When I Close My Eyes

by Elizabeth Musser

  I paced around the waiting room for a while. Good thing we were the only ones there. Every few seconds Libby would say, “Breathe, Henry. Breathe. Get a hold of yourself, now!”

  Finally, seemed like an eternity, she judged I was calm enough, and we went into that hospital room. The walls was just plain ole white, and there was this big fancy plant over by the window, and it was white, too, and Jase looked as white as the flowers and the walls and the sheets. But not a healthy white. Yellowish kind of white. I looked at all those machines with their lights flashing green and red in that sterile room and went over to the bed, staring down at my boy with his eyes closed and mouth half-open and a hole in his throat where another tube came out.

  “He’s dead!” I choked out, and leaned over that bed, about ready to pick him up. But Libby threw her hand out. Tiny thing, but she had a lot of strength too.

  “No, no, Henry. The machine is breathing for him, babe. He’s alive. Don’t scare him.”

  “They’ve cut open his chest and now he has a hole in his throat. They’re killing my boy!”

  “It’s called a tracheotomy, Henry. They had to do it to help him breathe. He’s got pneumonia. But the trachea will heal. It’ll be okay.”

  I turned to face Libby, thinking about Nick’s last words. If having his chest and throat broken open didn’t kill him, someone else would do it. Now my hands were shaking real bad, and Libby took them in hers, so small and warm, and said, “Look at me, Henry. Look at me.”

  I finally got my eyes to obey, and she took my face in her hands now, in that way she had to calm me down. “Jase is having a bad time, and he needs us to be here with him.”

  “They think he’s got a chance?”

  “They aren’t promising anything, but they say he’s doing a little better.”

  I sat there by Jase’s bed for a long time, watching how his reddish eyelashes just lay so still on his freckled face. Tried to get those threats out of my mind, but it wasn’t easy. I finally started thinking about Miz Bourdillon’s book and everything I’d figured out on the way to the hospital, but then I was hearing that man’s voice, pure hatred, threatening to kill Jase.

  “We gotta get the police to protect our boy, I tell you, Libs.” I felt real desperate for Jase and so confused. I buried my face in my hands and just started weeping. “I gotta see Miz Bourdillon.”

  Libby shrank back from me. “What?”

  “Gotta see her. Ask her.” Everything was real blurry.

  “Henry, she can’t answer questions. She can’t talk at all.”

  “She has to. And I have to tell her too.” Soon as I said it, I knew what to do—just clear as day.

  I left Libby in that room with my boy just barely breathing. Raced out into the hall and to the stairway and up the steps to the next floor. Had to wind my way around a little, but I found the Neuro Trauma waiting room. Paige was sitting on one side of the room and a teenaged boy was lying on his stomach across some chairs on the other side, looking at his phone.

  I went over to Paige real quiet like and bent down and touched her on the shoulder. “I need to see your mother,” I whispered.

  She jumped a little, and her eyes got real big when she recognized me.

  “I’m sorry, Henry. Only family can see her,” she stammered.

  “I gotta see her. She’s gotta tell me how to save my boy’s life.”

  I looked behind me and that teenager wasn’t paying any attention to us, so I pulled out my Glock and grabbed Paige’s arm. Hated to scare her like that, but I said real soft, “You gotta take me to see your mother.”

  PAIGE

  Some things in your life seem surreal, and seeing Henry waving a gun and then grabbing me by the arm and ordering me to go into Momma’s room, well, it was like an out-of-body experience. I froze, as if looking from afar at this giant blond man who towered over me, his eyes wild, his face a mixture of fear and menace.

  Then I shrank back, panic and anger and a need to protect Momma all bubbling to the surface. Someone was yelling at Henry, “Why are you pointing that gun at me?” and then I realized it was my voice. “You think I would take anyone who’s pointing a gun at me to see my mother who just got shot in the head?”

  The giant deflated, his strange eyes apologetic. “I ain’t gonna hurt you, Paige. I promise. Ain’t gonna hurt your momma either. Just need to ask her a few questions, is all.” He lowered the gun and pushed me forward.

  The kid who had been lying on some chairs across the room glanced up, took in the scene, and scrambled out of the room.

  Then out of the corner of my eye I saw Libby come in; she had a panicked look on her face and kept saying, “Easy, Henry. Listen to me. Jase is going to get better.”

  I stared at her and mouthed Get help! She nodded, her eyes as wide as mine must have been, and backed out of the waiting room and took off down the hall, without Henry noticing. Drake had gone down to Café 509 to get a hamburger from the grill. Come back, Drake, I kept saying to myself, maybe even praying it to God.

  Henry started crying. “Need to talk to your mother awful bad, Paige. Gotta tell her what’s happened. You gotta take me, and I don’t want to hurt you. But you gotta take me in.”

  He shoved me a little with the nose of the pistol, and that sent cold chills zipping through my body. “There’s a policeman in front of Momma’s room, Henry.”

  “Gotta see her, Paige. You can convince him to let me see her. I know you can.”

  Heart in my throat, gun in my back, and Henry’s hand grasping my arm in such a way that it hurt, we walked toward the room. The policeman wasn’t there, and I felt another flutter of terror as I opened the door and we stepped inside.

  Momma was lying there, eyes closed and motionless. Henry held me by one arm, the gun still pointed in my back, and went to Momma, leaning over the bed.

  “I done something real bad, Miz Bourdillon. I’m so sorry I shot you, but I was just doing my job, trying to get money for my boy’s surgery. Wasn’t nothing personal. Sure am glad you’re alive. I heard you’ve opened your eyes some, so maybe you can hear me.

  “You gotta know it wasn’t me who wanted you dead. You gotta understand that. I’m gonna protect you, but I gotta protect my boy too. So you just go on and get well. I know lots of people are praying for that, and my Libs . . .” With that, he turned around and noticed she wasn’t there. “Where’s Libs?”

  “She went back to Jase,” I managed to choke out, but that wasn’t where she’d gone at all, and surely at any moment the police would be here. My mind was racing, my hands shaking. Henry had just admitted to shooting Momma. He was the shooter.

  But he wasn’t the one who wanted Momma dead. That’s what it took me a split-second to realize. Someone else had hired him to kill my mother. Henry was still talking.

  “I’m so sorry, Miz Bourdillon, but I want to know about forgiveness. Got so many questions.”

  Momma’s eyes were still closed, and something in my brain actually prayed, Let her be asleep, God, don’t let her hear this or see this, please.

  But just then her eyes opened, and her face registered pain and fear. She threw her arm out awkwardly to the side. I took it in my hands, whispered to her, and tried to calm her down.

  Henry was sobbing now, one hand holding the gun to my back and the other wiping the tears off his face, over and over. Blubbering. I couldn’t tell if he had noticed Momma’s opened eyes or not.

  “I want to know if the person who shot you can ever be forgiven? Does it work like that?”

  Then I heard the trample of boots in the hallway, and the door burst open and voices were yelling at Henry, “Put down your weapon!”

  And I panicked, afraid that the moment he put the gun down, poor deranged Henry would be dead.

  “Don’t shoot!” I yelled. And Henry, eyes all alarmed and scary, let go of me and dropped the pistol. I threw myself in front of him, waving my arms as I faced three policemen with their guns aimed our way, screaming, “Don’t shoot him! Ple
ase, please. Don’t shoot.”

  CHAPTER

  13

  FRIDAY

  JOSEPHINE

  The face staring at me was pale and frightening, the eyes a glassy blue, the whitish hair shaggy and unkempt. I wanted to back away, but I couldn’t make my body move. I tried to open my mouth to scream, but nothing came out. He was ranting about a shooting, a book, forgiveness. Paige was there, too, and I heard the fear in the way she was breathing, and I felt afraid too. We needed to leave, quickly.

  I must have flailed my arm because Paige took my hand and whispered in a voice that barely sounded like hers, “It’s all right, Momma. I’m here.”

  And the man kept ranting and then I saw the door open and policemen rush in. I didn’t understand what was happening, only that this man was in trouble and Paige was crying and begging the policemen not to shoot. And I could not move, no matter how hard I tried.

  PAIGE

  I was still hyperventilating when they put the handcuffs on Henry. A nurse was tending to Momma, who jerked and moaned in a ghastly way. Drake was cradling me in his arms and saying, “Bourdy, Bourdy, are you okay?”

  But I could not speak. I had floated away again, hovering over Momma as the nurses, three of them now, tried to calm her spastic movements. She gargled pitiful sounds and her eyes were skewed and terror filled, like a prisoner in a death camp. The nurses must have added a sedative to her cocktail of meds, because a few minutes later she calmed and her eyes closed.

  I breathed again, and turned to see Henry leaving the room, the policemen pointing their handguns at his back. And he had the same horror-filled anguish on his face as Momma.

  A nurse had me sit down right on the floor in the room, and she knelt in front of me. “Breathe, Paige, breathe. Slow, that’s right.” She was shining a light in my eyes and saying, “She’s in shock,” and then, “Paige, are you hurt? Does anything hurt?”

  I realized then I was shivering uncontrollably, but I managed to shake my head. “I’m not hurt,” I mumbled.

  “Let me take you to a place where you can lie down for a while,” the nurse was saying.

  But I shook my head again, my eyes riveted on Henry being escorted from the room. “That man is the one who shot Momma,” I whispered.

  From somewhere far away I could hear Libby wailing, “Please don’t take Henry, please!”

  I crumpled into Drake’s arms and everything went black.

  HENRY

  Libby almost lost her mind when she saw me being led away in handcuffs. She was screaming and crying after those policemen to make sure I took my meds—that they’d help level me out. And the cop kept trying to calm her down, telling her it was gonna be okay. But we all knew nothing was okay.

  I had been so sure, just a little while ago. If I had only gotten to ask Miz Bourdillon all my questions. She could hear me, I saw it. She’d opened her eyes and was listening to me. She was. And then those cops came in and ruined everything and hauled me away in their patrol car to the police station.

  The interrogation room was small and empty of everything except a table—which was bolted down, I noticed right away—and two chairs. There were little cameras, two of them, up in the corners of the room. So I figured maybe someone else was watching us, but I didn’t know for sure. Didn’t scare me, though. Pa’s interrogations were a lot scarier than this, and I had the scars to prove it.

  A man called Detective Blaylock sat on the other side of the table and just stared at me for a long time, not talking. He kept pulling at his thick black beard, like he had something stuck in it, but all that was stuck was me.

  “Henry, mind if I call you Henry?”

  I shrugged. “Okay.”

  Just me and that Detective Blaylock sitting alone in the little room. He said, “Before we start, I want to make sure you understand that you have rights, Henry.” He paused, like he wasn’t sure I could understand him, so I nodded. “Since this is a criminal investigation, you know, the lawyers want us to go over this stuff. You watch TV, you’ve heard it before.”

  I’d watched a lot more than TV, but wasn’t no use saying anything about Pa.

  The detective cleared his throat. He was kinda fidgety, but not mean acting.

  “You do have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can be used against you in court. You have the right to have an attorney present with you during questioning, or to consult an attorney prior to questioning. If you don’t have an attorney or can’t afford one, the state will appoint one to you. And at any time during our questioning, you can choose to stop the interview. Do you understand these rights?”

  I nodded, but then I saw he wanted me to say it out loud, so I answered, “Yes. I got you,” and he had me sign a waiver.

  Then he started asking me a bunch of questions like “What’s your name? What’s your birthday? What’s your wife’s name? Your son’s? Where are you from? What’s your address?”

  Went on and on and on, those questions. And I was feeling really tired. Run down. Didn’t seem too important, those questions, but after a while that detective seemed okay, like he was almost on my side. He was recording everything I said with a fancy little machine, and then sometimes he’d jot down something in a notebook, but that didn’t bother me. I knew what I could tell him and what I couldn’t.

  “Henry, you admitted that you’re guilty of shooting Mrs. Bourdillon. That’s attempted first-degree murder.” He stared at me with his dark eyes, not exactly threatening. Like he expected me to smile and say, “Yep, that’s right.” But I said nothing.

  “And you’re guilty of taking a hostage with a weapon.” He waited again, but I wasn’t paying attention because all of a sudden I was seeing Paige’s eyes all horrified and scared, and I felt real bad about that.

  But the detective just kept on talking, real calm like, telling me everything I was guilty of and that I’d have a real long prison sentence. He added, almost kindly, “Henry, you’ll be found guilty, and you’ll never see your family again.”

  He waited as if I should agree with him, but I figured I’d better keep my mouth shut. So we sat there in silence for a while.

  Then he tried again. “It’s clear that you pulled the trigger, but it’s also clear that you aren’t the one who wanted Mrs. Bourdillon dead. Someone hired you. Who was it that hired you to kill Mrs. Bourdillon?”

  I fidgeted for a while with my hands and felt the sweat break out on my brow. “I don’t know—it went through my contact.”

  “So you don’t know the name of the person who wanted to have Mrs. Bourdillon assassinated?”

  “That’s right. I don’t know.”

  “And what is your contact’s name?”

  “Detective, sir, I have a sick boy in the hospital. Real sick. Barely hangin’ on. The minute I tell you my contact’s name, my boy is as good as dead. My wife too.”

  “We’ll protect them. We’ve got guards at the hospital twenty-four hours a day.”

  “If I got into Miz Bourdillon’s room with a gun, I expect my contact could get into Jase’s room too. I’m not gonna tell you, Detective. I’m not.”

  He cursed, rubbed his hands over his face, and cursed again. “You’ll go to jail for attempted first-degree murder, Henry. You could be in jail for the rest of your life. But if you can give us any information, then I’ll talk to the DA about waiving the lesser charges and pleading the attempted first-degree down to an aggravated assault.” He started tugging on his beard again.

  I could tell he was trying to help me. “And what good would it do me to be out of jail if my wife and son are dead? Sorry, Detective.”

  He sat silent and stone-faced. I didn’t think he was gonna say anything else, but then he said, soft, almost pleading, “Don’t you want whoever planned this thing to be behind bars?”

  I didn’t say anything. I was trying to figure out if Nick would risk coming to the hospital to harm my boy now that it was overrun again with police.

  They took me to a cell, and there were
some other men in the cells next to mine, just staring at me with angry, prowling eyes. I lay down on a cot and pulled a blanket over my shoulders and tried to picture Jesus in the jail, right here with all us sinners. And it must’ve worked, because sometime in the night I fell asleep.

  PAIGE

  No one seemed surprised that the incident went viral. The teenager who was in the waiting room when Henry grabbed me followed the police when they rushed to Momma’s room, and he filmed the whole scene on his phone. Before Drake could even get in touch with Daddy and Hannah and Aunt Kit back at home, Hannah had seen a video on Facebook of me screaming and shielding Henry while police stormed the room and Momma lay trancelike in the background.

  It freaked Hannah out completely.

  When she and Daddy and Aunt Kit arrived at the hospital, the whole place was swarming with police, and an officer brought them in a back entrance while a whole crew of police stood outside the front entrance.

  I sat in the waiting room and couldn’t stop shivering, even though Drake bundled me in his fleece jacket and a big wool blanket provided by the hospital. The nurse attending me suggested very calmly she take me to a bed in the ICU to lie down, but I begged her to let me stay with Drake and my family in the waiting room. She did persuade me to take a sedative, but I didn’t want to sleep.

  “How’s Momma?” I’d ask every time I blinked awake, and Hannah would run her hands through my hair and say, “She’s fine, Paige.” But I kept moaning, “I should have refused to take him into her room! It’s all my fault.”

  “Oh, Paige, don’t entertain those thoughts, sweetie,” Daddy said. “You did a very courageous thing.”

  Hannah begged me, “Let me take you home, Paige. You’ve got to sleep, and you can’t do it here. Please.”

  “Bourdy,” Drake added, “you’re going to help your mother the most by getting rest. The police will have plenty of questions for you tomorrow.”