Avoiding the lobby and its colorful inhabitants, I rode to the Blue Arrow for breakfast. Subconsciously I guess I was hoping I'd run into Tom again and we could patch up yesterday's misunderstanding. I was surprised he hadn't called. But he was nowhere in sight. My scrambled eggs and hash browns were less tasty without him. From there I headed for the hospital to check on Bobby. On the way, I decided it was time to have a heart-to-heart with his parents about bicycle safetyâamong other things.
I took a shortcut through the ER. It was as silent as a tomb. Not a happy comparison. But ERs tend to fluctuate from tomblike to circuslikeâit's the nature of the beast. It was so churchlike (better simile) I found myself almost tiptoeing to the elevators. And when Bobby's neurosurgeon spoke to me in a normal voice, I jumped.
“Sorry.” He smiled. “I didn't mean to startle you.”
“No problem.” I blushed. Dr. Peters was almost as old as my father, and I felt shy around him.
“Glad I ran into you. I was going to call you. Our patient has regained consciousness.”
I wanted to hug the man right there in the corridor. Restraining myself, I said, “That's great news!”
“Are you going to see him now?”
I nodded.
“You'll be pleasantly surprised.”
“Thank you, Doctor.” I punched the elevator button with renewed vigor.
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When I came in, the ICU seemed electrically charged. The nurses were smiling at each other, and when they spied me, their smiles grew broader. One of them hurried over. “You've heard?”
“Yes. I ran into Doctor Peters.” I went to Bobby's bed.
The boy was sitting up, eating a bowl of cereal. As I stared, he gave me a crooked grin.
“Hi,” I said. “I'm Dr. Banks.”
“Hi.”
“You're looking good today.” I moved around to the side of the bed. “How do you feel?”
“OK.”
“Headache?”
“A little.” He put his spoon down and touched the injured side of his head.
I examined the stitches. They looked fine and would be absorbed in a little while. “What about the rest of you? Any aches or pains?”
“I've got a big bruise.” He rolled down the top of his pajama pants an inch to show me.
“Wow! Every color of the rainbow But that's nothing. We didn't find any broken bones when we X-rayed you. That's the important thing.”
“Except my head,” he said.
“Your head isn't a bone.”
“Yeah, it is. My pa calls me Bonehead when I do something dumb.”
“I see.”
“How long was I out?”
“Two days.”
“I missed some school.”
“Don't worry. You'll make it up easily.” The next question most kids would ask was, “When can I go home?” Bobby didn't.
“A friend was asking about you,” I told him.
He had gone back to his cereal but looked up with interest.
“Becca Borovy.”
The crooked smile returned.
“She'd like to come see you when you're out of here and in a room.”
“Cool.”
I listened to his chest, made some notations on his chart, and left.
Bobby's parents were not in the corridor or the visitors' lounge. Neither were the Connors. I called both couples on my cell phone and gave them the good news. As expected, the parents' reaction was subdued; the Connors', jubilant. I shook my head all the way to the parking lot. My heart-to-heart would have to wait until Bobby was out of the ICU. I'd be damned if I'd wait around until the Shoemakers decided to show up.
For the first time, I noticed it was a beautiful day. Wednesday was my official day off. I decided to take a ride. A ride through the countrysideâon my new bikeâwith no special purpose or destination. Just for the fun of itâjust for me. I gave the throttle a twist, revved the motor, and took off in the general direction of the bay. I could already smell the salt marshes mixed with the fresh odor of newly turned fields.
The temperature had dropped overnightâfrom the eighties to the seventies. The air felt cool against my arms and face. My newly rehabbed bike floated between the green fields like a boat on waves. At the end of the road I glimpsed the sparkling bay. When I neared the water's edge I had to remind myself that my bike wasn't amphibious. Braking sharply, I startled a blue heron. It soared above the tall grasses. I soared with it.
“Bobby made it!” I shouted at the bay.
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It was almost noon when I returned to the motel. There wasn't a biker in sight. Maybe they had also realized it was a nice day for a
run. Paul was at the desk. He waved me over. “Maggie left this for you.” He handed me a slip of paper.
“Where is she?”
He shrugged. As usual, in complete denial, Paul pretended he didn't know where his wife went every day or that he had a son on trial. “Look at this.” He pointed to a map he was poring over in an old book. “Did you know that part of the state of Delaware is in New Jersey?”
I shook my head, opening the note.
“âIn colonial times, King James the Second of England made a land grant to the Duke of York in New Castle, Delaware,'” he read, running his finger under the type. “The property lines crossed the river and took in part of New Jersey's marshlands,” he said, “just a few miles down the road from hereâoff Snakeskin. Would you believe, those lines still stand today?”
1
“Huh.” I was only half-listening. I was reading Maggie's note.
Come to the Courthouse if you can. Important.
She knew Wednesday was my day off. I had half-planned to take in the trial that afternoon anyway. There was only one problem. “Damn,” I said.
“Something wrong?” Paul glanced up from the map.
“Yeah. Big-time.”
He looked concerned.
“I have to wear a skirt.”
“Oh, no. Not that!” He slapped his forehead.
“I knew you'd understand.”
The trial was recessing as I arrived. The front steps were crowded with Bayfielders puffing greedily at long-denied cigarettes and the corriders were filled with people making hurried plans for lunch. I scanned the crowd for Maggie. She spotted me first, tagging me on the shoulder from behind.
“Thanks for coming,” she said with feeling.
“I was planning to come anyway.”
“Have you eaten?”
I shook my head.
“There's a pizza place around the corner that's fast.”
Although I wasn't hungry, I allowed myself to be led.
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When we were settled in a corner booth with two slices of pizza and Cokes, Maggie finally told me what was on her mind. “I want you to see Nick.”
I sat up. “What?”
“I want you to see how he's changed.”
“But I didn't know him
before
,” I protested.
She was ready for that. She said, “You're a good judge of character, Jo. You've seen a lot of patients. You've had broad experience
with human nature. You can tell if Nick's sincere. You have the instinct.”
This was the second time in two days that my “broad experience” had been called upon. First Becca, now Maggie. Didn't they realize that anyone outside of Bayfield has had “broad experience” compared to them? “I don't know ⦔ I resisted.
“Please.”
I glanced at her tired, anxious face and remembered how she had helped me when I'd first come to Bayfield. Eight months ago I'd turned up out of nowhere in a blue funk. If Maggie and Paul hadn't taken me in, I might have had a full-blown depression. Gone over the brink. Their kindness had saved me. “OK,” I said.
“Thanks, Jo.” She hadn't touched her pizza. Now she took a big bite and wolfed down the rest in a few minutes. I, on the other hand, nibbled at mine like a refined lady at a high-society tea.
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Using her cell phone, Maggie called her lawyer. He made the arrangements for my meeting with Nick. It would probably take place during the afternoon recess, she told me.
Goody.
As we made our way through the crowd returning to the courtroom, my stomach felt queasy, and it wasn't from the pizza. I really didn't want to meet this slime bag. He had exploited helpless immigrants, probably even murdered some of them, and had treated his parents like shitâallowing them to think he was dead and mourn him while he was happily consuming cocaine and heroin in Philadelphia. And now, in an effort to get a lighter sentence, he was playing on the sympathies of the public, the jury, and his mother, by pulling this “born again” crap. What the hell was I going to say to him?
But I knew why Maggie had asked me to see him. She desperately needed one other person to confirm what she felt in her heart. Someone to verify her opinion. Her husband, Paul, was no help. He had shut her out. Refused to have anything to do with their son. She was alone. She needed someone. And I was elected. But I
couldn't lie to her. I was prepared to tell her the truth. If necessary, I was ready to inform her that her son was a piece of shit.
As I tried to concentrate on the trial, people kept bumping into one another inside my head as if vying for space in a crowded subway car. Maggie and Nick. Tom and Pi. Bobby and his parents. I wished they'd all clear out at the next stop and leave me alone.
At three-thirty the court recessed and Maggie guided me to the anteroom where my tête-à -tête with her son was to take place. I was looking forward to this like a sheep to the slaughter. Steeling myself, I entered the room. It was small and stuffy, furnished with two straight-backed chairs separated by a long table. A guard stood inside the door on my side of the table. Another guard stood by another door on the other side. As I took my seat, the door on the other side opened and Nick Nelson was ushered in.
Nick's demeanor, as he faced me across the counter, was calm and grave. If I hadn't known his background I might have mistaken him for a young philosophy teacher or a clergyman. What a joke. After I introduced myself, he said, “Thanks for coming.”
“I'm here for one reason.” I wanted to set things straight right away. “Your mother asked me to come.”
He nodded. “I understand.”
“What's this about being âborn again'?” I went right to the point. I hadn't come to make small talk.
“That's what some people call it.”
“What do you call it?”
He thought a minute. “Renewal ⦠reaffirmation ⦠restoration.”
Pretty highfalutin' stuff from a high school grad turned junkie. A niggling doubt flickered at the rim of my mind. “Tell me about it.”
“It happened the second week I was here. Christ came to the foot of my cotâand spoke to me.”
With an effort I controlled my facial muscles. “What did He say?”
“âRise and follow me.'”
I glanced at the locked doors and two guards. “Somewhat difficult under the circumstances.”
A glimmer of a smile. Born-agains are notorious for no sense of humor. He didn't fit the mold. I thawed a little, allowing myself the shadow of an answering smile.
Misinterpreting it, he frowned. “I didn't expect you to believe me,” he said. “But I have something to show you.” He reached under his tunic and the guard was on him like a shot. He grabbed the neatly folded paper from Nick's hand and examined it carefully. He looked puzzled. Leaning past me, he showed it to the other guard. The second guard shrugged and handed it to me.
It was a delicately rendered portrait of Jesus Christ.
“Where did you get this?” I asked.
“I drew itâright after He left.”
Sure you did. And I'm Joan of Arc. It was a remarkable drawing. To my inexperienced eye, at least, it resembled a Dürer or an Inge. “Well, what does that prove?” I clung to my skepticism with an iron fist. “You've seen plenty of pictures of Jesus in museums, art books, the Bible, Sunday schoolâ”
“I've never been to a museum or looked at art books. Our Bible didn't have pictures and there was only one picture of Jesus in Sunday school. It was brown and faded.”
I continued to study the drawing. “You're an excellent artist,” I said. “Did you take art lessons in school?”
He shook his head. “I was no good at art. They switched me to shopâwhere I could hammer and saw. I'm good at that.”
“Well, where
did
you learn to draw like this?”
“I don't
know
how to draw like this.”
“But ⦔
“I drew this right after He left. I haven't been able to draw anything since.”
“Have you tried?”
He nodded and made a zero with his thumb and finger. “Zilch.”
He couldn't have found this drawing in the prison. They had a library, but this wasn't from a printed book. It was an original drawing made in pencil on a sheet of paper torn from a sketch pad. And it
looked as if the paper had been torn off hastily; the tear across the top was ragged. And he couldn't have brought it into the prison with him. They always stripped the prisoners and confiscated everything they owned. He must have drawn it himself. There was no other explanation. But under the influence of what? A vision? Hallucination, more likely. But he had been detoxed months ago, when he first came in. Still, those drugs sometimes had lasting effects. They did strange things to the brain. I took another tack. “Where did you get the pencil and paper?” I doubted if they provided prisoners with art supplies.
His answer was so low I had to lean forward to hear it. “I stole them.”
Ah, now we were getting somewhere. That I could believe.
“We have a rec time when they let us draw or paint. I stole this pencil stub and a sheet of paper.”
“Why?”
His brow creased. “I don't know. I just had this strong feeling I might need them.”
Oh, boy. At least he didn't say voices told him to do it. “Are you telling me Jesus suggested that you steal?”
He lowered his eyes. When he raised them again, they were angry. “I didn't expect you to believe me.” He drew a deep breath and his voice rose. “Listen, I don't care what you think. And I don't want any favors from you. I don't expect any. All I want ⦠is to make it up with my parents. That's all I care about.”
I stared at him. “Don't you think it's a little late for that?”
He stared back. “I don't know.”
“Time's up.” The guard on Nick's side came forward.
I rose. As I left Nick, his expression was no longer angry. It was wearyâand blank. Remembering all the suffering he had caused, I felt no sympathy for him.
When I came out, Maggie was nowhere in sight. The trial must have resumed. I knew I should go back in, but I couldn't face her. Not now I felt drained. I went back to the motel. Giving the lobby a wide berth, I went straight to my room. I would talk to Maggie tonightâor, even better, tomorrow.
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Around six o'clock, I made a big mistake. I went down to the lobby to pick up my mail. Maggie was there.
“What happened to you, Jo? I looked all over for you.”
“Sorry I was tired. I came back here.”
Casting me a reproachful look, she grabbed my arm and led me over to the sofa. As soon as we were seated, she said, “Well, what did you think?”
A bunch of rowdy bikers burst into the lobby Maggie frowned. They made quite a rumpus around the vending machine. Each left with a soda. Maggie turned back to me. “Did he show you the picture?”
Reluctantly I nodded.
Still clasping my arm, she asked, “What did you think?”
“It's beautifully done,” I said feebly.
“It is, isn't it. Every hair in place. It looks right out of a museum.”
“Hmm.” Avoiding her gaze, I asked, “Did Nick draw a lot as a kid?”
“Never.”
“Did he take art at school?” Not that I doubted the word of her irreproachable son.
Maggie shook her head, “In fact, he did so poorly in artâcouldn't draw anything but stick figuresâthey transferred him to shop, where he did much better. He made me the most beautiful birdhouse.”
“What about after he left home? Did he take any courses?”
Maggie looked at me. We both knew the kind of courses he had taken.
I sighed. “Beats me,” I said.
“Don't you think ⦔ Maggie spoke hesitantly, “ ⦠that maybe what he told us might be true?”
I refused to meet her gaze. When it came down to it, I couldn't tell her the truth. What I really thought: drugs had damaged his
neurological system so badly that he now hallucinated without their help.
“Yo, Jo!”
I looked up. Pi was hailing me from across the lobby. For the first time, I was glad to see a biker. As he ambled toward me, Maggie pointedly excused herself. I felt like a louse, but what could I do?