by J. Wachowski
“What else am I supposed to do, T? I don’t know how to be the mom.”
“There are only two requirements,” she said with all the patience of someone explaining the how-to of bar soap. “You commit to the long haul. And you consider her needs first. She won’t always get top priority, but she always gets first consideration.”
“I’m committed.”
“You haven’t even moved out of your apartment yet! How committed is that?” Tonya’s voice amplified with every word.
My eyes kept drifting toward the television screen. It was impossible to turn away from the flash and comfort of those familiar images-the smiling faces and sugary landscapes, figments of our collective, mass-consuming unconscious. Even knowing all that I know, doing all that I do, I sighed. Little House had shimmered before me in childhood reruns, like the mirage of heaven hammered into me on Sunday mornings. There was the wise, kind father, the patient, loving mother, and the sisters who all lived together in a land where truth was known, justice was served and love begat love, never suffering.
Behind me, Tonya spat, “If you don’t stop looking at that God-damned television and pay attention to me!” She whipped the plastic cup from Jenny’s bedside tray at my head. It clipped me, took a high bounce and smacked the bottom of the set. Must have caught the power button. The picture popped off; the screen a sudden darkling glass.
Empty.
Everything went out of me in the breath that followed. Busted, sucking comfort from a little house on the prairie. I swung my legs around to the side of the bed. The vent was blowing hospital AC right in my face. The cold burned the wet lines on my cheeks.
Tonya moved toward me, looking like she regretted every step.
“Careful,” I told her. “I stink.”
“Yeah, you do.” She put her arms around me anyway. I felt her shaking her head, her cheek pressed to my scalp.
Again, it was impossible to turn away.
Jenny woke up around lunchtime. There was a bit of bedlam at first-thrashing, tubes coming undone, machines beeping like crazy, but it didn’t last long.
The nurse said we got off easy. “Usually we see some projectile vomiting when they come around.”
Possible sign my life was on the rebound?
Hold that thought.
We had a visit from the doctor making rounds. Tonya sat in while we heard that they would probably keep her one more night “to see what happened with the seizures.” Jenny accepted it all with big eyes and nodding; she didn’t start to cry until the woman got to the part about the social worker who would be visiting before Jenny could check out of the hospital.
“Why did you leave school yesterday?” the nice-lady doctor asked.
Jenny shot me a worried look and shrugged.
“Where did you get the medicine?”
“Found it.”
“Where?”
“Mommy’s medicine box?” Jenny’s eyes filled with tears.
My sister was spinning in her grave. I could feel the breeze.
“Tell me about why you took it, honey.”
“I just…” Jenny started off strong, as if there was a way she could explain, but her voice faded, “…thought they’d make me feel better. That’s all. Really,” she added for my benefit.
“This is very serious, Jenny,” the doctor said. “Everyone here is worried about you. That’s why we’re going to have the social worker come talk to you. We all need to understand what happened so we can make sure it won’t happen again.”
“It won’t. I swear,” Jenny pleaded.
“Don’t panic, kid.” I squeezed her hand. “You don’t have to go alone if you don’t want to. I’ll go with you.”
“You will?” Jenny’s voice sounded awful. She was choked up and the tubes had scratched her throat pretty good.
“If you want.”
“I think we ought to meet this social worker before there is any talking,” Tonya said, casting serious doubt on the title social worker. “All of us.”
“Certainly,” the nice-lady doctor replied.
“Good thinking,” I said.
Tonya gave a tight-lipped nod. Everybody was in agreement.
The rest of the day was busy. Tonya yelled at me about changing channels too much, while we took turns playing cards and reading to Jenny. I pretended to nap but couldn’t stop myself from checking out the competition’s news magazine shows.
I tried not to think about work. It was impossible. Employed or unemployed, the story rattled through my head.
A long time ago, I learned that truth isn’t relative. It’s quantum. The closer you get, the smaller and infinitely more complex the related elements become. The modern world lives in smaller and smaller segments. There’s Coke, Diet Coke, Caffeine Free, and Cherry. We added to G, PG, PG-13, R, NR and NC-17 with Gens X, Y and Z on the way. Television isn’t so different from life. It’s built from bits and pieces, strung together over time, and repeated on the endless reruns of the mind.
Except for the part about things making sense by the end.
Part of my problem is that I’ve gotten too good at seeing parts. Finding a way to tell the story without exploiting Rachel, without using Nicky Curzon’s off-the-record explanation for Tom’s arrest, without relying on a little salacious conjecture about all those porn magazines…it seemed impossible. Not to mention the fact that any story I produced might become fodder against Curzon’s re-election for sheriff, which would never stop me from reporting on the story, but might qualify as a speed bump.
Editing a story together is similar to taking a photo. Shadows determine form; the light source determines the shadows. I couldn’t figure out where to shine the light on this.
“Maybe I’ll go and see about some caffeine.”
“Bring me something.” Tonya waved at the breakfast tray.
“Me too,” Jenny agreed. Her mushy fruit sat abandoned, a spoon poking out from under a paper napkin shroud.
“Caffeine and ‘somethings’ all around. I’ll be back.”
I wandered the halls, people-watching and mulling. After twenty minutes or so, it appeared the cafeteria had lost itself. The hospital had some renovation project going on and all the maps were either wrong or led to dead-ends of orange mesh. I came out of an elevator, turned a corner and found myself in a hall facing a circle of women and men in Amish dress. Two medical types were talking with them in the waiting area.
I recognized one of the men. It was the guy who’d tromped through Jost’s kitchen in knee-high dairy boots ordering me to vamoose.
The nurse behind the counter saw me gawking. “They’re Amish,” she offered. “A friend of theirs was in a fire.”
It wasn’t easy to keep it to, “Really? That’s a bummer. Was he burned?”
“No,” she assured me with a kindly, vacant frown. “A little smoke inhalation is all. Can I help you find something?”
With an opening like that, how could I not ask? I gave her Jost’s name and she didn’t appear to make the connection. She checked a chart, directed me to his room and returned to her paperwork.
The sight line between Jost’s door and the waiting area where the other Amish were listening to the doctors was blocked by the privacy curtain surrounding the nurses’ station. He was under close observation. I knocked before I entered.
Old Mr. Jost was under the clear plastic covering of an oxygen tent. They had him in a hospital gown but the whiskers still set him apart.
I stood and watched him for a while, thinking of Jenny mostly. I had no plan to ask him questions. Nothing to say to the old fart, really. I think I just wanted to look at him one more time; like the accident off to the side of the road, reminding me to slow down, wear my seatbelt and quit flipping off the other drivers.
What happened here won’t happen to me.
I wished I had my camera between us, but I forced myself to stand there and look through my own eyes.
He blinked awake. That didn’t bother me. But when his fingers f
licked against the plastic, I jumped. He wanted me to lift the curtain.
“What?” I asked. I leaned over so my ear was right above his mouth.
“-ay-chel?” The word was mostly exhale.
“She’s all right.”
“Wherrre?”
I thought about lying. “She’s with Grace Ott.”
His eyes closed. He looked dead. The color of his skin, the nearly imperceptible shallowness of his breathing, his eyes didn’t even flicker. It was impossible to perceive any part of what he was thinking or feeling.
That’s when my questions came. I couldn’t stop myself. “Why did he do it, Mr. Jost? Why did Tom ask you to watch? Did he want you to stop him?”
“No.” That word was soft but clear. His eyes stayed closed. With my ear hovering, he whispered, “…maybe, die a little bit…with him.”
“The phone-how did you end up with the phone?”
“Shame,” he whispered, “my shame.”
“You took the phone from Tom.”
His eyes barely opened. They were red with smoke irritation, the skin around them gray and sagging. “Tried. Run to him…too late. Too late.” His eyes pooled with tears.
A nurse pushed into the room. “Uh, uh. Don’t disturb the tent,” she scolded. “Out, out, out of there!”
“I’m going. Sorry.”
His fingers curled and tapped across my hand like the dance of a spider’s legs, calling my attention back.
“Yes?”
“Resist not evil.” They were the clearest words he’d spoken yet.
Miracle of miracle, I remembered that one. “Turn the other cheek. Overcome evil with good.”
He tapped the back of my hand three times. Yes, that’s it.
I nodded. I think he believed that taking the phone was a way to turn the other cheek. Perhaps he meant to confess to his community and explain what happened, or save Tom from the public shame of having acted in anger. But Rachel found the phone. And the protective, controlling father took over. Until now, the only scenarios I had been able to imagine were the ones motivated by a man’s self-preservation and guilt. A hundred questions formed in my head. The nurse glared at me.
“Please, one last question. My colleague thinks there was someone in the house with you last night. Before the fire started. Did you see anyone?”
“Thought boy come for Rachel,” he struggled to say. “Englischer.”
“Did you see him?”
His eyes closed. Exhaustion or the need to keep his own council ended that line of talk.
“That’s all,” Nursey scolded. “You’re disturbing the tent. He needs to rest.”
“I’m done. I’m gone,” I told her. I touched the back of his hand. “Thank you. Be well.”
Slipping out was more nerve-wracking than going in. Through the mesh at the top of the curtain, I could see Jost’s friends and family three feet away and closing. I ducked around the curtain partition and followed it toward the nurses’ station. Just ahead of me, I could hear men on the other side of the curtain. They were having a tight-throated discussion. I froze.
I’m pretty good with voices. To the careful ear, voices are as distinct as a walk, a form of handwriting, a style of dress. Still, it surprised me-was it really that small a town? There was something familiar in those voices.
Everyone has heard the research into pheromones that sync us up with mates. I sincerely doubt that’s all the lizard brain can detect. I think we smell all sorts of crap, like lies and wickedness and trouble ahead. Maybe that explains why a person might freeze and listen to a conversation that makes very little sense at first.
Or maybe I’m just nosey.
“…tired of it, do you hear me?”
“I hear you. I’m trying-”
“I don’t want to hear how hard you are trying. You’ve turned something very simple into something complicated. Am I going to have to find someone else to help me?”
“No. No.”
“I hope not. I’ll call you.”
“Um, yeah, listen I have a new number. Old phone’s gone.”
Hello! The light went on. That was Pat talking. Fireman Pat, Tom Jost’s partner, a.k.a. Mr. Vegas. Couldn’t place the other voice. I slipped back two steps as a nurse came barging full-steam around my curtain wall.
“Whoops-sorry,” she said automatically. She followed it with a more hostile, “What are you doing here?”
“Lost.” I grimaced and backed through the curtain into the open hall area. “Cafeteria?”
“That way.” She pointed with a finger-gun toward the far end of the hall.
“Thanks.”
I caught a glimpse of someone rounding the corner at a good clip, the reflectors on his uniform jacket flashing as he passed beneath the yellow-green light of each fluorescent ceiling fixture. I looked back the other way, no sign of the second man. The only door nearby that didn’t seem to lead to a patient’s room read Restricted.
“Hey Pat!” I hollered, taking a chance that he was the man disappearing around the corner. “Wait up!” On four hours sleep, subtle Miss Nancy Drew I’m not.
Lucky for me, Mr. Vegas had a lot of friends in the hospital.
“Looking for something?” a guy in scrubs asked.
“EMS guy named Pat?” I tried.
That brought an eye roll. “Figures. Never the ugly ones. Toward the cafeteria.”
“Thanks.”
Couple of nurses pointed me, “That way.”
“Right. Thanks.”
I turned a corner into an empty hall. Quiet. No sign of anyone. My heart was pumping with adrenaline and the sudden change of pace. I’d been race-walking the halls, trying to catch up. Mounted on the wall near a frosted glass door was a small, brass plaque.
Chapel. Open 24 Hours.
It felt like a trick. I pulled the door and peeked inside.
My breathing made a surf-roar in my ears. “Hello?”
No answer. I made myself quiet-hiding quiet-and entered.
The room was shoebox small, only a dozen chairs, and a solid table with glass votives at the front. The walls were bare, the wood trim spare and nothing but a pair of dim uplights shining on the curtained wall behind the altar table. I smelled hospital cleaner and the burning sweetness of beeswax candles.
I circled the room. It was empty and then some, as non-denominational as a place of worship could be. In the Amish world, simplicity came from sameness. Funny how in our world, it was diversity that bred simplicity.
Could anyone sink low enough to hide behind an altar table? I looked and realized there was a door behind the curtained wall.
Cold rushed through my blood. Calm took effort.
Ready-I opened the door as carefully, quietly, as possible. It swung inward.
Absolute dark. I slipped my hand past the door jamb, feeling for a light switch.
Click!
The overhead blinked on. Room empty. It was a walk-in closet-cum-sacristy. A rack of vestments hung on the back wall, a small bookcase to one side. Nothing but a room.
I slipped all the way inside-
Boom!
The light snapped off as the door slammed, the sound mixing with what happened next. My face hit the wall, cheekbone first. The sudden reversal of light blinded me. My hand covered the switch, but his larger hand-sweaty and strong-pressed my palm into the toggle, biting into my skin.
Caught.
“Don’t move.”
There was nothing to move. I couldn’t even twist my head. His jaw and neck locked the threat of his body right beneath my ear. His chin dug into the top of my scalp. We were both panting, strangely synchronized with each movement of chest, and that was the most coldly frightening thing of all.
“You,” he whispered. “You smell like her.”
“Who? Pat, what the hell-?”
“Shut up.” He crushed his body against me. I stopped inhaling. “Questions don’t help. Knowing won’t help. It only makes things worse. Don’t you get that?”
> “No. I don’t believe that.”
“What’s it take to teach you? They both died! Leave it alone.”
“Both?” I said.
“Tom and Gina.”
“Gina?” You smell like her. Confusion was all that kept me calm. Once again, my lizard brain jumped ahead to a place where logic feared to go. “Angelina? Do you mean my sister?” My internal temperature dropped twenty degrees. It’s a miracle my next breath didn’t fog the air.
“You are making everything worse,” he said. “You have to stop.”
Resistance bubbled up, hot and sharp. I bucked and twisted. “Get off me.”
He was as mad as I was, but a whole lot bigger. He slammed himself against me again, smashing us into the wall. All the body parts you never see, never think about, suddenly appeared on my mental map, tracing a line of vulnerability from the top of my spine, down the slope of my back, to the curve of my ass.
Nobody moved for a heavy second.
He seemed to lose track of the moment, anger suspended by a surge of hormones, or confusion, or something else. His body took over. He inhaled deeply, chest swelling, and I felt the barest suggestion of motion forward and back with his pelvis, a reaching out. His cock was big enough to make an impression. I kept very still.
“Stop,” he repeated. “Just stop.”
Too slowly, he withdrew contact with his lower body. The pressure of his hand over mine increased. It hurt.
Before I realized what he meant to do, he grabbed the back of my collar and bent my arm behind my back. With a twist, he shoved me hard from the center of my back toward the middle of the room.
I flew forward and face-planted, hands too slow to catch myself. My head re-bounded off the industrial carpet.
Pat was already out the door.
Over the sound of my ears ringing, I heard the bad news, loud and clear.
He’d jammed a chair against the outside of the door. I was locked in.
“What took you so long? Where’d you go this time?” Tonya said, in the usual way. Then she took a good look at me. “Oh Lord, what now?”
I stood in the doorway of Jenny’s hospital room, not completely in my body, or my right mind. The urge to scream, hit something, throw something, had stiffened every muscle.