Invisible Ellen (12 page)

The young man's silhouette as he jumped from her roof. His bare arms waving for balance.

She forcibly turned her thoughts to the next day, and somewhere among the jumbled pile of emotions, trepidations and fears lurking in the near future, a new sensation was emerging.

Because of its unfamiliarity, it took her a while to identify it, and even when she gave it a tentative label, she was uncertain and untrusting of her conclusion.

It couldn't be anticipation, could it?

She was actually looking forward to tomorrow.

H
er life being largely nocturnal, her nights off were always fitful, and Ellen slept only a few hours. When she woke, a confusing combination of dreams and memories sparred in her brain, sending her rushing to the back window, half expecting it to be as barren as every other morning. But the bright-yellow police tape across the courtyard and T-bone's door, with its smashed window, confirmed the reality of last night. She stood watching for answers, feeling a vacant space where the information was lacking. What had happened to T-bone? Was he even still alive?

Left alone, Ellen would eventually have been able to put these questions aside like an unfinished novella left on a park bench, but knowing that she would see Temerity, who shared her interest, fortified her curiosity. A fresh, unfamiliar enthusiasm prodded Ellen to action. She dressed quickly, then crept down her stairs and turned left on the sidewalk. At the corner, she went left again, past the front of the building, took a third left down the narrow access between her apartment and the neighboring one, and came to T-bone's front door, which was crisscrossed with more yellow tape. Next to the door was his mailbox. The painted
1A
had faded to a mere suggestion.
Opening the flap top, she pulled out a magazine, and on the label was a name—J. B. Tunney.

She put it back into the box and let the lid fall, its squeaky hinge objecting to its rude dismissal.
J.B.,
she thought.
J. B. Tunney, T-bone.

The hospital, Saint Vincent's, was only a few blocks away, and she and Temerity had agreed to meet out front. After breakfast, Ellen walked the short distance, eating two Snickers bars as she went, to keep her strength up. The peanuts and caramel fortified her nerves, padding her still new but emerging courage with plump, stiffening insulation. She waited outside until a cab pulled up and Temerity got out.

“Did you go in yet?” Temerity asked as Ellen approached her.

“How did you know it was me?” Ellen was startled.

“I heard you.” Temerity smiled. “Everyone has a pretty distinct footstep, and you also have a floppy rubber sole.”

Ellen looked ruefully down at her left shoe and sure enough the silver tape had worn through and a larger section of sole had pulled away from the canvas so that it made a soft, flapping sound with each step. She'd have to get some more tape until she could get to the thrift store.

“There's a guard,” Ellen told her. “You have to sign in.”

“Do you see a gift shop?” Temerity asked.

Ellen looked through the glass doors into the lobby of the hospital. The guard sat at a security desk in front of the elevator banks, and tucked into a corner of the lobby on the left was a small shop selling flowers and cards. “Yes,” she said.

“Good, I'll go in and buy some balloons or something and then we'll head right up to see our friend's new baby. Common enough. I don't think anyone would question that.”

Ellen thought it sounded risky, but it was the best idea they had,
so she took Temerity to the door of the gift shop and left her to negotiate the transaction. In a few minutes, she tapped her way out, holding three silver balloons tied to a small teddy bear. Temerity inquired from the security guard where Maternity might be and was told to take the second elevator bank to the fifth floor. When he asked her to sign in, she smiled and said that might be difficult but gave him Cindy's name. He checked for it on the hospital roster, then told her to go on up. Ellen, her eyes fixed firmly on the back of Temerity's shoes, just followed along like a dinghy on a towrope in her powerful wake.

In the elevator, Ellen told Temerity about finding T-bone's actual name. Temerity clutched at her arm in excitement. “They must have brought him here,” she said. “It's the closest trauma center. Okay, first Cindy, then J.C.”

“J.B.”

“Right.”

“What are you planning to do?” Ellen asked nervously as the elevator doors slid open. “Maybe I should just wait here for you.”

“You're coming,” Temerity said, grabbing a fistful of Ellen's shirtsleeve. “We're not going to talk to anyone, just listen—that's me—and watch—that's you. Now, where is the nursery?”

Ellen read the signs, and they headed off down a slick hallway dotted with framed children's art until they came to the nursery. A window looked in on a large room with clear plastic cribs filled with babies bundled in blue or pink blankets. Each crib was marked with a large, handwritten sign declaring the baby's family name. Ellen searched but did not see any label that said either Newland or Cindy's last name, Carpenter. “I don't see it,” Ellen said.

“It's only been about, what? Fourteen hours? Maybe she hasn't had it yet.” Temerity stuck out her bottom lip thoughtfully.

The sound of vaguely familiar voices caught Ellen's attention. Standing a little ways down the hall were the Newlands. They were involved in a heated discussion, and Ellen couldn't quite make out what was being said. She leaned toward Temerity and whispered, “It's them.”

Temerity cocked her head to listen and then motioned that they should move a little closer. There were a few chairs in a small waiting area close to where the Newlands were arguing in restrained, tired voices, and Ellen steered Temerity toward those. They sat down and listened.

“This is outrageous. I'm just stunned. I can't believe she didn't tell us,” Edward Newland was saying.

“But she's a beautiful baby,” Susan countered. “I know we said that it's not what we wanted, but it's been so long and . . .”

“You aren't seriously considering this,” her husband said. He looked at her searchingly. “I thought we wanted a child that people would think was ours. We discussed this in depth. Nothing against mixed families, but we didn't want to put a child through that.”

“Would it be so bad?” Susan asked, and Ellen heard in her voice a human pleading that hadn't been there before.

“Yes!” her husband insisted. “She should have told us the father was black!” He shook his head. “Unbelievable,” he half moaned.

“Ed, please.” Susan put a hand on his arm. “I want a family. I've wanted a family for so long. What difference does it make if this baby's skin is a different color from ours? We would love her just the same.” She burst into tears, and instead of comforting her, her husband took a step back as though she were contagious.

“What
difference
does it make?” Incredulous, Edward leaned toward his wife. “Why are you acting like we never talked about this
and both decided against it? We might as well run up a flag that says ‘Adopted, we weren't capable of having our own child.'”

“What a dick,” Temerity whispered under her breath.

But Ellen was watching Susan Newland. A nurse was coming down the hallway from a double door marked
DELIVERY
, pushing one of the plastic cribs. Susan's eyes, tear-filled, followed the crib as the nurse pushed it through the nursery door.

“Let's go,” Edward Newland said wearily to his wife, grasping her arm. “We're done here. You've been through enough, we both have.”

But Susan pulled roughly away. “I'm not going.” She said it with so much conviction that even Temerity sat up and looked impressed. “A black child might not have been our first choice, but maybe that child has come into our life for a reason.”

“What reason?” Edward licked his lips as though his mouth had gone dry. “So that we can be the desperate, infertile parents with the ethnic kid? So the kid will have to explain to everyone in her life why her parents are white and she's not? I thought we agreed that wouldn't be fair to the child.” He was pleading, but Susan looked so affronted that he stepped in closer to her, lowering his voice. “Listen, honey. I know how you're feeling right now. I know you're disappointed, but there will be other babies.”

“Better ones? Whiter ones?” she asked, and there was steel in her voice.

Edward began to plead in earnest. “That's not fair. I'm not a racist, and I want us to have a family too. You know that! We agreed. Why are you making me the bad guy? Do you want a child to be ridiculed and scoffed at? Kids can be ruthless!” He stopped to take a couple of deep, calming breaths.

Well, I can't disagree with that,
Ellen thought.

“It doesn't have to be like that!” Susan said, softening and clutching at his arm. “People don't think that way anymore, things have changed.”

He snapped. “The partners at the firm think that way and you know it! We show up at the company Christmas party with that little bundle and I can say good-bye to ever making partner. It might not be fair, it might even be sad and pathetic, I'm not arguing with that. But it's the unfair, sad, pathetic reality.”

The door to the nursery opened and the maternity nurse stuck her head out. “Mr. and Mrs. Newland? Would you like to come in while we bathe the baby? Then you can feed her if you like.”

Susan kept her eyes fixed on her husband's face. Edward shuffled his feet uncomfortably and mumbled something inaudible. Watching his eyes intently as though tracking a target, Susan said very clearly, “I'll be right with you.” She waited for the door to close before she spoke. “I'm making a choice, Edward. You have to do the same. You go home with me and that child, or you go home alone.”

“Susan, please, you're not thinking rationally.” His eyes were wide with fear.

“On the contrary, I've never felt so lucid,” Susan said to him. With tears streaming down her face, tears that Ellen was sure Temerity could hear clearly in her voice, she said, “I'll be here. Let me know what you decide.”

She turned toward the door, but before she'd gone two steps, Edward said in a tortured voice, “We can't do this, and you know why.”

Susan stopped, took a deep breath, and turned back. “I'm sorry that I had a relationship with Jeff. But you were the one who wanted a separation, not me. I know he's black. I know that you think everyone will assume it's Jeff's child, but I just don't give a damn anymore
what everyone else thinks. I'm sick to death of it.” She leaned forward and touched his arm. He flinched and wouldn't look at her. “I guess if you don't understand that, then we feel differently and there's nothing more to say.”

She smiled with heartbreaking sadness, and then turned and went through the nursery door.

Edward Newland leaned against the wall and watched, his face a twisted mask of pain, as the nurse picked up the tiny baby and placed her in his wife's arms. Then, with a bitter exhale, he turned and strode away down the hall.

“Do you want me to tell you what happened?” Ellen asked Temerity.

“I got most of it. Just tell me one thing,” she said. “How did he look?”

After a moment's thought, Ellen said, “Like he was really devastated.”

Temerity made a thoughtful noise in the back of her throat. “Okay. I want to hate him, but it's been a hard day for him too, so I'll wait. Let's go see how T-bone's getting on.” She put her right hand on Ellen's left shoulder.

They started down the open hallway at a good pace but had only gone a short distance when Ellen stopped short. Given no warning, Temerity collided into the back left half of her and sort of bounced back a step.

“There it is,” Ellen whispered. “There's that sound.”

From behind a closed door to their left, a muted, extended wail was seeping through.

“Keening,” Temerity whispered. Releasing Ellen's shoulder, she followed the sound to the door and pushed it open.

N
o!” Ellen said, but Temerity held up one finger and then went on into the room, leaving the door ajar. Moving to the edge of it, Ellen listened. The wailing was muffled suddenly as though someone had made an effort to contain it by holding a pillow to their face, then it turned to short, gasping sobs.

“Are you all right?” Temerity asked in a voice soft enough to calm a frightened rabbit.

“Wh-who . . . are . . . y-you?” Cindy gasped.

“My name is Temerity. I heard you crying. Is everything okay?”

Cindy gasped a few more times, then a long groaning hum came through clenched lips. Ellen leaned around the doorjamb until she could see them. Temerity had gone to the far side of the bed, and she could only see Cindy in profile, but she looked exhausted and horrible. Her face was puffy, her eyes were reddened slits, and her hair was plastered to her head with dried sweat.

“No, it's n-not okay,” she said. “But you d-don't need . . . to worry ab-about it.”

“But I am,” Temerity said. “Worried. I'm not sure if anyone could hear someone crying like that and not be concerned.” Ellen felt a sting across her face as sharp as an openhanded slap. She'd heard
that sound and not been affected. But no, that wasn't quite right; she had cared, at least, she hadn't liked it at all, but it had never occurred to her that she might be able to do anything about it. It was the recognition of her self-drawn safety zone that left the imaginary burning finger marks on her cheek. Temerity said gently, “It sounds like you might need someone to talk to. Do you have someone who can come and see you?”

A quick snort of hopeless disgust, then, “No.”

“No family?”

Cindy shook her head violently.

“What about your baby's daddy? Does he have family that might want to help?” Ellen drew in her breath and leaned farther into the room.

After a series of quick, moist inhalations, “I wouldn't know” came thickly through.

“You might not have noticed but, I'm blind,” Temerity said, feeling for a chair or somewhere to settle herself. “But I'm not
blind
, if you know what I mean. May I sit down?” She went ahead and did without waiting for a reply. “There, that's better. Now, tell me all about it. I can't see what's going on here, but I can tell that you need someone to talk to. We all do.”

“I d-don't know . . . you.”

Temerity reached out a hand until she found the end of the bed, then slid it across the rumpled sheets until she came to a lump. She patted Cindy's foot. “And I don't know you, so there's no reason not to tell me. I have to rely on people I don't know all the time. You can do it this once.” She smiled softly, gently, and Cindy broke down utterly, weeping without the capacity for speech for several minutes.

“That's a good start, actually,” Temerity said when the sobs subsided a bit. “Now tell me what it means.”

“I met . . . this guy,” Cindy began haltingly. “He was really nice and I liked him. He was in the service, and his unit was called up for deployment in Afghanistan. He was going to be gone a year, but we agreed to try to stick it out. We said we would write and get together when he got back.”

She stopped and turned to look out the window, which faced a depressing concrete wall. Tears ran steadily down her face.

When she spoke again, the words rushed out in a gush of breath. “I really thought he was the one. About a month after he left, I found out I was pregnant.”

Temerity said nothing, but the tilt of her head and the way she leaned in, shoulders curled forward, said that she was listening to every word and hearing much more.

“But he was kill—” Cindy's voice choked off and it was a minute before she could continue. “I found out when my own letter was returned to me unopened, with a note from one of his buddies, who let me know. By then . . . it was too late for . . . I didn't have any choice, but I was so sad. It's like I was paralyzed, couldn't do anything.

“Then these people got in contact with me through the clinic where I was going for free care, you know. They wanted to adopt the baby, so I said yes, 'cause I don't have any money and I didn't want to raise a kid totally alone.”

“Of course you didn't,” Temerity said matter-of-factly. “No one should have to.”

“But now,” Cindy gasped for breath as though her pain threatened to overwhelm her again, “I just don't know. I mean, I don't have Sam.” The emotion throttled her temporarily and she struggled to continue. “But it was like, while I was pregnant, he was still there, or a part of him anyway. And now he's . . . gone. I didn't know until I lost him that I was so in love with him, and now he's gone.”

“That's a tough situation,” Temerity empathized, her voice offering both sympathy and strength on loan. “But you shouldn't be trying to deal with this alone. Don't you have any friends who might be able to help you through this?”

The girl shrugged, and Ellen could have told her how useful that was. “Not really . . . I mean, I know people, but not well enough for . . . this.” She sighed and her head lolled back on the pillow. “Most of the people I've met in this town are kind of busy just surviving their own stuff.”

Temerity got up and felt her way to the edge of the bed, then perched on it. “I'll tell you something, Cindy. Life is tough, and not always fair, I know something about that, but you never know what's just around the corner. Take me for example. A couple of days ago, some bad guys tried to rob me. They cut the strap of my bag with a knife, and I stood there thinking the knife was going to cut me next, that I was a goner. Then out of nowhere comes this girl who saves my butt. I didn't expect it, but there she was. It made me want to save someone else, you know what I mean?”

Cindy wiped her face on the sheet and said she guessed so.

“That might happen for you too.”

There was another hopeless snort from Cindy, who stared flatly at the wall with unfocused eyes. “Things like that don't happen to me.”

Temerity held her hand out and Cindy wiped her own on the sheet and tentatively took it. “I have a funny feeling things might change for you. There are so many people out there, other people who are hurting, who have no extra strength to give, but they relate, you know what I mean? Sometimes it helps just to know that you're not the only one who's hurting. And then there are other people who have strength to spare. I honestly believe that you will find one of
them, maybe more than one. Thank you for talking to me. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go visit someone else.”

Temerity stood up and made her way around the foot of the bed.

“Wait a minute,” Cindy said, stopping her. Her face was scrunched, not with tears, but with suspicion. Very slowly, she asked, “How did you know my name?”

Temerity stood, frozen to the spot, and then she turned back. “It's on your door.”

“But you're . . . blind.”

With a dawning, contented smile, Temerity said, “Blind—with friends.” And then she walked away.

“Gosh,” Ellen said when they were on their way, “thought she had you there.”

“Me too,” Temerity told her. “Okay, next. Find me a nurses' station and stay out of sight.” She laughed loudly. “Get it? Out of sight. Works on two levels for us.” She was still cackling at her own joke when Ellen found the nurses' workstation. She hung back while Temerity approached it.

“Hi, excuse me, could you help me?”

A frazzled nurse looked up in annoyance from her endless computer busywork, but when she saw the dark glasses pointed toward the empty space between herself and the next nurse, she softened. “Of course, what can I do for you?”

“I'm a little lost, go figure,” Temerity joked. “I was looking for my friend J. B. Tunney. He was brought in last night with a gunshot wound. I'm not sure I'm in the right place, to judge from the sound of sucking and the smell of talcum powder.”

The nurse smiled, obviously relieved by the humor and the simplicity of the request.

“You're in the maternity ward.”

“Ah, that would explain it.”

“What was the name?”

Temerity repeated it and the nurse typed on her computer, then her smile tightened to a grimace. She glanced up at Temerity with concern. “Are you family?”

“No, six degrees,” Temerity said, avoiding explanation.

“Okay, you need to turn to your left, go to the elevator banks at the end of the hallway, go up to six, and check with the nurse in ICU.” Before Temerity could thank her, she added, “But I'm not sure they'll let you see him.”

“Well, at least he'll know I tried.” She bounced the teddy bear, and the silver balloons danced a bit.

“I'm sure he'll appreciate it.”

Temerity made her way back to the hallway where Ellen was waiting. “You heard?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Ellen said.

They made their way up to the sixth floor, but instead of finding a nurse, they sat in the crowded ICU waiting room to scope it out. There was a set of double doors, the top halves of which were large panes of safety glass, no doubt to lessen the chance of a collision of gurneys, with a code lock and a sign that read
RESTRICTED ENTRY
. Ellen positioned herself so that she could see through the glass, down the long narrow hall cluttered on both sides with ICU cubicles and portable medical equipment.

About halfway down that hall, outside one of the glassed and curtained rooms, a police officer was sitting in a folding chair. He had a cup of coffee and the paper. It looked like he'd been there for a while. Ellen explained the layout to Temerity. “You think that's his room?” she asked. “Why would he have a police officer outside?”

“Don't know,” Ellen said. “Maybe they think somebody will try to
kill him again.” She thought about it. “So they're protecting him because he can ID the guy.”

“Or maybe,” Temerity said, tightening her mouth into a thoughtful pout, “they found out he's a dealer and they have him under arrest. Would they put a policeman here for that, you think? I mean, it's not like he's going anywhere.”

Ellen said she didn't know. “Wait, there's someone coming out.”

It was actually two people: a pear-shaped man with slim shoulders and a wide backside in a telltale white jacket and a taller man in a brown suit. As the suit held the door open for the doctor, a badge flashed on his belt. “It's a doctor and a detective,” Ellen told Temerity.

The two men paused outside the room, heads together in consultation. An orderly pushing a patient on a gurney came from the far end of the cramped hallway and tried to make the turn to get into the ICU cubicle across the hall from J.B.'s, forcing the pair to vacate. They began a slow walk toward the waiting area. At the exit, the doctor reached out and hit a panel. The pneumatic double doors swooshed open.

“. . . and if he can be stabilized?” the detective was asking.

The doctor spoke matter-of-factly. “This guy is not the healthiest, but he is tough. If he can make it through the next couple of days, I'd say there's a good chance of recovery—if infection doesn't get him. I'm afraid that's common with chest wounds, especially for smokers. Have you been able to locate any family?”

“No, we had a lead on a son, but he's a trucker and moves around a lot. We're hoping to hear from him eventually.”

“What was the shooting about? Robbery? Argument?”

“Drug related, most likely. His neighbor said he gets all kinds of strange visitors, ‘lowlifes,' she called them, who pop in for a couple of minutes, no more.”

The doctor checked the clipboard in his hand and nodded. “Yeah, he had enough THC in his system to make a horse hallucinate, and a high blood alcohol level. He's really lucky he didn't bleed out. Your guys did a good job.”

The detective puffed out his cheeks and exhaled hard. “If he dies, I've got nobody but the old lady to ID the shooter. She did give us a positive ID in a lineup, but it was dark when she saw him come out of Tunney's apartment, and her eyeglasses are thicker than the glass in Shamu's tank at SeaWorld. Any hack of an attorney could challenge her testimony.”

“So you have the guy who shot him?”

“If it's him. We picked him up a few blocks away. The problem is there are about a thousand other guys who fit that same description. And the old lady said the guy had on a jacket and was carrying a brown paper bag, I'm guessing something he stole from Mr. Tunney. But this kid had neither.”

A harsh wake-up alarm went off in Ellen's head as she flashed on her last image of the shooter.

“He could have hidden them somewhere,” the doctor said.

“Or ditched them in the river, either way.” The detective rubbed his eyes. “We ran his prints. He has a juvenile record, but nothing since he turned eighteen. There were no print matches at the scene and no gun. We checked his hands for residual gunpowder, but they had been scrubbed and then rubbed with vegetable oil, so the results were compromised.”