by E. C. Diskin
“So what’s the plan here?” a man asked.
“No idea,” the guard replied.
“You know what this is? It’s false imprisonment,” the man said casually.
The guard began walking away without a response, and her neighbor yelled after him. “It’s been two days! This is bullshit. Tell my dad he better get me the hell out of here.” The door at the end of the hall slammed shut.
Brooklyn’s panic began to return at the thought of a whole night in here, let alone two days.
She stepped back to the cot and collapsed onto the mattress, the springs squeaking beneath her.
“Hey,” her neighbor said. “I didn’t realize I had company. What are you in for?”
She couldn’t let her mind go back over what had led to this moment. She said nothing.
“Come on,” the neighbor said. “I’m going batty in here. The only person I’ve seen in two days is that guard who escorts me to the bathroom and brings me crappy food.”
Brooklyn didn’t know what to say. She didn’t know what was worse—the silence, fear, and isolation, or a constant dialogue with a criminal.
“Come on, man. What they get you for? Tell you what I’m here for: Nada. Nothin’. It’s BS. Locked up, thanks to my own father.”
Brooklyn stared at the wall between them—they were both locked up because of their dads.
“Well, whatever you did, I hope you’ve got a lawyer,” the man said. “These douchebags are corrupt as hell. I mean, that frickin’ deputy killed a man. You musta heard about that.”
Brooklyn had followed the case, of course. The deputy had shot an unarmed black man after a traffic stop, and the case made national headlines. The man was headed to church at the time and had warned the deputy of a gun in his glove box. Sheriff Wilson had said it was more complicated than the media suggested. And the deputy had been acquitted.
“You know Sheriff Wilson?” he asked.
She leaned forward, waiting for what he’d say next. She was counting on the sheriff’s help. He’d sat with her on the front porch steps as they waited for the EMTs and police to come deal with her dad’s body, his arm around her. He believed her. At least she thought he did. He told her not to worry, even as she was put in the back of the squad car.
“He’s the worst. Probably wants me to die in here. No phone calls, no judge, nothing.”
Brooklyn leaned back against the wall. She hadn’t been offered a phone call yet. Sheriff Wilson had said he’d call Ginny. He was her dad’s best friend. He couldn’t be corrupt, could he?
Just hold on, she silently told herself. Ginny would be there soon. She had to be. There was no one else.
CHAPTER EIGHT
DAY TWO
Tuesday, May 14
BROOKLYN WOKE EARLY, TOOK A quick shower, and pulled out the clothes she’d packed—jeans, leggings, and T-shirts. My hospital uniform, she thought. She hadn’t even packed makeup or jewelry. There was no point. Another reason why she and Tony would never be more than a casual hookup. He always looked photo-ready.
Simon answered the phone when she called Ginny’s house. Brooklyn attempted small talk, but Simon had never been much more than polite when the family gathered on holidays. He’d had no more interest than Ginny did in getting to know her. After a painful pause on the line, she asked for her sister.
“Sorry,” he said, “she can’t get to the phone right now.” He sounded exhausted.
“Is everything okay?”
A short chuckle. “No. Can’t say it is. Listen, I’m sorry, but I need to get the kids off to school. And I’ve got a surgery in an hour.” Simon, a doctor, was probably the best thing that ever happened to Ginny—at least that’s what Mom used to say.
“Is she sick? Can I help?”
“Thanks, but I’ve got it. Ginny’s just hungover,” he said. “Too ill to wake up and be a mother today.”
Ginny’s past struggles with alcohol had never been discussed with her, but when she was still in elementary school, she overheard her mom talking to a few friends in the kitchen while they worked on one of their church fund-raising projects. She’d looked up the term alcoholic online after overhearing their gossip. But she’d thought those issues ended before Ginny’s kids came along.
“Honestly, I don’t know how long this has been going on,” Simon continued, “but she’s a mess.” He seemed relieved to tell someone.
“I’m so sorry.” What else could she say?
“I think Bonnie’s death has hit her hard, and now with John as he is . . . Well, it’s a lot. I know you two aren’t close, but maybe you can help. Just talk to her.”
If Ginny was struggling over losing their parents, they did have some common ground. But Ginny had long ago made it clear she had no use for Brooklyn. She’d never accepted Brooklyn’s offers to babysit, never came to one of her plays at school, never even celebrated her birthday. Brooklyn overheard a conversation once—she must have been about seven at the time—when Ginny chastised their mom for suggesting, years earlier, that Brooklyn be a flower girl in Ginny’s wedding. Brooklyn didn’t even remember Ginny’s wedding, but pictures hung along the stairs. Clearly, she hadn’t been in it. Ginny obviously preferred being an only child or couldn’t handle the fact that Brooklyn and their parents had a good relationship, or maybe she was like all the classmates who simply thought Brooklyn didn’t belong.
“I’m so sorry things are bad,” she said. “I’m just not sure what I can do. She doesn’t even like me, and now she’s trying to get our dad shipped off to some nursing home like she doesn’t care what happens to him. It kind of pits us against one another.”
“I understand.” He didn’t assure Brooklyn that she was wrong about Ginny’s feelings. Even now, it stung. “But I do think she cares about your dad. I mean, she insisted on visiting him both nights this weekend. She seemed worried about him being alone on Mother’s Day in particular, his first without Bonnie. And how lucky, right? I can’t imagine what might have happened if she hadn’t been with him when he fell. Almost felt divine, given how little she’s visited over the years.”
Ginny had told Brooklyn she found their dad unconscious when she arrived on Sunday, but Simon had just said she was with him when it happened. “Did she tell you about those visits over the weekend? Did she say how my dad fell?”
“She called me from the hospital on Sunday night. She said they talked about their day, she told him about all the nice things the kids had done for her on Mother’s Day, and then she made him some dinner. She said he made a remark about Bonnie that concerned her, like he’d forgotten she was gone, and after he left the kitchen, she heard him fall in the living room.”
It was an entirely different story than what Ginny had told Brooklyn. Why would she lie about whether she was at the house with him when he fell? She’d even told Brooklyn she found him in the study but told Simon he fell in the living room. It made no sense.
“Anyway,” Simon continued, “I’ve really got to finish making the kids’ lunches and get going.”
“Of course, I’ll catch up with her later. Oh, one more thing, do you know if she’d going to see our dad today or does she have to work?”
“What do you mean?”
“What do you mean, what do I mean?”
“Brooklyn, Ginny isn’t working.”
“She stopped nursing? How did I not know that?” But the answer was obvious. They’d shared no more than brief, stilted family visits maybe twice a year. They were strangers.
“We thought the strain was too much,” Simon continued. “She had such trouble holding her pregnancies to term. She left nursing before Mikey was born.”
Mikey was now twelve. Ginny hadn’t had a job in twelve years. Brooklyn thought back to Ginny’s text yesterday morning and repeated its essence to Simon—that she couldn’t talk because she was at work.
“Maybe she was referring to work around the house. I don’t know,” Simon answered curtly. His patience was ending.
Hers too. Her father’s words, meant for Ginny, echoed back to her: “I forgive you.” She needed some straight answers.
When Brooklyn arrived at the hospital, Sheriff Wilson was seated in the chair beside the bed, and Dad was awake.
“Wow! Look who’s up!” she exclaimed, entering the room. The color was back in his cheeks. He was still looking too fragile, but at least he was awake and talking to his friend.
The sheriff stood, always the country gentleman. “Mornin’, Brooky.”
Her dad’s face dropped when he saw her. “What are you doing here?”
“I had to come, Dad. Don’t you remember? I was here last night too.”
“I don’t remember a thing,” he said. “I don’t know what the heck I’m doing here.” He attempted to prop himself up and immediately winced.
Brooklyn quickly stepped forward. “Dad, you probably shouldn’t try to move yet. You broke your hip and hit your head.”
“Hmm,” he said stoically, raising his hand to his forehead, as if he needed proof that he’d been hurt. “Well,” he continued, “you’re both making me feel like I’m on death’s door, hovering over me like this. Wilson, please don’t tell me you made a special trip. Brooklyn, did you call him?”
“She didn’t,” the sheriff assured him. “I’ve got official business in the hospital, actually.”
“Is it Darius Woods?” Brooklyn asked curiously, dropping her purse on the table. “I heard about the shooting on TV last night.”
“Another fan, eh? Yup. Looks like Eden’s giving me one last case before retirement.”
“How’s he doing?” she asked. “The news last night said it was critical.”
“Say some prayers. Last I checked it didn’t sound too good.”
The thought that he might die tugged on her heart. It shouldn’t have mattered as much as it did. Darius Woods was a stranger. That was the thing about celebrities. Everyone felt like they knew them.
“John, let’s talk about you,” the sheriff continued. “How’d this happen?”
Brooklyn pulled the other chair closer to the bed to join them while her dad considered the question. “Was Ginny with you when you fell?” she added.
“Ginny . . . The garden flooded, and B . . .” Dad paused as if he were trying to remember.
Brooklyn looked at the sheriff, who appeared equally confused. She didn’t know if her father suddenly thought he was talking to Ginny about her mom, or if he was talking about Ginny to her mom. Either way, he wasn’t making sense.
“What do you remember, John?” Sheriff Wilson asked.
Her dad stared down at the white sheets covering his legs and said nothing. He looked up, opened his mouth to speak, but suddenly his focus moved to the doorway.
Brooklyn and the sheriff followed his gaze.
“What’s going on here?” Ginny asked from the door.
The sheriff stood to greet her, but Ginny remained where she was, like she wanted a quick escape.
Simon’s words swirled in Brooklyn’s mind. Ginny was drinking again. She’d told Simon she was with her dad when he fell, not that she’d found him after. And now her cheeks were flushed. Was it the aftereffects of a binge, or had she been listening just now, nervous about whatever their dad might say about how his injuries had happened?
“We were just trying to find out what happened on Sunday night,” Brooklyn answered.
“I don’t think he knows,” Ginny said, finally taking a step inside. “Isn’t that right, John?”
When Brooklyn had been old enough to wonder why Ginny called their dad John, her mom explained that Ginny was a grown-up now, so she liked calling him by his first name. “Does she call you Bonnie?” Brooklyn had asked. But Mom laughed, mumbling, “Only when she’s angry.”
Everyone’s focus returned to Dad, but he simply turned away, gazing absently out the window.
“Why are you here?” Ginny asked the sheriff, her tone unmistakably rude.
“Sheriff’s here about the Darius Woods shooting,” Brooklyn said. “Did you hear about it?”
Ginny opened her mouth to reply, but another officer arrived behind her. “Excuse me, folks,” he said. Ginny visibly jumped. “Sheriff, you have a minute?” he asked.
“Sure, I better get going. Johnny boy, you take it easy,” Sheriff Wilson said, walking toward the door. “Get up and pace these halls. That’s the fastest way out. I’ll be back. Girls, as always, great to see you both.”
“You too,” Brooklyn said. Ginny said nothing as she stepped aside while the sheriff passed.
“Neighbor saw someone at Woods’s house,” the officer said as they walked away.
Ginny watched them leave, as if nothing in Dad’s room was more important. When she finally turned her attention back to Dad, Brooklyn turned to him and put her hand on his. “Can we finish this conversation? I want to understand what happened on Sunday night.”
“I told you,” Ginny said, coming closer. “He fell.”
“I’d like to hear what Dad has to say,” Brooklyn said curtly.
Slowly, Dad’s gaze moved from the window to his girls. “Enough questions,” he said, irritated.
Brooklyn looked to Ginny for answers, but she was silent.
“You girls better get going,” he said, closing his eyes. “My family will be here soon.”
“We are your family,” Ginny said. “It’s Ginny and Brooklyn.”
He opened his eyes quickly and looked at Ginny. “It’s going to be okay. Don’t worry.” He closed his eyes again and began muttering incoherently.
Brooklyn paced to the window, agitation threatening to send her shooting out of her skin. She was on the outside of whatever was happening here, whatever had happened. Either something was going on between these two or her dad really was confused. She looked down on the parking lot, the media trucks below. She had no idea what to do. If Ginny was right about Dad’s dementia, there would be no way to avoid selling the house and the store. He couldn’t live alone and run a business by himself.
Ginny stood beside her. “I told you,” she said in a lowered voice.
“Why did he just tell you not to worry?”
“There’s no making sense of this, Brooklyn. That could have been about anything.”
“Well, this could be the anesthesia,” Brooklyn insisted. She’d googled memory issues last night, and the drugs could do a number on cognitive function, particularly for older patients. One website suggested the effects could last for months.
“It’s not,” Ginny said.
Brooklyn looked back at Dad. His eyes were closed. His mouth had fallen open like he was already sound asleep. “We should have him evaluated by a doctor,” she said softly.
“Brooklyn, this is real. I’m sorry. It’s been going on for a while. Mom didn’t want you to worry.”
It felt like a slap. More secrets. She didn’t think she could handle learning her mom had kept this from her too. “When did all this begin? I’ve only been away eighteen months.”
“I don’t know. Last summer when Mom went to New York to help you, she asked me to check on him while she was away.”
Brooklyn and her mom had talked all the time. There had been dozens of phone calls in the months before she died. Each of them haunted her as she recalled Mom’s cheerful disposition and interest in Brooklyn’s life, while offering only generalizations and superficial stories about Eden. She’d said nothing about the cancer, nothing about Dad’s memory problems. Her mom had always preached honesty, grounding Brooklyn for any white lie that crossed the threshold of their home. “Lies will destroy your soul,” she always said. And yet, her omissions were far worse than any tall tale Brooklyn had spun as a kid.
She’d taken away Brooklyn’s chance to be there, to help, to cherish those final days. And now the same thing was happening with her father. Did they really believe she was too fragile to handle it? If anyone was fragile, it was her alcoholic sister.
Brooklyn’s back stiffened, and she bit on her lip, work
ing the chapped skin in her teeth. The idea that Ginny knew more about their parents than she did was infuriating.
She turned to Ginny. “You look terrible.”
“Well, thanks,” Ginny said sarcastically.
Brooklyn immediately regretted the comment and thought of Simon’s plea for help. “I just mean you look like you haven’t been sleeping. I wish you wouldn’t act as if you need to handle this alone. I’m here. I can help. I want to be involved in these decisions.”
Ginny nodded and turned around, resting against the AC as she answered. “I know you do.”
It was an irritating response. What she meant was Brooklyn wanted to help but couldn’t because she either wasn’t really family or wasn’t really an adult. Brooklyn’s olive branch was getting heavy.
“Who’s taking care of the store right now?” Brooklyn asked.
“I put a sign in the window yesterday saying it was closed until further notice. People will understand.”
The calls would probably start coming to the house. Locals would worry. It was that kind of town. Her dad had opened Anderson’s General Store in the early seventies, right after returning from the war. In the nearly fifty years since, Anderson’s had become as central to Eden as a town square. The store carried food, hardware, a little liquor, essential drugstore items, hunting equipment, and some popular guns and ammo—all the basics.
“I’ll go over there and see if there are any bills that need handling or deliveries to deal with.”
“Suit yourself,” Ginny said.
Brooklyn had practically grown up in that store. She knew how to review inventory and track vendors. Perhaps it would make her dad feel better to know she’d put everything in order.
She leaned against the AC beside Ginny, watching her dad. “Is it normal for him to be out so much? I mean, I’ve been here most of the time since dinner last night, and he’s been up for like two minutes.”
“Yeah, that’s normal.”
Starting a conversation with Ginny was like pulling teeth. She needed to throw a grenade. “Simon says you’re drinking again.”