The Sound of Broken Ribs(13)

She lingered in the kitchen, holding a glass of ice and fresh lemonade, not really knowing what she was going to do next. She had her drink, but what to do while she enjoyed it.

“Sit outside and wait for the cops to show up?” she asked an empty house.

She nodded in answer and walked outside. She dropped into one of the wicker rocking chairs and sipped at her icy beverage.

The woods around Tony’s property teemed with lilacs. Everywhere she looked—dots of purple. She found it all quite beautiful and relaxing. She drank her lemonade and appreciated her surroundings and pretended all was right in the world.

Dan hadn’t stolen all their money and left her homeless. She hadn’t really hit a woman with her car and then dragged her deeper into the woods to keep her corpse from being found for as long as possible. She hadn’t run to her older brother for support. She wasn’t sitting on his porch pretending none of that had happened.

And then she was crying. Tears drenched her cheeks. And still she sat and drank her lemonade.

There was a time that life hadn’t been so chaotic and up in the air. A time when things were simpler. But Belinda thought that she might never see those days again. Even if she somehow found a new place to live and a means to support herself, she would always be looking over her shoulder. She would always be as she was in this moment—forever waiting for the police to show up and haul her off to jail.

For the first time since hitting the woman in the yoga pants with her car, Belinda considered turning herself in. She didn’t think she could live like this. She couldn’t exist in fear. She wasn’t her brother. She was not okay with being a fugitive from the law.

The only thing that kept her from calling the cops right there and then was the idea that maybe the woman had not been found followed by the asinine thought that she might never be found. Of course she’d be found. It might be twenty years from now, when some men out hunting found a pile of bones in yoga pants, but they’d find her.

Then there was the sneaker in the middle of the road. That stupid, blazing-yellow sneaker. Fucking thing would be the end of her, she was certain of that much.

She wasn’t sure how long she sat rocking in the wicker chair and drinking her lemonade, but she stayed on the porch until Tony’s pickup truck drove down the drive. After parking in the garage, Tony joined her on the porch.

“They found her,” was all he said as he flopped down into the chair. “She’s alive.”

“What?” The question was not full of shock and desperation and shuddering relief like she was. The question barely existed at all, was nothing but an expulsion of breath.

“Two chicks at the Circle K were talking about it. Seems you hit some famous bitch. Some writer. I never heard of her. But one of the chicks talking about her—she’s a nurse and a fan of this bitch you hit. Said she’s in bad shape, but she might make it if she makes it through the night. There’s even gonna be some kind of goddamn vigil tonight. You ‘member the last vigil this town had? When that Harper girl went missing? Took a decade for this town to calm down after that fiasco. Wonder how long this shit’s gonna keep ‘em all flustered.”

“She’s alive?” Belinda hated how tired and empty she sounded.

“Ain’t you listening to me? Yeah. Yeah, she’s alive. Don’t worry. I don’t think anybody knows who hit her. Bitch’s jaw is broke, too. Doubt she’ll be talking to anyone.”

“You overheard all this at the Circle K?” Belinda asked.

Tony had sweated out his wife-beater. It was stained a sickly yellow at the chest and pits. He pulled off his camo baseball cap and sat it in his lap. He ran his hand through his sweat-soaked coal-black hair. “Yeah. Yeah, I did.”

*

Lei awoke to darkness. Not a complete darkness though. There was a soft glow coming from a window to her right, and red dots of light here and there directly beside where she lay. A giant sat upon her chest and his thin tail was draped over her side. Her brain, which had researched such things, knew that this was no giant’s tail. Not really.

It was a chest tube.

It took a considerable amount of effort to peel her tongue from the roof of her mouth. The taste inside her gob could only be described as used kitty litter and coffee grounds. She wouldn’t have been a bit surprised to find out that the giant on her chest had only chosen to squat there as a means of relieving himself.

Harry was in a chair to her left. She would’ve known that snore anywhere. After all, she’d slept next to it for the past ten years, every night, without fail. Even on book tours, she’d dragged him along. The spouses of writers were under-appreciated people. They lurked in the shadows, awaiting attention, while their significant others played with their imaginary friends. Harry had been better than most spouses of writers she’d known. He never threw the time she spent in her land of make believe in her face and seemed to always understand when the book was more important than the dinner he’d cooked or the date he’d planned a month in advance. She thought he was one of the most accepting, patient souls she’d ever met, and she loved him dearly. Even now, as she lay unable to move in what she assumed to be a hospital bed, here he remained, waiting for her as he always had waited for her.

She existed in subtle darkness for a while before a pudgy nurse in scrubs at least one size too small for her shuffled in. The nurse stood outlined in the light pouring in from the hallway. Her curly hair bounced about her head as if it were its own separate entity, one with its own jobs and motivations. The lipstick she wore was godawful, and, had Lei been able to, she would have told her as much. She’d always been a fan of honesty over placation. Letting this woman run around looking like a whorish guppy wasn’t helping anyone. Especially not the woman wearing the lipstick.