Run Away(35)

“I was just protecting my boss,” Luther said. “Self-defense, you know what I’m saying?”

Simon felt his phone vibrate. He glanced at the screen. It was from Yvonne:

We can see Ingrid now.



*



When Simon first entered her room, when he first saw Ingrid on that bed, stiller than sleep, tubes everywhere, gurgling machines—when he first saw all of that, his knees buckled and his body fell toward the floor. He didn’t catch himself. He probably could have, probably could have reached out and grabbed the wheelchair accessibility bar on his right. But he didn’t. He let himself land and land hard and let himself have the silent scream, that moment, because he knew that he needed it.

When that was over, he rose and there were no more tears. He sat next to Ingrid and held her hand and talked to her. He didn’t will her to live or tell her how much he loved her or any of that. If Ingrid could hear, she wouldn’t want those words. She wasn’t big on melodrama for one thing, but more than that, she wouldn’t want him expressing thoughts like this when she couldn’t reciprocate or at least comment. Declarations of love or loss with no response were meaningless to her. It was like playing catch with yourself. It had to go two ways.

So he talked about general stuff—his work, her work, the remodeling of the kitchen that might one day happen (or more likely, not), about politics and the past and a few favorite memories he knew she liked to bathe in. That was also Ingrid. She liked when he repeated certain stories. She was the kind who listened deeply, with her entire being, and a smile would come to her lips and he could see that she was back there with him, reliving the moment with a clarity few people could experience.

But of course, there was no smile on her face today.

At some point—Simon couldn’t say how much time had passed—Yvonne put her hand on his shoulder. “Tell me what happened,” she said. “Everything.”

So he did.

Yvonne kept her eyes on her sister’s face. She and Ingrid had taken such different paths, and maybe that explained the rift. Ingrid had chosen something of a high life to start—the modeling, the travel, some experimentation with drugs that oddly made her less sympathetic to Paige, not more—whereas Yvonne had always been more the dutiful type-A daughter who studied hard and loved her parents and stayed on the straight and narrow.

In the end, Ingrid had discovered, as she put it, that searching the whole world just makes you find home. She’d come back and done a year of what was called “post-baccalaureate” at Bryn Mawr College, so as to cram in all her pre-med requirements. With the sort of determination and single focus that Yvonne would undoubtedly admire in another person, Ingrid excelled through med school, residency, and internship.

“You can’t stay here,” Yvonne said when he finished.

“What are you talking about?”

“I’ll sit with Ingrid. But you can’t just sit here, Simon. You have to go find Paige.”

“I can’t leave now.”

“You have to. You have no choice.”

“We always promised…” Simon stopped. He wasn’t going to explain to Yvonne what she already knew. He and Ingrid were like one. If one of them got sick, the other was going to be there. That was the rule. That was part of the bargain in all this.

Yvonne understood, but she still shook her head. “Ingrid is going to wake up from this. Or she’s not. And if she wakes up, she’s going to want to see Paige’s face.”

He didn’t reply.

“You can’t find her if you’re sitting here.”

“Yvonne—”

“Ingrid would tell you that if she could, Simon. You know this.”

Ingrid’s hand felt lifeless now, no feel of blood pumping through it. Simon stared at his wife, willing her to give him some kind of answer or sign, but she seemed to be growing smaller, fading away, right in front of his eyes. This didn’t seem to be Ingrid in this bed anymore, just an empty body, as if her being had already fled the building. He wasn’t na?ve enough to think the sound of Paige’s voice could bring Ingrid back, but he sure as shit didn’t think him sitting there would do it either.

Simon let go of Ingrid’s hand. “Before I go, I’ll need to—”

“I got the kids. I got the business. I got Ingrid. Go.”





Chapter

Thirteen



Night had passed and it was nearly daybreak when the car dropped Simon back off by those concrete blocks in the Bronx. There was no one on the street—no one awake anyway. Two guys were sleeping on the sidewalk in front of the overgrown, abandoned lot, scant feet from where he and Ingrid had entered, what, just a few hours ago. Someone had hung up police tape, but it’d been torn down the middle, flying in the predawn breeze.

Simon reached the decrepit four-floor brick tenement house that his daughter had called home. He headed back inside this time with no hesitation or fear. He started up the stairs but stopped on the second floor rather than heading up to the third. It wasn’t quite six a.m. Simon hadn’t slept, of course. He felt rattled and juiced up on something that he knew would ebb out of him soon.

He knocked on the door and waited. He figured that he might be waking him up, but he didn’t much care. Ten seconds later, no more, the door opened. Cornelius looked as though he hadn’t slept much either. The two men looked at each other for a long moment.