Finding Purgatory (13 page)

Tori shoved him with exasperated playfulness. “Jesus, put that away.” She crossed her arms. “Why are you trying so hard just to be friends?”

His eyes glinted. “Because I love you. Not like that,” he said quickly when Tori started to protest. He ducked his head. “Well, not only like that. We’ve been friends for a while now, Tor. Friendship is just another form of love. You don’t let yourself lose the people you love.”

Tori bit the inside of her cheek.

“Come on. Let me be here for you. You need someone. Especially for this.” He moved his hand to rest over her stomach.

Her throat went dry. It should have been a no-brainer. Some logical part of her was smacking her upside the head. He could mess up the precarious solution she’d found for the parasite. The last thing she needed was for him to spin his beautiful fantasies, get her caught up in a future she couldn’t believe existed. What she should have been doing was demanding he get the hell out of her sight, out of her room, away from her and the baby.

But . . .

“Fine. But you can’t give me shit about this.” She gestured at her stomach. “I don’t want to hear your opinions.”

Raphe had always been an opinionated bastard.

It was obvious he wasn’t pleased about having to make that promise, but he nodded. “I can try to keep it under control, but you know me. Asking me not to have opinions is about as useful as asking the ocean not to be wet. And polluted. And full of fish. It’s a tall order.”

“Not kidding, Raphe.”

“I heard you.” His fingers tapped against her stomach over the blankets. “Your baby, your choices. I can respect that.”

“Ugh. Would you stop touching it?” She squirmed. “It’s creepy.”

“It’s beautiful.” His sentiment was sincere. “Maybe the circumstances weren’t great, but you’re creating life.”

Tori shook her head. “Lucky me.” She was way too tired to have this argument. Her eyelids were already drooping.

“You should rest,
chiquita
,” Raphe said, tucking the blankets up under her chin.

“Sure. Okay.” Just before she fell asleep, Tori reached for his hand.

Ani sequestered herself in the waiting room around the corner from Tori’s room, giving Raphe some time alone with her sister. She had her e-reader with her, but she wasn’t looking at it so much as holding it while she stared vacantly forward.

She wasn’t in a good mood. It had been a hellish week that had started with Tori screaming at her about Mara and Jett, and it had only gotten worse from there.

Despite the fact she kept telling herself it was rude to be short with someone who was lying in a hospital bed half out of her mind with drugs and lethargy, she’d snapped at Tori several times. She hadn’t meant to lose her patience, but any time Tori got the strength to speak more than two sentences, she talked about how freaked out she was that three people had died in the house.

And she kept saying Jett and Mara’s names.

Ever since reading his full name in whatever article she’d found, Tori kept on referring to him as Jethro. Ani had to bite her tongue. It wasn’t as though her husband were around anymore to wrinkle his nose in patient distaste.

It was more than that, though.

Ani couldn’t find the words to say how much it disturbed her to hear her own husband’s and daughter’s names. More than that, she was being asked to relive the most horrible moments of her life over and over. Tori insisted on knowing the details. Where? Exactly where had they died? How had it happened?

After they died, Ani had gotten new carpet on the stairs and replaced the wood floors of the entryway with tile so she wouldn’t have to remember what they looked like smeared with blood. Now Tori was forcing her to remember. Those memories were vivid, seared forever in perfect clarity right behind her eyelids.

In the months that had passed since their deaths, excluding the period right after, when it had been impossible to think about anything else, that week was the longest amount of time she’d been forced to dwell on what she’d lost. It was a threat to her whole method of coping. For these long months, she’d been able to ignore the crushing grief that hung like an anvil overhead, waiting for its moment to squash her flat. With the flurry of activity Tori had presented, Ani had almost forgotten it was there.

The result was an endless loop of memories. She pushed them away, tried to think about anything else, but one came on the heels of the other until it took all her concentration to change the subject in her head.

She jumped about a mile high when someone put a hand on her shoulder. Her heart was pounding fast, her throat closed. She was still caught in her memories, reliving the moment she heard the gun, and her mind started racing in terror. She looked around, expecting danger.

But it was only Shane who stood in front of her, his expression concerned.

Closing her eyes, Ani counted to ten and swallowed, breathed, calmed. “Hi.” Her voice was a mere whisper.

“What are you doing out here?”

“Um.” Ani had to struggle to remember where she was, let alone what she’d been doing. The last few days, her thoughts had felt hazy—not quite concrete, not quite stable. “Oh. She has a visitor. A boy. Raphe.” She crinkled her nose.

“Raphael Diego?” Shane only seemed mildly surprised.

Ani sat up straighter. Curiosity made it easier to focus. “You know him?”

“I know
of
him,” Shane said as he sat down beside her. “Tori worked a couple of summer and holiday seasons at the mall. He was working at the store across from hers. His name came up a few times.”

“In what context?” Shane gave her a look, and she backtracked. “Sorry. Of course you can’t say.” She rubbed her tired eyes. “I just wonder if this is the mysterious father.”

“What makes you think he might be?”

“Well, he’s the only one she’s asked for.” The day before, in the hospital, Tori had only been half-awake, stirring from a nightmare, when she begged—
begged
—Ani to call Raphe. She’d sounded so different—frightened and increasingly desperate until Ani had coaxed the number out of her. “The little girl from her old home . . .”

“Brooklyn,” Shane said.

“Yes. She visited the house a few days ago. And Tori talks to another girl on the phone from her support group, but she’s never so much as mentioned this boy before.”

Shane hummed. “Well, your guess is as good as mine. Maybe she’ll be in a better mood when she gets discharged, and you might be able to get a straight answer from her.

“Ha.” Ani snorted. “I’m not sure she’ll be happier to come back to the house.”

“I heard about that.”

Ani’s back stiffened and her breath caught. She waited for the inevitable.

“I’m so sorry about your loss.”

And there it was. Ani blew out a slow breath, staring forward. “Tori wants me to do an exorcism on the house before she gets home tomorrow.”

Shane’s loud guffaw startled her. She wasn’t trying to be funny. It had been a preemptive bid to distract Shane from whatever he was about to follow up with. Ani wasn’t interested in his pity, his sympathy, or the questions she had no doubt were on the tip of his tongue.

“I think I’m going to find someone to . . .” She searched for the word. “I don’t know what you would say. Read the house?”

“Do you believe in that kind of thing?” Shane asked, one eyebrow raised.

“I don’t disbelieve. I don’t think my house is haunted, if that’s what you’re asking. But there’s no harm in having someone do something if it will make Tori more comfortable.” Whatever it took to get her sister to drop the subject would be worth the price paid.

“On that note, I have something for you. I’m not sure it’ll be a comfort, but it’s the thought that counts, right?” His smile was genuine as he proffered her a small cardboard container.

“What is it?” Ani asked. It looked like a food container, and she wasn’t hungry.

“A gift from West.”

Ani had to smile. “Cheesecake?”

“Not this time.” He gave her a sympathetic look. “He thought maybe you’d appreciate a nice piece of chocolate cake instead.”

Switching the box back and forth from one hand to another, Ani couldn’t help but think she was missing something. “That was sweet of him,” she murmured. “Literally.”

“West can be very kind when he isn’t being so obtrusive and annoying.”

Again Ani studied the box. There was something niggling at the back of her mind, some reason why this was wrong somehow. Ani felt frustrated. The fogginess of her thoughts was not helping her make a connection. This was no more than a kind gesture; that was all. She’d had a hard week, and West might have known that if he talked to Shane. People did kind things for each other for no reason all the time.

Then again, Ani wasn’t sure if she was comfortable with the implication Shane and West were talking about her. In what context?

It was sweet of West to send along comfort food, but Ani couldn’t help but wonder if he had other motives. Tori was the one in the hospital. The sweeter thing would have been to send a care package to her, but his first instinct was to comfort Ani.

“Shane?” Ani didn’t quite know how to formulate her question, but she was suddenly sure she needed to know. She had broken out in a cold sweat, nerves twisting her stomach. “Why is West being so nice to me? Why me?”

Shane grinned and looked down a moment before he glanced back up at her. “You left an impression on him. My brother is a natural flirt. Helps in his line of work, you know? But it was different with you.”

Ani couldn’t pretend she understood. “I don’t . . . we’ve hardly said two words to each other.”

“Sometimes that’s all it takes, I guess.” He shrugged. “But don’t worry. He has some tact. Under the circumstances.”

That eased the sick twist of her stomach, but it chafed. Circumstances. Putting the box on her lap, she rubbed her temples. Though she couldn’t pretend she wanted to be flirted with, she was also annoyed at the implication she was impaired somehow. The tone of her thoughts were disgruntled as she took a long look at herself, her circumstances.

For some reason, Shane’s simple words forced her to acknowledge the loss of her family was a tangible thing. She’d found some relief when the people currently in her life didn’t know about her loss. If they didn’t know, she could almost convince herself for a minute or an hour at a time that none of it had happened.

Ani stood. “I need to do a little research if I’m going to have the house ready for Tori tomorrow. I’m going to get my tablet. I left it in the car.” She searched for her keys as she rambled. “I’ll be right back.”

Without waiting for Shane’s reply, she hurried off. She only got around the corner before she stopped and leaned up against the wall, the heels of her palms pressed against her eyes.

She wouldn’t cry. She wouldn’t. There was no reason. None. There was no changing what had happened to her family.

Tori needed her. She was the one in the hospital.

After a minute, it was easier to breathe. Ani rummaged again through her bag until she found her tablet where it always was in the side pocket. Breathing in and out a few more times to make sure she was steady, Ani headed back to the little waiting room.

Chapter 12: Errors and Omissions

“W
ow, Tori. You look like hell.”

“Nice to see you, too,” Tori mumbled through a yawn. She almost hadn’t come to group. After being so sick, who wouldn’t understand if she chose not to subject herself to that mild torture? But Emily hadn’t been able to visit when she was sick, and Tori found she’d missed her.

Emily came at her, making Tori jump. She was about to twist away when she realized what was happening. Just a hug, she admonished herself. An awkward hug because Emily was so big around the middle. She squeezed her friend before stepping back.

“Kind of a worst nightmare scenario, isn’t it?” Emily looked anxious. “I mean, people try to play pregnancy off as great, right? And everything is so simple and easy, some women give birth at home. But the thing is it really wasn’t so long ago that women died of pregnancy all the time. There was a mortality rate to this ‘disease’ that was worse than a lot of cancers. Even now, the US has a stupid-high mortality rate, and—”

“Emily.” Tori couldn’t take it anymore. “For fuck’s sake. I wasn’t dying, okay? I’m not going to die of this, and neither are you.”

Her friend looked sheepish. “Yeah. I know. I’m sorry. When I heard you were sick I got scared and a little Google happy.”

Tori was struck dumb by that comment. It hadn’t occurred to her anyone would be worried. Brook had freaked out, but that was what the girl did best. “I’m fine now.”

When Emily got that look in her eye, like she was going in for another hug, Tori let her.

They both ambled over to the snack table. Tori watched out of the corner of her eye, noticing just how ponderous Emily was. She didn’t walk, she waddled. “So, another week,” Emily said.

“Yeah.” She might have been happy to see her friend, but Tori wasn’t looking forward to talking about pregnancy. This week, she didn’t want to be around other pregnant idiots like herself. She wanted to forget the condition existed.

In Tori’s opinion, she now knew too much about pregnancy. The stories she heard at group combined with her doctor appointments were bad enough, but Raphe was obsessed with the topic. Since she’d let him back in her life the week before, he had signed up on every website that offered weekly baby progress based on the due date. He was forever texting her with little tidbits like:

Did you know the baby is the size of a KitKat bar?

He’s growing eyebrows. He probably already has that look of yours—you know, the bitch-brow.

She’s practicing sucking, which is really gross considering her current location.

It was an unsettling thought—some miniature being inhaling amniotic fluid. Any kind of fluid just floating around in her body sounded disgusting, but despite her distaste for the topic, Raphe continued to try to persuade her that the whole process was fascinating and beautiful.

Sometimes, just sometimes, she got caught up in his excitement. That weekend he’d showed her how the baby grew from a tadpole-shaped creature and slowly became more human. She’d laughed when he read about how it was growing a sturdy neck and he’d walked around with his head hunched down closer to his shoulders. He’d looked like something out of
The Addams Family.