Mark sat next to the uneaten sandwiches and tepid milk, in awe of his wife’s cyclonic fury. Since she’d hung up the phone after a terse exchange of information with her mother, he’d never seen her move so fast. An auburn whirlwind.
She pulled clothes from the dryer, cotton tangled in denim. Her hands shook as she packed the pile, still knotted, into an open knapsack. She dug a few things out of her larger suitcase from the retreat and transferred them to the smaller bag.
“Can I help? Is there something I can do?”
“No.” She tossed in a few books and her journal.
“Let me call the church. Get Ervin to cover my rotation. I’m coming with you.” He ran a hand through his hair and stared at the phone. He thought of his father-in-law, Ben. Tobacco and beer, sharp eyes and wide girth. He couldn’t imagine the level of pain it would take to fell such a giant.
“No. You stay. You’re needed here.”
“Don’t you need me?” He followed her to the bathroom. They both hardly fit in the tiny room, the towel bar braced into his side. The edge of the bedroom carpet tickled his heel.
She stuffed toiletries and his toothbrush in a large plastic bag. He didn’t tell her she picked the wrong one.
“Of course I do.” She placed a dry, fleeting kiss on his cheek. “But I’ll have Mother. And I’ve got to get to Houston as soon as possible. By the time you arrange everything with Ervin, I could be there.” She shut the medicine cabinet.
“Are you sure?” he asked her in the mirror.
“I’m sure.”
Back in the kitchen, she dug in her purse, leaving wrinkled receipts on the table. “If things change, either way, I’ll call you. We’ll find out what’s going on. How bad it is. Later, when we know more.” She hefted the knapsack, zipper open with a pink bra strap hanging out, over her shoulder.
Mark took the bag from her, zipped it shut and carried it to the van.
Outside, he tugged her coat closed and buttoned the top toggle. He held her a minute longer than she held him. “I love you.”
“Me too. Take care of Mr. Chesters for me.” She started the engine and pulled away. The minivan disappeared down the street, turning out of sight.
Mark stared at the empty road, imagining himself racing down its length and reaching her. Yet, the rift seemed so wide, he didn’t think he could ever cross it. No matter how fast he ran.
* * *
AFTER INQUIRING AT the information desk, Amanda found the ICU waiting room on the fifth floor. Once there, she merely followed the smell of smoke and an orderly hightailing it down the hall.
Katy Thompson looked worse than Amanda had ever seen her. The designer, color-wheeled clothing was gone. Her naked lips wrapped around a cigarette. She wore plaid stretchy pants with a floral sweater and slip-ons. No hose.
“Ma’am.” The hospital worker halted in front of her mother. “May I remind you, again, this is a no smoking facility?”
Not wanting to get in one of her mother’s quarrels, Amanda hid behind a magazine rack and waited for the storm to blow over.
“Yes, Bryan, you may.” Like an amused high schooler, Katy took another long drag and blew the smoke in artful swirls.
“I’ll have to ask you, again, to please refrain from smoking. You are welcome to utilize our outdoor receptacles.” Bryan had a slight lisp. Pleath, sthmoking, retheptacleth.
“All right.” Katy puffed deeply, nodding.
“And, as we’ve discussed several times today, you must put the cigarette out immediately or I will be forced to notify… security.” His frustration formed a beautiful hard s.
She fizzled the butt in her makeshift coffee cup ashtray and smiled sweetly. “Those are the magic words.”
“Really.” His disgust gave him a lecturing tone. “You are endangering our patients. Other families. You should have more respect.”
“And you should realize your patients are in plenty of danger already. A little second-hand smoke isn’t going to make one iota of difference. But as for me”-she rubbed her temples-“you do not want to encounter me on a nicotine low. Now, that’s dangerous.”
Bryan stomped away and disappeared around the corner, warning, “I’ll be back to check on you.”
“I’m counting on it,” Katy called to the empty corridor.
“Hi, Mom.” Amanda came out from her hiding place.
“Oh, honey.” Dark circles marred Katy’s porcelain complexion, as if the deep blue from her eyes had leaked down to tender skin and stained it. She appeared ten years older since the last time Amanda saw her.
The day they left Houston for Potter Springs. When her daddy held her in his strong arms and he cried. He’d smelled like Old Spice and humid summertime and he whispered in her ear, “I love you, baby girl.”
Amanda blinked the memory away, fighting to keep herself together. She pulled from her mother’s thin embrace. “How’s Daddy?”
“Holding on. You know your dad.” Katy sat down again on the bench seat. She twisted a stir stick as she spoke.
“Can I see him?”
Her mother checked her slender Rolex, the hot sparkle of diamonds out of place in the astringent room. “Not yet. We’ve got a while before they’ll let us back in.”
“What happened?”
“I’m not sure, exactly. One minute, he was working on the car, and the next I heard a loud crash. He knocked his tool chest over when he fell. It was early, just past breakfast. I wasn’t dressed yet.”
This was not a revelation. Amanda’s mother, barring any critical social engagements, sometimes stayed in her cashmere robe and slippers until well past the noon hour.
Amanda nodded and moved a magazine so she could sit closer.
“And he just lay there, on the garage floor.” Katy wrapped thin arms around herself, as if the cement from the garage had chilled her too. “Wrenches and metal things all over the place. Splayed out like he’d been run over, looking at me. For help. He couldn’t talk.” She ran her hands through golden blonde hair. Grease smudges spoiled her French manicure. “The look on his face. My God, if I live the rest of my life, I never want to see that look again.”
“Is he going to be okay?” Amanda repeated her question. She’d first asked it hours before, frantic on the phone after Mark told her the news.
Katy, between uncharacteristic tears, had told her she didn’t know, but to get to Houston as soon as possible. That she might not get to see her father alive again if she didn’t hurry.
So she had, knowing as she turned the minivan’s key that she’d made a deal with the devil. Steve Boyd, through circumstances outside his control, had sold her the metallic green beast.
Crying as she crossed the county line, Amanda was unsure if her tears fell for her marriage, her father or the loss of her car. Maybe all three.
“The paramedics said it was a heart attack,” Katy explained. “A failure. Blood pressure, poor diet, obesity. Your father hit all the high points.”
“Who knows? Maybe this’ll be the wake-up call he needs.”
“Sure it will.” Katy rubbed the back of her neck, stretching from side to side. She squeezed Amanda’s hand. “Thanks for coming. Was the ride all right? Did your car make it?”
Eleven hours at breakneck speed, eating prepackaged gas-station food and arriving in Houston’s crawling masses after dark. “Piece of cake,” she lied.
“I bet.” Katy pulled a cigarette pack from her purse and dug for her lighter.
“I got a new car,” Amanda added. “A minivan actually.”
“Really? How interesting.”
If Katy had been in top form, she might have run further with this information.
“Have you eaten anything?” Eyeing the unlit cigarette in her mother’s hand, Amanda hoped to ward off another confrontation with the staff of Houston Memorial Hospital.
“Some crackers. Coffee.”
“Let’s go get something,” Amanda said. “I saw a cafeteria downstairs. Is it all right to leave?”
“The next visitation’s not for a while. I get to go in every hour, for about ten minutes.” Katy stuffed the cigarette pack back in the tapestry handbag, pulling it to her shoulder. Miraculously, the accessory almost tied her mismatched ensemble together.
Amazing, thought Amanda. Only my mother.
“It’s crazy.” Katy led the way down the bright hallway. “You live your whole life with a person, and when they think it’s the end, they’ll only give you minutes on the hour.”
The silver doors slid shut and Katy pressed the button for the first floor. “Minutes on the hour.” She applied bloodred lipstick in the elevator’s mirrored sheen. Gazing at her reflection, she murmured, “And that’s not enough.”