Between Octobers Bk 1, Savor The Days Series (50 page)

“We’ll wait for them to call us. They have
pictures of her.”

Pictures may be all I have, as well. “They
aren’t enough.”

The boxy radio on the wall of the craft
starts squawking. John’s quick to grab it. The voice is loud,
fuzzy. I can’t understand what they’re saying.

I don’t even know what she’s wearing. Lily
and Noah told the police what she had on when they left and I
couldn’t picture it. My pregnant wife in maternity clothes. My
unborn son’s picture was posted on the ice box and I couldn’t look
at it. I can’t understand any of this. Why is this happening?

“Mr. Matthews?”

“Yes?” I take a deep breath.

“Your wife, sir, what was she wearing?”

“Um, blue, button-down maternity top and
jeans,” I’m just repeating Noah’s description to the police.

“Does she have any distinguishing marks?
Tattoos or birthmark?” John’s hand holds the radio beside his
mouth. His index finger hovers over a red, oblong button.

“Tattoo.” I want to vomit. “A circle of four
small rosebuds end to end. Three red and one white.” I can see her
sitting on the bar stool at The Hard Rock that night, talking and
smiling. Covering it up at my mention.

“Where?”

“Right side, on her hip bone.” I used to
kiss it.

He relays the information to the radio. And
waits.

My throat suddenly bulges. I leap from the
seat in time to chuck my coffee out the door. As I gag, the garbled
voice blares from the radio.

“
They’ve got her!”

I dart from the doorway, stumbling on numb
legs until John’s forearm pins me against the side of a Sequoia. My
shirt’s in his fist, his elbow near my jaw.

“Not in there. Up there,” he points.

I follow his direction to the rocky ledge
and up the wall of the canyon. High overhead is a white helicopter
with a large red cross painted on the bottom.

Once, Grace and I walked Caleb to the park
down the road. She sat on one end of a bench while I lay across it
with my head in her lap. She pointed up at a passing helicopter.
“That’s a Medivac ‘copter,” she’d said, and went on describing how
they could be any color, but the large red symbol on the bottom
gave it away. She said they were used for transporting patients in
the gravest conditions.

I’m under the waves again—drowning, lost in
that black seawater. The clock was against me. That much I know. I
also know it was my own fault for lying so close to the water when
the tide was out. I was too drunk to notice the proximity and got
pulled into a rip tide. I was lucky to have surfaced at all.

“
Who’s in there?” I ask John, pointing
to the woods of the canyon.

“Let the police worry about that. We gotta
get you out of here. She’s heading for Kaweah Delta.” He breaks
into the trees to relay the information to our pilot while I put
together the pieces of what’s happened.

The radio call didn’t come from anyone I’m
with, as I assumed. It had to have come from the other helicopter.
And they asked for description because they’ve found her and now
she’s bound for the nearest hospital.

“Shit.”

Evan
—

Where was I? What was I doing at the precise
moment someone decided it was okay to touch my wife? What was I
thinking about when someone zip-tied her hands and stuffed her into
a trunk? What was she feeling when she realized what was happening?
What was I doing when she gave birth to our son? When she was
alone, bleeding out?

How is it that the world can simultaneously
end and begin? Here one minute, gone the next. I’m an absent
husband, then widower. Childless child, then a father.

As I sit here in this tiny room, surrounded
by the people she loves most, I can’t quite figure out how it’s
possible.

This isn’t the way things are supposed to
happen. It’s shit you see on telly and shake your head because the
world’s a fucking cesspool. It’s a news-at-eleven story that makes
you hug the ones you love a little tighter, but it’s not supposed
to be real.

I can’t process anything. It’s come at me
all at once, from every side. The one person that might understand
what I’m feeling is the reason I’m having these feelings.

“Mr. Matthews, I’m sorry to say, but your
wife has passed.”

“What the fuck does that mean? Passed what?
A turn? Will she be coming back ‘round again?”

He doesn’t react, but continues with very
little visible emotion.

“Your son is fine, a healthy eight pounds.
His body temperature’s a little low. We’ve got him in a warmer.
We’re treating him for a minor eye infection, common among
newborns. We can take you up to see him whenever you’re ready.”

I need someone to call ‘cut.’ That line was
delivered all wrong. I can’t grasp it because he isn’t saying it
right. He should say it slowly, draw out the words. Give them some
feeling, a sound more guttural. Add a facial expression, something.
Anything to give indication that you, dumb-shit doctor, understand
what you’ve so ineffectively glossed over.

Start with a solid kick to the gut, make
sure there’s no air left in my lungs before you make your
pronouncement. “I’ll just be ripping you in half now. Cheers.” Or,
“I’m going to drive metal spikes into your ears, alright?”
Grin.

“Is anyone hearing this?” I look around the
small room that’s more like an office, but absent of desk and
computer. There are soft chairs along every wall and a small table
in the centre, a water cooler and boxes of tissues. It’s a Bad News
room.

Noah’s sitting on a short bench, holding his
head in his hands. Lily’s face is tucked into Caleb’s neck as they
cling to one another. Marcus’s eyes are red. His hand’s set on my
shoulder and his lips are moving, but I don’t think he’s saying
anything.

“Noah.” He doesn’t answer. I sit beside him
and he yanks me into a desperate embrace.

“
I’m an orphan,” he
mumbles.

Intense, ugly words. Uttered once by me, to
Marcus. “No, no. We’re a family, mate. We’re in this together.”

“What’s the cause?” Lily asks.

The doctor clears his throat. I can’t take
my eyes off his name tag. Brian Ying? Brian—American. Ying—Asian.
What kind of name is that? He looks Mexican. How am I supposed to
take him seriously?

“Coroner has to make the final
determination, but it looks like a uterine tear—most common with
women who’ve had c-sections. Mr. Matthews, has your wife ever had
the procedure?”

“Once,” Lily answers quietly, casting a
glance at an oblivious Noah.

“This was her third?” He asks Lily directly
this time.

“Yes. Gravida four, Ab one at twelve weeks,
natural elimination.” She blinks and the welled tears spill
down.

“Did she suffer?” I ask, knowing
bloody-well she did.
What is wrong with
me?

Dr. Ying looks first to Noah then to Caleb.
“Mr. Matthews, childbirth is naturally painful.”

“After. Did she suffer after?”

“Evan, come with me.” Lily has passed Caleb
off to Marcus and is now standing in the open doorway.

The empty linoleum hall awaits. I follow as
she leads out and into another room. Another Bad News room—it’s a
bloody network!—She shuts us in before bursting into sobs, leaning
against the door.

“You want to be angry? Good. You should be.
But don’t plant those images in their heads! We have to protect her
boys. Do you understand? Losing her is enough. In case you haven’t
noticed, Noah is exactly like her. He’ll carry this around—take it
all in on himself—what effing . . .” she breaks up again.

I can’t believe I’m having this
conversation. Nothing in the world could ever keep Grace from those
boys when they need her. Yet something has.

“I can’t cry. I want to, but—why is that? Of
all things I should cry about, this is it. The fucking worst.”

Lily wipes her entire face with tissues.
“Take advantage. You are her husband and she needs you to be
strong. And your head’s probably clearer than mine.”

She claps a hand over her mouth and wilts
like a flower in the sun. “What will we do without her?” She
answers with a sob before clearing her throat, and then continues,
“I can’t think. Marcus is a zombie. Decisions have to be made.
People have to be told. Ronnie lands in an hour.”

“Why didn’t anyone tell me? We wouldn’t be
in this—” I can’t say it. I need to break something. Everything. I
want to scream, because I know the answer.

Grace’s actions have never been a mystery to
me. She’s surprisingly easy to understand, most of the time. Like,
when she gets upset, it’s in readable phases. The first phase is
her foot, which she taps. She doesn’t yell or scream, or throw fits
like I’m accustomed to. She always asks questions and waits for a
response, reasonably trying to decide if her anger is justified. If
she feels it is—stage two—she’ll raise her voice, stomp a foot. She
speaks in firm, polite ways, never demeaning or offensive. At stage
three, she stops talking. Her mildly abrasive attitude will shift
and retreat. She starts cleaning. It doesn’t matter if she has
finished the whole house, she’s scrubbing, mopping, vacuuming,
whatever she can think of.

She’s also the person who takes care of
everyone and never asks anything in return. Except, maybe, this one
thing. This small matter of keeping her secret until she musters
the courage to tell me, her husband who, admittedly, did not want
his own children. A difficult conversation for her, considering.
Grace shies away from confrontation at every turn. She must’ve been
expecting me to fight.

“She was scared that you’d feel
trapped.”

“That’s nonsense.” I was trapped the second
I saw her. “Where does she get this guilt complex? She’s not
Catholic.”

I don’t know why Lily bothered to dry her
face. It’s wet again.

“All that matters is that we’re here for
them. The boys . . .” Her eyes seem to float in every direction.
She squeezes them shut and covers her mouth. She can’t do a fucking
thing.

I put my arm around her. “We are.”

When we open the door, Ronnie’s marching up
the plain white corridor ahead of Eric, a man on a mission. We’ve
never met face to face, but I’ve seen pictures. I never noticed how
much they look alike. When he looks at me, I see her eyes staring
back and can’t move.

I feel his fist hook into my stomach. I’d
vomit again if there were anything in there. I don’t resist it or
even flex, but let myself absorb the blow and fall to the floor.
And, eventually, start breathing again.

“You deserve that.” He points down at me,
changing his daunting posture to help me up.

“That and more.” I agree, then take him with
us to see the kids.

I notice straight away how the boys stiffen
when they see him. Not in a creepy way, more of an
oh-shit-this-is-real way. They don’t cling to him like they do me
or Lily. They nod and wipe their faces as he tells them he’s sorry
and, “everything will be fine, don’t worry.”

Dr. Ying’s gone and Ronnie starts a round of
questions. Rather than put anyone through trying to answer, I
decide to help find the doctor. Besides, I can’t recall any real
information about what happened. I don’t remember what he said.

Eric follows along until we find Dr. Ying at
a nurses’ station. When he spots us, his shoulders drop. My stomach
hurts. He introduces himself to Ronnie and since we’re absent of
children, I ask for the hard truth.

Dr. Ying looks to Grace’s brother. “And you,
sir?”

“Tell me everything.” He crosses his arms
over his chest.

Dr. Ying passes off a clipboard to a nearby
nurse and gives her instructions as she gawks at me. Unflinching.
Like I’m a damned television set. I cover my face as he leads us
back into another damned room and sits us down. He takes a napkin
from beside the water cooler and starts to draw on it. A human-like
figure meant to represent my wife.

“As I said before, she passed en route, so
the extent of her injuries and the exact cause of death will have
to be determined by the coroner. But we suspect it was a uterine
tear which caused the blood loss.

“She had notable markings to her head,” he
draws an X on the drawing’s head. “Her left shoulder appeared
dislocated. There were signs of injury and a large hematoma,” he
makes another X on the drawing’s shoulder, then in the right knee
area, lines on her wrists, and makes a separate picture to describe
the uterine tear that caused the bleeding.

“Had she been in a hospital setting, we
would’ve detected and stopped the hemorrhage.”

“She’s dead because she was alone. Because I
wasn’t there to protect her.”

“No, man.” Ronnie clears his throat. “She’s
gone because . . . well, because sometimes, bad things happen to
good people. It’s nothing more than that.”

I look into his eyes, her eyes, and see his
broken spirit. “I’m so sorry.”

“We all are,” he nods.

Finally, Dr. Ying crumples the paper napkin
and looks up. “The police are still down in the lobby, Mr.
Matthews. They’re waiting to speak with you.”

Evan—

My wife is practically inhuman, they say.
She showed impossible skill, if the secondary crime scene they’ve
been surveying tells the story they think it does.

The detectives and John are all kind,
personable, and sympathetic. I want to rip them all apart.

John’s wearing his jacket this time,
buttoning and unbuttoning as they relay the findings. I want to
tell them to stop talking, I’ve heard enough. But Ronnie seems very
interested in every detail. He’s absorbed, almost disconnected, as
he listens to what they know so far and asks more questions.

The baby was one to two hours old when they
found him. He was lying on top of her. She was in the open hatch of
her Cherokee, without dignity. They found, surrounding her inside
the car, her pants and shoes, items of a first-aid kit she kept.
They say she must have gone into labor on her way back to the
car.