The Summer Children

by Dot Hutchison

  “He’s on the good stuff,” Vic says, sotto voce.

  “Vete a la mierda, Vic,” he mumbles.

  “I speak Spanish, you’ll recall when you’re sober. I know what that means. It’s only code for Sterling.”

  “I can’t say that to Sterling!” Holy God, he sounds absolutely scandalized. He looks about for Sterling and beckons her closer, groping out with his hand until she steps forward. He tugs her closer, almost face-to-face despite the awkward position of the bed. “I can’t say that to you,” he earnestly tells her nose.

  “I appreciate that,” she says in almost the same tone, and drops a soft kiss on the end of his nose.

  Vic actually seems startled, and he gives me a curious look. “Did we know about this?”

  “You’re kidding, right? They didn’t know about this.”

  “But you did.”

  “I may or may not have a pool going with the girls. Priya and I were betting on when; Inara and Victoria-Bliss were betting on no.”

  “And you didn’t think to share?”

  I lean against his wide shoulder, smiling as Eddison tries to convince Eliza that he’s just fine, really. “I didn’t want anyone teasing him until he figured it out. I didn’t want him talking himself out of it.”

  “You do know agents on the same team aren’t allowed to date. Fraternization.”

  “I also know that the friendships we have with the girls are against regulations. We’re way too close. We get too involved. But we’re one of the best damn teams in the Bureau. We’ll make it work.”

  “Yes. Yes, you will.”

  We stand near the wall, watching and feeling the warm glow of family, until Eddison gets startled by the IV again and we get to watch Eliza fall off the bed laughing.

  29

  Jenny brings Priya up to Bethesda later in the morning, after Eddison has been moved to a standard room. Not that Inara and Victoria-Bliss aren’t also concerned, but I don’t think any of us want to give them ammunition to tease him later. He doesn’t entirely remember the hours in the recovery room and he hates hospitals, so he’s going to be a bit tetchy for a while.

  More so.

  “Go home,” Jenny orders us, including her husband. “Shower. Sleep. Get in some clean clothes, for the love of God. None of you are allowed back here for at least eight hours.”

  “But—”

  “You are not going to be any help to that young man if you are falling over yourselves. Go.”

  “But—”

  “Victor Hanoverian, do not make me call your mother.”

  He grins at her and gives her a sweet kiss. “I just wanted to see how long it would take you to pull out Ma.”

  She returns the kiss with a smile and a hand to his cheek, which becomes the hand twisting his ear painfully as he cringes and follows the movement of her hand to lessen the strain. “Not even a year ago it was you in that bed, Victor, and the doctors weren’t sure you were getting out of it in any way but a sheet and a bag. It’s going to be a few more years before you get to joke with me in hospitals.”

  Properly abashed, he gives her another kiss. “You’re right, and I’m sorry. It was insensitive.”

  “Thank you.”

  Sterling glances at me, her hand in Eddison’s, though he’s fast asleep. “Relationship goals?”

  “Definitely.”

  Vic rubs his ear with a grimace. “Were you talking about the communication or the abuse?”

  “Yes,” we answer decisively, and Jenny grins as she returns to shooing us out the door.

  Priya takes Sterling’s chair beside the bed, feet propped up on the mattress. “Don’t worry; if he tries to get up, I’ll threaten to yank out his catheter. He’ll be so mortified he’ll have to behave.”

  Which is how I half-carry the hysterically giggling Eliza out of the hospital room.

  Despite orders from his wife to take us home, Vic does the appropriate thing and drives us back to Quantico. Both our cars are there—I’m assuming Watts brought Sterling’s car back—as well as our purses, but there’s also something I have to do.

  At Agent Dern’s desk in Internal Affairs, I hand over my badge and gun, and she swivels away to store them securely in a wall safe. I’m not going to lie—it’s painful to see them disappear like that. Usually when my gun is in a safe, I know the combination, whether it’s the temporary combo in a hotel room, the date of the Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre (Sterling), the date Priya came into our lives (Eddison), or the birth years of Holly, Brittany, and Janey (Vic). Or mine, the date Vic pulled me out of the cabin.

  “We’re not expecting the investigation to produce any surprises,” Dern tells me, handing me a mini bag of M&M’s from the top drawer of her desk. “We’ll take a few days to get everything together on our end before we call you in. I’d say it will give you time to prepare what you need, but you’ve kept us in the loop every step of the way, so use the time to rest. I don’t imagine you’ll be on leave for more than a week or two before we can get your badge back to you.”

  I’m not sure what my face does, at that moment, because she sits up with interest and concern. “Agent Ramirez? Do you not want your badge back?”

  “I . . . I don’t know,” I confess softly. Despite what Cass and Sterling said this morning—hell, despite what I said to Vic—I’m not sure that I can keep doing this without incurring wounds I’m not strong enough to bear.

  The initial surprise in the Dragonmother’s expression melts into understanding, and she settles back into her chair. She plucks the reading glasses off her nose and folds them, letting them drop on their chain to sit crookedly against her chest. “Every agent hits this moment, Mercedes,” she says gently. “At least every good agent. That you’ve reached this point in your career without it becoming critical is a testament to you, but also to Hanoverian and Eddison, and the way you all support each other. Questioning your future with us doesn’t make you a bad agent. So. You’ve got some time to think through things.”

  “Have you ever—” I bite off the rest, but she smiles.

  “Forty-one years ago,” she answers. “We had an agent who was chasing after a suspect and used lethal force. No witnesses, but his team and the local LEOs he was working with had all commented that something about the case seemed to rub him the wrong way. In the end, our investigation wasn’t able to prove one way or the other what actually happened in that confrontation. We recommended suspension and a full psychological evaluation before he could be returned to duty.”

  “So what happened?”

  “He surrendered his badge and gun, went home, took his personal piece out of the closet, and shot his wife and two children before shooting himself.”

  “Jesus.”

  She nods, her smile turned sad. “I think you’re familiar with the kinds of questions I asked myself over the next few weeks, and even after. Had I caused this? Was I responsible for their deaths? Had I missed something during the investigation that would have told us he would do this? How good could I be at my job if I hadn’t realized that could happen? How could I stay in this job with that? This isn’t the first time you’ve asked yourself these questions, Mercedes, though it may be the first time you’ve had to delineate them so clearly. Whether you stay or not, it won’t be the last. Moments like this, questions like this, they become part of you.”

  “How did you decide?”

  “My daughter was worried. If I left the FBI, would I still be Wonder Woman?” She laughs at my startled expression. “My little girl thought all FBI agents were superheroes, and her mom was Wonder Woman, wielding a lasso of truth. I didn’t just bring down villains; I protected the other superheroes. She was four. She didn’t understand that there was so much more to it. As far as she was concerned, I was Wonder Woman, and Wonder Woman never lets the bad guys win.” She shakes her head and pulls out another snack bag of M&M’s, spilling some into her palm. “How could I argue with that?”

  “Cara Ehret thought I was an angel.”

/>   “There have been other cases since then. It isn’t one and done, all crises averted. There will be other cases that hit you every bit as hard, and the reasons why may not be the same.” She pops the candies in her mouth, chewing and swallowing quickly. “Don’t feel bad for taking this time, Mercedes. You are better for it, and the Bureau is better for it.”

  I nod, brain already spinning on her words.

  “How is Eddison?”

  “He’ll be okay. Weather ache, maybe, and he certainly won’t be doing stadiums anytime soon.”

  Agent Dern shudders delicately. “Even at my best I didn’t understand those who do stairs on purpose. Especially at stadiums! Then again, I’m nearly seventy and I still have my original knees, so maybe I was right.”

  I leave her office laughing, which is probably not the normal reaction for an agent who’s just been placed on administrative leave. I get a few baffled looks for it.

  For the first time in weeks, I get behind the wheel of my own car and pull out of the garage. Home is waiting, even if I’m not entirely sure it’s home anymore, my cozy little cottage stained with the past month and change. I do stop and pick up a box of cupcakes for Jason, and we share them on his front porch as he weeds his flower beds and I sew the buttons back on his shirts and mend some rips, because if there’s a sharp edge, he’ll catch his shirt on it.

  “So it’s all done?” he asks.

  “All done.”

  “I’m glad it worked out okay.”

  I spend the rest of the afternoon puttering around the house, turning on my personal cell for the first time in almost a week and hooking it up to my laptop to move over photos I want to keep. After that, there’s a certain satisfaction in taking out the SIM card and beating the shit out of the phone with a baseball bat. I’ll get around to replacing it eventually, and this time, I’m not giving the number to Esperanza.

  I’m aware, mostly, that I could have just gotten the number changed without killing the phone. It’s more fulfilling this way.

  Late in the afternoon, I head out to Walmart and come back with a stack of large plastic tubs. The black-velvet bear goes back on my nightstand, safe and sound, but all the rest get layered into the tubs with some mothballs to protect the fabric. The laundry room has a storage closet that’s still in range of the AC, protected from the humidity and anything that can happen out in the garage, and when the door closes on the tower of tubs, it feels a little like cutting off a finger.

  My bedroom walls look empty, naked even, but maybe that’s not a bad thing. I change the sheets and sprawl across the bed, warm with sunlight, and let my mind drift across everything that’s happened. I have to make a decision, but Agent Dern says I’ve got time. Don’t rush, because there’s time.

  That evening, I head back up to Bethesda. According to the nurse at the station, they gave Eddison another full of dose of Dilaudid less than half an hour ago, so it’s not surprising that he’s out cold when I walk in. Jenny’s gone, but Priya is sprawled on the tiny couch with a stack of photos and an alarming amount of scrapbooking supplies.

  “So, Eddison and Sterling, huh?” she asks.

  “He tell you that?” I settle into the chair between her and the bed, on Eddison’s right side.

  “Sort of? He asked if it would be weird to keep calling someone by their last name after they’ve kissed you.”

  “And you said?”

  “It isn’t any weirder than calling one of your sisters by her last name all the time.” She grins at me. “I’m glad you’re okay-ish.”

  “Okay-ish,” I repeat, tasting the word. “Yes.”

  Priya knows okay-ish. She spent five years living with it, and even now, with the healing she’s had these last three years, she still has days where okay-ish is the best it gets.

  I pull out a book of logic puzzles so I’m not tempted to peek over her shoulder. She’ll let us see the pictures when she’s ready.

  “Ravenna finally made contact,” she announces, frowning down thoughtfully at a photo. “She’s been staying with a friend in the Outer Banks. They have to go to a different island for Internet access, and she hasn’t bothered. She only turned her phone back on today.”

  “How is she doing?”

  “Okay-ish.” The grin returns, fleeting but sincere. “She’s going to join us in Maryland for the final pictures. After that, she’s going to renew her passport and get everything else in order so she can come with me when I go back to Paris. With an ocean between her and her mother, I think she might start doing better.”

  “I’m a little worried what she may learn from you and your mother.”

  “There’s a ballet studio down the street from the house. I do a lot of their formal pictures, they let me snap rehearsals and classes, and a few staged projects. I think I’m going to take her down there and introduce her.”

  Because Patrice Kingsley grew up loving dance, and Ravenna danced through the Garden to keep herself going, and ever since getting out, she hasn’t known if it was Patrice or Ravenna dancing anymore, dancing for love or for sanity.

  “It’s a good idea,” I murmur, and Priya nods, glues down a strip of paper, and reaches for a sheet of rhinestone stickers.

  Around midnight, when Priya is fast asleep with a blanket draped over her, Eddison stirs and looks around. “Hermana?”

  “I’m here.”

  “Get your ass on the bed. My eyes can’t focus to the chair.”

  Snickering, I put the book and pen down and ease onto the bed beside him. His left leg is supported by a shaped foam piece but I don’t want to jostle him too much. Fortunately the IV and wires are all on his other side. I settle in against him, head on his shoulder, and we just breathe for a while.

  “Did anyone call my parents?”

  “They’re on a cruise in Alaska with your aunt and uncle. We told them you were doing well out of surgery, and you’d call them once you weren’t tripping balls.”

  “Please tell me you did not—”

  “No, we did not tell your mother you were tripping balls,” I snort. “We told her you were heavily dosed.”

  “I don’t like it.”

  “Poor baby.”

  “Yeah, pretty much.” He drifts off again. Eddison’s hatred of high-test painkillers has nothing to do with trying to be manly and tough, he just hates being that out of it.

  I’m not sure when I doze off. I’m somewhat aware of someone touching my hair, the weight of a blanket over me, but a voice tells me to hush and sleep, and I do.

  30

  Bright and early Tuesday morning, I sit on the plain wooden bench outside one of the conference rooms in Internal Affairs, thumbs tapping an endless, anxious tattoo against my phone. My knee bounces, and it’s only through sheer force of will that I keep my heel from hitting the floor to keep time. I am clearly, visibly, a wreck of nerves, and I can’t look away from my hands for fear I’ll see the door opening and freeze.

  Steady footsteps approach, and I feel someone settle onto the bench beside me. I don’t have to look to know it’s Vic. Even aside from the familiar sense of his presence, he’s been wearing the same aftershave longer than I’ve been alive. “This is protocol,” he says quietly, still trying to preserve my theoretical dignity even though we’re alone in the hall. “You’ve done it before, you’ll do it again.”

  “This time is different.”

  “It is and it isn’t.”

  Protocol. Because whenever an agent fires their weapon, Internal Affairs investigates the circumstances, makes sure it was the best option, that there wasn’t some other way we should have seen. I have done it before, and most of the time, however uncomfortable it is to sit in front of agents from IA and explain every single little thing you’ve done, it’s actually reassuring. Comforting, in a way, to know beyond the shadow of a doubt that not only did you make the right—the only—call, but your agency is holding you and all of its agents accountable to a high standard of integrity and ethics.

  Today it is not r
eassuring, because today it’s different.

  Vic’s hand rests on my knee. Not squeezing, just there. Warm and solid and familiar.

  The creak and thump of crutches carries down the hall, and we both look up to watch Eddison slowly make his way around the corner. His top half looks almost work ready, the white dress shirt and black blazer paired with a black tie covered in tiny stained-glass rosettes. Instead of slacks, however, he’s in soft black lounge pants and trying desperately to pretend they’re professional, and black sneakers he hasn’t worn to the office since he was promoted to SSAIC. The pants are loose enough that the bulky bandages around his left thigh aren’t particularly noticeable unless you already know they’re there.

  He looks terrible. The yellow plastic hospital band is still on his wrist, peeking out from his cuffs, and his color is awful beneath the week of dark stubble that’s basically a beard at this point. Tight lines around his eyes announce that he isn’t taking as much pain medication as he should.

  Pendejo got shot a week ago, but damn us all if we try to get him to be sensible. Dios nos salve de idiotas y hombres.

  “You’re almost late,” Vic says instead of hello.

  Eddison stops in front of us and takes a minute to figure out how to be stationary on crutches. “I think every agent in the building has stopped to talk to me.”

  “Glad to have you back?”

  “Lecturing me to take it easy,” he corrects, scratching at his jaw. “Watts says I can’t be trusted to take care of myself properly, so everyone wants to see for themselves.”

  “She’s not wrong.”

  The exchange is familiar, the sound of a million other conversations, and I lean my head back against the wall, closing my eyes to let their voices wash over me. My thumbs keep up their rapid tap-tap-tap against my phone. The repetitive motion is making my wrists ache, but I can’t seem to stop.