I went straight to Bethany’s room when we got back to the house.
She was sprawled across the cream print sheets, head hanging over one side, feet pudgy as biscuits poking out from the other. She breathed with effort, as if a dream were making her work very hard. In the pale moonlight that illuminated the room from the rounded, curtainless part of her window, I could see her red bow of a mouth forming words. I longed to know what they were.
The usual rag was wrapped around her neck. How it stayed on with all the flailing around she did in her sleep, I hadn’t figured out. I loosened it with careful hands and moved it next to her cheek. She turned to it and sighed.
“God love you,” I whispered.
For a magic second I sounded like Grandma Brocacini. How many times had she said that to us when she tucked us in?
“God love you, Lucia.”
I wondered now if she had been assuring me that He did, or asking Him if He would. Sullivan Crisp would have a field day with that.
Back in my room, I climbed into the too-white bed, under the 400-thread-count sheets and the down comforter that could have been the bedclothes for angels, but I couldn’t sleep. All the nights I’d spent in that recliner in Lounge A, and the ones I’d passed here with one ear cocked in case Sonia called for me, I’d been able to succumb to slumber, sometimes even lapsing into a veritable coma of exhaustion. Now that I had no patient to worry about, the prospect of an uninterrupted night on a decent mattress stretched before me, and I couldn’t even keep my eyes closed.
Part of that, I knew, was because of my conversation with Chip on the phone outside the emergency room.
“Sonia’s right where she’s supposed to be, babe,” he’d said to me. “She should have stayed in the hospital in the first place, and this never would have happened.”
I tried not to sound defensive with my “I know.”
“The good news is, twenty-two more days just got cut down to one.”
“Excuse me?”
“You can come home now.”
So far that thought hadn’t crossed my mind, and I tripped on it.
“Sonia’s being taken care of. You said the doc told you she shouldn’t have visitors until he gets her stabilized.” Chip offered his sandpaper laugh. “You’re mine again. Let’s get you on a flight tomorrow.”
I flung the covers back now and padded to the window. The water was dark and thick as maple syrup except for the silver path the moon made, straight at me.
“You know I can’t leave Bethany,” I’d said to him. “She doesn’t even have a nanny, for one thing.”
“A nanny isn’t what she needs. What she needs is a new mother.”
His voice took a sharp turn. I’d only heard it sound that way when he denounced the judicial system or the medical profession or the unknown snitch who had turned him in and ruined his life. Hearing it tonight, and cringing before it again now in my memory, I felt every bit as nauseated as I had in any courtroom or U.S. attorney’s office or prison visitors’ room.
“If you’re going to make arrangements for Bethany,” he said, “don’t get her a nanny. Get her into foster care.”
“You know I’m not going to do that.”
“All right—forget I said that.” His pause had been chilly. “I’m being selfish. Do what you have to do. A lot can happen in twenty-three days, right?”
Dear God, I prayed now, I sure hope so.
An attempt at sleep was pointless, and hunger gnawed at me. I wrapped up in a robe that hung on the back of the bathroom door and went down to the kitchen. White terry cloth was not a good look for me, but Bethany was asleep and Didi was long gone and Sullivan had left for the guesthouse.
The one person I hadn’t accounted for was Marnie. She sat at the counter, polishing off a glass of iced tea. Could this day get any worse? The only saving grace: she was dressed to go out, and her purse was perched on the seat next to her.
“Who made the sweet tea?” she said.
“Sullivan,” I said.
“He makes it like my grandma. Get you a glass, and I’ll pour you some.”
Heaven knew I wanted some. It couldn’t hurt to drink something in front of her, and I was almost past caring. Almost.
“My grammy always put in an extra half a scoop of sugar before she boiled it with the water,” Marnie said.
“So it makes a syrup,” I said, more to myself than to her.
“Well, yeah. That’s how you make real sweet tea.”
No wonder it tasted so doggone good. Most things that fattening were delicious.
Marnie giggled as she filled my glass.
“What?” I said.
“That look you just got on your face. Most of the time you look so serious and then you’ll—I don’t know, you’re so hilarious sometimes, and you don’t even have to say anything.”
So glad I’ve been a source of amusement for you.
She slid the glass toward me and went back to a piece of carrot cake she was working on. “I’m leaving tomorrow. I was ready to quit anyway—I tried once, remember? And Lucia, that thing tonight was so . . .”
She closed her eyes and pressed her fork into the cake. “I’m just confused. I’m going to go to my parents’ and spend time with the Lord so I’ll know what to do next.”
I nodded. That actually did make some sense.
“Will you be going home now?” she said.
“I can’t leave Bethany.”
“That poor kid.” Her voice was genuinely sad. “You know what—I don’t have to be careful about what I say anymore, so I’m going to be totally honest with you.”
In that case, there were a number of things I wanted to ask her, but I pushed them aside.
“Here’s the deal with Sonia,” she said. “She actually feels like because the Lord’s given her such a big thing to do for Him, He’ll see that Bethany is taken care of.”
I didn’t care what kind of look I got on my face. “You’re not serious,” I said.
“Yeah, only . . .” She drew her hand to her chest. “I don’t think the Lord did take care of her. Do you know that nobody has ever spent as much time with her as you do? Yeah, Yvonne made her meals. Got her dressed. Stuck her in front of the TV. She had the easiest job in the whole house. There were days I wanted to sit around and watch videos all the time too.” She pointed to the half cake on its pedestal. “You want some?”
“No,” I lied, and watched her cut herself another piece. “Bethany watched that much TV when she had a nanny?”
“Except when Chip wasn’t busy doing stuff for Sonia or working with Bryson in the yard.”
As much as it galled me, I said, “Chip?”
Marnie took another bite of cake and pulled her long legs up under her on the counter stool. “He did more to entertain Bethany than Yvonne ever did. He was so good with her.” Marnie smiled as she eased the fork out of her mouth. “He was good with me too.”
She did not just say that.
“Yeah, I could talk to him about anything. He’d be a great father—which is probably why I hung around him so much. I have so been missing my dad. I can’t wait to get home.” She looked at me as if she’d suddenly remembered something. “Are you and Chip ever gonna have kids? I mean, ya’ll are such a great couple.”
Only because there is a God in heaven did her phone jingle. She looked at her text message, smiled at it, and slipped out of the chair.
“My friends are out front,” she said. “I’m so glad we finally got to talk. Too bad we waited until right when I’m leaving.”
Before I could stop her, she flung her arms around my neck.
“Thank you so, so much for being here. I would have ended up in a bed right next to Sonia on the psych ward if you hadn’t been.” She pulled away and looked at me tearfully. “Give Daddy Chip a big ol’ hug for me.”
When she was gone, I stood motionless in the middle of the kitchen, wrapped in unbecoming white terry and the realization that Marnie and Chip had not had an affair.
It should have been a marvelous moment that lifted at least that one layer of torment from my soul. I should have snatched up my cell phone and called Chip to apologize for doubting him.
I would have, if she hadn’t asked me that question.
Just when I thought I was on a path, when I thought I could take the next thing and the next and the next until I got through it all and left it behind me, why did someone always have to hurl a firebrand across it? Something to burn in the truth. My one dream was gone, and I could never get away from the loss. It would always be there, eating me empty, creating caverns I had to work so hard to fill up.
I went to the refrigerator and leaned my forehead against it. The firebrand was never anything I could throw back, screaming, “How dare you say that to me? How dare you remind me?” It was always an innocent comment, a harmless question. Like, Are you two ever gonna have kids? Harmless to anyone else, but it seared a hole in me, and the emptiness it left gaped like huge, aching jaws.
Dear God. Take away the pain. The awful, gnawing, insatiable pain.
God didn’t. He never did. It just stayed there, chewing me up inside, and I couldn’t stand it.
I stumbled to the pantry and didn’t turn on the light. I knew where everything was, and I grabbed it blindly and tore open packages. I stuffed the cashews on top of the dreams. I chewed up the chocolate chips and the anger. I swallowed the ice cream and the cake and the chicken cordon bleu, and with it the pain. I bit and tore and gulped until my mother and Sonia and Chip and hope were hidden once more in my gut.
Heart thudding hard and fast inside my chest, I took stock of the casualties. An entire can of mixed nuts. A half-pint of Blue Bell peach. Two cold slabs of Marnie’s favorite chicken. The rest of the carrot cake.
I punched my forearm across my mouth and tried not to vomit. I was fighting back the heaving when a voice spoke softly from the shadows.
“Lucia?”
I turned from the counter and looked up at Sullivan Crisp.
Blimpish and gluttonous and ashamed, I stared at him and waited for the disgust and the contempt. He only pressed his hands to the countertop and tilted his head at me. His eyes shimmered.
“Lucia,” he said, “I can help you with this.”