Her niece looked back and forth, back and forth, frantically, trying to find solace somewhere. Finally, her eyes connected with Sam’s.
Help me,
Whitney mouthed around the vent tube that was down her throat.
Help me.
“Whit, they are helping you. You couldn’t breathe, so they had to put this tube down your throat to help your lungs. To keep oxygen going to your brain. I know you want it out, and that’s a good sign, but calm down. Calm down and breathe.”
What?
Whit mouthed.
What hap?
“You had an accident. Somehow you hurt yourself, and … and now the doctors are trying to help you recover. The tube is down your throat to help you breathe. Your lungs aren’t strong enough.”
Help me,
Whitney mouthed again.
“Oh, Whit, we are helping you. The doctors are helping you. You’re going to get better.”
Help me,
Whitney mouthed again, this time more ardently, and she began to thrash around, fighting against the blankets and tubes that kept her tied to her hospital bed.
“We’re going to have to sedate her,” the nurse whispered to Sam. “But this is good. All very good. She is responding so well.”
“Then why do you want to sedate her?”
“So her brain can heal. It was a very serious brain trauma, and she needs the time to get better. But I’ve seen a lot of these. She’s on the road to recovery.”
Susanna soaked in the nurse’s words, as though she were a barren desert and the nurse offered much-needed moisture. “Recovery,” Susanna muttered. Then she sank to the floor and put her head between her knees.
THIRTY-SEVEN
Sam took her sister to a hotel close to Primary Children’s, checked her in, ordered her room service, then told her to shower, eat, and sleep. In that order.
“I can’t leave my daughter,” Susanna had protested, after the doctors pronounced her suffering from trauma, shock, and exhaustion.
“You can’t take care of her like this,” Sam had said. “Now she’s getting better, soon she will be going home, and she’s going to need you then. So you need to take care of you. Shower. Eat real food. Sleep in a real bed. As soon as I get you settled, I’ll go back and I won’t leave her side until you come back.”
“Promise me, Sammy. Promise me you won’t leave her.”
“I promise.”
Sam had grabbed the bag of clothes that Roger brought to the hospital for Susanna, and they opened it after she got out of the shower. Susanna wrapped herself in a large towel and began picking at the chicken tenders and Caesar salad Sam had ordered.
Inside were four pairs of temple garments, Mormon sacred underwear, two pairs of jeans, and a toothbrush.
“Well, he certainly gave that a lot of thought, didn’t he,” Susanna said wryly.
“Asshole,” Sam responded.
“I need a lawyer, Sam. I’m not playing this game anymore. We’ve been married for twenty-two years, he’s cheated on me God knows how many times—once with my own eighteen-year-old-sister—and I’ve tolerated it because I’ve been striving for the eternal family, and to keep my church covenants. Twenty-two years, and he shows up with
this
? Four pairs of garments, no clean panties, no bra, two pairs of jeans, and a toothbrush. And you know what’s the worst part of it?”
“What, Sus?” Sam asked gently.
“There’s no fucking toothpaste. And this isn’t even my toothbrush. I think this is the one I use to clean the grout in the shower. I’m divorcing that bastard and I’m never looking back.”
“Sus?”
“What?”
“I’m not so sure Amy was really the one to blame in all this. I’m not so sure Roger didn’t force himself on her.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Well, I saw him more than once. I saw him corner her. At family parties and events. It’s been in the back of my mind for a long time, but I just sort of shoved it away. Like everything else. I mean, why the hell else do you think Amy ran? Left our family and never came back?”
“Because she had an affair with my husband?” Susanna asked, her voice hard and brittle.
“Did she? Or did he just make it all up? Force himself on her, because we were all little more than orphan girls. Just motherless children with no real guidance. Where do you turn when your sister’s husband does that? What are you supposed to believe in?”
“What the hell, Sammy? Where is this coming from?”
“Susanna, Roger is a cheater and a serial adulterer. You know it, I know it, and the whole damn town knows it, even though he goes to church every Sunday, and you pretend like nothing is wrong. Maybe Roger drove Amy away because no one believed her. Even now he’s trying to blame everyone else for the fact you want him gone. He came to the hospital and confronted me.”
Susanna looked confused, her pale face withdrawn, and bright pink spots showed up on her fair cheeks. “I … I … The hospital? When? I didn’t see him there. I’ve been with Whitney for so many hours straight I can’t count them anymore, but I know if my husband had walked in I would have seen him.”
Sam looked at her sister with compassion, realizing exactly how exhausted—both mentally and physically—she must be.
“Different hospital. Never mind, Sus. This isn’t the right time. We’ll talk later.”
“I need a lawyer.” Susanna’s voice was weak and her eyes dim and withdrawn.
“I’ll find you a lawyer, Sissy.”
“Okay.”
* * *
Sam made a quick trip to Walmart to get her sister the few essential items missing from her bag of clothes. When Sam returned to the room, Susanna promised to try to sleep. She accepted the money Sam gave her for a taxi without complaint. She’d endured too much, and her pride was gone.
“The first thing Whitney said when she woke up was that girl’s name, Sam. I forgot to tell you. She said, ‘Bethany.’ You need to look at that girl. She is behind all of this.”
Sam pictured the petite girl, crying so abjectly, and considered her instinct. She just didn’t see Bethany being involved in this.
“I’ve interviewed her, Sissy. I’ll talk to her again.”
“She’s responsible. Mark my words. You have to arrest her!”
“I’ll do my job, Sissy. Now you need to sleep.”
Sam worried about Susanna recovering completely from this—knowing what had happened to their mother—but knew that right now Whitney had to come first. Then Sam would worry about fixing Susanna. Sam had applied a Band-Aid. For now, that was all she could do.
She returned to the hospital to find Whitney quiet and sleeping. “She’s sedated,” the nurse said softly. She was the same one who had said she believed Whitney would recover. In the PICU, each patient had their own nurse, necessary as they hovered on the threshold of life and death.
Sam took her niece’s hand and squeezed it tightly. There was a small response, enough for Sam to know that Whit was in there, somewhere, sedated or not. Would she come out of this the same mean and spoiled child? Would she still taunt and tease those who were not thin and beautiful and talented? Or would she be different for her touch with death, whatever that meant?
Had Whitney passed her grandmother Ruthie like two trains passing each other in the night? An image danced in Sam’s brain: one of her mother, dressed in her white temple clothes, alive and active like she hadn’t been in years, hand pressed to the window of a train; Whitney, in a hospital gown, going the other way, also pressing her hand against the glass.
Sam’s mother crying out, saying, “Don’t believe! This is not my God!”
Whitney squeezed her hand again, and Sam jumped. Whit’s eyes fluttered open and then closed again, and Sam felt the tears stream down her cheeks. Was Whit trying to tell her that yes, Ruthie had seen her, and that she was finally at peace? Or was that just old mythology and religion talking?
And why was she crying now?
Why couldn’t she stop?
The nurse came up to her and offered a box of Kleenex. She took some with her free hand and wiped her face, never letting go of Whitney’s hand.
“Sometimes these things go really, really bad, and this one is looking positive. I know it’s hard not to cry. Get it out. But just remember, this has a good outcome. Not a bad one. I’m just the nurse, so don’t quote me, but I see all the things here that we like to see in recovering patients.”
“Thanks,” Sam said through her sobs, angry at her weakness. She knew she was crying for more than Whitney. She was crying for Susanna, whose marriage was a sham; for Amy, who had run from a dysfunctional childhood; for Callie, who had died too young; for Ruthie, who had died after years of not even coming close to living; and for herself.
That made her cry more than anything else, mostly because she was angry she would waste tears on herself. She was fine. Just fine. She didn’t need anybody or anything.
Yeah, right, Sammy.
Sam stared at Whitney’s sleeping face and wondered again what kind of person she would be when she was well, healed, back to normal. Would she be normal? Would she be brain damaged?
We all have it in us, Sam. It’s just how we use it.
Who is talking? Callie? Ruthie? Whitney? Or maybe, maybe, just me. Maybe it’s been inside of me all this time, and I just didn’t figure it out. Maybe no one is out there but me.
Sam felt more alone than ever before.
THIRTY-EIGHT
Sam needed to talk to someone who would listen without judgment, and she had no idea who that was. But for some reason, Gage’s name kept running through her mind. No-nonsense, practical Gage.
Maybe this was just an excuse to be near him again.
Maybe that was why she was sitting in his driveway, wondering if she should walk up to the door or just drive away. That decision was made for her when his Jeep pulled up alongside. He gave her a slight wave.
There would be no quick escape.
He didn’t ask why she was there, just ushered her inside, his hand on the small of her back, pushing her forward through the door gently.
“Something to drink?” he asked her as he took off his outer shirt and removed his service pistol and holster.
“You have beer?”
“I have beer. Chick beer or real beer?”
“Chick beer? What’s chick beer?”
“Oh, you know. The good old three-point-two Utah beer in some sort of ‘lite’ version.”
“Why do you have ‘chick beer’? Do a lot of entertaining?”
“Yeah, I’ve had a few barbecues this summer, and the guys bring their wives and girlfriends. They turn their noses up at real beer. I think I might even have a bottle of wine left over from the last one.”
“I’ll take a real beer.”
He laughed and walked into the kitchen. She surveyed the room, looking a little closer than she had last time she had been here. It was decorated in warm browns and tans, very male and masculine.
There were no feminine touches here. No vases with flowers or ornate frames. Gage was all man, and he obviously did not share his life with anyone else. The butterflies in her stomach surprised her.
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Gage said, walking back into the living room with two beers bearing a label she didn’t recognize.
“If you only knew,” she answered.
“I can’t stand that look on your face,” he said softly. “You look so … scared.”
“I
am
scared. I don’t understand what’s happening.”
“In Kanesville?”
“In Kanesville, in my family. I’m not up to it. I don’t think I can handle it.”
“Yes, you can. You’re brave, and you’re courageous. And you have the most honest heart of anyone I’ve ever met.”
He reached out and grabbed her hands, pulling her up to him until they were facing each other.
Sam was still in her khaki capris and the colored tank she wore to the hospital, with a light sweater covering it up.
It didn’t feel substantial enough as she leaned against him. She could feel him—all of him. She might as well have stripped down naked and walked in the front door.
Gage wore a pair of tan cargo shorts and a T-shirt similar to the one she’d absconded with two years before.
Sam looked up into his eyes and almost came undone. There she saw his true self, vulnerability, and maybe just a hint of the arrogance that had led to Mary Ann Clarkston’s death. And Sam forgave him right then, just a little bit, because she saw it in his eyes. She saw that he had made the mistakes he made because of her and because of the roles they both held in society. And she wanted him. Needed him.
“You were trying to protect me. You shouldn’t have done that.”
“When?”
“The Clarkston case. Pulling me off. You were trying to keep me safe.”
“It’s what I was raised to do.”
“It’s not what I want.”
“It’s not what I want, either. I want you, as a partner. An equal. You
are
my equal. This last year has been a nightmare. I don’t ever want you to leave again.”
“I … I’m not exactly a part of your life, Gage.”
“I want you to be.”
“I still think about Mary Ann. All the time. It’s not going to go away quickly.”
“Mary Ann died for a lot of reasons. If you want me to apologize I will. But it’s not that simple. There are a lot of things you didn’t know. You didn’t know that she was counting on you, planning on you to get her out. You didn’t know that her father discovered the note she wrote. You had no control over the fact that he beat her to death and left her body in the desert.”
Sam stared at him, a lump in her throat. Did she want Gage’s apology? What difference would it make?
“I gave her hope. I might have been able to help her. If you had let me go to the wedding—”
“I couldn’t, Sam. I had inside information.”
Sam closed her eyes as the implication hit her. “You knew she was going to run, to try to get me to take her out of there.”
He sighed heavily. “I knew. At the wedding. And it would have blown your cover.”
“Ruining your case.” Disgust tinged her voice as she stood up.
“No, Sam. You are not leaving, and you are going to hear me out.” He grabbed her arm and pulled her in front of him, holding her there with both hands. “The Clarkstons aren’t like that man and woman you saw at the hospital. Caring for their children. Holding hands. I don’t like polygamy, but there are some good people involved in it who really believe they are living the life God wants them to. But not very many. It’s a big damn game. Women and children are nothing but a ticket into Heaven, and the one with the most wives wins. If you had tried to get her out of there, like she was planning on asking you to do, they would have killed you along with her. And then they win.”