When

by Victoria Laurie

  Still I stood there for another few seconds, waiting for her to tell me it was all a joke, that of course she wanted to see me, that she was happy I was there. But her hard expression never softened. Finally, I turned and left the room.

  I walked fast down the hallway without a thought or a care for where I was going. I only wanted to get away. And that’s when I walked right into Agent Faraday. “What’re you doing here?” he asked, when I backed away muttering apologies.

  I looked up and realized who I’d crashed into. “I…my mom…” I pointed down the hall at a loss for words.

  Faraday’s eyes scanned the corridor behind me, and I turned to look over my shoulder, too. The guard was just coming out of Ma’s room and taking his seat on the folding chair in the hallway. “Oh, yeah,” Faraday said. “I heard she got picked up the other day. Guess you won’t be using her as a character witness, huh?”

  He said it with such cold-hearted callousness, I felt something inside me give way, and then the dam broke. I moved toward the wall and rested my forehead against it, wrapping my arms tightly around myself as a huge wave of despair surged its way up from inside me. I fought hard, but I couldn’t keep it down. I began to weep, then sob, and all the anguish I felt over my dad, my mom, and Stubby came tumbling out in a long, heartbreaking wail. I crumpled to the floor, hugging myself tighter and tighter, but I couldn’t hold it in.

  “Hey,” I heard. “Hey, Madelyn,” Faraday said. I felt his cold fingers on my shoulder. “Come on, girl, pull it together.”

  But I couldn’t stop and I couldn’t catch my breath and soon I started to see stars. I heard a call for a nurse, and then I was being picked up, shouldered between people, and carried along to a gurney. The sobs kept coming: an ocean of grief, fear, and worry pounding me into the surf. I felt hands all over me and chatter around me, but I couldn’t pick anything distinctive out. And then I felt a pinprick and I took three short breaths, forcing myself to focus. I saw a needle slide into the vein of my right arm, and then the world spun. I caught sight of Faraday’s face right before the lights went out. His expression had changed. I could’ve sworn that now he was the guilty one.

  I woke up feeling very disconnected—as if my mind had been pushed to the very back of my head behind a layer of cotton balls, and all my other senses and functions were simply going through the motions—void of any will or desire on my part.

  Slowly, I became aware of voices, angry but hushed. “What’d you say to her?” Donny demanded.

  “Nothing, Fynn,” Faraday said. “She bumped into me, and then she just lost it.”

  Liar, I thought, without any emotion at all.

  “The nurse saw you say something to her,” Donny growled. Now he sounded angry.

  “Listen, counselor,” Faraday told him, “I’d love to stand here and argue with you, but I gotta get back to the office. I hope your niece is okay, but seriously, bringing her here with everything that’s going on—do you really think that was a good idea?”

  “What the hell do you know?!” Donny was shouting now.

  “I got a kid, Fynn,” Faraday said. “If his mom was a drunk and she’d been picked up and brought here for detox, I’d never let him see her until she was back on her feet.”

  “Go to hell, Faraday!” Donny spat. And then he was next to me and I heard Faraday’s footsteps clicking loudly down the hall. “Hey, kiddo,” Donny said, lines of worry etched onto his forehead. “You okay?”

  I nodded. I was fine. At least my mind was fine. It felt tucked into the back of my head where it didn’t have to think or worry. I didn’t know about my body, though. It felt sluggish and heavy.

  Donny stroked my hair and kissed my forehead. “The doc says that you need to stay here until that IV finishes, then I can take you home.”

  I nodded again, but I was suddenly so tired. Nodding was like moving a big ball of lead up and down. My lids slid closed and I heard Donny say something more, but it didn’t register. My mind was shutting off, and it was a relief.

  I woke up in Donny’s car. Sitting up, I looked around dully. We were almost home. “Hey there, sleepy,” he said.

  I tried to open my mouth to reply, but it felt sticky and way too difficult.

  “I’m going to drop you at home, Maddie,” Donny said. “Mrs. Duncan’s meeting us there, and she’s going to look after you while I go meet with the drug court advocate. I’ll be back in time for dinner and then we’ll talk, okay?”

  I blinked at him. I hope he understood that was a sign for yes. He grinned sideways at me. “Man, they gave you some really good drugs, huh?”

  Good? No. Nothing about this was good, but at least I had an excuse not to talk. I laid my head back and shut my eyes. I was asleep again in seconds.

  The next time I woke up was in the dark. I sat up, completely disoriented. It took me a minute to figure out that I was in my room. I looked toward the nightstand—the clock read seven thirty, and I couldn’t tell if it was morning or night. But then I realized that it was usually light out by seven thirty A.M. Swinging my legs out of bed I had a moment of dizziness, and I gripped the edge of the mattress tightly. As I was trying to get my balance, the scene at the hospital came back to me. How Ma had ordered me out. How Agent Faraday had been so mean. How I’d collapsed in a puddle of tears.

  I felt my cheeks heat. It was all so embarrassing. At last I felt okay enough to get off the bed and shuffle to the door. Pulling it open, I heard voices downstairs. I rubbed my temples. I could hear Donny and Mrs. Duncan talking, but I couldn’t quite make out what they were saying.

  The smell of something delicious wafted up from the kitchen. Careful to grip the banister, I headed down the stairs and rounded the corner into the kitchen. Mrs. Duncan sat at the table with Donny, who was eating a chicken potpie so creamy and mouthwateringly delectable that it could have graced the cover of a cooking magazine.

  “Oh, Maddie!” Mrs. Duncan said, hurrying out of her seat to come put her arm around me and guide me to the table. “How’re you feeling?”

  I wiped the sleep from my eyes. “A little groggy.”

  “Are you hungry, kiddo?” Donny asked, offering me his fork.

  I nodded, and Mrs. Duncan said, “Donny, you eat that. I’ve got one warming in the oven for Maddie.”

  A minute later she’d placed my dinner in front of me with a tall glass of milk, and I dove in.

  “Careful!” she warned as she took her seat again. “That’s hot.”

  I blew on the forkful of creamy chicken and pastry and popped it into my mouth too soon. It burned the roof of my mouth a little, but it was so good.

  “I talked to the drug court advocate,” Donny said, eyeing me sideways as if to see if I was coherent enough to talk.

  I blinked. “Who?”

  “The drug court advocate. They assess the cases of people like your mom and make recommendations to the judge who has the authority to send those people either to rehab or jail, depending.”

  “Depending on what?”

  “Well, on lots of things actually,” Donny said. “Whether or not the accused has an extended history of drug or alcohol abuse, if the accused has ever had treatment before…stuff like that.”

  I nodded. I understood. “What’d he say?”

  “She,” he said. “She said that she’ll suggest a plea agreement that’ll keep your mom out of jail, if Cheryl enters a four-month alcohol treatment program.”

  I took a sip of milk, trying to figure out if that was good news or bad. “What does that mean?”

  Donny wiped the corners of his mouth with his napkin. “It means that she agrees that your mom is sick, not irresponsible. She looked at Cheryl’s history and the fact that your mom was a nurse with a master’s degree and a great job until Scott’s death. It means that she understands that Cheryl’s not some lowlife who’s made poor choices her whole life. So your mom will go to rehab, and then she’ll have a few hundred hours of community service to complete along with court-mandated blood tests a
nd AA meetings, and hopefully we’ll be able to keep her out of jail this time. But, Maddie, if she fails even a single blood test, they’ll put her in jail and she’ll have to serve out a five-year term.”

  “She can do it, Donny. If she gets help, I know she can do it.”

  He nodded. “I know, too, kiddo. That’s why I pushed for it.”

  And then I thought of something that made me worry. “What if she says no to the rehab?” Ma had said no to getting help plenty of times in the past. She was the only one who didn’t think she had a problem she couldn’t overcome on her own.

  “She’s doesn’t have much choice. It’ll be part of the plea agreement. Either she takes the four months in rehab, or she’ll face a trial where she could do serious time.”

  I pulled at my napkin. Ma could be so stubborn. I worried that she’d say no to the rehab and want to go to trial, thinking that she’d beat the charges.

  Donny seemed to read my mind. “Hey,” he said. “Don’t worry. I’ll talk her into it.”

  I nodded and ate some more of my dinner. “She was so mean to me,” I said after a bit.

  “Mean to you?” Mrs. Duncan asked.

  I kept my eyes averted, feeling shame for no reason I could name. “She woke up after Donny left the room. She told me to get out, that she didn’t want me there.”

  “Oh, Maddie,” Mrs. Duncan said, reaching across the table to squeeze my hand. “I had a brother who struggled with alcohol. He was terrible to us when he was sober and sweet as punch when he had a few in him. They’re not really themselves in this state, honey. Your mom just needs some time and you’ll see. She’ll be the mother she used to be again.”

  I hoped Mrs. Duncan was right, but the truth was I barely remembered who Ma used to be. “Will she have to go far away?” I asked Donny.

  He shook his head. “There’s a state-funded rehab center up in Whitcomb.” Whitcomb was about forty-five minutes away by car. “I’ll come up on the weekends, and we can go visit her once her counselors feel she’s ready.”

  My brow furrowed. “How long will that take?”

  “It depends on your mom, Maddie,” Donny said, avoiding my eyes. “At least a few weeks. She’s going to have to face her problem and take responsibility for it. The only way she’ll get better is to accept that she’s really messed up her life.”

  I tugged on my napkin some more. “It’s my fault she drinks,” I whispered.

  Donny eyed me sharply. “Your fault? Maddie, how can you think that?”

  And then all that anguish I’d felt in the hospital returned, and with a trembling voice, I confessed to him my deepest shame. “She drinks because she blames me for Dad. She doesn’t want to blame me, but I know she does. And that’s my fault, too. I should’ve told him, Donny. I should’ve figured out what the numbers meant, and I should’ve told him.”

  Mrs. Duncan reached out to squeeze my hand while Donny stared at me openmouthed. “Kiddo…” he said, shaking his head like he couldn’t believe what I’d said. “Cheryl does not blame you. And I know that for a fact.”

  I shook my head, so ashamed I had to stare at my lap. “She does blame me,” I insisted. “But I know she doesn’t want to.”

  Donny reached out and lifted my chin, forcing me to look at him. “Maddie,” he said gently, “I’m going to share something with you that your mom made me promise never to tell you, but in light of what you’ve just said, I think I have to.”

  I sniffled. “What?”

  Donny took a deep breath, and dove in. “Do you remember that drawing you made of your mom, dad, and you? The one you insisted Scott hang on the fridge in your old apartment?”

  Immediately, I knew he was talking about the drawing Ma still kept hidden upstairs. “Yeah.”

  “The day you brought that home your mom and dad had me over for dinner. While we were all in the kitchen you brought in a drawing you made of me. You gave it to me, and I saw that you’d written in my numbers, too. After you went to bed the three of us were hanging out, and Scott mentioned the drawings. Your mom thought you were quite the little artist, but Scott was focused on the numbers you’d drawn on everybody’s forehead. We didn’t know why you kept insisting that you saw them on every face you looked at, and Scott was convinced there was some meaning there.

  “The three of us tossed out theories about what the sequence might mean, and your dad was the one who suggested that maybe you were some sort of gifted intuitive and the numbers were like birthdays but in reverse. He thought maybe the numbers were a date, and that you were seeing the date the person was going to die.”

  Donny paused and his lower lip trembled. He dropped his gaze to the table, as if he were ashamed to continue. Finally, he cleared his throat, and with an unsteady voice he said, “Your mom laughed at the idea. She said that Scott’s theory was ridiculous; no one could know that. She thought you simply loved to count and assigned everyone random numbers because you were creative and smart and thought it was a fun game. She talked your dad right out of the idea. A year later, we knew that Scott was right all along.”

  Donny then lifted his gaze back to me. A tear escaped him and he wiped it away quickly. “So, Maddie, both me and your mom know it’s not your fault. She doesn’t blame you, kiddo. She blames herself, and she drinks because of that and the fact that she’s terrified that someday I’ll tell you what happened that night, and you’ll blame her, too.”

  I sat in my chair so stunned I could hardly think. I didn’t know what to say or even how to feel. I’d carried the burden of blame for my dad’s death for more than half my life and it’d never occurred to me that he might’ve guessed long before his death what the numbers meant. I turned to look toward the mantel in the living room where his picture was. If he knew, or even if he’d suspected, why had he gone into that building?

  Donny seemed to read my mind. “Your dad never mentioned the theory again,” he said. “But I knew him better than anybody. On the day he died it had to have been a thought in the back of his mind, but he was never the kind of guy who would turn his back on his brothers in blue. I think he went into that building knowing there was a good chance he wouldn’t come out alive, and he made the hardest choice there is to make, because deep down, Scott was a guy with the heart of a hero.”

  Mrs. Duncan moved her chair to hug me tightly while Donny squeezed my hand. This time, my tears were cleansing. When I was done I felt lighter. And prouder of my dad than I could say.

  Donny stayed the night, sleeping in Ma’s room. The next morning he had to get back to the city, but before he left, he was nice enough to call and get me out of school for the day. I still felt shaky and emotional from the day before, and I couldn’t face the accusing stares and comments from the kids and teachers. He promised to call me later in the evening to check on me, and I knew that Mrs. Duncan would be over at some point, too.

  I sat around for a couple of hours, restless and anxious while I channel surfed, but I couldn’t seem to get into anything on TV.

  I kept thinking about what Donny had said about my dad. He never turned his back on his brothers in blue, and he had the heart of a hero. I sat for a while in his recliner, staring at his photo. He hadn’t ignored the call for help when it came. He’d taken action. He’d made the hardest of choices. And I didn’t think he’d approve of the fact that I was sitting here doing nothing when I could take action, too.

  With new resolve, I went upstairs to shower and change, and I even did my hair. Then I went back downstairs, left a note on the back door for Mrs. Duncan in case she came by to check on me, and headed out.

  I rode to the bus stop and took the 110 bus to downtown Grand Haven. After the driver helped me get my bike down from the rack in the front of the bus, I rode to the bureau offices. Locking my bike to a small tree, I walked inside, but I had to pause on the first floor to collect myself. My heart was hammering, and I was shaking with nerves. I had to take a couple of deep breaths before I could go up the stairs and into the offices. The rece
ptionist behind the desk was very nice, and after I told her who I wanted to see, she pointed me to a chair and I waited.

  After about two minutes, Agent Faraday came to the front, wearing a curious expression. “Madelyn?” he said, looking around the lobby. “Where’s your uncle?”

  “He’s not here.”

  Faraday frowned. “I can’t talk to you without your uncle present.”

  I squared my shoulders. “Yes, you can.”

  He squinted at me. “Oh? Are you waiving your right to counsel?”

  I shook my head. “I’m not here to talk about the case, Agent Faraday. I’m here to talk about something else.”

  Faraday studied me, and I could feel the receptionist sneaking surreptitious glances at us over the top of her computer monitor. “Okay,” he agreed. “Come on back.”

  I followed behind him and reminded myself to breathe. I’d asked to speak to Agent Faraday because, between him and Wallace, I thought Faraday might be the more open-minded.

  I knew that Donny would be furious with me for coming here, and I also knew that I might be risking my own freedom by entering the lion’s den, but Stubby needed me, and I knew I had to convince Faraday that I was telling the truth about seeing deathdates. If I could get him to believe me about that, then maybe I could get him to believe me about Stubby. It was a long shot, I knew, but it was the only thing I could think of that might help my best friend.

  Faraday led the way to his office, and we took our seats—him on one side of the desk, me on the other. “You feeling better?” he asked, and I could detect a note of guilt. It made me feel a little more secure about deciding to ask for him instead of Wallace.

  “I’m okay.”

  Faraday nodded and leaned back in his chair. I could tell I’d sort of thrown him by coming here. “So what brings you by, Madelyn?”

  “Will you do me a favor, Agent Faraday?”

  “Depends on what the favor is.”

  I sighed wearily. Why were adults so exhausting? “Can you please call me Maddie?”

  His eyes narrowed, his guard never really coming down. “I think I can grant that favor,” he said after a moment. “So, what brings you by, Maddie?”