Healing Stones (38 page)

“Why?”

“Because it's wrong!”

“To be angry because someone put a burden on you as a child that no adult could possibly bear? That's wrong, Demi?”

She put her hand to her mouth.

“Let it go.”

“I hate what she did to me! I hate it! I just—”

“Go ahead.”

She snatched up the picture. “I hate what you did to me!” she said between her teeth. “No—I hate
you
! I was an innocent kid.” The teeth parted, the voice teetered. “I was an innocent, and look what you did to me. You have no right!”

“What about that little girl?” Sully said. “Can you help her?”

Her eyes brimmed. “I don't know what you mean.”

“What if she were Jayne and someone was telling her she was responsible for the happiness of an adult who didn't know how to deal with her own pain?”

“I would tell her—”

“Then tell her. Tell Little Demi.”

Demi looked down at the picture, and Sully watched her gather. Slowly a finger came up to touch it.

“Don't listen to her, sweetie,” she said. Her voice was tender as baby skin. “You're a child, and that's exactly what you need to be. She can go to other grown-ups. You just be a kid.”

She cried, the loose, free kind of weeping that he savored in his office. These were the tears that healed.

“What does she want you to do now?” Sully said.

“Little me?” She looked back at the picture. “She wants me to let her sit and cry because her daddy isn't there for the picture. She misses him, and she's not allowed to miss him.”

“Then let her miss him,” Sully said. “It's okay.”

He couldn't always predict how a person would respond to the first encouragement to parent herself, but Sully knew what Demi would do. He knew she would press the picture to her chest and cross her hands over it and rock forward in an act of purest maternity. He sank back and closed his eyes and let her cry.

Your Light has come
, he prayed.

Light that will blink out in the darkness if you can't stop it. Red
light
—

“Oh—I'm sorry.”

Sully jerked forward. A disco version of something vaguely familiar erupted from the floor next to Demi's chair.

She yanked her cell phone from her purse. “I have to take this— it's my daughter.”

She slipped through the doorway, phone to her ear, talking in the same gentle tone she'd used for her own child-self.

Sully churned around the office. All this stirring up in Demi—that was triggering the flashbacks. Perfectly normal with the anniversary coming up, and too many late nights working on the car.

“Sullivan—I'm sorry.”

Demi was in the doorway, face still tear-streaked, mascara dried in pools beneath her lower lashes.

“I have to go,” she said. She picked up her purse and hung it on her shoulder without wasting a move. “Audrey's bleeding. I have to get her to the hospital.”

“You okay?”

“I have to be.” She went for the door, but she stopped there. “Can I . . . ?”

“Call me—yes,” Sully said. “We need to follow up.”

She gave him a firm nod and crossed the garage, shoulders resolute. The first shadows of dusk absorbed her.

After the Jeep whined away, Sully wandered, restless, over to Isabella, who looked buffed and expectant. Maybe the flashbacks meant it was time to take her out and get on with it.

Maybe, because he could think of nothing else to do.

CHAPTER THIRTY - TWO

A
n ambulance, lights still twirling, blocked the emergency entrance when we pulled into Harrison Medical Center, driving my anxiety up several more notches. A trauma ahead of us meant we'd have to wait forever for Audrey to be seen. Miscarriages weren't usually considered urgent—except by the women they were happening to. Audrey's quiet crying hadn't stopped since I'd picked the girls up at Sherman Heights.

“You take her in,” I said to Jayne now. “I'll park and meet you.”

Jayne climbed out, still with one hand on Audrey like a lifeline.

“You have your insurance card, Audrey?” I said.

Jayne poked her head back in. “Got it,” she said. “Come on, Aud—lean on me.”

I sat, white-knuckling the steering wheel, and watched my waif of a daughter support the wobbly figure as they made their way to the door.

Someone put a burden on you as a child that no adult should have
to bear.

Was that happening to Jayne? I shoved the car into gear and wheeled around the ambulance.

Audrey was already in a curtained cubicle when I got inside, and Jayne was helping her into a too-often-washed gown that inevitably gaped open. Her vertebrae poked insistently at the skin of her narrow back.

“I've never been in a hospital before,” she said. Her voice was frail.

“I had stitches one time,” Jayne assured her. “It's not that bad. They give you Popsicles. Well, I was, like, ten . . .” She trailed off and licked her lips. “That was lame,” she muttered.

“It was perfect,” I whispered to her.

“Okay—looks like we have a few too many people in there.” A ponytailed nurse in a top printed in teddy bears breezed in. “You the mom?”

“She's like a mom to me,” Audrey said and wrapped her fingers around my arm.

“Are you eighteen?” The nurse didn't look up from Audrey's chart.

“Yes.”

“We're good to go then. You'll need to wait in the waiting area.” She gave it a beat too long before she finally glanced at Jayne. “Where the chairs are.”

Jayne begged me with her eyes.

“I'll come out in a minute,” I said. “How about you get us some hot chocolate?”

She nodded, glared at the nurse's teddy-beared back, and hooked her arm around Audrey's neck.

“Love you,” Audrey said.

“Love you more,” Jayne said.

The nurse patted the examining table and nodded Audrey toward it. Now glaring at the teddy bears myself, I put an arm around Audrey's waist and boosted her up.

“After I examine you, she can come back in and give you support,” the nurse said.

Audrey's frightened eyes went to me as she lay back on the table. “Support for what? Am I going to lose my baby?”

I stroked Audrey's forehead. “You know what? Whatever happens, we'll handle it, because we've got God.”

“And you.”

She closed her eyes and let the nurse slip her feet into the stirrups. Her fingers were still raking my arm.

Nurse Ponytail settled onto a stool and peered into Audrey.

“Ever had a pelvic exam before?” she said.

Audrey shook her head. Her face paled, leaving the dark eyes big and soulful as a puppy's.

“It's easier if you relax,” I said.

“No need—done.” The nurse tapped Audrey's knees. “You can scoot back now.”

“Am I losing the baby?” Audrey said.

“Doesn't look like it.” Nurse Ponytail peeled off a glove and dropped it deftly into a waste can. She had yet to make eye contact with either of us.

“You've spotted some, but you're not dilating—I don't see any fetal tissue.” She pulled off the other glove and went for the sink. “The doctor will give you the final word,” she said over running water. “He'll be here in—well, he'll be here.”

“You can bring the other one
in,” she said over her shoulder as she sailed out.

Audrey devoured me with her eyes. “Does that mean I'm not having a miscarriage?”

“I think it means it's hopeful,” I said.

She sighed, and I watched her settle her face. “Okay. I can hope.”

Her fingers loosened on my arm, but I didn't move away.

“You know what's weird?”

“I know a lot of things that are weird,” I said dryly. “What are you thinking of?”

“I was so scared when I found out I was pregnant—like, I didn't know what to do. But I'm even more scared about losing her.”

“Her?” I said.

“I think she's a girl.” Audrey reached across herself, plastic hospital bracelet dangling on her tiny arm, and put her hand against my cheek. “And I'm going to name her Demitria Jayne.”

I pressed a kiss to her palm.

Jayne slipped in sideways through the part in the curtain. “The nurse said I could come in till the doctor comes.” She rolled her eyes. “I bet she doesn't give anybody Popsicles.”

“Will you two be okay?” I said. “I have to make a phone call.”

“Don't leave me, Jay,” Audrey said.

But I wasn't two steps outside the curtained cubicle when Jayne was on my heels. “Mom!” she whispered.

“Everything looks okay, Jay,” I said.

“No—I wanted to tell you.” She stopped me with a grab at my sleeve and looked furtively over my shoulder.

“What?”

“Dad is here.”

I tried to keep the Demi-on-top-of-things face in place, but Demithe-firefighter's-wife trampled her.

“What's wrong—is he okay?”

“Mom!”

I turned to look at Jayne, who trailed me toward the front desk, where I hadn't known I was going.

“It's not him, Mom,” Jayne said. “One of the other firemen has something that's no big deal. Dad's just here with him. I saw him in the hall.” She rubbed my arm. “Chill, okay?”

“Oh,” I said. “Okay. Chilling.”

I kissed the top of her head and let my heartbeat stop battering my eardrums. Of course. They didn't bring serious burn victims here— they were air-flighted to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle. Wives were called immediately.

“I thought you'd want to know he was here.” Jayne lowered her voice to a whisper. “In case you didn't want to run into him.”

That sliced through me.

Okay. Call Mickey, I told myself. I could trust
that
instinct.

“Go back to Audrey,” I said. I headed outside to use my cell.

Oscar answered their house phone and immediately turned to mush on the other end of the line before I even finished explaining.

“We'll be there,” he said. I could practically see his plump chin quivering.

“It isn't an emergency,” I said, but he'd already hung up.

Only when I went back into the building, still folding my phone, did I second-guess myself. Did Audrey need Mickey here, telling her once again how much trouble she was causing? Maybe I should rehearse what I could say to them to stave off a full-out assault.

Or maybe I could just pray.

The thought came to me in a whisper, and I turned to it. I could pray. And I could love. I could trust that.

I slipped back to the waiting area and found the only chair not occupied by a taut body. The pain, the anxiety, the anticipation of sorrow hung over the place like an odor, and I sat down in the midst of it to pray over that part that belonged to me. When it refused to separate from the rest, I breathed it all in.

I hadn't prayed like that in months.

I wasn't sure how long I'd been there when I heard my name like no one else could say it. Before I even raised my head, I felt Rich above me.

“Hi,” I said. “Who got hurt?”

“Baynes,” he said.

A young rookie, if I remembered right.

“Is he okay?”

“It's minor.”

His tone brushed me aside. Wrong again. How dare I even bother him . . .

“I was just asking out of concern, Rich.” I stood, annoyance shooting up between my shoulder blades. “I need to get back.”

“To that girl.”

I paused and turned my head slowly back to him. “That girl,” I said.

“Jayne told me she's pregnant and she's living with you.” His eyes cut down to slits.

“Her name is Audrey.” I lined myself up in front of him. “She needed help, and I'm helping her. Do you have a problem with that?”

He looked over his shoulder, and I saw the echo of my raised voice stir up a knot of people by the water fountain.

“Yeah, I do have a problem with it.” Rich's
with
hardened into a Brooklyn
wid.
“What kind of influence is that on Jayne?”

“You're not serious.”

“I don't like her hanging out with some girl who goes and gets herself pregnant.”

I let out a dry snort that got another group shooting me a shut-up look.

“What's so funny?” Rich said.

“She got herself pregnant?”

“Everybody's responsible for what they do, Demitria.” Rich squinted at me. “Or haven't you figured that out?”

I expected the anxiety and the guilt and the shame to smother me until I slunk away. It didn't. I only felt heat blossoming from my neck.

“What do you think I've been doing for the past two months?” I said. “I've
been
taking responsibility.”

“For somebody else's problems—like you always do—instead of taking care of your own business.”

“You are my business!” I said. “But you won't let me take care of you, so what am I supposed to do? What is it you want me to do? You tell me, and I'll do it!”

“We're done here,” Rich said.

He stalked for the door, and I marched after him, all the way out to the red SUV with ORCHARD HEIGHTS DUTY CHIEF emblazoned on the side. I plastered myself against it.

“Move, Demitria.” Rich hissed and closed his eyes, as he'd do if one of the kids had tried his patience.

“When you've told me what you want from me, Rich,” I said. “What do you want?”

“I want you to feel the shame.” He jabbed his thumb into his chest. “I want you to feel
,
in here, what it's been like for me.”

“You don't think I do?”

“What I want is for you to make up for the pain you've put me through—and I don't think you can do that.”

I stared and felt the full weight of what he asked fall on me.