I had just put the plastic top on my cup of chai and stepped from The Bean Shop into the lobby when Henry’s wife came out of the bathroom across the way. She was blowing her nose and crying openly. Had Jase died? I touched her arm and said, “Can I get you anything, Mrs. . . . ?”
She looked up, startled, and brushed her hand across her face. “Libby. My name is Libby.” She kept pulling her arms around herself as if she were cold.
“Can I get you anything, Libby? A cup of coffee? A candy bar?”
At first I didn’t think she’d heard me. Then she looked me in the eyes and grabbed me in a hug so fierce I almost dropped my cup of tea.
“The doctor just gave me bad news.” She was shaking, trembling, as she talked. “Jase has pneumonia, really bad.” She gave a little hiccup-like sob. “And he’s real weak. I can tell they don’t think he’s going to pull through.” She looked so fragile that her fierce grip took me by surprise. Like she was hanging on to me for life.
“Oh, Libby, I’m so sorry.” She finally let go of me, and I said, “Let me get you something to drink.”
“I’ve got some water.” She pulled a bottle from her purse and took a slow sip. “Sorry to bother you like that. I’d best get on back to my boy.”
We walked to the elevators together, and when the doors opened we stepped in with four or five other people. Libby kept swiping at tears while everyone else had their eyes turned down. I got off with her on the third floor.
Libby asked, “Isn’t your mom on the fourth?”
“Yes, but I thought I might sit with you for a few minutes if that’s okay.”
She looked grateful.
The waiting room for the Pediatric ICU was much like the Neuro Trauma ICU waiting room above. Several healthy and vibrant Ficus trees sat in the corners of the room, and a picture window let in sunshine and a view of the mountains. A small fridge was available for families of the patients to use, as well as a microwave, an electric kettle, and packets of instant coffee and hot chocolate and tea bags. A boisterously colorful flower arrangement sat at the information desk, giving the room a faintly sweet scent of late fall roses.
Libby sank into a chair, buried her head in her hands, and sobbed. Loudly. A middle-aged couple and a teenaged boy looked over at us, sympathy on their faces. Then they looked away.
I surprised myself by setting down my cup of tea, kneeling down in front of the comfortable chair where she sat, and pulling her into a hug. I held her tightly and said, “I’m so sorry, Libby.” I didn’t know what else to do.
We stayed like that for a few minutes, and when she had calmed down a little, I asked, “Is Henry coming today?”
She shook her head. “No, he’s working today and tomorrow. He won’t be here till tomorrow night.”
“Is there anyone else you could call to come sit with you?”
She fiddled with her hands and said, “I just got off the phone with my pastor. The whole church is praying, but they can’t come—our town’s almost three hours away.”
Once again I wished I had something to offer her. “Where are you staying?”
“We’ve got a really nice room at the Rathbun House. I’m so grateful for that.” But she said it in between jerky little hiccups of emotion.
Then I had a thought. “Would you like me to ask the chaplain to come visit you?”
She looked startled. “There’s a chaplain? I hadn’t thought of that.”
“Yes, yes. She’s very kind.” Chelsea, whom I had met on Sunday, was a middle-aged plus-sized woman who radiated goodwill and kindness. Hannah had talked with her often in the past few days. I figured she was mainly on call for families when the patient was dying, but I didn’t say that to Libby.
She kept turning her hands over and over in her lap. “I need to get back to my boy,” she whispered.
“Yes, go on back. When I find the chaplain, I’ll ask her to go to Jase’s room.”
Libby’s eyes filled again. “Would you? Oh, thank you, Paige. I think the Lord sent you here right at this moment so I wouldn’t lose hope.”
I had nothing to say to that, but I added, “Did you know there’s a little chapel on this floor too? It has beautiful stained-glass windows and comfortable chairs where you can sit and pray.” This, of course, I knew from Hannah. I had never ventured in.
“Thank you, Paige,” she repeated, squeezing my hands in hers and staring at me with those brilliant green eyes. “Thank you.”
As she left the waiting room, I determined that I’d bring some of the baked goods that were accumulating at our house down here to share with her. That was at least something. And I’d send her some flowers too.
———
We stayed with Momma all that day, Hannah and me and Daddy and Aunt Kit. She kept her eyes open for an hour or so and then she closed them, and I’m pretty sure she was sleeping again. The doctors called it sleep cycles. The fact that Momma was waking at some points was a huge improvement. Even Dr. Moore seemed surprised and pleased.
Of course Hannah said, “It’s because so many people are praying specifically that she will open her eyes and respond to pain.” She glanced at me and smiled. “I’ve been reading up on brain injuries on the internet too.”
With all the excitement of Momma coming out of the coma, I hadn’t thought any more about the possibility of a reader who had confided too much in her. She had zipped up the Glasgow Scale, but the fact remained that someone had tried to kill her. It was only then that I recalled Drake’s text about TAY, The Awful Year. I shivered, mentally going through the list of possible suspects that Hannah and I had compiled.
Daddy sat next to Momma, whose eyes were still closed. Hannah had already spent a half hour reading her the latest posts on the CaringBridge site. I was just about to start reading her some of the emails from her fans when Detective Blaylock came into Momma’s room—without knocking—holding up a letter like he’d struck oil. “Let’s go to the waiting room. I have something to show you.”
Once we were in the hallway, safely out of earshot of Momma, he held out the letter. “She wrote again!” he said.
“Who?” I asked, but I already knew. The envelope was pink.
“The one who sent those letters last month,” he confirmed.
Daddy and I met eyes, and I got goose bumps.
“Officer Hanley went by your house this morning, and the neighbor lady, Mrs. Samson—”
“Swanson,” I corrected.
“Right, Mrs. Swanson had just picked up your mail, a bag with a bunch of letters for your mother. As you can see, this one has the same pink envelope and paper, same block print.”
“But what does it say?” I wanted to jerk the paper from his hands, but miraculously refrained.
He read us four short sentences.
“‘I told you so. How many times do I have to warn you? Now look what’s happened. You brought it on yourself!’”
Sweat broke out on my brow, and I honestly thought I might throw up. What did that mean?
Daddy didn’t exactly look surprised or even upset. His inscrutable expression frightened me. Hannah stood beside him, an arm around his shoulder, and Aunt Kit muttered, “Well, that’s just plain weird.” But she actually seemed a little freaked out.
Did these warnings have something to do with The Awful Year? Drake said he had more things to share with me, tomorrow night. If I could wait that long. If Detective Blaylock didn’t ask me any more questions meanwhile. . . .
But all that evening, at the hospital and then back at home with Milton licking my hand and Hannah poring over comments on CaringBridge, all I could think about was how my world had changed completely during The Awful Year.
I lived a charmed childhood until halfway through my ninth year, flitting like a butterfly from our idyllic home on Bearmeadow Mountain to my private girls’ school in Asheville and to our church in the suburbs. We spent vacations not at nearby Myrtle Beach but taking a luxurious month at La Grande Motte.
Charmed.
>
The people who lived on Bearmeadow Mountain were a close-knit community of wealthy young professionals and even wealthier retirees. Of course I didn’t register that as a child. I simply enjoyed the cookouts at the clubhouse, the treasure hunts in the woods, and canoeing on the French Broad River. And I spent lazy afternoons at Drake’s house. His parents, Mr. and Mrs. Ellinger, were my godparents. Drake being the youngest of four boys, his parents doted on me as the daughter they didn’t have. Often, when Daddy was working late and Momma was holed up writing her books, Mrs. Ellinger would drive me to my after-school activities and to children’s choir practice at church.
When the Ellingers separated, and eventually divorced, I was almost as devastated as Drake, although I tried not to show it. At nine years old, this was my first experience with great loss. When I heard adult whispers about infidelity, I looked the word up in the dictionary and got very, very mad.
Bad news, suffering, and evil . . . these things broke Momma’s heart. But they made me just plain mad, even as a little girl. Mr. Ellinger tumbled off his pedestal and came crashing to the ground. Every title that had been bestowed on him now mocked him: an elder in our church, a businessman with great integrity (I looked that word up too), a model in the community, and most importantly, my devoted godfather.
For all my nine years of life, I had happily accompanied my parents and Hannah to church. I felt safe and known there. But with Mr. Ellinger’s fall, another word sneaked in and wrapped itself around me: hypocrisy. The Awful Year was the year of a new vocabulary I was too young to learn.
Then two months after Drake’s parents separated, Momma’s mother took an overdose of sleeping pills and never woke up. Everyone called it an accident, but I already knew the word suicide, and I wasn’t fooled.
When Momma’s father passed away on a chilly afternoon later that same year, my vocabulary increased again. Cirrhosis of the liver. My faith, however, decreased and eventually just dried up.
I felt close to my French grandparents, even though I rarely saw them and only spoke a little French. I loved my American grandparents, too, but in a distant sort of way. When we visited them in Atlanta, I was always afraid I might mess something up at their huge, immaculate home. Grandfather was another upstanding figure in society, just like Drake’s father. A brilliant businessman, a lifelong member of St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, a board member for all kinds of important places. He was also strikingly handsome, with his silver hair and deep gray eyes.
Aunt Kit showed up drunk at Grandfather’s funeral. Inebriated. Another of those words I learned during The Awful Year. And at the reception following the service, she took me aside and listed in graphic detail all of Grandfather’s sins. “He’d stay out all night drinking and sleeping with whores and then come home in the wee hours of the morning drunk out of his mind, and slap your grandmom around. Then he’d take a shower, dress in his Louis Vuitton suit, and head to work as if nothing had ever happened. And your grandmom was too pitiful and proud to leave him! She just kept up the charade, year after miserable year, until she finally decided she’d had enough, and she checked out of life altogether. He was a drunk and an adulterer, and I’m glad he’s dead.” She said other things too, punctuating them with curse words I had also never heard before.
By the time Momma found Aunt Kit and me in the ladies’ restroom at St. Mark’s, I’d heard way more than I should. I knew the Ten Commandments, and two men I had respected, even adored, had broken them. Mr. Ellinger and Grandfather were both hypocrites! Aunt Kit was many things, but bless her heart, she was not that. She said exactly what she meant, whether sober or drunk.
So The Awful Year kept getting worse and worse. . . .
I continued to attend church until I was eleven or twelve, but by then I had a very robust vocabulary and an attitude. One night I explained to my parents precisely why I refused to go to church from there on out. For a while Hannah, in her youthful zeal, tried to witness to me, tried to explain that we were all sinners in need of a Savior, tried to tell me to hold on to Jesus, not to people who would always disappoint. But eventually she got the message with my silent stares. I just wasn’t interested.
HENRY
No way could I go to work with that man threatening my boy and my wife. I felt that boiling rage inside just building and building. I made it back to the trailer, but just barely, getting all jittery and trying to work things out in my head. But then I thought about how upset Libby would be if I lost my job again, so I changed my mind and went on to the print shop about nine and worked all the way till nine that night.
The psychiatrist said when I got all beyond myself with the anger, I had to do something quick. But I couldn’t remember what to do, except take the meds. If I took the pills, I’d calm down okay, wouldn’t I? So I sat there in my La-Z-Boy chair for about an hour, then went ahead and took a handful of pills. Don’t know how many. I swallowed four cans of beer real quick and then started pacing around the trailer and didn’t once call Libby to check on her and Jase because I couldn’t let her know the shape I was in.
I just paced and drank more beer and then I guess I passed out on the floor, because I woke up to the sound of gunshots. I sat up straight and terrified, but it was just my cell phone ringing awful loud.
“Hey, Libs.” Light was coming in the trailer windows. I tried to get my mind to cooperate. “How’s Jase?”
“Why haven’t you answered your phone!” She was almost screaming. “Jase has pneumonia, Henry! They’re afraid he isn’t going to make it!”
Libby wasn’t one to fall to pieces for no reason. She was strong. So I knew things must be really bad, the way her voice was all high-pitched and desperate-like. I was trying to get my eyes open in spite of that blinding headache and feeling like I might puke.
“Slow down, Libs. Tell me again. I’m sorry, Libs.”
“I sat with him all night, Henry. They think he’s going to die, I just know it.” She was crying. “And I kept trying to call you. Where’ve you been, Henry? Leaving me so afraid and then with Jase getting worse?”
“I’m sorry, Libs. I-I worked twelve hours. Boss was real happy.” I couldn’t think of what else to say.
“I’ve been talking to Mrs. Bourdillon’s daughter, to Paige. She said she met you.”
“Yeah. That’s right.”
“Henry, maybe you better stay away.” She started sobbing again.
“Don’t pay no mind to what I said yesterday morning. It’s gonna work out. I’ll go to work today and then drive to the hospital. I’ll be there by eight. You tell my boy to hold on, Libs.” Tears were streaming down my face, and I knew she was crying real hard too. “You tell him to hang on. His pa’s coming, and everything’s gonna be all right.”
FRIDAY
PAIGE
“Don’t leave us, Daddy! Please don’t leave us!” I whimpered.
He took me by the shoulders, looked down into my eyes. “Paige, I have to go. Right now. But I need you to trust me.”
Why did his face look so serious? So pale?
The world tumbled around me. I tried to say something, but a big ball of sorrow blocked it in the back of my throat.
“I’m coming back, sweetie. I’m coming back.”
I sat up in bed, choking on the fear, my pillow wet, my eyes caked with sleep. I grabbed my pillow to my chest and held it there like a soft and fluffy protective shield.
Who was I kidding? Nothing would protect us. Nothing at all.
When I came downstairs I found Hannah hunched over a cup of coffee, her hair falling in her face. I thought she was looking at stuff on her phone, but then she lifted her head, and her face looked splotchy and red. “About The Awful Year, Paige. I think I can talk about it now.”
I stared at her blankly.
“You okay, Paige?”
I heard a ringing in my ears. “Kinda. I just had a dream about it, about Daddy. And now you want to talk about it.” I shivered a little, my whole body tense.
“Daddy .
. .” She cleared her throat. “Daddy went away, and it was scary for a while because Momma was gone too.”
“He went to jail!” I yelled.
Hannah’s jaw dropped.
“You know it’s true,” I accused.
“I know. Of course I know. But why are you yelling at me?”
“Because we’re afraid to say it, afraid to say that Daddy kept going away for a few days at a time, and then one time he even went to jail overnight, and Momma was gone for a long time at The Motte, and we felt alone and afraid for Daddy because he was acting so strange and we didn’t know why. . . .”
Hannah grabbed me around the waist. “Shhh. Shhh. You’re yelling, Paige. It’s okay. No one has to know about all that stuff. It’s got nothing to do with Momma getting shot. No one has to know.”
“But they will know. I’m sure they’ve asked Daddy a thousand questions, and he’s just protecting us. He feels guilty that he didn’t insist that Momma go on to La Grande Motte in September, the way she always does after a novel comes out. And don’t you think it’s way too weird that the detectives haven’t said a word about his being in jail once, even if he was just there overnight?”
Hannah’s head was bent again, like she was praying over the cup of coffee, or else spending every bit of energy on not freaking out. “Paige, he went to jail because of a DUI. And it never happened again. I guarantee you, it has nothing at all to do with Momma and some crazy reader.”
I shrugged, the image of Daddy leaving us still vivid in my mind. “How do you know that, Hannah? How can you be sure?” I lowered my voice, afraid the walls would hear and accuse me. “All those years ago, Momma was away at The Motte, but Daddy was away in his mind.”
When I closed my eyes, I imagined Detective Blaylock and Officer Hanley leading Daddy away to jail. Again.
CHAPTER
11
FRIDAY
JOSEPHINE
Something was smothering me! I flailed my arms and tried to pull it off. And the pain in my head, bone-crushing pain! I was screaming as loudly as I could! They were there, they were around me. Couldn’t they hear? If only I could yank this mask off, they could hear!
When I Close My Eyes Page 16