The Waiting Hours

by Shandi Mitchell

  He sat in the uncomfortable metal chair across from her and told her about hitting the man and gave a description. The officer took notes and watched his face closely. She sat very still. She seemed tired, perhaps even bored. She asked if he would describe the man as unstable. Yes, he said, yes, I would. She took his phone number, ID, and cab credentials, verified the location, and said a car would be sent to the area and hospitals would be contacted. Twice she asked him how to pronounce his name and then had him write it down. She thanked him for coming in to report the incident and gathered up her papers.

  “There’s more,” he said.

  Sighing, she settled back in the stiff wooden chair, but didn’t pick up her pencil. He told her about the book and Her. His wife. The poet. He told her everything about then and there.

  First, he said the little words that were easy to say and he tried not to rush. He tried to tell the whole story without blackened-out words. Sometimes the words of there and here tangled and he had to unknot them. He tried to name the long, open vowels of grief and the hard, sheared consonants of destruction. When his voice cracked, he leaned in closer and spoke all the true words he hadn’t yet said. Across from him, her face unreadable, the police officer stared back.

  He filled the room with his words. Some words had to be touched. Callused and scarred. Or gently lifted up to be seen. Words motionless and staring. Bruised words. Broken words. Hushed words that spoke her name. Words that seared and punished. Word that knelt. Words that begged forgiveness.

  He breathed the words nuzzled between heartbeats. Soft and shy, cooing remembrances nearly forgotten. Words touching soft as lips and fingers entwining. Late-night words cuddled close. Firefly words. Sun words. Barefoot words. Ocean words larger than any life ever lived, salting tongues with promises of forever. Words of before that folded hearts inside out and said, Here, here, here. A poet’s words. Her words. He rolled up his sleeves and lifted his shirt and showed the officer his scars. She didn’t flinch. The words became invisible and their presence throbbed incandescent, until they dissolved seeping into pores, coursing through veins, tattooing dreams.

  He never reached The End. There wasn’t a resolve or release. There wasn’t even a period. Simply an exhale.

  The officer didn’t take notes. Her eyes gave no indication that she had heard. Her stare was controlled and hard. She collected her papers and when she stood the chair legs scraped the floor.

  “You’re free to go, sir.”

  “I’m guilty,” he said.

  The police officer swallowed. “That’s not for me to judge.”

  52

  Zeus woofed and pawed at her ribs. Kate inhaled sun-dried sheets and morning glories, and stretched luxuriantly. She opened her eyes to blue-grey twilight, green chenille, and her childhood room. Had she dreamed herself old?

  Nestled beside her, Zeus wagged Good morning. Ah, she thought, this is me. And her life rushed back in. Her neck was stiff from the sagging springs and her tongue was thick with sour. But she had slept, a deep, uninterrupted sleep, and she thought, This is a good day. Zeus was panting. “Okay,” she said. “Out.” And he leapt from the bed.

  Her mother’s house was quiet in the dim twilight. Padding barefoot down the hall, she glanced into Matthew’s room, but didn’t look beyond his abandoned sneakers. From the landing, she could see etched in the living room’s bare floors the ghost trail of claw marks left behind by raucous, joyous dogs that had chased her around and around the house playing Find Me. She followed their scratches down the stairs, conjuring their names step by step. She could feel the brush of them against her legs. Zeus scrambled past her. His every wakening a wondrous new day.

  Freed of angels, the living room looked larger. She moved from window to window opening the drapes. Night blue was giving way to sailors take warning. With the room cleared out, she could see the rich patina of the original wood trim and the exposed field-stone hearth that hadn’t been lit since she was a child. It was a strong, honest house that had been hiding for too long.

  Zeus whined at the kitchen side door. She opened it to green and birdsong. The morning smelled of grass and honeysuckle. His head bopped into the screen door, which confused him and made her smile. The mesh was snagged and the bottom rail gnawed by puppy teeth. She pushed it open with her toes and he bolted outside. The step was missing and the earth was scuffed bare where her mother stood to hang laundry. Zeus huffed the ground for the best spot, then lifted his leg on a scraggly rose bush.

  She put on the kettle and waited for the water to boil. The floor was cool beneath her feet. She filled a mug with instant coffee and powdered creamer. Matthew would return before the storm hit. Even birds and animals knew to seek shelter. She retrieved a box of macaroni and cheese and set it on the counter. She would prepare a pot and leave it on the stove. There was nothing more she could do right now.

  She stared out the window above the sink at her mom’s view of a hydrangea tree laden with fading pink blossoms. The base of its trunk was laced purple and white with delphiniums. Raspberry canes hung rich with swollen fruit. A faerie garden. Beautiful, she thought. Zeus barked.

  She peered out but couldn’t see him. He barked again. Loud and clear. The water gurgled a low boil. She shut off the stove and picked up his ball. She only hesitated a moment before stepping outside.

  The grass was dewy. Night blooms perfumed the blueing sky, greening trees, and fading moon. The stars were gone and the highest crowns of heavy leaves were gilding gold. Zeus barrelled around the corner. His eyes were bright and his tail high. He swung around, waiting for her. Birds were exalting and crows complaining. “Remember this,” she said. Zeus’s head swung around, but the words were for her.

  “Show me,” she said.

  Before rounding the back of the house, she softened her shoulders, made her muscles loose and her posture non-threatening. She stepped into the tall wildflowered grass certain that there had once been a path. Zeus raced ahead to the rotting woodpile at the edge of the property. He bowed and barked. Loud and sure.

  “Good boy,” she said.

  He ran back, nudged her hand, and she tossed his ball towards the house. Orange and blue, it disappeared in the high grass. He pounced, flattening it in his jaws, and the ball squealed. His ears pricked forward and he dropped it. Plopping down, he gently picked it up again and squeezed out soft, joyous peeps.

  Kate stepped around the woodpile. She saw his feet first. His stiff, tattered socks and bloodied heels. Matthew was sitting with his back to her, leaning into the stack of wood. He was shirtless and his left arm was loose at his side. One scapula was higher and dislocated slightly back and his jutting shoulder blades seemed plucked of wings. He was wheezing in and out.

  “Hello, Matthew,” she said in her softest, safest voice. The one she hoped he would remember. Clutched hard against his rib cage was a page torn from a book. In his other hand was a ragged strip of paper. His eyes darted across her and over to Zeus, back to her feet, up her legs, along her torso, before he found her eyes. Strewn around him were shredded pages. Keeping her distance, she crouched down and trained her eyes on the ground so as not to startle him.

  “You’re hurt,” she said, making herself small and still. “Can I look at your arm?” She inched closer. “Are you having trouble breathing?”

  She suspected a punctured lung or internal bleeding. His ribs were bruised and she wondered if someone had beaten him up. He tucked his lame limb closer. “Is that where it hurts?” She leaned in for a better look and he retreated, wincing. She pulled back.

  “I won’t come closer.” Squatting, she rested her arms on her knees so he could see the calm of her hands. She looked at his tender, battered feet. “Can you get up?”

  His hollowed chest rose and fell.

  “There’s a bad storm coming. You can’t stay here, Matthew.” He watched her mouth say his name. “You’re hurt. We should go to the hospital.”

  He exhaled a ragged “No.”

  She lo
oked at his starved, broken body and searched for her brother in his blue-grey eyes. “Please,” she said.

  “I found it, Katie.” His pupils consumed his eyes. She looked at the scrap of paper in his trembling hand. It looked like Arabic. An ant wandered over his wrist.

  “That’s good,” she said.

  “I know how it ends.” He was smiling at her. She thought it was a smile.

  “Okay.” She smiled back. “I won’t worry, then.”

  She called Zeus. He bounded to her side and followed her to the jeep. He looked back twice to the place where they had left the person behind. She opened the tailgate.

  “Up,” she said.

  Dropping his ball, he settled in the crate.

  “Good boy.” She pressed her forehead to his and kissed his brow. He looked at her with soft, searching eyes. She closed the hatch and rolled down the windows. When she returned to the house, she took care not to let the screen door slam.

  She made her coffee and drank it down, bitter and lukewarm. She rinsed her cup, tidied the counter, and put away the macaroni. The kitchen looked cheery in the brightening light.

  She slid back her T-shirt sleeve. Her shoulder was mottled purple and greenish yellow from ramming his door, and her forearms were thorned with scratches from the search. She picked at the scabs until they bled.

  “911. What is your emergency?”

  The words choked. Her knuckles rapped her welted cheek.

  “911. What is your emergency?”

  “My brother…” She pressed her hand to her chest to keep her heart from falling out. “My brother attacked me.”

  53

  Mike one-finger-typed the last of his notes. His on-board computer was positioned high and too far right, twisting his back with each tap. Attempted suicide transferred to hospital custody 5:10 a.m. He double-checked the logbook splayed on his lap. Tonight had filled the last pages. He drew a hard, diagonal line through the entries. Soon it would be locked in the closet safe and that would be that.

  Ten minutes to shift end. It was that odd time when the street lamps were on but the world had already emerged from night. He had returned to the street where so much had gone wrong and some had gone right. He wanted to see it again in the light. Across the harbour, the sun crested, burnishing the horizon gold. He considered retrieving his sunglasses, but they were in the glove compartment and he couldn’t bend that far. On the bridge, vehicles with their headlights still on spanned the sky heading towards the city to start another day. Sun skimmed the Square’s rooftops, glinting windows, burnishing bricks copper and treetops emerald. Remember it this way, he thought. The overhead street lamp shut off.

  In the dry grass, he could make out Antoine’s white sneaker. He wouldn’t have to search far to find the paint can. “Suspect eluded capture. Identity unknown.” That was his official report. A dull knot wrenched his side. He looked down at the passenger’s seat, at the full bottle of painkillers with her name on the label. He hadn’t lied. He’d told the paramedics what drugs he had found and gave them the empty bottle. He got there in time, that’s what mattered. His stomach churned. He closed his logbook and tucked it beside the seat.

  Soon he would be home. Lori and the boys would be waiting for him at the window. When he had called, he told her he was taking sick leave and heard her breathe out. She said she thought that was a good idea and asked if he wanted eggs and bacon for breakfast. In the background, Connor cooed and Caleb sang I love yous. Lori said she would have a bath waiting, clean sheets, and today he was to do nothing but sleep. She had forgotten about the storm.

  Caleb insisted on talking to him. He said Snappy had been bad and was in the corner, but he’d been good ’cause he didn’t pee the bed last night, but Connor pooed his and Mommy said a bad word f—

  Lori took the phone away and told Mike not to worry. She had put the garbage out last night. Just come home, she said. He was a lucky man.

  He opened the window a crack and morning washed over him. It had been a hell night. He leaned back in his seat and curled his toes. He couldn’t wait to get his tight boots off. He tried not to think about the nurse’s brother’s feet he’d seen at emerg. She had made another call. The officers on scene said it was bad. The guy put up a fight even though he could barely stand. It took three of them to strap him to the gurney, but once they got him in the ambulance he just gave up. They said the sister was beat up pretty bad. Bruised upper arm, bleeding from scratches on her forearms, and her cheek looked like she’d been punched. She was tough, they said. She let them do what had to be done. It was sad, they said. Real sad.

  Mike didn’t tell them he’d seen the mark on her cheek and the same bruise at the edge of her sleeve days ago, or that her scratched arms were scabbing over when she treated his son. He kept his head low, mouth shut, and got out of there. It wasn’t his call. Sometimes it was best to look away.

  “Car 322 to Dispatch.”

  The radio squelched. Dispatch.

  “Car 322 signing off.”

  Copy that. Ten-four.

  It wasn’t Tamara. He wished it was. She would have wished him good days off. The sun was shining and the world was oh so beautiful. He tucked the pill bottle in his inside pocket. The bitter taste of just one more dissolving on his tongue. One more, so he could get out of the car and stand upright. One more, so he could twirl his hat for his sons. He started the engine and noticed a kid coming down the hill. It was Sean.

  For a moment, he wondered if he was already dreaming. He had never seen him in daylight before. His head was down, huddled in his hoodie, and his long straggle of red bangs obscured his face. He had on khaki shorts and his thin white legs in red canvas sneakers made Mike smile. They reminded him of a cartoon, what was that rooster’s name? Poor kid. He’d be okay, though. Mike would make sure of that. Second, third, and fourth chances. Whatever it took. Everybody made mistakes. The kid still hadn’t looked up. He never learned. Mike wondered if he was really worth the effort. Of course he was.

  Sean looked up and in the morning’s rose glow he appeared even younger. He had freckles, a sunburned nose, and the soft curved cheeks of a child, but his tired ice-green eyes looked like a man’s.

  Mike was about to roll down the window and wave good morning, We’re good here, when the kid raised his hand and glass exploded.

  54

  The intercom squawked, Gun trauma, ETA one minute. The trauma team was suited up. Police were already arriving. One officer, easily sixty pounds overweight, was sobbing, crumpled in the arms of another officer who could barely hold him up. Kate thought, Get a grip.

  She was seated outside her brother’s locked-down room. Her fogged mind cleared with the pulse of incoming. The nurses’ station was brittle with preparation. Standing off to the side, the young security guard knew better than to interfere with the blue line clogging the trauma bay entrance.

  A chair had been set up for Kate on the nurse’s side, apart from the civilians. A gift of privacy for one of their own while she waited for the psych consult. Amy had apologized that it could take hours. There was an Attempted ahead of them. The woman’s name was on the board next to Matthew’s. Keira and Matthew apart from the others. She looked down at the towel rolled up against Matthew’s door to filter out light and sound. It was meant to be calming, but served more as a warning to enter with caution.

  Amy said Matthew was sedated and sleeping. She relayed this to the polished floor, because it was easier that way. It was the same reason Kate was asked to wait outside. Three cracked ribs and a dislocated shoulder, but he wouldn’t let them set it. He didn’t like to be touched, but she had already told them that. It was surprising how shiny the floor was. She had refused medical attention for herself. She was fine. Amy gave her a handful of antiseptic wipes to swab her arms, offered tea, and then did the most humane thing she could do. She, and the other nurses, pretended she wasn’t there.

  Sirens wailed closer. Kate stood, and the warm sheet draped around her shoulders slipped
to the floor. She moved towards the bay, her body assuming the calm gait of an ER nurse. She was grateful for the rhythm of a trauma that she understood.

  Dr. Savoy was team lead. He was rocking gently side to side. Rhonda was primary, with Amy, Jenn, and Donna rounding out the team. Her team. She tucked into the corner beside Trauma Room 1 away from the congestion and behind the action. The ambulance was in the bay. Outnumbering medical personnel, officers crowded in, craning to see. The nurses looked small penned in by their wide backs and towering shoulders. She wanted someone to tell them to back off.

  Dr. Savoy said, “We need more space.”

  The wall of blue retreated and the bay doors swung open. The wounded officer was on his side on a blood-smeared gurney. The lead paramedic was holding the oxygen mask in place. Tethered to her, another EMT cradled the tank. A third held a fluid bag aloft while applying pressure to the wound, and a fourth wheeled them in. Their gloves and arms were red.

  “Single gunshot wound, one entrance, left side under arm. Couldn’t find the exit.” Her words were brisk and her eyes sharp. “BP 156 over 109. One unit of blood on scene. Lung collapse.” Curled in a fetal position, the cop was writhing, gasping for air he couldn’t get. It was bad.

  The crying officer with the bloodshot eyes of a drinker tried to reach for him. “Mike, Mike, I’m here!” Two of his colleagues held him back.

  Dr. Savoy asked, “Has his family been notified?” A car was en route.

  The team moved as one towards the ER. Automatically, Kate swiped her ID card and the trauma room doors slid open. She pressed herself small against the wall to allow the EMT at the head to pass. Blood trailed on the floor. The gurney rolled by and the officer’s fear-filled eyes met hers. It was the same cop, the one she didn’t like. He grabbed her hand. Something jabbed her palm. He wouldn’t let go. The paramedic at the rear swept towards her and she was dragged into the trauma room. Rhonda shot her a sharp look.