Cathy said, “I don’t want you to give up your self.”
Sara held her breath. Her mother had never come this close to voicing her true fears. Sara knew better than anyone how easy it would be to just give in. After the rape, all Sara had been able to do was lie in bed and cry. She had not wanted to be a doctor, a sister, or even a daughter. Two months passed, and Cathy had pleaded and cajoled, then physically pushed Sara out of bed. As she had done a hundred times when Sara was a child, Cathy had driven her to the children’s clinic, where this time Dr. Barney had made things better by giving Sara a job. A year later, Sara had taken a second job as county coroner in order to buy out Dr. Barney’s practice. For the last two and a half years, she had struggled to rebuild her life in Grant, and Cathy was terrified Sara would lose all of that for Jeffrey.
Sara stood up and walked to her dresser. “Mama…”
“I worry about you.”
“I’m better now,” Sara said, though she did not think she would ever be fully whole again. There would always be the before and after, no matter how many years distanced her from what had happened. “I don’t need you to look after me, or try to toughen me up. I’m stronger now. I’m ready for this.”
Cathy threw her hands up. “He’s just having fun. That’s all this is to him—fun.”
Sara opened several drawers, looking for her swimsuit. She said, “Maybe that’s all it is for me, too. Maybe I’m just having a good time.”
“I wish I could believe you.”
“I wish you could, too,” Sara told her. “Because it’s true.”
“I don’t know, baby. You have such a gentle heart.”
“It’s not that gentle anymore.”
“What happened to you in Atlanta doesn’t change who you are.”
Sara shrugged, tucking her swimsuit into the case. It was how other people had changed that made what happened even more horrible. Sara was angry as hell that she had been raped, and livid that the animal who had attacked her could, and probably would, get out of jail in a few years with good behavior. She was pissed off that her whole life had been turned upside down, that she’d had to resign her internship at Grady Hospital, the job she had worked toward her entire life, because everyone in the ER treated her like broken china. The attending who had worked on Sara could no longer look her in the eye, and her fellow students wouldn’t joke with her for fear of saying the wrong thing. Even the nurses treated her with kid gloves, as if being raped made Sara some sort of martyr.
Cathy said, “Is that all I get? That look from you that says you don’t want to talk about it?”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Sara told her, exasperated. “I don’t want to talk about anything serious. I’m tired of being serious.” She tugged at the zipper on the suitcase. “I’m tired of being the smartest girl in the class. I’m tired of being too tall for the cute boys. I’m tired of dating men who are worried about my feelings and wanna take it slow and be gentle and process what we’re doing and plan our future together and treat me like I’m some delicate flower and—”
“Mason James is a very sweet boy.”
“That’s the point, Mama. He’s a boy. I’m sick of boys. I’m sick of people walking on eggshells around me, trying to protect my feelings. I want somebody to shake things up. I want to have fun.” Without thinking, she said, “I want to fuck around.”
Cathy gasped—not because she had never heard the word before, but because she had never heard it from Sara. Sara could think of only a few occasions when she had used the expletive, but never in front of her mother.
All Cathy said was, “Language, please.”
“You don’t mind when Tessa says it.”
Cathy wrinkled her nose at the logic. “Tessa says it like she means it, not like she’s trying to shock her mother.”
“I say it all the time,” Sara lied.
“Do your cheeks always get that red when you do?”
Sara felt her cheeks go redder.
“From here,” Cathy coached, pressing her hand below her diaphragm. She gestured broadly with her other hand, singing an operatic “Fuck.”
“Mother!”
“If you’re going to say it, say it with gusto.”
“I don’t need you to tell me how to say it,” Sara snapped, and when Cathy laughed in her face, she added a mumbled “Or how to do it.”
Cathy laughed harder. “I suppose you know all about it now?”
Sara jerked the suitcase off her bed. “Let’s just say some of that expertise rubbed off.”
“Oh-ho-ho,” Cathy chuckled appreciatively.
Sara tucked her hands into her hips. “We do it all the time.”
“Is that a fact?”
“Night and day.”
“And day?” Cathy laughed again, sitting back on the bed. “Scandalous!”
“It’s not like I’m seeing him for the scintillating conversation,” Sara bragged. “I don’t even know if he went to college.”
From the doorway, Tessa said, “Sara?”
“As a matter of fact,” Sara continued, wanting more than anything to take the smug look off her mother’s face, “I’m fairly certain he’s not even that smart.”
Cathy smiled like she knew better. “That so?”
Tessa tried again. “Sara?”
“Yes, that’s so, and you know what? I don’t even care. He’s probably stupid as a box of hair and I don’t give a rat’s ass. It’s not like I’m dating him for his mind.”
Tessa said, “For chrissake, Sara. Just shut up and turn around.”
She did as she was told, regret taking hold like a fever.
Jeffrey was leaning against the door, his arms crossed over his chest. There was a half-smile on his lips that did not quite reach his eyes as he nodded toward her suitcase. “Ready to go?”
A gentle mist of rain met them as they drove out of Grant County, and Sara watched the wipers sluice water off the windshield at steady intervals, trying to think of something to say. With each pass, she told herself she was going to break the silence, but the next thing she knew, the wipers were swiping across the glass again and nothing had been said. She stared out the side window, counting cows, then goats, then billboards. The closer they got to Macon, the higher the number got, so that by the time they took the bypass, Sara had reached triple digits.
Jeffrey shifted gears, passing an eighteen-wheeler. He had not spoken since they left Grant, and he chose to break the ice with “Car handles well.”
“Yes,” Sara agreed, so glad he was talking to her that she could have cried. Thank God they had taken her car instead of his truck or there was no telling how long the silence would have lasted. To keep the conversation going, she said, “German engineering.”
“I guess it’s true what they say about doctors driving BMWs.”
“My dad bought it for me when I got into medical school.”
“Nice dad,” he said, pausing before he added, “Your mom seems nice, too.”
Sara cleared her throat, unable to recall any of the apologies she had been rehearsing in her mind for the last hour. “I would have preferred for you to meet her under different circumstances.”
“I never expected to meet her at all.”
“Oh, right,” she said, flustered. “I didn’t mean—”
“I’m glad we got to meet.”
Sara nodded, thinking that the fewer times she opened her mouth, the less likely she was to put her foot in it.
“Your sister’s cute.”
“Yes,” she agreed, knowing a lesser person would hate her sister by now. Sara had been hearing the same thing all her life. Tessa was the cute one, the funny one, the cheerleader, the one everyone wanted to be friends with. Sara was the tall one. On a good day, she was the tall redheaded one.
Before Sara could phrase something more elegant, she blurted out, “I’m so sorry about what I said.”
“That’s okay,” he told her, but she could tell from his tone that it was not. Why
he had still wanted her to go to Florida with him was anyone’s guess. If Sara had any self-respect, she would have let him leave without her. The forced smile he had kept on his face as he loaded her bags into the trunk could have cut glass.
“I was just trying to…” She shook her head. “I don’t know what I was trying to do. Make an idiot of myself?”
“You did a good job.”
“It’s part of my personality to want to excel in everything I do.”
He did not smile.
She tried again. “I don’t think you’re stupid.”
“As a box of hair.”
“What?”
“You said ‘stupid as a box of hair.’ ”
“Oh. Well.” She laughed once, like a seal’s bark. “That doesn’t even make sense.”
“But it’s good to know you don’t really think that.” He glanced behind him and passed a church van. Sara stared at his hand on the shift, watching the tendons work as he passed the cars. His fingers gripped the shaft, his thumb tapping lightly on the knob.
“By the way,” he told her. “I did go to college.”
“Really?” she asked, unable to check her surprised tone. She made it worse by saying, “Well, good. Good for you.”
Jeffrey gave her a sharp glance.
“I mean, that’s good as in…well…because it’s…” She laughed at her own ineptitude, putting her hand over her mouth as she mumbled, “Oh, God, Sara, shut up. Shut up.”
She thought he smiled, but wasn’t certain. She dared to ask, “Exactly how much did you hear?”
“Something about me rubbing off on you?”
She tried, “I meant it in the good way.”
“Uh-huh,” he said. “Just FYI, I’ve heard you say that word before.” This time, he showed his teeth when he smiled. “Well, not say it. More like scream it.”
Sara bit the tip of her tongue, watching the passing scenery.
He said, “It’s good your mama worries about you.”
“Sometimes.”
“Y’all are pretty close, right?”
“I suppose,” Sara answered, knowing there was more to it than that.
He asked, “Did you tell her I passed the test?”
“Of course not,” Sara answered, surprised he had even asked. “That’s private.”
He nodded his approval, keeping his eyes on the road.
Their second date had ended with a kiss at the door and Sara asking Jeffrey to get tested for HIV. Granted, the request was a little late in coming—their frenzied first time hadn’t exactly stopped for a frank discussion about the prevention of sexually transmitted diseases—but Sara had picked up on Jeffrey’s reputation well before the news had hit the Shop-o-rama. For his part, Jeffrey had seemed only slightly insulted when she asked him for a blood sample.
She said, “I saw so many cases at Grady. So many women my age who never thought it could happen to them.”
“You don’t have to explain it to me.”
“Hare’s lover died of AIDS last year.”
His foot slipped off the gas pedal. “Your cousin’s gay?”
“Of course.”
“You’re kidding?” he asked, giving her an uneasy look.
“He wasn’t born with that falsetto.”
“I thought he was just joking around.”
“He was,” Sara said. “Is. I mean, he just does that to annoy me. Everyone. He likes to annoy people.”
“He played football in high school.”
“Only straight people can play football?”
“Well…no,” he said, but he did not seem certain.
They both stared at the road again. Sara could think of nothing to say. She knew hardly anything about the man beside her. In the three months they had dated, she had heard nothing about Jeffrey’s family or his past. She knew he had been born in Alabama, but he was vague with the details. When they weren’t in bed, Jeffrey mostly talked about cases he had worked in Birmingham or things that were happening in Grant. Now that she thought about it, when they were together it was Sara who did most of the talking. He seldom volunteered any personal information about himself, and if she pushed him too far with questions, his response was to either shut down completely or run his hand up and down her thigh until she forgot what she was saying.
She chanced a look at him. His dark hair was getting long in the back, which was a little dangerous considering the Grant County school system routinely sent boys home from class if their hair touched the back of their collars. As usual, his face was clean-shaven and smooth. He was wearing a pair of worn jeans and a black Harley Davidson T-shirt. His tennis shoes looked high-tech, with extra padding in the sole and black waffle treads for running. The muscles in his legs were well defined under the denim, and though his shirt was not tight enough to show the firm abs underneath, Sara was more than familiar with them.
Sara stared down at her legs, wishing she had worn something different. She had changed into an ocean blue wraparound skirt, but her white calves were the color of fat on uncooked bacon against the dark floor mat. Despite the air conditioning, she was sweating under the cotton shirt she wore, and if Sara could have waved a magic wand to stop time, she would have stripped off her constricting bra and thrown it out the window.
“So,” Jeffrey said.
“So,” she returned, trying to think of something to restart the conversation. All she could come up with was, “You’re a universal donor.”
“Huh?”
“A universal donor,” she repeated. “You can donate blood to anyone.” Grasping another straw, she added, “Of course, you can’t accept from anyone. You can only accept from other O negatives.”
He gave her a strange look. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
“Your blood has antigens that—”
“I’ll donate some as soon as we get back.”
The conversation was lagging again, and she asked, “Do you want some chicken?”
“Is that what I keep smelling?”
Sara leaned over the backseat and rummaged around for the plastic bowl her mother had packed. “I think there’s some biscuits if Tess didn’t steal them.”
“That’d be nice,” he said, tickling the back of her thigh. “Too bad we don’t have some tea.”
She tried to ignore his hand. “We could stop for some.”
“Maybe.”
He pinched her leg and she slapped at his hand, saying, “Hey.”
He laughed good-naturedly at the rebuke. “Do you mind if we take a detour?”
“Sure,” she said, finding the Tupperware under a pillow. She dropped back into the seat as he passed a Winnebago. “Where to?”
“Sylacauga.”
Sara stopped in the middle of removing the plastic lid. “Sill-a-what?”
“Sylacauga,” he repeated. “My hometown.”
Chapter Four
10:15 A.M.
“Matt?” Someone said, more like a stutter. “M-a-a-a-a-att.”
His ears held on to the echo, stretching the “a” even more.
“M-a-a-a-a-a-a-att.”
He tried to move but his muscles would not respond. Inexplicably, his fingers ached. They were cold. Everything was cold.
“Matt,” Sara said, her voice suddenly sharp as a tack. “Matt, wake up.” She put her hands on either side of his face. “Matt.”
He forced open his eyes, his vision blurring, then doubling. He saw two Saras looming over him. Two Marlas. Two kids he had never met before in his life. They were all huge, like giant versions of themselves. The ceiling tiles above their heads were even larger, like flying saucers with mammoth fluorescent lights.
He tried to sit up.
“Matt, no,” Sara stopped him. “Don’t.”
He put his hand to his head, feeling like his brain was in a vise. His right shoulder burned as if someone was grinding a hot poker into the flesh. His moved his left hand to touch it, but Sara stopped him.
“Matt,” she said. “Don’t.�
�
He felt around his mouth with his tongue, trying to find the blood he could taste in the back of his throat.
She pushed back his hair and he saw a glint of gold on her finger. She was wearing his Auburn football ring. Why was she wearing his ring?
“Matt?”
He blinked, hearing a distant ringing in his ears. Jeffrey squeezed his eyes shut, trying to orient himself. The ringing came from the phone on Marla’s desk. The blood he tasted was from a cut somewhere on his head.
“Matt?” Sara repeated. “Can you hear me?”
He said, “Why are you—”
She put a bottle of water to his lips. “Drink this. You need water.”
Jeffrey drank, feeling the cool liquid opening up his parched throat. Water pooled down his neck as Sara tilted the bottle too far to keep up with his swallowing.
“Okay,” he said, pushing away her hand.
He squeezed his eyes shut again, trying to clear them. When he opened them, the two Marlas melded into one. Her cheeks were sunken, her eye bruised and bleeding. There was actually a pair of kids, but their expressions were identical. A third was leaning against Sara, the young girl’s breathing more like gasps as she tried to control her fear.
Jeffrey turned back to Sara. He had never seen her so frightened. She met his gaze pupil to pupil, staring a hole into him like she was trying to force a thought into his brain. Slowly, he nodded his understanding. He was supposed to be Matt.
She still asked, “Okay?”
“Yeah.” He looked around, trying to figure out what was going on. They were on the floor in the back of the squad room, the area cleared out around them. Brad was stacking filing cabinets in front of the fire door. Jeffrey’s office window and door were similarly barricaded. Bodies were scattered around with the debris. Burrows, Robinson, Morgan. Morgan had five kids at home. Burrows was an avid animal lover fostering a pair of rescued greyhounds. Robinson…Robinson was new. Jeffrey could not even remember the man’s first name, though he had hired him less than a week ago.
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