by Jodi Thomas
She appeared even more determined than usual. She slapped at the hands of a nurse who kept trying to help her. “You’re not giving me anything. I can’t take shots. I can’t. Hate the things. Always have.”
When the nurse suggested she calm down, Lilly threatened her with bodily harm.
Mark pushed past the EMT worker and silently offered Miss Lilly his hand. No matter what state she was in, the old woman needed to know someone was there to stand at her side.
Everyone looked at him as if he’d just stuck his arm into the cage of a lion.
“’Morning, Lilly,” he said as he wrapped his fingers around her chubby hand. “You having a little trouble with the world this morning?”
She took a deep breath and gripped his hand as tightly as a dockworker might. “I need a friend. Someone I can trust.” She made no apology.
“I’m here. And I’m not going anywhere for as long as you need me.”
Suddenly the crowd turned to him for answers. No one questioned that he was next of kin. He moved through the system, staying right beside Lilly, answering questions, filling out paperwork.
She calmed with him near but wouldn’t answer anyone’s questions but his, and when he told her she had to do something, Lilly accepted the order.
Mark tried not to watch as they set the leg. He concentrated on talking to Lilly, finding out the details of how she fell coming back from her mailbox.
Lilly explained she was reading a letter while walking back into the building and hadn’t noticed the steps until she was right at them. She blamed the whole thing on her third husband because the letter was from his lawyer. “Willard hired someone to find me and the first thing I hear from him in almost twenty years is that he wants a divorce.” Lilly’s face wrinkled with the pain, but she kept talking. “Imagine that. I told him when we married that I was in this ’til death do us part, so he’d have to die like the other two if he wanted out, but Willard never did listen.”
A nurse interrupted them. “We’d like to admit her for the night,” she said to Mark. “Though we expect no complications—it was a simple break—we’d just like to keep an eye on her. Her blood pressure is slightly elevated.”
“Yours would be too,” Lilly mumbled, “if your husband of twenty-seven years just up and filed for divorce. I haven’t even been around him to give him one good reason. He broke my leg just as sure as if he’d been standing there.” Lilly glanced at Mark. “We can file charges on him for battery, can’t we?”
“About the room?” the nurse interrupted again.
Mark was about to agree, when Lilly said, “I’m not staying. These folks will wake me up every two hours to see if I’m asleep if I stay here. My plan for staying alive is to stay out of hospitals.” She looked at Mark and added, “I’m ready to go home.”
He glanced at the nurse. “Will she be able to get around on crutches?”
The nurse nodded. “If she takes it slow.”
“Can you give her something for the pain?”
The nurse nodded again. “She’s probably had enough meds to make it through the night, but I’ll see you have a prescription.”
“Then I’m taking her home.”
Getting Miss Lilly home proved to be more of a challenge than he thought. There was no way she could fold into his car with her leg in a cast. Mark finally called a cab. It took her home while he followed, and between the driver and him, they got her carried into her apartment.
The driver returned a half hour later with two bags of groceries Lilly had asked him to pick up, claiming she couldn’t recover without the right kind of foods. Mark tipped the driver a hundred, guessing Lilly must have made out a list on the ride home from the hospital.
It took him another hour to get all the neighbors, who had heard about the accident and who’d come to talk more than help, out of the apartment. Several promised to bring over food and two asked if he was her son. Mark found the question ridiculous since he’d lived in the end town house twice as long as Lilly had rented the apartment, even though it seemed everyone knew her and no one noticed him. Strange how you walk right past folks day after day and never really look at them.
While she dozed, Mark arranged her apartment so that she could maneuver on crutches without hitting anything. It wasn’t easy. The woman had twice the furniture needed for her square footage.
Finally, he warmed a bowl of vegetable soup for her and sat at the end of her bed while she ate every bite and proclaimed it to be the best meal she’d had in months.
He wasn’t sure if it was the pain medicine kicking in, or the fact she’d won the battle to come back home, but Lilly seemed content. To his shock, she showed no embarrassment when he helped her to the bathroom, acting as if they’d shared the experience many times.
The role of caretaker was new to Mark. He’d never even had a pet. The few times Blaine had been ill, his duties had consisted of calling the doctor. To his surprise, he didn’t find the job all that distasteful with Lilly. She needed him and it felt good to be needed.
It was dark by the time he left her snoring and went back to his own place. She had a bottle of water, her crutches and the phone within easy reach with both his cell and apartment numbers programmed in. She also had two bags of cookies and the remote control. Surely she’d be all right until morning. He’d offered to sleep on her couch, but she’d insisted she would be fine.
He took her extra key, promising to be back to cook breakfast in the morning. “I’m somewhat of an expert on eggs,” he bragged. After all, he’d been making eggs for Tres every morning for two weeks. Mark didn’t bother to mention the cat had yet to try one.
The phone rang as he plugged it in. Mark’s first thought was that Lilly might already need him.
But she hadn’t had time to dial.
He answered impatiently. “Yes.”
“Anderson? This is Lieutenant Randell.” The cop’s voice came through loud and clear. Randell didn’t wait for Mark to answer. “I thought I’d try you one more time before I called it a night. I thought you’d want to know any news, even though it isn’t much.”
“What?” Mark leaned against the couch arm. He had almost given up hope on anyone finding clues to the bombing.
“We found your wife’s bag,” Randell said. “It’s got her ID from the gym dangling from the zipper.” When Mark didn’t comment, he added, “Someone probably stole the bag out of her car before you had it towed. Someone might be trying to impersonate your wife.”
“But why?”
“The thief probably searched the bag for money and tossed it. Then a druggie or a street person may have found the bag and it took her a while to figure out how that ID to the gym might be useful. If she could pass into somewhere like a private-club gym, there is no telling what she could steal. We’ve had those kinds of crimes a few times in this area.”
“Where did you find the bag?”
“An old bag lady had it. Said someone gave it to her last night. I just happened to notice the initials on the side of the bag and started asking questions.”
“Can you show me who she was? I’d like to talk to her.” Mark knew he was pushing the not-so-friendly friendship he’d developed with the cop, but he had to try.
“Now?”
“If you wouldn’t mind. It’s important.” Mark wasn’t sure why, but he had to follow this one clue to Blaine no matter how small. Every muscle and brain cell ached to do something, anything. “It’s important to me,” he added.
“All right,” Randell finally answered. “There is no reason for us to keep the bag.”
Thirty minutes later, Mark met Randell in front of the Driskill Hotel and they walked toward the bus stop together. Mark didn’t tell the cop that he had followed him last night in the rain over this same path. Like all the others on the streets, Mark kept an eye on the cop. He didn’t seem to have a home life. Mark had seen Randell working at all hours. If he were guessing, Mark knew Randell probably also watched him walking the streets.
Mark wasn’t surprised when they reached the two old piles of rags he’d seen before. Salt and Pepper, he’d called them in his mind.
Randell explained to them that the bag belonged to a woman who had vanished and that this was her husband. If the two ladies could tell them anything about where they found the bag or who had it, they would be grateful.
Mark offered his hand, but neither took it, though Randell introduced them saying everyone called them Vanilla Anna and Chocolate Anna.
Chocolate Anna, an old black woman with weathered wrinkles cut deep into her face, clamped her lips closed and didn’t look as if she planned to say a word.
But the gray-haired smaller one started crying. “I was afraid Mary would run off.” She wiped her nose on her sleeve. “I heard her cry out when the knife sliced through her. She vanished. Sometimes folks do no matter how much you tell them to stay put.”
Mark knelt down to the woman’s level. “No, Mary didn’t vanish. My wife did. She wasn’t knifed. She was burned.” Mark lifted the bag Randell had given him with Blaine’s initials sewn into the fabric. “This was my wife’s bag. Do you remember where you found it?”
Vanilla Anna pointed to the spot beneath the bench. “She left it right here when she ran. She asked me to watch over it for her.”
Anna looked up at Mark with tear-filled eyes. “You got to give it back to me. Mary told me to keep it for her.”
“I can’t,” he answered, feeling sorry for the old woman. “This belonged to my wife.”
Randell moved in. “This Mary, where is she now?” He glanced at Mark, silently telling him they might get more information following Mary’s trail. The old woman didn’t make much sense, but if someone named Mary had left the bag, she might have been the one who’d stolen it.
Vanilla Anna pushed her tears aside. “She went to take her lessons. She promised to practice or else she’ll never make it into the band. She’s a good girl. Always does what she’s told. I’m proud of her.”
They talked to Anna for thirty more minutes but nothing made sense. She insisted that a woman named Mary gave her the bag, but most of her comments made Mary seem like a child.
Chocolate Anna refused to say a word, even when Randell threatened to take her to the station. She seemed to have had her fill of questions in this life and no threat would change that fact.
Mark carried the bag home and dropped it on the coffee table. He sat on the couch to stare at it. Tres jumped up beside the bag and began rubbing against it, purring loudly.
“It’s just her bag,” Mark said as if the cat could understand. “She was always leaving it places, her car, the gym. Who knows, she may have left it at the library or the clinic. It could have been missing for days before she disappeared.”
He pulled the zipper and looked inside. A towel, a damp bathing suit, a comb, half a loaf of bread and several tiny jars of jelly. Everything was neat and orderly almost as if it had been Blaine who packed it. More than likely, whoever had been using the bag hadn’t bothered to toss Blaine’s clothes out. Since the bread would not have been in there when Blaine had the bag, someone, probably homeless, had been using it.
He handled the bathing suit. The scent of chlorine stung his nose. Why would someone keep a damp suit? Were they wearing it or had the bag got wet in the rain? If not, how could the suit still be damp when everything else was dry? The suit made no sense.
Rummaging along the bottom of the bag, he found an inside pocket. Within were the earplugs Blaine always used when she swam laps, a quarter lodged in one corner, and the bracelet she usually wore on her left wrist.
Mark turned the gold chain in his hand. They’d bought it once on a whim when they’d been at Tiffany’s at the Galleria in Houston. It had only cost a few hundred dollars, but she’d loved it, playing with both the blue box and the chain most of the ride home.
How many years had it been since they’d gotten away? Two, three? Blaine would talk about it sometimes, even plan a weekend, but something always came up. His work was never predictable.
Gripping the chain in his fist, Mark realized he had been the one to always change Blaine’s plans. He thought there would be more time. There was always next week, next month, or even next summer.
The clasp was broken on the bracelet. Blaine must have been planning to take it in for repair, but she hadn’t mentioned it and he couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen the thin gold band on her wrist.
It crossed his mind that when someone stole the bag, they must have not noticed the small pocket inside, or else they would have hocked the chain. Blaine had been the one to put it in the pocket. She’d been the last one to touch the gold.
He gripped the chain in his hand as if he could somehow hold on to a part of Blaine for a moment longer.
“Why’d you leave?” he whispered. “Why don’t you call or come back?”
He made a mental note to get the bracelet fixed, as if he could somehow start putting his life together if he could repair one small chain.
He leaned back and stared at the ceiling. “Why’d you leave me, Blaine?”
Twenty-Three
Long after she heard the old doctor climb the creaky steps to the second floor, Blaine lay awake, letting his words echo in her head. The book-lined room was cool and smelled dusty. Blaine had the feeling she wasn’t the first to crash for the night on this couch.
The doctor’s words seemed to linger in the room lit by the twinkle of streetlights in the stained-glass windows above the overstuffed bookshelves.
Pregnant.
Before the bombing, the thought had dominated her mind. If she found out she had cancer, would she be strong enough to fight? If she was pregnant, would she have the guts to have an abortion, or would she risk ruining her marriage by keeping the baby? Mark didn’t have time for her, how could he carve out time for a child? The possibility had only been part of their conversations a few times. She’d told him she couldn’t have children and he had said that was fine. Once, just before they married, she’d asked him if he thought she should go to a specialist, but he’d only said someday, when we have time to think about a family.
He’d told her then how his mother used to yell when she was angry over something he’d done, or the world in general. She’d scream how she wished she’d had the guts to abort Mark. His parents had been free spirits, traveling with a band when he’d come along, and somehow a baby didn’t fit in with their life. Mark’s father had settled down and had taken a job he hated, his mother withered into a complainer never happy with anything. For a while, his father played at the local bar to pay off his tab, but that didn’t last long. A man who lives on what-might-have-been doesn’t eat well.
Blaine spread her fingers across her slightly rounded abdomen. There was no question in her mind. She loved Mark, and wanted the marriage, but she would not do anything to hurt the baby. This child had been with her through the bombing and all the problems of the past week. She hadn’t been alone. Somehow, the baby had fought just as hard to survive as she had, and she’d fight to the death before she let anyone hurt him. The strength of her conviction rocked her almost as much as the knowledge that she carried a child within.
Finally, meek little Mary Blaine had found something worth fighting for.
“I’m here,” she whispered to her unborn child. “I’m here and I’m going to see that nothing happens to you.”
Tears flowed silently down her cheeks when she cupped her hands over her body, as if the baby would know she held him even now. Her life had changed once more and she knew nothing would ever be the same. A day ago, she wanted to hide from the bomber, hoping he wouldn’t find her and kill her. Tonight, she felt she could easily kill him if he tried to harm her baby. She’d never felt so fiercely protective about anything in her life. She loved Mark and might die to keep him safe, but she’d kill to protect this child.
Blaine laughed. What a warrior she had become. Mark would be shocked that the mouse he’d married had learne
d to roar.
She fell asleep wondering how, when this was all over, she would tell Mark about the baby. Would he be happy? Or would he see her pregnancy as somehow a betrayal? For Mark, everything had to be part of the big plan so that all stayed balanced. He had his work. But now the impossible had happened and she would somehow find a way to tell Mark.
The thought still worried her at dawn when the doctor’s housekeeper came in for work, loaded down heavier than the Annas with plastic bags.
“’Morning, Mary Sunshine,” the large woman said as she closed the front door with her hip. “I’m Dr. Early’s housekeeper, Jesse Lynn Bailey, but most folks just call me Mrs. B. We met last night, but I don’t suppose you’d remember.” She dropped the bags. “I brought you all kinds of things you might need.”
She dumped her load in front of the couch and leaned back, stretching the muscles along her spine. “How are you feeling?” she asked when she finally straightened.
“Better.” Blaine gently held her hand over her side as she sat up. “Thank you for the nightgown.”
“Oh, you are more than welcome. I’d be staying here every night to keep an eye on the doc if I didn’t still have a kid at home.” She sat down beside Blaine and fanned herself with both her hands. “I tell the old fellow I work too late to head home some nights when he’s real weak and I’m afraid to leave him.”
“Dr. Early is ill?” Blaine felt like a fool for even asking. Of course he was ill. His skin barely covered his bones and his eyes looked tired, not just from the day, but from life.
“Wearing out a heartbeat at a time,” Mrs. B. answered. “Some nights I don’t think his heart will last ’til he gets up the stairs. But he thinks he’s got to sleep in his own bed every night being he plans to die there. He says he was born in that big bed and that’s where he’ll leave to meet his maker.”
“I didn’t know he was ill. I shouldn’t have come.”
Mrs. B. patted her hand. “You are the best thing that’s happened to him in a long time. Taking care of you last night, he forgot about dying for a few hours and remembered he was still breathing.”
