Cottonwood (37 page)

He watched her fight in perfect silence to smooth her breath, to keep the water in her eyes and not on her face. He watched, and when she had settled, more or less, he said, “We were robbed.”

“Some of that going around,” the guard watching them agreed.

Sarah nodded once and looked at T’aki. She reached out in a hopeless sort of way to touch his son’s back, but T’aki didn’t feel it. He watched, all eyes and wonder, as humans on the small monitor created fire from their bare hands and threw it into the snarling face of a huge, fanged monster. “Did they take anything important?” she asked. “I guess I can make some phone calls while I’m here.”

“They took our radio,” said Sanford.

She looked at him, her eyes over-bright. Of course she knew he had no radio.

“It is the only thing I have of any value and I want it back,” he said. He could not be more clear than that, not without great risk. “I want it back.”

Her eyes shifted to the guard in the doorway, then dropped. She touched T’aki again, stroking the high curve of the back of his head, unfelt.

“Yeah, the little ones are cute, huh?” The guard, distracted by something the human medics were doing elsewhere in the hall, leaned out to watch them, then spat unselfconsciously on the floor. “Tell you what, Pollyanna, since I didn’t get you flowers, I’ll see if I can get you a baby bug when you get back.”

Sanford stiffened. Sarah closed her eyes.

“I bet you could teach it to fetch a ball if you tried. What do you say, little man?” The guard strolled jovially over and plucked the earpiece off T’aki’s head. “Want to go home with the princess here and live with her?”

T’aki’s eyes grew huge and round. He sprang up, bouncing on the bed in his excitement. “Oh yes-yes! Can I, father?”

Sanford said nothing. Sarah’s eyes, shut, leaked water in trickles down her soft cheek.

“That’ll be so much fun, huh?” The guard cupped T’aki’s head in his hand and gave it a rough shake. “Get you a collar and a license and a big red ball!”

Sarah took a deep, wet breath and let it out slowly. She opened her eyes. Her mouth smiled. “Thank you so much for coming to see me, Mr. Lantz,” she said.

“No problem, princess. I enjoyed it. Come on, buggies. Time to go home.”

T’aki climbed down from the bed reluctantly. “Goodbye, Sarah!”

“Bye, honey.” A ragged breath. She said, “I’ll be back soon and I’ll deal with you then, Mr. Sanford, all right? You people. You…aliens from outer space.”

My all-time favorite, she’d called that one. The one she would give anything to see again.

“Get out,” Sarah said strengthlessly. She lay down in the bed and faced away.

Sanford left, taking T’aki close behind him. The guard gave him a slap to the back as he came out into the hall, a hard slap. “Tough break, buggie. I could have told you it was all a waste. But a fun morning out, huh?”

Sanford said nothing. He went quietly back down through the screams and stink of the hospital, and into the armored van, which was by then something of a haven. He sat on the bench, leaning forward to alleviate some of the strain of his bonds, clicking wordless comfort at T’aki now and then, in between firm commands to sit still, to behave. They would not be out of danger until they were home and the guards away. They would not be out of danger even then.

But he felt better for having seen her, not unconscious and surrounded by strangers as she’d been in the news-sheet, but sitting up, holding his son, making her hurt attempts at a smile. He only wished she hadn’t felt it necessary to call him a bug. It didn’t bother him to hear it…but she was in enough pain.

* * *

The ‘good stuff’ at Sacred Heart wasn’t anywhere near as good as the stuff in IBI’s medical wing, but pain, Sarah soon discovered, had anesthetizing properties of its own. She had no idea how much time had passed since the attack. Directly across from her bed, mounted at eye-level on the wall where she could not but see it anytime her eyes were open, was a whiteboard with the date helpfully printed on it each morning by the nurse on duty, but the numbers made no sense to her. If the whiteboard told her it was a Thursday, that was fine, but the next time she looked at it, it would be Thursday all over again, for the first time. She couldn’t remember what day it had been when Piotr attacked her in her kitchen. She couldn’t count the days she had been lying in this bed looking at that whiteboard. She slept until the pain woke her up and lay awake until the exhaustion was enough to let her sleep past the pain, and those were her days.

Gradually, other impressions began to make themselves known. Thirst came first. The nurses brought her ice chips to suck on, which didn’t help at all. Sometimes she hid the cup under the blankets until the ice melted and she could drink the swallow or so of lukewarm water this deception yielded (and puke it promptly back up again, as often as not), but it wasn’t really worth the effort and the nurses scolded her whenever they caught her. The not-so-good stuff made her stupidly sensitive to being scolded, but just knowing intellectually that she was overreacting did not stop her from bawling all over herself at every sharp word that came her way.

After a few more uncountable days, they started bringing her drinks and soft foods that sat in her stomach like hot iron, when she could keep them down at all. They made her sit up all day, even when she cried, and with the help of a thoroughly unsympathetic therapist, she was soon walking herself to the bathroom and back. Ultimately, she was able to look at the whiteboard, see that it was a Thursday and know that yesterday had been Wednesday and tomorrow would be Friday, but her days were still little more than one long fog, broken by blood-pressure cuffs and electronic pinging, with pain the only anchor holding her to life.

She received a few dozen cards—mostly from people she worked with, some from complete strangers—and a handful of floral arrangements, including a massive spray of  lilies and roses from Mr. van Meyer. Sanford wasn’t her only visitor, although he was definitely the best of them. Even during her worst days, when she could barely think, much less speak, she was vaguely aware of people coming and going around her. As her condition improved, the nurses would periodically come in to tell her that so-and-so from Channel Such-and-Such or The Blah-Blah Paper was downstairs and did she want to talk to them, but she never did, and by the time of Sanford’s surprise visit, they had stopped altogether. Found some other ambulance to chase, she supposed, and was glad of it. The only one she had to talk to was the cop.

He came soon after Sanford left, so soon that she wondered if maybe the hospital was trying to arrest her for bringing in a bug, but no. He said he was there to take her statement. About the attack, he had to amplify when she continued to stare at him in confusion. So she told him essentially the same story she’d told Piotr, with little embellishment and only when prompted by direct questions. She’d left the door to the backyard open for her dog. She’d come home after dark, seeing nothing unusual, suspecting nothing. Someone had covered her head from behind. She had been beaten until she fell to the floor and then kicked. She thought there had been more than one person, but she hadn’t seen them. Someone had knocked on the door (and no, she didn’t know them either) and her attackers had run off. She crawled to the van, drove to the hospital, and that was all there was to the story.

He brought out his paz and referred to it often as she talked, but didn’t appear to be making any notes. “You can’t describe them at all?” he asked when she was done.

“No, sir.”

“Male? Female? Black? White?” He pulled a chair over and sat down, making it clear that he had nowhere else to be. “Human?”

“Of course they were human! What else would they be?”

“You were at Cottonwood.”

“Yeah, but I was at home. The immigrants never leave the containment area.”

“Uh huh.” He did not pretend to look convinced. “So, three assailants.”

“Maybe. Maybe only two. I didn’t see them.”

“So how do you know there were three?”

“It felt like three when they were kicking me. I wasn’t exactly counting them, though. That’s why I said, ‘Three, I
think
,’” she added waspishly. “You might want to be writing this down.”

“I will as soon as you give me something to write,” he countered. “Do you have any enemies?”

“No.”

“Do you work directly with the bugs?”

“Yes.”

That, he wrote down.

“Why didn’t you dial 99 from the house when you realized how badly you’d been hurt?” he asked.

“I wasn’t thinking. I was just trying to get away.”

“IBI has a world-class medical facility right on-site,” he said. His eyes were like bullets. “They were two minutes away at most. Instead, you drove thirty-three miles to Wheaton’s pissant branch of Sacred Heart.”

“I wasn’t thinking. I can barely even remember that night. I’m sure I wasn’t rational.”

“You’re sure. And are you sure you didn’t see who did it?”

She shook her head stubbornly.

“Did they say anything? Could you tell if they were male or female from their voices?”

“No. They never made a sound.”

“So, just to be sure I’ve got this straight, you came home and maybe three people grabbed you from behind, covered your head, and commenced to kicking the shit out of you without saying one word. You still can’t think of who this might be or what they might have wanted?”

“I’m sorry it doesn’t make sense. I’m sure most violent crimes do.”

“Lady, I get paid the same whether you’re a smart-ass or not.” The cop snapped his paz shut and glared at her. “You know, if it had been me getting beat to death on my kitchen floor, I’d want the guys responsible caught. Call me crazy. You sure you can’t remember anything useful?”

She had nothing to say to him. At last he let her go. She got the feeling he was a little disgusted with her, but just then the nurse came with another tray full of molten lead for her to eat, this time in the disguise of chicken soup and ice cream, so she couldn’t spare the strength to care.

When the nurse woke her for a phone call later that evening, Sarah assumed it was the cop with some follow-up insinuations. In no mood to field them, she put on her best I’m-drugged-and-at-death’s-door voice as she took the handset and mumbled, “Hello.”

Kate’s voice, however tinny through this cheap phone, nevertheless gave her sleepy brain a slap. “What the
hell
happened? And why the hell did I hear about it from Bob in the goddamn breakroom? No, don’t even bother! You don’t call, you don’t answer my messages…apparently, you don’t think I need to know when my baby sister has to have emergency friggin’ surgery!”

“It’s not that ba—”

“Don’t you dare tell me it’s not that bad!” Kate shouted, loudly enough to make static pop through the earpiece. “Do you think I’m stupid enough to talk to you before talking to the goddamn nurse? I know exactly how bad this is and…and you know what? Forget it. I don’t even know why I called. I’m getting in my car—”

“You don’t have to—”

“—and I’m driving right the hell to Kansas and if I can find one unbruised inch on your body, I’m punching it!”

“Kate—”

“Why haven’t you called? Exactly how long was I supposed to wait before you got around to that? The last thing I hear is how you got knocked around and then nothing for
two weeks
?! What the hell is
wrong
with you, Sarah? Didn’t they ever ask if there was someone they should call?”

“Yes, but—”

“But what? But
nothing
, that’s what! But more of your stubborn bullshit! No, go ahead, but I’m warning you, this had better be the best ‘but’ I’ve ever heard in my damn life or I’m coming down there, I swear to God!”

“I didn’t want them to know I had a sister.”

Silence, apart from Kate’s breathing.

“I’m sorry,” Sarah said. “I got caught up at work and then…and then this happened. I was going to call as soon as I got home, I swear.” That sounded exactly as weak as it was and all she could manage to shore it up with was, “The doctor says I’m recovering nicely.”

The sound of Kate throwing her keys noisily onto the kitchen table jangled over the line. “You’re giving me an ulcer. I can actually feel the ulcer happening. Do you have any idea what that feels like?”

Sarah opened her mouth to say no, but that she had whole new levels of understanding on what a ruptured liver felt like…and wisely shut it again.

“So.” More rustling and thumping on Kate’s end. “Any idea when you’re getting out?”

“They haven’t said. A couple more weeks, I guess.”

“Are you going home?”

“Yes,” said Sarah, and only after her sister’s sharp sigh of relief and whispered, “Thank God!” did she realize that Kate hadn’t said, ‘Are you
going
home?’ but ‘Are you
coming
home?’ And that was very different. “To my home,” she amended timidly. “In Cottonwood.”

Another silence, longer this time.

“What’s it going to take?” Kate asked finally. “How bad does it have to get before you walk away?”

“They need me.”

“Godammit,
I
need you! We’re family, Sarah! I don’t care what you think you’re doing out there, you’re all I’ve got! Doesn’t that mean anything to you anymore?”

The same argument, virtually word for word, that she’d used when Sarah was loading up the van to leave home, only now she didn’t have to add, “You don’t know what you’re doing. You’re going to get hurt,” because she was already hurt.

“The nurse is coming back,” Sarah said, even though the nurse was nowhere in sight. “I have to go.”

“Fine. Call me when you get out. Oh, and I left, like, a hundred messages on your paz for when you get home. Just ignore them,” Kate added with one last twist of the familiar knife. “You will anyway.”

Click. Dead air.

Sarah hung up and put the phone on the rolling stand for the nurse to take away the next time she came through on her rounds. She turned off her light, but even with the help of the drugs in her IV line, she didn’t go to sleep for a long, long time.