The Chain(77)

She can’t hold down food that night.

She can’t sleep.

She sits in bed with a cold cup of tea.

Again that thought to punish herself: If she had succumbed to the cancer a year ago, none of this would have happened.





58



And still they don’t stop. The dreams. The man in the snow. The fear. The bed-wetting. The stomach cramps. Every day, Kylie is getting weaker. She puts a brave face on it but Rachel sees. Rachel knows. And she is getting weaker too. Fading away. The longer the cancer treatment goes on, the longer the process of recovery.

They have to strike now.

Pete counsels against the plan. He has his own demons. The pain is coming back. The hunger. He is failing too.

Kylie’s nightmares. Rachel’s nightmares. Kylie crying behind the bathroom door. Pete sneaking off in the Dodge Ram to be by himself. Rachel’s hair coming out in clumps. Kylie refusing sleepovers because she doesn’t want anyone to find out. They have all sipped from the Drink Me bottle. They have all unwound the clew of red thread. They have all fallen through the looking glass.

Rachel and Pete sit on the cold deck behind the house.

Atlantic breakers. A sickle moon. The chilly, indifferent winter constellations.

Pete is waiting for her decision.

She finishes her Scotch and hugs herself.

“We have to do it,” she says.

Pete shakes his head. “We don’t have to do a goddamn thing.”

“Erik is—”

“He can do it. He can take the risk.”

“He can’t do it without us, without me—you know that.”

“We’re out. We escaped by the skin of our teeth. We were lucky. This thing nearly got all of us,” Pete says.

She looks at him. This doesn’t sound like the Marine Corps officer who’s done five combat tours. Doubt is crippling him. Or maybe now that he has something to lose—a family—he has become more cautious. He doesn’t realize that the family will be lost if they do nothing.

“It’s not a thing, Pete. The Chain isn’t mythology. It isn’t self-perpetuating. It’s human. It’s made up of humans. It’s fallible, vulnerable, just like we all are. What we do is find the human heart at the center of it and break it.”

Pete thinks for a long time and then nods. “OK,” he says quietly.

“Good.”

Rachel calls Erik’s number. “We’re in,” she says.

“When?”

“I want my daughter away. Safe.”

“So when? It must be soon, before they change the protocols.”

Marty and his girlfriend can probably take Kylie on the weekend, Rachel thinks. “Saturday,” she says.

“I’ll call you at ten in the morning. You’re going to have to provoke them. You’ve got to make them call you back.”

“I know.”

“It’s going to be dangerous.”

“I know.”

“Until Saturday comes.”





59



Marty laughs with pleasure. “I would love to have Kylie. Actually, it’s perfect. Ginger suggested we go meet her grandfather this weekend. I’ll take the Kylester.”

Rachel’s heart skips a beat or two. “Wow, you’re at that stage already? Meeting the parents?” she says, trying to be jocular and lighthearted, but she doesn’t feel that jocular. Marty would never have married someone like Tammy. But a whip-smart FBI agent who is still young enough to give him the couple of boys he’s always wanted?

“It’s nothing like that. I’m not going to ask for her hand in marriage. And it’s her grandfather, not her dad. Nothing serious. Just a meet-and-greet. Her twin brother’s going to be there too. But I’d like Kylie to come. And you’re welcome too. And Pete. They’ve got a big old tumbledown house by a river, apparently, lots of swings and woods to play in if the weather stays mild.”

“That sounds lovely but I’m just going to take it easy this weekend.”

“Why don’t you do something fun, if you’re feeling up to it? A spa day. Send me the bill.”

“Maybe I will. You know, as ex-husbands go, you’re not too bad.”

“Damning with faint praise.”

Rachel says goodbye and goes upstairs to tell Kylie the plans.

“You goofed, Mom. Stuart’s supposed to stay here this weekend. His parents are going to his stepsister’s graduation in Arizona,” Kylie says.

“Oh, crap, yeah.”

She calls Marty again. “We can’t do it. I’m an idiot. Sorry. Stuart’s staying with us this weekend. His mom is going to Phoenix.”

“Stuart? That weird freckly kid? He can come too. Ginger won’t mind.”

“You’ll have to ask Stuart’s mom. I doubt she’ll say yes. She doesn’t completely trust me, and therefore, by association, she won’t trust you.”

“No, it’ll work the opposite way. She’ll see that I am the dependable one. Text me her number and I’ll call her.”

Rachel texts him the number and of course Marty works his charms with Stuart’s mom. The weekend is Rachel’s.

Any other chemo patient would spend that time taking it easy and recovering.