“To find out if someone committed a crime?” Gracie asked.
Someone mowed their lawn nearby. The whining vibration sliced into his brain like a buzz saw. “Sort of. Like driving while intoxicated—drunk—that’s a crime. But there was no crime here.”
All three children stared at him.
“What happened?” Caleb asked.
Ben tried to be a good father. An honest father. Always.
But not a stupid father.
“Were you playing a CD too loud?” Gracie asked in a tentative voice.
“That would be a good example of something wrong, honey, if it took away your concentration. But it’s not a crime. And no, I didn’t have the music too loud.”
“But sometimes you do play the music loud. Could that make a car crash?” Caleb asked.
“No. And I didn’t have the music on.”
Ben remembered being angry.
Late.
Hungover.
But he hadn’t hurt Maddy. “It’s exactly as I told the police officer; it was the Expedition. He cut me off illegally, he hit me, and that made our car crash into the tree.”
“So did he do a crime? The other guy? Will he go to jail?” Caleb asked.
Ben wanted to go back to bed, go back to the hospital, be alone, be alone with Maddy, sit by her side and touch her finger. “It’s too early to know anything yet.”
“When is Mommy going to wake up?” Caleb asked. “Will it be today?”
Ben closed his eyes. “Maybe not today, cowboy.”
“Tomorrow?” Caleb joined Ben and Gracie on the couch. “She’ll definitely wake up tomorrow, right?”
Ben kept his eyes shut. Caleb shook his upper arm. “Daddy. Daddy. Answer! Tomorrow?”
Ben heard the newspaper being folded and felt Emma move toward them. The couch settled as she sat next to Gracie.
“When, Daddy?” Caleb sounded panicky.
Ben squeezed his eyes shut tighter and tipped his head back. “Soon,” he answered without opening his eyes. “Soon.”
CHAPTER 13
Emma
Five days passed like a year. Emma was stuck watching the kids every minute, but complaining about it even one bit—even to herself—seemed like the worst thing she could do.
Even as she pulled on her jeans, she wondered if she should wear something more respectable. She’d begged and begged to visit her mother until her grandmother gave in and helped Emma talk her father into saying yes. Now Kath would be there in a few minutes to take her, and all Emma wanted was to stay home.
She combed her still-damp hair back and braided it. Her mother loved when Emma wore her braid hanging down her back. And her mother adored the electric-blue T-shirt that she wore, the one her mother had bought for her last month. Emma thought it embarrassingly bright, but Maddy thought the contrast with her hair incredible. Stunning! That was her mother, always speaking in giant exaggerations. Emma had the most gorgeous hair, and Gracie was the smartest nine-year-old ever, and no other child could draw as well as Caleb. She did it about Emma’s dad also. When her mother thought Emma wasn’t listening, she’d told Kath he had the biggest balls in the world.
Emma knew what she’d meant, even though the implication made her want to throw up. Daddy never seemed afraid of anything. Sometimes Emma liked that, and sometimes she wished he would hold back. Two years ago, when he went with her to register for Saturday gymnastics, she’d cringed as he’d performed his lawyer tricks.
“Mr. Illica, there’s simply no more room in the class. It’s limited to ten girls and we’re filled,” the instructor had said. The teacher had been new at the community center, a college student, and Emma had thought she was trying hard to sound like a teacher.
“Will one more girl, just one, actually make a difference?” he’d asked.
“Never mind, Dad,” Emma had said, standing behind him. “I don’t care.”
Ben had held his palm out toward Emma, efficiently shutting her out as he pled their case. “It’s likely—practically a given—that a minimum of one girl will drop out or not show up each week. Moreover, when you say ten, is it a hard number, or is it more of a general guide? How large is the gym?” he’d asked, knowing exactly how large it was. Emma had been taking classes there since she was six. “Why don’t we walk over and take a look?”
Emma had died a little with each word her father had spoken. He’d leaned across the counter, his wide hand flat on the wood, getting close enough to the instructor so the scent of his woodsy aftershave had to be drifting over.
“Listen,” he’d said, lowering his voice. “I wouldn’t make such a fuss about this, but it’s so important to my daughter.”
“Sir, I know that. It’s a popular class, but—”
“Excuse me for one moment.” He took out his wallet. Oh, God, was he going to bribe the teacher? Her father handed Emma a five-dollar bill. “Honey, would you mind running across the street to Dunkin’ and getting me a coffee? I’ll meet you at the car.”
He didn’t have to ask twice. She’d sprinted out of the building, down the steps, and over to the car, certain he didn’t need coffee—his car cup would still be steaming hot since she’d filled it for him like two minutes before. They wouldn’t have been going through this scene if her mother had remembered she had to register for class by the fifteenth, but as usual, she’d forgotten.
When her father came out, Emma was lying on the hood of the car, stretching her legs, pointing them straight up to the sky.
“Practicing for class?” her father had said.
Torn between happiness at knowing she’d gotten in and fear of what method he’d used to do it, she’d asked, “What did you say to her?”
“How about saying, ‘Thanks, Dad’?”
“When you tell me what you said.” Emma sat up and crossed her legs. “I should know if you said I have like one year to live or something.”
He’d reached over and tweaked her nose. She’d pulled back.
“Dad, stop. What did you say?” She’d hated how being Machiavellian put him in a good mood. Machiavellian. She’d looked the word up after hearing her mother use it to describe her father in one of her and Kath’s let’s-talk-on-the-phone-while-we-make-dinner conversations.
“You know the old saying: What you don’t know can’t hurt you.”
“Dad, tell me.” She didn’t know what she hated more—when he relished his own creepy side or when he got into his pounding anger, throwing words as if they were knives and hammers.
“No worries. Get in the car, I’ll tell you while I drive.”
As he’d recounted how he’d portrayed Emma as a victim of some mean-girl conspiracy, with gymnastics the only place she healed, Emma thought she’d puke at his pride at fooling the teacher, even though she’d loved that she’d be back in gymnastics.
It ended up being the last time she took gymnastics class.
Now, as Emma sat at her desk clicking through photo files on the computer, searching for the perfect one to blow up and bring to her mother’s hospital room, she realized how often her father left her grateful and angry all at the same time.
“Kath’s here.” Gracie came over to Emma’s desk after her announcement from the doorway. “What are you doing?”
Genius Gracie inspected the goofy picture coming out of the printer, showing Gracie, Caleb, and Emma’s heads meeting at the crown, the picture taken from above while they lay on a blanket at the beach, all of them squinting against the sun. “I thought you hated that picture,” she said. “You said you looked fat. Why are you printing it?”
“Mommy likes it. I’m bringing it to her room.”
“She woke up?” Gracie took it off the printer tray and held it out to Emma, practically leaping in the air.
“No. But I thought if she opened her eyes . . .” Emma took the picture from Gracie and stared at it. She carried it over to her bed and sat at the edge. “But maybe I shouldn’t. I printed out a family guide thing that says to reduce stimul
ation.”
Gracie sat next to her on the bed. “What else does it say?”
Emma grabbed her backpack and took out the pages she’d printed. “I highlighted some parts.” Even as she wondered if her sister was too young for this, she handed the sheets to Gracie with gratitude at being able to share it—even if it was only with her nine-year-old sister.
Gracie analyzed the material in front of her. “I think you should bring the picture, but maybe make it a little smaller so it doesn’t jump out at her.”
Emma nodded. “Good idea. I’ll bring one of each and see what’s right when I get there. Want to do it for me? The file is still on my desktop.”
Gracie hurried over to sit in Emma’s chair. “You’re so lucky you have your own computer. I don’t want to wait till I’m in high school, like Mommy says.” A stricken expression came over Gracie. “But I don’t care—whatever Mommy says, I’ll do.” She turned to the screen and began shrinking the picture.
• • •
Riding in Kath’s car, Emma pressed her legs back and forth together, as though she were a six-year-old needing to go to the bathroom. Embarrassed at how she was fidgeting, Emma pressed her thighs together, despite knowing that Kath wouldn’t mind and, even if she did, she’d never say anything.
Funny how little Kath’s appearance matched her personality—her mother’s best friend almost looked as though she’d be mean. Emma loved her, she was nicer than any other adult Emma knew, but she looked sort of cheap. It didn’t seem fair that Kath’s outer self was so at odds with her spirit.
Emma said that to her mother. Rather than being angry with Emma for practically saying that her best friend looked slutty, she explained how sometimes people got such a strong sense of what beauty was from their youth and the neighborhood where they grew up that they just couldn’t erase the imprint. Kath grew up in a part of Boston where thick lines of black encircling your eyes and hair dyed the color of tar was considered gorgeous. According to Emma’s mother, some women froze at a certain point in their lives, never moving past that particular moment when they thought they looked their best.
“Why don’t you tell her to change?” Emma had asked. “Don’t you think she’d look much prettier if she wasn’t so, um . . . ?”
Her mother had smiled at her. “If she wasn’t so what?”
“I don’t know, Mom. Kinda cheesy-looking?”
Her mother had shaken her head. “The important thing, Em, is that she feels pretty. Just the way she is. Why would I want to take that away from her?”
“What are you thinking, hon?” Kath asked now. “Stupid question. You’re worried. How are you holding up? Are they throwing everything on top of you?”
Emma didn’t have to ask who they were. She shrugged, not wanting to trash her father, not wanting Kath to think that she’d hurt Emma’s feelings. “Kath, how’s my mother? Really how is she? Please. Tell me the truth. No one tells me anything.”
“No one knows, honey.” Kath reached over and patted Emma’s shoulder as she pulled into the hospital’s parking garage. “That’s the truth. There’s a hard road ahead of you. I want you to know you can always come to me.”
Emma nodded. Tears stung. She needed to swallow them before she saw her mother.
Her grandmother, her grandfather, and Olivia, who worked with her mother, were in the waiting room when Emma came in. She felt their need to touch her. Unsure who to embrace first, she lingered just inside the doorway.
Olivia’s solid arms folded around her. With the scent of roses enveloping her along with Olivia’s arms, Emma relaxed for a moment. Then she pulled away and turned to her grandmother. Grandma Anne’s eyes looked sore. She seemed smaller, with her face washed of makeup and her hair flat—Grandma and Grandpa both looked shrunken, as though they’d collapsed in on themselves. Emma hugged them hard, trying to give them her energy, wanting to send her youth into their bloodstreams. Her grandmother’s tears fell on Emma as she kissed her.
“Oh, you smell so sweet. Like a peach.”
“Give her to me,” her grandfather said, his gruff voice breaking. “I need to hug my spunky monkey.” His eyes were also red, though not as swollen as Grandma’s.
Emma looked at Olivia. “Did you see her?”
“Yes.” Olivia put her arm around Emma’s shoulders and pulled her close. “Sit for a second, honey? We’ll talk before you go in.”
Olivia led Emma to the couch and sat on her right; Grandma took the left. Emma was being patted from all sides. Oh, God! Mommy had died, and that’s why Grandma and Grandpa were crying.
Emma braced herself when Olivia took her hand. “Emma, you have to be prepared,” Olivia said.
This was it. Grandma took Emma’s other hand, holding tightly.
Please don’t let her be dead, please, please, please.
Her grandmother took a crumpled tissue from her sweatshirt pocket—Dad’s sweatshirt pocket—and wiped the tears dripping from Emma’s eyes. Emma leaned her head on her grandmother’s shoulder, smelling her father’s aftershave mixed with Grandma’s soft Cashmere Bouquet scent.
“Your mother is going to look terrible,” Olivia said.
“She’s alive?” Emma lifted her head from Grandma and turned to Olivia. “She’s okay?”
Olivia looked surprised. “Of course she’s alive, baby. Why else would we be here with you?”
Emma’s stomach twisted. “I thought maybe something happened while Kath and I drove over.”
Grandma made the spitting motion to ward off the evil eye. “Puh. God forbid.”
“We just want you to know that Mommy looks . . . scary,” Grandpa said.
“They had to shave her hair and put in tubes. Including a special thing on her head which measures the pressure inside,” Olivia said.
“Can I go in alone? Is that okay?” Emma fingered the folded picture in her pocket.
Grandpa frowned. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”
“But I need to talk to her by myself.” Emma saw her grandparents exchange glances. She sent a begging look to Kath. “Please.”
Kath turned to Emma’s grandfather. “It’ll be okay, Jake. Maddy would want it.”
• • •
Emma couldn’t take it all in: the skeins of tubing, the monitors beeping, the hissing machines, and the plastic boots expanding and contracting on her mother’s feet. Tiny spots of gray mixed with the brown stubble on her mother’s scalp—the parts that peeked out from the helmet of white tape. God, her mother would hate that so much. Why had they tied her arms? Emma wanted to touch her, but she was afraid. There didn’t seem to be anywhere Emma couldn’t accidentally dislodge something keeping her mother alive.
“Is this your momma? Do you have any questions?”
Emma felt a presence behind her. She turned. The woman’s light-blue scrubs were a stark contrast with her dark-brown skin. “Yes.”
Yes, this was her mother. And yes, she had questions.
“I’m Angela—Mrs. Illica’s nurse. I can help you understand your mom’s condition.”
“Do you think she can hear me?”
“I’ve been working here for a long, long time, and I still can’t vote yes or no,” the nurse said. She spoke with a pretty lilt Emma couldn’t place. “But if you ask me, better go with yes. Speak as though she hears you.”
Emma nodded.
“You can talk to her. It’s okay. It might help.”
“Is she cold?” Emma asked.
The nurse shook her head. “The temperature is fine for her. Just right.”
Couldn’t her mother just collapse, sleeping under all these machines? Was she dreaming? Did she know Emma was here? “Thank you.”
The nurse nodded and walked to the next bed. Emma couldn’t look at her mother’s roommate; he resembled a monster with his yellow and purple bruised skin.
“Mom,” she whispered. “Mommy, I bet you can hear me. You’ll be okay soon.”
She tried to remember what the family guide said. K
eep it simple. That was for after she woke up though, right? Emma couldn’t remember what they said to do with unconscious people. Touch could be bad for some reason. Or was it good? She was frightened to ask the nurse. Placing her fingertip on her mother’s knee seemed safe until she worried that maybe her mother’s knee was broken. Emma jerked her hand away.
“Mommy, we’re all okay. Daddy, Caleb, Gracie, we’re all okay. We miss you. We love you. But we’re okay.” Had she said the wrong thing? She didn’t want her mother to think they could be okay without her. “We need you. I need you, Mommy.”
Emma took a deep breath for courage and then, in a rush of words, spilled out the fears pressing on her. “I’m sorry about what I did by going out without telling you and about being mean to you. I love you. I’ll take care of everything until you come home. I promise.” She looked for some sign. “Blink if you can hear me, Mom.”
Her mother didn’t blink. She remained a broken Snow White in a glass coffin. How had Snow White breathed? Was one of these machines breathing for her mother? There was a tube going down her throat. Shouldn’t someone wipe around her mouth, all icky and shiny like that? Would she get in trouble? She looked around. No one watched. Emma reached into her pocket, pulled out a tissue, and wiped her mother’s mouth. Then she worried maybe she had given her mother germs.
Oh, God, what did her mother need? Baruch Atah Adonai, Eloheinu Melech Ha’Olam. Please tell me what to do, God.
CHAPTER 14
Ben
Bits of toilet paper covered the nick Ben had razored from his upper lip. When had he last changed the blade? As he left the bathroom, he noticed the towels looked gray. Garbage pails overflowed in every room. He couldn’t tell if the kitchen or bathroom chaos was worse.
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