Spencer came at eight, after work. Lily’s grandmother was sitting by Lily’s side. They barely nodded to each other when he came in. He asked how Lily was doing. Claudia replied that she was sleeping and said nothing else. He asked how she had been during the day. Claudia stuck her finger out in a point. “You see. Like this.” She glared at him, squinty-eyed. He sat down and Claudia said, “That’s the nurse’s chair.”
Spencer looked around. “Is the nurse here?”
Claudia tutted and said nothing. Her posture was stiff, her fingers were drumming on her lap.
Spencer wondered if Lily was going to wake up. She didn’t look as if she’d be waking up soon, as if she just didn’t care that visiting hours were from six to eight and that he worked all day and couldn’t come earlier. After a few minutes, he got up and said he had to be going. “I brought her some Krispy Kremes. Would you give them to her and tell her I stopped by?”
“Oh, sure,” said Claudia. She didn’t tell Lily and ate the donuts herself.
On Tuesday, after a second day of chemo, Lily was sleeping again at six when Spencer came. This time Amanda was there with Claudia. Amanda was sitting in Marcie’s chair.
Spencer stood for a moment, and then said, “That’s the nurse’s chair.”
Amanda turned away from him until he left.
The following night, Lily was still unconscious. Claudia was there, with Anne
and
Amanda, and Spencer didn’t stay even for a minute under their hateful gazes.
Voices kept coming at her, voices that belonged to her family, the deep resounding Slavic-accented Grandma voice, the no-nonsense, I-don’t-take-no-for-an-answer Anne voice, and the calmer but no less righteous Amanda voice.
“He must be the densest cop in New York. Why would he still be coming? Doesn’t he have any idea how it makes us feel to see him here?”
“We’ve made it pretty clear. He must be a terrible investigator.”
“I’m not beating around the bush anymore. He obviously can’t take a hint. I’m going to tell him to stop coming.”
“Want
me
to tell him?”
“
I’ll
tell him. You’re going to garble your words like always.”
“Stop it, Lily can tell him.”
“She would definitely tell him if she was awake.”
“She is sick, she can barely speak, she can’t tell him.”
“Can you believe she’s won all that money? I mean, what unbelievable luck, don’t you think?”
“Look at her, she’s so sick. What luck?”
“I know. What luck though. God, what I could do with money like that!”
“Yeah, you’d blow through it, like you blow through every penny you ever made.”
“But seriously though, what is he thinking? He’s actively seeking the destruction of our family, of Andrew. You know how our Liliput feels about Andrew. If she knew that detective was coming around, she’d flip.”
There was a silence.
“Why do you think he’s got that crew cut? Just like her. You don’t think
he
cut her hair, do you?”
“No! They don’t know each other like that. For God’s sake, it’s our baby Lil and he’s fifty! I’m telling you, he’s here for information on Andrew. He’s probably questioned her dozens of times. He knows he’s got nothing on Andrew, so he’s coming around trying to bilk a sick girl.”
“You’re so right. But we can’t tell Lily. It’ll just make her more upset.”
“…Can you believe that about Andrew and Lil’s roommate?”
“Can I tell you, if he didn’t tell us himself, I would never believe it. I think Miera is still in shock.”
There was a stifled chuckle. “Serves her right, that bitch. She hates us.”
“I know—but look at our poor brother. He’s had to abandon his Senate campaign.”
“It’s all right, he’ll run again when the time is right. He’ll sort this out, you’ll see.”
“He won’t if Miera leaves him.”
“Oh, yeah, that’s likely. Where is she going to go? Poor Podunk where she came from?”
“Old Hartford, sadly.”
“Whatever. Andrew’s the best thing that ever happened to her. Let her go back to her posh little Hartford. She doesn’t deserve him.”
“No, I know, I know. But…you don’t think he’s had anything to do with…”
“Amy’s disappearance? God, no. He just made a mistake, he’s a human being, he’s not perfect. I must say, I have no idea what he was thinking. Why take any chances at all when your whole career could be at stake. But it’s nothing. So he had a meaningless fling, so what? Andrew said he ended it months before the girl went missing. It’s got nothing to do with him, that part. The detective has no case and he knows it.”
“Next time he comes, I’m definitely going to tell him to stop coming for good.”
Suddenly Joshua came. That was a surprise. Lily was awake unfortunately; it was early afternoon. What was he doing here? He seemed so shocked at her appearance. He couldn’t even hide it and had nothing to say. She couldn’t believe he was here! Who told you I was here? Was it Paul? Was it Rachel? Dennis?
Apparently it was her sister Amanda.
“It’s nice of you to come,” Lily said with a pasted-on grimace. And to her sister later, she said, “Are you actively working against my best interests?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Amanda, what can’t you see? He left me, he broke up with me, he left me to go out with bigger breasts from Corning, New York, and you bring him here when I look like this, when I feel like this?”
“I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking of you like that.”
“No kidding.”
Amanda came less after that, citing sore throats, the beginnings of school, parent orientations, school supplies, responsibilities. Anne, however, practically lived at the hospital, just like Grandma.
And Joshua blessedly did not come again.
Lily lay seven days with the voices filtering in and out. During her first day of rest between chemo treatments, when she was foggily conscious and not throwing up, when she could speak, she said, “Has Spencer been here?”
Claudia said, “I don’t know who you’re talking about.” And then abruptly left the room.
So Lily hadn’t dreamt it, those words that had been spoken by her family.
But here it was, day one, and now day two of her rest period
and there was no Spencer, not even in the evening. And Grandma was always by her side.
Every time Lily picked up the phone, Grandma would say, “Who are you calling?”
“Paul, Grandma.”
“Oh, how is that nice young man? He likes you, I think.”
“He does. He likes boys more though.”
“Oh.”
During her third afternoon of rest, Grandma stepped out for a moment—thank God for bodily functions!—and Lily quickly picked up the phone to call Spencer, and to her horror discovered that she couldn’t remember his beeper number. She couldn’t remember the number of the police station. By the time she called information, and they started to check for her, Grandma returned. “Who are you calling?”
“Rachel, Grandma.” Lily put down the phone. How could she have forgotten his beeper number?
She was fed through her Port-A-Cath, her port-a-life, her port-a-breath. When three days of rest passed and DiAngelo came to start ATRA and cytarabine again, Lily shook her head and said no more.
All through the following days she kept saying no more, no more, no more. Marcie was making her get up and walk, but Lily would stand up and fall down. Marcie had to carry her to the bathroom. They attached her to a catheter so she didn’t have to get up if she didn’t want to, but still every day after the morning ATRA and the afternoon chemo, Marcie would whisper, come on, come on, Spunky, don’t just lie there, get up, walk a bit.
“Give me that Milky Way, Marcie.”
“I told you—by the bagfuls when you’re done.”
“Give me a cigarette, Marcie.”
“Forget it. Those things will kill ya.”
Lily, in and out, up and down, weak and weaker, nauseated nearly non-stop, despite the anti-emetics they gave her to
counteract the chemo, thought that perhaps her grandmother was right, perhaps a complete destruction of sanity would follow lying 24/7 in a bed. The room didn’t turn purple anymore, not even for fun, and the toilets didn’t double, and neither did Grandma.
“By the way,” and this was Anne talking. “I just want you to know, I’ve decided to take a leave of absence from
KnightRidder
to be here full time, to help you, Lil, help you do whatever you need me to do. Get stuff, do stuff, be here for you 24/7.”
“Don’t talk nonsense, Annie. You need to work, pay your bills. I’m here all the time,” said Grandma, “and I don’t need to take a leave of absence.”
“Yes, but you’re not in the best of health yourself, Grandma. I don’t want you to get sick as well. Do you know how many microbes are flying around in the hospital, how much bacteria from sick people? It’s a wonder you’re not sick already. I don’t want to worry about you, too. No, it’s done, I want to do this for Lily.”
“Thanks, Annie,” Lily said, “but the doctor seems to think I need a pro to take care of me.”
“Oh, what does he know?” Anne said. “I don’t like him. He’s got an attitude on him. Who’s better for you than family?”
“Yes, Lily,” said Amanda, a little too enthusiastically, “Let Anne do it. It’s wonderful that you’ll have someone right by your side at all times. You need her, Lil.” As if she knew that if Anne were at the hospital she herself would be absolved from helping.
“But,” said Anne, and here was the but! “It’s unpaid leave. I’ll need a way to pay my mortgage. Do you think you can take care of that, Lily? You have that money coming in, it’ll be just like hiring a part-time nurse, the mortgage is only five grand a month. And maybe a little extra for utilities, and food, and transportation to the hospital, all those cabs do add up, you know. Maybe ten thousand a month. Say eleven. Does that sound reasonable?”
“Sounds reasonable, Annie. I’ll have to check with the doctor, though.”
On the sixth day of her second chemo/ATRA run, Lily was shuffling down the hall in her hospital nightgown and robe, as per Marcie’s instructions to be Spunky, dragging her IV stand next to her, counting in her head, breathing to stave off nausea, and when she turned around to schlump back to her room, Spencer was standing by her door.
Lily gaped at him, feeling every bit the wretch that she was, and there he stood, ironed, clean-shaven, black-rimmed, in a suit, his eyes twinkling with pity and compassion for her, his hair sheared in compassion for her, and Lily couldn’t move from her spot in the corridor. When he walked up to her, she started to cry.
Cry!
“Lily…” he said, perplexed, opening his hands, and she came closer and pressed her head into his chest, and felt his arm carefully on her back, but her hours of being alone were stretched so long, and his arm on her back lasted but a moment. When she stepped away, Grandma was at the open door of her room, scowling at them.
Lily wiped her face. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what just happened…”
“Don’t worry. You’re up. Every time I’ve come you’ve been so out of it. How are you feeling?”
They stood twenty feet away from the angry Grandma.
“Good, good. Fine. How’ve you been? The drugs are just awful. Amy was right when she told me not to do them.”
“I don’t think she meant these.”
“I tried to call you but I didn’t have your beeper number with me.”
Spencer took out his business card and stuck it into her hand. “You forgot my beeper number, Lil?” He sounded…surprised.
“It’s these drugs, they’ve killed my brain. Anything
happening?” she asked, clasping the card. Lily wanted to look up at him, but suddenly found herself sinking into that Joshua mud. Into that I-can’t-believe-anyone-who-is-not-family-is-looking-me-in-this-state mud. She stared at the floor.
“A bit’s happening. Don’t worry about any of it. You’ve got yourself to take care of.”
“Lilianne! Let’s go, Marcie’s waiting!” Grandma called loudly.
Lily sighed. “I gotta go. I’ve got another bag of VePesid to get through. Can you stay?”
“I think your grandmother would shoot me if I stayed.” Spencer paused. “At night you’re pretty bad. You’re never awake.”
“I know. In the early morning, or noon is better.”
Spencer leaned in to her. “Except that
she
is always here and I’m always working.”
“Of course. I know. Look, I’m fine. I’ve got visitors here round the clock.”
“Lily! Are you coming?”
“Just a minute, Grandma.” Lily remained turned to Spencer, who was blocking her from Claudia’s view with his body.
“Visitors around the clock, huh?” he said. “Has your brother been to see you?”
Lily soaked that in under her skin, her small smile vanishing. “No,” she said. “But now I
really
have to go.”
“Why can’t he face you?”
“I don’t know, Detective O’Malley. I can’t face myself either.”
“He’s hiding from you now the way he’s been hiding from you since Amy disappeared.”
“…That’s not true.” Lily was weak and her legs were buckling. “My family, sadly, may be right about you.”
He mouthed, “I’m sorry, Lily,” as she walked past, flicking his business card on the floor by his feet.
“Me too, Spencer.” Tears now coming from her heart and straight out the Hickman catheter, she shuffled by him, not lifting her eyes one more time.
And when Marcie was hooking up the VePesid, Lily’s eyes
were closed, her head thrashing from side to side on her soaked pillow, wishing for the drug’s retching oblivion, but after the VePesid was done dripping, Lily creeped back outside, and desperately searched the hospital linoleum for Spencer’s business card. It wasn’t there.
Claudia caught up with Spencer at the elevator. “Young man, I want to talk to you.”
He gave her his card. “That’s Detective O’Malley of the NYPD, Mrs. Vail.”
She frowned. “How do you know who I am?”
“Lily speaks about you frequently.”
“You know what, I don’t want you to be speaking to Lily frequently. You’re a detective, can’t you
detect
you’re not welcome here? You’re not family, you’re not a friend. You’re a hound, and you’re coming to bother a very sick young girl.”
The elevator wasn’t coming. Spencer had a dozen other open cases at that moment on his desk. Any of the others would be more fruitful. Ten of them were young kids—runaways, custody cases. One of them was a crack den mother, having disappeared for the fourth time this year. There was plenty he could be doing other than this.
Spencer moved away from her; Claudia grabbed his arm. She was feisty, well, she would have had to have been to get herself here from Europe. She was not afraid of him. But Spencer, even without the war-torn devastation, was not afraid of her either.
Her eyes were sharp as ice picks.
“She doesn’t want me to come?” he said, buttoning his suit jacket. “She can tell me herself.”
“You think she’s going to remember anything about her brother in the state she is in?”
“That’s not why I’m here.”
“You’re barking up the wrong tree, you know. Andrew doesn’t know where that girl is.”
“You
have
to think so. I’d be suspicious if you didn’t.”
“But he really
is
innocent of wrongdoing. He is my grandson. I lived with him, I nearly raised him, I know him from childhood. You don’t think I can tell, you think I’d be lying to myself? I’m far too old and frail for that.”
“Nothing frail about you,” said Spencer. “And if he is so innocent, how come he’s refusing the polygraph?”
“Because his lawyers advised against it. Innocent, I tell you. I will swear in a court of law on this one.”
“No need, your grandson is swearing enough for both of you. But the question remains: where’s Amy?”
They were standing in the impersonal, incongruous, fluorescently lit hospital hallway, with strangers walking back and forth, with the nurses at their station nearby, laughing, the phone ringing, an old man being wheeled by in a chair, looking at them with a blinkless gaze. Spencer was looking at them himself with a blinkless gaze. As Lily was lying inside door number 5547, struggling to stop retching, they were discussing her brother’s connection in the disappearance of her roommate.
“I don’t know,” Claudia said. “But his innocence I feel in my heart.”
Spencer sighed. “All right then. Well, I’ll go by what I feel in my heart, not having the advantage of being related to your grandson.” The elevator finally came. “Now, excuse me.”
Claudia called after him with angry frustration. “Why are you picking on him? Why don’t you interview the hobos Amy was feeding every week, they have a better chance of knowing what happened to her.”
Slowly Spencer turned around and walked out of the elevator. He came back to Claudia. “What did you say?”
“I said why don’t you ask the homeless—”
“Wait, wait.” He shook his head with incredulity. “
What
home-less?”
“What homeless? Some detective you are,” she scoffed. “I met her a handful of times and even I know.”
“That’s a handful more times than I met her, so give it up. What homeless?”
“Amy spent Thanksgiving with us last year. She also came once with Lily to see me and stayed for dinner.”
“So?”
“So, so. Both days were a Thursday.”
“So?”
“She had to leave early both times, because she said she had to go to the soup kitchen to serve breakfast. We said, even after Thanksgiving? And she said, every Friday.”
Spencer stood stiffly. “What soup kitchen?” he said at last.
“How should I know? Now if you’ll excuse
me
, I’m going to go back to my grandchild. But you heard me—don’t come again.”
On the way back to the precinct, Spencer had to fight to keep his mouth closed, to stop his dervish thoughts from whirling out like frenetic mendicants.
He had wanted a word that pointed him in the right direction, a word that made him feel that he wasn’t chasing spiders up brick walls? There it was. Two words even.
But
soup kitchen
?
Who on earth could help him with this?
It was Paul’s day off and Spencer couldn’t find him. Rachel was also not in the salon. Lenny had no idea about any soup kitchen. What good was a private investigator who couldn’t get these details out of the heap of remnants of Amy’s life? Jan McFadden should fire him. Jan herself, unfocused on the phone,
had no idea that her daughter visited soup kitchens. It was as much of a surprise to her as it had been to Spencer.
The Copa Cabana where Amy used to work had got itself a spanking new staff, everybody had
heard
of Amy but nobody
knew
much about Amy or her affinity for the destitute.
Spencer called Joshua who said oh yeah, she did do something with them, but I can’t for the life of me remember when or what or how or where. I may never have known it.
Lived with the girls for seven months and may never have known it? Lily was lucky to be rid of him.
Spencer had no choice. He had to talk to the one person who could help him. What day was it? It wasn’t Friday, that was for sure. His hands were shaking. It had been two weeks between drink. He had to keep holding something between his fingers: pens, pencils, backs of chairs, the wheel of the car, so that no one would notice.
After work he went back to Mount Sinai.
Marcie had gone, DiAngelo had gone, the night nurse didn’t want to let him in since visiting hours were long over. Spencer had to flash his badge and say he was here on police business. Why did he feel like such a heel saying it? Because it was true?
The grandmother wasn’t there either. So there
was
a time to come when no one was around her. Trouble was, she wasn’t around herself either. Spencer sat by Lily’s side in the quiet as the water dripped in the bathroom and the TV was on mute. He hated the TV on mute. He turned the sound up a little. Lily looked so helpless with the tube in her nose, under her covers, lying propped up slightly, with what little was left of her hair falling out in dark shavings onto her pillow. Through her chest catheter a fluid tube was connected, a glucose solution dripping in, like the bathroom faucet. Drip, drip.
After watching her a while, he whispered her name, until she awoke, looking stranded. “What’s wrong, what happened?” she mouthed.
“Nothing, all’s okay.”
“I keep dreaming people whisper my name over and over, and then I open my eyes and you’re here.”
“Whispering your name over and over.” He gave Lily a drink, asked if there was something else he could get her. No, she said, sheepishly adding, maybe another business card? Spencer took from his pocket the one she threw on the floor and put it inside her bedstand drawer.
“So what did your little policemen friends think about your hair?” she asked.
“The other kids made fun of me.”
They fell quiet.
“Lily,” he said, “What soup kitchen did Amy go to every Friday?”
Her eyes barely open now closed for good. With a hurting sigh, her arms went around her stomach. She groaned. “A church on 51st and Seventh.”
Spencer couldn’t help himself. He wished he could. “Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you tell me three months ago she had somewhere to be every Friday?”
Lily didn’t reply. A small tear rolled down her temple.
The nurse came in to take her vitals.
Spencer sat with her for a while longer, and then left.