When She Flew (32 page)

No matter how valiantly she tried not to, Jess cried off and on during the drive back to town, and through the long wait in the emergency room. She asked Chris to dial Nina on her phone; every move she made with her right arm overwhelmed her senses. As Nina’s voice-mail message kicked in, Jess sobbed too hard to form comprehensible words. Chris took the phone and spoke quietly into it, then snapped it shut.

“We’ll keep trying,” he said. “Who else should you call?”

She couldn’t bear to call Clara, but she had to. “My mother,” she said, and again, Chris made the call and spoke softly to her mother, downplaying the injury. He handed the closed phone back to Jess, smiling triumphantly. “I’m very good with moms,” he said.

Chris called Sergeant Everett to tell him that Ray and Lindy had disappeared, and when asked to give their last known location, he declined, making Jess cry even harder. She hadn’t been this emotional since . . . since when? Since Nina had left? Since her divorce? Since her father had died? She couldn’t even remember. Grief had been constant, perhaps, but crying had been a long time coming.

“I’m not like this,” she tried to tell him. “I never cry, especially not in front of . . . well . . . anyone.”

“Quit messing with my ‘rescuing a damsel in distress’ fantasy,” Chris said. “It’s okay, really. Larry cries all the time. I’m used to it.”

“But now you’re in as much trouble as I’m in.”

“Hey, maybe I’ll get on TV, too.” He shrugged.“Why should you get all the glory?”

She snorted, pain shooting through her. “Ow. Don’t make me laugh.”

“Can do.” He sat back, looking around the busy waiting room, then sighed. “Let’s just hope Ray gets himself to a doctor.”

They both knew it was unlikely. Ray Wiggs had clearly crossed the line between human coping and animal instinct when he jumped out of the window.

Jess wiped her eyes, then looked at Chris as directly as she ever had. She wanted him to understand what had happened to her out there, even though she didn’t quite get it herself, not yet.

“I . . . I just couldn’t betray her again,” she said. “If those birders had never seen her . . .” She stopped, hoping Ray’s craziness was as fleeting as Lindy had described when questioned the day before. For now, she had to believe that once away from the world again, Ray would quickly settle down. They could never know how Lindy’s life would have turned out, whether found or not. It was never going to be easy for the girl. But one thing Jess felt sure of: Chris would have apprehended them in that pasture if she hadn’t stopped him.

“At least she has my card. If she needs us . . .” She shook her head again. What? She’d find a phone in whatever wilderness Ray dragged her to next?

“She’ll find a way,” Chris said. “She’s one tough girl.”

Jess nodded, pulling her lips between her teeth. He was just trying to make her feel better.

Would she and Chris ever talk about this again? Would they let themselves speak openly enough to figure out what she guessed they were both wondering: had they done the wrong thing? Was there a right thing to do in this case? Jess sighed. Would they even see each other again after all this was over? She would miss him now that she knew him this way, this easy, funny, contented way.

The waiting room chairs were cushioned and more comfortable than the ones she remembered all those years ago with her mother and brothers, waiting for news of her father. The television mounted overhead showed images of soldiers in Iraq instead of hostages in Iran. Life had circled in on itself, touch points presented with such clarity that Jess knew she was still in shock. Lindy was Nina was Jess—all girls who’d lost too much along the way. Ray was Jess’s father—two men whose souls were broken while doing their best to serve.

You can’t do good in this world without being hurt by it,
Jess thought, her mother’s old lament. But you can’t not try because that hurts worse—she knew that now. Or maybe she’d always known it. She’d shut herself down when Nina left. She hadn’t gone running after her because . . . because what? Because it would hurt when Nina pulled away again? Or because it had become easier not to continually witness Nina’s pain, and feel the weight of it every day? What a piss-poor excuse for a mother, Jess thought, closing her eyes and breathing deeply, trying to come back to her normal self, her practical self, but all she could see was Nina, and Lindy, then Nina again.

When a nurse finally called her name, Jess stood, wincing as she reached for her purse.

“I’ll watch your stuff,” Chris said, pulling her bag onto his lap and wrapping his arms around it.

“No way,” she said. “You have to get to work.” It was nearly two o’clock already.

“Go on.” He nodded his head toward the nurse waiting in the doorway. “I’ll be here, unless I’m out checking on Larry.”

After a painful exam and a series of X-rays, a surgical consultant was called. It took another thirty minutes for him to arrive in the exam room, and Jess wondered if Chris would still be in the waiting room when she was finally done, or if he’d be smart and turn her purse over to the receptionist and get his butt to work.

“The good news is, you didn’t break any bones,” the surgeon said, studying the films. “The bad news is, we need to get in there and see what’s going on with your rotator cuff, and see here? Those are bone fragments that need to be cleaned up or you’re going to continue to be in a lot of pain. I’d like to get you into surgery as soon as possible. What are you doing tomorrow morning?”

“I just happen to have the day off,” Jess said, hoping her medical benefits still applied.

Back out in the waiting room, Chris dozed, a magazine open on top of her purse in his lap. A gossip magazine, she noticed, wondering if she should tease him about it. She stood looking at him for a moment, studying the black lines of lashes against his tanned face, the dark stubble on his head and cheeks.

“Okay, sleepyhead.” She nudged his foot with hers.

His eyes opened. “I was just meditating.”

“Sure thing, Deepak.” The doctor had injected her shoulder with something, packed it in ice, and put her arm in a sling. It only ached now, but she felt altered, drugged, less in control of her feelings than ever.

“So? It’s broken?” He stood.

“Nope,” she said. “Just a little torn up, like the rest of me. They’re going to clean me up and sew me back together tomorrow morning. I’ll be as good as new.”

“Okay, then,” he said, shouldering her purse. “Let’s go.”

She felt her chin wobble, but fought it. He was taking her back to his place. “Really? You’re going to wear that all the way out of here?”

“What?” he asked. “It matches my outfit.”

This time when she laughed, it didn’t hurt.

 

 

 

AFTER DROPPING HER OFF At the condo, Chris left to go see if he still had a job. The throbbing in Jess’s shoulder intensified again, so she broke down and took another of the pain pills they’d given her to get through the night, slugging the huge thing down with a few swigs of Coke, her eyes watering and nose running at the hit of carbonation.

Jess sat on the futon, but she didn’t feel like watching TV. She wished Larry were there, head in her lap, feet twitching in dreams. She sighed and pulled out her phone. She wanted to call Nina, but first she dialed Ellis’s wife, Maggie, to thank her and Alison for their show of support at the station house.

Jess felt weepy again as Maggie said that they were proud and happy to support her, that they should have done more, that Ellis had wanted to but didn’t know how.

“No, it’s okay. I know,” Jess said, feeling the medicine start to take hold of her. “You guys are my best friends in the whole world.” She’d never said that aloud before, and it sounded sappy, but Maggie was crying, too, saying she was like a sister.

When they hung up, Jess knew she had only a small window of time before she was completely high. She called her next-door neighbors to apologize for the trucks in front of her house. Apparently, a wildfire had broken out near Yakima and the trucks were gone. Three thousand acres were ablaze and dozens of homes were at risk, making for much better footage than one empty suburban house.

And because she knew she had to, Jess called Clara. To her surprise, her mother didn’t break down in hysterics. The first thing she said was, “So, who exactly is this Chris Zoozawhat ever that called me?”

Jess laughed. Her mother was so funny. How had she not known that before? “Oh, Ma, he’s just another cop,” she said, then convinced Clara to wait for her call after the “procedure,” as she’d decided to call it. It was handy, saying a man was taking care of her—her mother could finally let go. With fewer mind-altering substances on board, this would have just made Jess angry, but it certainly made life easier.

As she clicked off, the phone beeped.

“What?” Jess asked it. The sound was familiar, but . . . Oh, yes. It meant a message had come in. Jess fumbled with the keypad, hitting END, SEND, trying to call the caller back, but she couldn’t remember the sequence or focus on the buttons.
Maybe it’s Nina,
she thought, trying to stay upright under the influence of the pain pill, just long enough to call her daughter, but then the phone was slipping from her hand, and then nothing.

When Chris roused her, Jess’s mind felt thick with gray cotton. It was morning. It was a different day, but which day? What time was it?

“Up and at ’em,” he said, standing over her, Larry next to him, smiling. “We gotta sign you in by six fifteen.”

“Wha . . . ?” She tried to roll over, but the sharp pain in her shoulder stopped her. “Stupid pain pills,” she said. “I passed out.”

“Come on, dope fiend. Let’s go get that thing fixed. Need help getting ready?”

She moaned and rolled onto her good side to sit up. “No, I’m fine,” she said, trying to smooth her hair with her good hand. “Go away, please.”

“Nice,” he said, and walked toward his bedroom. “Come,” he said to Larry. The dog gave Jess a mournful look.

“It’s okay,” she said. “Larry can see me naked.”

“Right.” Chris laughed. “I forgot. My dog gets the perks.”

In spite of her bravado, Jess couldn’t move her arm enough to remove any clothing, so she decided to wear yesterday’s to the hospital. Slowly, she stood and went to the bathroom to try to do something to her hair, and brush her teeth, and relieve herself, all left-handed. She looked in the mirror only once, then decided that wasn’t a good idea. It didn’t matter what she looked like; they were just going to knock her out again.

Before she’d gone to the hospital in labor at nineteen years old, she’d been so careful to put on makeup, to style her hair. There would be pictures; there would be people there. Nurses and doctors of course, but her mother, and Rick, her newly beloved, who chickened out of staying in the delivery room during most of Jess’s long, agonizing labor. In the end, he forgot to take photos, and the next time Jess saw herself in the mirror, many hours after Nina’s arrival, she had raccoon eyes, ringed in black. Perhaps Rick hadn’t forgotten, she realized now. Maybe he’d been being kind, and she’d resented it all those years for nothing.

Baby Nina hadn’t cared what she looked like. Once Nina was out of the womb, it seemed all she wanted was to be as close to Jess as possible, burbling and nuzzling into the nook of Jess’s neck, all soft and warm, filling Jess’s hands like a six-and-a-half-pound bean bag.

Jess closed her eyes, cupping her good hand as if around Nina’s tiny bottom, remembering her hormonal ecstasy at the smell of her daughter, the heat of her, but most especially, the weight of Nina in her palms. She had a child who was born loving her, trusting her. She hadn’t realized the call to motherhood would be so immediate and absolute.

She hadn’t realized so many things.

34

“
J
essica? Ms.Villareal?”

Shades of murky, deep water gave way to pale gray; Jess tried to swim up, to reach out to the voice, but a pain deep and primal stopped her. She opened her eyes and swallowed against a raw throat, a mouth as dry as chalk.

A stocky blond man in blue scrubs injected a syringe into a tube that appeared to be attached to Jess’s left arm. “How’re you doing, sweetheart?” he said, his accent smoothly Southern and comforting. “Having some pain?”

Jess’s right shoulder felt as big as a ham, a ham that had been chewed on by a pit bull, and then melted into nothingness a few moments later. What day was it?

“You’re in the day-surgery recovery room,” he said loudly, as if talking to someone hard of hearing. “The surgery went well. The doctor stopped by earlier but you were still out like a big old drunk on Saturday night.” He smiled and withdrew the syringe. “He got your shoulder all fixed up, but you’re going to have to take it easy for a while.”

Jess tried to nod, but couldn’t tell if she’d been successful. Above the nurse’s head, she became aware of square acoustic ceiling tiles, a brown water spot in the shape of Africa. A hum in the background, other voices. A phone trilling, no one answering. She turned her head slightly to the left, to the right. Curtains surrounded her bed.