“Aunt Cora?”
“Yeah, honey?”
“Why do you like wind?” she asked.
CORA
Letty, as she had over the past couple of weeks, had surprised me again. She’d never asked me about my work.
“I mean, how did you know what you wanted to do? Why wind stuff?” Letty asked.
I was silent for a minute, thinking about it, realizing that she just wanted some distraction, some white noise while she sat and held on to Benny. I wasn’t sure where to start.
“You know I was adopted, right?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Well, Barbara’s house was filled with all kinds of things I’d never seen before. She’d traveled all over the world, and she had more books than I’d ever seen in my life. And not just novels, or biographies, but all of these huge books about the creation of the world, and religion, and oh, I don’t know, every kind of thing you could ever imagine, or, I suppose, I’d never known I could imagine. And one of them was a book on sea charts.”
“Sea charts?”
“Like big, colorful maps of the seas. Incredibly artistic, colorful, absolutely beautiful. But the one that really struck me was a wind rose.”
“What’s that?” Letty asked, looking genuinely interested now.
“Think about a compass the way it’s drawn on paper, a circle, all divided up, with north, south, east, west. Okay, so a wind rose is like that, only in this one, the circle was divided into thirty-two sections representing the different winds that blew in those directions. And each section was labeled with these amazing names, Libecia and Africus for the southwest wind, Maestro for the northwestern wind, Ostro and Notus for the south wind. And there were thirty-two faces that went with each wind, bearded ones for the northwestern winds, black faces for northeastern ones, old-fashioned white men for southeast, feminine faces with flowers in their hair for southwest winds.
“It was all . . . I don’t know, it gave me some sense of things, put the world in order somehow.”
I laughed softly, remembering what I had done next.
“I tore it out of the book and hid it in my room. I was so afraid she’d find it and send me back to Texas. But I got home from school one day, and she had framed it and hung it on my ceiling—”
“On your ceiling?”
“I know. It was really neat, though. She put this spotlight on my nightstand so I could light it up. She said she thought I could look at it while I was lying in bed, thinking about what I should do, which way I wanted the winds to carry me, she said. And I did.”
“She wasn’t mad?”
“Not at all.”
“She was pretty cool.”
“Yeah, she was. I miss her.”
Letty stared at Benny, and we just sat for a while without saying anything. I looked for something that would keep her distracted, would make her feel close to her father.
“You want to know something about your dad that your mom doesn’t even know?” I asked.
“Okay.”
“You remember that year I was here for Christmas? I guess you were about eight? And I took you to see Santa?”
She looked as if she didn’t remember for a moment, but then her face cleared and she smiled at me.
“Yeah,” she said slowly. “You got me a cinnamon bun and even though it wasn’t cold out at all, we got hot chocolate.” She nodded, as if satisfied with this chunk of memory falling into place. “But why did you take me?”
“It was so busy at the store. And that was the first year your mom had to run it by herself, remember? So I thought I’d surprise your parents and get your picture taken with Santa, and you acted pretty excited, but I knew you didn’t believe in him anymore.”
Letty laughed. “You knew?”
“Eight-year-olds are more transparent than they think they are.”
“I guess,” Letty said, still smiling. “That was cool of you.”
“But we had fun, didn’t we?”
“Yeah, it was fun.”
“Well, we’re waiting in this line, and all these kids are screaming and crying and generally acting like brats, and oh my God, was I starting to regret the whole thing and wishing you were old enough to go get a Bloody Mary with me instead. But it was so funny; as soon as these kids got to Santa, they’d calm right down. You always hear about kids being afraid of Santa and crying when they get plopped on his lap, but I don’t know, this Santa was like the Brat Whisperer or something. I joked to the woman behind me that maybe he was slipping them something, but she wasn’t amused.
“Anyway, so the kid in front of us is sitting on Santa’s lap, but Santa’s staring right at me, and I’m thinking, Jeez, Santa, you shouldn’t be flirting with the moms. But then I looked, really looked, back at him, and I realized it was your dad.”
Letty looked appropriately shocked.
“What? No way!”
“It was, and he was panicking, shaking his head at me, and the kid on his lap is getting upset because he thinks Santa’s turning down his request for whatever toy he’s asking him for. But there was no getting out of it by then. You were next, and whether you thought you believed it or not before we arrived, you were practically pulling off my hand to get up there.”
Letty laughed. “I remember that part. When I saw him, I sort of forgot I didn’t believe in him.”
“So we just both hoped for the best, and I got you on his lap, and you never even noticed.”
“Wait, why didn’t Mom know?”
“He wanted you guys to have a really great Christmas, but he couldn’t get as much overtime as he wanted to make extra money, so he took a bunch of odd jobs during the day when he was supposed to be at home, sleeping. He was working nights back then, and he didn’t want your mom to know. And he was right about that. She would have been ticked off.”
“Well, why did he tell you?”
“He sort of had to, didn’t he?”
“Oh, yeah, I guess so. But why didn’t you ever tell her?”
“I thought it was a pretty harmless secret. And I thought it was a sweet thing for him to do. I liked that he loved you both enough to do something like that. It made me feel like y’all were being taken care of. And that made me happy, that I didn’t have to worry about you.”
“And now?” Her face contorted, and I knew she was trying not to cry, but it didn’t work.
“I’m worried,” I said.
“Me too,” Letty whispered. “Aunt Cora? I think I might be in real trouble.”
Letty had lied to me. They had used a condom, yes, but briefly, which meant they might as well have not used one at all. And now, if she was right—and I was still holding out hope that she was wrong and simply panicking—everything had changed yet again.
I didn’t know what I would have done if she’d told me at the time, and I didn’t know what to do now. Had it been a contemporary, I would have said the first thing to do would be to get a pregnancy test so she could stop agonizing over it.
But Letty was fifteen and not, despite my fantasies, really my child.
Instead I told her to immediately stop worrying about it, that we would address it soon, and that there was nothing we could do about it right now anyway. I told her to let me worry about it for her, that it had been only a few weeks, to forget she’d ever even thought it or said it, and to concentrate on getting through the next couple of days.
I certainly wouldn’t forget, but I felt more able to handle it than I thought she was.
She seemed startled to hear me encourage her to pretend it wasn’t happening, and, as I’d pointed out to her, maybe it wasn’t, but then she looked at ease, as if I had literally relieved her of a heavy load.
And if she felt the relief of it, I certainly felt the addition.
By the time Ali opened the door, Letty and I had settled into silence, a good silence, if anything happening in these twenty-four hours could be labeled good. Ali’s timing, too, was good, because both Letty and I had taken time alone wit
h Benny.
I had shut myself in the bathroom, to collect myself as well as to give Letty some time. She did not acknowledge that she was aware that I had done this intentionally, but within moments of my return she clambered off the bed, kissed me on the top of my head as though I were the child and she the adult, and went into the bathroom herself.
I didn’t move for several minutes, but then I realized what she was gifting me with, and I took advantage of it quickly. I touched his face, remembered the strange, quiet boy he had been, remembered, in random mental snapshots, his and Ali’s relationship, remembered when they had broken up as teenagers, his anguished face in the halls at school, remembered their return to each other, both full of such surprising passion.
It was true that I had not understood what Ali saw in Benny when I looked at him through my eyes, but when I was occasionally able, I saw from her point of view that they were inevitable. That she would lose him now, in this way, was unthinkable, and I felt her grief as my own.
It made me look at him with such tenderness. I could not help but feel that in losing Benny, the world in general was losing someone more important to it than I would ever be.
But it was the inevitability of Ali and Benny that I kept coming back to. I had, over the years, been alternately jealous and contemptuous of it. Pleased for my friend, yes, but it was not anything I had ever experienced.
Not even with Drew.
In the car going to pick Letty up, his reasons for wanting to marry me were sound and included clear legal rights to be with me at all times in any medical situation, to make decisions if I was unable to, and additional insurance benefits.
And we had history, too, of course. He said many kind things. But none of them made up for the fact that we were not in love. If I were going to commit to a friend, then I had a friend with a tighter grip on my heart and history than Drew.
Sitting there with Letty and Benny, I realized that I was not willing to settle for less. And I allowed myself something I never had before: I envisioned us a family. The three of us. Letty was, after all, our child. For the first time, Benny wasn’t a usurper in my relationship with Ali, but, even more . . . I wasn’t a threat. I watched Letty, and watched him, and when Ali opened the door, irritation at anyone interrupting my family at this time flowed through me, immediately followed by overwhelming guilt and grief.
She was accompanied by Detective Hudson, Tim, and two police officers I hadn’t seen before. Drew trailed behind them all, his eyes searching between them to catch sight of me.
I stood quickly, steadying Letty as she hurriedly tried to get off the bed, clearly feeling caught out in something unsavory somehow. I wondered if she had also been fantasizing, not about the same things I had been, I was certain of that, but of some other impossible thing that embarrassed her.
Ali rushed to Letty’s side. “It’s okay, honey, you don’t have to go anywhere. If that’s where you want to sit, then you just stay there.”
“No, my foot’s falling asleep anyway,” Letty mumbled, casting a glance at the police officers.
“Okay. Well, do you think you’re up to answering a few questions?” Ali asked, tilting her head toward the detective, who was doing his best to not look at Benny. Letty looked at him quickly, her eyes wide.
“Mom,” she whispered desperately.
“It’s okay, it’s going to be okay,” Ali said, taking Letty’s shoulders in her hands, as though she were holding her up. “Your dad would want you to tell them what you can. You know that, right?”
Letty nodded.
“Okay. Do you want to stay here or go back to the other room?”
Letty glanced over at Benny. “The other room,” she said. “Can Aunt Cora come?”
I started a little, but it didn’t faze Ali at all. She simply nodded.
“Of course.”
“Hang on a second,” Drew said. “Cora’s just been through surgery, and I’d appreciate it if we could have a moment alone so I can make sure she’s all right.”
I began to protest, but Ali took Letty’s hand and started for the door.
“That’s a good idea. We’ll be in the waiting room, and Cora, if you’re not up to it, you don’t have to be there, right, Letty?”
“Yeah. Sorry, Aunt Cora, I kind of forgot about your arm.”
“I’m fine,” I insisted. “Go on, I’ll be there in a minute.”
Everyone left except Tim, and once the door closed, he looked at us questioningly.
“Hey, uh, you mind if I just have a second?” he asked, gesturing toward Benny.
I nodded, and he approached and bent down toward Benny’s ear. He whispered, but I could still hear what he said.
“You got him, buddy. That scumbag never even had a chance, you got him. You were a hell of a cop, Ben . . . Oh, hell, I’m gonna miss you, man, we all are.”
He straightened up and without looking at us headed for the door. “I’ll be right outside if you need anything,” he said.
Drew sighed as the door closed.
“Are you okay?” he asked, gently touching my upper arm. “Is it starting to hurt?”
“A little,” I admitted. The night before, any pain had been blunted by the sleeping pill the nurse had given me, but now it ached deep within and stung sharply on the surface.
“So the doctor has a call into the transplant coordinator, and she’ll be here soon to talk to us,” Drew said. “He said he’d never been in a situation like this before, so he didn’t know what to tell us. And I’ve got a page in to Dr. Cho so she can consult with everyone, make sure your files and paperwork are right. Your friend, Ali, she’s a pretty tough lady, isn’t she?”
I sat back down in the chair.
“Drew, what do you think is going to happen here?”
“Well, I hope that maybe this little operation on your arm wasn’t even necessary. Just think, Cora, you could possibly skip over all of it, the wait, trying to find someone to offer, all of it. It’s, well, it just seems like fate, doesn’t it?”
I shook my head. “No, it doesn’t. It seems like a horrible coincidence to me, and before you have us both stretched out in operating rooms, have you considered the fact that I might not want to do this? Or at least that I might not want to do this yet? That I might not be ready? Hell, we might not even be a good match. And have you thought about Ali? That she might not—”
“Are you kidding?” he interrupted. “She thinks it absolutely fitting. She’s your best friend, Cora. She wants to save your life. She’s grateful that something good might come of this.”
I stood. “I’m not ready to talk about this.”
He grabbed my good arm. “You weren’t ready to talk about coming home, and you weren’t ready to talk about marrying me, that’s fine. But you better get ready to talk about this, because you have this one opportunity here, Cora, and I’m not about to sit here and let you stall your way right out of it.”
“You don’t get to make this decision for me,” I said, fury over it all, over everything I couldn’t control rushing through me, making my arm throb, as if it, too, were pushing insistently at me. “I have other things to take care of here. In case you haven’t noticed him, right there, the guy in the bed? I’ve known him since we were kids, Drew. He’s my best friend’s husband and my daughter’s father.”
“She’s not your daughter,” he said quietly.
“But . . . she is,” I said. “She is. She’s mine, and Ali’s, and Benny’s. And right now, the only thing on my mind is how I’m going to help them through this, how I’m going to help them through the next year of their lives. She’s the only important thing I’ve ever done in my life, Drew.”
“That’s not true,” he said. He looked truly shocked.
“No, it’s probably not, but that’s how it feels right now. Where will you be?”
“I don’t know, Cora, you tell me. Where shall I wait for you now? Another waiting room? The car? Hallway? Seattle?”
“You’re making this
harder on me than you have to.”
“No, you’re making this harder on you than you have to.”
“I have to go,” I pleaded, starting for the door. He didn’t follow me, and before I got too far I turned back and kissed him lightly on his cheek. “Thank you for everything. You’re a good friend.”
He closed his eyes and said, “Go on. I’ll find you when the nurse comes with your pills.”
I had thought Tim guarding the door nothing more than a convenient way for him to stay close by in case Ali and Letty needed anything, but when I stepped into the hallway, I could see more officers stationed outside the elevators and perhaps ten people standing beyond them.
“Are you coming from Officer Gutierrez’s room?” one of them called. “Can you tell us how he is? Are you family?”
“Ignore them,” Tim said. “Just pretend you don’t see them.”
“Who are they?”
“Reporters. It’s been all over the television.”
“Oh. I had no idea.”
“A cop getting shot, the shooter dead . . . Yeah, it makes the news.”
His bitterness stung, though I knew it was only grief, anger, like the rest of us, at how little he could do.
“Don’t worry,” he said, his tone softening. “We’ll keep them away.”
I slipped into the waiting room, ignoring the continuing questions, and sat next to Letty, who was gripping Ali’s hand so hard that their entwined fingers were pale as milk.
The detective looked at me briefly and then continued.
“The notes we found in Officer Gutierrez’s car gave us his info, and we tracked him down in Venice. They’re holding him for now, but they’ll be transferring him back to Naples soon.”
I caught up quickly. “Seth?”
Ali nodded. “Benny was at his house,” she said.
Letty made a whimpering noise. “It was him, wasn’t it?” she whispered. “It was his dad?”
“We don’t believe so, no.”
“Some guy moved in and he, Seth, didn’t like him, that was why he left. His dad let him take Seth’s room, and . . .”
“Why don’t you think it was him?” Ali asked as Letty trailed off.
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