by Susan Wiggs
“Nobody famous. A human interest piece. And it’s a crackerjack story. I’m waiting on an answer from the guy. I know what it’ll be. He’s a stubborn SOB, but he’s no fool.”
“Human interest? Then why me? I photograph mountains and suspension bridges, not—”
“So it’s not a suspension bridge. It’s a local guy named Matlock.”
A shadow loomed in front of Jessie, and she shrank back before realizing the darkness was cast by the big live oak across the yard. “Fine. Give me the scoop and let’s do it.”
CHAPTER 12
Lila slept all day, the way she used to when she was little and had an ear infection and a fever. Except that now, when she awakened to a blaze of late-afternoon sun streaming through the window, she didn’t feel any better.
She could hear the activity going on below—the phone ringing, her dad pacing the floor and talking to her mom in a low rumble, her aunt’s lightly accented voice chiming in now and then. Mom sounded totally stressed out, because she couldn’t get hold of her best friend, Nell Bridger. Trying not to think about the last time she’d seen Dig and Travis, Lila squeezed her eyes shut.
Some time later, after more drifting, she heard Owen and Wyatt getting home for the day, slamming the door and being shushed. Scottie asked to go see Lila, whining a little when denied. Lila wished the little guy would come in anyway—or was she on restriction from him, too?
She lay unmoving, hot and groggy, wishing she could be little again, cocooned by the hazy comfort of her mother sitting on the edge of the bed and smoothing her hand over Lila’s brow. She yearned for the salt-sweet tang of brackish Gatorade from a sippee cup, the earnest hilarity of Sesame Street, the sense that the smiling world would wait for her to get better. But she wasn’t a kid anymore; her mother and father had made that perfectly clear when they’d laid down the law. Yet in the same breath, they’d grounded her as though she was Wyatt, in trouble for hitting golfballs into the lake.
They didn’t get it. She was the oldest, the only girl. She was always having to baby-sit and clean up and put up with the Three Stooges. No wonder she sneaked out, drank beer, partied with her friends.
Frustrated, she lay appraising her memories the way she had assessed her injuries in the moments following the accident. Some of her recollections were ice-sharp, others were vague, as though someone had breathed on a mirror, melting the details into a diffuse blur. The agonizing moments of lying there, listening to the blare of the radio and smelling the reek of dripping gasoline, had been endless. Someone—Kathy, she thought—had turned hysterical, screaming and crying with the sort of roaring savagery you might hear in a zoo.
Lila remembered putting her hands over her ears as she let the tears run unchecked down her face. She offered up not only prayers, but detailed, intricate bargains to God—a 3.5 GPA if nothing was broken, volunteer hours at the Hill Country Care Alzheimer’s facility if she didn’t need stitches, a lifetime of uncomplaining household chores if no one in the Jeep was hurt at all….
Finally a fire truck and ambulance—maybe more than one—arrived, bathing the area in artificial white light. Paramedics and big-shouldered firemen swarmed over the hill like an army of fire ants. Grim faces appeared in every window. Gruff voices barked orders and talked about a “plan of extraction” and called for backup.
Judd Mason, who’d witnessed the accident because he was out doing the same thing in his Bronco, had appeared at the Jeep window, tipped his head sideways to peer inside. Before the rescue workers could peel him away, he said aloud what they were probably all thinking: “Ho-lee doggone shee-it. Look who’s been whirled around in the Bass-o-Matic.”
One fireman, so young he hardly needed to shave, grabbed Judd by the back of the collar and shoved him away. All cockiness gone, Judd fell to his knees and vomited. The young rescuer looked inside, too, and Lila remembered how close his face was, his features distorted by the cracks in the glass, his angel eyes filled with heartbreak. “This one’s conscious,” he called, his gaze never leaving her, never wavering. “Hurry up with that stretcher.”
More rescue workers closed in, asking Lila all sorts of questions: Did she know what had happened to her? What day was it? What year? Where did she hurt?
The strange thing was, at the time she had believed with every shred of herself that she was dying. She was a floating corpse, breathing underwater.
That’s what shock does to the body, Dr. Martinez had explained to her much later. She felt like she couldn’t catch her breath. She felt like she would never breathe again.
She didn’t really recall the “extraction,” as they called it, or the ambulance ride to the hospital. She had lain on a gurney for uncounted minutes before being questioned by the highway patrol, X-rayed, cleaned up, given some sort of IV and parked in an exam room to wait for her mother.
Hurry, Mommy, hurry…. Maybe she’d said it aloud, maybe not. She wasn’t sure.
The moment her mother had burst into the room, Lila had known she would survive. But she didn’t break down, didn’t sob with relief even though she wanted to. If she did that, her mother would know how scared and confused she was. She’d been fighting forever to prove she was her own person, and now this. So she put up her usual defense—anger, defiance, sarcasm—and prayed she could get the hell out of there.
According to the doctor, she was the lucky one of the bunch. “Shaken, not stirred,” the technician who did the CT scan had cheerfully proclaimed.
The lucky one. What was so lucky about surviving an accident when the boy you love and all your best friends were…
She scrambled from the bed and snatched up the phone receiver. Dead. The cord to the phone jack was gone.
She slammed down the phone, then grabbed the edge of the dresser as a wave of dizziness caught her. She felt like Dorothy in the swirling house, spinning out of control with no landing in sight. Feeling her way back to the bowl-shaped Papasan chair in the corner, she drew her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. She smelled her own sweat and puke and someone else’s blood and realized she hadn’t even bothered to shower before collapsing on her bed and sinking into sleep.
What about Heath? Had he taken a shower? She let out a wavering little moan.
“Hey, are you all right?”
Lila dragged her head up. “Aunt Jess. Where’s Mom?”
“Busy with your brothers, I imagine. I thought I heard you moving around up here and figured you were awake. Do you need anything?”
Lila leaned her head back against the cushion of the big round chair and stared at her aunt. She looked like a tattooed, redheaded pixie. The image spun gently. She was like Mom but she wasn’t. Mom on Ecstasy, maybe.
Do you need anything?
Yeah, Aunt Jess, how about we figure out a way to rewind the past twenty-four hours?
Then the dizziness stopped and she focused on the cordless handset clipped to Jessie’s waistband. “I have to make a phone call,” she said. “I need to find out what happened to my friends. Kathy’s my best friend. We’ve known each other since kindergarten. She was so scared in the car last night. I just want to hear her voice.”
Jessie indicated the turquoise plastic phone by the computer. “So make the call.”
“My phone is out of order,” Lila said. “I think the battery’s dead. Can I borrow that one? Please?”
Jessie moved closer. She didn’t seem to see the stack of willfully neglected schoolbooks on the floor in her path. She kicked them over, nearly falling on her face. “Damn,” Aunt Jessie muttered. “Your folks were right about one thing. This room needs a big cleaning.”
Great. She’d already gone over to the Dark Side.
“So can I borrow the phone?”
Jessie sat on the vanity stool and swiveled to face her. “Lila, you lied to me last night. Just remember that. Last night started with a lie. I was stupid enough to believe you. I have to live with that. I have to live with what happened because I believed you. My mother’s
caddie used to say, ‘Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice—’”
“‘Shame on me,’” Lila said, repeating the old phrase with her. “I’ve heard it.”
Jessie sat silent, watching her. She had the weirdest way of looking at a person. She didn’t just look with her eyes but with her whole body, like she was a dry sponge and you were water and she wanted to absorb you so you’d no longer exist apart from her.
Fool me once, shame on you…
Was she ashamed?
She was supposed to be, so she did what you were supposed to do when you’re ashamed of yourself. “Aunt Jess, I’m real sorry about what I did.”
Last night started with a lie.
She swallowed, and felt the first truly excruciating physical pain since the wreck. “I’m sorry,” she repeated.
Jessie sat there, motionless. “It’s not just me you should be apologizing to.”
Tears pressed at the back of Lila’s eyelids, and she fought for control, crushing them shut. She’d vowed recently to quit crying, because crying let people know you cared. Caring gave them power over you, and then you ended up doing things to make them happy instead of pleasing yourself. It was a harsh assignment to give herself, but life was harsh and she just wanted to have a good time.
She opened her eyes. “So you came in here all offended because I lied, but you don’t want me to apologize.”
“It’s not that you don’t owe me an apology,” Aunt Jessie said. “I need for you to mean it. I know you’re damned sorry you sneaked out with your boyfriend and got in a car crash, but are you sorry you lied to me? I don’t think so. You don’t even know me. What do you care whether you lied to me or not?”
“I don’t want to care.” The desperate whisper came out of its own accord. Then the tears followed, hot and humiliating, more defiant than her vow. They burned her cheeks with their heat, their quiet power. “Please, Aunt Jessie. I don’t want to care.”
She pulled herself into a miserable ball of shame, wishing the chair would swallow her up. Aunt Jessie came across the room to her, stumbling again over a stack of folded clothes Lila hadn’t put away. Jessie sat down and put her arms around her, holding on tight even though Lila reeked, and for some reason that made Lila cry harder.
Once she started, it was impossible to stop. She just sat there and cried and cried while her aunt held her, and somehow she ran out of steam and started to feel a little better. She never hugged her mom or dad anymore. She was always mad at them or getting ready to be mad at them or getting over being mad at them. But she had no history with her aunt, no connection, nothing at stake. Somehow that made it possible to cry and not want to die at the same time.
“I was so scared,” she said, sniffling. “I was so scared.” She said it over and over again while Aunt Jessie stroked her hair and then handed her a towel from her cheerleading gear bag. Pulling back, Lila was amazed to see that her aunt’s cheeks were streaked with tears. “Why are you crying?” she asked.
Aunt Jessie’s mouth trembled. “Oh, baby. This is the first time I ever got to hold you in my arms and rock you.”
Lila didn’t know what to say to that, so she took the towel and dabbed at her face. Sharing a corner of the towel, Aunt Jessie wrinkled her nose. “This thing is a biohazard.”
“My whole room is a biohazard.”
“Is that how you like it?”
“Of course not. But I don’t like cleaning it, either.”
“I think you should clean it.”
Lila thought of the way her aunt had stumbled over things. “I have to. My parents are making me. I’m just waiting for the workers to come and install the bars on my window. I’ll never see the light of day again.”
Something like panic flashed across her aunt’s face. “Don’t ever say that.”
“It’s true. They’re going to keep me in jail until I’m old enough to vote. They don’t care if I rot from boredom.”
“If your parents didn’t care, they would cut you loose and let you drift away, maybe sinking out of sight.”
Lila rose from the chair. She felt achy and fragile, even though she wasn’t supposed to be injured. She started picking through clothes mounded on the floor, tossing them in a laundry basket. Aunt Jessie watched for a while, then took out a slip of paper with phone numbers scribbled on it. She turned on the phone and stepped out into the hallway. Lila instantly glued her ear to the door.
Aunt Jessie identified herself as a family member of one of the victims and asked about the other kids. She listened carefully, saying “uh-huh” a bunch of times. Then she said, “Is she awake? Would it be all right to ring her room? I see. Yes. I’ll hold.”
Lila couldn’t stand it any longer. Whipping open the door, she said, “Kathy?”
Aunt Jessie nodded and came back into the room, crossing to the chair and sitting down. She looked like an angel, surrounded by colorful pillows, her short-enough-to-be-cool skirt draped over the edge of the chair. She froze, holding up a hand. “Is this Kathy? Just a moment, love, there’s someone here who wants to speak to you.”
Pure elation bubbled up in Lila and she seized the receiver. Thank you, she mouthed at her aunt, then said, “Kathy? It’s me, Lila. Are you okay?”
“No.” Kathy’s voice sounded tired and weak. “My leg’s broken in two places. Broken ribs, too, and stitches under my chin where I banged it. Hurts like a bitch, or it did until they gave me something. I’m dying of thirst, but they said I’m not supposed to drink anything.”
“Have you seen Heath?”
“No.” A long pause.
“Kathy, what?”
“My mom said Sierra had to have surgery to stop some kind of internal bleeding, and her foot was crushed.”
Lila clamped her eyes shut. This wasn’t happening. It wasn’t. “She’s on the track team.”
“Not anymore.” Kathy’s voice sounded slurry and strange. “Where’re you?”
“They let me come home,” she said. “I’m grounded for life.”
“Me, too, probably. As soon as the parental units quit feeling sorry for me.”
“If they’re like mine, the pity won’t last long.”
“That sucks.”
“Yeah. Have you heard about the others? What about Travis and Dig?”
The phone was snatched from Lila’s hand. Her mother stood there, her face as hard and white as marble.
“Hey,” Lila said, taking refuge in defiance. “I was talking.”
She pressed the off button.
“I had to find out how my friends are doing,” Lila snapped.
“In the future, I’ll get that information for you.” Her mom wheeled on Aunt Jessie. “She’s not allowed to use the phone until further notice.”
“I thought hearing from her friend would be reassuring,” said Aunt Jessie.
“You thought—” Mom stopped and took a deep breath. “Look, the phone’s off-limits for a reason. And Lila, you won’t…God, how do I say this?” Her voice wavered and she stopped talking, which worried Lila. Her mother always knew what to say. She wasn’t harsh and angry anymore, but troubled and sad. “Honey, I didn’t want you getting the facts from your friends, over the phone.”
“Kathy was telling me—” Lila stopped. Lately she didn’t hesitate to contradict her mother, but there was something weird about the way Mom held her lips pressed together as though holding something back that had to come out no matter how much she might want to keep it inside. “What?” Lila whispered, wishing she hadn’t used up all her tears on Aunt Jessie.
Mom reached for Lila, but Lila stepped back. Mom lowered her hands to her sides, still holding the phone. “It was a really bad accident. Everyone’s saying it’s a miracle you weren’t hurt at all. But the other kids weren’t so lucky.”
“I know about Sierra’s foot.”
“Some of the injuries were…more extensive.”
Lila couldn’t breathe. Somehow she managed to gasp out, “Heath?”
Mom shook he
r head as she clipped the phone to the waistband of her shorts. “He’ll survive.” Her hands kept moving nervously, picking things up, setting them down. “But…honey, it’s Albert Bridger—Dig.” She paused, and her face turned even whiter. “His injuries were extensive, and he was life-flighted to a level one Trauma Center. They did everything they could to save him.” Mom swallowed hard. She looked totally wrung. “Ah, Lila-girl. Dig’s dead.”
Jessie took a whispery little breath, but Lila didn’t breathe at all.
No. No. No. She didn’t say a word, yet her mind screamed. Her heart screamed. And then she completely rejected the idea. Not Dig. Dig was only in ninth grade; he was the youngest in the family. He had just made junior varsity on the football team. He was saving up to buy a dirt bike. She’d known him since the day his mother had plunked him down in the sandbox at Spring Valley Park and, only three, he had uttered one word over and over again: Dig. Dig. Dig.
He couldn’t be dead. He couldn’t be.
Lila nearly doubled over in pain, but she refused to react. Refused to show any sign at all that she’d heard her mother. If she didn’t howl, cry, throw things, tear at her hair, then it wasn’t real. Dig could not be dead.
“Sweetie,” her mother began.
Lila held out a hand as if to fend off a blow. She knew what was coming next. Her mom would shift into that familiar oh-so-practical mode. She would explain to Aunt Jessie who Dig was and how long they’d known the family and why this was all so sad. And then she’d start compiling a verbal list of things to do, like make a casserole and order some flowers and think up something trite and sentimental to do, like planting a tree in his honor in front of the school.
Mom stared at Lila’s hand. “I’ll sit with you for a little while.”
Lila nodded, then changed her mind. “I think I need to be by myself.”
“You’re sure.”
She nodded again. Please.
