All We Can Do Is Wait(65)

They stood like that for a moment, hugging in that cold and finite room, until Mary’s phone buzzed in her trouser pocket.

“I’m sorry,” Mary said, pulling away from Morgan. “I have to take this.” She answered the phone, said a few quick yeses, and then hung up. “I have to go back upstairs. But you can stay here for a little while if you want. I’ll tell them not to bother you.”

Morgan nodded. “Thanks. Yeah. I’ll be just a little bit.”

Mary put a hand on her shoulder. “Just come upstairs and find me when you’re ready. And we’ll go through everything. Do you have anyone you want us to call?”

Morgan thought of her mother, dying or already dead somewhere. She shook her head. “No. I’m it. It’s just me.” Mary gave her a tight smile, nodded, turned, and left.

There was a chair in a corner of the room. Morgan pulled it closer to the table and sat down, staring at her father. Time drifted.

When she was finally ready to leave him, to go back upstairs and do whatever needed to be done, Morgan looked at her phone and saw that not only had hours passed, but she’d missed five phone calls, three from friends, and two from a 617 number she was pretty sure was her school. She’d forgotten to tell them she wouldn’t be in that day.

Morgan made her way upstairs, back toward the doors to the emergency room, and saw that the place had exploded into activity. Mike was gone. Nurses were running around, phones ringing everywhere. She found Mary, who looked startled to see her.

“Morgan! I thought you’d gone home. Something’s happened. There’s been an accident.”

And there was the day, rushing away from Morgan and her dad, from this small, private pain, into something much bigger, something far beyond the new and lonely life Morgan suddenly lived.





Chapter Seventeen


    Skyler



MORGAN WAS CRYING. It was strange to watch, as she’d been so quiet, so composed and watchful, all day. She told them that her father had died that morning, something about cancer, about a car. It was hard to put it together while Morgan wept, Jason looking at her, face frozen in shock. Everything seemed to be happening at once.

“He wasn’t on the bridge?” Skyler asked, not sure why it mattered. Morgan shook her head.

“I didn’t know where else to go. I had nowhere else to go. I have nowhere to go.”

Morgan seemed to be spinning out, and Skyler impulsively grabbed her and pulled her into a hug. Morgan was much taller than Skyler, so it must have looked silly, this small girl clutching to this crying girl’s midsection. But Morgan returned the hug, her sobs softening into watery hiccups.

Skyler said, “Let’s go sit down,” and Morgan nodded, Skyler walking her over to some chairs and easing her into one. Morgan wiped her eyes and nose with her sleeve, took some deep breaths, said, “Sorry, sorry” a few times, then “I’m O.K., I’m O.K.”

Skyler sat there, not sure what to say, wanting to offer Morgan some words of comfort, to say something about how she’d be all right. Skyler had lost her parents too, in a way. But she knew it was different—much, much different—from what Morgan had experienced that morning. Skyler thought about her grandparents, about what she would do if—when, really—they died. She couldn’t imagine it, the feeling of being un-looked after, unwatched, untethered. Being alone in the world.

But, of course, she had Kate. After a terrible scare, Kate was still with her. That was something. That was enough. And in the coming months, Kate would need her help, while she recovered. Physically, yes, but Skyler knew there would be some emotional fallout too. She thought about her grandfather, about the things he had likely seen before fleeing Cambodia, the way he was so clammed up about his trauma. She hoped that Kate wouldn’t experience the same thing. She hoped Kate didn’t remember it. But if she did, if she was haunted or terrorized by memories of it, Skyler would have to be there to help her through it. She wanted to be there. What good was having people to help you if you couldn’t, in whatever way possible, help them too?

Morgan was mostly quiet now, sniffling a little, head down and rocking gently back and forth.

“What was his name?” Skyler asked Morgan. “Your dad.”

Morgan looked up, gave Skyler the faintest of smiles. “Daniel,” she said, with a little laugh. “Danny. Everyone called him Danny.”

Skyler thought she might wince, hearing that name, but instead what flashed in her mind just then wasn’t her Danny, not the controlling, angry boy who had scared her into timidity so many times, but some vaguely defined dad, ruddy and cheerful, like so many men she’d known growing up in Boston. “That’s a nice name,” Skyler said, and Morgan smiled again.

“Yeah. It is. The only problem is, our last name’s Boyce. So he’s Danny Boyce. Like ‘Danny Boy’? He hates that song. He hated that song. Which is a problem, if you live here.”

Skyler laughed a little, not sure how lightly to treat the moment. But she could see that just getting Morgan talking was making her more relaxed, her face already brighter.

“He was really sick,” Morgan said. “I mean, he’d been feeling better the past couple of months, but the doctor said that didn’t mean anything. He probably only had a little while left. So I get it. I get why he did it. This way he could decide. I get that.”