“Fuck,” RJ whispers beside me, one second before it clicks for me.
“We gave him a liver,” I say, blinking in shock.
Mattie’s confusion just adds to her frenzy. “That doesn’t matter. What matters is my mom is going crazy. She’s super sweet and kind to the doctors and Trevor, but the second they’re out of the room, it’s like she’s somebody else. She just keeps insisting that Father promised, and that he should have let her rest in peace. I don’t know who ‘her’ is, and she won’t tell me. She just looks at me with watery eyes, then whisper-yells at Father again. I’m scared. Really scared. She’s never been like this before.”
RJ’s phone buzzes, and with furrowed brows, he steps away from our conversation. I tug Mattie to my chest, not knowing how to deliver the news I have to, let alone help her with whatever is going on between her mom and our father.
Honestly, Jessica lasted a lot longer than I thought she would. “I’m as clueless as you about what’s going on with your mom, but there’s something I have to tell you.”
“What?” she asks, the edge of a shriek in her tone.
“Bryce is dead.”
She goes completely still in my arms, then whispers her question to my chest, keeping her face pressed against my drugstore t-shirt. “Was it you?”
I sigh, wishing I had something different to say. “It was supposed to be. But he got loose. Jansen hit him with a car by accident.”
She’s quiet, and I worry I said the wrong thing. I’m about to check in when she giggles, the sound as deranged as only a teenager at the end of her rope can be. She laughs so hard her eyes water, and I worry that she’s going to cry, but that’s not my sister. Instead, she looks at me, shakes her head, then laughs harder. She laughs for so long that Trevor steps out of the room, nostrils flaring at her presumed misstep.
Behind him, Jessica slaps my father, the sound sharp, but mostly covered by Mattie losing it in front of me. Then Jessica glances around, shady as fuck, and when no one comes running, she bends over my father’s arm. She fiddles with something there, and my father shouts, but his voice is as weak as he is.
I don’t point out what she’s doing to Trevor, Mattie, or the nurse who’s passing by.
The call button flies across the bed as she yanks it away from him, before fiddling with his hand again, my father’s machines changing from a steady beat to a more erratic one the longer Jessica does whatever she’s doing. Alarms go off at the nurses’ station behind me, and as one passes us, heading for father’s room, Trevor switches from glaring to confrontation, marching up to us. “Get your shit together,” he whispers to Mattie.
Mattie just laughs harder. “By accident,” she chokes out.
The nurse takes Father’s vitals. Her face grim, she spins around and slaps the wall. An automated voice calls out a code over the loudspeaker.
Staff rush past us, the room suddenly full of people, and Jessica finally backs away from Father. Trevor joins the throng, and when Jessica slips something up her sleeve, Trevor notices. “What did you do?” he shouts, grabbing her arm and shaking her, that same something falling to the floor. One nurse sees it and scoops it up. Then half the room shouts at Jessica, demanding she tell them what she did, one of them calling for security when it becomes clear Trevor won’t let go of her. Or maybe because Jessica won’t say what she did.
Meanwhile, the beeps grow more erratic, and Mattie quiets, turning to watch the chaos surrounding our monster. “What did she do?” she asks.
“I think she pumped air into his IV,” I say.
Jessica stands calm in the face of all the shouting, proud despite Trevor’s manhandling. “He’s more than earned death,” she states. “Now you can give that liver to someone who actually deserves it.”
RJ’s familiar presence joins Mattie and me as we watch the staff working to save the damned.
The doctors and nurses share the same blank look of defeat when the elevator dings behind us. Police stride past, not the security I expected, but they wait outside the door. Here at least, death is given dignity. Dignity the man doesn’t deserve.
Jessica calmly watches her husband of seventeen years die by her hand, no tears or hysterics to be found.
Not one of us shed a tear.
When the elevator dings again, the medical staff confer in low voices, unplugging cords and filtering from the room. He’s gone.
Whoever got off the elevator stops beside RJ and me.
“Thanks for meeting. I know tonight’s been a lot for…” Tom Reed says, then pauses, curious about what holds our attention. “What’s going on here?” he asks, motioning to the slowly emptying room, the silence loud after the noisy beeps. I spare him a glance, Mattie stepping closer and grasping my hand.
He glances between us and the room, then stands between the uniformed cops and RJ, and my friend lets out a deep sigh.
“My father,” I say, wanting to curse his name and guarantee him a place in hell, but not in front of the cop.
“And your brother,” he notes, his eyes lighting with that familiar avarice. He steps away with his phone in hand.
When he returns, the cops at the door receive a call over their radios, glancing around. Reed steps up to them, and they lose my attention. Instead, I can’t help but watch the last nurse in the room with my brother and my stepmom. One person puttering around his corpse, one person who might mourn him, and the person who killed him—the only people keeping vigil. Mattie presses herself against my side.
