Whisper Me This(8)
“Look, sweetheart, I’m going to be busy.”
“Right. You’ll need help.” She’s no longer looking at me, her fingers tapping away at her phone. “We fly into Spokane, right? Wow. We could still catch an eight o’clock that would get us there by midnight. How long is the drive into Colville, again?”
“Elle.”
“Do you want to get a hotel or drive up that night? You’re gonna be awfully tired, although you can sleep on the plane.”
“Elle. You can’t go.”
“Why can’t I?”
Because. That’s the best answer I’ve got, and it’s not an answer that has ever worked on this child. I have no logic-based reason to tell her no. She’s right about school. She can pull off straight As without any effort when she sets her mind to it. Even Mrs. Wilson, for all her unhappiness about Elle not following directions, won’t fail her.
As for taking care of Elle, the reality is she’s more likely to take care of me.
I don’t want to go through the heartbreak ahead. I don’t want Elle to go through it. So I offer her the only thing I’ve ever been able to offer her: the truth.
“I want you to remember your grandparents the way you know them now. Grandma’s . . .” I choke on the words, take a breath, try again. “Grandma’s had a very serious accident. She’s in a coma. And Grandpa is apparently not himself, maybe getting senile. I don’t want you to see them that way.”
Elle fixes me with what I call her old-soul look, an expression that encompasses compassion for me and wisdom far beyond what any sheltered child should have gathered in a short life.
“I want to say good-bye,” she says. “I don’t care if it hurts.”
This, as she knows, I can’t deny her, and she goes back to her search. “So you should grab these flights, quick. And book a hotel if you want one. We can rent a car at the airport and talk to my teachers tomorrow.”
I cave. Leaving her with her father would be the right thing to do, maybe, but I want her with me. “We need to pack,” I tell her.
“I’ll pack. Good thing yesterday was laundry day.”
“Good thing. You know what else is a good thing?”
She looks back at me over her shoulder, already halfway out of the room to complete her part of the mission. “What?”
“You, Elle. You are the best thing, ever.”
Chapter Three
In the fifteen years he’s worked as a fireman and a paramedic, Tony has seen strange things, sad things, and outright disturbing things. He’s witnessed deaths accidental and purposeful, traumatic and peaceful. He’s played a part in so many dramas of tragedy and salvation that sometimes he thinks he’s seen everything, but then a case unexpectedly gets under his skin.
Like this one.
An old man, so frail in appearance that a tiny puff of wind might blow him over, sits on the bed beside a comatose woman, holding her hand. She lies motionless, pale as death, the only sign of life the painful rasping of her breath.
On the dresser, a series of photographs shows them younger, animated. There are photos of the two of them, arms around each other, her head leaning on his shoulder. There are school portraits documenting the growth of a young girl into a woman and pictures of her together with her parents.
Tony recognizes the daughter, but it takes a minute to bring back her name. Maisey. That’s it. He hadn’t known her well, but that cloud of red-gold curls is unforgettable. She’d been a year ahead of him in high school and moved in different circles. All AP classes and smart kids for her, while he had been relegated to basic and shop and didn’t really hang out with anybody.
Not that he wasn’t plenty bright himself, only there were a couple of dark years in middle school where he didn’t care—about school or anything else—and he had to repeat seventh grade. It put him behind both academically and socially, and he’d always felt like he was scrabbling to dig out of a hole.
He’d envied Maisey a little. Had thought her life must be easier than his.
But appearances, as Tony knows all too well, can be deceiving.
In this case, the shrill-voiced neighbor tells a tale very different from that of the happy family photos: one of late-night arguments and a disruption of routine. Three days, she says, since the woman, Leah Addington, has left the house.
The blood on the kitchen floor, black and tacky, and the flies buzzing around the remains of something unrecognizable in a frying pan on the stove corroborate her insinuations.
The blood in the kitchen triggers inevitable flashes of memory, and Tony braces himself, knowing they will pass, as they always do.
His mother on her knees, a bruise darkening on her cheek.
His father’s hand raised. His voice shouting curses and insults.
The sound of blows, of weeping.
Cara’s voice brings him back to the moment. “Sir,” she is saying to the man. “Sir! We’re here to treat your wife.”
The old man blinks at the intrusion of strangers into his private world.
“Who are you?”
It ought to be pretty obvious, given their uniforms and the stretcher, but the old guy doesn’t seem to be firing on all cylinders.
“Ambulance,” Tony explains. “Your neighbor called 911. I understand your wife is ill.”