“No, thank you,” Cath said.
While Laura was gone, Cath tried to call her dad again. If he answered the phone, she was pretty sure she’d cry some more, she might even call him “Daddy.” He didn’t answer.
Laura brought back a bottle of water and set it on the table next to Cath. Cath didn’t open it.
The nurses ignored them. Laura flipped through a magazine. When a doctor walked out to the waiting room, they both stood up.
“Mrs. Avery?” he said, looking at Cath’s mother.
“How is she?” Laura said, which Cath thought was a deft response.
“I think she’s going to be fine,” the doctor said. “Her breathing is good. Her oxygen is good. She’s sucking up those fluids—and she roused a bit to talk to me a few minutes ago. I think this is just going to be a scare.… Sometimes a scare can be valuable.”
“Can I see her?” Cath asked.
The doctor looked over at Cath. She could almost hear him think twins. “Yeah,” he said. “That should be fine. We’re just running another test. I’ll have the nurse come out for you when we’re done.”
Cath nodded and folded her arms again around her stomach.
“Thank you,” Laura said.
Cath went back to her chair to wait. But Laura stood there by the nurses’ station. After a minute, she walked back to her chair and picked up her Coach bag, tucking a used Kleenex into a pocket and nervously smoothing out the leather straps.
“Well,” she said. “I think I’m going to head home.”
“What?” Cath’s head snapped up.
“I should go,” Laura said. “Your dad will be here soon.”
“But—you can’t.”
Laura slid her handbag up over her arm.
“You heard the doctor,” Cath said. “We’re going to be able to see her in a few minutes.”
“You go see her,” Laura said. “You should go.”
“You should come, too.”
“Is that what you really want?” Laura’s voice was sharp, and part of Cath shrank back.
“It’s what Wren would want.”
“Don’t be so sure,” Laura said, sounding tired again, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Look … I shouldn’t be here. It was a fluke that they called me. You’re here now, your dad’s on his way—”
“You don’t just leave somebody alone in the hospital,” Cath said. It came out aflame.
“Wren’s not alone,” Laura said sternly. “She has you.”
Cath jerked to her feet and swayed there. Not Wren, she thought. I didn’t mean Wren.
Laura wrenched her handbag straps higher. “Cather—”
“You can’t leave like this—”
“It’s the right thing to do,” Laura said, lowering her voice.
“In what alternate universe?” Cath felt the rage burst up her throat like a cork popping. “What sort of a mother leaves the hospital without seeing her kid? What sort of a mother leaves? Wren is unconscious—and if you think that has nothing to do with you, you are skimming the surface of reality—and I’m right here, and you haven’t even seen me for ten years, and now you’re leaving? Now?”
“Don’t make this about me,” Laura hissed. “You obviously don’t want me here.”
“I’m making it about me,” Cath said. “It’s not my job to want you or not want you. It’s not my job to earn you.”
“Cather”—Laura’s mouth and fists were tight—“I’ve reached out to you. I’ve tried.”
“You’re my mother,” Cath said. Her fists were even tighter. “Try harder.”
“This isn’t the time or the place for this,” Laura said softly, steadily, tugging on her handbag. “I’ll talk to Wren later. I’d love to talk to you later, too. I’d love to talk to you, Cather—but I don’t belong here right now.”
Cath shook her head. “Now is all you get,” she spat out, wishing she could make more sense. Wishing for more words, or better ones. “Now is all you ever get.”
Laura lifted her chin and flicked her hair away from her face. She wasn’t listening anymore. She was the Cool One. “I don’t belong here,” she said again. “I won’t intrude like this.”
And then she walked away. Shoulders back, h*ps swaying.
He’d have to tell the Mage what he saw.
I’ve finally seen the Humdrum, sir. I know what we’re fighting—me.
“What’s left of you,” the monster had said.
What is left of me? Simon wondered. A ghost? A hole? An echo?
An angry little boy with nervous hands?
TWENTY-NINE
It was another hour before the nurse came back. Cath drank her bottled water. She wiped her face in her shirt. She thought about how much nicer this waiting room was than the one at St. Richard’s. She tried to mess with her phone, but it was dead.
When the nurse came out, Cath stood up. “Are you here for Wren Avery?”
Cath nodded.
“You can come back now. Do you want to wait for your mom?”
Cath shook her head.
* * *
Wren was in a room by herself. It was dark, and her eyes were closed. Cath couldn’t tell if she was sleeping.
“Do I need to watch for anything?” Cath asked the nurse.
“No, she’s just resting now.”
“Our dad will be here soon,” Cath said.
“Okay. We’ll send him back.”
Cath sat down slowly, quietly, in the chair by Wren’s bed. Wren looked pale. She had a dark spot, maybe a bruise, on her cheek. Her hair was longer than it had been at Christmas, hanging over her eyes and curling at her neck. Cath pushed it back.
“I’m awake, you know,” Wren whispered.
“Are you still drunk?”
“A little. Muzzy.”
Cath tucked Wren’s hair back again in a soothing gesture. Soothing for Cath, anyway. “What happened?”
“Don’t remember.”
“Who brought you in?”
Wren shrugged. There was an IV in her arm and something taped to her index finger. Up close, she smelled like puke. And like Wren—like Tide and Marc Jacobs Lola.
“Are you okay?”
“Muzzy,” she said. “Sick.”
“Dad’s coming.”
Wren groaned.
Cath folded her arms on the edge of the mattress and laid her head down, exhaling. “I’m glad they brought you in,” she said, “whoever it was who brought you in. I’m … sorry.”
That I wasn’t there, that you didn’t want me there, that I wouldn’t have known how to stop you anyway.
Now that she was with Wren and Wren was okay, Cath realized how exhausted she was. She shoved her glasses into her coat pocket and laid her head back down. She was just drifting off—or maybe she’d just drifted off—when she heard Wren whimper. Cath lifted her head. Wren was crying. Her eyes were closed, and tears were running down into her hair. Cath could almost feel the tickle. “What’s wrong?”
Wren shook her head. Cath wiped Wren’s tears away with her fingers, and wiped her fingers on her shirt.
“Should I get the nurse?”
Wren shook her head again and started shifting in the bed. “Here,” she said, making room.
“Are you sure?” Cath asked. “I don’t want to be the reason you choke on your own vomit.”
“None left,” Wren whispered.
Cath kicked off her boots and climbed up over the railing, lying down in the space Wren had cleared for her. She put her arm carefully under Wren’s neck. “Here,” Cath said.
Wren curled against her with her head on Cath’s shoulder. Cath tried to untangle the tubes around Wren’s arm, then held her hand tightly. It was sticky.
Wren’s shoulders were still shaking.
“It’s okay,” Cath said. “It’s okay.”
Cath tried not to fall asleep until Wren did, but it was dark, and she was tired, and everything was blurry.
* * *
“Oh, God,” she heard their dad say. “Oh, Wren. Baby.”
Cath opened her eyes, and her dad was leaning over them both, kissing both of their foreheads. Cath sat up carefully.
Wren’s eyes were crusty and puffy, but open.
Their dad stood back and put his hand on Wren’s cheek. “Jesus Christ,” he said, shaking his head. “Kid.”
He was wearing gray dress pants and a light blue shirt, untucked. His tie, orange with white starbursts, was stuffed into and hanging out of his pocket. Presentation clothes, Cath thought.
She checked his eyes out of habit. They were tired and shining, but clear.
Cath felt overwhelmed then, all of a sudden, and even though this wasn’t her show, she leaned forward and hugged him, pressing her face into his stale shirt until she could hear his heart beating. His arm came up, warm, around her. “Okay,” he said roughly. Cath felt Wren take her hand. “Okay,” their dad said again. “We’re okay now.”
* * *
Wren didn’t have to stay in the hospital. “You can sleep and drink water at home,” the doctor said.
Real home. Omaha. “You’re coming back with me,” their dad said, and Wren didn’t argue.
“I’m coming, too,” Cath said, and he nodded.
A nurse took out Wren’s IV, and Cath helped her to the bathroom, patting her back while she dry-heaved over the sink. Then Cath helped her wash her face and change into her clothes—jeans and a tank top.
“Where’s your coat?” their dad asked. Wren just shrugged. Cath took off her cardigan and handed it to her.
“It smells like sweat,” Wren said.
“It’ll be the best-smelling part of you,” Cath answered.
Then they had to wait for Wren’s paperwork. The nurse asked if she’d like to speak to an addictions specialist. Wren said no. Their dad just frowned.
“Have you eaten anything?” Cath asked him.
He yawned. “We’ll drive though someplace.”
“I’m driving,” Cath said.
Their dad had tried to get a flight out of Tulsa the night before, but there weren’t any until this afternoon, so he’d ended up renting a car—“Kelly gave me the agency Visa”—and driving for seven hours.
The nurse came back with discharge papers and told Wren that she’d have to leave the hospital in a wheelchair. “It’s policy.”
Wren complained, but their dad just stood behind the wheelchair and said, “Do you want to argue or do you want to go home?”
When the nurse buzzed them out into the waiting room, Cath felt her stomach jump and realized that she was half-expecting to see Laura still sitting out there. Fat chance, Cath thought.
The doors opened, and Wren made a sobby little gasping noise. For a second Cath thought maybe Laura was still there. Or maybe Wren was trying to throw up again.
There was a guy sitting in the waiting room with his head in his hands. He heard Wren’s gasp and looked up, then stood up, and Wren was out of the wheelchair, shuffling toward him. He took her in his arms and pushed his face down into her pukey hair.
It was the big guy from Muggsy’s. The guy who threw punches. Cath couldn’t remember his name. Javier. Julio …
“Who’s that?” her dad asked.
“Jandro,” Cath said.
“Ah,” he said, watching them hug. “Jandro.”
“Yeah…” Cath hoped that it wasn’t Jandro who dropped Wren off at the emergency room, then left her alone. She hoped that he didn’t know anything about that bruise on her cheek.
“Hey,” someone said, and Cath stepped aside, realizing she was standing in the middle of the hallway. “Hey,” he said again.
She looked up—and into Levi’s smiling face.
“Hey,” she said, and it almost came out with an exclamation point. “What are you doing here?”
“I got your text—I texted you back.”
“My phone’s dead.” Cath looked up at Levi’s crinkle-cut eyes and relieved smile, trying to take him all in.
He was holding two cups of coffee and had a banana shoved into the pocket of his flannel shirt. “Mr. Avery?” he said, holding out a cup of coffee. “This was for Jandro, but it looks like he’s covered.”
Her dad took the coffee. “Thanks. Levi.”
“Levi,” Cath repeated, and she knew she was close to crying. “You didn’t have to come.”
He made a loose fist and chucked her gently on the bottom of her chin, taking a half step toward her. “Yeah, I did.”
Cath tried not to smile—but ended up smiling so wide, her ears almost popped.
“They wouldn’t let me back,” he said. “Or Jandro. Only immediate family.”
Cath nodded.
“Is your sister okay?”
“Yeah. Hungover. Embarrassed … We’re going back to Omaha now, all three of us.”
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah. Yeah.” She reached for his hand and squeezed it. “Thank you,” she said.
“You didn’t even know I was here.”
“I know now, and I’ll apply these feelings backwards. Thank you.… Did you miss your sister’s birthday party?”
“No, it’s tomorrow after church. I’ll take a nap and head back that way—unless you need anything.”
“Nope.”
“Are you hungry?”
Cath laughed. “Are you about to offer me a banana?”
“I’m about to offer you half a banana,” Levi said, letting go of her hand. He gave her the coffee and took the banana out of his pocket, peeling it. Cath glanced over at Wren. She was introducing their dad to Jandro. Wren looked like hell, but Jandro was looking at her like she was the Lady of the Lake. Levi handed Cath half a banana, and she took it. “Cheers,” he said, tapping his hand against hers.