by Tony Abbott
“Never mind that!” said Mrs. K. “I’ll lock up the house. I have a key —”
“Grab your father’s wallet first,” shouted the officer, running to his car.
The next hour was a blur of streets and sirens, then doctors and nurses and slamming doors and ramps and running through hallways, until it all stopped and a doctor met me outside the emergency room and told me Dad had a concussion, bruises on his shoulders, and his shin bone was fractured.
“He was drinking, I guess?” the doctor said. “And he fell off the ladder onto a concrete patio?”
I tried to take it all in. I nodded. “He had a little, I think.”
“More than a little,” he said, glancing at his clipboard. “He’ll be here for a few days. Is Mrs. Huff around?”
I looked blankly at him, thinking for a second he was talking about my grandmother.
“Your mother?” he said. “Is she here?”
My mother never called herself Huff. She had kept her maiden name. She was Jennifer Gampel.
“No,” I answered.
“Your dad is awake now. For a little while. When will she be coming? Soon? Did you call her? Do you want us to call her?”
“No, I mean, she’s not in Florida,” I said, suddenly worrying if this was a problem.
The officer came in then and came over to us, and the doctor said, “We might have to call Family Services.”
Family Services. It actually sounded like something we could use.
“No, no,” I said. “I’m just down here with my father from Boston for a little bit. My grandmother just died.”
“All right, look. Your father’s going to be here for three, four days at least before he can come home. I’d like you to call your mother,” said the doctor. “Come over here.” He was kind of snippy, as if he had more important things to do. He stepped to the emergency counter, where the desk phones were. The officer followed us. It was all going so fast, but the moment I looked at the phone it flashed through my mind what would happen when I called.
Mom would just pull me out of here. Even if she cared about Dad, she’d be so mad, she’d yank me straight back to Boston, leaving him in the hospital. Then he’d slink back when he got better, and the silences and icy comments would quickly explode into a final argument, and we’d split up completely.
I hated this place, this stupid heat, the smells, and all these nutty old people and dead bodies, but I couldn’t forget the way Dad was at the funeral. He was sad. He was miserable and sad and had too much to drink and hurt himself. So okay. He wasn’t drunk all the time. And the yelling and breaking stuff? Okay, I was stunned, but I got it. He wasn’t a psycho. He’d never done that kind of thing before. His mother just died.
Besides, I could probably stay with Mrs. K, right? Of course. She’d want me to. She would be there soon. I was hoping she would be enough for them, the police. She seemed nice, if a little cracked. I could stay with her.
But Mom? Maybe if things got worse, a lot worse, I’d tell her what happened. But now? No. If she came now, she’d mess it up. She’d push and push then bring me home. And why? So she could leave on another trip?
No, keep it simple. Say nothing. Talk to Dad first about everything. It was only a few days!
All this flashed though my mind in a few seconds, and I knew right then that I was about to do something really serious, but that I was going to do it, anyway. “I’ll call her right now,” I said, glancing at my watch. “She’s at work.” I put my hand into my pocket and, making as small movements as I could, I turned off my cell phone.
Why was I doing this? They’d know, right? They’d know.
The nurse at the desk smiled and slid a phone toward me as she handed me back my dad’s wallet and a plastic bag of his stuff. “Sure. Dial nine, then the area code. Here.” She pressed a button on the phone.
The doctor and the officer were looking at me, talking, and doing a lot of head wagging. I tapped in the number slowly then turned away. The phone rang on the other end.
“Uh . . . hi,” I said.
“Dude! Is it raining yet?”
“Look, Hector, I’m in the ER with my dad,” I said quietly. “He fell off a ladder.”
“What the heck?”
“I know, but everything’s okay for now. And he’ll be out of here before you know it. Look, they think I’m calling my mom, but I can’t do that yet. But don’t tell anybody. Not your mom. And definitely not my mom.”
“How about nobody’s mom?” he asked.
“Perfect.”
“Heck, dude, the ER. I hope he’s okay. But look, especially be careful to make no eye contact there. I mean it. The patients are, like, halfway across.”
“I know, but it’s okay for now. I gotta go.”
Mrs. Keefe was standing in the waiting area when I got off the phone, and I asked her if I could stay with her for the next few days.
“Of course, dear. I’ve already talked with the officer,” she said. “I have ice cream and plenty of tuna fish.”
The doctor saw us talking, then shared a look with the police officer. They both gave me a look. I told them that my mother would call back a little later; she was at the airport for another flight, but would get here as soon as she could. Until then, I’d be at Mrs. K’s house.
The officer relaxed. “Okay. Could I have your mother’s cell number?”
“You can’t call her now because she’ll be in the air,” I said.
“Fine, but for later,” he said.
Gosh, what a little creep I was. I told him her cell number with the last two digits reversed. He jotted it down. He likely wouldn’t use it for a while at least. By then, I’d be back at the house, and things could have changed, anyway. I could always say I got the numbers mixed up because I was upset about my dad getting hurt.
“Okay,” he said.
I tried not to lie, really. It was more like bending the truth. To say something that wasn’t exactly a lie, but wasn’t the whole truth, either; that was hard. But I felt I had to give Dad a chance here. Mom was waiting for him to drink too much and to mess up, and he had done both. But it wasn’t so bad, was it? It wasn’t as if he had had a car accident. He had only hurt himself. And it was just for a few days. We could get past this.
“You can go in now,” said the doctor, and he turned and walked briskly down the hall.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The emergency room was a small area with a medical station in the middle surrounded by three walls of open cubicles. Curtains separated the beds from one another. A woman in scrubs pointed me to the farthest one. “Pull the curtain back. He’s not asleep.”
I peeked into the space. My knees buckled when I saw Dad. His head was bandaged on one side down to his chin. His left eye was swollen and dark. One leg was outside the blanket, propped up and bandaged. Cables dangled from his bed, attaching his finger and his chest to two different boxes, and tubes hung from a couple of bags behind his head. He had an IV pack dripping from a post on wheels.
Holy crow, I thought. Maybe I should call Mom.
“Dad . . .?” I whispered. “Dad . . .”
He opened his one good eye and rolled it over to me. Without moving his head from the pillow, he said, “I’ll finish the gutter when I’m out.”
I nearly spurted a laugh. “Jeez, Dad! Are you serious? Forget the stupid gutter! How do you feel?”
“Don’t you do it,” he said.
“Right. I’m going to run straight up that ladder. Of course, not. Forget the gutter. I’m sure the real estate guy will understand if not everything’s done.”
He breathed in with a raspy, wet sound. “Call him, will you? His card’s on the kitchen counter. Put off the showings for few days. Until Monday at least. Nothing this weekend. And ask that girl, Diane or whatever, to finish the lawn. Tell her you made a mistake, and you want it cut. And call,” he said, his voice a hoarse whisper now, “call your mother, too. Tell her to come down. You can’t be in that house alone.”
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br /> I swallowed, tried to swallow, still shaking. “Mrs. Keese-Keefe arranged with the police that I could stay with her for a few days. She can watch out for me. Or I can watch out for her. Whichever,” I said, trying to be funny but sounding lame.
“Good. That’s good. But call Mom.”
“Dad, do you really want her here —”
“Jason, just do it!” he snapped. Then he turned sullen, as if he knew what would happen when she came. Did he want her to take me back? His forehead creased up in pain, and he lowered his eyes. Eventually, his face relaxed. “Jason, look . . .” There was a long pause. “I’ve been stupid, really, really stupid. I drank too much. I’m sorry. . . .”
My throat was letting almost nothing through. “Dad, it’s okay. Don’t . . . you know. Don’t worry about it.”
“I’m sorry I . . . exploded,” he said.
“I know.”
“Gosh, Jason, I . . .” he flicked his eyes closed, then open. “I love you. I’m sorry. It’s just that . . . without her, and closing up the house, and everything, I feel so . . .”
He was starting to cry now and didn’t finish. It was a quiet sort of crying, like at the funeral.
“Dad —”
He slurped in his runny nose. “You know we’re on pretty rocky ground, your mother and me. You know that, right?”
I nodded. “Yeah. I know.”
“It wasn’t always like that. . . .”
“I know.”
His face twisted in pain again. “You have nothing to do with it, you know that, too, right?” He stopped. His face cleared. “I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean to get so mad, Jason. I’m such a jerk. I’m sorry.”
“Dad, it’s okay.”
We were quiet for a while. His eyes were closed. He didn’t move. I thought he was asleep, then he said, more quietly still, “Jason, call your mom. This isn’t good. She needs to come.”
I could already hear her. “Oh, my gosh, Jason! Your father’s in the hospital? Was he drinking? He was drinking, wasn’t he? I’m coming as soon as I can. I’m taking you home!”
“Jason —,” he said.
No, I thought. No way. You’re sorry. Your mother died. You won’t do this again. You won’t get stupid drunk. You’re not such a loser. You’re not.
I think things changed in some little way at that moment. Not calling Mom when the doctor and the policeman asked me to was one thing. But knowing I wouldn’t call now that Dad had asked me to made me feel different. Maybe I felt pushed around by the way they didn’t get along. I had to be quiet at the dinner table. I had to pretend everything was okay. I had to go to Florida. I had to pack boxes. I had to call Mom.
Now it was different. Dad was in that bed and Mom was away and I was on my own for a little while, for a few days, anyway.
No. I wasn’t going to call her. Not yet. Not right now. It was okay this way. I was okay.
Minutes later he actually did drift off to sleep, and a nurse said they would monitor his vitals closely for the rest of the day. Good. He needed to be out of it for a while. To not think about stuff. Good.
Mrs. K was waiting in the hall. She took my hand as soon as she saw me. “Jason, how is he?” I told her what the doctor had said. Then she asked, “Did your mother call back yet? Would you like me to call her?”
“No, she’ll call me,” I said, almost believing it myself. “She’s working on a plane connection now. She said she’d get back to me in . . .” I made a move to look at my watch and pretended to calculate. “An hour and twenty minutes.”
The “and twenty minutes” came to me as an after-thought. I felt the more accurate I could make it, the more it sounded as if I were really expecting Mom to call.
Mrs. Keefe relaxed. “Good boy. Ask her how her day was.”
When I got outside the ER and into the hot air without running into either the doctor or the policeman, I felt free. The sticky air actually felt good. I had a few days more or less to myself.
We were back in Grandma’s house in ten minutes or so, but it was another hour before Mrs. Keese finally stood up from the couch and went to the door.
“Well,” she said, “quite a morning, wasn’t it? Let’s have tuna fish sandwiches, all right?”
“Sounds great,” I said. “But maybe later. For supper?”
“Three-thirty?”
I swallowed hard. “I want to do a little packing before it gets dark. I was thinking more like . . . five o’clock?”
“Ooh, late!” she squeaked. “All right, Jason. Five o’clock, then. I’ll make up the extra bed. Call if you need anything. Anything at all.”
Her steps clacked away down the concrete walk. When I heard the slunk-slunk of her shoes on the cement steps leading to her door, the squeak of the screen, then nothing, I knew I was finally alone. At last. It was just after one o’clock. For four hours I’d be alone. Then dinner, then maybe alone again.
This was great. I needed to get my head back. I needed to be quiet. I needed to be alone.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
I dumped myself onto the couch in the Florida room and just breathed in slowly for about five minutes. Maybe I dozed off. Maybe I just sat there. I don’t remember. But soon my eyes were open and staring at the magazine and the postcard on the desk.
Bizarre Mysteries. The Hotel DeSoto.
I sat down and read Emerson Beale’s story again. And a third time. Every word. The pages were rough to the touch, old and ragged along the edges. The heat of the house made the pages smell even sweeter than before. The more I read, the more I could hear his voice speaking quietly in the room, as if he were talking only to me.
I might begin by telling you about Marnie.
But each time I read the story again, I came up against that line in the box at the end.
It is our sad duty to report that Emerson Beale was killed. . . .
It hurt to read that, something in me ached over those words. He died, and the story was unfinished. How did it end? Okay, it was just a story. It was made up. A magazine story that maybe had something to do with Grandma, or maybe not. No, probably not. Not really. It couldn’t. But not to have finished writing it? To be just . . . dead ?
Grandma was dead now, too. I wondered how she had felt when she read the words in that black box. That was a question, wasn’t it? How she felt? If Emerson Beale was someone she loved, and if they met even a little like that — she did call herself Marnie, after all — how did she feel?
My hands trembled when I picked up the postcard. Did it contain a clue like the story said? If the card were hidden as it seemed to have been, maybe there actually was a clue.
I must have turned the card over and over a dozen times and ran my fingers over it, turning it this way and that and reading every word on it before I saw that in the phrase describing the hotel, “. . . spacious lobby, air conditioning in every room, veranda, patio . . .” the words air conditioning had two tiny dots under them. The dots were so small and so faint, they might not have been anything other than accidental marks. So okay, it might have been nothing after all.
Then I found something else.
In the message area, nearly invisible to the eye, were two short parallel lines pressed into the message area as if by a typewriter without a ribbon. The lines were crossed like T’s on the top and also on the bottom. When I realized that what they really formed was this —
II
— it was like a hammer struck me on the head. Are you kidding me! I turned to the note at the end of the story and read that line again:
Chapter II of “Twin Palms” would have appeared . . .
Chapter II. II! But what about Chapter II? Did the postcard mean that Chapter II was about the hotel? Was the hotel where something happened ? Was Chapter II hidden in the hotel —
Wait. Emerson Beale died in 1944. This card was sent in 1947, three years later. It wasn’t possible. How was it possible? Who sent the card? What gives?
At that moment, nothing gave. But my thoughts fle
w around and around the whole thing until it was five o’clock and the phone rang, and Mrs. K chirped into the phone, “Tuna sandwiches!”
We ate a supper in which I must have said, like, nine words to the lady, while she rattled on about taxes and trash pickups and bus stops, then quieted and said that I probably wasn’t talking much because I was sad about my grandmother and worried about my father but that we’d visit him in the morning.
“Thanks,” I said. “Some day we had, huh?”
“Oh, yes, dear. Yes, we had.”
“I’ll be back tonight at eight or so,” I said. “I’d really like to do more packing for when Dad gets out. Is that okay?”
“What a good son,” she said.
It wasn’t quite six when I got back to Grandma’s house. My cell rang while I was still on my own doorstep. It was Hector.
“How’s your dad?” he asked.
“All right, I guess. He’ll be in the hospital a few days, in a regular room. He looked bad, but he was sleeping when I left him.”
“I was doing that today,” he said. “Sleeping. In my hammock.”
I told him about the ultra-strange funeral guests, that I saw the lawn mower girl at Brent’s, the story, the phone call, the postcard, and the dead boyfriend. He said I had told him about some of those things before. I guess I wanted to get the whole thing out in the air again, where I could hear it. It didn’t help much. None of the pieces connected or made sense.
“So, you still hating the place?”
“More than ever,” I said.
“That’s my boy.”
“There are hummingbirds in my backyard,” I said.
“In your backyard?” he said. “Cool. They’re really tiny, aren’t they? You can’t see their wings except in pictures. I read that once. Somewhere.”
Entering the Florida room, I looked down at the cover of the magazine and really wanted to get off the phone. “Call you tomorrow,” I told him.
“The Hammock King awaits, O voyager!”
With all those empty boxes to fill and all that work around the house, the packing, the cleaning, it was only a matter of time before I was into the magazine again.