The Vanishing Season (The Collector #4)(82)

Anyone going?

No. We talked about it. The only reason to go would be some sort of obligation. What virtue is served by reluctance? We’ll probably sit shiva when the time comes, but mourning what he was to us is different than visiting what he turned out to be.

Has he woken up at all?

No. He probably won’t, according to the doctors.

Let me know if you want me to come home.

I’ve seen the case on the news; you are where you need to be.

Bran hands me a cigarette before we’re even out of the store. We walk back even more slowly than we came, trailed by wispy curls of smoke.

“You know, if you want to stay . . . ,” I say eventually.

He nods. “I need to be there.”

“I know. But you also need to hear that you have the option to stay. No one will judge you for it.”

He squeezes my hand and we walk the rest of the way in silence, sitting on the porch and smoking till nearly sunrise. Sleep isn’t possible, but this stillness, this quiet . . . it’s restful in its own way.





27

Xiomara is normally a morning person, one of those people who fills a house with literal song too early in the day. This morning, however, she’s subdued and pale, sitting at the kitchen table and staring down into a mug of milky, cinnamon-laden coffee. She looks up and frowns at the plastic wrap I put around my bandage so I could shower. “My son did that?”

“Not in the way that makes it sound.” I sit across from her and hold out my arm for her to inspect. Xiomara was a nurse at the same doctor’s office for decades, and when that doctor sold his practice and retired, she retired as well. She lasted fewer than four months before she picked up a part-time job as a school nurse, working on a rotation with several other semi-retirees.

She gives me a rather severe look before bending to the task of peeling away both plastic and gauze. “Whether he intended to harm you or not, Eliza, he hurt you. I believe that it was an accident; that doesn’t mean it isn’t his fault.” She traces carefully around the intact blisters, fingers hovering over the raw skin where the popped blisters were carefully cut away to prevent infection. I produce the antibiotic cream the hospital gave me and she accepts it with a nod. “Brandon always had something of a temper. He got that from me. After Faith . . .” She trails off, her lips tight as the news hits her afresh. “It got worse after,” she says simply. “We bear responsibility for our tempers, most especially when someone is harmed by accident. Shorter tempers require greater care from those burdened with them.”

Rubbing the cream in gently, she checks the padded strip for any leaked fluid and efficiently redoes the bandage. “It speaks well of you that you want to apologize for him, but be careful. By trying too hard to excuse him, you diminish your own well-being.”

I nod rather than try to say anything. This is his mother. And maybe . . . maybe my realization of just what happened with Cliff has made me a little more aware of slopes and warning signs. Do I believe Bran would ever be abusive? Fuck no, he’d cut off his hand before that happened. But maybe Xiomara is right and even accidents need to hold their full weight of consequence.

“There’s something I’d like you to do for me, Eliza, if you can. To try, at any rate.”

“What’s that?”

From the seat next to her, she pulls out a folded quilt and stands to shake it out. Against a pale blue background with swirls of white stitching marking out the suggestion of clouds, two many-pointed stars fill the middle, one set within the other with a small gap between them. They’re both done in a beautiful rainbow, several different sizes of triangles paired in such a way that you can see both the stars and the spiral shapes. A wide band borders the quilt, the colors arranged to bleed in a constant spectrum through the rainbow.

“The main shape is called a Mariner’s Compass,” she tells me. “It’s from a combination of the maritime compass and the wind rose charts the sailors used to use. How they used to find their way home again.” She shakes it again and folds it up with a few quick motions, faster and smoother than I’ve ever managed. “Sachin Karwan was the first actual friend Brandon made after Faith disappeared. They had this terrible thing in common.” She strokes a hand over the fabric, absently tracing a line of stitching. “For two years, that little girl was alive just two streets over, and none of us knew.” She takes a deep breath. “I know there is evidence to be examined, even if you were kind enough to shield us from just what that will be. But soon, they’re going to let that little girl go home, and coffins are . . . coffins are so . . .”

I lay my hand over hers, and she gives me a tremulous smile.

“I want to send her home with this, if you think that will be possible. It was Faith’s company quilt. Her abuela made it for her before she was born. It was too big for years, and then too nice for every day, but whenever family came from far away, we’d put this on her bed.”

“You couldn’t have known Davies had a kidnapped child in his house.”

“No, I know. If he’d been obvious, he would have been discovered long before this. I can’t blame myself for ignorance that’s shared so widely. But Erin has been there all this time, just the same. She’s gone far too long without a kindness.”

“I’ll ask the medical examiner. I can’t imagine they’ll say no.”