He drummed his fingers against the table and stared past me, a slight grin. “I can’t tell you that, Nic.”
I grinned at the nurse like I thought this was cute. Funny, even. “Who was here, Dad?”
“I’m not supposed to tell you.” He had the audacity to laugh.
The nurse winked at my dad, then turned to me. “Good-looking guy. Blue eyes, brown hair, always in jeans and work boots . . .”
I swung my head back to my father, who was chewing the inside of his cheek. “Tyler?” I asked.
The nurse patted my dad’s shoulder and walked away. He’d scooped up the cards and was focused on dealing the stack between the two of us. I had no idea what to do with my hand. He played a king and seemed to be waiting for something from me.
“Why the hell does Tyler come here?”
“Why wouldn’t Tyler come? Did you lay exclusive claim to rights of friendship with Tyler Ellison? Your turn,” he said, gesturing to my cards.
I threw down an ace, tried to relax my shoulders, to keep this conversation from sliding away from him too quickly. “Ha. I didn’t realize you guys had so much in common.”
Dad frowned as he picked up the stack, then played a five of diamonds. “Pay attention.”
“That’s exactly what I’m doing. Tell me what Tyler wants with you.” I stopped playing, trying to hold his focus.
He shrugged, avoiding eye contact. “He doesn’t want anything. He just comes.” He gestured to my hand until I threw out a random card. “He’s a good kid, Nic. I think he likes the food.” He looked around the room, like he was momentarily confused. “Or maybe the young nurse over there who works Fridays. I don’t know. But he comes for lunch.” I peered over my shoulder, saw the nurse lingering near the front desk through the doorway. She was shorter than me, her scrubs were nondescript, and her lipstick veered well outside the line of her lips, but she was attractive. Her hair was dark and neat. She was young. Perky.
“And you’re not supposed to tell me?” I asked.
“Definitely not.” Two of hearts.
“And why is that, if there’s not some other reason he’s coming? Think about it, Dad.” Two of spades.
“You’re not paying attention,” he said as he swiped up the stack—about the cards or Tyler, I wasn’t sure.
A new group of residents wandered in, and a few nurses shuffled in and out, carrying clipboards. We were running out of time. Dad stacked all the cards, and I placed my hand over his. “Dad, I need to talk to you.”
“I thought that’s what we were doing,” he said.
“Dad, listen. We took care of it. The police can’t question you. Do not let anyone question you. You tell us right away. Or the nurse. Or the doctor. They’re not allowed. You don’t have to talk to them. You understand?”
“I . . . Of course not. I wouldn’t,” he said.
But you did.
“I wish I’d been a better father, Nic.”
“Dad, don’t—”
“I really do. I can see it now that it’s gone. But you can’t go back, can you?”
I shook my head. No, you can’t.
He tapped the side of his head. “This is my penance, don’t you think?” Like losing his mind was the price to pay for being a shitty father.
“You weren’t mean. You weren’t bad.” He wasn’t anything. He made me laugh, and he gave me a roof over my head and food in the kitchen, and he never raised a hand to me, or his voice. For a lot of people, that would make him good. A good father. A good man.
He leaned across the table, took my hand again. “Are you happy, Nic?”
“Yes,” I said. I had everything I wanted waiting for me in Philadelphia. A whole life there.
“Good, good.”
I squeezed his hand. “You don’t deserve this,” I said. “Any of this.”
He started drumming his fingers again, double time, leaned toward me, and lowered his voice to a raspy whisper. “Nic, listen to me. I have to pay. I have to.”
“I’ll take care of everything,” I said. “Don’t talk about it anymore. Nothing. Not a word. To anyone. Got it?”
“Got it,” he said.
But I knew it would last only an hour or so. “I need you to focus. I need you to remember this.”
“I’ll remember, Nic.” He lifted his face to mine, his eyes like a child’s, waiting for me to explain.
I looked down at my hand over his, at the age spots speckling the back of his hand, the freckles on my own. “Dad, they want to bring you down to the station. You have to stop talking. Please.”
He opened his mouth to speak, but I held up my hand to stop him. Over Dad’s shoulder, I saw Everett standing just inside the cafeteria entrance, his eyes quickly finding me. I raised my hand, and Dad followed my line of vision. “Dad, I want you to meet someone. This is Everett,” I said as he approached. Remember who Everett is. Please.
He looked at Everett, then at my bare hand, and smiled. “Sure, sure. Nice to meet you, Everett.”
Everett shook my dad’s hand. “Same to you, Patrick. Sorry Christmas didn’t work out.” We were supposed to fly in and out for a Christmas Eve visit before returning to spend the rest of the holiday with Everett’s family, but a snowstorm had derailed our plans, and we’d never rebooked. But this was a detail too hard for Dad to pull from his memory. He made a noncommittal noise that to Everett probably sounded like displeasure.
Everett turned to me. “Everything’s all set here, unless you want to stay for dinner?”
All at once I felt like I was seventeen again, sitting in the kitchen, with my dad asking if I was staying or going. Going, I’d say. Always going. Had my foot out the door as soon as I stopped trying to convince myself my mother might live.
“I’ve got a lot to do,” I said. “But I’ll see you later, Dad.”
Everett placed his card on the table. “I told the director and the nurses up front, but if anyone comes to talk to you—anyone at all—you give me a call.”
Dad raised an eyebrow at me as I walked away. When I looked over my shoulder, he was still watching. I shook my head once, praying he would remember.
I excused myself to the bathroom while Everett chatted with the woman behind the front desk. I closed the door to the stall and dialed Tyler, unease coursing through my veins. “Pick up, damnit,” I mumbled, but of course he didn’t.
I considered calling information and getting the number for Kelly’s to see if he was there. But from outside the restroom, I heard the faint echo of Everett’s voice: “What, exactly, was Patrick Farrell saying?”
I raced out of the room. “Everett?” I called, watching him slowly pull back from the reception desk. “Ready?”
* * *
GOSSIP. THE MOST DANGEROUS part of an investigation. Infectious and inescapable. This was something I was all too familiar with, even before my job as school counselor.
There’s a danger to it, because it grows out of something real, a seed in the earth, giving life on its own. It’s all tangled together—the truth, the fiction—and sometimes it’s hard to pick apart. Sometimes it’s hard to remember which parts truly exist.
When Corinne disappeared and we ran out of places to search, people to question, leads to track down, the only thing left for people was the talk.
About Corinne and Bailey and me. Reckless and drunk on life, never thinking of the consequences. How we passed around a bottle in the clearing outside the caverns and invited boys inside. How we lifted candy bars from the convenience store (on a dare, always a dare) and didn’t respect property or authority. How we had no boundaries with each other, a tangle of limbs and hair and sun-kissed skin—They swapped boyfriends, even, you know.
Because look at the evidence sitting neatly in the box: Jackson kissing Bailey; Corinne hitting on Tyler as I watched. The three of us spinning, blurring, like ghosts in a field of sunflowers. And me, on the outside of the Ferris wheel, watching death rushing by. We lived too close—too close to each other, too close to some mysterious edge, too reckless and invincible, too naive to our own mortalities, just too. The talk: that maybe we brought it on ourselves.