My cell is almost out of battery. I stare at the missed calls alert and think about listening to the messages but just tuck the phone back in my purse. Not now.
The clock on the white wall across from me says 8:00 a.m., which puts me over 24 hours without sleep. My eyes have reached a whole new level of dry. Mummified. Stiff. Desiccated. The salt from my tears has served only to suck out more moisture.
When the phone dings again, the screen blurs in and out of focus, and I blink five times and squint in order to see.
elle: Mom?
elle: There’s a cop here.
elle: Mom?
Chapter Six
I skip the elevator and take the stairs, adrenaline pushing me to run faster, faster. My brain has helpfully supplied me with an image of my father in handcuffs and Elle weeping, a dramatic musical score playing in the background. But when I reach the ER bay, Dad is snoring on the gurney. IV tubing snakes from a pump into the back of his hand.
Elle is wide-eyed and a little breathless, but it looks more like excitement than fear.
An officer stands on the other side of the bed. His pleasant face is counterbalanced by a duty belt bristling with a holstered gun and a Taser.
“If this is about the fire or the call to 911, I don’t think he was trying to burn the house down,” I say, before the cop can say anything. “I’m the one who called it in, I’m afraid, before I’d realized we could easily handle the problem. It wasn’t a prank.”
“I’m the one who called it in,” Elle corrects. There’s a spot of color in each cheek, and her eyes are clearly full of uniform and dark hair and deceptively sensitive lips. Lord have mercy.
“I don’t know anything about a fire, ma’am. I’m here about allegations of criminal negligence and possibly attempted manslaughter.”
My lips feel too stiff to answer. I put one hand protectively over Dad’s. His fingers twitch. His eyes move beneath the lids, but he doesn’t wake.
“I’m Officer Mendez. I believe we spoke on the phone. You are Maisey, yes? Walter and Leah Addington’s daughter?”
I nod. There doesn’t seem to be any air in my lungs.
“Obviously I don’t want to arrest him. Will you be able to stay with him? Mental Health doesn’t think he’s dangerous, but they don’t think he’s able to stay alone.”
Air rushes back into my lungs with a whoosh, too much of it now, making my head spin.
“He didn’t hit her,” I protest. “He didn’t shove her. He’s never hit anybody.”
“We’re looking at him for criminal negligence, not assault. Although, in light of the new X-ray evidence—”
“What evidence? What are you even talking about?”
He fumbles in his shirt pocket for a small notebook and flips through it. “Excuse me for a moment. I’m not a medical professional, and I need to consult my notes. This is what we know. The cause of the brain bleed is undetermined, but her doctor was able to confirm the discovery of an aneurism in your mother’s brain several months ago. It is her opinion that the most likely cause of your mother’s current condition was a rupture of this aneurism, although she probably struck her head on the counter as she fell.”
I stare at him. My mother had an aneurism? A weak balloon of an artery, slowly growing in her head, and nobody bothered to tell me? No. Of course she wouldn’t tell me. I might try to talk her into sharing the control, giving me a copy of this now-mythical advance directive.
Mendez coughs. “So far, we only have Walter’s word that he was acting on her wishes. And with the X-ray evidence of multiple broken bones—”
“What broken bones?”
“The doctors performed a chest X-ray to confirm pneumonia. They found—let me see—three old rib fractures and a fractured clavicle. They then did additional X-rays and discovered an old fracture of the humerus—”
“And you think my father did this?”
“It fits the pattern for domestic violence. There is also an old fracture of her left eye socket.”
“Oh, don’t be ridiculous. I told you on the phone—he’s not capable of hurting anybody. Does he look like he could inflict deliberate injuries?”
I wave my hands over my father, who looks ancient and pathetic at the moment. His comb-over has come undone, long strands of gray hair trailing across the pillow. His cheeks are sunken. Under the thin cover of the sheet he looks gaunt and skeletal.
“You’d be surprised, ma’am, what can happen in domestic violence situations. I had an elderly female who eliminated her husband with her cane—bashed him right across the head.”
“You’re making that up,” Elle accuses.
Mendez clears his throat. His voice is softer when he speaks again, almost sympathetic. “Perhaps he is not a violent man. Alzheimer’s can dramatically alter the personality. Gentle people become violent. Very proper ladies suddenly begin to swear.”
I shake my head to clear it. None of this makes any sense. I feel like I’ve walked through a mirror into a darker version of Alice’s wonderland. Leave it to Elle to articulate the gist of the thing.
“Grandpa’s a wife beater? That’s crazy!”
Crazy doesn’t begin to describe it. My oxygen problem is beginning to balance itself out, only now my knees are wobbly. Letting go of Dad’s unresponsive hand, I wrap both of mine around the bed rail, squeezing as tight as I can, trying to find sensation in my fingers.
“Listen, Officer. I can tell you that there have been no beatings. Even if my father has . . . dementia. Which he doesn’t. My mother bosses him, not the other way around. She would have taken care of the problem. Trust me.”
“Evidence is evidence,” he says, consulting his notes. “Three old rib fractures. Left clavicle. Left humerus. Left eye socket. The pattern is suspicious.”
“And I’m telling you nobody has been beating my mother. Especially not my father.”
“I’m glad to hear that. Maybe an accident, then? She fell down the stairs? Ran into a door?”
If I were a snake, I would strike now. Bite him right on the nose. I picture poison pumping into his body. His face turning purple and black, maybe a nice spasm or two.
“Ma’am?”
Elle presses her arm against mine. She has reason to know that my affliction of indecision is balanced in the scales of character flaws by a true redheaded temper.
Warnings disregarded, I welcome in the anger, gather it.
Heat floods through me, right down to my once-cold fingertips, bringing energy behind it. Even my hair has energy; I can feel all the tiny roots tighten in my scalp. I picture my hair flying out in a cloud of electric sparks all around my head.
“I don’t know what you’ve been smoking, Mr. Mendez, or who decided to let you play dress-up in that police uniform, but this is ridiculous.”
His face flushes. A hit. My anger responds with a surge of vindictiveness. Before he can say anything, I let it carry me forward.
“Let me guess. This looked like low-hanging fruit to you, and you volunteered. Nobody else wanted to come over here and grill an old man while his wife is dying upstairs.”
“Mom,” Elle protests, putting a hand on my arm. If I so much as glance at her, I know little tiny cracks will start running through my lovely rage. I keep my eyes fixed on Mendez.
A vein bulges on his forehead, and his jaw is clenched so tightly the muscle bunches.
“Ms. Addington—”
“Don’t try to placate me. Do you have a warrant? Are you going to arrest him?”
“I’m merely investigating—”
“Merely? I don’t think you’re merely doing anything. You’re expanding the boundaries of your specified investigation. That’s what you’re doing. Go fight some criminals or stop some speeders or something. Hey, I’ll give you five bucks, and you can go buy some doughnuts to take with you.”
I’m on a roll. Somewhere inside, a tiny voice of self-preservation tries to make itself heard, but I know that the next thing out of my mouth is going to have the word pig in it.
Dad saves me. Not for the first time.
His eyes open, surprise and confusion crossing his face.