by Baxter Clare
“So Lavinia didn’t call you.”
“No. She called the station. Two cars rolled a couple minutes behind me.”
The implication of that made Frank queasy. When he’d been confronted with a particularly bizarre outcome of timing, Joe Girardi had frequently muttered, “Seconds and inches.”
Sometimes that was all that separated the living from the dying.
In a hush, Frank said, “I was calling Noah. Marguerite told me to pray and I didn’t know how so I was calling Noah.”
Darcy nodded as if that cleared up any ambiguity.
Frank didn’t want to flunk anymore. She just wanted to close her eyes for a while. “Do me a favor,” she said. “Another one. Call this number.”
She waited for him to get his pen.
“It’s Doc Lawless’ number. Tell her I’m okay, but tell her where I am. Now let me get some sleep before Fubar gets here.”
Darcy’s chair scraped back and as he pushed the curtain aside, Frank said, “Hey.”
He turned.
“How do I thank you for something like this?”
He shrugged and disappeared.
Gail arrived just as the hats were leaving. The men stared at her breathless entry. They seemed to collectively decide they didn’t want to know any more and almost pushed each other out the door.
Perching on the edge of the bed, Gail demanded, “What the hell happened to you. You look terrible.”
“I’m fine,” Frank assured, offering what she could of a smile. Her face was swollen and scraped and she wondered what she’d feel like when the drugs wore off. Reveling in the luxury of touching Gail’s cheek, she added, “Just a little banged up. Nothing that doesn’t happen to a good quarterback a couple times a season.”
Gail pointed out, “You’re not a quarterback, Frank. What happened? That damned Darcy won’t tell me a thing.”
“That damned Darcy saved my ass tonight.”
Frank gave Gail the short version of the story. How she’d gone over on a hunch, how the whole thing had been a scam, how she’d tried praying, and how Darcy had stepped in at the last minute.
Gail blanched and kept repeating, “Oh my God.”
“Yeah. Somebody’s God. Pretty freaky, huh?”
Gail started to cry.
“Hey,” Frank soothed, touching a tear with her thumb. “Hey.”
“I don’t know whether to hit you or kiss you. You knew what you were getting into and you didn’t tell me!”
“Jesus, Gail, I didn’t know. I knew I had to go, and I didn’t know why. I knew I didn’t want to go, but I had no fucking idea all this was going to go down. I wouldn’t have gone in, at least not alone, if I had. Give me some credit. I just thought it was a church thing. Like a party.”
“Then why didn’t you tell me where you were going?”
“It just seemed silly. I didn’t want to break dinner because I had to go to a party. I don’t know. I didn’t have a good reason for going, but I felt like I had to. I can’t explain it.”
Frank shrugged and the movement made her flinch.
“What sort of a relationship can we ever have if you can’t tell me the truth, Frank?”
“The truth is I didn’t know what I was doing. I didn’t plan on going there when I left you. I just remembered I’d been invited, and it seemed dumb to go, but I was … drawn. I had to go.”
“Well then why couldn’t you have just said that?”
Gail’s voice was rising and Frank was too tired for another fight.
“I don’t know. I honestly can’t tell you. I’m sorry I didn’t. And I can’t argue with you right now. I was wrong. You’re right. It’s over.
The whole fucking thing is over and I just want to move on. Can we do that?”
She was still pissed, but Frank could at least see Gail considering her request. Before she could answer, Frank said, “Hey. I got something for you. Darcy said he brought my wallet and stuff. Do you see it?”
Frowning, Gail pulled a plastic hospital bag from under the bed.
“How can I impress upon you the need to communicate with me?”
“How can I impress upon you that I’m trying? I’m not used to communicating with myself, nonetheless another human being, Gay. I’m not good at it. I’ll be the first to admit that. But I’m trying.”
Finding the tin heart in her pants pocket, she told Gail, “Close your eyes and put out your hand.”
Gail sighed, but did as instructed. Frank put the heart in her palm.
“Okay.”
The doc opened her eyes and Frank said, “You’re holding my heart in the palm of your hand.”
Gail studied it a long time before answering, “I’ll be very careful with it.”
Cupping Gail’s fingers around the stamped heart, Frank was at last able to say, “I love you.”
Epilogue
On his way home from school, a boy stops by a pile of blankets. They are dirty and smell like his baby sister when her diaper needs changing. He sucks thoughtfully on his Tootsie-Pop, calculating how long before he gets to the chocolate center. He takes the candy out, studies it, then looks back at the blankets.
They are heaped in the middle like they’re covering something. Maybe there’s a backpack underneath. Or a radio. The boy looks around for the blanket’s owner. The alley is empty. Only blind cars pass on his left. He nudges the blankets with the toe of his sneaker. Nothing happens. Again he looks around. He kicks the pile, scattering the mounded blankets.
The smell of old pee lifts into the air. And a nasty smell, like from that cat his uncle hung in the basement. The boy waves his hand in front of his nose and swears. He doesn’t notice the hot breeze that snakes around his ankles. Or that the pigeons on the wire above have suddenly cried out and taken flight.