The First Stone (21 page)

He'd told her about the service, how it was all words and nothing at all like his grandmother. And she'd told him how the music had been the only comfort, Ellen's favorite songs piped through a PA system from a portable CD player. And he'd told her about the gravesite, the casket suspended by straps over a gaping hole. And she'd told him about how wrong it all was, how they'd made all the mud look clean, the bright green of the fake-grass carpet hiding the dirt that would seal her sister in. And he'd told her about the feel of that dirt in his hand, how he'd ground it under his fingernails before dropping it into the hole, needing somehow to have even this much of his grandmother left behind. And she'd told him how she had done the same, had refused to let it all slip from her fingers, had carried some back with her in the car.

They had talked all afternoon.

And when Carly had come to collect him, they'd still been talking.

He looked now at the young mother bent over the stroller, turned to watch as the scene slid by. Still looking out the window, he surprised himself by saying, “It
was a good day.”

Thankfully, Colville said nothing. Let the moment be what it was.

The person who rolled into the room and greeted Brett was not the one who had rolled out earlier that day. She was a total mess, her face covered with what looked like tear-tracks, her hair bunching out in all directions. Nothing unusual about those. It was the ear-to-ear smile on Leeza's face that clearly astonished her.

“Okay, who stole my roomie and replaced her with you?” Brett asked.

Leeza's grin became, if possible, even wider. She guided her wheelchair into the bathroom and ran warm water over a facecloth, emerging a few moments later with her hair combed and face freshly washed. She gasped as she bent toward her locker, but hummed as she rummaged through it, pulling out various articles of clothing and looking them over. “I thought you had physio this afternoon,” Leeza said brightly as she sorted through her things.

“I did. I went and came back while you were gone.”

“Mm-hmm,” Leeza replied.

“Like I
said,”
Brett repeated, “I went and came back while you were
gone.”

“I heard you.”

“And then I was
here
while you were
gone
,“ Brett said slowly, as if giving dictation.

“Mm-hmm.”

A slipper sailed across the room and bounced harmlessly off the locker above Leeza's head.

She turned. “Something you want, Brett?”

“Only every last
detail!”

“So
. Sounds like you had an interesting afternoon,” her mother said. Even over the telephone, her voice revealed her pleasure at the obvious improvement in her daughter's spirits.

Dressed for bed, Leeza leaned back against the pillow, barely aware that the morphine injection Carly had given her was somewhat weaker in strength than her last. “Yeah,” she said, “I did.”

“I'm glad. This Reef sounds like a nice person.”

“He is,” Leeza said. “I can't believe how long we talked.”

“Losing his grandmother like that,” Diane offered, “he knows how you feel, knows what you went through with Ellen.”

“What we
all
went through,” Leeza said softly.

The silence on the other end of the line spoke louder than any words her mother might have said. Leeza heard a sound, knew her mother was swallowing, forcing back the tears that were just beneath the surface of any moment. She waited.

Her mother cleared her throat, then continued. “So. Leeza, why's this Reef volunteering at the rehab?”

“He didn't say. Because he wants to, I guess. Maybe because of his grandmother. Why else would anyone spend time in this place if they didn't have to?”

“Gotta point there, honey. Speaking of spending time there, sorry I can't make it tonight. I think I'm in over my head with this office I'm doing.”

Leeza smiled. Whenever her mother said she was in over her head on a decorating job, Leeza knew she was having a great time. It had everything to do with challenge and her mother's Type A personality. If a job went smoothly, chances were her mother was bored. The more overwhelming a job was, the more passionate she became in exploring options, experimenting with different solutions, discarding everything and returning to the drawing board yet again. Her mother was having fun.

And it was about time. Leeza knew the situation at home was not good. Although Diane had never mentioned it, Leeza knew things hadn't been great lately between her mother and Jack. Part of the reason Leeza knew this had to do with how carefully her mother avoided talking about him. Leeza liked Jack, and sohad her sister. He was. after all, the only father they had known in the last nine years. Except for birthday and Christmas cards containing checks—always the same amount—they almost never heard from their real father. He had a new family. Three sons, two of them twins.

But liking Jack and understanding him were two different things. Leeza knew that Ellen's illness had put considerable strain on her mother's and Jack's marriage, and she couldn't ignore the fact that her car accident and hospitalization had caused even more stress between them. Jack Morrison feared illness. His obsession with health and fitness grew out of a childhood filled with illnesses of his own—besides the usual things like chicken pox, measles and mumps, Jack had developed diabetes and renal disease, and doctors had had to remove one of his kidneys when he was nineteen. What followed was an almost manic preoccupation with diet and exercise, and when their mother met and fell in love with him two years after her divorce, she had no idea that this tall, powerfully built man who worked out at the gym twice a week quavered at the sound of a cough, left the room when someone sneezed and paled at even, the thought of entering a hospital. Despite this idiosyncrasy, he'd been a good parent, caring and thoughtful. But the last year had taken its toll on the in-sickness-and-in-health part of his marriage vows.

Suddenly things were clearer to Leeza than they'd been in a long time. “I'm glad you can't make it tonight,” she said.

“What?”

“You're here too much anyway.”

“Leeza, honey—”

“No. I mean it.” Leeza took a deep breath. Plunged ahead. “You're here all the time. You need to focus on that job you're doing. And Jack, too. When's the last time the two of you went out to dinner or to see a movie?”

“Sweetheart, there's plenty of time for that. Once you get out of rehab—”

“Look, I'll be here for at least two more months. Probably longer. Are you going to put everything on hold until then?”

“You're my daughter, Leeza. I don't mind.”

“But I do. You need your life back. So does Jack.” She paused. “And so do I.”

She could hear her mother's sudden intake of breath. “What's
that
supposed to mean? When have I ever done anything but try to help you?”

It was Leeza's turn to swallow. Hard. “I know. But I think now it's time I tried to help myself.”

There was a long moment when neither of them said anything. Then, “You can't keep me from visiting you, you know.”

Leeza smiled at the hint of compliance that had crept into her mother's voice. “I'm not trying to. I think I just need to see a bit less of you.”

There was another silence, this one shorter than before. “Well, can I still call you?”

Leeza looked at the phone, imagined her mother on the other end of the line, saw her as someone much younger, a child asking permission of an adult. “Of course you can call me. Any time. And you can visit, too. Just not for a while, okay?”

She heard a sigh. “Okay.” Then, “I love you, Leeza.”

“I love you, too, Mom.” Leeza yawned, suddenly very tired. “I'll talk to you tomorrow. Say hi to Jack for me, okay?”

“I will, dear.” But her mother didn't hang up. “Leeza?”

“Yes, Mom?”

“This Reef person. Did he have anything to do with this?”

The question surprised her, made her think. “Not directly, no.”

“But indirectly?”

Leeza's mind went back to that afternoon in the lounge, the stories Reef and she had shared. “He made me remember something I'd forgotten.”

“What was that?”

“That I can be strong too.”

“Honey, you didn't need a stranger to show you that.”

Leeza looked up at her sprinkler and smiled. “I think maybe I did.”

“Back again,” Carly said. “You're getting to be a permanent fixture around here.”

“Yeah,” mumbled Reef. He wasn't sure what to say. Didn't feel like replaying the explanation he'd given Colville for why he needed to return today when he wasn't scheduled to show up at the rehab again until next week. “I didn't finish everything yesterday,” he'd said. Which wasn't exactly a lie. But he was afraid the nurse would see right through him.

There was something in the way Carly had looked at him as he was leaving the day before that made him think she'd seen what had happened in the sixth-floor lounge, had maybe even set the whole thing up. Whether that was true or not, he hadn't been able to get Leeza out of his head, had lain awake half the night thinking about her. Reef had never felt like this before. Sure, he'd had more than his share of girls over the years. There had always been plenty on the periphery, girls who skipped classes with him, smoked and drank, did whatever drugs were available for the taking. Girls who liked the rush of breaking rules.

And then, of course, there was Scar. But it was different with her. With Scar, whatever fun he had was always diminished somehow by guilt. Like he was keeping her from being more than she was, making her less than she could be. Those other girls used him as much as he used them. Scar, however, used no one. She only gave. And in giving, she'd made it more and more difficult for Reef to take. She had too much to offer to waste it on him. Or anyone like him. It had taken him a while to see all that, to understand. Maybe it was being away from her for so long. His grandmother was fond of saying how sometimes you couldn't see the forest for the trees. He'd never really understood what she meant. But he thought he did now.

“So,” Carly said, “how about reading to Stephen again? He's been pretty agitated this morning.”

“Okay,” said Reef. But, of course, it wasn't really okay. Stephen wasn't the patient he wanted to see.

And Carly seemed to know that. Her smile said so. “Leeza's down having physio. She won't be back on the floor until noon. I imagine you'll be wanting a break by then, won't you?”

Reef smiled, the expression on his face hot and clumsy. Even the roots of his hair felt red. “Could be,” he said.

The morning unwound like thick yarn. Every few moments, Reef found his eyes drawn to the clock on Stephen's table, surprised to see that the minute hand hadn't advanced much farther than the last time he'd looked. He'd picked up a
Reader's Digest
that someone had left behind and begun reading aloud some of the “Life's Like That” submissions, but he didn't find the anecdotes amusing. Nor, apparently, did Stephen, who moaned and thrashed about continually in his bed. Someone had put him in restraints before Reef arrived, and Reef didn't like seeing his wrists in those straps, didn't like hearing the restraints ring against the metal side rails each time Stephen flailed about.

So Reef put down the magazine and reached for a Halifax newspaper, yesterday's
Chronicle-Herald
. Reading the paper aloud had seemed to calm Stephen the last time Reef was with him, and he thought maybe it had something to do with the news. As he moved through the paper, though, he discovered it wasn't what he read but the way he read it that Stephen responded to. News items dealing with business developments on the world scene—in which Reef had zero interest—elicited considerable thrashing on Stephen's part, while items about events closer to home—to which Reef paid much more attention—seemed to calm him.

There was one article that silenced both Stephen and Reef, a local item about Rowdy Brewster that left Reef mute in mid-sentence. He thought about calling Jink and telling him to watch his back, but he knew what Jink would say, knew how he'd laugh at Reef for beingsuch a pussy. Or maybe he wouldn't laugh. Maybe he wouldn't even talk to Reef at all. Things hadn't gone great when they'd visited him at North Hills. Jink and Bigger couldn't have got out of there any faster.

But he couldn't help worrying all the same, couldn't help remembering Bigger's words that day at the courthouse:
I wouldn't want Rowdy and his goons lookin' for me
. It wasn't until Stephen began to moan and tug on the restraints again that Reef remembered where he was, could turn the paper over and continue.

“Carly said I'd find you here,” whispered Leeza.

Reef swiveled in his chair and saw her in the doorway. Stephen had fallen asleep a while earlier, but Reef hadn't wanted to take the chance of disturbing him by leaving the room. He'd sat quietly, watching the sheet over Stephen's chest rise and fall, rise and fall. There was something about that movement, repetitive and endless, that made him think about the events of the last few weeks, made him wonder if everything was automatic or if a person could actually change things, could make a difference somehow.