CHAPTER 58

Present

I THINK, AS I walk down the white hall, following the detectives, a stranger’s hand pushing on my back, willing me forward, about my mother. Had a dozen tiny details been different, she’d have walked down a hall similar to this. She’d have pushed out with her wrists, and realized the futility of movement. She’d have heard her shoes slap against dirty floors and recognized her end. She’d have been alive and imprisoned instead of dead.

I am not my mother. But like her, I belong here. I inhale air that smells of cigarettes and cheap labor and wonder if this is the end of my story.

We turn left, a foursome of silence, and Brenda stops at a door, twists the knob, and pushes it open with her foot. “Sit down in here. I’ll bring in a phone, we’ll knock out some questioning, and then move you to general pop. You’ll have an arraignment in a few days to determine bail options.”

A few days. A hand pushes gently between my shoulder blades, and I step forward. Cross into a gray room with a black floor and sit carefully on a folding chair that creaks. They shut the door and I hear the turn of a lock.

Locked in. Some people would feel claustrophobic. For me, it’s freeing.

I spend the long minutes in the room deciding whom, once my one phone call privilege is allowed, to contact. I decide upon Jeremy’s sister, the only member of Jeremy’s family I am really aware of, and someone who, given the circumstances, probably knows the most about his health condition. I also decide that, given our complete lack of proper introduction prior to now, I should have gone to her damn dinner. Go figure.

When Brenda walks into the room, a phone in one hand, both of my cells in her other, I sit straighter. Put my feet on the ground and try to scoot the chair forward. Start to reach forward toward the phone and stop myself. Search for patience and find none. I hold one fist in my other hand and watch her sit down in the seat across from me.

“Here’s the deal. You can’t touch your cell, but if you need some numbers out of it, just let me know and I’ll pull them for you.” She pushes the phone forward, pulling a line from the wall and plugging it in.

“Numbers?” I look up. “I thought I get one phone call.”

“That’s Hollywood. In the real world, as long as you’re not a pain in the ass, you can make a reasonable number of calls to get your affairs in order. You also only get privacy when you speak to your attorney, so keep that in mind when making your calls.”

A reasonable number of calls. I look at the bare table between us and try to think. One phone call was easier to navigate. “Okay. Do you have a phone number for Jeremy’s sister? Her name is Lily.”

“No.”

Very helpful. “May I have a phone book?”

That got me somewhere, her head dropping, hands moving, the screech of a drawer and then, the deposit of a large book, its spine worn, cover showing its age: four years old. I pull it to me and flip through, finding the number for Hillcrest Hospital South and dialing it slowly. Underneath my hand, the receiver feels dirty.

It takes twelve minutes and two calls to get to someone who knows who Jeremy Pacer is. When I ask about his condition, I am asked to leave a message; I glance at Brenda and she shakes her head. I ask to speak to any visitors in Jeremy’s room and am patched through, the ringing of the phone terrifyingly bleak.

On the ninth ring, a woman picks up. “Hello?”

I swallow. “Is this Lily?”

“Yes.” Short. Concise. I close my eyes and choose my words carefully.

“My name is Deanna, I am Jeremy’s girlfriend.” I am, not was. Am. Forever and always. I pause and she says nothing. I glance at Brenda and wish I had asked more questions in the car. “Can you tell me how he is?”

“It’s nice of you to call, Deanna. It would have been even nicer for you to visit. He’s been here for three days.”

Three days. When I come to, the apartment is dark and I am on the floor. I swallow. “I didn’t know—no one told me.”

Silence. She whispers something to someone else, and the words are muffled. Then, she is back. “I don’t have much to tell you, Deanna. He has a subdural hematoma, a buildup of blood in the brain. At the moment, he’s comatose. The doctors are going to reduce his meds over the next few days, see if they can pull him out of it. He’s not”—she sighed—“not in great shape.”

“But he’ll live?” I wrap my finger around the cord of the phone, then release it.

“I—the doctors say it’s too early to know for sure. They’ve told me that the brain is fickle. He could wake up tomorrow and be fine for the rest of his life, or he could have a sudden rebleed and go comatose again. Or he may never wake up.”

Or he may never wake up. I try to think of something else to say but come up blank. When I hang up, it is to her breathing.

I push back the receiver and look up to Brenda. She raises her eyebrows. “Who next?”

I shrug. Try to speak but can’t form a word. The doctors say it’s too early to know for sure. Try again. “I’m done.” The words rasp out of me, like a gate that hasn’t been opened in some time.

She frowns. “You sure? No lawyer? No house sitter? No boss or bail bondsman?”

I shake my head. “I’m sure.”

A short, lonely sentence. She yanks at the cord, gathers the phone in the crook of her left arm, and heads for the door. “I’ll be back.”

I listen to the door slam behind her and close my eyes. Questioning, she had mentioned, would come next. Then, general pop. It will be a very long night.

CHAPTER 59

Present

MY DEFINITION OF time doesn’t match Brenda’s. “I’ll be back,” in my world, refers to fifteen minutes, a half hour. Maybe forty-five minutes if I take an extra-long bathroom break, or get distracted on Pinterest. But I have now been in this tiny room for, according to the clock on the wall, three hours. I shift in the seat, lifting my right butt cheek, then my left, off of the hard plastic, my muscles cramping from the unforgiving chair. I lean forward and lay my head on the table. Close my eyes. Roll my wrists and wiggle my fingers.

He’s in a coma. The doctors are hoping to pull him out of it in the next few days. He’s not in great shape.

I’ve tried not to think about Jeremy for the last three hours. I’ve thought of nothing but him during that time.

The doctors say it’s too early to know for sure.

The last time Jeremy was in the hospital, it was from my actions. And I thought he was dead. And I cried when he lived. And now, he’s back. It hasn’t even been a year.

A six-story fall from your window, along with six stab wounds.

They will question me next. But I have questions too. Questions I am terrified of, but also need answers to. Stab wounds. I wouldn’t have. Not with Jeremy.

I fumble with them briefly, then flip the blade out and straddle his body, bringing both hands together above my head. Bringing my hands down together, in one quick motion, the sharp point descends toward his neck.