“It does.”
LaPierre shakes his head and laughs softly as he writes that down in the file. “Perfect. Just my luck.”
It’s been years since I’ve spoken to my father. The last time we stood face-to-face was at my twenty-fifth birthday party, when I announced I was quitting law school.
My mother has secretly kept in touch. Her visits began when she came to the hospital after Amanda was born, and she started popping by the house regularly from that day forward. The children came to know and love her, but a few years back, she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. Around the same time, Dad filed for divorce, but he came out smelling like roses when he milked the sympathy from his colleagues and set her up in a posh nursing home. He then sold the house in St. Margaret’s Bay and bought another in the city, overlooking the yacht club on the Northwest Arm. Within a year, his young and beautiful fiancée moved in.
I’m not sure if he ever visits my mother in the home. I highly doubt it because he has a low tolerance for anything less than perfection. Everything around him must serve to impress. Mom succeeded in that department for many years, until she didn’t. Then she, like me, was dispensed with, and along came wife number two.
I’m on my feet and pacing when LaPierre walks into the interrogation room with a large Tim Hortons coffee cup and a brown paper bag. “Here you go.” He leaves my lunch on the table. “I’ll be back shortly.”
By this time, I’m famished, so I sit down to eat and try to be grateful for this moment alone, which gives me time to think about Sienna in surgery. I’ve been praying that she’ll come out of it okay. I’ve also prayed for Amanda and Connor—that they’ll find the strength they need to get through this ordeal, especially if I get charged with attempted murder.
I wonder if anyone is praying formetoday. Probably not. As far as the outside world is concerned, I should rot in jail for the rest of my life, because that’s what killers deserve.
For those who aren’t convinced that I tried to push my wife to her death, I am, at the very least, a failure as a husband, a father, and an entrepreneur.
With that thought, I bite into the toasted bagel and imagine my father following all this on the local news. I wonder how he’s taking it. He’s probably saying “I told you so” to his new wife.
The image of him gloating about being right makes me want to ram my fist into a wall.
But I can’t do that. Not here. There’s a camera recording my every move, and I know how this works. I have to look like an innocent man without any violent tendencies.
The door opens again. I set down my coffee and look up.
It’s Arthur. My brother. The door closes behind him, and we stare at each other. I can’t speak or move because I’m in such a volatile emotional state. I’m afraid I’ll fall to pieces and cry like a baby. Maybe I should. Maybe that would look good on the recording. I’d be perceived as a man who is distraught after the near death of his wife. Which is what I am. Distraught.
Why can’t I just let it show? Why must I overthink it?
I suppose I know the answer. I don’t want to cry in front of Arthur because he’s too much like Dad.
Chapter Twenty
Amanda
“She’s stable now,” Dr. Malik tells us. “But she had a depressed skull fracture near her temple, which caused damage to the superficial temporal artery. There was also a tear in the dura mater, the tough membrane that encases the brain. We were able to repair the tear and drain the pooled blood, and we’re hopeful that will help.”
This is all Greek to me.
“Will she be okay?” Connor asks.
“I wish I could answer that,” Dr. Malik replies, “but I don’t know yet. We need to wait and see how she does over the next twenty-four hours.”
I hate hearing this, but I’m glad he isn’t sugarcoating anything, as adults often do with teenagers.
“Will she have brain damage?” Connor asks. “Or never come out of the coma?”
I recognize sympathy in Dr. Malik’s eyes as he speaks. “It’s possible that she could never regain consciousness, and if she does, she could have some long-term disabilities like lost motor skills or speech impediments. But it’s also possible that she could wake up in the next hour and make a full recovery. We just don’t know.”
Tears well up in my eyes, and Becky squeezes my hand.
“Right now,” the doctor continues, “the best thing you can do for her is let her know that you’re here and you want her to keep fighting. Talk to her.”
“We can do that,” I say, relieved to be given a specific, concrete task. For me, the worst has been feeling as if there’s nothing I can do to help Mom wake up.
Needing to move on to his next patient, Dr. Malik backs away. “We’ll keep a close eye on her and do everything we can.”
“Thank you.” I watch him go. Then I thank God for giving us the miracle of modern medicine. A hundred years ago, my mother would be dead.
