out a page. He hands it to me and runs his finger along a specific line of text.
“This wasn’t exactly a routine visit. Your mother had a very specific reason for going to the doctor that day, and I can’t help but think it’s no accident Catch Me chose this date to lure you.”
My vision blurs. My mouth opens, but nothing comes out.
“Emma?” Sam says. The anger that was in his voice when he talked about Jake is gone. “Emma?” He comes and sits beside me, wrapping an arm around me. “What is it?”
I look at him, searching his face for something that makes sense.
“She was there to get the morning after pill.”
Chapter Eight
I hear my own voice say the words, but I can’t wrap my head around them.
“The morning after pill?” Sam asks.
“Emergency contraceptive,” Dean clarifies. “Mariya was worried she was going to get pregnant when she didn’t want to, and she went to the hospital right outside of Feathered Nest to prevent it from happening.”
“I know what it is,” snips Sam. I shoot him a look, and he calms down.
“Yet she got pregnant with me just over a month later,” I muse. “I don’t understand. It doesn’t make any sense. Unless…” I pause, not even wanting to give voice to the thought that goes through my head. “Was she cheating on my father?”