I waited to make sure no one else was coming before venturing down the driveway. He finished whatever he was doing inside the truck, pulled out, and closed the door.
“Hi.” I offered him a friendly yet suggestive smile.
It seemed to work at first—he returned the expression and even took a step toward me—but then his mouth set in a straight line as he remembered where he was. “You shouldn’t be back here,” he said.
“But I’ve been waiting for you.”
He’d started to turn away but stopped. “You have?”
“I’m researching a story. For the Globe.” That was a stretch, but at least I wasn’t wearing my school uniform.
He still seemed unsure, but he was listening. “What about?”
“Creepy local deaths for a Halloween special feature. I figured as one of Boston’s best emergency medical responders, you’ve probably seen some pretty strange things.”
This was an even bigger stretch. He was wearing the bakery disguise, too, and unlike the first woman I’d spoken with, his badge was hidden. So how would I know he was an EMT at all, let alone one of the best? I braced for another reprimand.
But it didn’t come.
“Actually, I have,” he said, sounding pleased as he leaned against the truck and crossed his arms over his chest. “But are you sure you’re a reporter?”
My breath hitched.
“You’re too cute to be stuck behind a computer all day.”
I laughed lightly. This seemed to make him even happier, and he immediately launched into various cases of murder, suicide, and a combination of both. I pretended to take notes, pausing every now and then to smile or move closer, but when none of his stories were about the city’s recent victims, I helped him focus.
“What about the guy who jumped off the bridge a few weeks ago?” I asked. “The one who left the note and the balloon?”
“That was pretty standard. His girlfriend broke up with him, and he couldn’t go on without her.” He winked. “Understandable, depending on the girl.”
My stomach turned. “And there was nothing… unusual… about him when he was found? No weird marks or expressions?”
“Not that I can recall.”
“What about the accident with the bus of BU athletes? Nothing strange?”
He shook his head. “They found the last four missing students, and the others are recovering well in the hospital. Unfortunate, but also pretty standard.”
I took another step toward him, rested one hand on his arm. “I’ve heard that in certain circumstances, people can die with their mouths frozen open and their lips turned up. Almost like they’re happy. Have any of the recent victims looked like that?”
“Now that you mention it, that bridge jumper didn’t look entirely devastated when they found him.” He looked behind him and then leaned toward me. “And off the record? Some guy just drowned in this fancy school’s pool. When they brought him out, he was grinning like a Cheshire cat.”
He jumped back as a door slammed somewhere behind him. I looked over his shoulder to see the original female EMT coming toward us.
“Thanks so much,” I said, backing up. “You’ve been really helpful.”
“Wait.” He started after me. “What’s your name? How can I—”
The female EMT grabbed his arm. As she demanded to know what he’d told me, I spun around and ran.
I sprinted past the school, across the street, and through the park. As I dodged pedestrians and baby strollers, I tried to make sense of everything I’d just learned. I reached our brownstone barely winded and took the steps leading to the front door two at a time.
“Oh, good,” Mom said as I burst into the foyer. She was in the living room, sorting through more cardboard boxes. When I glanced her way, she held up two black capes. “What do you think? For costumes? For you and—”
“Sorry.” I swung by and gave her a quick peck on the cheek. “Can’t talk now. Is Dad still in his office?”
“He’s at work. He felt well enough to make his afternoon lecture.”
This sounded like another lie told for Mom’s sake, but there was nothing I could do about that now. I flew through the room, up the stairs, and down the hallway.
“Paige,” I said, knocking on her bedroom door. “I know you said you wanted to be alone, and I’m sorry to interrupt, but—”
I stopped as the door swung open under the weight of my fist, releasing a blast of hot air.
“Paige?” I stepped into the room. It was dark except for the soft glow of my old night-light plugged into the wall by the desk. “Are you okay?”
She didn’t answer. Thinking she’d fallen asleep—and still wanting to talk—I tiptoed over to the bed. I felt through the darkness, aiming for the pillow, hoping to gently wake her by stroking her hair. My palm grazed the pillow… but her head wasn’t there. I felt my way along the bed’s length. In addition to Paige, the blankets and sheets were missing.
I went back to the head of the bed and turned on the small lamp on the nightstand. In the dim light I saw that the bed was completely stripped. The blinds were down, the curtains pulled tight across them. That was strange, but even stranger was what was in the middle of the room.
Eight portable heaters were arranged in a wide circle, their cords connected to three separate power strips. The heaters surrounded blankets and sheets from the bed as well as what appeared to be the entire contents of the upstairs linen closet: old comforters, wool throws, and even guest towels. The bedding was also arranged in a circle and resembled some sort of nest. In the middle of the nest were pillows—from the bed and extras from the closet—and a plastic jug of water. The pillows were fluffed, like they hadn’t been touched since being placed on the floor, and the water jug was full. The rest of the room looked like it always did, with one exception.
Paige wasn’t in it.
I used my sleeve to wipe the sweat forming on my face, then ran back down the hallway. I stopped in my room, thinking she might be waiting for me there, but it, too, was empty.
There was only one other room on the second floor: the bathroom. I approached it slowly; my energy was finally waning, and I was wary of what I might find. The door was closed, and no light shone out of the thin space between it and the floor, but I could hear water running, like someone was taking a bath.
I’d found Paige in a bathtub once before. She’d been pregnant then, and sick. Untransformed, her body had been unable to give the life growing inside her what it needed. Raina and Zara, rather than taking her to a doctor, had cared for her at home, making her drink gallons of ocean water and take hot baths. They’d been in the bathroom with her the day I’d watched through the cracked door, holding her pale, shaking hand, guarding without speaking.
As I walked toward the bathroom now, I pictured her body writhing and twitching. I imagined the noise she’d made, which had been something between a moan and a shriek and had sounded like nothing I’d ever heard before. I remembered her eyes, her beautiful silver-blue eyes, shining toward the ceiling, seeming to stare at nothing and everything at once. And I prayed that that wasn’t what waited behind this closed door.
I knocked once. Twice. Three times.
“Paige? It’s Vanessa. Can I come in?” I held one ear to the door and listened. There was nothing except for the steady rush of water. “Please,” I whispered, taking the knob in one hand. “Please let her be okay…”
Like the bedroom, the bathroom was lit only by a night-light. But it didn’t need to be any brighter for me to see that she wasn’t okay, that I was too late.
Her motionless body was held underwater by heavy iron doorstops resting on her stomach, arms, and legs. Her skin was white, her lips blue. Water streamed into the overflowing tub from the showerhead, making her hair float around her bloated face. Containers of table salt lined the porcelain shelf on the wall next to the tub. A small white book drifted across the flooded tile floor, its gold letters glittering in the dim light.
&n
bsp; My body went numb as my eyes locked on the small French script.
La vie en rose.
Zara’s diary.
The hospital waiting room smelled like rubbing alcohol and potato chips. The nauseating combination didn’t help my stomach, which had been churning since I’d opened the bathroom door forty-five minutes earlier.
“You should eat something.” Mom put one hand on my knee.
“I’m not hungry,” I said.
“You’re sweating and shaking. Food will help.”
I didn’t answer. Across the waiting room, a little girl watched me curiously. I tried to smile, but the failed attempt made her bury her face in her mother’s sweater.
“Salad,” Mom announced, standing. “I’m going to get you a salad, and I’m going to call your father.”
“You’ve called him a million times in the past five minutes,” I protested weakly.
“And I’ll keep calling until he picks up.”
I had to admire her determination… and her unflappable calm. I didn’t remember much of what happened after I’d found Paige. I knew I screamed and lifted her out of the tub, and at one point I was vaguely aware of Mom there with us, but that was all. Yet somehow, we were in the hospital waiting room. Paige was with doctors. It was like the second I screamed, Mom had woken up from her strange daydream and reentered reality the way she’d left it.
It was a small miracle as far as miracles went, but it wasn’t lost on me.
As Mom disappeared into an elevator, I stood and shuffled over to the receptionist area.
“Excuse me,” I said, leaning on the counter for support. “Have you heard anything else yet? About Paige—”
“Marchand.” Barbara the receptionist, an older woman with big blonde hair, eyed me over the tops of her rhinestone-rimmed glasses. “I remember from the first twelve times you asked.”
Apparently, Mom wasn’t the only determined one.
“She’s hanging in there,” Barbara said. “Still critical, but hanging in.”
“Thank you. And you’ll let me know if her condition changes?”
She crossed her heart. “But if you want to check in again before then, I won’t mind.”
I’d started walking away when she spoke again.
“You feel okay? You’re looking a little wobbly.”
“I’m fine,” I called back with a wave. “But thanks.”
I was about to turn back into the square of chairs when the little girl who’d been watching me saw me coming, leaned into her mother, and whispered, “There’s that lady again. What’s wrong with her?”
I knew I’d better get used to the question, since there was going to be something very wrong with me every day for the rest of my life, but that wasn’t going to happen now. Ducking my head so my hair hung down the side of my face, I passed the chairs and shuffled as fast as my feet would carry me through the automatic doors. Outside, I tuned out the smokers and worried family members updating relatives on their cell phones, and dropped onto an empty bench set apart from the ER entrance.
Paige is fine. She’s just here for a checkup. She’ll be done in no time, and we’ll go home and talk and watch movies like it’s any other night.
As I silently lied to myself, my blood ran faster, my head grew fuzzier. Afraid I’d pass out before doing the one thing I knew I needed to, I opened my cell phone, closed my eyes, and focused on breathing. When I thought I could say what needed to be said without crying, I opened my eyes and dialed.
The answering machine picked up on the second ring. I debated hanging up and trying again in a little while, but then left a message. Because who knew what shape I’d be in later?
“Hi, Betty, it’s Vanessa. I’m calling about Paige. There’s been… an accident.”
This was another lie. In my dazed state I’d managed to retrieve Zara’s diary from the flooded floor, and in the waiting room, while Mom had gone off to call Dad, I’d read Paige’s careful, blurry notes. Though the outcome had been unexpected, she’d acted intentionally. She’d turned on the water, filled the tub with salt, weighted down her body. She’d known what she was doing.
She’d been trying to turn herself into one of them. Into one of us. I could only guess that the reason it didn’t work was because she hadn’t been submerged in natural salt water.
“She’s in intensive care at the Commonwealth Medical Center,” I continued quickly. “We don’t have much information yet, but I thought you’d want to see her. Maybe Oliver can drive you down?”
I relayed the address and hung up. A few yards away, an ambulance flew up to the emergency room entrance. My eyes froze on its spinning lights. In between flashes, I pictured Justine.
I missed her. Right now especially, but also every minute of every day, even when I wasn’t consciously thinking of her. I missed her smile, her laugh, her ability to make everything bad somehow good again. I missed running into her in the upstairs hallway, when she was still waking up and too cranky to say good morning. I missed talking with her every night, about Mom and Dad, school and boys, until I was tired enough to fall asleep without worrying about the dark. Sometimes, when I missed her so much I couldn’t breathe, I let myself believe that she was just away, that she’d come back when she was ready.
If I lost Paige, too, I thought I’d never breathe again.
As tears filled my eyes, I was overwhelmed by the sudden need for someone to tell me it was okay. And if that wasn’t possible, I wanted someone here with me, someone whom I loved and who loved me, who wouldn’t make me talk if I didn’t want to, who’d just stay with me on this bench until I felt strong enough to get up again.
I needed Simon.
I texted him, my fingers moving on their own. Tears rolled down my cheeks, but fresh ones replaced them, making it hard to see the small screen. I kept the message short, certain he’d know what I was asking without my actually posing the question.
Paige in ICU @ Commonwealth Med. Ctr. She’s OK for now. Not sure about me.
I hit Send, closed the phone, and slid down the bench until my head rested against wooden slats. I watched the ambulance lights turn until my eyelids grew too heavy to hold up, and then I let them fall. The sounds of people talking, cars passing, and horns honking in the distance slowly faded to silence.
I must have fallen into a deep sleep because the next thing I knew, someone was on the bench next to me. His arm was around my shoulders, pulling me toward him, and my cheek was pressed against his warm chest. Instinctively, I slid one hand across his stomach to his waist and left it there.
I felt better. Calmer. Stronger. My head was clearer. I was thirsty, but no more so than I’d be after waking up from a nap.
Of course, if I were thinking instead of feeling, I’d realize how unlikely it was that I’d been sleeping on a bench for three hours, which was how long it would take Simon to drive here from Maine. Two, if he ignored speed limits.
I’d think that there was no way Mom had left me alone in the cold that long, especially not in her current role of calm leader.
But I wasn’t thinking. I was too happy he was here.
“Thank you for coming,” I whispered.
“Thank you for wanting me to,” he said, curling his free arm around my abdomen.
My eyes opened. Without moving, I looked at his arm, registered the brown jacket, the frayed cuffs. I looked down to the sidewalk, saw the dirty Converse.
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