by S. J. Bishop
"Mom? Dad?" I said, going up to them.
They looked up at the sound of my voice. "Oh Ava," my mom cried, embracing me "I’m so sorry."
For a second, I thought I was too late. My face contorted and my mouth twisted up into a hysterical grin.
My mom, seeing my face, realized what she’d said and immediately corrected herself. "Oh no, baby, I didn’t mean that Lily... she’s okay. Well, I mean, she’s not okay, but she’s alive. They’ve got her in ICU." I breathed a sigh of relief.
My mom was blathering away, apologizing and explaining at the same time. For some reason, she seemed to be blaming herself for Lily’s condition. "Mom, this isn’t your fault," I said. "It’s no one’s really, except maybe mine. Maybe if I’d taken better vitamins when I was pregnant, or taken her to the doctor more often when she was a baby..."
Tears flowed over my cheeks and my dad reached over and took my hand, holding it tightly as he helped me into a chair. "This is no one’s fault. Lily’s strong. She’s a fighter, just like her mother. She’ll get through this."
Dr. Martin came out just then. "Ava," he said, greeting me like an old friend. "I’m sorry. I have bad news and there’s no easy way to say it. Lily’s taken a turn for the worse. I’m afraid that unless something is done within the next forty-eight hours, she won’t survive beyond that."
I almost fell out of my chair. The tears kept streaming down my cheeks. I’d given up on trying to hold them in.
"Listen," Dr. Martin said, kneeling down so he could talk to me. "I’ve spoken with the anaesthesiologist on staff, as well as several surgical nurses, who are all willing to waive their normal fees. I’m willing to waive mine as well." I looked up, my eyes hopeful for the first time since learning of Lily’s illness.
"The main problem is the hospital board. There are certain rules they refuse to bend, even in situations like this. Even cutting our personal fees, the hospital won’t cut the fees for her other expenses—the recovery room, the operating room, medicine, the implant we’re going to have to give Lily to prevent her heart from behaving so erratically in the future."
"How much?" my father asked. The lines on his face sunk deeper.
"Half," Dr. Martin said. "Fifty thousand. Can you come up with it?"
I looked at my parents. My mother and father looked at each other. "We have twenty in the bank," Mom said. "Maybe if we refinance we could get a loan. We can always go back to work."
Dad nodded. "The bank won’t open till morning, but I know the manager, Owen Williams. Good man. I’ll call him now. Maybe we can get this rolling tonight."
I swept away the tears now which were permanently etched on my face. I couldn’t let my parents refinance their house. They’d just retired. Go back to work? At this point in their lives? But what could I say? Lily needed the surgery and I didn’t have insurance. That meant we needed to pay out of pocket and this was the only way.
"Thank you, doctor," I said. A group of policemen ran past us, their walkie talkies bursting with noise. "What’s going on here?" I asked, momentarily forgetting my own problems.
"Haven’t you heard?" Dr. Martin asked. My parents and I stared at him. "A couple was attacked outside their home." He looked at Ava. "Your friend Carter’s home, actually."
My mouth dropped open. "Is Carter alright?"
Dr. Martin nodded. "Yes, he wasn’t the one who was attacked. It was his sister’s fiancé."
"Doctor Martin," a nurse called.
He turned around and gave a quick wave. "Excuse me. I’ll come back to check on things in a little while."
"Well, I’m going outside to call Owen," my dad said.
"I’m going to get us some coffee," Mom said. "Do you want anything else? Candy? Ice cream?" I smiled in spite of it all. For once, I felt like my mother wasn’t judging me. All she wanted to do was make me feel better.
"A Snickers," I said. Mom patted my back and told me she’d be back soon. My dad rose to go with her. Left alone, my mind wandered between Lily and Erik. Who would have wanted to hurt Erik? No one here even knew him. I remembered the dead flowers and eerie poem Myron had left for me. Could Myron have been behind it?
First Carter’s brakes, then Mr. Brewster’s, now Erik was attacked? I had to talk to the police, even if it meant looking like a fool in front of my parents. Even if it meant that later they used it to try and get Lily. Though now, with them here beside me in the hospital, working as one unit to save Lily, I thought it unlikely my parents would really do something so horrible as taking my daughter away.
A cop sat down next to me, a cup of coffee in his hand. It was now or never.
"Excuse me," I said. "Who do I talk to you about the attack that happened tonight?"
39
Carter
I paced the floor inside Erik’s room. He was stable. He would be fine. The knife had missed his heart and lungs. The doctors all said how lucky he was, only I was sure that when he woke up he wouldn’t feel so lucky.
"Why don’t you get some air?" Hannah asked. "You don’t need to stay here."
"You really want me to leave you alone with her?" I asked, nodding towards Olivia. She shot me a look that said she’d rather I was the one lying in this hospital bed than Erik.
"It’s fine. I’m not sure how much longer I’m gonna stay anyways, now that I know he’s alright. I hate the jerk, but at the same time... I really did care about him... once."
"I get it," I said. It was weird, seeing Olivia holding Erik’s right hand while Hannah held his left. I didn’t blame Hannah for her feelings. If it had been Olivia in here I would’ve wanted to stay too, despite everything that had happened between us. You can’t spend three years with a person and not care what happens to them, at least a little.
A couple of nurses came in to check on things. They began checking Erik’s heart monitor and his IV. They talked quietly between themselves. I thought I heard Lily’s name and looked over at them.
"Excuse me," I said. "Did I just hear you say that Lily Hart is here?" The nurses exchanged a look.
"Yes," one of them finally said. "She’s in ICU."
I gave Hannah a quick hug and whispered, "Don’t let what happened change your mind. A jerk is still a jerk. If you have any doubts, just picture him and Olivia together in bed, then picture me and Olivia in bed."
"Ew," she said, yanking her hand away from Erik’s.
"Exactly. I’m going to find Ava. If Lily’s here, she is too."
"Good luck," Hannah said. "I’ll come find you later."
Two policemen stepped into the room just as I was exiting. I heard them start to say, "We’ve just been informed of a possible suspect," but I didn’t stop to finish listening. I wanted to find Ava.
I found the waiting room in the emergency wing, where Hannah, Olivia, and I had started off before getting moved to a private room. Ava was sitting there alone, her head buried in her hands.
"Ava."
She looked up at the sound of my voice. "Carter." Her whole face lit up. She fell into my arms and I held her tightly against me. "I can’t believe you’re here."
"I was with Hannah and Erik when I found out about Lily."
"I heard he was attacked," Ava said. "What happened? Is he okay?"
"Yeah, he’s gonna be fine. The knife missed any major arteries or vital organs."
Ava’s eyes widened. "He was stabbed?"
"Yeah, but how’s Lily?"
"Fine." She laughed and shook her head. "No. Not fine at all. I don’t know why I said that. Wishful thinking, I guess. She’s... she might not make it out of here this time."
A detective walked over to us just then. "Excuse me, Miss Hart," he said, holding up a picture of Myron. "Is this the man you were speaking of earlier?"
"Yes," Ava said. "That’s him." She glanced at me and I grabbed her hand. "This is Detective Collins," she said. "I’ve told him all about Myron. Everything, including why you were fighting with him the other day." I squeezed her hand and her pulse quickened.
"Yes. I work with him."
The detective put the picture down. "This man has been in and out of institutions his whole life. His real name is Mark Grayson. He’s currently wanted in connection with several murders in Washington."
Ava and I looked at each other.
"If you see him again, do not approach him. Find me or any other officer and tell us immediately."
Dr. Martin came up behind the detective and cleared his throat. Detective Collins turned around. "I’m done here, Doc," he said.
"Hello, Mr. Stone," Dr. Martin said. "Glad to see you’re recovering so well from your accident." He turned to Ava then. "Any word from your parents?"
"Not yet," Ava said. "My father’s probably still on the phone trying to raise the money."
Dr. Martin sighed. "Alright, I’ll assume we shall have good news coming to us soon. I’ll get things ready, just in case."
Ava smiled gratefully at him.
"What money are your parents trying to raise?" I asked when Dr. Martin was gone.
"It’s for Lily. She needs surgery. Tonight. Or she probably won’t make it out of here alive." Her voice cracked but the tears still did not fall. She looked so spent and I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to fear for your own child’s life.
"Well how much is it?" I asked. "Maybe I can help."
"Fifty thousand dollars."
I let out a long, low whistle. "That’s a lot." Ava nodded. "Can I ask you something?" My cheeks burned. "Where’s Lily’s father?"
Ava took a deep breath and licked her lips. I looked in her eyes, at once afraid and excited by what she might say next. Her words choked in her throat at first, then found their way out. "He’s sitting right beside me."
I couldn’t believe what she was saying. My eyes widened and my face grew even hotter. Ava started crying. "He’s sitting right beside me, Carter," she said again, gripping my hand. Instinctively I pulled my hand away.
40
Ava
"What the hell are you talking about, Ava?" Carter asked me. He wasn’t shouting. His tone was quiet and soft. It bothered me more than if he had been yelling.
"I’m sorry," I whispered. "I should have told you."
"What are you saying? Are you really saying that Lily’s my daughter?"
I nodded. I tried to read Carter’s face as he took everything in. Surely it must have occurred to him at some point that he could have been Lily’s father. You didn’t have to be a genius to do the math or to notice the resemblance. Still no one else had put it together and she couldn’t blame him for not figuring it out. He probably thought she would have told him. "How could you have kept something like this from me?" he asked, his eyes were filling with tears now and that made everything worse somehow.
"I just... when I first found out I was pregnant, I wanted to tell you. But you’d just been drafted. I lost my scholarship. I was afraid that if I told you, you might not go to San Francisco. I didn’t want to ruin your life."
"Fine, and what about any time, oh, say, in the last three years? Why couldn’t you have told me then? Was it never a good time?"
Anger and grief spilled out of me. "I was going to tell you. I tried to tell you several times these last few days, but Olivia was always around, or you were getting arrested. How can I tell you something like that when you’re sitting in a jail cell?"
"I can’t believe this," Carter said. "I thought I knew you. I thought that, of all the people in my life, you were the one person I could trust. Now I find out that was all bullshit."
"It wasn’t!" I said, my voice rising. A few people in the waiting room were watching us now, and I tried to lower my voice. Carter, however, was just getting started.
"How do I know this isn’t some game? Some trick?" he asked, rising from his seat.
"What are you saying?" I screamed, rising up with him. "Are you saying I’m lying to you now? That Lily’s not your daughter?"
"How am I supposed to believe anything that you tell me ever again? You just said you’ve been lying to me for the last three years."
"All you have to do is look at her, Carter. For crying out loud she looks exactly like you. Have you really not noticed that?"
Carter hesitated. "Who else knows this?" he demanded.
"No one."
Doctors and nurses stopped to watch us now. Luckily, the reporters were all outside the hospital, covering the story from the scene of the stabbing. Only a small amount of photographers lingered at the hospital, and with so many police running around, it had been easy to keep them out.
Carter turned away from me. I could see in his face that he was disgusted with my lies. But underneath the disgust was something else, that looked almost like an acceptance.
"I need to get out of here," Carter said.
"Carter, please," I cried. "Lily needs you."
But Carter ignored my pleas as he headed for the doors.
41
Carter
.
I stepped into the parking lot and inhaled the fresh night air. I saw someone approach me from the corner of my eye and turned my head to see who it was, but a flash went off before I could place the shape of the person in the dark. Cameras started snapping my picture. I ran away from them and jumped into my car.
Part V
42
Ava
I sat in the waiting room, staring at the door Carter had just run through. I couldn’t believe that he had deserted me. I understood that he was angry, but how could he take that out on Lily?
I stood up to go after him, furious at the way he had stormed off like an adolescent. This was exactly the reaction I had feared. I’d waited three years to tell him the truth, making excuse after excuse as to why I had to put it off. Beneath all the excuses though, had been this: the fear that he would leave me alone and want nothing to do with me.
The tears stopped as anger washed over me. I was mad at Carter for betraying me when I needed him most. I was mad at Myron for pretending to be her friend. I was mad at life for giving me a daughter who was so ill that I couldn’t do anything to help her. For a moment, I was glad for the anger. It gave me something else to focus on instead of the grief.
My parents came through the door while I was still standing there, contemplating my situation.
"Ava, what’s wrong?" my mom asked, running to me. "Did the doctor come back? Is there something new?"
"No, Mom," I said, sitting back down. My shoulders hunched forward. I was too tired to even try and sit up. If I thought I could get away with it, I would have climbed under the seats in the waiting room and gone to sleep right there.
"Any news with you?" I asked my dad. Mom handed me a cup of coffee. I waved off the Snickers bar, no longer hungry.
"I’m afraid not," my dad said, his face sullen. "I talked to Owen. We can refinance and get a loan for Lily, but he doesn’t see how we can do it in so short a time."
"Oh," I said, my face falling. "How much time did he think it would take?"
"At least two weeks."
"Two weeks?" I cried, standing back up. I began to pace the waiting room. "Two weeks," I mumbled over and over. My parents exchanged a look.
"Ava, why don’t you go outside and get some air? Your father and I will think of something."
"What is there to think of?" I yelled, rounding on my mother. "I’m poor and useless and I’ve flushed my life down the drain. Better Lily died than live another day with a mother like me. Isn’t that what you’re thinking? Well everything I learned about being a parent I learned from you. So if Lily dies you have no one to blame but yourself."
My mom’s face collapsed. Her eyes seemed to shrink back in her head.
"Ava," my father said, shaken. Mom clung to Dad’s shoulder and she sobbed silently against him as he held her tight. I felt sick to my stomach.
"I’m sorry," I whispered. All the stress from this situation, from Myron and Ca
rter were getting to me. I had no control over my emotions or what I was saying. "I’m sorry, Mom. I didn’t mean that. I didn’t mean any of that." I wrapped my arms around my mom and cried, feeling overcome by emotion and ashamed that I had lashed out at her. She held me tight which I recognized as a sign of forgiveness.
"It’s okay, sweetie. I know you didn’t mean it. You’re just upset. We all are."
"You’ve been a great mom," I said, hot tears falling fresh on my face. "And you’re a great dad," his eyes were just as teary as Mom’s. I saw him try to wipe the tears away as quickly as he could, but he couldn’t stop them from sneaking out once more. The three of us stood there, huddled together, for what felt like an eternity.
"I think they’ll let me in to see Lily now," I said, breaking away. "If they won’t, I’ll force my way in. They can’t keep me out here away from my daughter."
"Go for a walk first," my mother said. "Don’t let Lily see you like this. Your father and I will go to her. And you know what, I just had a thought. Diane Edgars is on that charity board for the church. I’ll call her and see what she can do. They helped Tommy Baton get his braces last year."
I smiled at my mother’s optimism.
"I know braces are a little different than heart surgery, but still... it’s worth a shot. Maybe there are some other charities in the area she can direct us to."
"That’s a great idea," Dad said, wrapping an arm around Mom’s shoulders.