The Weekenders

by Mary Kay Andrews

  Nate opened the wine and poured a glass for Riley and opened a beer for himself, then led her by the hand to the sofa.

  She sat down beside him, and he pulled her into his arms. “I’ve thought about this every night while I was gone,” he said, running his hands through her hair and nibbling on her earlobes. “You wanna know how nutty I am about you? I pulled up some of your old video clips on YouTube and watched them at night, when I couldn’t sleep.”

  Riley laughed. “Now, that’s just weird.”

  “It gets weirder,” he chuckled. “It got so I got a hard-on every time I heard that stupid theme music for your Wake Up, Carolina show.”

  She stood up and pulled him to his feet. “Okay, I know how to fix that.”

  Nate grinned. “Should I put the coals on first?”

  “Later,” Riley said, slipping out of her sandals. “We’ve got all night.” He had her undressed before they made it to the bed. “I want you,” he said, stripping off her panties and bra. “Stand right there and just let me look at you,” he said, his voice hoarse. He stood behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist, kissing her ears and shoulder blades. He lifted her hair and kissed the nape of her neck and she shivered with delight. He ran his hands lightly up her belly and cupped a breast in each hand, and sitting on the edge of the bed, he slowly kissed his way down her spine, pausing at each vertebrae. He slid his hands downward, then pulled her onto his lap, teasing her with his fingertips, entering her and stroking her until she was mindless with pleasure.

  Riley turned and pushed him backward onto the bed. She pulled his shirt over his head and fumbled with his zipper while he watched, his head propped up on the pillows, while she tugged and struggled until she had him naked.

  She ran her hands lightly down his chest, then stroked and fondled and kissed him until he could stand it no longer. He raised himself above her and smiled down at her.

  “You’re doing it again,” Riley whispered.

  “What?”

  “Smiling,” she said, touching a finger to his lips. “Having fun.”

  “And what about you?” he asked.

  She reached up and guided him into her, raising her hips to meet his. “No more talking.”

  58

  “Now I wish you had started those coals,” she said, hours later. She rolled over on the bed and grabbed her phone to check the time. “It’s after nine, and I’m starving.”

  He nipped at her neck and tried to pull her back to him. “Starved for love?”

  “Starved for food,” she said firmly. “Dinner now. Love later.”

  “I’ll go start the coals,” he said. “You want a shower? There are clean towels in the bathroom.”

  He went to the dresser, got a pair of shorts, and stepped into them while Riley picked up her discarded clothes and headed for the bathroom.

  She’d just stepped out of the shower and was toweling off when she heard her phone ringing in the bedroom. She grabbed it and paused before hitting the connect button. The call was from her mother.

  Riley frowned down at the phone. She let the call go to voice mail and got dressed.

  By the time she’d walked into the kitchen, Nate was slicing tomatoes for a salad, and smoke was curling from the grill outside the kitchen door. Her phone rang again, and she pulled it from the pocket of her dress, frowning down at it.

  Nate gave her a questioning look. “It’s Mama. She knows I’m with you. And she’s not crazy about the idea.”

  “You told her?” Nate asked. “That’s a pretty bold move for you.”

  “Unfortunately, I didn’t get the chance,” Riley said. She poured herself a glass of wine and was telling him about the cell phone photo of their embrace that had gone viral when her phone rang again.

  “Don’t answer it,” Nate said sharply.

  She looked down at the caller ID and saw that the call was from Billy.

  “It’s my brother,” she said. “He never calls my cell.”

  She hit the connect button. “Billy?”

  “Riley, I’m at Shutters with Mama. Maggy’s locked herself in her bedroom and we can’t get her to come to the door. I think she’s sick.”

  “What? She was supposed to be at Annabelle’s.”

  “Look, I’m trying to get the door open. I think you better come. I think something bad has happened.”

  “I’ll be right there,” Riley said. “I don’t care what you have to do, just get that damn door open. I’m on my way.”

  “What is it?” Nate asked.

  “It’s Maggy. I’ll tell you what I know on the way,” Riley said.

  * * *

  “I don’t know why she went home,” Riley said, as Nate drove through the darkness. “She was supposed to spend the night at Annabelle’s.” She looked out at the thick canopy of trees. “Isn’t there any kind of shortcut?”

  “No,” Nate said. “The creek winds all through here. There’s only one way in and one way out. I’m going as fast as I can.”

  “We had another fight before she left,” Riley said, on the verge of tears. “Maggy was so angry and irritable, I thought maybe her blood sugar was off. She gets that way when it’s too low or too high. But she said she’d eaten and taken her insulin. And I checked her backpack. She had her syringes and her blood-testing kit with her. I don’t know what happened.”

  “What was the fight about?” he asked.

  “You,” Riley said, glancing over at him. “Maggy’s furious that I’m seeing you. She accused me of all kinds of horrible things, called me selfish, said I didn’t care about her feelings.”

  Nate reached for her hand and squeezed it. “Kids say things they don’t mean.”

  She shook her head vehemently. “No. She said she wished Wendell was alive and I was dead. And she meant every word.”

  “We’ll be there in five minutes,” Nate said. “What can I do?”

  “Drive faster,” Riley said. “Please, for God’s sake, drive faster.”

  * * *

  Lights blazed from every window at Shutters. Riley jumped from the moving golf cart and ran up the stairs. Billy knelt in front of Maggy’s door, an ice pick stuck into the lock. He turned helpless eyes to his sister.

  “I can’t open it,” he said. “I’ve tried kicking it, but this thing is like lead.”

  Nate came running up the stairs and appraised the situation with one look. “Get me a screwdriver and a hammer,” he said.

  “In the kitchen, in the drawer by the fridge,” Evelyn said, wringing her hands. “Hurry, Billy.”

  A moment later, Billy was back with tools in hand. Nate grabbed the screwdriver and started working on the hinges.

  “Maggy!” Riley called, putting her lips to the door. “Maggy! Can you hear me?”

  She thought she heard a faint noise, then nothing.

  “Nate, hurry,” Riley urged.

  “The damn pin is frozen,” he said. He took the screwdriver and jammed it into the gap between the pin and the hinge, using it as a wedge, then began striking the screwdriver handle with the hammer, again and again, until slowly the pin moved upward and popped loose. He moved down the door to the next hinge and repeated the same action, until finally, the second pin popped up. “Almost there,” Nate muttered. He grasped the door by the knob and middle hinge and yanked it completely off the door frame.

  Riley ran past him. Maggy was sprawled backward on the bed, her eyes barely open. An empty Coke can lay on the floor, and the rug was littered with mini Snickers candy wrappers.

  “Call nine-one-one,” Riley shouted. Evelyn looked on, paralyzed. “Mama, call nine-one-one!” she screamed. “Tell them we’ve got a twelve-year-old in a diabetic coma. We need to get to the hospital.”

  “Maggy!” Riley yelled. She knelt beside her daughter and felt that the bed was damp. She touched Maggy’s face and sniffed her breath. “Oh, God,” she whispered. “She’s peed the bed. Where’s her kit? Where’s the damn kit?”

  “Here’s her backpack,” Billy
said, picking it up from the floor.

  “The purple zippered case,” Riley said. “There’s a preloaded syringe. Hurry!”

  Billy found the kit and handed the syringe to his sister.

  Riley grabbed it and grasped Maggy’s leg, plunging the syringe into the outside of her upper thigh.

  “Oh, my God,” Evelyn whimpered. “Oh, my God.” She held the phone in her hand, staring at it.

  Billy took the phone and went out into the hallway. They heard his voice echoing in the high-ceilinged room. “Ambulance needed at the Shutters. Bluff Road. My twelve-year-old niece is in a diabetic coma. Please hurry!”

  “What should I do?” Nate asked.

  “Get her downstairs. We’ve got to get her to the hospital in town.”

  Nate bent over the girl, wrapped the edges of the bedspread around her limp form, and cradled her in his arms. Riley picked up her daughter’s kit and followed him down the stairs.

  He carried her out onto the porch and paused beside the golf cart. “The hell with it,” he said. “We’ll take her in the cart.” Just then they heard the wail of a siren. Moments later they saw the flashing red lights as the Belle Isle ambulance came speeding down the sandy drive.

  Two EMTs, a young woman and a chubby tech who looked to be barely out of his teens, jumped out of the vehicle and loaded Maggy onto a gurney. “We called for the Life Flight helicopter from Baldwin Memorial,” the woman told Riley. “They’ll land on the village green to pick us up.” She gestured to Riley. “You can ride in the back with your daughter, but we’ve gotta go right now.”

  Riley ducked into the ambulance and turned to look at Nate. She pointed toward the porch, where Evelyn stood, silhouetted in the doorway. “Tell Mama I’ll call her as soon as we get to the hospital.”

  “I’ll meet you there,” he called. But the ambulance was pulling away.

  * * *

  Nate met Evelyn and Billy at the edge of the porch. Billy had a protective arm wrapped around his mother’s shoulders. She stared at Nate with empty eyes. “They’re going to Life Flight Maggy to the hospital in Southpoint,” he said. “I’m going to take my boat over. Would you two like to ride with me?”

  “Your boat?” Evelyn looked confused. “Not the ferry?”

  “No, my boat can make it across in half the time it’d take the ferry,” Nate explained. “I’ll be happy to take you with me. My car is parked at the ferry dock.”

  “N-n-n-no,” Evelyn stuttered. “Not the ferry?”

  Billy took a step forward. “She’s terrified of small boats,” he said, his voice low.

  “How about you?” he asked.

  “I’ll stay here with her,” Billy said. “Will you tell Riley to call us? As soon as they know something?”

  “I’ll call you myself,” Nate said.

  * * *

  The next hour was a blur. Riley crouched on a bench-type seat in the helicopter, her eyes glued to Maggy. The techs had started an IV line, and a tiny bit of color had returned to her cheeks. She was wrapped up to her chin in a shiny silver thermal blanket that made her look like a burrito. Her eyes were closed, and her hand, which Riley had not stopped clutching, was still clammy to the touch.

  The crossing to the hospital was mercifully quick, and in less than fifteen minutes they were landing on the hospital’s rooftop helipad. The door opened and two sets of hands reached in to extract the gurney holding Maggy Griggs.

  * * *

  Riley sat across from a nurse at the admitting desk, giving Maggy’s detailed medical history.

  “She was diagnosed with type 1 juvenile diabetes a little over a year ago,” she told the nurse. “Maggy will be thirteen in October.”

  “Is her diabetes well-controlled?” the nurse asked.

  “Usually, yes. After she was diagnosed, they kept her at WakeMed in Raleigh for three days, while they stabilized her blood sugar and educated both of us on the disease. Maggy’s very bright, and picked up all the diet restrictions and blood testing really quickly.”

  “And is she usually compliant?”

  “Usually, she’s very diligent,” Riley said. “We haven’t had a single incident in months and months. But she’s had a rough summer. Her father was killed in May, and they were very close.”

  “That poor kid,” the nurse said, shaking her head. “And what happened tonight?”

  “We’d had a fight earlier in the day, and she was very upset. She was supposed to spend the night with a friend, and for some reason I don’t understand, she left her friend’s house around eight o’clock. When Maggy got home, she went directly to her bedroom and locked the door. I wasn’t home.” Riley felt her gut wrench with guilt and shame. “Around nine o’clock, my mother got concerned and knocked on her door, but Maggy didn’t answer. She called me, and I got home, and we managed to get the door off the hinges.”

  Riley chewed a bit of dried cuticle on her thumbnail. “We found an empty Coke can and several candy wrappers on the floor by her bed, and she was already unconscious, on her way to a diabetic coma. I managed to give her an injection, immediately, and then we called nine-one-one and got her here as fast as we could.”

  “Okay,” the nurse said. “I’m going to go in the back and see how she’s doing. Why don’t you take a seat and I’ll come out and let you know what’s what.”

  “Thank you,” Riley said. She collapsed into a chair and covered her face with her hands. Even when she closed her eyes she could still see Maggy’s ghostly face, smell the urine on her clothes and the smeared chocolate candy on her fingertips.

  Maggy hadn’t accidentally gorged herself on a sugary soda and candy bars. Her daughter knew exactly how many grams of protein, sugar, and complex carbohydrates she could safely consume in one day. She knew how to rescue herself with a quick hit of juice and cheese crackers if her blood sugar dropped, and how to inject herself with insulin when it was needed.

  No, Maggy knew exactly what she was doing tonight.

  “Mrs. Griggs?” The nurse was smiling down at her. “Maggy’s going to be fine. They’re giving her fluids, and she’s resting.”

  “Can I see her?” Riley asked.

  “Just for a minute. Once we get her into a room, you can settle in and stay with her.”

  Riley followed the nurse to a curtained-off treatment area. She stood by the bed and gingerly touched her sleeping daughter’s face. Her color had improved, and her skin was faintly warm to the touch. There was an IV tube attached to the crook of her right elbow, and another to the back of her left hand, and she wore an oxygen mask.

  “See? She’s perking right back up, like a little hothouse flower,” the nurse said cheerfully. She put a gentle hand on Riley’s arm. “Come on, Mama. Don’t be so scared. Kids this age like to live dangerously. They don’t want their friends to know they have a disease. They’re embarrassed to have somebody see them pricking their finger to test their blood, or giving themselves a shot. We see this kind of thing all the time. I promise, twenty-four hours from now, you won’t even know she got sick.”

  “I doubt that I will ever forget this night,” Riley said. “But I hope you’re right about her recovery.”

  * * *

  Somehow, she managed to doze off in the hard molded-plastic chair. She felt a gentle kiss on her cheek and opened her eyes to see Nate sitting beside her, holding a Styrofoam cup of coffee.

  “Hey,” he said softly. “Sorry to wake you up.”

  “I wasn’t really sleeping,” Riley said, trying to sit up straight.

  “I talked to the nurse a minute ago,” Nate said. “I might have let her think I was your husband.”

  “Oh.” Riley frowned.

  “I didn’t actually tell her I was. She just assumed it,” he said. “Anyway, she said they’re going to move Maggy into her room in about fifteen minutes because her condition has stabilized.”

  “Good.” Riley yawned widely. “What time is it?”

  “A little after two a.m. I texted Billy to tell him I’d gotten
here, and that the nurse said Maggy was doing okay.”

  “Oh geez,” Riley said. “I totally forgot to call them. Thanks for doing that.”

  “I don’t want to upset Maggy, so I’ll just stay out here in the waiting room,” Nate said. “Unless you want me to go back to the island and pick up some clothes and stuff for you? I could stop and bring you some breakfast too, if you want.”

  “No, Nate,” Riley said, biting her lip.

  “No, you don’t need clothes, or no breakfast?”

  “Neither. Both. What I mean is, I don’t want you to stay.”

  “I don’t mind,” he said. “I can’t leave you here by yourself. Really. I got this.”

  Riley blinked back the tears welling up in her eyes. “I want you to go. Please? It’s over. I can’t see you anymore.”

  He recoiled as though she’d punched him in the gut. “Why?”

  “Maggy didn’t just slip up and forget to take care of herself tonight. She deliberately put herself in a diabetic coma—because she was angry at me. She could have died. I can’t risk that again. She’s my child, Nate. I can’t put her health at risk.”

  He was shaking his head. “She’s pushing your buttons, Riley. Punishing you to get what she wants. All kids do that kind of stuff.”

  “All kids don’t have insulin-dependent diabetes,” Riley said. “All kids haven’t stood in a hospital morgue and seen their father stretched out in a refrigerated drawer.”

  “No, Riley,” he said urgently. “This isn’t fair. Not to you or me. We didn’t kill Wendell. We deserve some happiness, don’t we? Okay, we can cool it for a while, until Maggy gets used to the idea. But don’t tell me it’s over.”

  “I’m sorry, Nate,” Riley said. “You have to go. Please?”

  * * *

  She was leaning over the hospital bed, listening to her daughter’s steady in-and-out breathing. She stroked Maggy’s hair, smiling at the now-faded pink streaks. She turned her head for only a moment, and when she looked back, Maggy’s long eyelashes fluttered open.

  “Hi,” Riley said softly. “You’re back.”