“I’m so sorry to drag this up for you,” Phee says.
“You’re not sorry. Dragging it up is exactly what you’re trying to do.”
“All right. I admit it. But I am sorry for causing hurt. Not my intention.”
“I’ve told you all I know. Mitch went out there. Next thing I know, I get a phone call. My husband is dead, my brother’s in the hospital, everybody’s very sorry for my loss, yada yada yada. Are we done? I need to go make breakfast for Dad.”
“So, can I? Bring Braden and Allie to the cabin?”
“And what if he doesn’t remember? Or what if he does and it makes him worse?”
“I know it sounds crazy, but with all due respect, I don’t think it can get much worse. Allie wants to die, and he’s not far behind.”
“When you put it that way, not so crazy as all that. Good luck getting him here. He hasn’t been in town since the accident. Didn’t even come for Mom’s funeral.”
Phee takes this as a yes. “How do I get to the cabin?”
“If you can get him out here, you bring him straight by my place first. Do you have a time frame?”
“As soon as they release Allie, so it depends on her recovery. How big is the cabin?”
“Why?”
“Well, if I could, I’d like to bring a few of his friends.”
“There’s a loft, two bedrooms, a pullout sofa. We’ve slept eight, but it’s pretty cozy.”
“Perfect,” Phee says. “Do I need to bring sleeping bags?”
“I’ll take care of the bedding if you take care of the food.”
“Done. Please don’t tell him I called. We’re going to need the element of surprise.”
“You’re going to need the element of ambush,” Jo says. “Good luck. I think you’re going to need it.”
Chapter Thirty
ALLIE
It’s nearly nine o’clock before Allie’s eyes flicker open, and she withdraws her hand from Braden’s grasp.
Phee has called, twice, to check on her and see if Braden needs a ride home. The doctor has made rounds, assuring him that they’ll keep her today for observation but that she’s fine, really. No permanent damage. Also to warn him that a crisis worker will be stopping in to make sure there is a plan going forward.
“Have a good sleep?” Braden asks as his daughter’s eyes focus in on him. She answers him with a question of her own.
“Why?”
This isn’t going to be one of the innocent questions of her childhood. No “why is the sky blue?” or even the dreaded why of the birds and the bees. He braces himself to give her the truth about whatever she asks, keeping his tone as light as he can. “Why what? You’ll need to be a little more specific.”
“Why didn’t you come and meet me that day? Where were you?”
That day. The day her mother and her brother were extinguished from her world.
It’s an effort to breathe past the obstruction in his throat, the tightness in his chest that could be grief or the beginnings of a panic attack or an ill-timed heart attack. He can’t lie to her. Not here. Not now.
“I was drunk.” He wants to soften the harsh truth, to shield both of them, but he bites back the excuses.
“Too drunk to remember?”
Braden pokes at his memory of that day, taking his time. Sorting through the feelings, the thoughts and decisions. Allie makes a small sound like a wounded creature and rolls away from him.
“I didn’t forget, Allie. It was the only thing on my mind for days. I’d stopped drinking the day you messaged me on Facebook. Had stayed sober for months. You, coming back into my life, was the first thing worth getting sober for in years. You have to believe that.”
“Then why?”
All the pain of the weeping world in her voice. He wants to beat himself to a bloody pulp for having added to her suffering. But his penance is the slower and more exquisitely agonizing act of feeling her pain, and his own, and speaking truth when lies would be easier for both of them.
“I was afraid . . .”
And there it is, the panic. Waiting in ambush.
His vision darkens at the edges. His heartbeat thrums through his body, too fast, too loud. He’s suffocating, can’t get control of his breathing.
“Dad! Dad! Are you okay?”
He manages to nod, to get a good breath in, to gasp: “Panic attack. It’ll pass.”
Little by little, the flood of adrenaline fades, leaving him limp and exhausted. “I had a bad attack that morning,” he says.
She doesn’t voice the why this time, but he feels it, hears it in the tension of her body, in the way she breathes.
“I woke up excited. Finally, I was going to get to see you. And then the panic hit, and the next clear thought I had was three days later when Alexandra called to tell me—well, to tell me.”
“I was scared, too,” Allie says. “But I showed up, anyway.”
“I’ve got no excuse. It was just . . . all of the lost years swamped me. The fear that you would be a stranger to me. The idea of being awkward with you, of not knowing what to say, of seeing judgment in your eyes and knowing how deeply I’d failed you.”
“Why panic today, though? Why now? Is it still me?”
“Well, I am terrified by the thought of losing you, that you tried to kill yourself. But the panic . . .” Dark wings flutter at the edges of his vision. He takes a breath. “Something happened at the cabin, when I hurt my hands. Phee showing up and talking about that ridiculous curse, trying to make me remember, that’s making the panic worse.”
Both of them are quiet for a long moment.
“I was going to take you to my audition,” Allie says in a small voice. “For the University of Washington School of Music.”
Pride and shame and a sense of wonder fill his heart to overflowing.
“I’ll never forgive myself for missing it. What did you play?”
“I was supposed to play the C Minor.”
“That’s incredibly impressive. Steph said you were brilliant, but I thought she might be a tiny bit biased.”
“Steph is over the top about everything.” She smiles as she says it, but then her eyes narrow. “When did you talk to Steph?”
“She was worried about you. Came over to the house a while back to check on you and threatened me with pepper spray.”
Allie actually laughs at that, the most beautiful sound Braden thinks he’s ever heard, but it ends far too quickly.
“I should let her know what happened.” Silence for a moment, and then: “C Minor is the piece you were working on. Before. The last one I remembered.”
“Oh, Allie.” He lets this all sink in. “You said you were going to play the C Minor. What happened?”
“I played the lullaby,” she says very softly. “The one you used to play for me. Do you remember?”
“Whatever possessed you to play that?”
“Because it was yours,” she says simply, as if this is the sort of obvious thing he should have known. Grass is green, the sun provides light, and his daughter played a song at an audition that he wrote for her when she was a baby. Something classical would surely have been expected, and yet she had played something new, a song that linked her to her father.
The awesome audacity of her rocks him, shifts his internal architecture in a way he feels but could never find words for.
“I wish I’d been there” is all he can say. “Maybe you could still play it for me. When you’re out of here. After we get home.”
“It got them killed.” Allie’s voice, quiet before, is now barely more than a whisper. “Mom had to take Trey to an appointment because I snuck off to my audition instead.”
Her words knock the breath out of him.
“Oh my God, Allie. You can’t be thinking this is your fault! It was an accident. Accidents happen.”
“There’s no other way to think about it. If I hadn’t gone, if I’d done what Mom asked, they’d both be alive. But I was playing the cello inst
ead.”
“What happened to your mom, to Trey, was a horrible, terrible, tragic thing, but it’s not your fault! Do you have any idea how many other kids were playing hooky in Seattle that day? And none of them had their families wiped out like that.”
“Maybe it’s the curse, the one Phee was talking about. Because I was playing the cello. Mom always said music was a curse and—”
“No!” She startles at the vehemence in his voice, and he softens it. “If there were a curse, which there’s not, it’s from not playing. You did exactly right, Allie. It happened because your mother didn’t see all that you are, and tried to make you somebody else.”
Braden holds his breath. Allie might be listening. There’s a quality to the silence that feels different. A slight easing of the tension in her jaw.
“Your mother wouldn’t want you to ruin your life out of guilt.”
“No. She’d expect me to make her sacrifice worthwhile. Go to medical school. Be a doctor.”
“Is that what you want?”
“Does it matter what I want?”
“Of course it matters. It’s your life. You get to live it however you want. But if you’re a musician, Allie, then you have to play music. It’s part of who you are.”
“What about you? You’re not playing.”
“Don’t model your life on mine, for the love of God,” he says. “And I really can’t use my hands. I’m not faking.”
Before she can answer, the door opens and a man comes in. He has a nice face, a pleasant, open smile, but the name tag clipped to his shirt labels him a professional. “Mind if I come in?” he asks, but doesn’t wait for permission before drawing up a chair on the other side of Allie’s bed.
“How are you doing?” he asks.
She eyes him with mistrust and says nothing, using the remote on the bed to adjust herself to a sitting position while simultaneously drawing the blanket protectively up around her chin.
“Allie Healey, yes?” the man asks. “And are you her father?”
Allie nods. Braden reads the name tag. Tom Michaels, Crisis and Commitment Services. “You’re the mental-health guy.”
Tom hands Braden a business card, smiling and nodding as if he’s admitting to being the tooth fairy, rather than the man who could lock Allie in a psych ward.
“Is this really necessary?” Braden asks, recoiling from the word “commitment” on the card. “I’ll hook her up with a counselor. Keep a close eye on her.”
“This is necessary,” Tom replies, serious now. “You don’t have to talk to me, but it’s in your best interest. Allie, it’s my job to decide whether it will be safe to let you go home, or whether we need to hold you somewhere safer as soon as you’re medically clear.”
Allie stares at him in shock. “What do you mean, safer?”
“There’s a mental-health unit especially for juveniles—”
“A psych unit, you mean? Like, the loony bin? No. You can’t send me there.” She turns to Braden, her eyes wide with shock. “Dad. You’re not going to let him do this!”
“I’m not going anywhere” is all Braden can think to say.
Tom hands over papers that explain the laws under which he operates. Anything Braden or Allie say can be used in the decision to hold her against her will for seventy-two hours.
“After the seventy-two hours, there would be a court hearing to decide whether to release you or keep you longer,” he explains.
“Well, then, I’m not talking to you,” Allie says, pale but defiant.
Tom smiles gently. “You can do that, of course. But the fact is that you tried to kill yourself. So, if you don’t want to go to the psych unit, you’ll need to convince me why it’s safe to let you go home.”
“This is bullshit!” she says. “Dad, tell him!”
There is nothing that Braden can say. He looks again at the very official paperwork in his hands and then at the man sitting beside Allie’s bed. He thinks about how close she came to death and wonders if maybe Tom is right.
“I’d rather be safe than sorry,” Tom says. “A life is a beautiful thing to waste.”
“I’d watch her, of course,” Braden says. “Around the clock.”
“I’m sorry to say this,” Tom says apologetically, “but my understanding is that you didn’t know where she’d gone last night. So I’m not sure about your ability to keep her under observation.”
“But I won’t run off anymore,” Allie pleads. “It was all Ethan’s idea . . .” Her face goes slack and she lets out a little cry. “I’m a horrible person. I didn’t even ask. Is he okay? Can I talk to him?”
“He’s been transferred to Harborview,” Tom says quietly. “He’s on a breathing machine, and they don’t know yet if he’ll recover. But he’s still alive, and that’s good news.”
Allie starts to cry.
Helpless anger simmers in Braden’s belly. He wants to shield her from all of this. Carry her somewhere far away from the harsh realities she’s facing. “This isn’t exactly helpful,” he says. “Could it maybe wait until she’s stronger?”
“We’re not discussing anything she’s not going to be feeling within the next few days, Mr. Healey, and we’re doing it here where she’s safe. Avoiding talking about things is much more dangerous than having conversations.” Tom levels an assessing gaze at Braden. “Are you an avoider, Mr. Healey?”
Braden takes a breath, struggles to keep his tone level. “This isn’t about me—”
“I’m afraid it’s very much about you, sir. Suicide always involves family dynamics. How could it not? Professionally, what I would suggest is that Allie be voluntarily admitted to the psych unit, rather than detained. That way you keep the legal system out of her treatment.”
“I am not volunteering for that!” Allie declares.
“You’re underage,” Tom says gently. “In your case, your father would be the one to voluntarily sign you in.”
“I’m seventeen years old! He doesn’t get to decide anything for me!”
“Actually, he does. How about it, Mr. Healey? Get her urgent help, keep her safe, avoid the legal system getting involved in her treatment.”
Braden feels the room closing in. This is how he felt the night Mitch died. Trapped. Horrified by a choice that is not a choice. Allie’s safety is of the utmost importance. But the small, fragile trust that has just begun to grow between them with the conversation they’ve just had, this is also of the utmost importance, not just for him but for her. Maybe it, too, is connected to her safety.
“If you do this, I will never forgive you,” Allie says. “Never.”
“And if you don’t?” Tom asks. “If you don’t and she tries again, and succeeds, will you forgive yourself?”
Braden has never forgiven himself for anything. Not for the ruin of his marriage. Not for Mitch’s death. Not for the alcohol, or leaving his kids, or the accident that killed Lilian and Trey. If something happens now, to Allie . . .
“Am I interrupting?”
In that moment, Phee looks to Braden like an angel in a flannel shirt and faded jeans, smelling of French fries and bacon, a bulging McDonald’s bag in her hand.
“They’re trying to put me in the insane asylum,” Allie says.
Tom gets to his feet. “We are having an important meeting, if you would excuse us. We won’t be much longer.”
“Phee is family,” Braden says. “She should be here.” The words don’t feel like a lie. Phee is the one person in the world who understands what is happening here. The only person he trusts to help him with this impossible choice.
“The more support Allie has, the better,” Tom says. “Come on in, then. Maybe one of the nurses could find us another chair?”
“I’ll stand.” She crosses the room and stops behind Braden’s chair, one hand coming to rest on his shoulder. He covers it with one of his own. “You look better,” she says to Allie.
“Well, I’m not! This is so incredibly unfair!”
“What’s unfai
r about it?” Tom asks. “Tell me. I want to hear it, Allie.”
“I don’t even want to die! I told you it was all Ethan’s idea.”
“But you went along with it.”
“Everything was so utterly fucked up. I didn’t see the point. And then, when it was too late . . .” The tears begin sliding down her cheeks again, and her sob destroys whatever is left of Braden’s heart. “When it was too late, I realized what I was doing was all . . . He lied to me!”
“Who? Your father?” Tom asks.
“No! Ethan. He had this whole story about death that was all a lie. He lied to get me there, because he didn’t want to die alone. He lied when he threw away my phone. He even lied about his dad killing himself. He spun this whole weird reality story that made death seem like the only option. And when I figured that out, I thought . . . I thought if I was going to die, I at least wanted my death to be true. I tried to call for help, only my fingers wouldn’t work and I dropped the phone . . .” Her voice breaks, and she buries her face in her knees and sobs.
Braden feels the tears on his own face now. Phee’s hand tightens on his shoulder. There are no words for the heartbreak and guilt and love he feels for this woman-child. She’s been hurt so much already, but she’s so incredibly strong.
“I don’t think the psych unit is the right place for her,” he says when he can get his voice under control. “Please. I’ll schedule her with a counselor. I’ll watch her.”
“You have to sleep sometime,” Tom says. “I know this is hard, but safety—”
“We’ll all watch her,” Phee says. “Her father. Me. Our friends. We’ll take it in shifts.”
Braden tips his head back to look at her. What friends? He wants to ask, but her face tells him not to ask questions, not now.
“Please,” Allie begs. “Can we just do that? Steph would come, too, I know she would, whenever she doesn’t have to be at school. I promise to stay at the house and never go anywhere ever again. Just don’t make me go to that place.”
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