Secret Sister (17 page)

I hurried to the door and caught the man’s next words. “He’s at St. Gregory’s, in East Los Angeles. Get your stuff, we’ll drive you over.”

I stepped behind Zoë. Two cops, uniformed L.A. county police, stood on the front porch, their faces watchful.

“What happened?” I asked.

“Who are you?” The cop who’d been speaking, an older, African-American man, stared at me. A skinny red-haired woman, a wad of bubble gum in her mouth, stood beside him, her hand on her truncheon.

Zoë sent me a look that shouted, ‘back off.’ “She’s no one. She’s leaving. Thanks for coming to tell me about my brother, Officers. You said you’ve got his car?”

“Right. It’s in an impound lot. You’ll need cash to get it out. They don’t take checks.”

“I’m sure my brother has his cash card with him. Or I’ll call our mom. Let me get my stuff.” Zoë brushed past me.

I stared at the cops, who gave me professional, ‘you are under suspicion of something’ stares. I thought suddenly of Dr. Patel’s insistence that the police wanted to talk to me about the car accident.

Should I ask these two about any of that?
No.

“What’s wrong with Nick? Is he okay?” I asked instead, my voice wavering.

“Are you family?” The woman shifted her chewing gum to the other side of her mouth.

“Not exactly.”

“Not exactly?” echoed the other cop. “Who
exactly
are you?”

“A friend. I’ve known Nick forever.”

“But you’re not family?”

“Is he okay?”

Neither answered and they started to look cranky. If they asked for my ID, would Roxanne’s name ring a bell? Maybe they’d want me to come in and talk to the detectives.

“Never mind,” I said. “Thanks.” I walked across the room and grabbed for my purse. It fell off the couch and spilled out crap all over. Hurrying, I stuffed everything inside and marched past the cops without another word. I jumped in the car and as soon as I turned off my street, I hit the gas. I made it to St. Gregory’s Hospital in fifteen minutes, a couple of minutes ahead of the cops and Zoë.

The information desk was in the main corridor. The kind nurse helper, Carin, star of my
Hogan’s Heroes
hallucinations, was standing with an older woman in a nurse’s uniform.

“Hi, Roxanne!” Carin exclaimed. “How are you feeling? Did you get your memory back?”

I frowned and Carin reddened, aware that she’d blurted out top-secret patient info for all to hear. “Yes, I did. Thanks for asking.” I looked at the other woman, who was probably in charge. “Hi. I’m here to see a patient named Nick Chance. I understand he was brought in this morning.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry to hear that, Roxanne,” Carin said.

I gave her a look and she shut her mouth with a clink of her teeth. I didn’t mean to scare her, but I didn’t want to get off-topic before the cops and Zoë walked in.

“What is your relationship to the patient?” the older woman asked.

“I’m his wife.” Saying the words aloud gave me a shock, and Carin too, but she blessedly remained silent.

The receptionist punched some letters into her keyboard and finally told me Nick was on the third floor, room 314.

“The police weren’t real clear about what had happened,” I said. “He isn’t badly hurt, is he?”

The woman glanced at the computer screen and lowered her voice. “Oh, no, he’s okay. They told you he was admitted for drunk and disorderly conduct, right? And he’s suffered a mild concussion and some facial wounds, probably from falling. They pumped his stomach, so he’s going to be weak for a day or two. The doctors are ready to discharge him so I’m sure he’ll be glad you’re here, Mrs. Chance.”

Carin’s eyes were shining, no doubt with the fear that something not to regulations was going on in front of her.

I smiled. “Thank you. Take care of yourself, Carin.” I made a show of hurrying toward the elevators.

But I didn’t go upstairs. Instead, I ducked out the back exit and walked around to the parking lot. My hands were shaking and my pulse raced. It was all I could do to keep from screaming my head off.

Alcohol. Drunk and disorderly.
My God, Nick had been sober for seven years. For him to take a drink was a huge disaster, a heartbreaker. He must have been feeling like hell. When he had given up booze for good, all those years ago, he told me he couldn’t imagine ever drinking again. He said if he did ever take another drink, it would be because he was dying, or that he was without hope that life would ever be worth living again.

Tears burned my eyes and I realized again how the accident, which had killed Roxanne and thrown me into the ‘Twilight Zone,’ had many other collateral victims. It wasn’t going to be so easy to heal any of them.

Not Nick, or Zoë. Not me.

Just because I knew the truth, just because I knew something miraculous had happened, didn’t mean I could share this information and magically make everyone’s suffering disappear. I couldn’t even tell people, like Betty Haverty, that a loved one had been forever lost.

Out of my peripheral I saw the police car, with Zoë in the back seat, roll into the parking lot. I ducked behind a bench and waited for them to go inside, then hurried back to the car and hunkered in the front seat.

About twenty minutes later the cops left.

An hour later Nick and Zoë walked outside. They stood at the curb and looked like they were arguing about what to do next.

Over the past hour I had not formed a clear plan of how to get through to Nick, but maybe just being his friend was a good place to start. I pulled into the circular driveway the wrong way, stopping two feet away from Nick and Zoë. They stepped back and peered through the driver’s side window. When they recognized me, Zoë’s expression blackened. Nick looked confused.

“Can I give you guys a lift?” I asked. “I heard the cop say your car got impounded, Nick. Can I drive you over there? Or home if you need to get paperwork or anything?”

“Have you been waiting here this whole time?” Zoë’s voice was harsh. “Jesus, you’re stalking us.”

“I just thought you guys might need a ride.” I focused on my husband’s face. Pale, huge circles under his eyes; lips stained black from the carbon they’d used to pump his stomach. More of the carbon gunk stained the front of his shirt. He had stitches above his left eye and his right cheek was purple and bluish with bruising. My whole body ached at the thought of what he’d been through.

He stared at me as if he didn’t exactly know who I was. Which, of course, he didn’t.

“Are you guys waiting here for your mom, Nick?” I asked.

“None of your business.” Zoë stepped off the curb and leaned into the window. “And by the way, did you tell the woman at the front desk that you were Nick’s wife? Honestly, Roxanne, that is so fucked up. You better back off or I’m calling the cops on
you
.”

“Hang on, Zoë.” Nick touched his sister’s shoulder. His eyes were vacant of emotion when he looked at me. “My mother is out of town. I can’t get hold of Bradley, or anyone else. And since my sister has no money on her, and I’ve lost my wallet, yeah, you can take us home.”

“Nick, I don’t think this is a good idea,” Zoë argued.

“It’s fine, Zoë. Get in. I need to call work.” Nick opened the door and held it for Zoë, who slid in without another word. Nick shut the rear door, came around to the front passenger door, and sat beside me.

I gasped. I think Zoë did, too.

“Put your seatbelt on, Zoë,” he ordered.

My neck burned at Nick’s not-so-thinly veiled reference to the accident. Little did he realize he was making a crack about seatbelts to the person
solely
responsible for his wife’s not wearing hers that fatal day. I would have to tell him he shouldn’t blame Roxanne for the accident. A giggle of hysteria bubbled in my throat and I swallowed several times, glad he was staring out the windshield and not at my face.

Talk about strained, this moment was the definition of it. Here I sat, close enough to whisper into Nick’s ear that I loved him, that I was with him and not dead, but I couldn’t say a thing. Not a thing he would believe, anyway.

Carefully I put the car into gear and we drove off the hospital grounds, into the summer afternoon.

Chapter 16

Friday, July 29, 3 p.m.

Nick and Zo
ë
in Roxanne’s Rental Car

“So how are you feeling, Roxanne? Any progress with your memory?” I asked. I didn’t really care, but the tension was pressing down on all three of us and I was worried Zoë might attack Roxanne from the back seat.

“Yes, as a matter of fact. I’ve got a lot of it back.” Roxanne glanced in the rear-view mirror. “I was telling your sister that earlier when I stopped by the house.”

“She has Cathy’s earring,” Zoë said. “You might want to get it from her before she forgets to give it to you
again
.”

My sister’s voice buzzed in my ears like a wet bee. I crossed my arms. In the hospital, after she stopped screeching at me for falling off the wagon long enough to find out what really had happened last night, she immediately launched into a weird rant. The gist seemed to be Zoë thinking Roxanne was being freaky and scary, and was trying to impersonate Cathy or something.

“Thanks, Zoë. I’ll be sure to get it from Roxanne
when we stop
.”

Roxanne looked at me. “Those earrings are Cathy’s favorites, I know.”

“Were,” I said.

“Of course. Sorry.” Her face flushed. “Well, to finish answering your question, I still have a lot of holes in my memory but I’m starting to feel a little more normal.”

“Lucky you,” Zoë hissed.

“Knock it off, Zoë.” I shifted in my seat. My stomach felt as if it had been stretched over a barrel and beaten with a stick, and then shoved back down my throat. I smelled my own body odor after too long in the same shirt.

“Sorry, that was tactless,” Roxanne murmured.

“Don’t worry about it.” I stared straight ahead, wishing it were dark outside because the sunlight hurt my eyes. “I hear you’re going to be teaching next month.”

“Yeah. Summer’s almost over. I stopped at St. Anne’s again today. Things are starting to bustle. Lots of teachers in, and staff, so we’re getting reacquainted.”

“How’s your new classroom?” Zoë asked. “All moved in?”

Roxanne pursed her lips. “It’s very nice, a great space for the kids. Cathy was right, it is the best room in the school.”

Zoë made no reply.

After one minute of silence, I flicked on the radio to take the anxiety down a degree. Percy Sledge was wailing about a man loving a woman, and I wondered if a person’s head could literally explode.

I snapped it off. I’d worked at a radio station, in college and right after graduation. I loved music, all kinds, especially the old stuff from the Sixties and Seventies, but had lately gotten spooked about the radio. Some days I felt as if certain songs were playing to specifically harass me. Thinking these kinds of things could probably fit the definition of ‘clinical paranoia.’

I leaned back and stared at the road. Roxanne cut her eyes to me but she didn’t say anything else, thankfully. We drove the rest of the way to my house without anyone venturing another comment, each in our own emotional foxhole.

Roxanne pulled up to the house and killed the ignition. Zoë jumped out. Before I could yell at her to say ‘thanks,’ my sister ran across the lawn and disappeared inside.

I sighed and reached for the handle. For a moment, I wondered if I had enough strength to get out. “Thanks, Roxanne. I appreciate it.”

“I’m glad I could help.” She touched my thigh with her hand but withdrew it when I tensed. “Don’t be too angry with Zoë. She’s upset, and seeing me got her stirred up. But she’s a great kid. You know that.”

I stared at Roxanne, in profile and backlit by sunshine. With her hair drawn into a braid and dressed college-casual in jeans and a filmy blouse, she looked like Miss America on spring break.

Cathy wore blouses like that.

I cleared my throat. “I don’t know if your mom passed on what a dick I was a few days ago at the insurance company. When you see her, please give her my apologies.”

She nodded. “I will. But don’t worry about Betty. She understands about grieving, from her practice.” Roxanne fidgeted with her watch. “Nick, I wanted to say I’m sorry, too, about the other night at Simone’s. I should have realized, when I saw you in the hall, that you’d be upset to see me.”

“Don’t.” I held up my hand. “I was an asshole then, too. I’m just not so good with anyone right now.” I met her eyes but quickly looked away.

I opened the car door and for a second, I couldn’t remember where I was, then I saw the house, the lemon trees, smelled the honeysuckle growing along the walk Cathy had planted several weeks ago. I felt worse at that moment than I had since I’d lost my wife.

Zoë peeked out from the front window. When she saw me, she moved back and dissolved into the shadowed interior.

Like a dead man walking, I got out and went around to the driver’s window. “Thanks again, Roxanne.”

Her face was contorted and her nose was red. She didn’t look perfect as usual, but her eyes seemed more animated than I’d ever seen them. As if she could reach out and touch me with a glance. I stepped backward.

“Are you going to be okay?” she asked.

“Sure. Take care.” I turned and headed for the house.

“Nick!”

A chill of recognition shivered through my body. I whirled around, but the woman who had called my name wasn’t the woman my mind had heard calling me.

Roxanne was out of the car, her hand outstretched. “Don’t forget the earring.”

Just like at the restaurant the other night, I didn’t take it.

She blinked and seemed to understand, even before I did, that I couldn’t bear to touch her. She lifted her chin and squared her shoulders and stuffed the earring into her pocket.

We stood there for a moment like boxers waiting for the bell to start the last round.

“How much did you drink?” she asked.

Anger crested inside of me. Roxanne had often thought the worst of me. I didn’t feel like telling her this time she had it wrong. “Not enough. Not that it’s any of your fucking business.”

“Are you going to an AA meeting tonight?”

“What?” My mouth went dry, then filled with a sour fluid. “What did you just ask me?”

“I’m not prying, Nick, but if you’re drinking again, you need to go to a meeting as soon as possible. If you need a ride, I’ll take you. We can go right now.” She waved at the car. “Please do it. You can use my cell to find one.”

“You’ve got a hell of a nerve, Roxanne.”

“So do you.” Her eyes blazed. “You think your mom and Zoë are up to this? How much are they supposed to handle? You’re better than this, Nick.”

“Don’t talk to me like that. We go way back, but nothing we’ve been through gives you the right to criticize me about anything, Roxanne.”

She stood her ground. “I care about you and your family. And I know what happened in that terrible accident has caused this relapse, or whatever it is, but I’m not going to stand around like a house plant and say nothing.”

“You don’t know anything. You don’t even know what you don’t know.”

“If Cathy was standing here, she’d tell you to do the same thing. She’d tell you to suck it up and not let one misstep ruin your life.”

I took a step toward her. “You don’t know a goddamned word Cathy would say to me. Losing her changed everything, every goddamned everything that made my life any good.”

“You’re half of what made your life good, Nick. Your life can be good again.”

This woman is insane
.

I pointed at her. “Don’t say another thing. And stay away from this house and my sister!” I stumbled toward the front door.

“Nick, I want to help you. Just take the car and drive yourself. Just go,” she yelled behind me.

I slammed into the house.

Twenty minutes later, while I was lying face-down on my bed, I heard Roxanne’s car start. The sound of the engine vibrated in my room like a fighter plane in a war sky. I stretched and felt underneath the bed for the urn.

It was there. I squeezed my eyes closed and passed out.

Hours later, in the dark of night, I awoke with a start when the hallway floorboards squeaked. Zoë walked into my bedroom. With her pale skin, she shimmered like a ghost.

“Are you awake, Nick?”

“Yeah.”

She came over to the bed and leaned against the end of the mattress. “Do you need anything? The doctor said I was supposed to check on you every four hours and make sure you weren’t dead.”

She tried to make that sound funny but I heard the anguish in her voice.

“I’m not dead. That asshole who knocked me over the head hit me good, but my skull is pretty hard. It’s only a mild concussion, honey. I’m going to be fine.”

She started to cry then, and I sat up and pulled her into a hug. “Hey. It’s okay. I shouldn’t have been such a sitting duck, totally unaware of anyone around in a parking lot while I stood there pouring out good booze in the dark. I was asking to get robbed. Those punks probably thought I was retarded.”

She nestled against me and cried harder. “They could have killed you, Nick. And why did you even have that liquor? Were you going to drink? After all your hard work?”

I wiped her face with my tee shirt. “I thought about it, Zoë. I won’t lie to you. But I didn’t take a single drink. I didn’t because I know it isn’t the answer to anything.”

“Are you going to do it again?”

“What? Get rolled by some jerks and let them steal my wallet? Or get found by the cops smelling of booze and have my stomach pumped for no good reason?”

She shook her head. “No. Are you going to buy booze?”

“I’m going to try not to ever do that. And that’s all an alcoholic can do, right? Try every day.”

She sighed from deep inside her body. “Okay.”

“Okay.”

She stood up. “Go back to sleep. But don’t die.”

“I won’t. Promise.”

She walked toward the door, but turned around. “And you know, Nick, I’m still worried about Roxanne. I think you should avoid her. Don’t let her remind you too much of the past. I think she makes you feel sad.”

“I can handle Roxanne.”

“I don’t know about that. She’s pretty manipulative about getting her own way with people.”

I shook my head. Zoë, as usual, had zeroed in on a sore point, sorer than she realized. “Don’t worry. Neither of us needs to see her or talk to her for a while, right?”

“Right.”

“Okay, now go to bed and stop worrying.”

She disappeared into the dark hallway. I heard the shower running. Zoë was probably feeling as battered as I was, sitting here in my rank clothes. She’d been hurt by my poor judgment last night, and terrified by what could have happened.

I’d have to work hard to get her past this. I tried to think of what I could say to Zoë to ally her fears, and my mother’s. Tried to think of some reason I could give everyone to explain why they shouldn’t worry, that this was a one-time thing. But I couldn’t come up with much.

I knew people lost loved ones every day. My mother had been a young widow. Cathy had lost both her parents when she was just a little kid. Bradley lost his mom, then his lover, all in the same year, and he had gone on with life without destroying himself.

Roxanne’s words, ‘
Your life can be good again
,’ wound through my brain like black smoke. Someday I might believe that, but right now I didn’t. I needed to get a grip and bear down and get through the next days, weeks, months, years of my life.

Why?
That damned voice in my brain wouldn’t shut up.
So you’d feel, what? Better than you do now?
Shit, dead people probably felt better than I did.

Angry and edgy all over again, I got up and ambled into the kitchen and poured myself a huge glass of orange juice. It tasted terrible and the urge to hurl the glass against the wall was strong, so I did.

It bounced off the stucco and flew back at me, unbroken, whapping against my shoulder before it fell to the tile floor and shattered into a million pieces.

With a sigh, I retrieved the broom and dust bin, swept it up and dumped it in the trash can. I wondered what stage of grieving Betty Haverty’s books would say I’d now entered. The ‘
self-destructive-dickhead’
phase?

I put food down for the cat, which I’d not seen, locked the house and sat on the floor in my room.

Zoë had shut the shower off. The hair dryer started up as the cat wandered in the hall and yowled at me from the door. I patted the carpet beside me, but she didn’t come.

In the kitchen the phone rang, alerting me to the fact my sister had turned the thing back on. After five rings it went to the answering machine. The volume was set high enough to hear the caller’s message.

It was probably Roxanne. I held my breath.

“This is Seth Ryan for Nick again. Hey man, give me a call back when you get this message. I would like to speak with you. It’s important.” He left his number. The machine clicked off.

Zoë opened the door of the bathroom and walked to her room. She shut the door but started playing music loud enough for me to hear. She chose one of our mom’s old albums,
The Police
.

Oh God, not that song
. My little sister upped the volume and the house thumped around me, like a big, cold heart, while Sting pleaded with
“Rox-anne
” not to wear that dress. When it ended, she played it again.

Three times.

I considered pounding on the wall but just laid there and ground my teeth until my jaw throbbed. It was clear Zoë wasn’t going to drop her worries about Cathy’s best friend, nor was she going to let up on warning me about her.

A half hour later she stopped and all was quiet.

For five minutes.

Then outside, above the house, a helicopter circled, the blades agitating a lazy, menacing rhythm, a second wave in the conspiracy of sound to keep me awake. At that moment, I decided I would go into the office on Monday and quit my job. I would travel. I could be a bum. A bigger bum. I could lock myself in the house and watch movies all day. I had money.

Cathy’s blood money.