The Long Sleep

by Caroline Crane

  If she’d fallen into a coma, she might well have been brain damaged. I would have liked to know how badly.

  Sixteen. There was tragedy in that. If I could bring out the tragedy, I would have a whale of a story.

  But without lecturing, as Lakeside did. The trick is to make people feel the emotion instead of just battering them with a message. Put them in Paula’s shoes. One night of partying and that’s it forever. Was it worth it, folks?

  * * *

  When school let out the next day, I felt torn. I wanted to visit Hank but I didn’t want to see him as he was, with his face so drawn it wasn’t Hank any more.

  I was at my car, with my mind still unmade up, when Cree came along. “Do you feel like going to Rayburn’s?”

  “What for?” I asked.

  “I need new gym shoes and I want company. Ben’s got some sort of meeting he’s going to.”

  I could hardly think of anything less interesting. But Cree was my buddy and it would give me a reason not to go to the hospital.

  “Sure, I guess so. I’ll watch you try them on.”

  “You don’t need anything?” she asked.

  “Not footwear.” M.I. Rayburn was all footwear. Shoes were fun, at least they could be, but I didn’t really need any at the moment.

  Once there, Cree prowled around, looking at displays. They had only one pair of gym shoes on display and she didn’t like them. She sat down and waited for help while I did the prowling.

  I found a pair of pumps whose toes were clear plastic, each with a butterfly on it. I examined them closely to make sure they weren’t real butterflies. People used to kill real birds and decorate hats with them. People can be so brutal.

  The butterflies weren’t real, thank goodness. I could almost picture going to a dance in those shoes, except I had no one to dance with. And the heels had to be almost four inches. I wasn’t used to walking in heels like that, much less dancing. My date would be scraping me off the floor.

  What date? Not Hank. Even if he were conscious, he didn’t seem like the dancing type.

  How about Falco? A policemens’ ball. Did Southbridge have a policemens' ball? I was off and daydreaming and had to rein myself in before somebody noticed the dopey look on my face.

  Cree was being waited on by a young guy scarcely older than she was. I saw him put a rejected pair back in its box and go to the storeroom for more.

  I sat down beside her. “Any luck so far?” I could see there wasn’t. I was only trying to make conversation.

  “I wish they were toe shoes,” she said. Cree used to study ballet. At one time she thought of going professional, except she started too late and didn’t have the right kind of figure. Instead of being sylphlike and skinny, as ballerinas usually are, she had a full bust, curvy hips, and a slender waist. Her grandmother called it an hourglass figure and said it was just right for an eighteen-nineties chorus girl.

  Ben liked it.

  “Why don’t you try on something?” she asked. “It might cheer you up after talking to Evan.”

  I had told her all about that conversation.

  “Too depressed,” I said. “Not about Evan. I banished him from my mind. It’s Hank.”

  “How’s he doing?”

  That was a tough one. “To be honest, I think he looks worse, maybe from being unconscious so long. But he’s out of ICU and that scares me.” I explained my worry about his safety. “That’s why we have to catch Evan real quick. But when I tried what Ben suggested, it didn’t work.”

  “Maybe he sensed you weren’t being sincere.”

  I’d thought about that but hadn’t put it into words, even to myself. “Do you really think Evan is that sensitive?”

  “How would I know?” Cree had never met him, but she’d heard enough from me. True, that was only one side of the story. But it made a lot more sense than his side.

  The salesman came back with another load of boxes. Black shoes with hot pink trim. White with hot pink. Lime green. Silver. She didn’t like any of them.

  Some were too expensive. Others not feminine enough, even with the pink. Finally she said to the clerk, “I know you carry dance slippers, I used to buy them here. What have you got in toe shoes?”

  “Cree!” I said. “That’s not what you came for.”

  “But it’s what I want.”

  “What are you going to do with them?” The ballet school she went to in Southbridge had closed and there wasn’t another nearby.

  “Dance. What else?”

  “But . . .” I knew she didn’t have a lot of money. Why waste it on something she didn’t need?

  “It cheers me up,” she said.

  “What do you need cheering up about?”

  Lovingly she took the box the clerk handed her, lovingly took out a pair of pink satin shoes wrapped in tissue paper.

  “You can try them on,” said the clerk. “But no dancing till they’re paid for.” He grinned.

  “Gotcha.” She took out a slipper and put it on her foot. She pointed her toe but didn’t try standing on it. I wondered if she really was going to buy them.

  “What,” I asked again, “do you need cheering up about?”

  “My old man.”

  “What did he do?”

  Cree’s father was on an island somewhere in the Pacific. Right after she was born he left home to travel. Said he needed space. He decided he was a travel writer and he toured the world, taking a few pictures, writing a few articles. Mostly he did odd jobs to support himself. He didn’t earn enough to support his family. Cree’s mom had to go into real estate where she made a pretty good income.

  The fact that he left almost as soon as she was born was something Cree took personally. She figured her father got one look and couldn’t stand her. What would anybody think in those circumstances? Since then he’d only been home once for a short visit several years ago. Before that, she’d never even seen him.

  Cree took off the toe shoe and carefully wrapped it. To me she explained, “We got a letter from him that he was coming home. I thought finally I’d get to know this guy. Then we had another letter that he isn’t. I wish I could just forget about him.”

  I wished she could, too. He deserved it, but he was, after all, her father.

  “Why didn’t you tell me he was coming?” I said.

  “Because I was afraid it might not be true, and it wasn’t.”

  “That’s superstitious.” Even though I do it myself sometimes, not talk about something for fear I’ll jinx it. I’ll bet a lot of people do.

  I sat down and hugged her. “Cree, I’m so sorry. Anyhow, you have Ben. He’s true blue.” Whatever that was supposed to mean. Maybe because it rhymed.

  Next to Jules Penny, my own dad was dull as ditchwater but very sweet and reliable and I loved him. I couldn’t imagine what Cree had to go through. She really should try to forget him.

  Easy for me to say.

  She handed back the toe shoes and apologized for wasting the guy’s time. We left the store without her buying anything.

  Five feet away from the door, she stopped. “You know what? Maybe I—”

  She started to turn and suddenly barreled into me. She pushed me, hard, along the sidewalk until we both fell down. I thought she’d gone bonkers but I really didn’t have time to think. With a horrendous roar, a huge thing loomed where I had just been and crashed into Rayburn’s window.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Cree landed on top of me. She kept saying, “Oh my God. Oh Lord. Oh my God . . .”

  With her blocking my view, I couldn’t see what it was. It looked like a big black SUV. People came rushing across the street, down the sidewalk, out of the store.

  It didn’t take the police long to get there, either. They wrenched open the car’s door and hauled out the driver. He was young. I didn’t know him.

  Other people picked us up off the sidewalk and asked if we were hurt. I looked for Rick. He wasn’t there.

  “How did you know?” I gasped to
Cree.

  She, too, tried to catch her breath. “I saw it—the reflection—in the door. Coming straight—if I didn’t decide—right then —if I didn’t turn—” She sagged and I caught her before we both fell down again.

  We were surrounded. They all kept asking if we were hurt. Asking what happened. Insisting we must be hurt.

  Sirens came. More police. An ambulance. The paramedics were certain we needed help. They didn’t know what happened until people told them. They made us get in the ambulance and sit down. That was okay with me. Sitting was good. While they checked us over, I watched what the police were doing. They stood the guy up and made him walk. Instead, he tried to bolt. They caught him and snapped on cuffs.

  They found a canvas bag on the front seat and took something out of it. From where I sat, it looked like a huge roll of bills.

  Cree’s friend Phil Reimer, a reporter from The Chronicle, came, and then Rick. He talked briefly with the officers working over the car, then came into the ambulance. When he saw me, his eyes got big and he rushed over. “You? This was you?” He must have heard that something happened but didn’t know it involved anyone he knew.

  “Don’t ask me for details,” I said. “It’s all a blur. My friend pushed me out of the way.”

  Cree had to repeat her account of how she saw the reflection. Several times she repeated it, to Rick, to Mr. Reimer, a few other officers, and a couple of paramedics.

  “Coming straight at you?” Rick said. “Up on the sidewalk?”

  Cree nodded. “I just decided to buy the toe shoes, so I was going back in.”

  Bless those toe shoes. They saved our lives. I would buy her a pair.

  The canvas bag, it turned out, contained five thousand dollars in hundred dollar bills. And the driver was really, really high.

  “Somebody,” said Rick, “must have paid him to go on a suicide mission.”

  “Suicide?” I quavered.

  He put his arm around me. “Somebody has it in for you.”

  “Evan.” But Evan, as far as I knew, didn’t have that kind of money.

  As it turned out, nobody had that kind of money. It didn’t take any sophisticated equipment to discover the bills were phony.

  Whether it was intended as a suicide mission or not, I wasn’t meant to survive. The kid was too whacked out to know what he was doing. All he wanted was money for another fix. He didn’t ask questions, didn’t know the person who gave it to him. Now all he had was trouble.

  Rick felt sure it was me they were after, and not Cree. He gave me another hug. “How can I keep you safe?”

  “Find Evan,” I said.

  They were trying. But Evan was slippery.

  * * *

  My parents worried, too. They almost didn’t want me going to school on Monday. In the end they decided school was safer than home by myself.

  Furthermore, they concluded the attack was only meant to scare me.

  Rick didn’t go along with that. “Why take a chance?” he said, as we gathered in our living room on Sunday to discuss my fate. That is, everybody discussed it except me. I wasn’t given much say in the matter.

  Rhoda said, “Do you really think it’s more serious than that?”

  “Till we find the person who’s behind it, I wouldn’t want to guess,” Rick replied. “It might be wrong.”

  “So what should we do?” Daddy asked. “Should one of us stay home?” He didn’t look happy about that. Both he and Rhoda had clients. Or did he mean Ben?

  “I just don’t know,” said Rick. “I don’t know what we’re up against, whether one person would be enough or too many. I’d stay myself, but I’m a public servant, not a private guard.”

  They could understand that, and this was getting ridiculous. Finally I spoke up. “I’ll go. I mean school. I’ll ride with Ben, so I’m never alone.”

  I hadn’t been alone in front of Rayburn’s. Cree was with me. It was Cree who saved my life. For all I knew that car was aiming at her, although I couldn’t think of a reason why anybody would do that, and neither could anyone else. Lucky Cree didn’t have an Evan trying to prove his machismo, or whatever he was trying to prove.

  And so I went to school on Monday. Nothing happened or even looked as if it was going to happen. The day passed normally, except I didn’t have my car to visit Hank. That bothered me, but I supposed it was better than being flattened on a sidewalk.

  Tuesday they allowed me to take my car. Rhoda was panic-stricken. We were having our newspaper meeting that day because of Thanksgiving on Thursday. She remembered very well that it was after a newspaper meeting that Hank was shot. I remembered it, too, of course, but I assured her, and myself, that the meeting had run late that day and I wouldn’t stay late this time. Even if other people wanted to go on talking, I would make sure to leave before sundown.

  I had worked hard to get something ready to present, but it wasn’t coming off. At least not the way I wanted it. In the end, all I had was my notes.

  Cindy Belcher said, “Haven’t you finished that yet?”

  She really was kind of bitchy. Maybe she liked conflict.

  “There’s a lot to it,” I explained. “I keep finding more. I don’t want to turn this into a lecture but it doesn’t hurt to make people aware of what can happen.” I glanced at Mr. Geyer to see if he approved. His face was impassive.

  “So anyway,” I said, “here’s the timetable. Paula was sixteen when she took that overdose.”

  That wasn’t the right word. I tried “cocktail,” meaning a mix of stuff. It wasn’t right either. I gave up and went on.

  “After they got her to the hospital and hooked up to a ventilator, she spent three years with the machine breathing for her, and everybody arguing back and forth whether to keep her alive or let her go. That’s what this series is about. Are you really alive if you’re lying there with a pump pushing air into your lungs? What’s the sense? Is that living?”

  I saw a hand go up, and hurried on. “Let me finish this first. I didn’t mean to go off track. Anyhow, her family prevailed and they took her off the ventilator. But surprise, she didn’t die. She’d passed three birthdays that she didn’t know about and was nineteen then. Even without the machine, she went on living and breathing, but still unconscious, for five more years. Then she caught an infection and died. She was twenty-four. That was ten years ago. She’d be thirty-four now, probably married, having kids, leading a normal life.”

  Cindy Belcher raised her hand and didn’t wait to be called on. “If she could breathe without the machine, it proves she was alive.”

  “That’s true,” I said. “Nobody set out to kill her. They only wanted to give her a chance to do what came naturally.”

  I thought it was a pretty good argument, but Cindy wasn’t convinced. “That proves it!” she said again.

  “Proves what?” I asked. “That she lived? Until the infection got her. Nobody will ever know how she felt about it, what kind of life it was for her. Whether she wanted it or not or even knew about it. A life of nothing but sleep.”

  “Sleeping’s nice,” said one of the guys. “Don’t you like it?”

  “All the time? I like it if I know I’m sleeping,” I said. “Like if I wake up and know I can stay there instead of jumping up for school. But what if you can only hear voices and know you’ll never wake? I don’t see where that would be so nice.”

  I wasn’t at all sure how a person would feel, or know they would never wake up.

  A nerdy guy named Damon had another take on it. “What about reincarnation? Maybe you want to move on to the next life and hope it’s better but you’re stuck there because they won’t let you go.”

  Cindy said, “That’s bullshit.”

  He glared at her. “How do you know it’s bullshit? You don’t know anything about it except what people tell you, and how do they know? Even if you believe you go to heaven, which is supposed to be so nice, wouldn’t you want to get there instead of being stuck in bed with a tube down your throa
t, and tubes in your nose and everywhere, and machines doing it all for you?”

  I rapped on the desk. “Those are all good points and we’ll use them in the article. But we’re not here to draw conclusions, because there aren’t any. We each have our own beliefs and attitudes and preferences, and that’s why it’s important to make a living will, so people will know what you want. Like Cindy would want to be kept on the ventilator. Somebody else might want it turned off so they could move on to whatever comes next. I don’t think Hank meant for us to provide all the answers. We’re only reporting a few cases that made the news and exploring some different points of view.”

  I looked again at Mr. Geyer. He rested his chin on a fist that held a pencil, but still showed no reaction. I had been very articulate, or so it seemed to me. I would make a good lawyer. It was something I’d thought of before. Or possibly journalism.

  They all watched me. I never meant to bring up Evan, but had to say something because nobody else did.

  “I was researching Paula,” I began, “when I found out something that knocked me flat.”

  I looked around. They waited for me to make a point, so I tried.

  “Paula had a much younger stepbrother who turns out to be somebody I dated when I was at Lakeside. Dated a lot,” I added when there wasn’t much reaction. “In fact, he was the reason I transferred here. It was not a friendly breakup.”

  They all stared. Including Mr. Geyer.

  It pulled me into Paula’s story more than I wanted. I should have kept it to myself.

  Mr. Geyer set down the pencil and looked at his watch. I looked at mine. It was getting near dark and I’d promised.

  “Maddie,” he said. “Could I see you for a moment?”

  I waited while the others scrambled into their coats and left. He picked up his ever-present briefcase and met me at his desk. I dreaded what was coming.

  It didn’t look too bad. His face was bland, almost friendly. He asked, “You actually knew members of the Welbourne family?”