SW01 - The Edge of Nowhere

by Elizabeth George

  Derric, though, looked only at Becca. She bent over the bed and kissed his forehead. Then her lips met his and they lingered for a moment. His hand touched her cheek. Her hand touched his.

  “Enough of that, now,” the nurse said in a jolly fashion. “Let’s not get him all excited, dear.”

  “I’ll be back,” Becca said again to Derric.

  He nodded. He turned his head as she moved toward the door. His eyes met Seth’s. He nodded again in the weak greeting of someone whose strength has been depleted. Seth said, “Hey, man. Good to see you again,” and when Derric murmured, “Care of,” Seth knew he was referring to Becca. He said, “Sure. You get better now, okay?” When Derric nodded again, Seth felt a link had been forged between them.

  He and Becca ducked out of the room. In Becca’s hands was the lunch box of letters. He said, “You don’t want to leave those with him?” but Becca shook her head and said, “He wants me to keep them for now.”

  “They mean something, don’t they?” Seth said. “I mean, they have to do with him and you, huh?”

  Becca looked at him and then at what she was holding. She said slowly, “I didn’t think about that. But I guess you’re right.”

  Seth said, “It was weird, but when he looked over at me . . .” He didn’t know how to complete what he wanted to say, but it turned out he didn’t need to because Becca said, “Yeah. I felt it, too.”

  They went down the corridor. As they headed across the hospital lobby, Undersheriff Mathieson came in the door at a run. Seth thought about hiding. He thought about stuffing Becca next to an artificial plant with large dusty leaves. But this wasn’t necessary as it happened. The undersheriff was intent upon getting to his son. As with the forest and the trees, he saw nothing else.

  * * *

  FORTY-THREE

  Becca descended from the bus into the cool afternoon air of Coupeville to feel a soft mist blowing up the street off the waters of Penn Cove. She yawned and slung her pack to her shoulders. It was heavy with books and with makeup work for the time she’d missed at school.

  She’d been busy making things up to Debbie Grieder as well. She was back to cleaning rooms and helping the kids with their homework, and there was a form of peace among everyone in their little group. Josh, especially, was a joyful boy now that the prospect of seeing his Big Brother Derric again lay in front of him.

  Becca and Debbie had talked about trust, but it seemed to Becca that something was not being said between them. Seth and who he is and what I thought constituted the only whispers from which Becca could derive a few clues, though. From these she figured that Debbie knew she’d been wrong about Seth but was having trouble apologizing for this.

  At the door to the hospital, Becca fished the AUD box from her backpack and plugged it in. She went to Derric’s room but found it empty. He’d been moved to a regular room, she was told. Out of a coma, he didn’t need constant care any longer.

  Becca felt a surge of happiness. It seemed, then, that Derric was entirely back in body. What remained to be seen was whether he was back in spirit as well.

  At his room, she was stopped by yet another nurse, who informed her that the patient was allowed only two visitors at a time and she would have to wait. The nurse was all business, and she made it clear that there were no exceptions.

  Becca figured there was no point to arguing. She could return to the lobby and wait awhile there because she had enough homework to do to keep her busy till the end of the semester. She was about to do this when the door to Derric’s room opened. Rhonda Mathieson and Jenn McDaniels stepped out. It would have to be Jenn McDaniels, Becca thought.

  A smile broke over Rhonda’s face. She cried, “Jenn, look who’s here! The very person Derric was just asking us about.” Jenn scowled at this, but Rhonda went on, saying to Becca, “I wasn’t sure how to get in touch with you.”

  “No one is.” There was an edge to Jenn’s voice. “If you don’t run into her sneaking around Langley like an FBI agent, you just don’t see her.”

  Becca ignored this. She said to Rhonda, “I’ll give Derric my number. He had it before but he might’ve lost it.”

  Jenn scowled again.

  Rhonda said, “Good. You go in and see him. And when you’ve finished your visit . . . Jenn and I are heading to the cafeteria for a snack. Join us there if you can, okay?”

  Jenn shot Becca a look that said she hoped that Becca’s snack would be slugs on toast. Becca told Rhonda she’d try to come to the cafeteria. Her real intention, though, was to hightail it back to Langley as soon as her visit with Derric was over.

  She went into his room. Derric’s leg was raised in traction as it had been earlier, and seeing him like this with his leg trussed up, Becca was reminded of how bad the break had seemed when she found him in the woods. She wondered what kind of athlete he’d be able to be when this was all over.

  “They’re saying it’s going to be okay,” he told her as her gaze met his. “Not this year, though.”

  “Did you just read my mind?” she asked him.

  He laughed. “If I could read chicks’ minds, I’d have all the right moves and I’d be dating that chick from the vampire movies. But nah. You were looking at my leg, which is what I spend most of my time doing, so I figured you were wondering the same thing I wondered when I woke up and saw it.” Then his face softened noticeably. He patted the mattress next to him. “Glad you came.”

  Becca knew he meant her to sit on the mattress, but she was suddenly shy. She sat on the chair next to the bed instead. He looked wonderful, she thought. He looked as good as the day she’d met him, all smooth dark skin and dazzling smile. She tried to figure what she should say to him and felt knotted up inside with everything she wanted to tell him but still could not. She saw on his table a pile of schoolbooks, so she forged a path in that direction. She nodded at the books and said, “You and me both,” and he said “Yeah, bummer,” in a way that told her he knew what she meant. It was odd and yet perfectly natural that they would communicate in this shorthand fashion. It made her want to reach for his hand and hold it, but she was acutely aware that he was no longer a boy in a coma but a boy watching her closely with his great dark eyes and an expression of anticipation on his face.

  He said, “I don’t remember very much. There was just . . . all of a sudden this dog was there and he was crashing into me. I guess I was off balance or something. I think I scared him and he sure as heck scared me. And then I woke up and Dad was bending over the bed and here I was.”

  From this, Becca understood that Derric didn’t remember anything about regaining consciousness with her at his side. She felt unaccountably sad, while at the same time not knowing what her sadness actually meant. She said quietly, “Derric, I think Rejoice brought you back.”

  His dark eyes seemed to grow darker. Cautiously, he said, “What?” and she told him about finding the letters, bringing them to the hospital, reading one of them to him. She looked around for a moment and saw the photograph she’d held that day, and she picked it up once again. She said, “Rejoice is one of these little kids, isn’t she?”

  He said nothing, and Becca looked from the picture to him and saw that his eyes were filled with tears. She whispered, “Oh no. Did she die? Is that why you hid the letters?”

  He shook his head. No, no, no. Tears began to roll down his cheeks. He turned his head away from her, and she saw how hard his throat was working and from this she knew he was struggling to stop crying, which was only making him cry even more. From this Becca realized that he wanted to leave again, to go to that place he’d been in his coma, so she grabbed his hand. She said, “Tell me what happened to her. I’m your friend. Now and always. Derric, you have to tell me.” She thought of all the terrible things that happen to people in Africa because of political insurrections, civil war, genocide, famine, and disease. “Please, tell me,” she repeated.

  He said, “I left her.”

  “What?”

  “I never said
she was my sister.” The tears continued to roll down his cheeks as he turned back to Becca. “I had the chance to be adopted and I still didn’t say. So they didn’t know.”

  “The Mathiesons?”

  “Everyone,” he said. “She was three years old and I was eight and I never said. There were so many kids and the boys and girls lived in separate buildings. My mom came with her church group and she said she wanted me and the only way . . .” His fingers closed into a fist. “So I didn’t say anything and I didn’t tell her about Rejoice and when she came back with my dad and he and she said ‘Do you want to be our son, Derric?’ and she didn’t say anything about adopting a daughter, I didn’t tell them. I was so scared they’d change their minds.” He turned his head away in grief.

  Becca saw how it had occurred. She saw that this secret was the heaviness and the sorrow she’d always felt in him, and she understood why his soul had persisted in crying out Rejoice. She sat on the edge of the bed. She took his hand. She said to him, “It’s okay.”

  “It’ll never be okay,” he said. “I thought if I wrote to her and she could see how happy I was and if I promised to bring her here when I could . . . Only how could I do any of that when I couldn’t even mail the letters because then they’d know, and even if I mailed them, she couldn’t read them . . . ?”

  “You need to tell them now,” Becca said, “They’ll find Rejoice. They’ll bring her here.”

  “I can’t tell them. What kind of kid leaves his own sister behind? What kind of kid pretends he has no sister? Would you have done that? No one would have done that. They’ll hate me. I hate myself.”

  Becca was silent because she had no answer. He’d done a terrible thing but he was far from being a terrible person. And yet he’d just come face-to-face with one of those facts that her grandmother had always called “a real gut stabber, hon.” In life, there were no do-overs. There was simply what you did and then living through what happened next.

  She said, “Derric, you were desperate. There isn’t anyone who wouldn’t understand that. You were a little kid. You wanted parents who would love you and take care of you and that’s who you were and that’s what you did. But the person you are now wouldn’t do that. You wouldn’t even be able to.”

  “I don’t know that,” he wept.

  “I do,” she said,

  She hugged him then and he clung to her. She caressed his back and she cupped her hand around his head. Then over his shoulder she saw the door to his room swing open.

  Jenn McDaniels walked in. But she stopped dead at the sight in front of her: Derric and Becca in each other’s arms. Pure hatred chiseled its way across her face. When she saw this, Becca absolutely knew it was a hatred that wasn’t about to dissipate anytime soon.

  She left, then. There was nothing more to be said in front of Jenn, and Becca could tell from Jenn’s expression that she wasn’t about to leave her alone with Derric again. So she told him she would be back soon, and she headed in the direction of the lobby.

  Once there, though, she saw that Undersheriff Mathieson had just entered with a stack of magazines in his hand. Becca figured she could get by him without a problem because he still didn’t know who she was, but just at the moment she was set to do this, she heard Rhonda Mathieson call out from behind her, “Becca! Don’t leave without saying good-bye.” And then what was worse, she went on to her husband, “Dave, here’s your mystery girl. Here’s Becca King.”

  Becca cringed inwardly but she faced the undersheriff. She said, “Mystery girl?” with as casual a smile as she could manage.

  Dave Mathieson looked her up and down. He said, unaccountably, “Chubbette?”

  Becca eased the earphone of the AUD box from her ear. She knew that if there was ever a time to catch whispers, this was it. But all she caught were nuts to think . . . what’s wrong with boys . . . and she was trying to make something from all this when she realized the undersheriff was speaking to her asking her where the dickens she’d been staying and did she know how much she’d worried her aunt? From this, Becca realized that, despite her every suspicion, Debbie Grieder had not betrayed her, even when she’d felt betrayed herself by Becca’s relationship with Seth Darrow.

  “Couch surfing,” Becca told Dave Mathieson. “Aunt Debbie and I . . . We had sort of a misunderstanding about a guy—”

  “Seth Darrow?” the undersheriff asked sharply.

  “—but we got it straightened out. I’m back home now.”

  “Back at the motel?”

  “Room four-four-four, where I was before.”

  “I didn’t know Debbie had a niece,” Rhonda Mathieson said. “But I guess we’re finding out we don’t know a lot about other people, even people we think we know better than we know ourselves.”

  The undersheriff turned a deep crimson at this. He said to Becca, “You never heard I was looking for you? Hayley Cartwright didn’t track you down and tell you? The Darrow kid didn’t tell you? Jenn McDaniels didn’t tell you?”

  “I missed a lot of school.”

  “We need to talk about that, too. What’re you doing, going truant from school? And running off? You know where this kind of nonsense leads?”

  All of this might have put Becca on the defensive except his whispers where flying around fast and furiously. Motel . . . always knew . . . Tatiana . . . damn stupid . . .

  Becca looked at Dave Mathieson and then at his wife. Whatever was going on at the moment really didn’t have anything to do with her, with being truant from school, or with running off, and she got this. So she said, “I was acting dumb for a while. But I’m back in school and I’m making up the work.”

  “I better not hear otherwise,” the undersheriff told her.

  “You won’t.”

  “Dave,” Rhonda said, “she’s been good to Derric. I think we can cut her a little slack.”

  He looked at his wife and then back at Becca. He nodded. He said, “Derric told me some damn fool dog was loose in the woods. He remembers that. He’s remembering other things, too. Kids reading to him, music playing, people talking to him. But he says he feels a special bond with you. So . . . thanks for being part of things here, for being there for my boy. For my son.” His face softened at last and he smiled at her. “I hope you’ll keep coming back, Becca.”

  She said that she would. He extended his hand. She shook it. But he pulled her to him and gave her a rough hug, and from this she felt how much he loved Derric and how little he was able to say about that love. He released her and she said good-bye. She was just about out of the hospital door when Dave Mathieson spoke again, however.

  He said, “You ever hear of someone called Laurel Armstrong, Becca?”

  Becca swallowed. This was her moment to reestablish the possibility of contact with her mom, but she knew the reality of her situation because it hadn’t changed one bit. Laurel tied her to Jeff Corrie and danger. So she shook her head slowly and said, “I don’t think so. But I’m new on the island so there’s lots of people I don’t know yet.”

  “Debbie tells me you come from San Luis Obispo. How far is that from San Diego?”

  Becca thought about this, trying to see San Luis Obispo near the coast of the state, just a few miles inland from Morro Bay. She’d been there once. She’d met the real Becca King before her death, a happy girl struck by acute leukemia, a brave battle fought and then lost forever. She said, “I dunno exactly. Maybe three hundred miles?”

  He nodded but he looked at her for a longer time than seemed necessary. So she said, “Why?”

  He said, “Laurel Armstrong was connected to the cell phone that made a call from the woods the day Derric was injured. We’ve traced her back to an address in San Diego but we still can’t reach her. So we still don’t know for sure who made that call.”

  Becca said, “Maybe someone who didn’t want to get involved?”

  He thought about this. “Well, that wouldn’t be you, would it?” he said.

  * * *

  FORTY-
FOUR

  Seth recognized the sound of a pep rally going on when he climbed out of Sammy, telling Gus to stay in the car. From the general direction of the gym came the stamping of feet on bleachers, followed by yelling. He dwelled for a moment upon the thought of how nothing ever really changed about high school.

  He sauntered over to the administration building, trying hard to look like a guy who felt confident about being there. He went into the reception area where he sent a prayer of thanks to whatever god had arranged for this not to be the time of day when Hayley Cartwright sat at the desk and greeted visitors. But no one else was at that desk, either. So he wandered down the corridor, past the nurse’s office, to find himself in front of the registrar’s desk.

  Ms. Ward knew him. Ms. Ward knew everyone. She looked up over her glasses and said, “Seth. Coming back to school? It’s been boring around here without you.”

  “Nah,” he said. “Me and South Whidbey High School? Not a good fit.”

  “So what can I do for you?”

  Here was the difficult part, the revealing-of-self part that Seth wasn’t looking forward to. But he was tired of breaking his promises to himself and to others, so he said, “I wanted to talk to Ms. Primavera about getting a tutor for the GED.”

  Ms. Ward smiled. “What an excellent idea.” She got to her feet and went to the counselor’s office, which was behind her own with A–L in block letters above the door. In a moment, she was back, telling him to go on in because Ms. Primavera would be delighted to see him.

  He doubted the delighted part, but he ducked behind Ms. Ward’s desk. Tatiana Primavera was working on something, and Seth could see she didn’t look very well. Her nose was red, and there were two boxes of Kleenex on her desk. Seth said to her, “Oh hey, I c’n come back later. You feeling bad? A cold or something?”