A Night at the Asylum (11 page)

My father laughed suddenly. “You were a baby
so you probably don’t remember this,” he began, “but…Tommy stood up
at the breakfast table once and announced that he didn’t believe in
God.” His eyes were moist with the memory. “I thought your mother
was going to come unglued.” My father sat on the bed, its squeak
welcoming him, and smiled. “To add insult to injury, he shouted,
‘And Santa can go to hell too!’”

“Wow,” I said softly, grinning. Tommy had
been searching for answers from the time he was old enough to speak
the questions.

“But you know…” Dad stared at the tie on his
threadbare gray robe. “For someone who claimed for so long to not
believe in anything, he really had a lot of faith.”

“Faith in what, Dad? Ghosts? The afterlife?
He was a thorn in Mom’s side with all that,” I replied dryly.

He looked up at me, his eyes solid, serious.
“You know your mother and I don’t believe the same things. Well,
Tommy had his own ideas too. I mean, the only reason I agreed to
raise you two Catholic is because you’re mother’s meaner than I
am.”

I laughed. “She beat you down, did she?” I
said lightly.

“She’s terrifying. All her stories about fire
and brimstone…” he teased. “Anyway…on the reservation, I was
taught…we honor our dead. Because they’re still here with us,
just…transformed.” He stood up now, slowly. “I was taught to pay
attention to the spirit world. To acknowledge it.”

I was trembling now, looking at the door
longingly. “Dad…I should really go.” I did not want to talk about
this. I needed it in small doses, and I’d maxed my dosage out.
Maybe the notebook would stay closed. Maybe I’d leave it in my bag,
hide it under my own bed, and never open it again.

“But your mother,” he continued, as if he
hadn’t heard me, “…her religion is different. And for her, putting
a death away is what helped her move on.” He shrugged. “I don’t
know who’s right. But I think about it a lot. I’d be lying if I
said I didn’t.”

He sounded strange. I wondered if I should be
worried about him. His voice was mournful, much more than usual.
Eerie that he was talking about this now, out of the blue. “I don’t
know,” I answered honestly. “I guess I think if there was life
after death, Tommy would have found a way to tell us, you know?
That if anyone could get a line out, it would be him. And…it hasn’t
happened. So I can’t say I really believe in it.” Sadness overcame
me again as I spoke the words.

“Who’s to say what a “line” really is?” My
father was thoughtful. “Maybe your kind of line and theirs isn’t
the same thing. Maybe they just do what they can, and we hear and
see what we can.”

All those things I explained away each and
every day…the phone calls with no one on the other end…things
mysteriously disappearing, only to reappear where I’d already
looked for them…I forced myself to revisit them with a shudder.
Lights flickering…Tommy’s bedroom door, always opening on its own,
beckoning me…they were pranks, absentmindedness, an old house, a
draft…I continually found excuses to ignore these things that could
be little signs, ineffectual signals.

Not to mention the dreams...

I shook my head. I felt like a mental patient
running amok in the asylum. I felt like I was becoming one of the
insane.

I needed a slap back into reality. So did my
father, who was staring off into the distance now, his face
sorrowful. “Dad.” I dug into my messenger bag and pulled out the
pack of cigarettes that had become the official badge of my failure
tonight. They were slightly kinked from the abuse they’d withstood
crammed in my jeans pocket. I jammed one into his mouth, trying the
lighter again. It worked like a champ now, of course. “Go smoke a
cigarette and calm the fuck down,” I ordered, smacking him on the
back. “But only one. Those things will kill you.”

I waited for the scolding, my father’s eyes
round with shock. Instead he reached around and hugged me, for too
long, his arms too heavy with the weight of the world. “I love you,
Sara,” he said, smoothing my hair away from my face.

“I love you too, Dad.”

He turned to go out the door, but turned
back. “Bonita Taylor called while you were out yesterday, I forgot
to tell you.”

My heart froze. “What?” I choked out. “For
me? W-why would she call for me?” Seriously, what was up with this
bitch?

“She didn’t. It was on the answering
machine…actually she said she needed to talk to all of us. She
asked if she could come over.”

“What? Why?” Why did I feel like my lungs
were folding in on themselves? What could Bonita possibly want with
my family? Suspicion and fear burned through me. “Did you call her
back?”

“No…I forgot.” Dad sighed. “I’ve been doing
that lately.” He took a long, lusty drag off the cigarette… my
father, who didn’t even smoke. “I wonder how she’s been…haven’t
seen her since your brother…” he stopped. “She took it very hard
when he died.”

“She did?” My voice cracked. Hadn’t he really
just been a notch in her bedpost?

I had known they were dating. She was not his
typical blonde, perky choice, with her long dark hair and surly
personality. Friends all their lives, he’d finally joined the ranks
of a hundred other guys obsessed with her, but had chased her
relentlessly until she finally gave in. She was always getting him
into trouble. In fact, he’d gotten that stupid motorcycle because
of her. It was nearly impossible to believe she could have feelings
for him that matched his for her.

“Oh, it’s true,” My dad said, as if he’d
heard what I was thinking. “She and Tom were pretty deeply in love
with each other. He told me he wanted to
marry
her. Can you
believe that? Marriage...and I told him he was too young. God
forbid he mention it to your mother.” My father took another long
drag on the cigarette, his voice grave. “I had no idea that was as
old as he was ever gonna get.”

“In love?” I gasped. This was wrong, just
wrong. “I don’t think he was even her only boyfriend. How did I not
know about this?”

My father seemed amused that I was struggling
to keep from coughing my heart up on the carpet. “You were
fourteen. And Tommy didn’t tell you everything. It wasn’t really
brother-sister type information. It was dad-son type information. I
mean you probably would’ve found out eventually. Except…”

Except Tommy had died. And Bonita had been so
broken up about it she couldn’t even come to his funeral.

“She might not have been an angel, Sara, but
Tom loved her, and that meant something. A little rebellious,
maybe. But she wasn’t what everyone said she was.” Dad looked at
me. “Settle down. It’s all under the bridge now.”

“Right,” I choked.

He walked over and poked the cigarette in my
mouth. “Now. Go smoke this cigarette and calm the fuck down,” he
repeated my words. “But only one. And I’d better not catch you with
them again.” He left the room, calling back to me. “Get that
outside before the boss smells it. I’ll see you at the restaurant
in an hour.”

“Yeah,” I breathed.

I stood in the center of the room for what
seemed like an eternity. I had no time to do anything but go
straight to work. But I couldn’t think about work. All I could
think of was how irony obviously wasn’t finished screwing me over
tonight.

When the mental cement melted from my legs, I
shook myself. I still had the pack of cigarettes in my hand, and I
shoved them back into my pocket. Putting the lit cigarette out on
the bottom of my shoe, I started toward the door. What happened
next was bizarre; maybe the heater kicked on and upset the room’s
airflow, maybe I bumped something…just as I touched the knob of the
bedroom door, it was jerked from my hands and slammed right in my
face. The sound was incredibly loud; it reverberated through the
tiny bedroom as if off the walls of a tomb.

It was time to go. An absolutely excruciating
moment passed where I was afraid to open the door. When I finally
worked up the courage, I scurried out as fast as possible,
snatching my mother’s car keys off the table. I peeled out of the
driveway just as the first signs of daylight were bleeding into the
sky.

I took my phone out of my bag and hooked it
into my mom’s car charger, trying to keep myself occupied and
devoid of thought for at least the four block ride to the
restaurant. Just to have a break from the unreality of the last six
hours would be like a miracle.

The light indicating I had a message was
blinking at me manically in the half-dark of the car. As soon as I
pulled up to the restaurant I unhooked the phone and dialed my
voicemail. Jamie had called six times in the last hour. There was
just enough battery power to listen to the one message she’d
left.

“Sara.” She sounded breathless, her words
coming so fast I could barely understand her. “Listen to me. Jon
was the one in the car with Bonita. He’s been here at the hospital.
He says Ead attacked him! There are cops everywhere, from out of
town even, and Ead is getting questioned…even Brad is here, of
course. Bonita sicked her father on him…it’s a madhouse!” I gasped
as I stepped out of the car, the phone clasped precariously between
my shoulder and my ear. I jammed the key into the lock of the
restaurant door. “You know what that means. Ead
is
the one
who chased us. And Sara…” I listened, aghast, as she sucked in her
breath. “This you’re not going to believe. We were all standing
here in the waiting area, and a few rooms down was Emmett. Raymond
happened to be in the hallway near his room…he said Emmett woke up
out of a sound sleep, ripped the IV completely out of his arm, and
walked straight out of the hospital.”

I froze. My blood ran cold. It was not
completely light out yet; there were still dark blue shadows
lingering in every corner, the sky the color of murky water. A
frigid breeze blew across the sidewalk, and behind it I heard the
crunching of loose cement. The hand that closed around my mouth
then was almost expected, but it still took all I had not to
scream.

The door was pushed open and I was shoved
inside, the lock clicking behind me. I whirled to face my would-be
attacker, my hands stretched before me defensively.

My body sensed who the person was before I
even turned around. I raised my eyes slowly, first catching sight
of the sleek black gun. Panic seized my throat, and I started to
back away. Then I saw his face, his familiar round green eyes
confirming what I already knew.

It was Emmett Sutter standing before me.

****

Six O’Clock

He looked like death. I couldn’t deny it.

One of Emmett’s eyes was bruised, his
cheekbone scored with cuts and scratches. His face was a roadmap of
carnage. There was no way he’d gotten this messed up from his fall
in the street. He was still wearing that dark hooded sweatshirt,
now stained with his own blood and so large it seemed to be
swallowing him. Was it possible he’d gotten thinner in the five
hours since I saw him last? He pushed his tangled reddish hair
behind his ear and the small movement threw him off balance. Not a
good thing for someone holding a gun, or their helpless victim.

“Don’t do this,” I pleaded. Did he really
want to kill me? Why, for God’s sake? Either fate had a real
hard-on for us tonight or our encounter in the street was not
merely an opportunistic whim.

My fear seemed to register with him then, how
I cowered against the counter, the fake trim biting into my back.
“No,” he murmured, reaching out repentantly. “I just came here to
talk
, Sara.” Only then did he seem to remember the gun in
his hand. Unbelievably, he tucked it into his pocket.

He started toward me. Just as before, when
he’d been staggered by that pothole in the road, the step down from
the restaurant entryway completely upset his already precarious
equilibrium. Just as before, he was unable to put it right again,
and he began to fall.

There was no explanation for it, not a second
to even consider it. I should have been running the other way,
screaming. Instead, I reached out instinctively to catch him this
time, wayward gun and all. He collapsed heavily against me, his
shallow breathing ruffling my hair. A tremor moved through me as
his lips brushed over my ear. It took all my strength, physically
and emotionally, to keep us both from hitting the floor.

I helped him into a booth, falling halfway on
top of him in the process. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled, and I sat down
across from him, trying to ignore the burn of blood in my cheeks.
It would have been awkward if it wasn’t for the whole being afraid
for my life thing.

Emmett’s pale hands, his sleeves pulled up to
hide bruised knuckles, trembled as he rested them on the table. “I
didn’t mean to scare you,” he choked out. “I’m not going to hurt
you. I wouldn’t do that. Especially not you, Sara.”

“Are you sure about that?” I blurted. What
the hell was that even supposed to mean? He’d ripped an IV out of
his arm, escaping a hospital. Who
did
that? He’d shoved me
inside with a gun and locked the door behind us. That was just the
last fifteen minutes. I wasn’t even counting the crap that had gone
down earlier. Thundering in my head were Cole’s words about Emmett
being the kind of person who just one day snaps.

It definitely seemed as if the snapping had
commenced.

And here I was sitting across from him when I
should have been fleeing, questioning him when I should have been
keeping my mouth shut. Brilliant.

“Yes, I just...” His emerald eyes were
unusually dull under the fringe of his dark lashes, and he shook
his head apologetically. “I promise…”

All I could do was pray that gun would stay
in his pocket.