by David Bell
“I don’t know,” Bill said, remembering his encounter with Clinton and Todd. “That school is full of snotty kids. And they’re also looking into every creep in the town. I’m not very patient, I guess.”
Adam nodded, his face full of sympathy. “If you need anything before I go, holler. And let me know when Summer can have visitors. Or if you want me to bring you some food or something down at the hospital.”
“I will.”
Adam threw back the shot as Bill went inside.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
When Bill returned to the hospital, he went into Summer’s room and saw no sign of Paige. He took quiet, cautious steps to the side of the bed and bent down, kissing his daughter on the top of the head. She smelled clean, freshly washed by a nurse or orderly.
He took a step back and studied her, trying to see whether her injuries looked any better than they had earlier that morning. He thought the swelling was down, the kaleidoscopic bruises losing some of their vividness. But he couldn’t be certain he was really seeing that progress and not just allowing his wishful thinking to take over. He wasn’t sure he cared. Wishful thinking was better than nothing.
“Summer? Honey?”
No reaction, none at all. Bill wished she’d make that scrunched-up face again. He would be happy to see anything.
He leaned down again and stroked her arm. Patience, he reminded himself. Patience.
He checked Summer’s other arm and noticed something missing. The silver bracelet she always wore, one Julia had given to her on Summer’s thirteenth birthday. Bill hadn’t had the sense Summer loved the bracelet, but after Julia died, she never took it off. Summer’s name was engraved on the inside.
Did whoever did this to her also steal that bracelet? Its only real value was sentimental. And it stabbed Bill in the heart to think something from Julia that meant so much to Summer was missing.
He sat down, expecting Paige to return at any moment. But fifteen minutes passed and then twenty. A nurse came in to check Summer’s vital signs, and Bill asked if she’d seen his sister.
“She was out in the hallway last I saw her.”
“Just now?” Bill asked.
“She’s been out there for a while, talking to a friend of your daughter’s.” The nurse finished her work and smiled at Bill. “They seemed to be having a pretty intense conversation.”
When the nurse was gone, Bill went out into the hallway and looked around. The ICU seemed quiet. An orderly mopped the floor to the left, his steady motions and the sloshing of the dirty water sounding almost soothing. Bill went to the right to where the hall made a turn toward the elevators and a lounge for family members to sit and decompress. The door to the sparsely furnished room stood open, and Bill saw Paige sitting on the small, dingy couch. She was nodding her head while a tiny, mousy teenage girl talked and talked. Bill recognized Teena Everett, Summer’s and Haley’s friend whom he had described to Detective Hawkins as their unofficial third wheel. From the time Teena had spent at their house, Bill knew her teeth were crooked and in need of braces that her mother either couldn’t afford or chose not to spring for. Her eyes were baby blue, her body slender and bony. For her sake, Bill hoped she blossomed someday.
Neither of them saw Bill. He waited just outside the door, listening as best he could through the low plinking of the Muzak from overhead. He caught a few snippets in between the notes of an ear-piercingly bad rendition of the Beatles’ “The Fool on the Hill.”
“Summer and Haley wouldn’t invite me. . . . They didn’t always call me. . . . They were so much alike, and I . . .”
Bill felt a stab of sympathy for the girl. No one liked being left behind, and everyone got left behind at some point. He suspected insecure, undersize Teena got left behind more than others.
Bill was turning away when Teena said, “Those boys were there, so I didn’t want . . .”
He spun back and went through the door into the lounge. When he came in, both Paige and Teena jumped a little. “What’s this?” he asked. “What about the boys?”
Teena flinched as if Bill had threatened to hit her. Her shoulders hunched, and her head lowered between them so she looked like a turtle retracting into its shell. Paige seemed disappointed, and Bill understood why. He’d broken the spell. Whatever rapport the two of them had going had been temporarily severed, but he didn’t care. He needed to know.
“Well?” he said. “What is it?”
Teena tried to sink farther into the couch cushions.
Paige said, “It’s okay, Bill. I’ll tell you about it.”
“I’m here now.”
Paige gave him a “What gives?” look, one that managed to communicate her low opinion of his behavior in delicate situations. She turned and spoke to Teena as though the girl were a frightened baby bird. “Teena, why don’t you go on home? You said you needed to.”
Teena nodded and stood up.
“Do you need a ride?” Paige asked.
“I rode my new bike,” she said. “It’s not far.”
“Okay,” Paige said. “You call me or text me if you want to talk more.”
Teena started to leave, and for a fraction of a moment, Bill wanted to reach out and stop her by placing his hand on her arm. But he knew he couldn’t do that, so he remained stock-still as the girl walked past him and out of the room. Bill turned and watched her walk down the hall, her shoulders still hunched, her steps shuffling and knock-kneed.
He turned to his sister. “What was that all about?”
Paige patted the couch. “Sit down. I’ll tell you.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
“Why isn’t she at school?” Bill asked as he sat.
“Her mom started homeschooling her this semester,” Paige said. “I guess Teena learns better at home. Fewer distractions.”
“Why was she even here?”
“She’s worried about Summer, Bill,” Paige answered as though he should understand without explanation. “She thought she could visit her. She’s scared. I bet every kid in that school is scared. Wouldn’t you be?” Paige’s face grew serious. “The girl needs someone to talk to. Do you know her mom?”
“Not really. Julia handled most of the parental socializing and PTA meetings.”
“I get the feeling her mom’s not the best listener,” Paige said. “Teena seemed lonely. Lost.”
“You can’t ride in on your white horse and save everybody.”
“It’s so terrible that I talked to a scared teenage girl. That I offered her a sympathetic ear.” Paige’s eyes glistened. “You know Haley’s visitation is tonight, and the burial’s tomorrow.”
“Ugh,” Bill said. “Right. I need to go.”
“You should. I’m sure it will be crowded. They’re having it in the gym at the high school. That’s what Teena told me.”
“What else was she telling you?” Bill asked. The room felt cramped and small. A coffeemaker and foam cups sat on one side of the room, a bookshelf with a row of tattered paperbacks on the other. An enterprising hospital employee had hung a framed motivational poster, an image of a tree and a rainbow with the message, Keep looking for the colors. They’re all around.
Paige lifted her hands and ran both of them back through her hair. She shook her head as she did it. “I feel like I need a shower because of what she said.”
Bill waited. He knew it was coming.
“Those kids from school, the ones the cops were asking you about—they were having some kind of a contest,” Paige said. “Something to do with girls and sex. Apparently they tried to hook up with as many girls as possible, and each one of them received a certain number of points for each thing they did.”
“Points?” Bill said, his brain trying to process what he was being told. “For what kind of things?”
Paige gave him a warning look. “You know, points for kissing, points for p
etting, points for sex—”
“Oh, God,” Bill said. “I get it.” He shifted in the unforgiving seat, his body unable to get comfortable. “And Summer and Haley . . .”
Paige nodded. “The boys kept a chart. I guess this Clinton kid was the ringleader. He had the chart at his house, and Summer saw it, saw her name on it. Haley’s too. According to Teena, a number of their friends knew about it, whether they were on it or not. You thought she might have been dating one of these kids, the one she went to the dance with. Right? Todd? Maybe that’s why.”
Bill felt nauseated. The shot he’d had with Adam came partway up his throat, leaving a burning taste in his mouth. “That means . . . If she was on there, Summer . . .”
“She could have been on there for any number of things.”
Bill gave Paige a quick look. “Is that supposed to make me feel better?”
“I’m just saying . . . you were worried about her having sex because of the birth control, so maybe she . . . They’re teenagers, Bill. They do things.”
Bill perked up in his seat, the nausea and bad taste diminishing. “Oh, my God. That’s it. That’s it.”
“Slow down, Bill—”
“No, no.” Bill jumped off the couch. He walked to the far end of the room, his heart thudding against his rib cage. “That’s it. Maybe Summer and Haley said something about the chart, so they hurt them. Maybe they threatened to tell. Those boys didn’t want to get caught. They didn’t want to get in trouble. They silenced them. Summer could be so outspoken, so ballsy. She scared them. Hell, I just saw them at the school. You should have seen and heard them.” His hands shook. The tremor spread through his body. “That’s it. Jesus.”
“We don’t know much, Bill. I don’t think it’s as cut-and-dried as you’re making it. But . . .”
“But what?”
“Teena thinks—she’s not sure, but she thinks—those boys were blaming Summer and Haley for people finding out. That maybe the girls talked too much to their friends, like Teena, and now the boys are worried they’re going to get in big trouble.”
“Right. Maybe they decided to tell,” Bill said. “Maybe something got out of hand.”
“Maybe, Bill. All maybes. But Teena didn’t tell any teachers. She doesn’t think anyone in authority at the school knows.” She paused. “Now Teena just feels terrible about the whole thing. I guess she was simultaneously interested in these boys and a little afraid of them.”
“They might beat the daylights out of her too.” Bill stared at the sludgy black coffee, catching a whiff of it as it burned in the pot. “Did she tell the police?”
“She’s been talking to them,” Paige said. “Slowly but surely.”
“Why didn’t Hawkins tell me about it?”
“I’m sure he will in good time,” Paige said. “He probably doesn’t want to give you too much half-baked information. Especially stuff that’s inflammatory.”
Bill fumbled in his pocket, searching for his phone. His hands continued to shake. “I’m calling Hawkins to make sure he’s on this. They can arrest them right now.” He got a grip on the phone and pressed the right buttons. “I hope they do it in front of the entire school.”
“Bill?”
He looked at her while the phone rang and then switched to voice mail.
“What?”
“Just remember. Don’t fixate on what Summer may or may not have done. Let’s fixate on her getting better, okay?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
As the afternoon wore on, Bill’s body felt stiff sitting in the chair in Summer’s room. His knees and back ached, so he stood periodically and stretched. Paige brought him coffee and a sad-looking turkey sandwich from the cafeteria. Stale bread and wilted lettuce.
Bill also called Hawkins a few more times, but Hawkins still didn’t get back to him. Bill floated the idea to Paige of going to the police station in person, but she told him to sit tight, to wait to hear from the detective in his own time.
“He’s busy, Bill,” she said. “Don’t you want him devoting his energies to the investigation instead of talking to you?”
She made sense. Good, hard, logical sense. But the words didn’t extinguish his flaming desire to be out in the world, doing something to find out what happened to his daughter. To find those boys. To talk to them and hold them accountable.
Distractions came in the form of visitors. A couple of teachers came by to talk to Bill and express their concern. Even the principal showed up, an older man named Cole Reynolds who wore a pencil-thin mustache and Italian loafers that looked too small for his stout body. Bill started to tell Reynolds about the boys from the school and the contest he’d learned about.
The principal raised his hand. “I’ve already heard from the police about this.”
“So what are you doing?”
Reynolds reached out, placing his hand gently on Bill’s forearm. Bill looked down at the dark hairs and pale skin, a pair of age spots. “A lot of people are hurting now, Bill. Including you. There’s time for us to deal with these kids after we’ve helped them start to heal.”
Bill tried but could summon no arguments back. He shook Reynolds’s hand and even accepted a partial hug from the man. Everybody seemed to care. It felt good to be part of a web of understanding, to know others noticed pain and tried to ease the burden, even a little. Bouquets of flowers filled the room. Balloons and stuffed animals. A fruit basket and a box of chocolates that Bill and Paige couldn’t keep their hands off.
A group from work came by, bringing an assortment of Bill’s favorite snacks and an update on office gossip. Bill welcomed the distraction, happy to laugh a little about something trivial and small. He told his supervisor he’d be back as soon as he could, and they all rushed to tell Bill not to hurry, to take as much time as he needed.
Bill was feeling drowsy when Dr. Davis came by and studied Summer’s chart as if it contained the solutions to life’s eternal mysteries. Bill stood and waited, his foot half-asleep, the pins-and-needles feeling making him shift his weight like a nervous toddler.
Dr. Davis finally turned to him, her lab coat so blindingly white, it looked fresh out of the package. She wore running shoes, and Bill pictured her sprinting through the hospital, dashing from one awful crisis to the next and not growing winded. “We’re going to move her to our rehab wing. She’s stable now. No breathing difficulties. She can get the best care for her needs there instead of in ICU.”
Bill waited for the doctor to say more, and when she didn’t, he asked, “This is a good thing, right? Moving to rehab?”
“It’s a step toward a more complete recovery.”
“Is she going to wake up soon?” he asked, a sliver of a plea in his voice. He knew the doctor wasn’t a magician or a god—she couldn’t conjure a full recovery out of thin air—but he couldn’t not ask. He needed to know.
“Her body’s going to decide that,” Davis said. “They may be able to move her tonight.”
“Can I ask you something else?” Bill said. “She makes faces. She looks agitated, maybe in pain. Is that normal?”
“She may be in pain. We’re controlling it as much as we can.”
“But she looks like she wants to say something, like she wants to get something out but can’t.”
“She may be trying to speak. That’s a good sign.”
When she left, her running shoes squeaking, Bill looked at Paige. “You know what, Paige? I’m counting this move to rehab as a small victory. I just have to see it that way. And the faces and the trying to talk. The doctor’s right—it’s a good sign.”
Paige nodded, her face earnest.
Bill said, “Compared to a family about to bury a daughter, we’re looking pretty good.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Bill stepped into his darkened, quiet house at six thirty that evening. He flipped lights on as he moved b
ack to the bedroom, his footsteps the only sound. He felt like a stranger inside the space, someone who had walked into a place once inhabited by other people, people who had left fragments of their life behind.
He tried not to stop, but he did. He froze in the doorway to Summer’s room. He left the light off, but enough filtered through from the streetlights outside that he saw the vague shape of the bed and the desk, the glint against the picture frames. It was a dark hole to go down, and he didn’t have the time. He tore himself away.
Bill fumbled in his closet, grabbing a sport coat and a tie he hadn’t worn since an awards dinner at work six months earlier. He put on clean pants and a white shirt, then stepped into black shoes that had sat untouched for so long, they’d acquired a layer of dust. After knotting the tie under his chin, he studied himself in the mirror. More of his scalp showed through his hair, and he used a comb to part it one way and then the other, finally giving up. He decided age, the inexorable march of time, was winning the battle. Some days the march seemed to be going right over him, leaving him dusty and dazed.
He didn’t want to go to the funeral. The visitation started at the school at five o’clock, and it would be more than halfway over by the time Bill arrived. And because of Julia’s death—and Summer’s injuries—he understood what Haley’s family members were going through. They were contemplating the thousands and thousands of days they’d been robbed of, the glittering path of dreams and aspirations that no longer stretched hopefully before them. Yes, memories brought comfort, but looking backward proved only so satisfying. Parents were hardwired to look ahead, to plan and dream. Haley’s family couldn’t do that anymore. Bill felt it like an ice pick in his guts. Haley’s family was feeling it worse. Much, much worse.
He took a deep breath, psyching himself up for what lay ahead. Hundreds of scared, grief-stricken kids. Hundreds of shell-shocked parents. People would talk to him. They’d offer him comforting words, or they’d look at him askance, wondering how or why he let his daughter walk out the door of his house without knowing where she was going. Those things weren’t the worst. The worst was how easily he could picture himself in Candy Rodgers’s place, burying his daughter instead of waiting out a long, slow recovery.