“This is nobody’s fault but my own,” I tried to tell them, trying to make eye contact with one of them, but they were both staring too hard at each other. It was like I wasn’t even in the same universe. “It was my cousin. My family. And I don’t know if he paid Jason to open the gate and let him in or what, but it’s my fault,” I tried to say… but they weren’t listening. They weren’t even close to listening.
“That’s unfair, Ripley,” the older man said, completely focused on him.
“You think?”
Mr. Cooper swept another hand over his head. “I know it is. I told you I didn’t know.”
“You don’t think that excuse is getting old after all these years?”
“Son, give me a break,“ Mr. Cooper almost croaked, rubbing his hand over his chest, his face reddish pink.
But the man in the chair decided he wasn’t going to give anyone a break, not his business partner, not the man who had been so kind to me for so long. “Don’t fucking ‘son’ me. You always think you know better than anyone else, but you don’t.”
Okay. All right. I needed to calm this down. “Hey, Rip. Don’t put this on Mr. C. It’s on me. I should have said something from the beginning—”
They were still ignoring me as their voices got louder.
“I didn’t know!” Mr. Cooper shot back as Rip stood up. “It’s not fair for you to keep bringing up things from twenty years ago.”
How had they known each other twenty years ago?
“Hey, you two, can we agree it’s nobody else’s fault but Jason’s?” I piped up, getting to my feet to hopefully remind them they weren’t in here alone.
I was invisible though because nothing changed.
Nothing changed because Rip jabbed his finger in Mr. Cooper’s direction and hurled,
“Twenty-two years ago, not twenty, and it could be another forty and I still wouldn’t forget what you did to Mom—”
Wait.
Wait.
Mom?
Mom?
Mr. Cooper wheezing had me snapping my eyes toward him just as he reached up and slapped another hand over the center of his chest.
“Mr. Cooper?” I asked, taking a step toward his desk as Ripley’s voice seemed to trail off.
Mr. Cooper sucked in another gasp as his fingers curled over the shirt he had on. “I… I…”
“Call 911!”
Chapter 25
“I’m goingto get some tea or coffee from the cafeteria. Do you want anything?”
I asked as I got to my feet, ignoring the way my knees popped from how long I’d been sitting in the waiting room at the hospital.
At the hospital.
At the hospital after following the ambulance carrying Mr. Cooper.
Mr. Cooper who I was 99 percent sure, had suffered a heart attack.
Two hours in the waiting room had given me enough time to nurse a pounding headache, a knot in my chest that would have felt like a malignant tumor if those felt like something, and knees that cracked as I stood up. After the paramedics had shown up, I had followed behind, wanting to throw up and pray at the same time, but I hadn’t prayed for anything in so long, I wasn’t sure I knew how to do it anymore.
