Under the Knife(95)

When things with the boy in Seattle had ended, she’d moved to Santa Cruz with another boy, a surfer, who’d blown through Darcy’s meager savings and then disappeared. Before she’d arrived last week from Santa Cruz driving a wheezing Ford Fiesta, Rita suspected there’d been a humiliating denouement at a Planned Parenthood clinic, but hadn’t pressed Darcy on it. She’d parked the Fiesta out front, offering no explanation as to how she’d acquired it, and had since spent her time sleeping and watching TV, shuffling back and forth between her bed and the family-room couch, with occasional forays outside for a cigarette.

Rita had been laser-focused on work. But in their snatches of time together, Darcy had seemed … tougher. Sturdier. For years she’d been groping for something, as a person lying in bed might fumble for eyeglasses on a nightstand in a darkened bedroom. Maybe she’d finally found what she’d been looking for.

Sometimes, Chase had told her in the terrible days after Jenny Finney’s death, the only way out is through. That had been before the review committee had exonerated her, and she’d felt paralyzed with guilt.

Maybe Darcy’s finally made it through and out.

An affectionate smile crept across Rita’s lips. “You and me, Darcy. The two of us. Aren’t we a piece of work?”

Darcy’s head snapped around. “What?” She saw Rita’s smile, and her face relaxed. “Oh. Yeah. I guess.”

“You were a horrible crier when you were a baby. You know that?”

“Jeez, Rita. What the hell has that got to do with anything?”

“You never stopped crying.”

“I know. You’ve told me. Like, a hundred times. I cried when I was a baby. I get it. Lots of babies cry.” She glanced at the door and tapped her feet on the floor. “Do you think they’d notice if I had a quick smoke? I could open a window. Just a crack. You know?”

“I think you actually met the clinical definition of colic.”

“What does that mean?”

“That even your pediatrician took your crying seriously. There was this one night. You were maybe … three months old. Dad was on deployment, his first after Mom died, and you kept on crying. I thought Gram was going to jump off a bridge. She used to drive you around because it was the only time you’d ever shut up. And then the car would stop moving and—bam!—you’d start crying all over again.”

Darcy cocked her head and brushed a pink strand of hair behind her ear. “What about you?”

“I was in eighth grade, Darcy. Mom was dead. God. I had my own problems. What did I care if you cried? I put my headphones on, cranked up the music, and locked myself in my room. You weren’t my problem. Until that night.”

Rita looked out at the rain.

It’s really coming down.

“My girlfriend’s mom had just dropped me off after cross-country practice. I remember being so tired, and stressed about homework. Gram was waiting for me at the door. With you. You were screaming like a banshee, no surprise. But Gram … was crying, too. Which was scary, because I’d never seen her cry. Ever. Not even after Mom died. You remember how she was. So she must have been at the end of her rope.”

Darcy leaned toward her.

“‘Here,’ Gram told me, pushed you into my arms.” Rita mimed the motion. “‘Take her. Just take her.’ Then she went to her room and shut the door. Didn’t say another word. I didn’t see her again until the next morning.”

“So what happened?”

“You stopped screaming. I mean, not all at once. It wasn’t like I could turn you off, like a light switch. God, how I’d wished I could! But you calmed down after a while. And then you … smiled. It was … beautiful. Like this tiny, private smile you’d been saving. Just for me. You’d smiled before. But this one seemed different. And suddenly I wasn’t tired anymore. Or stressed about homework.”

Rita’s throat tightened. She twisted the bedsheet in her hands and watched the rain slap at the window. She knew that if she looked at Darcy now, she’d start crying. “I took you upstairs, gave you a bath, got you ready for bed. I didn’t know what else to do. Then we sat in the rocking chair together, across from your crib…”

“That old rocker in the living room?”

“Yeah. We kept it in your room back then. Anyway, after you fell asleep, I tried to put you down in your crib, but you started to cry. So I sat back down in the rocker with you, and you quieted down.”

“Then what?”

“I fell asleep. Woke up in the middle of the night, still sitting in the chair, with one hell of a stiff neck. You were out cold in my arms. I laid you down in the crib. You didn’t cry, so I snuck back to my room, did my homework, slept for a few hours, then went to school. After that, well … I helped Gram out more, and started sleeping in your room. Things got better.”

A gust of wind rattled the window.

“Things got better,” Rita murmured.

She reached out and grasped Darcy’s hand.

Darcy started crying.

So did Rita.

Which made Darcy start bawling. She launched herself out of the chair and seized Rita. Rita hugged her back as best she could, but one arm got tangled up in her IV line, so she draped it over Darcy’s shoulder while she squeezed her with the other arm. The two held each other, crying, until Darcy’s shoulders stopped heaving up and down, and her breathing slowed.