Bone Deep

by O'Brien, Kim;

  Distracted, Mrs. Shum stares at the figure. “What the…”

  She doesn’t have time to finish. The si’papu is right behind her. I kick her as hard as I can.

  She loses her balance and steps backward, tripping as her foot rolls on the broken wine bottle. She almost catches herself, but then takes one more step backward. For half a second, I see her expression change, and then she’s gone, falling through the floors. I hear a muffled thump as she hits the ground, and then there’s silence.

  Dr. Shum releases Jalen and runs to the edge of the passageway. “Julia!” he shouts. “Julia!”

  The man in the doorway steps forward as Jalen climbs to his feet. In the light, I recognize Jalen’s uncle. He and Jalen rush over to Dr. Shum, who brushes off their grip on him. “Let go of me!” he shouts “I have to go to her! We have to help her!”

  “Ray…” Mrs. Shum’s voice floats out of the darkness below. “Help me.”

  “I’m coming,” Dr. Shum says. He turns to Jalen. “Please,” he says. “She’s hurt. She could be dying.”

  “Did you help Emily when she begged for her life?”

  One of Dr. Shum’s eyes is blood red. The rest of his face is swollen and battered. “Julia didn’t mean to hit her so hard. And then what was I to do? Emily would have been dead before we could get her off the cliffs. It would have ruined my career! All for what purpose? She was dying. I put her in the most sacred place that anyone could ever be buried in—a si’papu.” He glances down the hole again. “Please,” he says. “Julia needs help.”

  The world starts to spin as a new and terrible thought occurs to me. “Emily was alive when you sealed her in the si’papu?”

  “I told you. There was no hope for her. Now let me get to Julia!”

  You’re a monster, I start to tell him, but he is suddenly moving farther and farther away from me, traveling down an endless hallway. My words echo in my head, which feels so light it might detach itself and float away. The ache of my arm feels less intense, as if it’s something I’m remembering rather than feeling. I’m suddenly so dizzy it’s an effort to stand.

  “Paige,” Jalen says, but any words after that fade into the darkness.

  FORTY-THREE

  Paige

  I open my eyes to white walls and a bank of medical equipment around me. An IV drips into my arm. There’s a weird taste in my mouth and a vague memory of bright lights, the sensation of flying down a long corridor, of Jalen’s face receding rapidly.

  “Jalen.” It comes out no louder than a whisper. Where is he? Is he okay?

  I look around. My right arm is encased in a cast and hangs from a trapeze over my bed. Next to me, sitting in chairs pushed closely together, are my mother and Stuart. Jalen fills another seat near the foot of my bed. His arm is in a sling, and he’s wearing a blue hospital gown. His lip is split, and one eye is swollen shut. It hurts to look at him, but it also feels awesome to know he’s alive. We’re alive.

  “Hey,” I say to him.

  “Hey,” he says back.

  “Paige.” My mother brushes my hair gently off my face. “You’re awake. You feeling okay? Thirsty?”

  When I nod, she lets me sip water through a straw, but even just a few sips are exhausting.

  “You scared us, honey, but you’re going to be fine,” my mom says. “Your arm is broken and you lost some blood because the bone broke through, but Dr. Evanston operated and says it’ll heal even stronger than it was.”

  With my good arm, I try to touch a very sore spot on my head, but my mother pulls my arm away. “Twelve stitches,” she murmurs. “But your hair will cover the scar.”

  Like I care about that.

  She gives me a bright smile, but there are dark circles under her eyes and her chestnut hair has the messy look of someone who hasn’t looked in the mirror for a long time.

  “What time is it?”

  “Two in the afternoon,” she says. “You were brought here early this morning. We spent most of the night looking for you.” She smiles at Stuart, and a note of pride enters her voice. “Stuart found you. When we went to the Shums’ house, the front door was unlocked. I almost had a heart attack when we saw the mess in the studio. We knew something was wrong. Stu called the police and then emergency rooms. Everyone tried to give us the runaround and the twenty-four-hour missing person thing, but Stu didn’t let anyone push him around.”

  “Sometimes it helps to have a lawyer in the family. I know how the system works, Paige.” Stuart winks at me. “Glad you’re going to be okay.”

  Someone in the family—but he isn’t my family, and tears prick my eyes because it isn’t Stuart I want sitting next to my mother beside my bed. “Where’s Dad?”

  “Still in jail,” my mother says. “They’re processing his paperwork, but I know he’ll get here as soon as he can.”

  “These things take time,” Stuart adds.

  My gaze goes back to Jalen’s arm, resting in the sling. “You’re hurt. How bad is it?”

  He shrugs. “Not bad.”

  I remember the rage on Mrs. Shum’s face as she swung the tire iron and know he’s seriously downplaying it. “The truth.”

  “Collarbone’s broken. They’re screwing it back together later today.”

  “You both will have the same surgeon. Isn’t that funny?” My mother gives a small, uncomfortable laugh, and Stuart reaches over to squeeze her hands. My lips feel dry and cracked, but I know they aren’t nearly as bad as Jalen’s. Looking at his battered face, I know several things—that he is in pain, that he will not tell anyone that he’s in pain, and that he probably sat with me all night.

  Fat tears pool in my eyes. How is it that I have turned out to be such a crybaby? But Jalen saved me. Even though we’d argued and broken up, he still looked for me. He climbed up those ruins in the night, he fought with the Shums, and he brought me back from the dead.

  My mother lifts the cup of water to my lips, but I push it away. It’s not what I need. “Mom, could you give me and Jalen a little time alone?”

  Her forehead wrinkles. “You really need to rest. The police want to talk to you as well.” Her gaze turns to Jalen. “You, too, Jalen. You should go back to pre-op and get ready for your surgery. Besides, if that nurse finds you here again…”

  Stuart rises to his feet. “Come on, honey. Let’s get a quick bite.” He turns to me. His eyes are deep-set, hazel-colored, and shrewd, but looking deeper I see a warmth there I never noticed before. He winks at me, but it isn’t as annoying as before.

  “Stuart, she just woke up…”

  “And you need to eat something,” he says gently. “Fifteen minutes isn’t that long.”

  My mother groans and rolls her eyes, but doesn’t pull away when Stuart takes her hand. He smiles at her, and some of the lines in her face relax. The two of them fit together in a way that my mother hasn’t fit with my father in a long time. It still hurts a little to see this, but there’s no denying that she looks happier than she has in forever.

  As soon as they’re gone, Jalen moves to a chair by the side of the bed. He looks a little uncertain, as if he’s afraid I’ll break into a million pieces if he touches me. The funny thing is that I’m a little afraid to touch him, too.

  “I’m so, so sorry, Jalen. I almost got you killed.” The enormity of what almost happened washes through me. Hot tears fill my eyes, blurring my vision. I blink them back, trying to swallow the rapidly growing lump in my throat because there’s so much I need to say to him. “I never should have said those things about your uncle or blamed you for telling the police or…”

  “Shhh.” He leans closer to me. “The important thing is you’re okay.”

  “You could have died because of me.”

  He shakes his head. “You almost died because I didn’t answer your phone call. Remember my uncle’s prophesy? He said you would come to me for help, and I wouldn’t give it to you. And I would watch you die.”

  Remembering that moment when the Shums sealed off
my air sends a rush of panic through me. The doctor said that if Jalen had taken any longer, I would be dead or have irreversible brain damage. In his words, I am a very lucky girl. “But you did help me, and I didn’t die. You saved me.” Although nothing in his face changes, I sense the words mean something to him. “Thank you.”

  He shakes his head slowly. “You saved me.”

  We look up at each other for a long time. Even battered and bruised, his face is beautiful to me, and I want to tell him that I love him, but I don’t want him to think I love him because he saved me. It’s because of who he is and how I feel when I’m with him.

  He reaches for my good hand, and our fingers twine together. I never want to let go of him.

  “Your uncle saved us both. When he turned on the flashlight, I saw how close Mrs. Shum was to the opening of the si’papu.” My stomach suddenly knots as I remember kicking out, Mrs. Shum stumbling backward and disappearing down the hole. “Is she alive?”

  “Yes. But her back is broken. She’s paralyzed.”

  I take it in, waiting to see if I feel guilty or pleased. Mostly I’m relieved that she isn’t going to hurt anyone again. “And Emily? Did they find her?”

  His features don’t move, but I read the sadness in his eyes. “Yes.”

  I know the answer, but have to hear it anyway. “Dead?”

  He nods, and a wave of sorrow passes through me. Even though I knew it was a long shot, I still hoped she’d hung on, that we’d find her alive. “If only we had found her sooner…”

  He looks down at me so tenderly that I feel those weak tears prick the corners of my eyes again. “Don’t blame yourself. The Shums would have gotten away with it if it weren’t for you.”

  “For us,” I tell him. “And your uncle.”

  “And my uncle,” he agrees.

  Suddenly the door to my room opens, and a tall nurse with short, spiked black hair walks into my room. She shakes her head when she sees Jalen. “Again? They’re looking for you in the pre-op waiting room.” Her gaze goes to the machines monitoring my vitals, and she gives a small nod. “How’s your pain level?”

  “It’s okay.”

  “You want ice chips? A Popsicle?” She frowns at Jalen as if he’s in the way, which he totally isn’t. “What time is your surgery?”

  “Four o’clock,” he says.

  I shake my head and exchange smiles with Jalen as the nurse adjusts my IV bag and then pulls out a handheld device and begins typing.

  Jalen kisses my forehead and stands. I know he needs to go, but I still have so many questions. How did he know to come to the ruins? How did his uncle show up at just the right time? I remember Dr. Shum begging us to let him climb down into the lower chamber to be with his wife, but after that everything is blurry.

  “Wait,” I call out as Jalen turns to leave. “There’s just one more thing I need to know.”

  He pauses. Even with one eye swollen shut, when he looks at me it feels like we see each other in a way that connects us, only us.

  “How did I get off the cliffs?”

  “I carried you down.”

  Beside me, the nurse stops inputting information into her computer.

  “You carried me down? But your collarbone’s broken.”

  He shrugs.

  “Those ladders… How did you hold me?”

  “Very carefully,” he says so seriously I know he’s joking.

  It had to hurt. Really hurt.

  Closing my eyes, I think about Jalen carrying me down the cliffs. I wish I could remember him holding me, but I don’t. I wonder if his uncle tried to talk him out of it, if he said it was too risky. But then I smile, picturing how Jalen would simply fold his arms and give him that stony look—or ignore him completely.

  Jalen has got to be the most stubborn person I know.

  It used to drive me crazy, but now I kind of love it.

  FORTY-FOUR

  Paige

  The next few days pass in a blur. My father is released from jail. Jalen and I are discharged from the hospital. I go to stay with my mother and Stuart at the Marriott near the airport. My mother and I share a room; Stuart gets his own. I can tell they miss being together, but they’re trying to make things easier for me. I’m grateful, especially when the nightmares wake me up and my mom is there. She doesn’t seem to mind watching old movies in the middle of the night or sleeping with the light on. I know eventually we’re going to have to talk about what happened between her and Stuart before the divorce, but I’m not ready. Maybe I’ll never be. The truth is that she’s here and she loves me. For now, that’s enough.

  Jalen visits me every day. My mother leaves us alone, and we spend hours watching movies or playing board games while I’m hooked up to the bone stimulator. We talk about everything. He tells me about his uncle—a powerful healer, and also an alcoholic. I remember what Jalen told me about medicine men, how the skills are passed down from one generation to another.

  “Your uncle is going to teach you to be a healer, isn’t he?”

  Jalen nods. I tell him I’m glad but don’t ask him questions he can’t answer.

  In return, I tell him about my mother’s affair, how it seeped like a poison into our house.

  The stories we tell each other are ones we have never told anyone else and probably will never repeat. But as the daughter of an archeologist, I understand the power of stories like these—how they lay bare the bones of your family and expose the very things we’ve been taught should stay hidden. How the truths in them can set the course of your life. You can either learn from the past or risk the same consequences. That is the gift of history.

  The Lintons hold a funeral for Emily on the fifth day after I’m released from the hospital. The service is held in a small, nondenominational church that looks more like an auditorium than anything else. But it’s bright and open with a full wall of windows.

  Dr. Linton asked me to share a little bit about the friendship Emily and I had growing up—in other words, to talk about the happier times. Although Stuart objected (he honestly used that word) on the grounds that it would be too stressful for me, I overruled him.

  My legs shake as I walk to the podium and look out at a pretty good-sized group of people. Jalen sits near the front and gives me an encouraging nod. There’s a microphone in front of me, and as I adjust it, it makes a loud, static noise, and I feel even less worthy of talking about Emily. However, I’m here and there’s no going back.

  “Emily was my best friend.” I hear the nervousness in my voice and take a breath. “We were five when we met. I was pretending Birthday Barbie was an Anasazi princess—only I couldn’t pronounce Anasazi—I called it ‘Anassie.’. Emily had to teach me.”

  Someone chuckles in the audience, and suddenly it’s much easier to tell everyone how fearless she was. How we skinny dipped, tried to make a pet of a tarantula, and snuck out of our tent at night to look for ghosts in the ruins our fathers excavated. In the telling, I remember the best parts of her—the way she made me feel like I was the smartest, most creative person in the world, and the way she loved without holding anything back. Maybe it hadn’t turned out the way it should have for her, but she’d followed her heart and that took guts.

  As they take away her casket, I know I take part of her with me. That I am stronger and more appreciative of life. Thanks to her, I know who I am and, more importantly, who I want to become. She died, but I get to live. I know she would want me to see this as an opportunity, a second chance that shouldn’t be wasted.

  That’s why, after the funeral, after I hug a weeping Mrs. Linton, I seek out my father and lead him to a quiet spot in the back of the room. His tanned skin is paler than usual, and I can tell from the way he keeps nervously checking the knot of his tie that the service has been hard on him.

  “You did a great job,” he says. He lays a gentle hand on my shoulder. “I’m proud of you, Paige.”

  “Thanks, Dad,” I say. Inside my cast, my arm itches like I have a hundred
flea bites. I rub it against my dress and feel a very dull ache, but it reminds me there are worse things than broken bones. In the distance I see Jalen, talking to a group of what must be Emily’s friends from school. He looks unfamiliar but handsome in a dark suit and tie. He feels my gaze and glances over, a question in his eyes. He has no clue about the conversation I’m about to have with my dad.

  I look down at my new sandals, only one of the gifts my mother has been showering me with since she’s arrived. The presents are her way of telling me she loves me, which makes what I have to do all the harder.

  “I’ve been thinking, Dad.” I take a deep breath. “I don’t want to go back to New Jersey. I want to stay in Arizona. With you.”

  An expression of incredulity passes over his features. His hand goes to his head as if to readjust his cowboy hat, but then he realizes he isn’t wearing one and his hand drops. A muscle works in his throat, and for once I think he’s speechless.

  “I want to stay here,” I repeat. “Live with you.”

  He gives me a small smile and shakes his head. “Your mother needs you. Especially after everything that’s happened.”

  “She has Stuart.” I search his eyes, trying to read if this is the real reason he hasn’t said yes. “I like it here. I like the desert, working around the old pit houses.” I feel the color burning in my cheeks. “I feel like I belong here.”

  His expression seems to soften. “You don’t know how much that means to me to hear you say that.” He pauses, but I can’t tell what he’s thinking. “But your mom is a good parent—she loves you, Paige. It’ll hurt her if you choose to stay here.”

  This is true, but not enough. Not anymore. My arm itches so badly I want to rip the cast off. “I’m seventeen, Dad. In six months, I’ll get to decide where I live, but please don’t make me wait that long. This isn’t about me being angry at either of you. This is about me. What I want—what I need.”