by Tish Cohen
On the form, the words “accidental death” caught his eye. Jesus Christ, why was this happening?
Shouting from the other side of the room. “Dr. Heller, we’re losing consciousness again.”
Dr. Heller’s body turned, but his eyes didn’t leave Victor’s face. “We have to move quickly. Every second counts…”
Victor signed the paper.
Seconds later, they were jogging down the hall again, Victor directly behind the nurse who held a large black rubber ball over Delilah’s chest. Keeping her alive by squeezing in regular intervals. This woman, nearly six feet tall, with her wildly patterned scrubs, long French braids, and fat pink pen hanging from a string around her neck, was all that stood between his daughter’s life and death. Victor willed the nurse not to trip, sneeze, lose her rhythm in any way. Should a natural disaster strike, right there in the brightly lit halls of the hospital, this stick-thin nurse, with all the power in the world, would be the only one, aside from his girl, whom Victor would save.
The smiley buttons on her scrubs clicked together, chattering above the sleeping face as she moved, their merriness unappreciated by her patient, whose eyelids had been fastened shut with transparent tape.
For protection, Dr. Heller had explained. Just for protection.
The only light in the hospital room came from a sliver of moon that hung so low in the sky, it appeared to be pulling back the curtains and peeking through the window. The calm, the quiet, the relief, of being in this room, this tiny recovery room, wrapped itself around Victor like a down jacket.
It had nearly killed him. Waiting for the outcome of the CT scan. Imagining Delilah slipping away from her little body with no one who loved her by her side. How long had it been? An hour? Maybe more, until they came for him. By that time he’d convinced himself it was over. The very best scenario was his daughter was blind. The worst…too horrific to contemplate.
When Dr. Heller finally came into the dim parents’ waiting area, his face had been tired. Stern. Victor hadn’t been able to stand, so sure was he that his world was about to collapse. But then the doctor smiled and said she was fine. Her sight was back.
The scan had showed a slight brain bleed, a subdural hematoma, just beneath the skull, that would not require surgery. There would be strict limits for physical activity the next six months—no skateboards, no bikes, no skiing or skating. Nothing involving jumping—no trampolines or pogo sticks or leaping on beds. No gym at school, no boating, no swings. There might be dizziness, nausea, and confusion. With any luck, the doctor said, she won’t even remember it happened.
Delilah stirred in her sleep, tucked into the nook of his arm, then settled into a quiet slumber. Glowing monitors behind her bed beeped rhythmically, almost soothingly; fat bags of intravenous fluids dangled from poles; wires and tubes leading down to their unconscious beneficiary, some piercing the flesh on the back of her hand, others snaking under her green gown, attaching themselves to her body.
Her face. Impossibly oblivious, impossibly pale. Angry red patches, swollen, skinned, groused from her forehead, her nose, her cheekbone. A bruise was already forming under her left eye. Victor settled back against the pillows and wrapped himself around her, careful not to jostle the hardwiring. He kissed her cheek, the right side.
God, he was tired.
Just as he started drifting off, a sound.
He opened his eyes to find she’d awoken. There, inches from his own, her blue eyes blinked, looked around. He started to laugh, blink back tears.
“What happened? Where am I?” she asked.
“You’re with me, Mouse. You’re with your dad.”
Delilah let sleep take over again.
The gods have given us a gift, Elisabeth, he would say. This time. We have to treat this tiny person with more care. No smoking around her. No leaving her with strangers. Next time, Elisabeth. Next time, who knew?
His speech wasn’t to be. His ex-wife was already marching into the room, a policewoman behind her. Elisabeth was shaking mad. Spitting mad. Sweating, flushing, sputtering mad.
“How could you?” she said, standing to the side of the door so the policewoman could hear, see. “You bastard. You were supposed to pick her up.”
Victor was stunned. “Yes, at five. This happened much earlier, three-thirty…”
“We agreed you’d get her at three. None of this would have happened if you were remotely dependable.”
It was what Elisabeth did. Bent the facts to suit herself. “Me? You left her with that stoner again, didn’t you? That trust-fund loser that calls himself an artist.”
“Ian’s a good person. Don’t you knock him.” For the first time, her eyes lighted on Victor’s daughter. Their daughter. She rushed to Delilah’s bedside, kissed her all over her face, all over her gashes, slashes, and bruises.
The policewoman was busy taking notes. Every once in a while, she glanced up at Victor, then scribbled some more.
“I trusted you,” Elisabeth said to Victor. “How could you not show up, you garbage excuse for a father—”
“Keep your voice down,” Victor said, nodding toward Delilah, who had fallen asleep again. “We’ll discuss this later.”
“He didn’t show,” she said to the police officer. “So typical.”
“It isn’t true. Elisabeth has a tendency to bend stories—”
“How did you find out?” asked Elisabeth.
“Delilah gave them my number. She was lucid at first, walking around and asking for—”
“And you didn’t even have the decency to call me,” Elisabeth spat. “I had to find out from the neighbor.”
“How was I to know this responsible friend of yours, this Ian, didn’t stick around and wait for the ambulance! Left her with a neighbor.”
“Don’t you start on Ian. You’re the one who went AWOL!”
she shouted loud enough to wake up Delilah. The child curled in a ball and began to sob. “Get out,” said Elisabeth, stroking her daughter’s head. “Now!”
“But…”
The policewoman stopped her note-taking and came closer. “I think it’s best,” she said to Victor, “if you come with me. Let’s let the family get settled—”
“The family?” he said, raising his voice for the first time. “I’m her father.”
She stepped into the room and took his arm. “If you’ll come down the hall, I’d like to ask you a few questions.” Victor stared at Delilah, who stared back while her mother piled extra flannel sheets on top of her. “Please, sir.”
Victor blew Delilah a kiss and followed the officer out of the room, his daughter’s wrecked wings in his hand.
Thirty-Eight
Lila sat in the gloom of her father’s bedroom, cross-legged at the foot of his bed. His sleep was so deep she leaned closer to check his breathing. The story, the memory, had exhausted him. Every now and then she kissed his forehead, the back of his cool hand.
Lila was calmed to the core. The truth about her father remained unchanged. He was, and always would be, the man she grew up believing him to be. The man willing to move the sun and the moon for the sake of his girl. Sure, he moved the sun too close and scorched the moon in the process. He wasn’t perfect. He was a criminal. But the man wasn’t evil.
Interesting too that his long-term memory was largely undisturbed. Though, she’d researched enough about Alzheimer’s in the past months to know the past was usually the last thing to go.
What struck her after he’d finished his story, however, and she’d thought very little of it at the time, was that her mother had bought her another bike. Not three months after the accident, which—the doctor was right—Lila did not remember. They’d been on Yonge Street, passing the huge Canadian Tire store, so white and red and out of place in charming, upscale Rosedale. There in the parking lot, with lavender streamers waving from the handlebars, was a white girl’s bicycle with a purple racing stripe along the frame.
If she’d known, if her parents had told her
about the accident and explained she was not to ride a bike until the following spring, if they’d revealed where on earth her own bike had gone, Lila wouldn’t have begged. She wouldn’t have crossed her arms, dropped down to the hot pavement, right there in the stream of Torontonians flowing in and out of the store, and announced she wanted that bike more than anything else on earth.
Then Elisabeth, being Elisabeth, wouldn’t have pulled out her wallet and said, “Then you’ll have it. No child should be without a bike.”
Elisabeth and her hippie parenting.
It was against the hospital’s orders. Victor, being Victor, was far too paranoid to let her risk another fall. Maybe he’d planned it, maybe he’d snapped, but he grabbed Lila and fled.
He thought he was saving her life.
Who knew? Maybe he had.
Elisabeth was the last parent on earth likely to follow through on stringent rules when it came to child safety. She could see that. Elisabeth had always been the child herself, far more likely to plop her daughter on a bed and tell her to see how high she could jump than to set her in front of the TV in the name of cerebral immobility.
Elisabeth and Kieran were due over any minute. The plan had been that Elisabeth and Victor have a bit of face time, then Elisabeth leave Kieran with Lila for a sleepover while she gave herself some time to recover from the trauma of confronting him. Whether she’d be recovering in Finn’s uninspired arms was anyone’s guess.
The meeting between the parents couldn’t happen. Not now. Victor was in a delicate state, needed this rest, and Lila wasn’t about to let anyone make it worse for him. She checked the clock again.
Thirty-Nine
Kieran’s suitcase was not what you’d expect. First of all, it weighed enough that she might have had a cadaver stuffed inside. Second, it was shiny gold and covered in the letter G. G’s on the handle, G’s on the pocket, and big brassy G’s as zipper pulls. The sort of thing an aging diva might wheel through LAX while wearing sunglasses and metallic baseball cap to create the impression she wanted to travel undetected.
When she caught Lila staring at it, Kieran made a face. “Mummy bought it.” The child stood at the top of the walkway with the suitcase and surveyed the grounds. It had stopped raining and the yard looked especially green, all wet and dripping in the bourgeoning sunlight. Still, the child was unimpressed. “The pool doesn’t look so clean.”
“It isn’t. More of a pond, really. I still float in it. Or I used to. Now I wade in it.”
Kieran had wandered down to the yard. She stopped in front of the weathered green shed, then looked up to her sister at the road’s edge. “How do you get your car in here? It’s way far down.”
“It’s not a garage. Just a shed. Where we put the garbage cans and rakes and stuff.”
Elisabeth had climbed out of her car and started down the steps. Lila had tried to get hold of her mother before she headed over, but it had been too late. “Go inside and explore, sweetie,” Elisabeth called. “It’s like a haunted barn or something. If I were a child, I’d make it my magical playhouse. Find a special corner inside and spy on everyone outside.”
“I used to do that. But now it’s pretty ramshackle,” said Lila. “There are boards with rusty nails poking out; there might even be a hornets’ nest under the eaves. I’ve seen some action in the far corner.”
“See, that’s what’s wrong with the world today. Children aren’t allowed to be children. No one grows up anymore having used their imagination. They’re all sitting on their computers living a virtual life because of all that ‘might’ go wrong. Look at you—people thought I was permissive because I let you roam around the neighborhood. But it wasn’t a stranger who destroyed our lives, was it?”
Lila closed her eyes for a moment and willed herself not to jump to her father’s defense. Now, in front of Kieran, wasn’t the time. Instead, she tucked her blowing hair down the back of her sweater and moved closer. “The bike’s in there, Mum. She’ll find it.”
Elisabeth raised her brows and smiled. Nodded and feigned zipping her lips and throwing away the key.
Turned out it didn’t matter. Kieran eyed the rusted hinges and the missing planks of wood and turned up her nose. Instead of considering the magic or the hornets, she sighed and started toward the house, disappeared inside.
“Mum,” said Lila. “I tried to call you. It’s not a good time for you to meet with Dad. I’m happy to watch Kieran, but you guys can’t have it out today. He’s sleeping now.”
“No problem. I don’t mind waiting for a bit.” Elisabeth smiled sweetly.
“You can come in, but I can guarantee he’ll be out for another couple of hours. He’s sleeping more and more in the day.”
“Okay. Let him sleep.” Her mother was unusually accommodating. Lila hadn’t expected it. Elisabeth took in the view, her face dreamy. “You know, this place is starting to grow on me. Has a certain eccentric sort of Los Angeles charm, don’t you think? And the location is divine. I was just reading that these properties go for millions. Even if they’re”—she sniffed and looked around—“not kept up.”
Elisabeth’s approval irked Lila.
“I want you to live with me, sweetheart.”
Lila looked up. “You mean move into your place? It’s a two bedroom.”
“I don’t have much time left here. What I’d really like is for you to come with me. Let’s all go home for Christmas.”
“But Dad—he can’t be here alone. He’s not well.”
“Delilah. It’s time to stop thinking about your father.”
To stop herself from reacting, Lila reached into the mailbox to pull out a handful of bills and a folded flyer. A notice from the neighborhood committee announced that the coyote with the torn ear was suspected of helping himself to a few local cats. Residents were warned to keep an eye on small children and pets for the time being, and rest assured, the committee was seeking assistance in dealing with the coyote threat and expected a swift and effective resolution to the problem.
Slash, like Victor, was doomed.
Forty
The house was quiet. Soft feminine voices could be heard from the back room, where Lila had likely stationed her mother and the little girl while he slept. Victor padded into the bathroom to relieve himself, unwilling to attract attention by flushing. He had to move quickly, before one of them wandered into the kitchen in search of a snack.
Sixty seconds later, he was up on the street. Clearing out of the house had been easy. The only thing he’d taken was his wallet and his doctor’s phone number scrawled on a scrap of paper. Victor stood under the unlit streetlamp and looked back at the house, his heart thumping from his dash up the hill.
The cab’s engine rattled and banged, and the driver opened the passenger-side window. Victor could smell garlic on the man’s breath. “You coming or what?”
Victor cast a final look toward his castle, his land, the daughter who waited inside. Took one last peek at his car and frowned when he noticed the neighbors’ white Prius was parked too close again, after three separate warnings, written warnings, that Victor had taken great care to compose. Moving nearer, he bent over and noticed another chalky ding in the side of his car, precisely where the hybrid’s door had swung open too wide. Again. He tried to wipe off the smudge, but it was paint from the Prius’s door. Jesus Christ.
The buzz of chatter from the cabbie’s radio, then, “Come on, man. I don’t got all day. You called me for five and it’s twenty past.”
Victor ignored the man. He searched his pockets for keys and came up with nothing but his metal sunglasses. They would have to do. Holding them folded, temple edge out, he walked around the Prius and gouged the paint from nose to tail, around the back and up to the front grille again. That would teach them.
“What the…?” The cabbie looked shocked. “You crazy?”
Victor climbed into the backseat, pulled the sunglasses on, and barked, “I’m not paying for a psychiatric evaluation. I’m paying yo
u to take me to thirteen-fifty-eight North Wilcox Avenue.”
ELISABETH SLIPPED INTO the kitchen, where she refilled her mug with hot tea, then reached for the milk. She looked up when Lila came into the room. “Well, I suppose you’re right. That father of yours is going to sleep all afternoon. You’re sure you don’t mind Kieran staying?”
“Not at all. I promised her we’d play hide-and-seek. Dad’ll be up soon anyway. Best if you go.”
Her mother rooted through the drawer for a teaspoon and stirred the milk into her tea. She set the spoon on the table and drank. “I’ve put up with so much from that man.”
“He’s not himself, Mum.”
“You know what? It doesn’t matter. I was positive he’d be a no-show today.”
“Then why set this all up?”
Elisabeth pulled on her sunglasses. “It was a test. If he spoke to me, apologized, it might have swayed me a little. But if he took the coward’s way out, if he avoided seeing me, it would make my decision simple.”
Lila knew the answer but had to ask. “What decision?”
She downed the rest of her tea and scooped up her purse. “Sweetheart, I’m meeting my lawyer at the police station. No more waiting. I’m having your father arrested. Today.”
Forty-One
Just like that, Elisabeth was gone.
It wasn’t so surprising, what her mother had planned. What left-behind parent wouldn’t do the same thing? Her ex-husband had committed a terrible crime. To her, to any parent victimized in this way, a crime that was unforgivable. It was right that he pay and that Elisabeth receive some sort of closure for what she suffered.
So why did Lila feel like throwing up?
