“Forgive me for pointing this out, Tennyson, but I don’t believe that you can do that. I’m here-I can see, I can talk, I can reason-I do have a say in what happens to me.”
“That remains to be seen. Lily, just speak to Dr. Rossetti. Talk to him about your pain, your confusion, your guilt, the fact that you’re beginning to accept what your ambition wrought.”
Ambition? She had such great ambition that her daughter was killed because of it?
She suddenly wanted to be perfectly clear about this. She said, “What do you mean exactly, Tennyson?”
“You know-Beth’s death.”
That hit her right between the eyes. Instant guilt, overwhelming her. No, wait, she wasn’t going to let that happen. She wouldn’t let it happen, not now. Beneath the morphine, beneath all of it, she was still there, hanging on, wanting to be whole, wanting to draw her cartoon strips of No Wrinkles Remus shafting another colleague, wanting… Was that the great ambition that had killed her daughter? “I can’t deal with this right now, Tennyson. Please go away. I’ll be better in the morning.”
No, she’d feel like hell when they lessened her pain dosage, she thought, but she wouldn’t worry about that now. Now she would sleep; she’d get better, both her brain and her body. She turned her head away from him on the pillow. She had no more words. She knew if she tried to speak more, she wouldn’t make sense. She was falling, falling ever so gently into the whale’s soft belly, and it would be warm, comforting. Move over, Jonah. She wouldn’t have nightmares, not with the morphine lulling her.
She stared at the IV in her arm, upward to the plastic bag filled with fluid above her. Her vision blurred into the lazy flow of liquid that didn’t seem to go anywhere, just flowed and flowed. She closed her eyes even as he said, “I will see you later this evening, Lily. Rest well.” He leaned down and kissed her cheek. How she used to love his hands on her, his kissing her, but not now. She simply hadn’t felt anything for such a very long time.
When she was alone again, she thought, What am I going to do? But then she knew, of course. She forced back the haziness, the numbing effect of the morphine. She picked up the phone and dialed her brother’s number in Washington, D.C. She heard a series of clicks and then the sound of a person breathing, but nothing happened. She dialed a nine, then the number again. She tried yet again, but didn’t get through. Then, suddenly, the line went dead.
She realized vaguely as she let herself be drawn into the ether that there was fear licking at her, from the deepest part of her, fear that she couldn’t quite grasp, and it wasn’t fear that she’d be institutionalized against her will.
3
Lily awoke to feel the touch of fingers on her eyebrows, stroking as light as a butterfly’s wing. She heard a man’s voice, a voice she’d loved all her life, deep and low, wonderfully sweet, and she opened to it eagerly.
“Lily, I want you to open your eyes now and look at me and smile. Can you do that, sweetheart? Open your eyes.”
And she opened her eyes and looked up at her brother. She smiled. “My big Fed brother. I’ve worshiped you from the time you showed me how to kick Billy Clapper in the crotch so he wouldn’t try to feel me up again. Do you remember that?”
“Yes, I remember. You were twelve and this little jerk, who was all of fourteen at the time, had put his hand up your skirt.”
“I really hurt him bad, Dillon. He never tried anything again.”
He was smiling, such a beautiful smile, white teeth. “I remember.”
“I should have kept kicking guys in the crotch. Then none of this would have happened. I’m so glad you’re here.”
“I’m here, Lily, so is Sherlock. We left Sean with Mom, who was grinning and singing the ‘Hallelujah Chorus’ as we drove out of the driveway. We told her you’d been in an accident and that you were okay, that we just wanted to see you. You can call and reassure her later. As for the rest of the family, let Mom do the telling.”
“I don’t want her to worry. It’s true, Dillon, I’ll be okay. I miss Sean. It’s been so long. I really like all the photos you e-mail me.”
“Yes, but it’s not the same as being in the room with him, having him gum your fingers, rub his crackers into your sweater, and drool on your neck.”
Sherlock said, “You touch any surface in the house and come away with graham cracker crumbs.”
Lily smiled, and it was real because she could see that precious little boy dropping wet graham cracker crumbs everywhere, and it pleased her to her very soul. “Mom must be so happy to have her hands on him.”
Savich said, “Yes. She always spoils him so rotten that when he comes home, he’s a real pain for a good two days.”
“He’s the cutest little button, Dillon. I miss him.”
A tear leaked out of her eye.
Savich wiped the tear away. “I know, so do Sherlock and I and we’ve only been apart from him for less than a day. How do you feel, Lily?”
“It’s dark again.”
“Yes. Nearly seven o’clock Thursday evening. Now, sweetheart, talk to me. How do you feel?”
“Like they’ve already lightened the morphine.”
“Yeah, Dr. Larch said he was just beginning to ease up on it now. You’re gonna feel rotten for a while, a day or two, but then it’ll be less and less pain each day.”
“When did you get here?”
“Sherlock and I just got into town. The puddle jumper from San Francisco to Arcata-Eureka was late.” He saw her eyes go vague and added, “Sherlock bought Sean a Golden Gate oven mitt at the San Francisco airport.”
“I’ll show it to you later, Lily,” Sherlock said. She was standing on the other side of Lily’s bed, smiling down at her, so scared for this lovely young woman who was her sister-in-law. She’d have bitten her fingernails if she hadn’t stopped some three years before. “It was between an oven mitt with Alcatraz on it and the Golden Gate. Since Sean gums everything, Dillon thought gumming the Golden Gate was healthier than gumming a Federal prison.”
Lily laughed. She didn’t know where it had come from, but she even laughed again. Pain seared through her side and her ribs, and she gasped.
“No more humor,” Sherlock said and lightly kissed her cheek. “We’re here and everything’s going to be all right now, I promise.”
“Who called you?”
“Your father-in-law, about two in the morning, last night.”
“I wonder why he called,” she said slowly, thinking about the pain that was now coming through and how she would deal with it.
“You wouldn’t expect him to?”
“I see now,” Lily said, her eyes suddenly narrow and fierce. “He was afraid Mrs. Scruggins would call you and then you would wonder why the family hadn’t called. I think he’s afraid of you, Dillon. He’s always asking me how you’re doing and where you are. When you were here before, I think you scared him really good.”
“Why would I scare him?”
“Because you’re big and you’re smart and you’re a special agent with the FBI.”
Sherlock laughed. “Lots of people don’t relax around FBI agents. But Mr. Elcott Frasier? I took one look at him and thought he probably chewed nails for breakfast.”
“He could, you know. Everyone thinks that, particularly his son, my husband.”
“Maybe he called because he knew we’d want to come here to see you,” Savich said. “Maybe he isn’t all that much of an iron fist.”
“Yes, he is. Tennyson was here earlier.” She sighed, tightened a bit from a jab of pain in her bruised ribs, the pulling in her side. “Thank goodness he finally left.”
Savich looked over at Sherlock. “What happened, Lily? Talk to us.”
“Everyone thinks I tried to kill myself again.”
“Fine, let them. It doesn’t matter. Talk, Lily.”