“I hear you.” Mansur closed the file folder and set his pen down. “I spoke to the medical examiner in Nebraska just before we had to call the ambulance for your mother.”
He paused, I think, just to watch me suffer. He’d had news this whole time and kept it to himself. This was LaReigne’s life, and he was playing games.
“They’ve identified the body in Nebraska,” he said. “It’s Molly Verbansky. Not LaReigne.”
I wanted to be the tough bitch LaReigne always said I was, but I laid my head down on that dirty table and cried. Because she wasn’t dead, but she wasn’t safe. I opened my purse and got out a tissue, while Mansur watched me.
We were sitting there not talking when Smith came back.
“Debbie Jackson and Marcus Jackson. Left from Newton on Tuesday morning. Had return tickets to Newton on Wednesday evening,” Smith said. “I imagine we’ll be able to find some Amtrak employees who remember you. That hair’s pretty memorable. How much marijuana do you think a person could bring back on the train like that?”
“A couple suitcases, I imagine,” Mansur said. “Enough for federal charges.”
“I went to visit a friend. Do you not have any friends?” I said. “Did you interrogate Molly’s husband like this? Did you search his house?”
“What makes you say that? What do you know about Peter Verbansky?” Mansur said. He and Smith exchanged a look.
“Nothing, except that apparently his wife is dead, because these assholes murdered her. My sister is still in danger, and you’re here making jokes about drug smuggling.”
Mansur made a few notes before he looked at me. Like he was giving me an old-fashioned stare-down lie-detector test.
“Is there anything else you’d like to tell us?” he said.
“I can’t think of anything.”
I stood up, and a long, hot wire of pain ran from my foot up to my hip. I’d just wanted some relief, but Mansur didn’t seem concerned, so I knew it was over.
I picked up my purse.
“Now hold on,” Smith said.
“Am I under arrest?” I said. “I would like to go see my mother now. So unless you arrest me, I’m going to the hospital.”
“Let me get you that escort,” Mansur said.
If I’d left five minutes sooner, I could have walked out of my mother’s house. Instead I got to limp out while Mansur and Smith watched me.
CHAPTER 16
Charlene
Bill and I had worked hard to build our family so that Gentry would feel like an insider. He had enough of being an outsider at school. Over the years, he’d made some friends through the SCA, people who were willing to expand their world enough to welcome him, but I knew at work he ate his lunch alone.
So it was strange to see him with Zee in the hospital waiting room. She was sitting with her hands squeezed between her knees, staring off into space. Gentry was sitting next to her, protectively, like a buffer between her and everyone else. A circle for two. Seeing that, I felt this motherly twinge, proud but a little nervous. He was growing up.
“Have either of you eaten since breakfast?” I said. “It’s only sandwiches and chips, but you need to eat.”
“I thank thee.” Gentry stood up and bowed to me.
“Oh, you didn’t have to do that,” Zee said.
“I don’t think you should eat hospital vending machine sandwiches if you have any other option.” Chivalrous as ever, Gentry pulled up a chair for me in their little corner and unpacked the food I’d brought. “Double-check yours, Zee. It should be turkey and bacon. His is some horrid thing with rare roast beef and cream cheese and pickled peppers. I don’t know who taught him to eat that, but it wasn’t me.”
“I shall fetch us a drink,” he said, after he laid out the food on a little side table.
“A Diet Coke, please,” I said.
“Lady Zhorzha, what drinkest thou?”
“I already have—” Zee picked up a plastic water bottle, but it was empty. “Just water is fine.”
“How are you doing, hon?” I said, after Gentry left.
“They’ve got her hooked up to a bunch of monitors to see what’s going on. They don’t think it was a heart attack. Maybe it was a panic attack.”
“Under the circumstances, that would not surprise me. I imagine I would have a panic attack if I’d been through what your mother has. I saw on the news, about the other woman. The other hostage.”
Zee nodded and fidgeted with the tassel on her purse zipper. We weren’t talking when Gentry returned with drinks from the vending machine, and he wouldn’t add to the conversation if there was food. He ate the way he always did, with his full attention. Like he was getting paid for the work. Zee took a few bites of her sandwich, but she was distracted.
“Miss Trego?” It was one of the nurses. “If you want to come back, I think we’re going to be able to discharge your mother soon.”
Zee jumped up, and in that way everything goes wrong on the same day, her purse fell off her lap and spilled all over the floor.
Gentry immediately stood up, so he was paying attention. He looked at her things scattered around on the linoleum, but he didn’t look at her. I did. I recognized the expression on her face from the years I’d spent working for the family court. Not panicked, but resigned to the world heaping misery on her.
“You go on,” I said. “We’ll pick this up.” She hesitated, one hand going to push her hair back, the other patting at her front pockets for something. Then she turned and followed the nurse.
After Zee was gone, we gathered up her things and put them back in her purse. Gentry picked up with one hand, while he rested his other hand on the back of his neck. Not stimming yet, but thinking about it.
“How are you doing?” I said, but he only nodded. Tired, I imagined, and overwhelmed. “Are you going down to Bryn Carreg tonight?”
“I know not, for I would not leave the lady.” He looked at his watch, probably thinking about how late in the day it was. It said a lot about his commitment to being there for Zee. He went down to his keep every weekend that he could. It was our compromise on knightly adventures. Out in the woods, but somewhere safe, so that we knew where he was.
Zee came back a few minutes later, frowning at some paperwork, and said, “What a goddamn nightmare.”
“Is there anything I can do for you? Or for your mother?” I said.
“Did he tell you?” Zee swiveled to look at Gentry, but he didn’t answer, so she looked back at me.
“Well, he told me the police searched your mother’s house and impounded your car,” I said.
“And I got fired and evicted. This week has been a real shit show, but at least Marcus is in school, so he didn’t have to see any of it.” Zee gave a pathetic little laugh and took a sip from her bottle of water.
“My lady, if thou wilt, thou and thy nephew aren welcome in all ways to come with me to my keep,” Gentry said.
I thought it was nicely done, but I felt that twinge again, of being proud of him and a touch scared, too. This wasn’t the first time he had risked himself on another person, and so often it ended in disappointment.
“Or if you don’t feel like camping, you’re both welcome to keep staying with us,” I said.
“I don’t know what to do about my mother,” Zee said.
“What in the world makes you think you need to do anything about me?” That was Zee’s mother, who’d arrived in one of those extra-wide wheelchairs, pushed by a nurse who looked like he’d been a linebacker in high school. He was a little darker than my son Carlees, but with one of those wild black beards.
“This is your daughter?” he said.
“One of my daughters,” Mrs. Trego said. “The one who made me come to the hospital even though I told her it was just heartburn.”
“The hell you did,” Zee said. “You were clut
ching your chest and saying I can’t breathe.”
“So melodramatic. And I told you. I told you it wasn’t LaReigne. A mother knows.”
“I know. You were right.”
I could see they were both exhausted, but Mrs. Trego had a fierceness in her eyes. Something like anger and triumph. I thought they might hug each other, but Zee went to get her purse from Gentry. Mrs. Trego put her hands on the chair arms and made a motion like she intended to stand up, but I don’t think she could without assistance. Of course, Gentry hadn’t told me how big she was, because it didn’t occur to him. Like it hadn’t occurred to him to tell Elana that Zee had pretty hair. Elana had asked and he’d answered, Is her hair pretty? Yea, ’tis pretty. If I had asked about Zee’s mother, he would have answered, but he wouldn’t think to offer the information on his own.
“I can walk from here,” Mrs. Trego said.
“No, ma’am, you cannot,” the nurse said. “Hospital policy requires you to get a ride out the front doors.”
“I’ve got to make a call,” Zee said, looking at her phone. “She’s eligible for paratransit, but I didn’t know she’d be ready to go so soon, or I would have called them already.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Mrs. Trego said. “I’m not a charity case!”
“It’s not charity, Mom. It’s fucking social services, okay?”
“Excuse me,” someone said behind me. I turned around to find a white man frowning at me. “Could she please watch her language?”
“Everyone deals with stress in their own way,” I said. “And I know the Lord didn’t send you here today to lecture her about her language.”
“It’s just that we have children here.”
“Maybe this is not the best place for children then.” Before he could answer, I turned back to Zee. “If it helps at all, I’m here in our van. It has a lift and a ramp for Elana’s chair so it’s more than equipped. It’s no trouble.”
“And who are you?” Mrs. Trego said.
“Oh god, I’m sorry.” Zee stuffed her phone back in her purse and made a little gesture between me and her mother. “This is Charlene Frank. This is Gentry’s mother. This is my mother, Dorothy Trego.”
“Gentry’s mother?” For a moment I thought maybe Mrs. Trego had met Miranda, too, but no, her confusion was the usual sort. But you’re black and he’s white! Or when I met Trang’s friends: But you’re black and he’s Asian!
“I’ll get the van and meet you out front.” I gave the nurse’s arm a pat, and he nodded.
“Thank you,” Zee said. I was proud of her for not prefacing it with an apology.
CHAPTER 17
Zee
All I wanted was five goddamn minutes to feel something about LaReigne not being dead in Nebraska, but I couldn’t get them. Instead, I got a free lecture from the ER doctor about how it wasn’t too late for me to lose weight, and some dick in the waiting room asking me to watch my language. Then Mom had to sign a bunch of discharge paperwork for things I was going to spend the rest of my life paying for. Medicaid would cover some of it, but not all of it, and Mom didn’t have a dime. Just one more boulder on top of my mountain of debt.
When we got Mom home, the police van was still parked in the drive, and Mansur and Smith were on the front porch talking to the cop in the paper jumpsuit. Pure rage was pretty much the only thing that got Mom out of the van under her own power. While she went shuffling across the lawn, I turned to Charlene, feeling that old desperate itch. The need to get rid of people once they’ve witnessed my mother and her house.
“Thank you so much for all your help,” I said. I was ashamed of myself for being ashamed.
“Do you need anything else?”
“No, we’re fine. I don’t want to keep you any longer. I doubt this was how you planned to spend your afternoon. But thank you.”
Thank-yous were a superpower. They moved people along with the sheer force of gratitude. While I was getting Charlene back into her van, I could hear Mom shouting at the cops.
“Are you done tearing up my house and breaking my things and piling them out on the lawn for the whole world to look at?” She bent over to dig through one of the boxes, somewhere between crying and cursing. With all my heart, I wanted to beg Charlene to take me with her. Just get in her van like a stray dog, and leave my mother behind. I made myself say one last thank you, and then I walked over to where Mom was. Gentry stood a few feet away from her with his arms crossed, standing guard over the whole mess.
“My lady,” he said, when I got there.
Mansur and Smith came down the front steps as Charlene pulled away. For a couple minutes, they watched Mom and talked to each other. Then they put on their sunglasses and walked toward us.
“Everything okay, Mrs. Trego?” Mansur said.
“Does it look like everything is okay?” Mom said.
“I meant healthwise. Are you okay?”
“Don’t act as though you care. Now you’re going to go off and leave me to deal with this giant mess you made.”
“Mom, it’s okay,” I said. “We’ll get it put back.” I had no idea if that was even possible.
“Will you be staying here tonight?” Mansur said.
“Of course, I’ll be staying here. It’s my home,” Mom said.
“Mrs. Trego, if you think of anything.” Mansur held out another business card, but this time, Mom grabbed it out of his hand, crumpled it up, and threw it on the ground.
“You go to hell,” she said.
Mansur nodded at me, and then he and Smith left. Mom grabbed a box, trying to pick it up, but the whole side ripped out. A bunch of books and little Snowbabies figurines spilled out onto the grass. She started gathering them up into her arms, already panting like she couldn’t catch her breath. The police van pulled away. A couple of the figurines slid out of Mom’s arms. She tried to pile them back on, but others fell off as soon as she did.
“If you’ll sit down and rest, I’ll go find you some better boxes to put this stuff in,” I said.
“I’m fine!” she snapped.
“My lady, I shall bear her throne within that she might rest,” Gentry said. Her throne.
“Yeah, let’s do that. Mom, we’re going to take your recliner inside, okay?”
She ignored us, and went on trying to gather up knickknacks. I was grateful for Gentry, because he did the hard work, lifting the heaviest part of the recliner. I carried the head and guided us up the stairs and into the front room. Seeing the house in full afternoon light, when I wasn’t in a panic, I felt sick. The hardwood floors were ruined. Stained and gouged and, worse than that, saggy and bouncy from having so much stuff piled on them for so long. We were lucky the cops hadn’t called out the fire marshal or the city inspector. The house probably would have been condemned.
“My lady, how might I help?” Gentry said.
“Is there any way you think the two of us can get the bigger pieces of furniture back inside?”
“Certs, it can be done. I shall go and think on it.” In the middle of that mess, he bowed to me.
“Okay. I’m going to find a broom and try to sweep up a little bit.”
I looked for a broom but didn’t find one, and ended up back in the front room feeling helpless. The biggest of the china hutches had been blocking off the phone nook that was between the living area and the dining area. It was a weird little alcove that had shelves and a built-in seat. A long time ago, Mom had filled the alcove up with books, and then once it got full, she put the china hutch in front of it. The cops had emptied it out, and for a minute of calm, I stepped inside. It was like a coffin.
When I was a kid, Mom had hung up a sheet of poster board on the wall over the bench. She was so vain she hated to wear glasses, so she’d made these huge signs instead of using an address book. A newer one hung on the wall next to her recliner, but the original was still in the
phone nook. It was so old my grandparents’ address and phone number was there. And Uncle Alva and Aunt Tess’. That’s how old the posters were. Aunt Tess was still alive and Uncle Alva was anybody Mom would have called.
I pulled out my cellphone and punched in the number. Three rings later, someone answered.
“Yep.” That was all he said. Older and raspier, but I still recognized his voice. He sounded how I remembered my father.
“Uncle Alva? It’s me, Zhorzha,” I said.
“Girl, what kind of fool are you? Don’t call me again.”
He hung up before I could say anything. The timer on my phone showed the call had lasted seventeen seconds. So fast it was like it hadn’t happened. I put my phone back in my pocket and went outside to see what Gentry had figured out about the china hutches.
The answer was nothing. He was standing in the middle of the yard, holding a cardboard box. My mother was picking through another box and putting things in the one Gentry held.
“Mom, why don’t you go inside and sit down? Gentry and I are going to try to bring in the china hutches and—”
“I don’t need to sit down,” she said. “Stop nagging at me.”
“Okay, fine. You do whatever. We’re going to try to move the hutches back inside.”
The cops had carried them out with everything in them, but they’d had a dolly and half a dozen men. Gentry and I were going to have to empty the hutches to move them. As soon as we opened the doors on the biggest hutch, Mom started going through everything in it.
“Oh, look, this is the champagne glass your father won for me at the state fair. I think it was the ring toss. He won two, but the other one got broken.
The Reckless Oath We Made Page 11