The Language of Sisters (29 page)

“No, that’s all been taken care of. It’s Mr. Zimmerman. They’ve found him.”

My organs froze in my body, seizing up with anger. I gripped the receiver, my knuckles turning white with effort. “Where was he?”

“In a hotel room in Eugene. They traced him there on his credit card. They think he charged the room on purpose so the police would find him.” He paused, his breath heavy in my ear. “He hanged himself, Nicole. He’s dead.”

“He did
what
?”

“He left a note, too. Sort of a confessional for all the rapes he committed over the last four years in the institutions where he worked. I’m sorry to say that your sister was definitely not the first.”

I was silent, tapping my foot against the green carpet, staring at Jenny as she smiled obliviously at Layla. Nova emerged from the bathroom, reaching to take the phone from me. I shook my head and pointed to myself. I mouthed the word
lawyer
. Her brow wrinkled in concern at the look on my face, and she took my hand. I squeezed it, thankful for her presence.

“Nicole?” Mr. Waterson inquired. “Are you there?”

“Yes. Just a little shocked.”

“Well, I’d imagine so.” I heard the shuffling of papers and he spoke again. “I’ve got more to tell you, too. Are you sitting down?”

“Yes,” I said, though I was not.

“Wellman settled with me this morning. I just need you and your mother to come in and sign the paperwork to make it official.”

“Oh, God.” I sank to the floor, cross-legged, pulling Nova with me. “How much?”

“Six point five million. Give or take.”

My voice caught in my throat, my mouth opened and shut silently, like that of a fish underwater. Nova took the phone. “Hello? This is Nicole’s best friend. She’s a little overcome at the moment. Is there anything else I should tell her?” She listened, then thanked him before hanging up. She grasped my face in her hands. “You okay, sweetie? He said to call his assistant and set up a time for you and your mom to come in. What happened?”

Still in shock, I choked out the news: Jacob Zimmerman’s suicide, his confession, and then Wellman’s settlement. Nova jumped up, shook her curvy body with glee. “Ding-dong, the bastard’s dead!” She went over to hug Jenny. “Did you hear that, hon? You’re rich!”

I sat immobile on the floor, blinking my eyes heavily. “Oh, God. I don’t believe it. I can’t believe he’s dead.”

Nova came back over to sit next to me on the floor. “It’s good news, though, right? Now you don’t have to worry about it anymore.”

I shrugged, straightening my legs out in front of me, and smiled halfheartedly. “I guess part of me was hoping he would end up in prison with a very large, sexually angry cellmate. Preferably one with a handicapped sister. Death almost seems too easy.”

“Arrwwhwa!” Jenny exclaimed, clapping her hands together in agreement.

Nova and I laughed. “Well,” I said. “At least I’m certain now we can afford to keep her at the Sunshine House.”

Nova ran her fingers through the mop of sandy waves that fell around her face. “Everything happens the way it should, Nic. Things with Shane, even Garret. Everything. You just have to listen to your heart and trust the Universe to take care of things.”

“Go with the flow?”

“Exactly.” An enormous yelp erupted from outside, and Nova shook her head, despairingly. “And now, the flow directs me to the backyard, where I need to make sure my children are not murdering each other.” She scooped up Layla from her spot on the couch and headed toward the back door. “Coming?” she inquired.

“In a minute. Jenny and I need to talk.” She smiled, waved, then disappeared through the kitchen. I sat next to Jenny on the couch, my arm around her, and rested my face against her soft dark hair. It had grown in beautifully over the past few months, returning to the glossy curls I remember so well from our childhood. Her eyes glistened when she turned her head to look at me, silver-dipped blue irises that I prayed she would pass to her little girl. Our little girl. I leaned my head down and pressed my mouth against my sister’s swollen belly. “Hi,” I said. “How’re you doing in there? I can’t wait to meet you.”

Baby
. I felt the word dance inside me, and I sat up to hug my sister close. “That’s right, sweetie. Baby. It won’t be long now.” Jenny’s checkup the day before had gone well; the baby’s heartbeat was still strong, and Jenny’s belly, though measuring a bit small, wrestled and jumped beneath Dr. Fisher’s gentle touch.

Dr. Fisher was hoping Jenny could attempt a natural birth; our plan was to let labor occur on its own in order to see Jenny’s reaction, but if she freaked out because of the pain or not understand that she needs to push in order to get the baby out, my mother had already signed the paperwork consenting to a cesarean section. We felt as prepared as possible under the circumstances.

Of course, circumstances have been known to change.

•  •  •

Jenny was having a bad night. I was up to check on her several times, to reposition her in bed, shoving cushiony pillows between her knees, soothing her soft cries with the touch of my hand against her face. I checked her belly as well, feeling for the telltale tightening Ellen had instructed me to watch out for, but so far the muscles surrounding the baby were soft. She was thirty-seven weeks along, and fortunately, she didn’t seem to be in labor.

“Ahhh … ,” Jenny groaned. Her gaze bore into me, pleading for relief from whatever was tormenting her. Her eyes were jumping and shiny, carrying the look of an animal caught in a cage. I had given her all her meds, changed her diaper, tried to feed her a snack, and massaged her legs. Nothing seemed to help.

Desperate to comfort her, I dimmed the lights and curled up behind her on the mattress, nuzzling my body into hers. I rubbed her lower back with a gentle but insistent pressure. “Shhh, honey. It’s okay. Everything’s all right.” I glanced at the clock: three a.m. I wondered if I should call Dr. Fisher.

Baby
murmured in my heart, and I carefully rolled Jenny onto her back, matching my gaze to hers, trying to gauge more of her thoughts. Her eyes were hectic, full of fear and confusion. “Is the baby all right, Jen? Is something wrong?” I pressed my fingers into the flesh of her stomach, waiting to feel the baby’s usual responsive
kick, but there was no movement other than the rapid rise and fall caused by Jenny’s breath.

Baby
, I heard again, more insistently. I moved my sister back to her left side and rose from the bed. “I’m going to get Mom, okay, Jen? Everything will be fine, I promise.” I rushed down the hall and through the kitchen, then rapped sharply on my mother’s bedroom door. Moonlight flooded the hallway when she appeared. She squinted at me, pulling her earplugs out and setting them on the dresser.

“What’s wrong?”

“I’m not sure, but she’s acting like something’s really bothering her. I don’t think she’s in labor, but the baby doesn’t seem to be kicking.”

Mom grabbed her robe to accompany me back to Jenny’s room. “Didn’t Dr. Fisher say it’s pretty typical for the baby’s movement to decrease toward the end of pregnancy? I think I remember that happening with both of you.”

“Yes,” I said, a bit impatiently, “but there’s something else. I just feel it.”

When we returned to her room, Jenny was still groaning, her fists in her mouth, her eyes wild. Mom leaned over Jenny and checked her belly as I had. “There,” she said, sounding satisfied. “I felt a kick. I’m sure she’s fine. She’s probably just generally uncomfortable. Things get pretty tight in there toward the end.” She pushed Jenny’s hair back from her forehead and kissed her there. “It’s all right, honey.”

BABY!
veritably shouted within me; my heart bounced with the impact. “She’s
not
just uncomfortable. Something’s wrong. I think we should take her to the hospital.”

Mom absorbed the look on my face, then nodded. “Okay. But why don’t you call first and let her doctor know we’re coming? I’ll get dressed.”

I went into the hallway and dialed Dr. Fisher’s paging service. “What’s the nature of your emergency?” the operator inquired. “Is the patient in labor?”

“I don’t think so.” I briefly explained Jenny’s special circumstances and my fear that something might be wrong.

“I’ll have an obstetrical nurse give you a call, all right?”

“I’d rather you just called Dr. Fisher, if you don’t mind. She’s the only one familiar with my sister’s case.”

The operator paused briefly before responding. “Ma’am, I’m sorry, but we don’t like to bother the doctor unless her patient is showing clear signs of labor, and it doesn’t sound like your sister is.”

I kicked the wall impetuously. “How would you know?”

“Excuse me?”

“I said, how would you know? Exactly how many handicapped women have you seen showing signs of labor?” My molars ground against each other, the gritty sound of sandpaper between my ears.

The operator was silent again. “Ma’am, I’m just following procedure here. In cases like these, we call the nurse first.”

“And I ask you again, how many cases ‘like these’ have you been involved with?” I sighed angrily. “Look. I know my sister. Something is wrong, so I don’t have time to play this little game with you. I am taking her to Swedish Hospital, and I’ll expect you to page Dr. Fisher and let her know we’d like to meet her there. Thank you.” I slammed down the phone just as my mother emerged from the kitchen, dressed in dark slacks and a denim button-down shirt.

She looked at me inquiringly. “Is there a problem?”

“No,” I said, moving into my room to throw on a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt. Mom stood in the doorway, watching me. “Unless, of course, you call ignorance a problem.”

She looked confused, and I shook my head. “Never mind. It’s not important.” I slipped a pair of tennis shoes over my bare feet. “Let’s go.”

“Shouldn’t we get Jenny dressed?”

“They’ll just undress her there anyway.”

The drive would have been silent if it hadn’t been for Jenny’s low, keening cries. Fear bounced around in her eyes like a rubber ball as we entered through the sliding doors of the brightly lit emergency room. The waiting room was deserted; the receptionist sat with her feet up on the desk, linking paper clips into a chain, her gaze flickering intermittently to the blinking television across the room.

“Excuse me,” I said to her. “My sister’s almost nine months pregnant, and I think something might be wrong with the baby.”

She handed me a clipboard with a stack of paperwork without even glancing up. “Fill these out, please. Make sure you sign each page.”

I dropped the clipboard noisily on her desk. “She’s preregistered.”

The girl finally looked up and saw my sister standing there, pregnant and drooling, my mother’s arm draped around her shoulders like a protective cape. “It’s
her
?”

“Yes!” I snapped. “Dr. Ellen Fisher is meeting us in Labor and Delivery, so we need to be admitted.
Now
.”

The receptionist, who wasn’t wearing a name tag, dropped her eyes to the desk, awkwardly shuffling some papers. “Uh, is she in pain?”

“You know what? I don’t need to be interviewed right now. Just admit her and get someone down here from Labor and Delivery.”

The girl looked offended. “Well, I need to get the answers to this questionnaire before I can let you—”

“Arrrwgh!” Jenny screeched, slamming her hands together and into her mouth, her eyes flashing in warning. The girl jumped at the noise, looked hastily at me, then picked up the phone.

“Um, this is Shelley in the ER. I need an admit clerk to come bring a patient to Labor and Delivery. Right away, please.” She paused, tapped her long nails on the desk, then turned her head and ineffectually lowered her voice to a whisper. “She’s
retarded
.”

“She’s not the only one,” I remarked loudly, and my mother smirked, still trying to calm Jenny.

Baby, baby, baby
. The word pounded in my brain like a jack-hammer. When the clerk arrived, we settled Jenny into a wheelchair and headed up to Labor and Delivery. I clutched Jenny’s hand, unsure whether it was she or I who needed the gesture more. A nurse led us to a small room, where we arranged Jenny on the examining table. Her muscles were tense, her eyes still wild.

Baby
.

“What seems to be the problem with her?” the nurse inquired as she took Jenny’s blood pressure, not even looking at my sister.

“She’s been very agitated,” my mother replied. “Which is very unusual for her. We just want to make sure everything is okay.”

“I haven’t looked at her chart—how far along is she?” The nurse spoke the words as if they left a bad taste in her mouth, looking at my mother and me as if we were lepers for allowing a handicapped girl to get pregnant.

“Just over thirty-seven weeks,” I said, fuming. “Why haven’t you looked at her chart?”

“We don’t usually until we’ve spoken to the patient.” She turned Jenny a bit roughly in order to wrap a monitoring belt around my sister’s belly.

“Well, if you
had
read her chart, you’d see that this pregnancy was a result of rape,
Doris
,” I said nastily as I located her name on
the hospital identification she wore around her neck. “I’d appreciate it if you could increase your level of sensitivity a bit when dealing with her. Or is that a problem for you?”

Doris flushed, her lips pursed into a scowl. “I provide the same level of sensitivity for every patient.”

“Well, if that’s true, then I feel sorry for your other patients.” I stood with my hands on my hips, tapping my foot angrily on the shiny linoleum.

She stared at me, her eyes flashing. “I’ll just go get the chart.”

“Why don’t you do that?” I agreed. She left the room quickly. “God!” I exclaimed. “Some people!”

“I know,” my mother soothed. “They talk like Jenny’s a piece of furniture. I never quite worked up the courage to stand up for her.” She rubbed my upper arm. “You’re a strong woman, Nicole. I’m proud of you.” The compliment sounded peculiar coming from my mother’s mouth; I still expected her to find fault with me.