by Lisa Tucker
“Will the policeman arrest us?” William was eating his second bagel, sitting on the couch, looking at a boring magazine called The New Yorker. He was getting a little sleepy—or at least he had been, until Pearl said that curse word, which Mommy said was the worst curse word of all.
“No, dummy. But we’ll have to go home.”
“Oh.” He felt a little guilty as she was dialing but he wasn’t sure he cared if this Marriott person knew where Uncle Patrick was. His own bed sounded good right now, but he didn’t want to ruin Pearl’s plan of running away.
He heard Pearl talking, then waiting, and talking again. “Please tell him that his niece Pearl called and there’s an emergency at his house. Ask him to come home right away. Thank you.”
After she shut her cell phone, she sat down next to him and ripped off a big chunk from the bagel in his hand. He wasn’t going to gripe, but she pointed at the bag like he already had. “There are three more. You’re not going to starve.” She chewed for a while before she said, “Uncle Patrick is staying at that hotel. Must be some college thing. I left a message with the hotel front desk and on the room voicemail. They said the hotel isn’t very far from here. If he doesn’t come in the next two hours, I’ll try that number again.”
“Can we turn on the TV till he gets here?”
“Do you see a television?”
He didn’t, but he knew sometimes people hid their TVs behind wood doors. A lot of his friends had their TVs hidden like that. But Aunt Lila and Uncle Patrick didn’t have one of those cabinets with wood doors. All they had were rows and rows of bookshelves.
Pearl had her cell phone out again, texting someone. He asked if he could listen to his music now and she said not yet. When he asked her what he should do, she shrugged.
So he sat and looked at the pictures in one boring magazine after another, until he finished the stack on the coffee table. It didn’t take him long. Most of the magazines didn’t have many pictures. When Pearl was still on the phone, talking to Staci, he closed his eyes. He must have fallen asleep, because the next thing he knew, Uncle Patrick was bursting through the door.
“Where’s Lila?”
“She’s asleep,” Pearl said. “It’s not—”
William yawned and watched as Uncle Patrick rushed down the hall and peeked into the bedroom. The bedroom light was still on. He flicked off the switch before slowly walking back.
He looked at Pearl. “What’s the emergency?”
“It’s complicated.” She cleared her throat like she’d caught William’s tic. “That’s why I wanted to talk to you about it.”
Uncle Patrick sat down in a dark green chair. He rubbed his face, which was all stubbly like Kyle’s got when he wouldn’t listen to Mommy and shave. Finally he said, “What are you kids doing here?”
“Nothing,” Pearl said. “We just came to be with you and Aunt Lila.”
“Really?”
His eyebrows were raised like Mommy’s always were when she thought someone was lying. So William said, “Pearl isn’t lying! We runned away tonight to be with you guys.”
He knew he’d messed up when Pearl elbowed him in the ribs, hard. He felt like crying, but instead he started clearing his throat again. Nobody seemed to notice so maybe the tic wasn’t that loud.
“All right,” Uncle Patrick said. “Unfortunately, it’s illegal for you to be here without your mother’s permission. I’m sorry, I’m going to have to call her, and I’m sure she’ll demand that I bring you back immediately.”
“But we can’t go back,” Pearl said. “That’s what I have to tell you. There’s a good reason.”
Uncle Patrick stared at nothing for a minute. “Why didn’t you talk to your aunt about this? Why call me instead of waking her up?”
“I tried,” Pearl said. “I think she took sleeping pills, because I said her name and shook her and even tried to drag her by the arms.”
“Oh my God,” Patrick said. And then he was running down the hall again. Pearl got up, too, and William followed his sister. They found Patrick standing by the bed, holding the pill bottle. He grabbed the phone and said some stuff really quickly that William couldn’t follow. When he hung up, things were so confusing that William sat on the floor and held his head in his hands. His tic had gotten so bad it was making his throat hurt.
Pearl and Patrick were both talking at once. They were both crying, too, which made William so scared.
“I thought she was just asleep,” Pearl said. “I’m so sorry.”
“They’ll be here soon.” Uncle Patrick was talking to Aunt Lila, holding her up in his arms. He sounded as upset as Mommy when the police came to tell her Daddy died. “Any minute. Hang on.”
“I’m so sorry,” Pearl repeated. “I didn’t know you could still wake up if you take sleeping pills.” She was twisting her hands together like she was cold. “Is Aunt Lila going to die?”
“I never should have left you,” Uncle Patrick said. “Oh my God.”
Then there was a banging on the door, and Pearl ran to open it, and after that there were two men and a woman standing over Aunt Lila and behind them, a policeman. William scooted into a corner and stayed very quiet, so nobody would notice him. He watched as Aunt Lila was taken out of the room on a rolling bed, still asleep, even though all these people were doing things to her and Uncle Patrick was shouting, “Is she going to be all right? Please, just tell me what’s going on!”
The policeman told Uncle Patrick he could ride with his wife in the ambulance, but not the kids. Uncle Patrick nodded, but he said quickly, “Their mother needs to be called. They ran away to come here.” Then he was following the rolling bed down the hall and out of the apartment. William knew they were all gone because it got so quiet. Only he and Pearl and the policeman were left in Aunt Lila’s bedroom.
“What’s your mother’s phone number?” the policeman said.
Pearl leaned against the dresser and kept crying. She didn’t say anything.
He asked for the number two more times. Then he said, “Do you understand that running away is a serious matter?”
“I don’t care,” Pearl said, coughing. “I’m not going back. I love my aunt. She’s my dad’s twin. She understands who I am. I want to live here with her.”
“Even if your mom agreed, this isn’t the right time.” The policeman sounded sort of nice all of a sudden. “Let me take you home and maybe you can come back when your aunt is feeling better.”
“I know my aunt tried to kill herself, but I know why she did it, too. She misses my dad, and my mother wouldn’t even let her talk to us.” Pearl rubbed her arm across her eyes, but she couldn’t stop crying. William was crying, too, now, because he finally understood what had happened. Aunt Lila had tried to do the same thing Daddy did. She might die, too.
“Your little brother is tired,” the policeman said. “Just tell me the number and we can get you both home and get him in bed.”
When Pearl didn’t answer, the policeman turned to William. “Do you know your phone number, little fellow?”
“Yeah,” William cried. He was so insulted by everyone assuming he was a baby just because he was so small for his age. And how dumb would he have to be not to know the phone number? He was good with numbers. But he wasn’t going to let himself be tricked again. He put his hand over his mouth and decided not to say another word to this policeman.
The policeman shrugged and said he could find out the number with or without their help. He was just about to call the police station when Pearl said, “If you take us back, he’ll hurt me again.”
“Who?”
“My mother’s boyfriend.” Pearl sounded strange and the look on her face was like nothing William had ever seen. She looked as blank as the chalkboard looked in the morning at school.
The policeman said something William didn’t follow and Pearl said, “If you don’t believe me, look!” She spun around and raised her shirt up over her back. William saw the strap of her bra, which made him
feel embarrassed, but he also saw the purple and blue bruises all over her, from her shoulders to the top of her jeans.
“Kyle hit you?” he gasped, and Pearl nodded in his direction before turning back to the policeman, who wasn’t dialing the phone but instead putting it back in his pocket. He asked Pearl if they could go into the living room to talk for a minute, alone.
William knew “alone” meant he wasn’t supposed to follow them, but he couldn’t if he wanted to. His legs felt like noodles and his stomach felt like he’d swallowed the biggest rock by the creek. He didn’t have Daddy’s list with him, but he knew for sure that this was on it. He even remembered the words Daddy used: “That Bastard hitting you or Maisie or Pearl for any reason whatsoever.” He’d had to look up the word “whatsoever,” and though he still couldn’t define it in his own words, the way his teacher always said to, he’d figured out what it meant in the sentence. It meant Kyle could never hit them, not even if they mouthed off or bugged him while he was watching the game, not even if they broke the window on his truck by accident or even on purpose.
And this was way down at the bottom of Daddy’s list, with the other stuff his father had drawn an arrow next to. William knew what that arrow meant, because Daddy had talked to him about the arrow every day they were doing the Challenges. The arrow meant the time had come to save his sisters.
As he sat on the floor of Aunt Lila’s bedroom, clearing his throat like he really had tried to swallow a boulder, he could hear Daddy saying, “You have to feel the fear and do it anyway. I know it’s hard, but you’re smart, buddy. You’ll figure out that’s the only secret to being brave.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
For more than a half hour, Patrick had been stuck in the ER admissions department, filling out forms and answering questions. The intake clerk wasn’t completely heartless; she’d waited to trap him until after the attending physician said that Lila was going to live. His wife was lucky, apparently, that she’d only taken her sleeping pills and not mixed them with alcohol or other drugs. She was also lucky that she’d been taking so many sedatives in the last month, day and night, that she’d built up a tolerance. They pumped her stomach and gave her another drug that worked to counteract the sleeping pills. The doctor said she was already physically alert—groaning, responding to reflex tests, and the like—and she’d probably be mentally alert within the hour. Patrick had told the clerk that he should be there when his wife woke up, but the clerk insisted this paperwork had to be completed first. At the moment, she was on hold with his insurance company, waiting for preauthorization for a psych admit.
Which gave him time to think about the last several hours. Even if he hadn’t been with Joyce when his niece had left a message at the Marriott, he still would have felt this was unreal, but as it was, he felt feverish and light-headed, as though he was literally sickened by what had happened.
He’d spent Wednesday night alone and Thursday night, too. He could have gone out anytime he wanted—he had a rental car, a brand-new Mazda—but the only place he wanted to be was back home. He kept thinking Lila would call, even just to say that she needed food or soap or a prescription refilled, but the only phone calls he got were from Joyce, making sure he was all right. Offering to help in any way she could. Worrying that he was spending too much time by himself.
By Friday night, he knew he needed to get out of his tiny hotel room, so he agreed to go to dinner with Joyce, but he kept his cell phone with him, just in case. Joyce picked him up at seven and they went to a steak place near campus. He had two beers; she had a few glasses of wine. While they were eating, Joyce asked him if their kiss was the reason he’d left his wife.
“Oh boy, I can’t believe I just asked you that,” she said. “What I meant was that I hope what happened between us didn’t cause you any problems at home.” She paused. “I’d hate to think I’d hurt you. I’d never want to do that.”
“Please don’t worry about it. It’s not your fault.” He waited a moment. “My guess is this has been coming for a long time.”
He’d said “guess” because that’s just what it felt like: as though he were some unprepared student throwing out an answer that might well be ridiculous. Only a few days ago, the idea that he would ever leave his wife was not only absurd but unthinkable. And yet here he was.
A moment later, he heard himself saying, “I don’t think she ever loved me.” But was this close to the truth? He certainly believed that Lila wouldn’t have lied to him over and over if she really loved him; yet he had felt loved by her, hadn’t he? Did he even know what love was?
Joyce reached for his hand, but to her credit she said, “She married you. She must have loved you at one time.”
He thought about moving his hand, but didn’t. “You could be right.” He shrugged. “I just don’t understand it.” After a minute, he changed the topic to the dean’s latest annoying faculty memo.
Another beer, another glass of wine, and somehow Joyce was sitting on his side of the booth, pressing her leg against his. She admitted that she’d had a crush on him for a while. He admitted that he really enjoyed her company and was glad she’d pushed him to come out tonight. After they finished dessert and split the check, they were back in her geek mobile, heading to the Marriott. Her hand was on his thigh. She was kissing him at every red light. She obviously assumed, as he did, that they were going back to his room together. He hadn’t had sex in a long time: not since Billy died, of course, and only once or twice in the months before, because Lila was always busy, working on an important paper. He couldn’t remember Lila ever wanting him with the passion that Joyce quite obviously did. He was incredibly excited as they drove into the hotel parking lot.
They were already out of Joyce’s car, sharing another kiss, when it finally struck him that he couldn’t go through with it. He was still a married man. No matter how much he wanted Joyce, he took his commitments seriously, including his promise to be faithful. He could tell she was disappointed, as he was, but as he walked back into the hotel alone, he was relieved that he’d managed to do the right thing.
That would turn out to be the last clear-cut moment of the night—the rest was a blur of terror and guilt and panic and other feelings he couldn’t even identify. Yet he knew the doctor was right: it could have been much worse. If Patrick had stayed out an hour longer, if the kids hadn’t shown up, if Pearl hadn’t thought to call him when she did, Lila could have aspirated vomit and damaged her lungs, or stopped breathing and damaged her brain, or even died.
When the intake clerk finally said he could go, he ignored a fleeting desire to run in the other direction rather than back to the room where they’d taken his wife. He pushed back the curtain and found a nurse sitting with Lila. His wife was crying, but the nurse said that was normal. The stomach pumping, or “gastric lavage” as she called it, had involved an endotracheal tube that was “more than uncomfortable” and the drug to counteract the sedative might have caused some agitation and withdrawal. “But she’ll be all right soon,” the nurse said. “A doctor will be coming to talk to her. He should be down shortly.” Then she patted Lila’s arm, stood up to check his wife’s IV pole, and told Patrick to buzz the nursing station if they needed anything.
“I have to get out of here,” Lila said as soon as the nurse walked away. Tears were streaming down her face, but it couldn’t be normal crying, because she wasn’t making any crying sounds. “I know I haven’t been a very good wife. I thought about this a lot yesterday.” She was speaking quickly, as though she was afraid he’d interrupt. “I don’t blame you for wanting to leave me, but could you just pretend that you’re going to take me home? That way, they’ll think someone is watching out for me and let me go.”
He sat down next to her and took her hand. The doctor had already told Patrick that, unfortunately, he wouldn’t be allowed to just take Lila home. There were laws involved when someone attempted suicide. He told her he would do his best, but then he explained what the doctor said. Or
he started to. He told her there would be a psychiatrist coming down to talk to her, but before he got to the strong probability that she would have to stay in the hospital for a few days, just to make sure she was no longer a threat to herself, somehow Lila already knew what was coming. She jerked her hand away and yelled, “No! Don’t you understand? I can’t stay here. I just can’t!”
Patrick braced himself for medical personnel rushing in and tying Lila down or giving her a sedative, something. But when nobody came, he lowered his voice, hoping Lila would take the hint and lower hers. “Don’t worry, babe, they won’t keep you for long.” He forced a smile. “Our insurance will make sure of that.”
“They will keep me. They’ll say they won’t, but they will. And I won’t be able to see you. They won’t even let you visit.” At least she wasn’t yelling anymore. He was trying to stay calm, thinking about how to reassure her, until she added, “They won’t let me see Billy, either, no matter what they promise.”
What he felt then was so entirely physical that he didn’t even realize that his mind had shut down. It was like he was a child again playing ball and he’d had the ball kicked right into his stomach. Except it was worse: it felt like the air hadn’t just been knocked out of his lungs, but out of his entire body. He couldn’t feel his legs or his arms. The room looked shimmery and strange, as though his eyes had lost their ability to focus.
“Wait, I know Billy can’t come here.” Lila was looking at the ceiling, speaking slowly. “He died, didn’t he?”
“Yes.” He inhaled, hoping her initial confusion was normal after a trauma. He was grateful that she’d already come back to the present, but he was more alert now, afraid there might be other things she would say that would shock him. The monitors attached to Lila seemed louder; the fluorescent lights harsher and more annoying. Even the hospital smell, which he thought he was used to from all the times he’d visited his mother, was suddenly obnoxious and vaguely nauseating. He wanted to get out of here every bit as badly as Lila did.