THURSDAY
PAIGE
Six days after the bullet sped through Momma’s brain, she opened her eyes.
Hannah and I had gone back home, and Daddy had sat with her through the night. I woke to my cell phone ringing at 6:00 a.m. Dread zipped through me as I saw Daddy’s number on the screen. But when I put the phone to my ear, all I could make out was his voice, all happy, almost laughing.
“Her eyes are open, and she squeezed my hand and her score just rocketed up! From a six to an eleven! Imagine that, Paige, she’s at an eleven.”
I listened to his jubilant voice explain how he’d fallen asleep in the chair by her bed, and then when he lifted his head off the sheet where he was resting it and looked at Momma, there she was, eyes wide open, staring straight ahead.
“Feeny! Feeny!” he’d fairly screamed. She didn’t turn her head, but when he grabbed her hand she squeezed it long and hard.
“How amazing is that!” I said. “Let me wake Hannah, and we’ll come down right now.”
“I’ve already called Hannah,” Daddy said with a chuckle, “and told her the great news. I also suggested she go back to sleep for a little while. You should too. If you come down a little before ten, you’ll get here in time to see the doctor when he makes his rounds, and we can all ask our questions.”
I lay in bed, replaying the conversation, feeling something light and hopeful settle in my spirit. I had followed the Glasgow Scale every day, charting Momma’s progress or lack of it. I knew that the score of an eleven, after six days in the single digits, meant hope of possible partial recovery.
But go back to sleep? Totally impossible. So I crept across the hall into Momma’s chalet and sat on the floor, surrounded by all the snail mail from yesterday that I hadn’t had time to look through. As I opened each envelope and perused each letter, I thought of Henry, his pale blue glassy eyes and his straggly blond hair and his baseball cap and how he was reading Momma’s novel. I thought of all his questions, asked so sincerely, almost with a childlike desperation. So many of the letters Momma received from her readers asked those kinds of questions. But other letters were more like confessions, I thought with a quiver of fear, where readers literally poured out their hearts to her, told her their deepest secrets.
And one of them realized she’d revealed way too much.
There it was again, that thought that had infiltrated my mind the other morning. One of us would know too, if someone from the past few years had told Momma something super confidential. I had not remembered any such letter, despite Hannah’s prayers. Neither had she. But she was still praying that God would speak into the dark corners of our memories.
But Momma had opened her eyes! I wanted to think about that. Light! Not darkness. Not right now.
So I went over to a bookshelf where paperbacks were stacked vertically and horizontally, with photos of family and friends arranged on top. I picked up a photo of the four of us, taken by a professional five or six years earlier when we were at La Grande Motte. We were sitting in front of a sand dune, and the Lego structures were blurred out behind us. The sun hit the dunes in a way that cast halos over our heads, as if we were jeans-clad, barefoot angels, waiting to welcome Jesus, walking on the sea.
The photo next to that was of Momma and Milton. She had on jeans and a light blue fleece and her hair was blowing in her face, her head snuggled against Milton’s thick coat. That triggered a memory, and I tiptoed down to the ground floor and through the back of the house to Daddy’s study. He said he didn’t need breathtaking views of the Blue Ridge Mountains to distract him; he preferred a windowless room where he pushed his numbers. His study had a special aura to it—a mixture of business and sport, organization and plain fun. I stood in front of his desk, a French antique from his mother’s family, which he kept neat and organized. At the moment, a thin folder with a photo of a beautiful rainbow on the front sat in the middle of the desk. Some of my father’s clients delivered their financial information to him in strange ways. I fingered the folder, smiling, then looked around the room.
The shelves held hardback copies of financial tomes, but also biographies of Pelé and other soccer greats and a bunch of Daddy’s soccer trophies. On one shelf were perched six soccer balls, old and torn and filled with Daddy’s favorite memories of the sport. Another shelf was stacked high with all kinds of board games and brainteasers. When the youth group came for weekends, Daddy loved to engage them with his ever-growing collection of wooden puzzles. And of course, he had his favorite French novels and photo books of the Midi, where he’d grown up.
Interspersed on the shelves were photos; I was looking for one in particular. I found it on the shelf beside Liar’s Poker and several other stock-related books. I reached for the photo in a sterling silver five-by-seven frame. In it, Momma sat with Milton. The shot had been taken at the same time as the one in Momma’s office, but in this one Momma was looking directly at the camera, and the black-and-white photo made her dark brown eyes almost bewitching. She had her arms looped around Milton’s neck and a cross hung around hers, sparkling and catching the sun.
Momma always wore that cross. A Huguenot cross. Daddy’s ancestors had been Huguenots—the first French Protestants who were eventually forced to flee the country when Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes in 1685, taking away religious liberty in France. I knew the gory history of the Huguenots and how some had fled to the shores of South Carolina.
Daddy had given the Huguenot cross, made of eighteen-karat gold, to Momma for her birthday one year, and she rarely took it off. Like so many things in Momma’s life, it symbolized something—Daddy’s love for her, I think, and their love of France, and the strength of faith in the midst of persecution. But I knew for sure Momma was not wearing the cross when she was shot. The nursing staff had given Daddy Momma’s personal items on the second day—her wedding ring and earrings and watch, but no necklace.
I decided that to celebrate her progress, I’d take her the Huguenot cross. That would doubtless make her happy.
But though I searched through her jewelry box and drawers for the next hour, I couldn’t find the cross anywhere. I hoped that wasn’t some kind of foreshadowing of doom. Not right after Momma had decided to open up her eyes after six long days.
Patrick was talking to me again in that soft, soothing way, assuring me that all would be well, as he had done from the very first time we’d met. “I can hear you, Patrick,” I tried to say. Maybe the words were only in my mind. But his hand, so large and comforting in mine, I felt that. I tried to squeeze it. Did he feel it? Could he hear me describe to him the depth of my love? Would he understand? I tried to open my eyes again, but I couldn’t. I wanted to come back to him, to the girls. I was trying, trying, trying. . . .
———
1995 . . . She didn’t know she could feel so much love, with Patrick holding her so tenderly, loving her so thoroughly, while little Hannah napped in the next room. “Shhh. Don’t wake her,” she giggled, out of breath from lovemaking. He kissed her lips, her cheeks, her belly.
“And now I have a surprise for you,” Josephine said, her eyes twinkling. She reached over to the bedside table and picked up an envelope. She carefully retrieved the thick stack of folded papers, straightened them in her hands, and began to read. “Dear Mrs. Bourdillon, it is with great pleasure that we send to you a contract for your novel The Lonely Truth. . . .”
She handed the papers to Patrick, and squealed, “Can you believe it!” and then burst into tears. Happy, happy tears.
“Félicitations, mon amour!” Patrick cooed in his French as he perused the papers. “My sweet, sweet Feeny. Do you have any idea how proud I am of you?”
She wiped her tears, finding the depths of his love in those dark, expressive eyes. Love, kindness, trust. She gave a playful smile then and said, “Hmm? Now how should we celebrate this? Seeing as we’re both naked and in bed . . .”
His eyes lit with desire, and he kissed her again.
1996 . . . Patrick found Josephine lying on their bed in tears. He rubbed her back softly and whispered, “Bad news from the family?”
She sat up and hugged her knees to her chest. “No. Not that. Just a rotten review.”
He frowned. “Feeny, don’t pay attention to reviews.”
She flashed anger. “Wrong answer, Mr. Sexy Legs! This is my first novel, Patrick. You know what that represents for me. So when my first review is bad, well, at least let me wallow a little.”
“Can I see it?”
She shook her head and sniffed. “He called it ‘sentimental drivel. ’”
Patrick’s face broke into a smile. “Why, that’s a compliment, Feeny. That’s just that snobby reviewer’s way of saving face instead of admitting that he cried through the whole book.”
Patrick took the letter and speared it next to the many rejections she’d garnered throughout the years.
———
1998 . . . “Another girl, Feeny. A beautiful little girl with a shock of reddish-gold hair.” Patrick kissed her lightly on the forehead as he placed the newborn in her arms. Josephine stared into her daughter’s little face, slipped her finger in the tiny fist. “Well, bonjour, my precious little Paige Mariette.”
She looked up at Patrick. Tears streamed down his face just as they did hers.
“Another miracle,” Josephine whispered. “The Lord’s seen fit to grant us another miracle.”
———
When I opened my eyes, I had no idea where I was, but I saw Patrick leaning his face so close to mine. I couldn’t read minds, but I could read eyes. And in his eyes I read a mixture of relief and foreboding.
“Can you hear me, Feeny?” he was saying, excitedly, loudly. Then he said to someone else, “She’s got her eyes open again!”
I opened my mouth, but no sound came out. Perhaps I hadn’t opened my mouth after all.
“Can you hear me, Feeny?” he repeated.
Why were my hands not moving? My mouth?
Patrick read eyes well too. “Don’t be afraid, Feeny. You’re okay. You’re in a hospital. There was an accident.”
I must have blinked because he hurried on. “Yes, blink if you can hear me. Can you understand what I’m saying?”
I had never thought before about the weight of a blink. Spontaneous, uncontrolled, split-second. Now I tried, and I could not tell if I succeeded until he cried, “Thank God, Feeny!” Then, “Can you feel my hand in yours? Can you squeeze my hand?”
My head wouldn’t move, although I was nodding as hard as my brain would let me. I was still concentrating on the blink, still asking my brain if I could feel Patrick’s hand, when he let go, and I heard, as in a fog, “Nurse, nurse! She’s opening her eyes and responding to me again!”
Then I went back to the darkness, somewhere in another place in time.
HENRY
They chased me out of the ICU at midnight while the nurses kept scurrying around, assuring me, “He’s doing just fine, Mr. Hughes. You go on and get a little sleep.”
So I got a ride back to the Rathbun House, feeling all fidgety and alert. At some point I must’ve finally fallen asleep, because next thing I knew, Libby was sitting on the side of the bed, all wrung out, her face so pale and her hair all tangled. Didn’t look like she’d gotten any sleep at all.
“You seen him, Libs? How’s he doing?”
She shrugged, not looking at me, which wasn’t ever a good sign. “I got in at two. Sweet nurse let me sit with him for a few hours.” She was wiping her eyes, and I felt my chest tighten. “He’s stable.”
“Thank God,” I whispered.
Then she started talking in her professional secretary voice, all business. “My boss said I can have today and tomorrow off. You go on and take the truck to work today, Henry. Then head on back here tomorrow after work and we’ll be together over the weekend.”
“All right,” I said, going into the bathroom. I came back out, pulled on my jeans, and gave Libby a kiss on the forehead.
As I pulled away, I saw Libby’s face, all streaked with tears, and she was turning her hands over and over in her lap, like she did when she was real worried. She managed to look up at me, sniffed a couple of times. Her thin body trembled, and when she ran her hands through her hair, they were trembling too.
“Henry,” she said, and she motioned for me to sit down. “Henry, I found your guns in the truck.” She was shaking all over. “The pistol and the rifle. You promised you wouldn’t carry them in there anymore.”
“Sorry, Libs. I must’ve forgot or something.”
“When did you forget, Henry? Those guns weren’t in the truck on Sunday when I drove to church. Why’d you put them back in there?”
“I don’t remember, Libs. Sorry.”
“You’re sorry! That’s all you can say? You’re driving around with guns in the truck, and you haven’t taken your meds. You’ve been off your meds for over two weeks! Why’d you pretend you were taking them?” She produced the brown pharmacy bottle, filled with the pills.
“You’re asking me too many questions, Libs. Leave me alone now. You go on to sleep. Lemme get on the road.”
I went into the bathroom and cursed under my breath. Hadn’t even thought about the Glock and the Remington. Hadn’t thought about the pills either. We’d gone to the restaurant and then Jase started choking, and there wasn’t time to think about the guns or the meds. I splashed water on my face and brushed my teeth and came back out.
Libby was holding Miz Bourdillon’s book. “And why in the world are you reading another one of that lady’s novels? You never read novels.”
“Just getting my mind off of Jase is all.”
Libby was crying real hard now. She threw the book on the bed and pulled her arms around her the way she did when she was afraid of me, like she might curl into herself and be safe. And she was looking at me like she didn’t believe me.
“I went to the library yesterday after work, Henry, to get some books to read to Jase here in the hospital. And Miss Garrison asked me if I liked the book. . . . I said, ‘Which book is that?’ and she said, ‘Why, the one Henry got you, the one by Mrs. Bourdillon!’ Why’d you tell Miss Garrison that I wanted that book? What’s going on, Henry?” She shivered, her eyes just as deep and sad as a doe’s, and then she went into the bathroom and shut the door.
I felt the anger building, the rage, and couldn’t do nothing about it. While Libs cowered in the bathroom, I put the pillow over my face and yelled, then punched my hands hard back and forth on the mattress, but I left her alone.
Once I’d calmed down she came out of the bathroom, her face all screwed up. “What have you done, Henry? For God’s sake, what have you done?”
My mind went racing real fast and everything went blurry, and then I got all panicky and blurted out, “I’ve done something really terrible, Libs. Gonna be the end of me.” I went over to her, and she backed away, a horrified look on her pretty face. “No, Libs, I won’t hurt you. I won’t.” And I grabbed her tight and held her so close where I felt her heart just ramming into my chest, and she cried for a while and then I said, “I gotta be going. You tell Jase I love him, and I’ll be back tomorrow night.”
I picked up the book and the brown bottle of my meds and tossed them both in my bag and left the room with Libby just standing there, eyes wide and trembling, like a deer before the kill.
I went out the front door of that fancy guest building, and I sure was glad that old couple wasn’t there to greet me. Kept telling myself to chill, because the surgery went okay and wasn’t nothing to worry about, even if Libby had found the guns. No one else knew. But when I got shaken, well, it took awhile to get my presence of mind back.
Thought maybe I should go ahead and start taking the pills again. Maybe. Drove right past a few police cars and for a while I thought one of them might be following me, but every time I glanced in the rearview mirror, all I saw was a long curvy highway.
I didn’t know what Libby was thinking, the way I left her there with bad news, not explaining anything. But I felt like one of those leaves outside my window at the guest house, quivering back and forth and then just floating to the ground. Could almost hear the crunch of it getting crushed under my boot.
I flipped on the radio and sure enough, it was one of Libby’s religious stations, playing a real melancholy-sounding song. But something in the tune pleased me enough that I didn’t flip the dial, just listened. And the more I listened, the more I got this tingling sensation, like when my hand or foot goes to sleep, except this time it was inside me, in my heart, the tingling. Because the words that man was singing were the very same words I had read in Miz Bourdillon’s book. Except I knew they weren’t completely her words; they came from somewhere in the Bible.
“I’m leaving you well and whole. That’s my parting gift to you. Peace . . .”
He was singing almost exactly those words, and then he kept repeating, “I leave you peace, peace, peace.”
And there I was careening along that curvy highway, glancing in the rearview, afraid of some cop following me, and then I was bawling my eyes out, listening to that music about peace. Face it, I’d never really had a moment of peace in my life. Don’t even know what that would look like, but I wanted it. Right then, I did. And it made me think about Miz Bourdillon’s first book and how that’s what that poor down-and-out kid was longing for, but also that real rich society lady in the other book whose life was crumbling around her. They both were wanting peace.
And strange as it sounds, I just ended up saying out loud, “Okay, I’d like to have some of that peace too. Don’t know how, so please, whoever you are, could you show me how to get it?”
And my heart just kept quivering and the music kept on playing, and soon it was some other song, lots more upbeat and all. But I just kept hearing those words over and over in my mind. I give you peace.
PAIGE
On the way to the hospital I asked Hannah, “Have you seen Momma’s cross?”
“No. But she rarely takes it off.”
“Yeah, I know. But she wasn’t wearing it the day she was shot. The nurse gave Daddy her wedding ring and watch and earrings, but no cross.”
“Well, I’m sure it’s at the house somewhere,” Hannah said.
My cell phone beeped with a text, but I didn’t reach for it. “No, it’s not. I just spent an hour looking. You know how much that cross means to her. It’s so symbolic.”
“Hey, just about any gift she ever received became symbolic. It’s no big deal. The big deal is that she opened her eyes.”
“True.”
“You don’t sound very convinced.”
I shrugged. “It’s just, I don’t know . . .”
“Ah, I get it! You think it’s a clue to the assassin.”
“Maybe.”
“Like he shot her and then ran and took the cross off her neck before anyone showed up.”
I stuck out my tongue. “Don’t be ridiculous. Of course not.”
“Look, Paige, I’ll be back in France in a few days. I’ll go buy her another Huguenot cross. I’ll buy ten of them if it’ll make you feel better.”
I could tell Hannah was getting a little annoyed. “Okay, forget it. I’m nuts.”
“You’re not nuts, but it’s just not important.” Without warning, she burst out laughing. “But hey, I know why you’re so concerned. That cross is your inheritance! We were all at La Grande Motte, and Daddy said we were going to Montpellier for Momma’s birthday to get her a special gift and then eat at a restaurant.” Hannah’s eyes were shining. “You were what, four or five?”
“That’s what they tell me.”
“And we went into the fancy jewelers, and Daddy bought that eighteen-karat-gold cross, and Momma was so proud and began explaining the symbolism.” Hannah imitated Momma’s deep Southern accent. “Now girls, just look at this beautiful cross. It’s very symbolic—do you know what that means? See here, the crown of thorns is twisting around the cross and those little knobs on the end of the cross symbolize the eight beatitudes, and here, if you count the points, it’s the twelve apostles. And the beautiful little dove that hangs from the bottom of the cross is symbolizing the coming of the Holy Spirit, how He came down from heaven when Jesus was baptized. . . .”
Hannah took her eyes off the road for a second and glanced at me. “But you weren’t paying one bit of attention. And when Momma tucked you in to bed that night, you reached up and touched the cross, which was now hanging around her neck, and asked, ‘Momma, why is there a dead bird hanging from your cross?’”
We both cracked up, as we did every single time we told that story. I didn’t really remember the incident the way Hannah did, but I remembered what Momma said to me so often in the years following. “My little stinker. I tell you what—I’ll give you this cross when you’re old enough to understand the significance of that little dove. It’ll be yours.”
I laughed along with Hannah, but inside I was frowning. That cross still belonged to Momma, and suddenly I wished I had already inherited it, and she could see it hanging around my neck now that she’d awoken from her coma.
As Hannah parked the car, and we got out and walked to the entrance to the hospital, I clicked on my phone and scrolled down to read the text I’d received. It was from Drake. I remember something else about The Awful Year. I’m coming home tomorrow night. Save the evening, and I’ll explain it all.
Okay, I texted back. Momma has opened her eyes. She may be coming out of her coma.
I sent my text into cyberspace and felt the tension in my cheeks, the tension between a smile and a frown.
Hannah and I arrived at the hospital at nine thirty. Daddy was sitting beside Momma. To us, she looked exactly the same, intubated, eyes closed, unmoving.
“She’s just resting a bit now,” Daddy said, his voice still carrying enthusiasm.
Soon Dr. Moore, the wiry little surgeon with the thick-rimmed glasses, came into her room with a host of medical students surrounding him. He introduced us to his team. As they talked amongst themselves, the nurse practitioner pulled me aside.
“I know you don’t have a lot of warm fuzzies for Dr. Moore. He has a pretty pitiful bedside manner, but his brain works great. I just want you to know that your mother’s brain, and the rest of her, couldn’t be in better hands.” The nurse’s eyes met mine, twinkling, and I nodded.
“Thanks,” I whispered. In the six days we’d been keeping vigil at the hospital, I had come to respect the nurse practitioners as the ones who would tell me the truth. I took a deep breath and moved closer to where Dr. Moore and his cluster of students stood.
“So I hear our patient has opened her eyes,” he said, directing his gaze toward Daddy. Then Dr. Moore went up to Momma, very close, and shook her on the shoulder. “Mrs. Bourdillon. Josephine. Can you hear me?”
Nothing. But when he reached over and pinched her forcefully on her neck, she squirmed enough for me to detect movement. Her eyes flew open.
“Well, what do you know! What about that! She’s come out of that coma! Good for you, Josephine.”
The doctor was laughing. He turned to his students and said, “Mrs. Bourdillon was at a four on the Glasgow Scale when she came in. Fortunately, the bullet entered and exited the right lobe; it missed the high-value real estate such as the brain stem and the thalamus and the ventricles. . . .”
There he went again, talking about real estate! But this time, I smiled with him.
“She had barely progressed to a six in the past five days, but now, well, now . . .” He glanced down at his chart. “This is the beginning of the sixth day and look at her! Eyes open, responding to pain. She’s moving from the VS”—Dr. Moore looked over at Daddy—“the vegetative state, into the minimally conscious state, what we call the MCS. All things considered, this is remarkable.”
JOSEPHINE
I knew those voices, voices of absolute joy! Hannah! Paige!
“Momma, oh Momma! We love you. We’re here with you.”
I heard my girls, but a thought kept swirling somewhere in my subconscious. Hannah? Hannah shouldn’t be here. Hannah was in France.
Both girls were leaning over me, so close that I could see their beautiful faces! Hannah brushed her fingers across my cheek, and I tried to smile. Then Paige kissed my hand.
“She looks afraid, or in pain,” Paige was saying.
No, I wasn’t in pain, but I was thirsty! So thirsty.
“I don’t think she understands what has happened,” Patrick said.
Had he told me before? I had no idea where I was. Something was very, very wrong, but everyone was whispering and assuring me that everything was very, very good.
Patrick’s face came into focus. I could understand the words he was saying. Hospital. An accident. I wanted to ask him what kind of accident, because I didn’t remember anything about that at all.
“But she knows us. That’s a miracle! People are praying, and God is answering, and she knows us.” That, of course, was Hannah.
I tried to tell them again that I was thirsty. I needed a drink. But no sound came out of my mouth at all.
Hannah and Daddy were still in the room with Momma when I slipped out and rode the elevator down to the lobby to order a chai latte from The Bean Shop. I texted several of my girlfriends at school about Momma’s amazing progress. I also wanted to check to see if I had another text from Drake.
I did. Marvelous! it read. Give her my love.
The Bean Shop had specialty coffees and teas, other beverages, and hot and cold lunch entrées, and one hundred percent of their profits went to funding special projects for the hospital. That sounded pretty good to me. At the moment, the shop—which was actually just a long counter with tables and chairs to the right of the hospital entrance—was empty except for a young woman who stood vacant-eyed in front of the shelf displaying sandwiches. I could hear her sniffling and saw out of the corner of my eye that she kept wiping tears. I walked to the counter and placed my order. She glanced up at me, and I nodded her way and said, “Waiting is always hard.”
“Yes.” Her voice was a shallow hiccup.
“Is someone from your family here?”
“My boy. My six-year-old boy. He had open-heart surgery.”
I had two thoughts at once—she didn’t look any older than Hannah, and maybe she was that blond man’s wife.
“Is your husband Henry?”
She eyed me warily and wrinkled her brow. Then she gave the barest nod.
Seeing her anxiety, I explained. “I’m Paige. My mom’s in the ICU up on the fourth floor. I met your husband on Monday night and then saw him again yesterday.”
“Monday night?” Now she looked terrified and drew her arms around herself. She cleared her throat as if she were going to say something, but didn’t. Finally she managed, “You’re Mrs. Bourdillon’s daughter, aren’t you?”
“Yes. That’s right. Your husband told me about your son. How’s he doing?”
She swallowed several times, coughed, and whispered, “Henry told you about Jase?”
“Yeah. I guess we just started talking in the middle of the night to help us forget how worried we both were.”
She was thin, really too thin, and her strawberry-blond hair was twisted up in a loose knot, and she wore on her face the traces of a hard life. But her eyes were a piercing green, almost startling with their beauty, even when she’d been crying.
She gave a tentative nod. “I’m sorry if my Henry’s been bothering you. He means well. He just doesn’t always read all the signals correctly.” She stared at me intently, as though she desperately wanted me to understand something. “He feels things so strongly. He got very upset about your mother. He has a real tender heart for people who are hurting. He even checked two of your mother’s novels out of the library.”
That scared—no, terrified look came into her eyes again.
“He hasn’t been bothering me. He was very kind, concerned. Respectful.”
Her expression softened. “Oh, well, good. And thank you for asking about Jase. He pulled through the surgery. We don’t know any more. I’m just getting something to eat and then I’m going back in to sit by his bed and talk with him.” She chose a chicken and tomato sandwich enclosed in plastic and said, “I’m so sorry about your mother. Any change?”
“She’s actually just come out of the coma.”
Now her face relaxed, and she smiled. “That’s wonderful news. That’s amazing. I’m sure you’re thankful for that.”
“We are.”
She paid for the sandwich and then motioned with her hand. “Well, I’m going to go back to my boy.”
I wished I could have offered her something. If I were Hannah, I’d promise to pray, and I would pray. In fact, Hannah had spent most of her time at the hospital praying—as she sat by Momma’s bed or in the little chapel on the third floor. And once a day she updated the CaringBridge site with how to pray for Momma and how God was answering those prayers.
But I didn’t pray.
So I just said, “Yes, of course. It’s nice to meet you, and I hope your boy gets better real soon.” I watched her walk away, shoulders slumped forward, arms crossed tightly across her chest, and I felt just about as sorry for her as I did for her husband.
HENRY
I was getting near the printing plant, only gonna be a few minutes late, when my phone rang. I don’t like to answer the phone when I’m driving, because I don’t have a Bluetooth thing. Don’t even have one of those smartphones. Jase one time called mine a dumb phone, and that made Libby and me chuckle a little. But I went on and answered it and then wished I hadn’t.
“Hello, Henry.”
I felt my mouth go all dry. “Hey.”
“You screwed up.”
I couldn’t think of anything to say.
“You there?”
“Yeah, Nick. Yeah, I’m here.”
“Well, what’re you doing getting that lady spread all over the news, all over everywhere, and her not dead?”
“She moved right when I pulled the trigger.”
“That’s not my problem.”
I knew he was right, but I didn’t want to admit it.
He was yelling now and cussing up a storm. I was having a hard time concentrating on the road.
“You planning to finish her off?”
“Mighty hard to do that right now.” My voice was all choked up, when I needed to sound confident.
“That ain’t my problem either. My problem is that I haven’t gotten my second half of the payment.” He stopped talking for a few seconds, then took this deep breath. Could hear it over the phone. “Well, I tell you what, Henry. You let her live. You do that. But I know about your son and his heart problems, and I know you have a real pretty wife. Hate to see something happen to one of them.”
Now my hands were shaking on the steering wheel. I found a gas station where I could pull off. Usually it was the side effects of my meds that made me a little jittery. This time, I guess it was the side effects of fear.
How’d this man know about Libby and Jase? I wished I’d been taking the meds after all, because then I would be thinking clearer.
“Listen to me, Henry.” Now his voice was all syrupy sweet. “And listen good. If I don’t get my share of the pay in two days, I’ll go ahead and give your information to the real person who hired you. I bet she’s awful mad right now.”
She? Somehow I hadn’t pictured whoever wanted Miz Bourdillon dead to be a she.
“She’s got a screw loose, that woman. First time I talked to her, she started quoting some song to me. Like it was a twisted kind of prayer to kill someone. She said, ‘Take her life and let it be consecrated Lord to Thee! You take Mrs. Bourdillon’s life. That’s your job. Take her life!’ Tellin’ you, she was nuts.”
Why’d he have to keep yelling at me?
“You better get that money to me one way or another, Henry, or your son won’t leave that hospital alive. I promise you that. You want to take that writer lady’s life, or you want someone else to take your boy’s?” He chuckled like he’d said something real clever. “You decide.”
“I’m not supposed to pay you, Nick! That’s not how it works!”
“It’s how it works now.” And his phone went dead.