Only Ever You

by Rebecca Drake

  Snow was barely sticking to the salted main road, but it was falling steadily enough to cancel the roadwork. No police in sight and she sped away from Fernwood and toward the playing fields surrounding a private school less than a mile away. She’d passed by the property multiple times, attention pulled by girls running across the emerald lawn waving field hockey sticks. There was no one out today, snow like a shroud over the grass. She pulled into a small, deserted parking lot alongside one of the fields and parked the car. Of course Patsy had a box of wet wipes in her glove compartment—appearances mattered. Bea wiped down anything she’d touched on the interior, including Patsy’s purse, and fixed Cosmo’s leash to his collar. She saved one wet wipe for the outside handle and set the doors to lock, leaving Patsy’s purse on the seat and the keys visible in the ignition. If she’d had more time, she could have dumped this car in some urban neighborhood where it would be sure to be spotted by a teen joy rider or stolen for a chop shop, and she could have guaranteed someone else’s DNA as a distraction. Someone would find it here, but that someone would probably be a suburban cop. She just hoped they didn’t immediately make the connection to Fernwood Road.

  Cosmo hopped out of the car after her. She had to hold him back as she wiped down the outside handle, but then she let him take the lead, trotting back the way they’d come along the snowy road.

  * * *

  Jill stared at the screen, stunned. Lyn Galpin had been following David. Had it been some sort of insane drag race or had she been chasing after him and he sped ahead to avoid her? He hadn’t caused the crash, her drinking had done that, but he’d certainly helped provoke it. Dear God, there was motivation enough right there to exact some revenge.

  But where was the woman now? Jill unplugged David’s iPhone to call the small law firm where Lyn Galpin last worked, but a monotone voice informed her that the number was no longer in service. They’d either changed location or closed shop. She continued doggedly scrolling through all of the links to Lyn Galpin until she found a small Post-Gazette article, DRIVER RESPONSIBLE FOR CHRISTMAS CRASH TRANSFERRED TO LONG TERM CARE. There was another photo of the parents caught off guard outside a building, but this time they’d turned toward the camera, not away, and she could see their faces clearly. The man was unfamiliar, but the woman—Jill’s pulse jumped as she stared at the woman’s eyes, her drooping right eyelid. Jill had definitely seen her before, but she just couldn’t place where she’d seen her. She stared hard at the photo, trying to picture the woman in different settings—the law firm, her studio, Sophia’s preschool. A memory flitted through her mind like a fish swimming too fast to grab. Jill pushed at her forehead with the heel of her hand, groaning in frustration.

  The article said that Lyn Galpin had never regained consciousness; she’d been in a coma since the accident. Then Jill noticed the background of the photo. The parents were standing in front of a building with ANGEL’S WINGS REHABILITATION CENTER emblazoned on a sign. She pulled up another search window and typed in that name. In less than five seconds an address had popped up. Jill turned back to look at Leo. “Can I borrow your car?”

  Forty minutes later, Jill parked Leo’s Chevy Impala in the lot at the Angel’s Wings Rehabilitation Center. Docked would have been a more appropriate word. The car was circa 1975 and a boat. “Be careful with her,” Leo had instructed, parting reluctantly with the keys. “This baby’s a classic.” Yeah, if classic meant gas guzzling, and cracked vinyl seats. The heating was on the fritz; she could see her breath inside the car. At least it had a good turning radius. She struggled to lock up, though she couldn’t imagine anyone bothering to steal it, and ran through the falling snow into the building. The name Angel’s Wings suggested something airy and comforting, but the rehab center was squat, painted cinderblock situated uncomfortably close to an on-ramp to the Pennsylvania Turnpike as well as a strip mall. The quiet inside was surprising, given the location. It felt like the hush of a church or a library, deliberate and somber, Jill’s footsteps deadened by carpet. The lobby had the look of a low-rent hotel trying to masquerade as something fancier, an illusion fostered by the brass chandelier and ambient lighting and the young man in a suit and tie standing at a faux wood reception desk. She slipped off the sheepskin jacket, trying to look less shabby, and realized she was still wearing the lab coat. Might as well use it to her advantage. She pulled it more tightly around her and walked briskly to the counter, adopting the slightly superior mien of a busy medical professional.

  “I’m looking for one of your patients, Lyn Galpin.”

  “Of course, doctor.” The young man turned to a desktop computer, fingers moving nimbly over the keyboard, squinting at the screen. He had a little gold pin engraved with BRISK attached to his lapel. She didn’t know if it was his name or a description. He scanned the screen, hit a few more keys, and made a faint “hmm” sound under his breath.

  He looked back up at Jill. “I can’t seem to find her. Can you spell the last name?”

  “Yes. G-A-L-P-I-N. Lyn with one N.”

  A few more taps, a little more squinting at the screen. Brisk should get his eyes checked. Jill glanced around while she waited, feeling nervous when she spotted the security cameras mounted in strategic corners. What if the police had put out an APB on her and mentioned she could be masquerading as a doctor?

  “Aah,” the young man said with satisfaction just as the computer pinged its own triumph. “Here it is. A Lyn Galpin was a patient with us, but that was back in the summer.”

  “Did she come out of the coma?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “So she moved to another care facility?”

  “You could call it that, I suppose.” He grimaced.

  “Do you have the name of that place?”

  “The afterlife. Ms. Galpin died in June.”

  chapter forty

  DAY TWENTY-THREE

  Blindsided, Jill said, “She’s dead?”

  The man nodded, adopting a mournful look that seemed practiced. “I’m afraid so.”

  “What about her parents. I know they visited her here. Do you have their contact information?”

  But he was shaking his head before she finished. “No and I really couldn’t give that to you even if I did. That’s not Angel’s Wings’ policy.”

  Jill turned away, stymied. Where did she go from there? Then she thought of something. “Is there anyone here who I can talk to about Lyn Galpin and her parents? I mean, anybody who took care of her while she was here?”

  “I’m sure there are plenty of people,” Brisk said in a distinctly un-brisk style. “We have a full staff and most of the nurses rotate, but I really can’t—”

  “Please, it’s very important.”

  He frowned. “Which hospital did you say you work for, doctor?”

  “Mercy.” At least that was true of the lab coat. “I’m doing a study of coma patients and really hoped to include Lyn Galpin.”

  The young receptionist sighed and turned to the computer again, clicking and moving the mouse for a minute until he found what he was looking for. “Okay, you’re in luck. One of the nurses is here today. Valerie Docimo. If you have a seat, I’ll page her.”

  * * *

  The nurse who came to meet Jill in the lobby was fiftysomething years old and wearing bright pink scrubs emblazoned with smiling cherub faces, a look strangely at odds with the stocky, muscular body crammed into them and the glower on the square, makeup-free face. “Yeah?”

  “Did you care for a patient named Lyn Galpin?”

  “Yeah. So?” Was it possible to look any more surly and guarded?

  “I need to know anything you can tell me about her and her parents.”

  “It’s for a study of coma patients,” Brisk helpfully interjected from the front desk.

  The nurse glanced at the clock on the wall and put her hands on her hips. “I’m taking my break—you can talk to me while I have my snack.” The snack turned out to be a large sweetened coffee and an enormous cin
namon bun. Jill took a seat across from Valerie Docimo in the cafeteria and waited as patiently as she could for the other woman to slowly chew and swallow a bite of the pastry before she began talking.

  “I do my job, but I didn’t like caring for her.”

  “Because of the accident?”

  The nurse nodded. “Why does a selfish bitch like her deserve medical care? She shouldn’t have been on the road at all, not when she’d had that much to drink.”

  “Did you meet her parents?”

  “Oh, yeah, they were here every day. Or at least her mother was. Every single day. Made my life a living hell.”

  “How so?”

  But the nurse had taken another bite of cinnamon bun, chewing with obvious relish. Valerie Docimo might have been a dieter for the number of times she chewed before actually swallowing a bite.

  “She didn’t think we did enough to bring her out of the coma. Always demanding we talk to her, stimulate her more. I told her that her daughter was in a persistent vegetative state. She was a nurse, she knew what that meant.”

  “Her mother is a nurse?”

  “Was. She quit her job to sit by her kid’s bedside twenty-four seven. Stupid if you ask me. Like her daughter would know the difference. Anyway, she gave me grief over not doing more. I told her that even if I had the time to read to her daughter, which I most certainly did not, it would be a total waste of time. Like reading to a stalk of celery. Nothing there, you know?” She tapped the side of her head with a meaty forefinger. She frowned for a moment at the memory, and then her face relaxed as she speared another bite of pastry.

  “How did she die?”

  Chew, chew, chew—it was like watching a cow grazing. Finally she swallowed. “Doctors pulled the plug.”

  “And her mother okayed this?”

  Valerie Docimo snorted. “No way. Not at first. But the doctors were pushing to take her off life support and the drunk’s father wanted it. He said it was time for her to be at peace—though I hope she’s rotting in hell for what she did to those people.”

  “Do you know where the parents lived?”

  “They were from out of town, I know that much. Florida, I think. The father left after a week, but then he’d come back to visit on weekends. The mother stayed here the entire time.” She paused and wiped her mouth on a napkin. “I didn’t like her, but I’ll give the woman credit for that—she really was a devoted mother. She came every day to sit with her daughter. I think she only went home to sleep and shower.”

  “Do you know where she was staying?”

  Valerie nodded. “Sure. Her daughter’s apartment. Some crappy place near the Allegheny River. I remember because the bills were sent there—you know insurance doesn’t begin to cover everything and the coverage always runs out eventually. She was always bringing the bills in and complaining about the charges. Left her crap all over the room, and I saw those damn envelopes often enough—Riverview Estates, apartment 7B.” She snorted. “Can’t believe I remember crap like that, but I do.”

  “Do you remember her name?”

  “Yeah. Bea something. Wayne? Walters? No, that’s not it—wait, I’ve got it. Walsh. Bea Walsh.” She actually smiled for a second, transforming her face, but then it settled back down into frown lines. “She had a different last name than her daughter—second marriage, I think. Sad woman. You know, a lot of people blamed the parents for what their daughter did, but I wasn’t one of them. You’re not responsible for your kids’ behavior once they’re grown. They’ll do what they want to do no matter what you say. They’ll break your heart. You got any kids?”

  Jill tried not to react. “Yes. A daughter.”

  “Then you know—they all go their own way when they’re teens. But some mothers, they just can’t believe that their little precious would ever do anything bad. Bea Walsh was one of those. She acted all surprised about her daughter’s drinking, like she didn’t know, but she was even more surprised by the pregnancy.”

  Stunned, Jill said, “Pregnancy? What pregnancy?”

  Valerie Docimo stood up and finished her coffee in three large gulps. “It was right there in her medical records—Lyn Galpin had a kid.”

  chapter forty-one

  JOURNAL—DECEMBER 2011

  You won’t take my calls or answer my emails. Do you think I’m going to just give up? The firm never hired weak-willed people. I’m not going anywhere until I get our child back. My child back—she has nothing to do with you. You were just a sperm donor.

  I tried to go up to see you the other day, but the security guard in the lobby stopped me. Did he tell you about it? I’m sure you told him I’m just some disgruntled former employee. I tried to explain, I tried to tell him that I just needed to talk to you for a minute, but he wouldn’t listen. Fucking fake cop. I wouldn’t leave, not until a real police officer came into the lobby and escorted me out. I told him I was there to see the man who’d stolen my child, but I slurred my words a little, and the officer walked me over to a Starbucks and suggested I drink some coffee and sober up before he had to arrest me. I’d had one drink, maybe two with lunch. I was not drunk.

  The adoption agency is no help. The woman they ushered me in to see, some social worker, listened sympathetically and then told me that unfortunately it was a closed adoption and there was nothing she could do. It’s such bullshit, but I know how to play the legal system. I told her that the father hadn’t given consent to the adoption. That got her interest for a minute, but then she said that if that were the case then the father had to be the one to contest the adoption. Even then, she said, it might take years for the courts to sort it out.

  I don’t want to wait years. I want our child now. “Do you really want to take her away from the only parents she’s ever known?” you said during the one and only meeting we’ve had since that day on the street. We met at a bar just as seedy as the hotel you probably still frequent. You told me I was beautiful and I’d fall in love with someone better and have his child. I’m so proud of how I replied: “Children aren’t interchangeable, asshole.”

  You’ve blocked my calls and I have no one else I can turn to. I can’t sleep, I can’t concentrate. The head of the penny-ante law firm in Butler actually put me on probation for taking too much time off. I told that toad-faced fucker he’d been lucky to have me for as long as he did. I hoped to provoke a reaction, but all he said was, “Have you been drinking, Ms. Galpin?”

  I’m going to follow you home one day, D., and confront you in front of your precious wife. Maybe then you’ll help me get my little girl back.

  chapter forty-two

  DAY TWENTY-THREE

  “What happened to the baby?” Jill asked, an icy finger trailing down her spine.

  The nurse shrugged. “Who knows? Lyn Galpin didn’t keep it, that’s all I know.” She trudged out of the cafeteria, clearly done with the conversation, but Jill hurried after her.

  “Could she have had an abortion?”

  “No, definitely not.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  Valerie Docimo smirked. “Basic pelvic exam. Your cervix doesn’t lie.” She must have seen the confusion on Jill’s face because she snorted and said, “Guess you’re not a ob-gyn are you, doc? When you give birth your cervix changes—less round, more oval—it’s very obvious. Bea Walsh just didn’t want to believe the truth about her precious daughter, she was sure there’d been a mistake in the transcript. After a couple of the docs spoke with her she finally stopped talking about it.” She pushed open a door that said STAFF ONLY on it, but Jill grabbed her arm.

  “But the baby,” she said. “Did she try to find out what happened to it? Did Lyn Galpin give it up for adoption?” She thought of David broaching adoption after being so adamantly against it, of David arguing against tracking down the birth mother, of David seeming unaffected upon learning that the birth mother had died.

  The nurse shook her loose. “All I know is that if the bitch gave away her baby then that child is way bet
ter off. Imagine having that as your mother. Still, I did feel a little sorry for Bea Walsh. Can you imagine finding out you’re a grandmother, but you never even got to see your own grandkid?”

  Jill walked slowly back to the lobby, struggling to accept that Lyn Galpin could be Sophia’s birth mother. A man in scrubs wheeled a patient through the sliding doors, bringing in a gust of freezing air, tracking snow onto the carpet.

  “You find what you were looking for?” Brisk called from the front desk. Jill pulled the fleece jacket back on, buttoning it with hands that already felt numb.

  “Not yet.”

  * * *

  Back in the Impala, she dialed Andrew’s number. He picked it up on the first ring. “Jill? Where in the hell are you?”

  “What was the name of Sophia’s birth mother?”

  “What? Where are you?”

  “The birth mother’s name—what was it?”

  “What does this have to do with anything? She’s dead, Jill.”

  “Was it Lyn Galpin?”

  Silence for a long moment. Throat clearing. “Yes, but Jill, listen—”

  She hung up.

  * * *

  Whoever named Riverview Estates had delusions of grandeur. Even the snowfall couldn’t mask the sheer ugliness of the place—rigid rows of identical townhouses, each clad in industrial gray siding with dingy white trim. The front doors were the same shade of dirty white, and the seasonal wreaths hung on some of the doors seemed like desperate attempts at individuality. The gates surrounding the complex might have been to keep people in, not out.