Friday morning, early, Alice bolted upright in her bed. She’d dreamed of black birds, whirling like vultures, converging until the sky disappeared.
She’d forgotten to send the flowers.
She launched herself toward the bathroom, the shower. In the mirror she caught sight of the tattoo that had so disappointed her dad. He never should have seen it. It was on her hip, for Matt’s eyes only. Back when it had seemed like they’d last, they’d gotten them together. It was her idea to get the crows, of course, like she was reclaiming her life from them, the migraines, the nightmares. There was nothing wrong with crows. They were smart, cagey. They remembered, paid debts. Held grudges. She could have been the kind of woman drawn to starlings, attracted by the shapes of the flock in flight, the murmuration as they swarmed at dusk—but she wasn’t. The crow was like a dark corner of herself, unfolded. To show who she really was.
She’d thought she’d known.
Matt didn’t care about flowers, but it was the least they could do, and she could use them as a way to check in with Lita, his sister. More than that, she’d promised her dad she’d send them, and she hadn’t. Instead she’d gotten caught up in searching for Richard Miller, then had to drop the other women back at their cars. By the time she arrived home to the dark, empty apartment, she had mixed feelings about the search, ranging from frustration that they hadn’t learned more about Richard Miller to relief they hadn’t.
Turning the key to her door the night before, she’d had the strangest feeling that she was returning to a crime scene, that something would be changed. But there was her cereal bowl in the sink, the tea bag drying on the saucer she’d left out that morning. That morning, before she’d seen Richard Miller’s face on the Doe Pages. A million years in a single day.
In the shower, she imagined the day she might have spent in the hospital, another splinter of her life down a path she might have chosen.
Ten minutes before visiting hours started, Alice was waiting outside the critical care unit, a heavy and aggressively cheerful arrangement of sunflowers held against her hip. She’d texted Uncle Jim and Jimmy that she was taking care of an errand for her dad, reminding them he was out of the office for the day. Uncle Jim sent back a simple OK. As much a Luddite as her dad.
From Jimmy, for her courtesy, she received silence. Fine. She sniffed at the flowers. Sunflowers weren’t fragrant, but that seemed OK.
Alice heard footsteps behind her. Lita, moving fast, a bag swinging from her shoulder. When she saw Alice, she stopped, almost skittered backward.
“What—what are you doing here?”
Alice adjusted the vase higher against her. “Just a token from King and Fine. How’s he doing?”
Lita fussed with her bag. “He’s—well, you can come in for a minute. But they don’t allow flowers inside critical care.”
“Oh.” She should have remembered that. “We could put them in the family room, for everyone.”
Lita turned and led her down the hall and through a door. Inside the dimmed room, a man had made a bed of three chairs, coming to rest in a series of uncomfortable shapes. He opened his eyes immediately.
“Good morning, Lanny,” Lita whispered. “Any news?”
The man shook his head and closed his eyes.
Alice carefully slid the vase onto the nearest table and retreated. The room smelled of unbrushed teeth and missed showers, of time passing, of decay. She should have ordered flowers to be sent up from the gift shop. She never should have come here.
“I don’t want to bother M—”
“You should see him,” Lita said.
They’d been friends, but in the breakup, Alice had lost Lita as well. Lost her laugh, lost her love of books and her stories from the school where she taught first grade. Lost the context Lita provided for who Matt was, the glowing appraisal she rested upon her brother when he wasn’t looking.
She missed it all. As an only child, Alice considered Matt’s sister the closest thing to a sibling she’d ever known.
Alice followed Lita back to the CCU doors and through them, trying not to look too closely at anything or anyone as they made their way through the white and clinical landscape to the back corner, a room blocked by a sliding door of sterile glass. On the other side, a figure swathed in white bandages lay among white sheets, his face almost as pale. His legs were in large contraptions, wrapped to twice their size, his arms both in splints held out from his sides. Wings.
Alice felt the most keen revulsion. Pity. Then, finally, sadness. “Dad said he would make a full recovery. I’m so relieved.”
Lita’s eyes raked over her. “Too early to say.”
“He’s—” Words failed. Full recovery must be a distant dream, a hopeful thing her dad had gifted her. “What have the doctors said?”
Lita didn’t answer. When Alice glanced at her, she could tell the other woman was trying to master her emotions. She braced herself. She had taken a lot of bad news over the years but it was a learned skill, earned. Not everyone had it. No one wanted it.
“You don’t have to tell me. I have no right.”
“I think you should hear how he’s doing,” Lita said. “Someone over there should hear it, and it might as well be you. Full recovery? Look at him.”
Alice turned back to the glass. He was a pinned moth. “He broke both his legs?”
“He fell three stories, Alice,” Lita said, too loud for their surroundings. Over Lita’s shoulder, the nurse on duty at the central desk turned to watch. “Three. He broke everything. He is—he is in pieces. He went to work for Fine and King a whole man and came back . . . this.”
King and Fine. Alice wouldn’t correct her, and knew better than to apologize or accept blame. People could get hurt working construction, a fact of the business. The lawyers would sort out Matt’s health bills, the company’s liability if it had some. None of that was for her to decide. Between that and the breakup, she didn’t quite know what she could say. “Has he been awake at all?”
Lita gaped at her. “Awake? What—no! He’s in a coma. Alice, I don’t think you or your—you have no idea what’s happening here.”
“Please,” the nurse said. “Ms. Weissman, could you—”
Lita took Alice’s arm and propelled her past the nurse and out of the CCU. Lita was two heads shorter, tiny as a sparrow, really, but Alice felt violence in her grip.
She would do me harm. Maybe Alice had misunderstood something about Lita. Maybe she’d gotten things wrong.
Lita Weissman force-marched Alice past the family room, out to the floor’s waiting area, right up to the elevators.
“Lita, I’m so—” But she worried which words she was allowed to say. “Have the lawyers been in touch?”
“Lawyers?” Lita’s face drained of color. “You don’t think—no, we don’t need to speak to any lawyers—”
“It’s just handled that way. It’s nothing to worry about.”
“Did someone come to you and say he was speaking for us? Because we’re not going to anyone, you understand. Tell them that. Tell Fine and King that.”
“King and Fine,” Alice said. “I didn’t mean to accuse you of—”
“We understand each other. We’ll sign whatever we need to sign.” The woman’s chin jutted out, but then she faltered. “I mean, I will. I’ll sign whatever it is.”
She hurried away. Alice stared at the elevator doors, then pushed the button. She didn’t think she did understand, actually. She was definitely getting something wrong.
Three stories.
She watched the panel above the elevator count the floors as it approached.
Three stories of a parking garage, too, built tall to make way for the SUVs, panel vans, delivery trucks.
The elevator doors opened.
“Are you going down or not?” someone in the elevator snapped.
She shook her head, backed away, then thought better of it and rushed in, shouldering the closing doors. The people inside shifted to make room for her.
She sensed someone looking at her and realized she hadn’t turned to face the front. She obliged and watched the floors count down, wondering. Three stories? Did it matter that someone else had said Matt had fallen only two?