Red Heart Tattoo (15 page)

K
elli felt as if her tears would never dry up. She was sick and tired of crying, and yet she couldn’t stop moving from one tear-filled crisis to another: the unwanted pregnancy; Mark’s abandonment of her; the explosion at school that had killed friends and teachers, made her miscarry and damaged Mark, putting him permanently in a wheelchair; and now the news that Morgan couldn’t see, not even after her eyes had “healed,” and extensive testing could find no reason as to why she was still blind. “No physiological reason,” Morgan’s doctors had said. Which left only one place to go. Her blindness was in her head, locked inside her mind.

Worst for Kelli was that her mother, Jane, didn’t seem to get it. “I understand that you’re sad, Kelli,” Jane would say. “But life goes on. You can’t grieve forever.”

Why not?
Kelli wondered. Grief was familiar. She knew
the ins and outs of it. Jane took her to one of several grief counselors the school had chosen; with classes to begin again in mid-January, visiting with a counselor was mandatory for all survivors of the atrium, and available to the other students. Kelli was told she had post-traumatic stress disorder—PTSD.
No kidding
. Kelli found the session unsatisfactory. How could she bare her soul to this stranger? She came home with pamphlets on grief management that Jane pinned on the kitchen bulletin board and that Kelli ignored.

Her most difficult task was visiting Mark when he came home from a physical rehab center. His mother greeted Kelli at the front door, her manner tentative but kind. “Mark’s in the sunroom.” She led Kelli to the back of the house. The screened sunroom had been transformed into an all-season room with real walls, hardwood floors, furniture and all kinds of rehab equipment. Mark was in a wheelchair doing arm exercises on a cable machine. He stopped cold when Kelli and his mother entered. His face reddened. Kelli knew he didn’t want her seeing him like this—his physique gaunt, his once-powerful football legs already shrunken with atrophied muscles. Instant pity swelled up inside her.

“I won’t stay long,” Kelli said, both for Mark’s and his mother’s benefit. His mother left and an awkward silence descended. Kelli broke it first. “You look good.”

Mark shook his head. “Why’d you come? To gloat?”

“Because I care.” She wasn’t his enemy. How could he think she was glad he was crippled?

He eyed her skeptically but said, “I’m going to walk again. You wait and see.”

She had no idea what his doctors had told him about his paralysis, but she knew Mark well enough to know he had set his own goal in spite of whatever he’d been told. “That’s good. I figured you’d go for it.”

His expression softened as he accepted her assessment. “No football, though. Not ever.”

He turned his head so that she couldn’t see his eyes, but she suspected tears. He’d loved football. More than her, more than their baby. She asked, “Will you come to school when it reopens? Will you graduate with our class?”

“Not sure. No rush to graduate. No more coaches waiting in the wings to offer me scholarships. My folks said they’ll hire tutors if I want them.”

Jane had given Kelli no such option. “I’m going back.”

“How about Morgan? She returning?”

Kelli shrugged. “You hear that she’s still blind?”

“I read it on the Edison site. I heard her docs can’t explain why.” Blogs by Edison students were all over the Internet and social networking websites. Everyone had something to say, some gossip to spread. Most of it was speculation or untrue, but not the news about Morgan’s eyesight—that was all true.

“She has to go to a shrink because she should be able to see,” Kelli said before she thought. “Um—that’s not for publication. She told me but doesn’t want it to get spread around yet.”

“I can keep a secret.”

She recalled how carefully they had both kept their secret. Of course, it didn’t matter now. A wave of grief crashed through her. “I should go,” Kelli said, clearing her throat. “I just stopped by for a minute.”

“Tell her hi for me, okay?”

“Next time I see her.”

“I miss Trent. You’re lucky that your best friend is still alive.”

That much was true. “So are we, Mark.”

He held her gaze for a long time and she could tell he didn’t feel lucky to be living.

His despondence made her terribly sad. “I—I should go.”

“Glad you came by,” he said.

She didn’t believe him. She left the room quickly because she didn’t want to break down in front of him. Kelli had made it to the front door when Mark’s mother stepped into the foyer and put her hand on Kelli’s hand before she could turn the doorknob and rush outside. “I—I want to say something,” she said.

Kelli didn’t turn; she simply braced for what she might say.

“Our first grandchild … we wanted him. We would have loved him with all our hearts. You and Mark would have always had our support and help, no matter what.” Her voice broke. “Would you have kept him—the baby?”

Chills went through Kelli as the words soaked into her. “I would have kept him.” She almost added the word
“alone,” but checked herself. No need to confess that Mark hadn’t wanted their grandson. There was too much pain already. She eased open the door, stepped out into cold bracing air that stung her face and numbed her nose and cheeks.

She got into Jane’s car, turned on the engine and heater, shivered until the heat filled the interior. She thought of summer days from the year before. Days of soaring happiness when nothing mattered but being with Mark and when their love had been all-consuming. She could have told his mother the truth. She could have wept and railed and seethed about her hurt and his rejection. Yet she hadn’t. It had been an act of kindness, of thinking about someone else’s feelings more than her own. Who knew kindness had been lurking in her heart? “Good going, Kelli,” she said above the sound of the auto’s heater. “You’re a fine Big Girl. You have been kind to Mark and his mother. Maybe you can be kinder to yourself now.”

Morgan was sent to a psychiatrist, a doctor who was more than a counselor, because her soul was scarred so deeply that she needed special treatment—behavioral therapy and perhaps medication. People didn’t remain blind for no reason.

The shrink, Dr. Wehrenburg, was a kind middle-aged woman with a quiet voice and a way of making a panicked patient feel calm in her presence. And Morgan and her parents needed calming. Without a medical reason for her
continued blindness, Morgan speculated that she was going mad. Dr. Peg, as she liked to be called, insisted this wasn’t the case after a few sessions. “You’ve suffered a severe trauma. This is post-traumatic stress, survivor syndrome and, I believe, conversion disorder, which was once called hysterical blindness.”

“Meaning?” her mother asked.

“Morgan saw something so traumatic that her mind is unable to cope with it.”

“I saw my school blow up. Wasn’t that traumatic enough?”

“No one else is blind,” Paige countered over Morgan’s statement.

“You may have seen something else,” Dr. Peg said to Morgan directly. “Something your brain doesn’t want to relive.”

“I ‘saw’ my dead boyfriend,” she said bitterly. “He talked to me. Hugged me.”

“A coping mechanism,” Dr. Peg said. “There may be something else, though.”

“How am I supposed to know what I saw if I can’t remember it?” Morgan snapped at the doctor.

“That’s where I come in—to guide you, help you.” Dr. Peg’s voice was soothing, but not patronizing.

“How?”

“Talking about your trauma with me. Talking in a group with other PTSD patients. Perhaps another event or conversation will trigger the memory. I believe you’ll eventually remember, and when you do, your sight will
return. You have a lot going for you—a supportive family, intelligence, determination.”

“How long? I’m a senior. I want to go to college. I don’t want to be blind!” But even as Morgan said the words, she felt as if she were stepping through mud, pulling and tugging on sludge inside her head that wouldn’t move.

“We’ll get this dealt with, Morgan. Don’t give up.”

Later, on the ride home, her father said, “You’re going to whip this, honey. You’ll go to college. Even if we have to hire a tutor for you while you attend.”

“Won’t that be fun. Me and my red-tipped cane and a tutor taking notes for me.” Morgan gripped the armrest in the car’s backseat, needing something tangible to hold on to. “School starts up next week. I wanted to go back.”

“If that’s what you want—”

“I don’t want everyone feeling sorry for me!” she cried. “I’m the student council president, not a pity party waiting to happen.”

“Everyone’s hurting,” Hal said. “The whole school. The whole community. Everyone’s scarred. Go back or stay home. This is your call.”

Morgan heard her mother say, “There’s someone in our driveway.”

As the car rolled to a halt, Paige said, “It’s Roth.” She opened her car door. “Roth?”

Morgan heard him approach, stamping his feet against the cold that was now rushing inside the auto and stinging her face.

“I—I’m sorry to just show up. I tried your office and your cell, but couldn’t get hold of you.”

“It’s all right. What’s happened?”

Morgan heard her mother’s attorney voice kick into gear.

“The cops called. They want me down at the station now. They want to interview me about the explosion.”

“T
hank you for coming in, Mr. Rothman,” Detective Sanchez said, stepping inside the interrogation room.

Roth’s nerves were in a tangle. The detective and her partner, Wolcheski, had kept him and Paige waiting for more than twenty minutes in a small windowless room once they’d arrived at the station. The walls were a dirty cream color and marked with smudges and scrapes. The table was chipped and scarred, the chairs straight and uncomfortable. Everything about the room was shabby government issue.

“Standard procedure,” Paige had told him after ten minutes with the detectives a no-show. “They want you to sweat.”

“It’s working,” Roth said.

Max had tried to go in with Roth and Paige, insisting, “I’m his legal guardian.”

Sanchez had stopped him. “Sorry. Your nephew is eighteen. No longer a minor. You’ll wait out here.”

Carla had squeezed Roth’s hand hard. “We’ll be here to take you home.”

By the time the detectives came into the stuffy room, Roth was ready to jump out of his skin. They took their places, Sanchez sitting across from Roth and Paige, Wolcheski standing by the door. “Can I get you anything?” Sanchez asked. “Soda? Water?”

“A quick interview,” Paige said, sounding irritated. “My client came of his own accord.”

Sanchez opened a file folder. “I see you have a list of complaints for bad behavior.”

“No charges, though,” Paige said.

Sanchez ignored her. “Truancy—multiple times. Graffiti on school walls. Fighting on school property. One school suspension. A complaint of petty theft.”

“Charges dropped by the store manager,” Paige said.

Roth relaxed a little. His lawyer didn’t act the least bit perturbed. He was ashamed. A few years of toeing the line weren’t going to make up for his previous bad behavior in the cops’ eyes. Once bad, always bad, he surmised. No room for his life’s circumstances.

Sanchez looked up, offered a tight smile. “You have tats.” She said it as if it were a character flaw.

Roth glanced down at his arm, at the ink band of barbed wire circling his right wrist. He tugged down the sleeve of his sweatshirt. “My uncle’s in the business. My tats are free. And I like them.”

“I don’t think body ink is against the law, Detective,” Paige inserted.

Sanchez shut the folder, leaned forward. “Well, I’ll tell you what is against the law, Mr. Rothman. Setting off fireworks on school property and having the school evacuated.”

Roth felt his heart seize and sweat beads break out on his forehead. How did they—? He sidled a glance at Paige, certain that she was going to get up and walk out of the room because he hadn’t told her about his September prank.

To her credit, Paige leaned toward the detective, cool and collected. “And you can prove this?”

“We read the Edison blogs and social network pages, Mr. Rothman. You’ve been ratted out.”

“Hearsay,” Paige interjected. “Those sites are filled with conjectures and rumors. Kids love to trash-talk and you can’t separate truth from fiction.”

Sanchez eased back into her chair. “But it leads me to ask a most important question. Wouldn’t fireworks be one step down from setting an actual bomb? A test run, so to speak?”

“Are you asking? Or charging?” Paige wanted to know.

“I want to know if your client set that bomb that killed nine people,” Sanchez said bluntly, not taking her eyes off Roth. “And I want him to answer.”

Shaken, Roth said clearly, “I did not set off any bomb.”

“Please remember, my client ran into the school to help victims,” Paige said quickly, her voice rising in pitch. “He saved several lives by his quick actions.”

“Including your daughter’s,” Sanchez said, looking squarely at Paige for the first time since they’d all sat down.

Paige ignored the comment. “Are you charging my client with anything?”