“I got most of it. Just tell me one thing,” she said. “How did he look?”
After a moment’s thought, Ellen said, “Like he was really devastated.”
Temerity made a thoughtful noise in the back of her throat. “Okay. I want to hate him, but it’s been a hard day for him too, so I’ll wait. Let’s go see how T-bone’s getting on.” She put her right hand on Ellen’s left shoulder.
They started down the open hallway at a good pace but had only gone a short distance when Ellen stopped short. Given no warning, Temerity collided into the back left half of her and sort of bounced back a step.
“There it is,” Ellen whispered. “There’s that sound.”
From behind a closed door to their left, a muted, extended wail was seeping through.
“Keening,” Temerity whispered. Releasing Ellen’s shoulder, she followed the sound to the door and pushed it open.
No!” Ellen said, but Temerity held up one finger and then went on into the room, leaving the door ajar. Moving to the edge of it, Ellen listened. The wailing was muffled suddenly as though someone had made an effort to contain it by holding a pillow to their face, then it turned to short, gasping sobs.
“Are you all right?” Temerity asked in a voice soft enough to calm a frightened rabbit.
“Wh-who . . . are . . . y-you?” Cindy gasped.
“My name is Temerity. I heard you crying. Is everything okay?”
Cindy gasped a few more times, then a long groaning hum came through clenched lips. Ellen leaned around the doorjamb until she could see them. Temerity had gone to the far side of the bed, and she could only see Cindy in profile, but she looked exhausted and horrible. Her face was puffy, her eyes were reddened slits, and her hair was plastered to her head with dried sweat.
“No, it’s n-not okay,” she said. “But you d-don’t need . . . to worry ab-about it.”
“But I am,” Temerity said. “Worried. I’m not sure if anyone could hear someone crying like that and not be concerned.” Ellen felt a sting across her face as sharp as an openhanded slap. She’d heard that sound and not been affected. But no, that wasn’t quite right; she had cared, at least, she hadn’t liked it at all, but it had never occurred to her that she might be able to do anything about it. It was the recognition of her self-drawn safety zone that left the imaginary burning finger marks on her cheek. Temerity said gently, “It sounds like you might need someone to talk to. Do you have someone who can come and see you?”
A quick snort of hopeless disgust, then, “No.”
“No family?”
Cindy shook her head violently.
“What about your baby’s daddy? Does he have family that might want to help?” Ellen drew in her breath and leaned farther into the room.
After a series of quick, moist inhalations, “I wouldn’t know” came thickly through.
“You might not have noticed but, I’m blind,” Temerity said, feeling for a chair or somewhere to settle herself. “But I’m not blind, if you know what I mean. May I sit down?” She went ahead and did without waiting for a reply. “There, that’s better. Now, tell me all about it. I can’t see what’s going on here, but I can tell that you need someone to talk to. We all do.”
“I d-don’t know . . . you.”
Temerity reached out a hand until she found the end of the bed, then slid it across the rumpled sheets until she came to a lump. She patted Cindy’s foot. “And I don’t know you, so there’s no reason not to tell me. I have to rely on people I don’t know all the time. You can do it this once.” She smiled softly, gently, and Cindy broke down utterly, weeping without the capacity for speech for several minutes.
“That’s a good start, actually,” Temerity said when the sobs subsided a bit. “Now tell me what it means.”
“I met . . . this guy,” Cindy began haltingly. “He was really nice and I liked him. He was in the service, and his unit was called up for deployment in Afghanistan. He was going to be gone a year, but we agreed to try to stick it out. We said we would write and get together when he got back.”
She stopped and turned to look out the window, which faced a depressing concrete wall. Tears ran steadily down her face.
When she spoke again, the words rushed out in a gush of breath. “I really thought he was the one. About a month after he left, I found out I was pregnant.”
Temerity said nothing, but the tilt of her head and the way she leaned in, shoulders curled forward, said that she was listening to every word and hearing much more.
“But he was kill—” Cindy’s voice choked off and it was a minute before she could continue. “I found out when my own letter was returned to me unopened, with a note from one of his buddies, who let me know. By then . . . it was too late for . . . I didn’t have any choice, but I was so sad. It’s like I was paralyzed, couldn’t do anything.
“Then these people got in contact with me through the clinic where I was going for free care, you know. They wanted to adopt the baby, so I said yes, ’cause I don’t have any money and I didn’t want to raise a kid totally alone.”
“Of course you didn’t,” Temerity said matter-of-factly. “No one should have to.”
“But now,” Cindy gasped for breath as though her pain threatened to overwhelm her again, “I just don’t know. I mean, I don’t have Sam.” The emotion throttled her temporarily and she struggled to continue. “But it was like, while I was pregnant, he was still there, or a part of him anyway. And now he’s . . . gone. I didn’t know until I lost him that I was so in love with him, and now he’s gone.”
“That’s a tough situation,” Temerity empathized, her voice offering both sympathy and strength on loan. “But you shouldn’t be trying to deal with this alone. Don’t you have any friends who might be able to help you through this?”
The girl shrugged, and Ellen could have told her how useful that was. “Not really . . . I mean, I know people, but not well enough for . . . this.” She sighed and her head lolled back on the pillow. “Most of the people I’ve met in this town are kind of busy just surviving their own stuff.”
Temerity got up and felt her way to the edge of the bed, then perched on it. “I’ll tell you something, Cindy. Life is tough, and not always fair, I know something about that, but you never know what’s just around the corner. Take me for example. A couple of days ago, some bad guys tried to rob me. They cut the strap of my bag with a knife, and I stood there thinking the knife was going to cut me next, that I was a goner. Then out of nowhere comes this girl who saves my butt. I didn’t expect it, but there she was. It made me want to save someone else, you know what I mean?”
Cindy wiped her face on the sheet and said she guessed so.
“That might happen for you too.”
There was another hopeless snort from Cindy, who stared flatly at the wall with unfocused eyes. “Things like that don’t happen to me.”
Temerity held her hand out and Cindy wiped her own on the sheet and tentatively took it. “I have a funny feeling things might change for you. There are so many people out there, other people who are hurting, who have no extra strength to give, but they relate, you know what I mean? Sometimes it helps just to know that you’re not the only one who’s hurting. And then there are other people who have strength to spare. I honestly believe that you will find one of them, maybe more than one. Thank you for talking to me. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go visit someone else.”
Temerity stood up and made her way around the foot of the bed.
“Wait a minute,” Cindy said, stopping her. Her face was scrunched, not with tears, but with suspicion. Very slowly, she asked, “How did you know my name?”
Temerity stood, frozen to the spot, and then she turned back. “It’s on your door.”
“But you’re . . . blind.”
With a dawning, contented smile, Temerity said, “Blind—with friends.” And
then she walked away.
“Gosh,” Ellen said when they were on their way, “thought she had you there.”
“Me too,” Temerity told her. “Okay, next. Find me a nurses’ station and stay out of sight.” She laughed loudly. “Get it? Out of sight. Works on two levels for us.” She was still cackling at her own joke when Ellen found the nurses’ workstation. She hung back while Temerity approached it.
“Hi, excuse me, could you help me?”
A frazzled nurse looked up in annoyance from her endless computer busywork, but when she saw the dark glasses pointed toward the empty space between herself and the next nurse, she softened. “Of course, what can I do for you?”
“I’m a little lost, go figure,” Temerity joked. “I was looking for my friend J. B. Tunney. He was brought in last night with a gunshot wound. I’m not sure I’m in the right place, to judge from the sound of sucking and the smell of talcum powder.”
The nurse smiled, obviously relieved by the humor and the simplicity of the request.
“You’re in the maternity ward.”
“Ah, that would explain it.”
“What was the name?”
Temerity repeated it and the nurse typed on her computer, then her smile tightened to a grimace. She glanced up at Temerity with concern. “Are you family?”
“No, six degrees,” Temerity said, avoiding explanation.
“Okay, you need to turn to your left, go to the elevator banks at the end of the hallway, go up to six, and check with the nurse in ICU.” Before Temerity could thank her, she added, “But I’m not sure they’ll let you see him.”
“Well, at least he’ll know I tried.” She bounced the teddy bear, and the silver balloons danced a bit.
“I’m sure he’ll appreciate it.”
Temerity made her way back to the hallway where Ellen was waiting. “You heard?” she asked.
“Yeah,” Ellen said.
They made their way up to the sixth floor, but instead of finding a nurse, they sat in the crowded ICU waiting room to scope it out. There was a set of double doors, the top halves of which were large panes of safety glass, no doubt to lessen the chance of a collision of gurneys, with a code lock and a sign that read RESTRICTED ENTRY. Ellen positioned herself so that she could see through the glass, down the long narrow hall cluttered on both sides with ICU cubicles and portable medical equipment.
About halfway down that hall, outside one of the glassed and curtained rooms, a police officer was sitting in a folding chair. He had a cup of coffee and the paper. It looked like he’d been there for a while. Ellen explained the layout to Temerity. “You think that’s his room?” she asked. “Why would he have a police officer outside?”
“Don’t know,” Ellen said. “Maybe they think somebody will try to kill him again.” She thought about it. “So they’re protecting him because he can ID the guy.”
“Or maybe,” Temerity said, tightening her mouth into a thoughtful pout, “they found out he’s a dealer and they have him under arrest. Would they put a policeman here for that, you think? I mean, it’s not like he’s going anywhere.”
Ellen said she didn’t know. “Wait, there’s someone coming out.”
It was actually two people: a pear-shaped man with slim shoulders and a wide backside in a telltale white jacket and a taller man in a brown suit. As the suit held the door open for the doctor, a badge flashed on his belt. “It’s a doctor and a detective,” Ellen told Temerity.
The two men paused outside the room, heads together in consultation. An orderly pushing a patient on a gurney came from the far end of the cramped hallway and tried to make the turn to get into the ICU cubicle across the hall from J.B.’s, forcing the pair to vacate. They began a slow walk toward the waiting area. At the exit, the doctor reached out and hit a panel. The pneumatic double doors swooshed open.
“. . . and if he can be stabilized?” the detective was asking.
The doctor spoke matter-of-factly. “This guy is not the healthiest, but he is tough. If he can make it through the next couple of days, I’d say there’s a good chance of recovery—if infection doesn’t get him. I’m afraid that’s common with chest wounds, especially for smokers. Have you been able to locate any family?”
“No, we had a lead on a son, but he’s a trucker and moves around a lot. We’re hoping to hear from him eventually.”
“What was the shooting about? Robbery? Argument?”
“Drug related, most likely. His neighbor said he gets all kinds of strange visitors, ‘lowlifes,’ she called them, who pop in for a couple of minutes, no more.”
The doctor checked the clipboard in his hand and nodded. “Yeah, he had enough THC in his system to make a horse hallucinate, and a high blood alcohol level. He’s really lucky he didn’t bleed out. Your guys did a good job.”
The detective puffed out his cheeks and exhaled hard. “If he dies, I’ve got nobody but the old lady to ID the shooter. She did give us a positive ID in a lineup, but it was dark when she saw him come out of Tunney’s apartment, and her eyeglasses are thicker than the glass in Shamu’s tank at SeaWorld. Any hack of an attorney could challenge her testimony.”
“So you have the guy who shot him?”
“If it’s him. We picked him up a few blocks away. The problem is there are about a thousand other guys who fit that same description. And the old lady said the guy had on a jacket and was carrying a brown paper bag, I’m guessing something he stole from Mr. Tunney. But this kid had neither.”
A harsh wake-up alarm went off in Ellen’s head as she flashed on her last image of the shooter.
“He could have hidden them somewhere,” the doctor said.
“Or ditched them in the river, either way.” The detective rubbed his eyes. “We ran his prints. He has a juvenile record, but nothing since he turned eighteen. There were no print matches at the scene and no gun. We checked his hands for residual gunpowder, but they had been scrubbed and then rubbed with vegetable oil, so the results were compromised.”
“That’s weird.”
“Not really. Gangs are savvy these days. And most of these guys have spent their lives figuring out how to get away with shit. They’re good at it, and they always have an alibi. He claims he was helping his grandmother make tamales. A real model citizen.”
“And she backed up his story.” It wasn’t a question. As an urban doctor, he seemed to know the drill. Through the glass, in the hall behind them, Ellen saw the orderly with the gurney, empty now, emerge from a room and start toward them.
The detective heaved a long sigh and then said, “They always do. Unless we can find some other way to tie him to the shooting, he’ll walk. In fact, I’ll have to let him go tomorrow.”
The doctor shook his head, as though to rid it of disgust. “All I can tell you is that we’ll know more tomorrow, day after by the latest.” The orderly reached the double doors, a whack, a swoosh, and he started to push the gurney through, only to be stopped and quizzed by a nurse. They stood there comparing notes, the doors automatically remaining open. The noise from the frantic activity in the ICU wiped out any further eavesdropping.
A young man with the hood of his sweatshirt pulled up was seated with his back to them. As the detective and doctor drifted closer to him, he stood up and glanced around furtively. Ellen recognized it as the action of someone who did not want to be noticed, which caught her attention. As she watched, the young man glanced first toward the detective, tugging his hood farther down as he did, and then he turned in her direction, his eyes sweeping the room as if checking for danger.
He was Hispanic, like half the people in the hospital, so that was not exceptional, but in the split second he was facing Ellen, she saw that his eyebrow was pierced and the point of entry was red and swollen, as though it had been done at home and was infected. She took in a sharp breath. But he was already moving quickly away dow
n the hall.
Ellen watched as the detective and the doctor shook hands, turned in opposite directions, and went back to serve and protect a largely ungrateful public, leaving only the muffled beeps of a hundred monitors blended into a wall of background sound, like the falling of electronic raindrops.
Temerity was the first to speak. “Poor guy,” she said. “I don’t suppose we can do anything to help him, not now.”
Ellen wasn’t so sure. But her newfound courage, still a small and shaky thing, had spent itself and needed to retreat for the time being, so she said nothing. Maybe T-bone would be okay, maybe he could ID the shooter, maybe the teenager was not the same one who had been with T-bone’s attacker. Ellen could not recall him as well as the shooter, whose face, inches away from hers in her kitchen-door window, she would never forget, but the very idea of making that known sent the tiny bit of fluff that was her bravery scuttling back into its dark hole.
On the way out of the hospital, Temerity pressed a button on her watch and it told her the time. “Oh my gosh, I’ve got to get to rehearsal!”
She pulled a cell phone from a zippered pocket. “Justice? Hey, can you drive me to rehearsal? Great. Pick me up in front of Saint Vincent’s on Seventh, see you in fifteen? I’ll tell you when I see you. By the way, I’ve got Ellen with me. Okay. I’ll tell her. Perfect.”
As soon as Ellen heard Temerity include her in the conversation, she had instinctively tried to retreat, but Temerity had anticipated this and, after only a slight flail, snatched her sleeve, holding on tight. When she ended the call, she said, “I want you to come with me. Justice said he’ll hang out with you while I’m rehearsing. I won’t be long. It’s a run-through for a performance.”
“I don’t think that’s a very good idea.”
Temerity smiled. “That would be an accurate assessment of absolutely everything we’ve done in the last couple of days, but we did it anyway and I don’t see any reason to quit now. Besides, Justice has been asking about you. You can fill him in on all our adventures. There’s a nice park in front of the music hall and you guys can have a picnic or something.”
Invisible Ellen Page 12
