“Sara?” Leigh turned to look at the heap on the ground. The man continued to stare up at the sky, his eyes blank. Blood trickled from a cut on his forehead. His pants gaped open, revealing a tangle of black curls and a flesh-coloured tube that shrank back as she watched, like a snake retreating.
“Fuck,” Leigh said.
“Is he dead?”
“I don’t know.” He flicked his joint away and it hissed out against the wet ground. Insanely, she had the urge to tell him that using drugs was bad, especially for an athlete.
Moving closer, Leigh jabbed a toe into the man’s side. There was no response. He studied him for what felt like an eternity, his brow furrowed in thought.
“Eve!” Sara called from somewhere behind them, her voice warbling with fear. “Eve! Where are you?”
“Shit.” Leigh pushed her toward the sound of Sara’s voice. “Grab my sister before she sees this. Take her home.”
“But …”
He pushed her again. “Just do it.”
“But what if he’s dead?”
“Don’t worry.” He ran a trembling hand through his hair, and she was struck by how much he looked like his sister. “I’ll take care of it.”
The sky ripped open in a blinding flash of lightning, and somewhere close by, Sara cried out. A moment later thunder rumbled. The rain came in a deafening torrent, and within seconds they were drenched.
Wiping rain out of her eyes, Eve took another look at the man on the ground. Did he blink? Turn his head a little? She wasn’t sure, and for years after those questions haunted her.
“Go on.” Leigh waved her away. Hunching against the rain, he lifted a thick tree branch from the ground near his feet.
“Leigh?”
He looked up at her, his hair dripping into his eyes. They were bloodshot, but dead sober. “Go now, Eve.”
Without a word, she turned and ran back through the trees, calling for Sara.
NINE
EVE MOVED BACK AND FORTH between the silver and a confusing array of hospital rooms. Sometimes there was a sink to the left, sometimes to the right. Mirrors on the wall, or none. The hall door had a window, and then it didn’t. There was a pink curtain, and then it was green, and then there was no curtain. Only the ceiling remained the same: white tile, fluorescent lighting.
She’d had seventeen surgeries. Or was it twenty-seven? She lived in a fog of procedures and therapies and medications. Only two words stuck in her mind: decompressive craniectomy. They’d sawed off a chunk of her skull to make space for her swelling brain, stuck it in a freezer, and then reinserted it like a piece from some horrific jigsaw puzzle. Beneath tight bandages, the area was bitingly numb, a constant reminder of what had been missing.
It was a detail she wished she could forget. Her other injuries were elusive, known not by their names but by their pain. Bones were broken, ribs were cracked — she had bruises, contusions, and internal bleeding. But the worst part was the cold. An arctic chill had frosted her skin and burrowed all the way to her marrow. No matter what she did, she couldn’t get warm. It was another symptom of the brain injury, she thought they’d told her.
“Earth to Eve.”
Blinking, she saw that a small table was set up in front of her. A deck of cards had been laid out in neat rows — hearts, diamonds, clubs, and spades.
“Umm, go fish?”
“Not quite,” Leigh said. “I was teaching you how to play solitaire. Remember?”
She hadn’t remembered that he was in the room, let alone anything to do with a card game.
“Did you lose time again?”
She hated the sympathy she heard in his voice. “I was never good at cards, anyway.”
“I know.”
“Could we do this another day?”
Without a word, he bent forward and scooped the cards into a pile. His hair was thinning at the top, showing some pink scalp underneath. She wondered if he knew.
“It’s almost ten, anyway. Time for me to go home, and for you to get some rest.”
She looked out the window. “It’s that late? It’s only just starting to get dark.” Had she even eaten dinner?
“It’s July.”
“Oh. I’m getting worse, aren’t I?”
“Not at all.” He banged the cards into a neat stack and tucked them into their box.
“I’ve always known when you’re lying.”
He raised an eyebrow, but didn’t look at her. “I doubt that.”
This irked her because the truth was she didn’t know anything anymore. So, she dug in even more, giving him a mulish look. “I always have.”
“Then remind me not to teach you how to play poker.”
“Would you just look at me?”
Sighing, he did. In the lamplight, his eyes looked almost black. She didn’t like his beard, she decided. He probably thought it gave him the air of a serious doctor, but it hid too much of his face.
“What do you want me to say, Eve?”
“I want the truth.”
He snorted as though understanding the lie.
It was her turn to look away. The parking lot below her window was nearly empty, pockmarked with circles of light cast by the lampposts. “You made it impossible for me …” She trailed off, searching for the memory.
“To tell the truth?”
She knew without looking that his lips had pulled up in that angry half smile that made her anxious. She shook her head, grimacing at the numb feeling of the bandaged area rubbing the back of the chair.
“To face the truth.” Yes. That felt right.
“About Sara?” How strange her name sounded on his lips, as though he hadn’t said it in years. His chair squeaked as he shifted his weight. “Sara’s been gone a long time.”
Shock hit her like a flash flood. Sara was gone?
She looked down at her hands, noticed that someone had painted her nails a red so dark it was almost black. The polish colour was called Very Berry Black Cherry. Yes, she remembered that. And with that, she remembered her friend. She’d had rounded cheeks and crooked teeth. Leigh’s blue eyes. And a laugh like wind chimes in a storm.
She could feel the empty place in her heart where her friend had lived, and feel the loss burn her stomach like acid. But what had happened to her?
“I know how much you loved her.” His voice was soft with something that sounded like forgiveness.
“Yes.”
“It was nobody’s fault.” The words were sweetly said, but they festered like fallen fruit. “And it’s been thirteen years.”
“It’s been fourteen years,” she said, remembering if only for a moment. “I was only thirteen years old.”
“So was she.”
It sounded like an accusation, but of what? Her mind stuttered, trying to remember. Her gaze moved to the window, to the parking lot below. Time shifted and stretched.
“Eve?” Leigh sat in the chair closest to the door. In his eyes, she could see the flash of an ancient storm, buried deep within. What had they been discussing?
“What?”
“Remember what we used to say? ‘Just you and me against the world.’” His voice was smooth and fragile, like the ice that covered the pond’s murky waters in winter.
The pond. She remembered kneeling there in the moonlight, trying to see past the icy surface to what lay below, and listening to the rattle of winter brittle branches. She’d been terrified, but unable to look away. She’d needed to know, needed to see for herself.
She’d stayed until the frozen ground had turned her knees to stone, until the sting of the wind’s icy breath had burned her wet cheeks into a fever. She’d been ill for weeks afterward, and her mother had been furious. That must have been before Donna decided it was safer not to care.
But what had she been looking for? That, she couldn’t recall.
“What do you say? I think we could both use a fresh start.”
“A fresh start,” she said. “Why?”
“Because
I’ve spent my whole life losing you, over and over again.”
“Maybe I wasn’t yours to lose.”
The pain she saw in his eyes made her stomach churn with guilt. Why was she being so rude? He’d probably rearranged his whole life to be by her side, and this was how she repaid his kindness.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“My licence has been updated.”
Her mind stuttered again, trying to cope with the abrupt change of topic. “What?”
“My medical licence. I’ve joined a private practice. Dr. Stephens wants to retire.”
“I forgot about him. He’s still alive?”
Dr. Stephens had seemed ancient when she was a child. She remembered how the ashen flaps of his face had tucked into themselves to form a neutral doctor’s mask. But his clenched old-man fist had given him away, as had the scritch-scritch-scritch sound of him carving her referral into the notepad, as though seeking blood with the tip of the pen. She’d begged Donna to find her a female doctor after that, but Donna never had.
Now Leigh would take over Eve’s old doctor’s practice. She thought there was a joke in there somewhere and it was probably a bitter one, but she didn’t have the energy to pursue it.
“So you’re moving home,” she said instead. “That’s what you’re telling me?”
“I thought you’d be happy?”
“I don’t know what I am.”
“Well.” He dropped his gaze, momentarily at a loss. Then he blinked, and looked up at her with the old smile curving his lips. “We have lots of time for you to figure that out. I’m in no rush.”
“All right.”
“And you need to be more patient with yourself. Your memory will come back in time. The blank spots will fill in.”
“Some things might be worth forgetting,” she said, but the bite was gone from her words. Her eyes were gritty and dry, her eyelids heavy with the need for rest.
“Brain injuries take longer to heal than other injuries,” he continued. “The brain is way more complex than a leg, for example.”
“Yes.” She suspected they’d had this conversation before. Many times, perhaps. “I feel like my mind’s slipping on ice, trying to catch hold of something. But there’s nothing to grab, so I just keep sliding around.”
“I’m sure it’s frustrating.”
“Scary,” she admitted. “What if I never get back to normal?”
“When were you ever normal?” He said it kindly, as though he appreciated that about her. “The trouble is, they just don’t know. The neurologist and Dr. Jeffries —”
“Who?”
“Your psychiatrist.”
“Oh, of course.”
“They say this is normal after the kind of brain trauma you’ve endured. In most cases, it gets better. With time.”
“Okay.” She was starting to slur.
“You’re tired.” Leigh stood and tucked the deck of cards on the table beside a wilting bouquet of flowers. “Want some help getting into bed?”
“I’m fine.”
He bent to kiss her cheek, and his beard felt prickly against her skin. She really didn’t like it. It was too much like a mask.
“Get some rest. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Once he was gone, she pushed herself out of the vinyl chair and shuffled to bed. She was still wondering whether to use the call button to request a pain pill when sleep overtook her.
TEN
Sara’s Tenth Birthday
“RUN FASTER!”
The bag was heavy, and it sounded like it was full of glass bottles. It clanged painfully against her hip.
“I’m going as fast as I can. Stop pushing me!”
Sara didn’t sound at all amused. Eve wasn’t amused, either, but she laughed like an out-of-breath donkey. She’d really screwed up this time, and they were both going to pay for it.
She gave Sara another poke in the back. “They’re catching up!”
Their breath puffed around their faces, adding to the fog that shrouded the low-lying ground along the river. They could barely see ten feet in front of themselves, though the way the path twisted, they wouldn’t have been able to see much more than that, anyway.
The boys behind them shouted obscenities. They did, indeed, sound like they were closing in. This was no surprise, as they were several years older and fuelled by indignation.
“You said this was Annabeth’s bag,” Sara said.
“I thought it was.”
They’d found the backpack leaning against a fence beside the skate park, and seized the opportunity. The previous week, Annabeth and her cronies had pulled a fire alarm during morning recess and told Mrs. Taylor that she and Sara were to blame.
Their parents had been called to the school, and their ardent denials hadn’t done them a bit of good. Donna was still coming up with new and creative ways to punish her. Yesterday she’d spent forever digging clots of goop-covered hair out of the bathtub drain.
“Next time, could you be totally sure?” Sara huffed.
“Because now we’re going to die.”
“Then there won’t be a next time.”
Clank-clank-clank went the bottles against her hip. They were going to leave a bruise.
Behind them on the left came the sound of someone crashing through the trees. It was a smart move, allowing whomever it was to approach them in a straight line. But the girls were fast approaching the railroad tracks, and beyond lay the dense greenery of the Crook. If they could make it there, she was pretty sure they could disappear along the hidden trails and mud-bogs.
“Come on, come on!”
“I don’t want to die on my birthday,” Sara said, but her nerves had taken hold and she giggled, too. “Why do I listen to you?”
“Because you’re bored. Cross the tracks, we’re almost there.”
The boy smart enough to cut through the trees turned out to be Steve Ryder, a pockmarked pile of grease whom no one seemed to miss when he died of a drug overdose six years later, except maybe his parents. He crashed through blackberry bushes, seemingly unaware of the thorns that tore at his exposed skin, and sprinted the last few feet to the train tracks.
“I see you!” he bellowed, pointing an accusatory finger at them.
The girls squealed in response, sliding down the opposite hill toward safety. Three more steps and then they ran through the shadows of the Crook.
“Head for the pond!” Eve heaved the bag up to her chest and wrapped her arms around it, hoping to stifle the clanking. Cutting around her slower friend, she took the lead.
“We can foil them in the Foil!” Sara said, because some jokes never grew old. Eve rolled her eyes.
They slipped and slid down the path, wheezing and laughing. The closer they got to the river, the denser the fog became. The damp made her cough.
They passed through the clearing where, just over a year before, the man with the black beard had gone headfirst into a tree. She gave the incident no more than a fleeting thought.
“We’re coming for you!” Steve Ryder hollered.
A deeper voice, probably Canton Forsythe’s, added,
“And we’re going to fuck you up!”
He sounded berserk with rage, and she supposed that made sense. Canton was riding a winning streak in football and in life in general — and had a lot to lose if people found out he was drinking and doping with boneheads from the poor end of town.
She grabbed Sara’s hand. “It’s okay, Gumdrop. We’re almost there.”
“We’re not going to make it,” Sara said.
She was right. With an incoherent bellow, Steve Ryder flew out of the fog and slammed into Sara’s back. Sara yelped in surprise and stumbled forward, knocking into Eve’s shoulder as she fell. Eve spun around, just barely managing to stay on her feet.
Canton Forsythe slid into view, so angry his usually pretty head looked like a smoking tomato. Following behind him like the last two horsemen of the apocalypse were Kyle O’Neill and Jerry Moor
e.
Kyle was Annabeth’s older brother, which explained the confusion over the bag. He must have stolen it from his sister, only to have Eve and Sara steal it from him. He stalked around behind Canton like a rooster on uppers.
Jerry was better known in the neighbourhood as “Slothboy.” He bent over his belly and took deep gasping breaths, looking like he might puke on his shoes.
Sara lay in the mud near Eve’s feet, having apparently decided that playing dead was her safest bet.
Sneering, Steve Ryder moved in on her. “Give us the bag.”
“Up yours,” she said in return, surprising herself as much as the others. Her heart gave a meaty ka-thump inside her chest and then thundered along at a maddening pace, as though eager to do its job while it still could.
“ What did you say?” Steve’s voice was dangerously soft.
Eve’s was not. “Are you deaf as well as stupid? I said up yours.”
Sara groaned into a pile of wet leaves. Taking a few steps backward, Eve clutched the bag more tightly.
“That’s not yours, bitch!” Kyle O’Neill jeered from behind Canton’s back.
“Oh my gawd!” Eve pretended to grow faint from shock. “A rooster that talks? Someone get this bird his own show!”
Not waiting for their reactions, she turned and fled into the fog.
“Hey!” Steve shouted, and the chase resumed.
She spared a quick glance over her shoulder. She couldn’t see anything but a rolling sheet of grey, but it sounded like all four horsemen were in pursuit. This was what she’d hoped for, as it would give Sara the chance to run to the baseball diamond where Leigh and his friends were practising. That meant Eve needed to evade capture for at least ten minutes.
She wished she hadn’t swiped the bag in the first place.
Paradoxically, this thought made her even more determined to hold on to it. Stupidly stubborn, Donna called her, and she had to admit that on occasion her mother was right. But Sara would have been proud, because she was going to try to foil them in the Foil.
Eve launched headfirst into the tangle of quicksilver plants and then slowed her pace, moving silently. The silver leaves hung heavy and glistening like pearls. Branches loomed out of the fog to snag her clothing, soaking her in the process. In the eerie dripping mess, sounds were muffled and warped.
The Day She Died Page 5