16
Early Thursday morning.
Steamhead Steve’s Winnebago, with Snakebite Andi currently behind the wheel, was cruising eastbound on I-80 in western Nebraska at a perfectly legal sixty-five miles an hour. The first streaks of dawn had just begun to show on the horizon. In Anniston it was two hours later. Dave Stone was in his bathrobe making coffee when the phone rang. It was Lucy, calling from Concetta’s Marlborough Street condo. She sounded like a woman who had nearly reached the end of her resources.
“If nothing changes for the worse—although I guess that’s the only way things can change now—they’ll be releasing Momo from the hospital first thing next week. I talked with the two doctors on her case last night.”
“Why didn’t you call me, sweetheart?”
“Too tired. And too depressed. I thought I’d feel better after a night’s sleep, but I didn’t get much. Honey, this place is just so full of her. Not just her work, her vitality . . .”
Her voice wavered. David waited. They had been together for over fifteen years, and he knew that when Lucy was upset, waiting was sometimes better than talking.
“I don’t know what we’re going to do with it all. Just looking at the books makes me tired. There are thousands on the shelves and stacked in her study, and the super says there are thousands more in storage.”
“We don’t have to decide right now.”
“He says there’s also a trunk marked Alessandra. That was my mother’s real name, you know, although I guess she always called herself Sandra or Sandy. I never knew Momo had her stuff.”
“For someone who let it all hang out in her poetry, Chetta could be one closemouthed lady when she wanted to.”
Lucy seemed not to hear him, only continued in the same dull, slightly nagging, tired-to-death tone. “Everything’s arranged, although I’ll have to reschedule the private ambulance if they decide to let her go Sunday. They said they might. Thank God she’s got good insurance. That goes back to her teaching days at Tufts, you know. She never made a dime from poetry. Who in this fucked-up country would pay a dime to read it anymore?”
“Lucy—”
“She’s got a good place in the main building at Rivington House—a little suite. I took the online tour. Not that she’ll be using it long. I made friends with the head nurse on her floor here, and she says Momo’s just about at the end of her—”
“Chia, I love you, honey.”
That—Concetta’s old nickname for her—finally stopped her.
“With all my admittedly non-Italian heart and soul.”
“I know, and thank God you do. This has been so hard, but it’s almost over. I’ll be there Monday at the very latest.”
“We can’t wait to see you.”
“How are you? How’s Abra?”
“We’re both fine.” David would be allowed to go on believing this for another sixty seconds or so.
He heard Lucy yawn. “I might go back to bed for an hour or two. I think I can sleep now.”
“You do that. I’ve got to get Abs up for school.”
They said their goodbyes, and when Dave turned away from the kitchen wall phone, he saw that Abra was already up. She was still in her pajamas. Her hair was every whichway, her eyes were red, and her face was pale. She was clutching Hoppy, her old stuffed rabbit.
“Abba-Doo? Honey? Are you sick?”
Yes. No. I don’t know. But you will be, when you hear what I’m going to tell you.
“I need to talk to you, Daddy. And I don’t want to go to school today. Tomorrow, either. Maybe not for awhile.” She hesitated. “I’m in trouble.”
The first thing that phrase brought to mind was so awful that he pushed it away at once, but not before Abra caught it.
She smiled wanly. “No, I’m not pregnant.”
He stopped on his way to her, halfway across the kitchen, his mouth falling open. “You . . . did you just—”
“Yes,” she said. “I just read your mind. Although anyone could have guessed what you were thinking that time, Daddy—it was all over your face. And it’s called shining, not mind-reading. I can still do most of the things that used to scare you when I was little. Not all, but most.”
He spoke very slowly. “I know you still sometimes have premonitions. Your mom and I both know.”
“It’s a lot more than that. I have a friend. His name is Dan. He and Dr. John have been in Iowa—”
“John Dalton?”
“Yes—”
“Who’s this Dan? Is he a kid Dr. John treats?”
“No, he’s a grown-up.” She took his hand and led him to the kitchen table. There they sat down, Abra still holding Hoppy. “But when he was a kid, he was like me.”
“Abs, I’m not understanding any of this.”
“There are bad people, Daddy.” She knew she couldn’t tell him they were more than people, worse than people, until Dan and John were here to help her explain. “They might want to hurt me.”
“Why would anyone want to hurt you? You’re not making sense. As for all those things you used to do, if you could still do them, we’d kn—”
The drawer below the hanging pots flew open, then shut, then opened again. She could no longer lift the spoons, but the drawer was enough to get his attention.
“Once I understood how much it worried you guys—how much it scared you—I hid it. But I can’t hide it anymore. Dan says I have to tell.”
She pressed her face against Hoppy’s threadbare fur and began to cry.