by Robbi McCoy
Emma nodded thoughtfully. “I remember that about her. I understand your decision to donate all of this to the university, but I’ve been thinking. There might be another option.” Emma leaned against the back of the couch, facing Lauren with her intense blue eyes. “Get someone to edit a collection, maybe even organize these papers and articles into a new book. There may be enough good, original work there. It would be a shame, actually, if all of these insightful opinions were stored away on a shelf in a library where only a few determined graduate students would ever look at them. They should be published.”
“Get someone?” Lauren asked.
“I’d like to do it,” Emma said hesitantly, then became more assertive. “I think I’m the right person to do it. I was her student. I know how she thought about these subjects. I know what her passions were. And I’m qualified.”
It was hard to trust Emma. Lauren still felt deceived. She had to keep reminding herself that Emma too had loved Faith. Emma’s desires regarding Faith’s work were most likely the same as her own. And she was right about stuffing this material into a corner of some library storage room. It was far from the ideal solution.
“What about your own research?” Lauren asked.
She tossed her head. “Oh, it will continue. Maybe at a slower pace. But this would really be rewarding for me. And so much of the work is already done. All I’d have to do is put it all together in some logical arrangement.”
“There would be more to it than that. I’m sure you know that. It would be a big job.”
“Yes, well, probably. But I’d be honored to do it. I’d understand if you’d rather it wasn’t me, though. I mean, I can see how you might feel some resentment toward me. I’m grateful you’re letting me use her work at all.”
Lauren shook her head. “No, I—.” She stopped herself because she was about to deny any resentment and she knew that wasn’t really how she felt. “Actually, I think you’re exactly the right person to do it. Let me think about it, though, okay?”
“Yes, no problem.” Emma turned to go, then turned back and asked, “What’s inside the skull on her desk?”
Puzzled, Lauren said, “Yorick? There’s nothing inside it.”
“There is.”
Lauren got up and went to the den with Emma following. Picking up the skull, she saw a small yellow tube inside. “Strange. I don’t remember that.”
She upended the skull and shook it gently until the tube fell through an eye socket onto the desk. It was shaped like a test tube, but was plastic. She opened it and extracted a piece of paper, which she unrolled and flattened on the desk. In Faith’s flourishing handwriting, the note said, “So long, and thanks for all the lobster!”
“Oh, my God!” Lauren said to herself. And then she started laughing while Emma read the note. Lauren fell into the desk chair, still laughing.
“That’s from—” Emma started.
“Yes! Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, paraphrased. It was one of her favorite books.”
Emma grinned broadly. “She left that for you.”
“Yes. I found one several months ago in a kitchen canister that said, ‘Beam me up, Gaia!’”
“She wanted you to laugh.”
Lauren nodded, noting the most natural smile she had yet seen on Emma’s face.
These sweet gestures of Faith’s, planted for discovery after she was gone, were funny and sad at the same time. But definitely welcome. It was like finding her here, just for a moment, winking. If she had been alone, she would have let her laughter turn to tears, but because of Emma, she controlled herself.
She placed Yorick carefully back on his usual perch, then stood. “Emma, I think I’ll say yes to your request to edit and publish Faith’s papers. I’m pretty sure she would want that. I’m also sure she would like the idea of you being the one to do it.”
By noon, Emma had left with a couple boxes of Faith’s papers in her car. They’d decided it would be easier for her to work on these at her own place in Eugene. Lauren was now feeling more inclined to trust her, at least in the business arena. On a more personal level, though, she still clung jealously and guiltily to the letter.
A few minutes after Emma left, the phone rang.
“Lauren,” said a vaguely familiar male voice when she answered, “this is Eric Hutchins.”
“Eric?”
“I’m at the beach house. There’s been an accident. I found your number in my mother’s cell phone.”
“What’s happened?” Lauren asked, feeling terror in her throat.
“Mom’s in the hospital in North Bend. That’s three miles north of Coos Bay. She fell from the bluff trail. She’s got a head injury and a broken arm.”
“A head injury,” Lauren repeated. “Is it serious?”
“We don’t know yet. She’s unconscious. The doctor says that’s the best thing for her for now.”
“When did this happen?”
“Yesterday. I don’t know exactly when. A woman walking her dog found her. Then the hospital called me. I drove up last night.”
“She’ll be okay, won’t she?”
“I hope so. Head injuries are tricky. There’s some bleeding, some swelling. Puts pressure on the brain. The doctor says it’s hard to say at this point. They’re still doing tests.”
“I’ll come down,” Lauren said impulsively.
“Oh, no, you don’t need to do that. I’ll keep you informed if you want. I’ll be able to stay here for several days, if necessary. Adele didn’t come with me. She couldn’t get anyone to take her place at the preschool on such short notice, but she may come up on the weekend. At the moment, everything’s under control. Mom’s condition is stable. Nothing to do, really. I was wondering if you knew of anyone else I should call. Close friends or— I hate to admit this, but I don’t even know if she has...someone.”
“She’s not seeing anyone,” Lauren said. “But I really don’t know anything about her friends back in Albuquerque. If you think it’s serious enough to call people, I could probably find out from Jennifer.”
“No, that’s not necessary. It was just if there was someone special. If there was, I thought she should know.”
“Right,” Lauren said, that phrase, “someone special,” vibrating around the edges of her consciousness. “There’s her law firm.”
“I already called there. I spoke to her assistant.”
After thanking Eric for the call, Lauren sat in a hard kitchen chair for several minutes, her mind blank, as if it couldn’t comprehend what she’d just been told. Cassie fell off the bluff trail? How could that happen? For a horrible second she had the thought she might have jumped. But that was ridiculous. She wouldn’t have done such a thing. Even if she were suicidal, there were much more reliable ways to kill yourself. Why risk becoming a paraplegic? Cassie was much too clear-headed for that. And not suicidal. Not in the least.
Lauren remembered the look of sadness on her face when they parted. But no tears. She isn’t a crybaby like me, Lauren thought. Much more solid than me, all around. Obviously, it was an accident.
She was finally able to get up and go back to work, but soon realized no more writing was going to happen today. She began to fear Eric was playing down Cassie’s injuries, trying not to upset her. But why would he do that? From his point of view, she was just a friend, and not a very close one. He had never heard of her before a week ago. In fact, it was surprising he had bothered to call at all.
The need to go sit in hospital waiting rooms, inertly, ineffectually, was one of those illogical activities that people felt compelled to put themselves through, she reflected. It gives them a sense that they’re doing something, even though they know it isn’t something that will make a damned bit of difference.
Although she had always considered herself among the most rational of people, lately she was beginning to change her mind and contemplate the possibility that there was nothing rational about her at all. Because now she was packing a bag and planning to drive b
ack down to Coos Bay to sit in a hospital doing nothing to help an injured woman whose affections she had just rejected.
But a show of support, she reasoned, was never in vain in the midst of overworked doctors and nurses. Being so far from home, Cassie would have no one here except Eric and Lauren.
Just as Lauren was shoving her suitcase into the trunk of her car, her brother’s red pick-up pulled into the driveway behind her. This, she thought, is evidence of how distracted I am. She had completely forgotten Jim was coming by to return Cocoa. He stepped out of his truck and waved.
“Perfect timing,” he said. “You’re just getting home.”
She walked over to him as he opened the passenger side door and pulled out the cat carrier. Lauren peeked through the wire frame door at her cat, a dark brown mass of fur punctuated by a pink nose and furious green eyes.
“How’s my boy?” she said to Cocoa through the grate.
“He’s been a little temperamental, but no trouble.”
“I’m not just getting home,” Lauren explained. “In fact, I was just getting ready to leave.”
“But you said you were coming home today.” He looked astonished.
“I know, but my plans changed. I got home two days ago. And now I’m off again. Would you mind keeping him a few more days?”
“No, I don’t mind, but are you going to tell me what’s going on?”
“Come on in. Let me at least give him a proper hug.”
“And me?” Jim pouted.
Lauren reached up and hugged him, then they went inside. He put the carrier on the kitchen floor and opened it. Cocoa walked nonchalantly out of the crate toward his food dish. Lauren picked him up and hugged him tightly, his fur tickling her nose.
“So what’s up?” Jim asked, sitting in a kitchen chair. “Where are you off to?”
“Same place. Coos Bay.” She filled him in about the accident.
“Are you okay to drive?” he asked.
“Yes, I’m fine.” Lauren squeezed Cocoa’s head against her cheek. He squirmed until she put him on the floor.
“You know, you never really told me who this woman was. Just some old friend. Some lawyer from Albuquerque. Is that right?”
“Yes.”
“Is that all you’re going to tell me?”
“There’s nothing to tell. Don’t go getting ideas.”
He frowned. “You don’t have to be evasive with me, you know? I mean, I’m the brother you can trust. I’m the enlightened one.”
Lauren kissed his cheek. “Yes, you are. And I’m grateful for it. But there really is nothing to tell. If you’re sitting around waiting for some juicy, romantic story from me, you’ll be waiting a long time. My days of romance are over.”
“That’s very cynical, Lauren. And sad.”
“Not sad to me. I was very happy with Faith for twenty-three years. That’s enough. That should be enough for anyone. How many people can say as much?”
He sighed.
“I need to get going, though. It’s a four hour drive. I really appreciate you taking Cocoa again.”
“No problem. He’s good company.” Jim stood, then reached down to pick up the cat. “Although I’m not content to spend the rest of my life with only a cat for companionship, even if you are.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
It was a tiring drive, hampered by rush-hour traffic around Eugene and the unfamiliar layout of North Bend, so it was already six o’ clock when Lauren arrived at the hospital. After asking at the information booth for Cassie’s room number, she rode the elevator to the third floor. She hadn’t been in a hospital for over two years, not since Faith’s last pointless surgery. This one, like all of them, felt cold and sterile with its shiny linoleum floor and white walls, devices on wheels parked in hallways, and the occasional patient in a thin shapeless gown to his knees, shuffling along, pushing his rack of drip bags in front of him.
She tried not to think about the last time she’d been in a hospital, a joyless day when Faith was discharged to go home, out of options. In the words of Dr. Hart, “There’s nothing more we can do.” Faith, though exhausted and perhaps no longer interested in options, had been her straightforward self and said, “So I’m going home to die.” Dr. Hart, whose expression was appropriately solemn, had nodded and said, “Without a miracle, I’m afraid so.”
Faith had always been an optimist. It was simply her nature, sometimes at odds with the facts. But on that day, at the thought of “a miracle,” she had laughed such a bitter laugh that Lauren had shuddered, hearing it. She shook herself to dispel that scene from her mind as the elevator clunked to a stop.
The smell of the place made her nervous, made her breathe less easily. She noticed herself taking deliberate gulps of air. She pushed her anxiety aside and made her way down the hallway until she located Room 324. The door was open to a dimly lit room beyond. She took another deep breath and went in.
With eyes closed and a peaceful, passive expression on her face, Cassie lay under a blanket. A large bandage encircled her head. Her left arm, in a cast, lay on top of the blanket. Her fingers stuck out from the stiff edge of the cast. The wide-necked opening of the hospital gown was tied shut at her shoulder. Lauren moved closer to the bed and reached out to touch Cassie’s forehead. It was cool. Then she found her right hand and held it gently, noticing that the skin on her palm was scraped and covered with scabs. She stared at the pale lips, parted slightly, and the darkened eyelids. Her hand was also cool, papery dry, and her face had an uncharacteristically pallid cast—except for the fresh bruise across her jaw.
Asleep, Cassie didn’t resemble herself much. Most of Cassie was in the sparkle in her eyes and the liveliness of her face. Still, there was enough of the familiar on this wan and placid countenance to bring to mind the other, the one from a few days ago, exhilaratingly vital, moving through her vast range of expressions.
In her mind, Lauren could see them, the smirks and grins, the arched eyebrows and casual toss of the head, the playful, surreptitious glance, then the unrestrained laugh and all those teeth showing because Cassie didn’t care if she looked funny when she laughed. She just laughed. She didn’t think about it.
And her eyes. Lauren could envision her eyes best of all, deep brown, staring unabashedly with an inner light, a joy, an unambiguous love, a look Lauren had first seen ten years ago and then again so frequently in the last week. How could anyone not recognize that look? So deep, sincere and full of unrepentant longing. Lauren had seen it with her eyes, but had kept it secret from her mind because she’d wanted to keep looking at it for as long as she could. That look drew her in, made her want to follow it, made her want to drown in it.
How could she have so frequently and steadily accepted that look without reflecting the same back? She couldn’t. And she hadn’t. That’s why Cassie knew they both wanted the same thing. Because Lauren’s eyes must have looked identical—deep, sincere and full of unrepentant longing.
Lauren felt a lump in her throat and tried to swallow it away.
As she stood holding Cassie’s hand, her thoughts turned to old memories. The eyes are the window of the soul and the soul is the part of us that falls in love. And the mind is the part where all sorts of interesting things happen…like denial and suppression of feeling. And the heart is just an organ that pumps blood.
The machine monitoring Cassie’s heartbeat, with its regular soft beep, was the only noise in the room. As she watched Cassie breathing, looking so vulnerable and so completely absent, something welled up in her from deep inside. It was something huge like a tidal wave, gathering force, building as it headed for the surface. Then, all at once, it slammed into her. She let go of Cassie’s hand and turned abruptly, bolting blindly for the door. She made it as far as the hallway before smashing into something—someone. He caught her securely by both arms, then folded her into an expansive embrace, holding her head against his chest as her body fell into an avalanche of wracking sobs.
A half hour late
r, Lauren sat quietly on a sofa and took another drink from the paper cup Eric had given her. She had gradually calmed enough to comprehend what was happening. He had taken her to a small waiting room on the third floor. While she sat there with her face in her hands, crying, he had managed to get hold of a box of Kleenex and a moistened hand towel. Then he had returned to sit beside her while she blew her nose and wiped her face with the towel and gradually returned to sanity.
The water was cold and welcome. She swallowed, then placed the towel over her eyes, each in turn, before turning to see Eric smiling benignly and a little warily at her.
“Feeling better?” he asked.
She nodded. “Thank you. I’m sorry. I thought I’d come down here to help, but I’ve ended up just causing you trouble.”
“That’s okay. Hanging around here is awfully boring. Your nervous breakdown or whatever that was gave me something to do for a while.”
Lauren smiled, then blew her nose one more time, wadding up the Kleenex. “You’re very good with hysterical women.”
“I’m used to it. Job hazard. Not just women. Kids and men too. It’s not unusual to be faced with a whole family in some kind of emotional meltdown.”
“I’m fine now. I don’t know what happened in there.”
Eric’s face was kind. “You didn’t strike me as the type to break down like this, and I wouldn’t have expected it anyway given that you and my mother hadn’t even seen or spoken to one another for ten years. I mean, not to pry, but you came all this way after I told you it wasn’t necessary and now you seem completely devastated. It just makes me wonder.”
“I can understand why you’re confused.” Lauren sighed and stared at the ragged Kleenex in her hand.
“You don’t have to explain…if it’s private.”
She looked up and met his gaze. “If I could explain, I would. Partly it’s just seeing someone I care about lying in a hospital bed. It reminds me of...someone I loved. Sorry, I’m being silly. You should ignore me.”