by E. C. Diskin
Ginny smiled. “You’re right.”
Nurse Wanda came back in. “Physically, he’s doing pretty well, girls,” she said. Ginny and Brooklyn remained side by side as the nurse confirmed that Dad’s hip was healing appropriately. “But it’s time to begin thinking about next steps.” She handed them a brochure—the rehab facility the hospital recommended. The doctor would be available for a sit-down later that afternoon to talk more about the details and his recommendations, “but I can tell you,” Wanda said, “your dad will most likely be ready to move in another forty-eight hours.”
Brooklyn looked over at Ginny for some silent acknowledgment that they’d figure this out together, but Ginny’s gaze was fixed on the window.
Wanda glanced up at the clock. “It’s almost lunchtime. Maybe you both should grab a bite. The doctor can meet you in his office at two o’clock.”
Brooklyn said thanks and headed for the door. Ginny hesitated. “You coming?” Brooklyn asked.
“Yeah, of course,” Ginny said.
They got in the elevator, and Ginny stopped the door from closing. “Shoot,” she said, jumping out. “I forgot something.”
“What?” Brooklyn said, looking quickly for the button that would stop the doors that were already closing.
“I just wanted to ask Wanda something. You go on. Get us a table. I’ll be down in just a few minutes.”
The doors closed before Brooklyn could argue.
Wilson went directly to the main entrance of the hospital to chat with the security officer on duty about the alleged gunman. The guard said he hadn’t been on in the middle of the night, but he pulled out the notes the night guard had made. Wilson took the binder.
“And police weren’t called?” he asked the guard.
“Doesn’t sound like it. I mean, nothin’ happened. You know how it is.”
“Actually, I don’t. It’s illegal to open carry; it’s illegal to bring a gun into a hospital. Help me understand why my office wasn’t called.”
The guard shrugged. “Hey, it wasn’t me. But I can see from this log that there were other issues the guard faced last night. We got over four hundred beds.”
“Did you talk to the guard about the incident when you got in?”
“Yep. He figured it coulda been a domestic violence situation, some attempt at payback from a fight—could have even been a beef against someone on staff. Or maybe just a random lunatic. What we really need are metal detectors. Just lucky that the moron had the gun out in plain sight.”
Wilson nodded in agreement and read the notes from the night guard: Be on the alert for the following: White male, yellow hooded sweatshirt, maybe 35-50 years old. Spotted at 2:30 a.m. in front of the directory and hospital map by entrance, gun in hand. Guard drew weapon, called out to the man, who turned at the sound, looked down at his own hand—like he’d forgotten he was holding the gun, and took off running. No shots fired. Man ran into the woods at far end of parking lot.
A yellow sweatshirt. Wilson’s pulse quickened. The woods. It would explain the scratches on Eddie’s face. Eddie had probably been to the hospital looking for drugs. Wilson couldn’t imagine such desperation. That boy was going to end up dead or in jail.
“You got something?” the guard asked.
“Huh? No, no.”
“Just looked like you thought of something after you read the notes.”
“No. You’re right, there are lots of possibilities.” He could not spend his last days in office going after his own son. And maybe it wasn’t Eddie. It was just a sweatshirt. It could have been a domestic dispute, like the guard thought. Or maybe it was about Woods. Martin Woods was right. Wilson needed to either find Woods’s shooter fast or he needed to get him some security.
When he got off the elevator on the fourth floor and walked toward Woods’s room, he saw a flurry of activity—nurses running in and out of the room and a doctor rushing through the door. Martin Woods came into the hall then, a hand over his mouth, and leaned against the wall, closing his eyes. A man in pain, or shock. Wilson could feel his own heartbeat quickening, wondering if this case had just become a murder investigation.
“Mr. Woods?” Wilson asked as he neared. “Everything okay?”
Martin Woods looked over, grief-stricken. “Could you pray with me? Pray for my boy?”
“What’s happening?”
“He was fine an hour ago. But he got a fever, and it keeps climbing. They think it’s another infection.”
“Try not to worry,” Wilson said. “I’m sure they know what they’re doing.”
“A man can only take so much,” Martin said. He walked the few feet toward a row of chairs against a wall and sat. Wilson followed and sat beside him.
“We was just in there talking a little bit ago. He really seemed better. And then it was like he got so confused. Fever was messin’ with him, I guess.”
“What did he say? Did you ask about the shooting?”
“Course not.”
“Why not?”
“Because he said, ‘What happened?’ He obviously doesn’t know nothin’. I was telling him he should probably just go back to LA. It don’t seem like you all are any closer to figuring out who mighta done this, and I don’t want him to stay here and be a target.”
“Well, actually, we have learned that your son has a stalker back in LA.”
“What? Why?”
“Who knows. But he had a restraining order issued against a woman about six months ago. We’re finding out more about her now. See if we can confirm where she’s been the last few days.”
“And you said it was a woman spotted on the street. He asked me if I ‘saw her’ just now. Like I said, I thought he seemed a little confused. I said, ‘Who?’ He just smiled and said he’d show me pictures. I didn’t know what he was talking about, but he started slurring and I hollered for the nurse.”
The doctor came out of Woods’s room, and Martin and Wilson turned for his update. “He’s asleep now. We’ll be watching him closely and keep you posted. Hopefully, we don’t have to go back in.”
The doctor walked off. Martin dropped his head into his hands.
“You think you done your job when the kid grows up. Like the worrying is over. Nothing left but smooth sailing and grandbabies. No one prepares you for the heartbreak waiting around the corner.”
Wilson knew all too well Martin’s pain. Agonizing over your kids was universal. He watched the doctor walk toward the nurses’ station. Ginny was coming around the corner at the far end of the hall toward them. Toward Darius’s room, even though she’d said she barely knew him.
Wilson turned back to Martin and nodded behind him. “Mr. Woods. That blonde woman at the far end of the hall, walking toward us, do you know who that is?”
Martin looked in the direction of Wilson’s nod. “I don’t see anyone.”
Wilson turned back around. She was gone.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
BROOKLYN SAT AT A TABLE, a tray of food in front of her, and stared at the cafeteria entrance. It had been almost thirty minutes. The anger began to build again. Why did Ginny want to suddenly talk to the nurse without her? They were supposed to be handling things together.
When her phone pinged, she grabbed it, half expecting a text from Ginny with a lame excuse for disappearing. But it was just a notification of new emails that had arrived since yesterday. She scanned the list of mostly junk and bills, deleting or saving them for later. But the last on the list was from a name she didn’t recognize, its subject line Escape from Paradise, Callback. She opened the email and held her breath, reading and rereading as the words on the screen blurred in the haze of her excitement. There were so many indie and student films she and her roommates went out for that she’d learned to forget about them soon after the audition. She could barely remember what this was about. But it was a callback, and the movie looked like it even had a budget. The final comments were about a shooting date in late summer. Filming would be in New York and the Dominic
an Republic.
Home, she thought. It felt like a sign, too amazing to be anything else.
The details of her audition a few weeks earlier began to return. After an hour in the hallway with the other actresses waiting to read, she’d felt a glimmer of hope when she overheard one of the production assistants whisper that Brooklyn looked the part. But her performance had gone horribly off the rails. She’d used a new monologue, one that was supposed to be an emotional reading, as a girl copes with a breakup, but every word she uttered reminded her of losing her mom, and she’d gone into a full-on ugly cry, way too much for the scene at hand. The director had not even uttered a response. It felt like a disaster.
The email for the callback said they wanted her to read for a character named Lucinda, and the producer had attached pages from key scenes as well as a link to the full script. The character had a name! She’d never been called back for a named character. The closest she’d gotten was a call for Friend No. 2. When she got to the end of the message, the balloon of excitement popped with the final crushing detail. The call was at nine o’clock tomorrow morning. There was no way she could go.
“Hey,” Ginny said, suddenly joining her at the table.
Brooklyn put the phone down.
“What is it?” Ginny said. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“Nothing,” she said, shaking her head.
“Bull,” Ginny said. “I can see it on your face. Something happened.”
“It’s just an audition. I got a callback for something, but it’s tomorrow morning so I can’t do it, that’s all.” Brooklyn was trying hard to act like this happened all the time, but of course it didn’t. Her eyes became misty, so she quickly rubbed her eyes. She couldn’t be a baby. Family came first.
Ginny reached out and put her hand on Brooklyn’s. “You need to go,” Ginny said. She sat taller, as if she had solutions, as if she was trustworthy enough to handle things here. “What are you going to do today, anyway? We were to meet with the doctor. I can do that without you.”
“There’s a lot to talk about.”
“There’s really not,” Ginny quickly answered.
“Jeez, Ginny. We’ve barely had a conversation since I got here. Dad needs help. This morning he blurted out that you’re the reason he’s in here. The other day he said he forgave you for something. What is going on with you two?”
Ginny looked around the room before answering. “We don’t get along, Brooklyn, you know that. And he’s talking nonsense these days. Half the time he thinks I’m Mom.”
That she believed. But there was more to it. “Ginny, I found blood in the hall on the floor.”
“That was from his fall.”
“But you said he fell in the study.”
Ginny’s brows furrowed, like she was trying to remember what she’d said. She pulled away and rubbed her eyes. She finally looked at Brooklyn. “Do you think I hurt him?”
“He said you’re the reason he’s in here.”
“That’s just because I brought him here.” Ginny reached for her hand again. “Brooklyn, I swear to you, I did not do anything to John. He was unconscious on the floor when I got there.”
“There you go again! You told Simon you made him dinner!”
“I lied, okay?”
“Why?”
“I don’t know!” she screamed. Both of them looked around the cafeteria, and Ginny lowered her voice. “Things between me and Simon aren’t good. I was gone from home a long time. I didn’t want him . . .” Ginny shook her head and gripped Brooklyn’s hand hard. “I didn’t hurt John. I promise you. I was the one who called 911. Why would I have done that if I wanted to hurt him?”
She had a point. But there were a lot of questions.
Brooklyn sat back, suddenly unsure how to begin, how to ask why Ginny was such a mess. “I was looking through Dad’s files, and I was kind of shocked when I found some things about you in high school.” She paused, hoping Ginny would fill her in without more prodding, but Ginny leaned forward, her elbow on the table, resting her head in the palm of her hand, as if the conversation, or inquisition, was already exhausting.
Brooklyn pressed on. “You were an A student, a National Merit Scholar, and had an offer from Columbia. I had no idea you ever considered leaving the state after high school.”
“I was a good girl,” Ginny said sarcastically.
“It seems like something must have happened the year you finished high school that changed things.”
Ginny stared into Brooklyn’s eyes, as if she was trying to say something without speaking.
“Something happened, didn’t it?” Brooklyn reached out to take Ginny’s hand in hers. It was the closest she’d ever felt to her sister.
Ginny pulled her hand away, wiping at tears that began to fall. “I’ve made some life-altering mistakes, that’s all.”
Brooklyn had never seen this side of her sister. Suddenly, she didn’t see her as cold. She was broken. Brooklyn wanted to ask about the shooting at the women’s clinic but hesitated. It didn’t matter that Ginny was older. She was fragile, almost like a child in some ways. “But look at you now,” Brooklyn said. “You have a beautiful family, a nice house, a nursing degree, a great husband who loves you . . .”
Ginny scoffed and shook her head. “It’s a mirage.”
“What do you mean?”
“My marriage is a joke.”
Brooklyn didn’t know what to say. She barely knew her sister or Simon. And what did Brooklyn know about marriage? “This could just be a rough patch.”
“Ha. For sixteen years? I never should have married him.”
Brooklyn didn’t know what to say. “You don’t love him anymore?”
Ginny shook her head. “We never loved each other. We both needed something. I was broken. He was a doctor. I guess I just assumed he would fix me. It seemed like a good decision at the time. But . . .” She didn’t finish, and her eyes remained on Brooklyn’s tray.
Brooklyn waited for her to muster the courage to finish the thought. She was finally talking, revealing some truth.
But Ginny said nothing more. She crossed her arms and sat back, uncrossing them to wipe her tears, crossing them again, determined to be strong.
There was so much to ask, but looking at Ginny’s red eyes, she didn’t press. “Everything seems really bad right now, but it’s going to be okay. How about finally letting me be a sister to you?”
Ginny smiled and sniffled. “I’ve been so terrible to you.”
It was the admission she’d always wanted. “Hey, I’m still young. We’ve got time. Whatever has happened in the past, it can’t be that bad. Dad said he forgives you. You need to forgive yourself.”
Ginny’s eyes glazed as she looked away, processing the comment. “You should go back to New York.”
Brooklyn sat back. Ginny was pulling away again. “We need to help Dad.”
Ginny leaned forward and put her hands on Brooklyn’s again. “This callback is a big deal. I could see it in your face when I sat down. We both know how hard it is to get out of this place. To make something of yourself. You can’t miss it. I shouldn’t have even called you home.”
“Of course you should have. He’s my dad too.”
“I just mean that I’m here. I can handle it. I know I’ve been a mess, but I swear, Brooklyn, I’ve had my last drink. I even went to an AA meeting yesterday. I’m pulling myself together, and I’m gonna take care of things.”
Brooklyn searched her eyes, her promises lingering in the air. She wanted to believe.
“Really, Brooklyn, Mom would want you to pursue your dream. You have to do it. You can come right back. He’s not going to be moved for at least forty-eight hours.”
Brooklyn let the possibility seep back in. She did want to try.
“I got this. I promise. By the time you come back, things will be better.” Ginny smiled and squeezed Brooklyn’s hand.
Brooklyn looked down at their hands. It was the smallest ges
ture. One hand on another. A squeeze. But it meant everything. Ginny had never been kind or interested. Suddenly, she was being both. Brooklyn’s smile slowly returned.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
AFTER BROOKLYN LEFT, GINNY GOT a cup of coffee and a plain bagel, amazed that she’d been given this reprieve, and sat at a long empty table by the window. At least now she had a little more time. She just had to put the gun back in the safe. And she had to talk to Darius.
She sipped her coffee, staring out the window at the cloud cover, trying to imagine what she’d say.
That gray August sky of ’99 had been a lot like today’s, except the air was filled with threats, and Darius’s screams, and that shotgun. She’d done nothing. A gun to his face, and she’d done nothing. She should have done something, or said something, but she didn’t. It was the last time she’d seen him before Sunday night. And after everything that he’d done, that he’d tried to do . . . Knowing her had brought him nothing but pain.
In the screenplay, Darius had written about all their early encounters junior year—the day he found her in the pastor’s office, a subsequent day in the lunchroom, and then finding her in the gym during senior year. Reading those scenes was like stepping back in time.
He’d come up to her at school during lunch, a week after the incident in Pastor Gary’s office, and found her sitting alone, pushing macaroni and cheese around her plate. He sat down across from her, trying to make small talk, but she couldn’t look at him, not after what he’d seen.
“Must be really good,” he joked.
She looked up, and he was pointing at her meal. She cracked just a half smile at those green eyes that seemed to be searching her face for answers.
“You okay?” he asked.
She returned her focus to the food before answering. “You must think I’m disgusting.” It was barely audible.
“Not at all,” he said. He put his hand over her tray so she’d finally look up.
She did.
He leaned forward. “Do you want to tell anyone?”
“No!”
“I’ll back you up if you’re worried about people believing you.”