Skin Privilege (11 page)

I just never realized how irritating he can be,’ her mother insisted. She was obviously in the kitchen of the RV; Sara could hear cabinets opening and closing. ‘How hard is it to hook up to a waste trap? The man is a plumber, for the love of God.’ She gave a heavy sigh. ‘Two hours, Sara. It took him two whole hours.’

Sara held her tongue, though her mother had a point. On the other hand, her father was probably dragging out the chore in order to prolong his life.

‘Are you listening to a word I’m saying?’

‘Yes, Mama,’ Sara lied. She was wearing thick socks, but she used her big toe to prod a green MStM that seemed to be stuck in the carpet by the window. ‘Two hours.’

Her mother was silent for a moment, then said, ‘Tell me what happened.’

Sara gave up on the M amp;cM when her sock kept getting stuck to the candy. She resumed pacing. I told you what happened. I let her escape. I might as well have opened the door for her and driven her to the airport.’

‘Not that,’ Cathy insisted. ‘You know what I’m talking about.’

It was Sara’s turn to sigh. She was almost glad she’d made a fool of herself last night at ^he hospital because Lena ‘s rapid departure had given Sara a new thing to toss and turn over when she was supposed to be sleeping. Now, her mother’s question brought the malpractice suit firmly back into her consciousness.

Sara told her, ‘I would say their strategy is to claim that because I was attacked ten years ago, I was too distracted to tell the Powells that Jimmy had leukemia, and that he died because I waited an extra day.’

‘That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.’

‘Their lawyer can be pretty persuasive.’ Sara thought about the lawyer, her Tourette’s-like crocodile smile. ‘She even had me convinced.’

Another cabinet was opened and closed. ‘I can’t believe that another woman would do this to you,’ Cathy said. ‘It’s disgusting. This is why women will never get ahead: other women are constantly cutting them off at the knees.’

Sara held her tongue, not in the mood for one of her mother’s feminist lectures.

Cathy offered, I can come home if you need me.’

Sara nearly dropped the phone. ‘No. I’m fine, really. Don’t ruin your vacation because of-‘

‘Shit,’ her mother hissed; it was rare that an expletive crossed her lips. I have to go. Your father just set himself on fire.’

‘Mama?’ Sara pressed the phone to her ear, but her mother had already hung up.

Sara held the phone in her hand, wondering if she should call back, deciding that if something had been really wrong, her mother would have sounded less annoyed. Finally, she returned the phone to the cradle and went over to the large plate glass window looking out into the motel parking lot. Sara had kept the drapes closed most of the morning, thinking sitting alone in the dark room was less bleak than staring out into the empty lot… Now, she opened the polyester drapes a few inches, letting in a thin ray of light.

The table and set of white plastic lawn chairs by the window seemed perfect companions to the dismal view. Sara adjusted the threadbare towel she’d draped over one of the chairs and sat down. Exhaustion overwhelmed her, but the thought of getting back into bed, sliding between the rough, yellowing sheets, was too much to bear.

She had walked across the street earlier in the morning to buy coffee and ended up purchasing some Comet with bleach additive and a sponge that smelled like it had already been used. Her thought had been to tidy the room, or at least make the bathroom less disgusting, but every time she thought about taking the supplies in hand and actually using them, Sara found that she didn’t have the energy. What’s more, if she was going to clean anything, it should be her own home.

She tried to list the chores she could be doing back in Grant County right now: folding the laundry piled on the bed in the spare room, fixing the leak in the bathroom sink, taking the dogs for a walk around the lake. Of course, the reality was that Sara had done none of these tasks in the weeks since she’d closed the clinic. For the most part, she’d sat around the house brooding about the lawsuit. When her sister called from Atlanta, Sara had talked about the lawsuit. When Jeffrey got home from work, she had talked about the lawsuit.

She had become so obsessed with discussing the suit that finally, her mother had snapped, ‘For the love of God, Sara,
do
something. Even patients in mental homes have to weave baskets.’

Unfortunately, getting out of the house only exacerbated the problem. Whether Sara was at the grocery store or picking up Jeffrey’s suits from the cleaners or even raking leaves in the front yard, she had felt people’s eyes on her. Not just that, but she’d felt their disapproval. The few times she’d talked to anyone, the conversations had been brief if not downright cold. Sara hadn’t told anyone about these exchanges – not Jeffrey, not her family – but she had found herself sinking deeper and deeper into depression with each encounter.

And now, courtesy of Lena Adams, Sara had one more failure to add to her list. How could she have been so easily tricked? How could she have been so utterly idiotic? All night, Sara had tried to parse each moment of her time with Lena, picking apart the seconds, trying to see how she could have acted differently, how she could have changed the outcome. Nothing came to mind except her own glaring stupidity.

Lena had been up on her knees in bed, the restraints keeping her from moving any farther away. As soon as Jeffrey and the sheriff left, she relaxed, her arms going limp.

Sara had studied her, noticed the way the other woman’s chest shook with every exhale of breath. ‘What’s going on, Lena? Why are you so afraid?’

‘You have to get out of here. Both of you.’ Her voice was quiet, ominous. When she looked up, her eyes seemed to glow with terror. ‘You have to get Jeffrey out of here.’

Sara felt her heart stop. ‘Why? Is he in danger?’

Lena did not answer. Instead, she looked down at her hands, the tangled sheets. ‘Everyone, everything I touch – it all turns to shit. You have to get away from me.’

‘Do you really think we’re going to abandon you?’ Sara had said ‘we,’ but they both knew that she meant Jeffrey. ‘Someone died in that car, Lena. Tell me what happened to you.’

She shook her head, resigned.

‘ Lena, talk to me.’

Again, no answer came. That must have been when Lena had decided her course of action, that if she could not control Sara, she could at least use her.

‘I’m so dirty,’ she’d said, her tone of voice indicating the filth was more than skin-deep. I feel so dirty.’ She’d looked up at Sara. Tears wet her eyes, and though her voice was more restrained, her hands still shook in her lap. I need to wash off. I have to wash off.’

Sara hadn’t even thought about it. She’d walked over to the side of the bed and unstrapped the Velcro restraints. ‘You’re going to be okay,’ she’d promised. ‘You need to trust me, or I can get Jeffrey-‘

‘No,’ Lena begged. ‘Just… I just need to wash off. Let me…’ Her lips trembled. All the fight seemed to be drained out of her. She slid to the edge of the bed, tried to stand on shaky legs. Sara put her arm around the other woman’s waist, helped her gain her footing.

Lena had really acted the part, Sara thought. A decided frailty had marked her every move. Nothing about her actions suggested she was capable of climbing on a toilet and pulling herself up into a drop ceiling, let alone eluding a manhunt.

Sara had been completely fooled, walking alongside Lena across the room, keeping her arm out a few inches from the other woman’s back in case her support was needed. It was an automatic gesture, the sort of thing you learned your first week as a resident. Sara had escorted her all the way to the bathroom, shuffling her feet to match Lena ‘s slow gait.

What Sara had been thinking as they walked was that Lena was not a whiner. She was the type of person who would rather bleed to death than admit she had been cut. Sara found herself wondering if maybe the doctors had misdiagnosed Lena, that she should look at the chest X-rays, find a stethoscope, review the drugs that had been administered, run some fluids, do some blood work. Was there brain damage, some kind of shock from the explosion? Had Lena fallen? Hit her head? Had she lost consciousness? Smoke inhalation was deadly, claiming more victims than fire alone. Secondary infections, fluid in the lungs, tissue damage – all sorts of possibilities were flashing through Sara’s mind, and she’d realized that without warning, she was thinking like a doctor again. For the first time in months, she felt useful.

Then Lena had stopped her at the door to the bathroom, holding up her hand so that Sara would get the message that she needed privacy. Then, just before shutting the door, Lena had turned to Sara. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she’d said, her apology seeming so genuine that Sara could not believe this was the same woman who had been almost hysterical with fear and hatred five minutes earlier. ‘I’m so, so sorry.’

‘It’s all right,’ Sara had assured her, smiling, letting Lena know that she was no longer alone in this. ‘We can talk about it later, okay? We’ll get Jeffrey in here and we’ll all figure out what to do.’

Lena had nodded, probably not trusting her voice.

‘I’ll wait out here for you.’

And Sara
bad
waited, standing outside the door, grinning like a fool, thinking about how much she was going to
help
Lena. Meanwhile, Lena was probably bolting down the stairs, laughing at how easy Sara had made her escape.

Now, sitting at the plastic table in the dreary motel room, Sara felt her face redden with humiliation.

‘Stupid,’ she said, standing up before the chair sucked out what little life was left in her.

Cathy was right. Sara needed to do something. She picked up the Comet and the odd-smelling sponge she’d bought at the convenience store and headed toward the bathroom. For some reason, the sink was outside the door, a long counter that was burned at the edges where people had rested their cigarettes while they – what? – brushed their teeth?

It didn’t bear thinking about.

Sara sprinkled some Comet into the sink and started scrubbing, trying not to take any more chrome off the plastic drain in the process. She put some muscle into it, cutting through years of grime as if her life depended on it.

Pride before the fall,
she thought. All those years of being the teacher’s pet – the best student in the class, the highest grades, the best accolades, and the brightest future – for what? Emory University had accepted her before she graduated from high school. The medical college had practically rolled out the red carpet, offering enough financial aid for her father to easily make up the difference. Thousands of people a year applied for the limited number of residencies at Grady Hospital. Sara hadn’t even had a fallback. She knew she was going to get into the program. She was so damn sure of her own abilities, her own intelligence, that she had never in her life thought she would not succeed at anything she set her mind to.

Except for stopping a one-hundred-ten-pound college dropout from escaping the Elawah County Medical Center.

‘Stupid,’ Sara repeated. She gave up on the sink and went into the bathroom. She started on the toilet, using the scrub brush mounted on the wall to clean the bowl, trying not to wonder what had turned the bristles dark gray. As she got down on her knees beside the bathtub, Sara remembered her mother showing her years ago how to clean a bathroom – how much cleaner to use, how to gently scrub the porcelain with a sponge.

Sara sat back on her heels, thinking that one day, maybe soon, she would show her own child how to clean the tub or vacuum the living room. Jeffrey would have to explain how to sort laundry because Sara was forever pulling pink-streaked, formerly white socks out of the dryer. She could take the kid to the grocery store, at least. Jeffrey thought a frozen dinner was a well-balanced meal, which might explain why his blood pressure had to be controlled with medication.

A thought came to Sara like a knife in her chest. What if she ran into Beckey Powell at the grocery store? What if Sara was standing in the meat section, holding her child’s hand, and Beckey walked up? How would Sara explain to her new son or daughter why Beckey Powell hated her? How would she explain why the whole town believed that her incompetence had led to the death of a child?

Sara wiped her forehead with the back of her hand, eyes watering from the overwhelming stench of bleach in the tiny bathroom. She wished that Jeffrey was there to keep her mind from going to such dark places. Since filing the adoption papers, they’d started playing what-if games. ‘What if we get a boy who hates football?’ ‘What if we have a girl who loves pink and wants her hair braided?’

Sara imagined games were the last thing on her husband’s mind at the moment. A dead person had been in that SUV and Lena was somehow entangled in that death. After meeting Jake Valentine, Jeffrey did not trust the local force to solve this crime without leaping to the easiest conclusion and pinning it all on Lena. He had left early this morning to plot strategy with Nick Shelton, a friend of his who worked for the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. Sara had not been invited to tag along.

She leaned back over the tub, rinsing the Comet, then sprinkling more powder to start the process again. The sponge was just about to give up the ghost, but Sara would not stop until the job was done. She folded the sponge in two and used the edge to attack the black ring around the periphery that probably dated back to the seventies.

Sara muttered a curse under her breath, wishing again that she was back home. At least in Grant County, she could stay out of Jeffrey’s way and let him do his job. Here, all she could do was make sure he had a clean place to put his toothbrush. Overnight, she had turned into a glorified housewife, and for what? So that Lena could laugh her way out of town?

Sara knew that Jeffrey bent the rules sometimes. If he had been by himself last night, Jeffrey would have taken the empty nurses’ station as an invitation to find Lena on his own. If he had walked into that hospital room alone, Lena might have opened up to him. She might have told him why she needed to get out of there instead of breaking out. She sure as hell wouldn’t have tried to use Jeffrey in order to make her escape; she respected him too much.