A Little Ray of Sunshine (21 page)

He walked around behind the couch and touched me lightly on the shoulder as he passed by. I reached my fingers up, just grazing his before he moved on down the hallway. I watched him go, then looked back to find Digs watching me with a look of mock-disgust.

“What?” I said.

“You do know he’s your stepbrother now, right?” he said, a light smile tracking at the edges of his eyes.

“No,” I said, pulling a piece of egg roll off and popping it in my mouth. “It doesn’t count. If the children are adults who have already had a relationship before the parents ever got together, it doesn’t count.”

“Whatever,” he said, digging his fork into his sesame chicken. “You big freak.”

I laughed and punched him lightly on the leg, and then we fell into exhausted silence and ate
.

***

It was a horrible day, the day I realized that I wasn’t one of those nurturing, capable mothers who would instinctively know the right thing to do. All I was was a woman who’d had sex, and gotten caught.

—Lilly Lorraine, in a letter to Danny Greene, undated

Nineteen

I woke up at six the next morning, hopped out of bed and shuffled off to check on Jess. Danny was sitting in the easy chair next to her bed, his face turned thoughtfully toward the window. He didn’t seem to notice me until I sat on the arm of the chair next to him.

“Any change?” I whispered.

He shook his head. “She slept the whole night through. She might wake up and come out of it soon.”

For the first time, though, his eyes had lost their typical hopeful glimmer. I glanced at Jess. Her face was deeply shadowed, and though she’d always been tiny, she looked downright small and fragile, like a sick child.

“My turn,” I said, patting him on the shoulder. “You go get some sleep.”

“Not yet,” he said. “You get cleaned up, have some breakfast. Your mother is downstairs making you something right now, and she’s going to need you to eat, so you go down and do that. I’ll be fine until you’re ready.”

I leaned down and kissed him on the top of the head.

“Thanks, Danny,” I whispered. “You’re the best dad God ever made, you know.”

He smiled at me, and I pushed off the chair and left the room. A few moments later, I came down into the kitchen to find Mom cooking like a madwoman. There were eggs, bacon, waffles, pancakes, cinnamon rolls and, as if that weren’t enough, sausages were sizzling in a pan on the stove. She wiped her hands on her apron when she saw me and poured me a cup of coffee which was ready and waiting for me by the time I made it to the breakfast bar.

“Expecting company?” I asked, staring at the spread.

“Cooking soothes me,” she said, turning to grab a plate from the cupboard. “Besides, when Jess comes out of it she’s going to be hungry. Poor thing hasn’t eaten since...”

She trailed off and our eyes met briefly, then she heaped scrambled eggs and bacon onto the plate.

“Please eat,” she said quietly, placing the plate in front of me. “Even if you’re not hungry.”

“I’m starving,” I lied, pulling the plate toward me and digging in. I took a big bite of eggs and my stomach railed against it, but I broke off a piece of bacon and stuffed it in my mouth anyway. “Thanks, Mom.”

She smiled, took the sausage off the heat and leaned both hands against the counter. I ate slower because I didn’t imagine my immediately throwing up her food would make her feel better, and I’d made my point, anyway. She let out a big sigh.

“Something happens to you when you have a child,” she said. “You think you have a grip on the world, that you can handle whatever life has in store for you. And then this little person shows up and you would gladly throw yourself in front of a train for her without even thinking. And every time anything happens to any child, anywhere, in your head, it’s your kid, you know? Every tragedy in the world, for a few seconds, it’s yours. It’s exhausting and frightening and some people...” She paused and took a deep breath, and when she spoke again, her voice cracked. “Some people just aren’t strong enough for it.”

I put down my fork. I knew what was coming. It was odd, considering how badly I’d wanted to hear it for so many years, to find that, now that the moment was here, I wanted more to save her from the pain of it.

“Mom—” I started, but she talked over me.

“Dr. Travers never told me not to apologize. That was a lie.”

I blinked. That wasn’t what I’d been expecting. Once again, Lilly Lorraine had surprised me. “Okay, look, maybe now isn’t the time for—”

“I was scared. It was all I had left, the only thing I had that you still needed. If I gave it to you, and you didn’t forgive me, I’d have nothing left. It would be over.”

She paused and I tried to think of something to say, but I couldn’t. She grabbed a tissue from the box on the counter and went on.

“And then I sit in that room with that sweet girl, and I think, ‘What would her mother want to say if she knew her baby was here like this?’” She turned her face to me, her eyes red-rimmed and weepy, but her mouth was set in firm resolve. “I’m sorry.”

“Mom, it’s—”

She leaned forward, reaching one hand out toward me on the counter. “No. Emmy, I’m sorry. I’m truly, truly sorry.”

I patted her hand and pushed up off my stool. I grabbed a plate from the cupboard and filled it, then walked around the breakfast bar, set it down next to mine, and pulled out the stool next to me.

“You’re forgiven,” I said. “Now sit down and eat something. You’re too damn skinny.”

She laughed, snatched another tissue from the box on the counter and swiped at her face, then sat down next to me and took a bite of eggs.

“So, these are supposed to be my fat and happy years, huh?” she asked.

“Yep.” I grabbed a cinnamon roll off the platter in front of us and put it on the edge of her plate. “Get cracking, Lilly. You’re behind the curve.”

***

It was about ten o’clock that morning when Luke came back from the private detective’s office with the information about Jess. I knew that whatever the news was, it was bad. I could tell by the tone of the muffled voices, and the sound of Mom’s sniffling that drifted up to the guest room from the foyer. I pulled my legs up to my chest, waiting for the news to come to me. A few minutes later, there was a knock on the door. I got up to find Luke and Danny standing in the hallway, their faces grim. Danny put his hand on my shoulder and guided me out, stepping wordlessly into the room and shutting the door behind him. Luke’s face was tight and he stared down at the folded piece of paper in his hands. He finally raised his eyes to meet mine and then handed me the sheet.

I unfolded it to find a photocopy of a newspaper clipping from the Forster County News in eastern Michigan, with the headline, MISSING WOMAN FOUND:

A woman reported missing last week has been located, authorities report.

Jessica Marinello Szyzynski, 25, failed to show up for work at the Dorr Public Library in Dorr Township last week, causing a panic among her co-workers. Szyzynski had been suffering from a depression since her husband and baby son were killed in the pileup on I-196 last summer, and there had been fears of a possible suicide attempt.

“
She was a foster child,” her supervisor, Elizabeth Masters, said. “She had no family. Tim and little Matty were her whole life. When they died, something in her just shut down.”

Workers and patrons from the library pooled their money to hire a private detective to locate the woman.

“
She was always such a sweet and happy girl,” said library patron Sandra Coolidge, 83. “We all loved her dearly.”

The private detective found Szyzynski staying with a friend in Two Trees, Oklahoma. She sent the following message to the Forster County News and requested we print it for her:

“
Dear Friends,

“
I am so deeply sorry for any worry I might have caused you, and I am sorry I couldn’t say goodbye to you all. Thank you for everything. I’m safe; please don’t worry about me.”

“
At least we know she’s safe,” said Masters. “We’re just glad that nothing terrible has happened to her. Well, nothing else.”

I checked the date on the article; it had been written three years earlier. I folded the paper up and handed it to Luke. I looked up at him, but couldn’t say anything. I mean, what could I say? It was worse than I could have imagined, and I wasn’t prepared for it. I had thought she was like me, that she had done something dumb and abandoned people who loved her, people we could fly in to see her, people who would save her through their sheer loving presence. But there was no one. I felt numb and anxious about what was coming, like the moments between when you hit your thumb with the hammer and when you actually feel it.

“Thanks,” I said, and turned toward the door to Jess’s room.

“Eejie,” I heard Luke say, but I continued on into the room. Danny opened his mouth to say something, but if he did, I didn’t hear him. A moment later, as I sat in the big chair staring at Jess’s face, I heard the door click shut behind them, and it was then that I started to cry.

***

Much of that day blends together in my memory. I remember refusing lunch and dinner until I was sitting in the dark, but I don’t think I had any reliable consciousness of time passing. It felt like seconds, and it felt like days. All I could see was Jess’s face, and all I could think was,
What if it were me?
What if Luke and I had stayed together, and had a baby, and what if...? My stomach turned just thinking about it. I couldn’t even wrap my mind around what she had been through and I wanted to reach her wherever she was now, but I couldn’t. All I could do was sit there with her and make sure that she wasn’t alone, so I was determined to do that. On occasion, Mom or Danny would come in and ask to relieve me, but I refused. I’m not sure if at that point I was much more responsive than Jess. I knew that by the time they sent Luke in, the room had been dark for a while.

He came in and turned on the small desk lamp, which didn’t add much light to the room, but still made me squint. He shut the door behind him and stood next to it for a while. I kept my eyes on Jess, who had rolled over in the bed so her back was to me, but I watched her body carefully to be sure she was still breathing. She was. Shallowly, but there was movement.

“Eejie,” he said, his voice registering just above a whisper, “you’ve been in here for ten hours.”

I shrugged, keeping my eyes on Jess. Luke leaned over, trying to get into my eyeline, but I just closed my eyes.

“Hey.” He touched my face and I opened my eyes and looked at him. He looked tired and worried and his hair was its old, beautiful mess and I didn’t even care.

“Lilly made some food. It would really mean a lot to her if you would go down and eat something. I’ll stay with Jess, okay?”

“No,” I said. “She’s going to come out of it soon, and I need to be here when she does.”

Luke glanced behind him at the bed, where Jess lay motionless except for the slight movements of breathing. He turned back to me.

“Babe, look. Dad and Lilly need to talk to you about that.”

Alarm shot through me. “What do you mean?”

“It’s been two days, Eej. She hasn’t eaten. She...” He shook his head. “You need to go down and talk to Dad and your mom. I will come and get you the second she moves, I swear.”

I started at him as the cold realization washed over me: They wanted to put her in a hospital. She didn’t have any family to make the call, so it was down to me. I was going to have to convince them not to do it, and I didn’t know how to do that, especially because all the logic stated that we should have called the hospital that first morning. But my gut was screaming no, and Jess believed in that, so I had to believe in it, too.

I slowly pushed myself up from the chair. Luke put his hand on the small of my back and guided me to the door. I glanced back at him and he gave me a small, encouraging smile.

“I’ll be here,” he said.

I felt weak, my muscles shaking, as I walked down the stairs. The lights in the house seemed uncomfortably bright, and when I came into the kitchen, Danny, Digs and Mom descended upon me. Danny walked me to the breakfast bar and sat me down on the stool, Digs put a blanket around my shoulders, and Mom poured some broth into a mug and slid it in front of me. I got a few sips in before Mom said, “Emmy—,” and I said, “No.”

“EJ,” Danny said. “There are doctors there that can help her.”

“I know.” I took a sip of the broth, then set the mug down. “I know. There’s not an argument you can make that I don’t agree with.”

Mom reached across the breakfast bar and touched my hand. “Honey, she could die.”

“She will die, if I send her to a hospital. I don’t know how I know that, but I just know. Jess, she... she follows her gut on everything. And I’m all she has right now, I have to do that for her. And my gut just says no. No hospital.”

“Okay,” Danny said, his voice strong and soothing and fatherly. “Okay, then. No hospital tonight.” Mom opened her mouth and Danny held up one hand. “
Tonight
. But, EJ, sweetheart, if she’s not eating by tomorrow morning...”

I raised my eyes to Mom’s. She held them for a long moment, then slowly nodded. I couldn’t nod back. I just knew she couldn’t go to a hospital. I felt that the only thing keeping her here was all of us, and how much we’d all grown to love her in such a short time. It didn’t make any sense. I knew she needed food, I knew she needed care, I just couldn’t agree to it.

Except I had no choice. At a certain point, she was sure to die at home, too. Didn’t matter where you were if you weren’t eating.

“Okay,” I said finally. Mom’s shoulders slumped in relief. “I’ll just get her to eat, then.”

I picked up my mug of broth and started for the stairs. I had no idea how I was going to get Jess to drink it. As a matter of fact, I was pretty sure I’d fail, but trying was the only thing I had left in my arsenal, so I was going to try. I could hear footsteps behind me, but whether it was just Mom or all three of them, my brain was too addled to distinguish. I opened the door to Jess’s room and walked in. Luke hopped up from the chair and walked over to us. I could hear him and Danny talking in low tones behind me as I knelt by the bed, but I couldn’t hear what they were saying.