Zigzag (27 page)

I wondered where the logical place was for
me
to go. Chris thought his place was Georgetown. I'd figured on just going to the University of Iowa, but maybe a different school would be better.

Not that I knew what I wanted to do yet, but over the past few weeks, dealing with Iris and Marshall, I'd started to think it was something I was good at. Talking to kids and helping them figure things out. Maybe it came from all those years of having Franny around, needing me. Anyway, I thought I might like learning more about psychology or sociology. At least it was a place to start.

Sukey started cleaning up the dishes while Roland went out to
the front desk to check out people who were leaving.

“We'll help you with the dishes,” I offered, giving Marsh and Iris looks. I was pretty sure they weren't used to doing any housework, but they shuffled to their feet and picked up their plates, even though it was hard for Iris to do with crutches. Sukey had already made other plans for us, though. Savannah, she said, would drop us off at the hospital on her way to work. We could call the motel whenever we wanted to come back and somebody would pick us up.

I hadn't really gotten a good look at Santa Fe the night before. It was dark and we were all pretty crazed after the accident. Driving over to the hospital I had a chance to take it in a little better. It was beautiful even with tourists standing around everywhere. I wished we could spend the day exploring the colorful shops with their banners out front, the downtown square where the Indians laid out their jewelry on blankets.

“I love the way this town looks!” I said. “
Everything
is made out of adobe.”

“It is a special place,” Savannah said. “I don't have to work tomorrow. I'll take you on a tour if you want.”

“That would be great!” I said. Iris and Marshall were quiet. “I mean, assuming Dory is okay.”

Savannah glanced back at them. “Would you guys be interested in seeing the San Ildefonso Pueblo where my parents met? It's not far out of town and it's a very cool place.”

Marshall sat up. “Yeah! Will there be real Indians there?”

Iris gave him a disgusted look. “Who else would live in an Indian pueblo?”

“Native Americans,” he said with a straight face. Even Iris laughed.

Savannah let us out at the main entrance to the hospital and drove off. Just inside the front door Iris spied a rest room.

“One minute,” she said, disappearing inside.

“Do you need help?” I said, thinking about the crutches.

“No, thanks.”

Marshall and I waited outside. I wasn't really even listening for anything—I'd kind of given that up the last few days, but I heard it, anyway. No water running or anything—if Marsh hadn't wandered down the hall, he'd have heard it, too. Iris had decided not to hide anymore. Could the accident have had something to do with this, too?

“Ready,” she said when she came out. I expected her to give me one of her frosty stares, but she didn't even look at me. Her face was pale.

I couldn't say anything in front of Marshall, and certainly not in front of Dory, the condition she was in, so I just smiled at her. “Feel better now?”

“Yeah,” she said quietly.

Well, so much for psychology. I had no idea what I was supposed to do now. Anybody who would throw up the best pancakes on earth was beyond me.

When we got to Dory's room the doctor we'd seen the day before was just coming out. “This will get her spirits up!” she said. “Mrs. Tewksbury, your clan is here!”

It was sort of a shock to see Dory. She was sitting up in bed, but her hair was sticking out weirdly around a bandage on her head, and one eye had turned black and blue. Her shoulder and arm were still in traction and her hospital nightgown was twisted around her like soft-serve ice cream. Basically, she looked like hell.

Marshall didn't care. He flung himself down onto her good side and hung on tight.

“Be careful, Marsh,” I said. “Your mom's kind of fragile.”

“I'm okay,” she said, though she was obviously wincing under
Marshall's weight. He'd brought her a drawing of Sukey's kitchen and was trying to explain it to her, but Iris interrupted.

“Savannah sent some oranges,” she said, setting a plastic bag on the sheet by her mother's legs, then backing off.

“I'm so glad to see all of you. But, Iris, why are you on crutches? They didn't tell me you were hurt!” Dory stretched her good arm out toward Iris, but Iris didn't come any closer.

“It's just a sprained ankle. No big deal.”

“She just has to stay off it for a few days,” I explained.

“Thank God, none of you were seriously hurt. I could never have forgiven myself! I'm just so sorry about everything. I wrecked our whole trip!”

“I don't care,” Iris said. “I want to go home, anyway.”

“We don't have to go home right away, do we?” Marsh said. “I like it here. And Savannah's going to take us to see a pueblo tomorrow. Like Acoma, only different.”

“Is that where you're staying? With Savannah's family? I thought that's what I remembered hearing last night, but I was so woozy.”

I nodded. “Savannah's parents are really nice. We're staying in one of the motel rooms, but they want us to eat with them. They have a lot of kids, anyway.”

Iris plunked herself down in a chair halfway across the room. “Hard to believe six kids could have ever lived in that house. It's way too small.”

“Savannah told me Roland built it.”

“I know. She's so
proud
of them. She acts like she's
their
parent.”

“Iris,” Dory said, sounding stern for a moment. Then she changed her mind. “Come a little closer. I can hardly see you way over there.”

“I look the same as I did yesterday.”

But you're acting even worse,
I thought.

Dory sighed. “Dr. Ellis says my arm has to stay in this contraption for a week, and I'll be in a cast for three months after that. At least the concussion was mild. Robin, be sure to tell Savannah's parents to keep track of the expenses—your food and everything—and I'll pay them before we leave.”

“I will,” I assured her.

“I won't be able to drive back to Chicago, though.”

“If there's even a car to
drive,
” Iris said.

Dory winced. “Will you guys ever forgive me for this?”

“It was Iris's fault!” Marsh said. “If she hadn't been arguing with you . . .”

I waited for the inevitable screams of protest from Iris, but she was silent, staring at her lap. It was Dory who interrupted Marshall.

“No! It was certainly not Iris's fault. I was the one who took off my seat belt. I was the one who wasn't watching the road. It was
my
fault, Marshall, not your sister's.”

“Yeah, but she was annoying you!” Marsh insisted.

Dory gave a little laugh. “Sweetheart, if I had an accident every time Iris annoyed me, we wouldn't have made it out of Iowa City.”

Even Iris had to smile at that. She looked relieved, too. Then suddenly her face brightened. “Guess what?” The pot didn't break! The jar thing from Acoma.”

“Yeah,” Marsh chimed in. “Me and the pot were the only things that didn't get a scratch.”

“Wouldn't you know? That damned pot,” Dory said. “I don't care if I never see it again.”

“I saved the pot,” Iris said.

“You did?”

“She held it between her knees,” I told Dory.

“Why? I thought you hated it.”

Iris shrugged and crawled back behind her disdainful mask. “I like it now. I want to keep it.”

And that's how we spent the next few hours, Marshall hanging on, Iris pushing away, me somewhere in between, still trying to figure out how to tie everyone together.

W
hether from exhaustion or just the need to escape from one another, my cousins and I were each in a separate bed and asleep by nine-thirty. When I woke at seven, Iris was still sleeping, but Marsh's bed was empty. He wasn't in the room at all. I dressed quickly to head over to the Bolton-Packer quarters to see if he was making a pest of himself this early in the morning, but as soon as I got outside I saw him walking up from the barn in back of the motel.

“How come you're up so early?” I asked.

He shrugged. “I just woke up. You guys were still snoring, so I went to see the horses. They've got two, Eleanor Rigby and Ruby Tuesday.”

I laughed. “They told you their names?”

Marsh was not in a joking mood. “No. Tony was down there—he takes care of the horses. I helped him with Eleanor.”

“Wait until Iris hears. She'll be down there begging to ride.”

The anger that flashed across Marshall's face startled me. “I wish she wasn't here! I wish she wasn't even my sister!”

“Whoa! Marsh, I know you're not exactly best buddies, but . . .”

“I hate her.” He glared, daring me to try to talk him out of it. I kept my mouth shut.

After a minute he broke his stare. “I don't always hate her. But I hate her when she gets crazy and mad, like she is now.”

“Does it scare you?”

“No!” he yelled. “It just makes me mad and crazy, too. It's like the chicken pox or something that I catch from her. I just want to be normal again like we used to be.”

“Don't you think Iris wants that, too?”

“Who knows what she wants,” he said, but his voice was a little calmer. He scratched his sneaker in the dust. “Let's stop talking about it, okay? I don't want to be mad at you, too.”

Just then the door of room number 5 opened and Iris walked out in her T-shirt and underpants. “You guys just went off and left me in here all by myself! I wake up and you're both gone, for godsakes!”

“Jeez, Virus. What did you think—we walked back to Chicago without you?”

“Well, where did you go?”

“We were right outside. You don't have any pants on,” I reminded her. “And aren't you supposed to use your crutches?” I pushed her back inside and Marsh followed me.

“I don't need the crutches. My ankle's okay. How come you went outside?”

“I went to look for Marsh, that's all,” I told her. “He went down to see the horses this morning.”

“Without me?”

“You were asleep, dipwad,” Marsh said.

“I want to go see the horses, too!” She seemed on the verge of tears over this nonevent.

“Well, get dressed and we'll walk down there after breakfast,” I said, but Marshall's harsher comment drowned me out.

“Why don't you leave the poor horses alone? You'll just infect them with your craziness, too.”

I should have seen it coming, but Iris was so fast, I wasn't
prepared. Her fist shot out right in front of me and landed squarely in the middle of Marshall's face. His head flew back like his neck was on a spring, and the look in his eyes raced from surprise to anger to anguish in five seconds flat. He started to howl as blood poured from his nose.

“You broke my nose! Look what you did, you stupid bitch! You broke my nose!” His hands were cupped to catch the blood flow, but that left his feet free to kick out at his sister. He landed one on her kneecap that buckled her and she fell sideways onto the bed.

“Ow, that's my bad leg, you idiot!”

This time I could see the retaliatory strike coming and I stepped between them, pushing Iris back down on the bed. “Iris, don't you dare hit him again! He's already bleeding all over himself.”

I grabbed Marsh by the shirt, dragged him into the bathroom, and sat him on the toilet seat so I could see how much damage had been done. He was screaming like crazy, totally enraged at what had happened.

“I hope you bleed to death!” Iris yelled.

“Iris, shut up before
I
kick you,” I yelled back.

There was a knock on the door, but before I could answer it, Savannah and her mother rushed in.

“What happened?” they asked, looking at the three of us.

Iris and Marshall became suddenly mute, Iris crawling back under the bedcovers, Marsh sniffing up blood and tears.

“We had a little accident,” I said. “Marsh got hit in the nose.”

“By her!” he said, pointing at Iris.

“Okay, it's over now,” I said. “Let's just make sure your nose is okay.”

“Let me look,” Sukey said. “I used to be an EMT—I know a little bit about these things.” The blood had slowed to a trickle and
I cleaned Marsh's face with a washcloth while Sukey gently moved his nose from side to side.

“Does that hurt?” she asked. He nodded, but obviously he wasn't in all that much pain anymore. “It's not broken. The cartilage is fine. You probably just burst a vessel in there. Savannah, go make up an ice bag for him to hold on it.”