My Sister's Keeper (43 page)

As I drew another breath, she burst into tears. “I thought you were gone.” I could feel her trembling.

I coughed again and drew another breath. Falling against me, she locked her arms around me and we held each other weeping and laughing until they came and took us away.

57

S
YDNEY AND I were taken by ambulance to
Cape Fear Medical Center
where we were x-rayed, probed, stitched up, smeared with ointment, and admitted for observation. They told me I had a broken ankle and sealed my left foot in a cast. The D.A. stopped by to tell me that all charges against me were being dropped. I also learned from him that Sam had been transported by helicopter to Duke University Medical Center and that David had been found alive, bound and gagged in another room of the barn, and had been rescued before the fire, but that
Ashleigh didn’t make it. They found her body in the other tank that had been sunk in the canal. He also said that
although Scott had been severely wounded in the shootout, he was expected to live to stand trial.

After two days in the hospital, Sydney and I were released, but refused to go anywhere without each other. After getting a change of clothes and a bite to eat, we returned to the hospital around 4 p.m. that afternoon to spend some time with Martha. It was still touch and go for her, but the nurses said the doctors were encouraged by her most recent signs.

They told us that Dad didn’t have long and Sydney stayed with Martha while I went in to see him. From the door, I could see that his skin had turned sallow. He was loosing weight and his eyes appeared to have sunk deeper into his head. He sensed that I was there and when he opened his eyes, I was amazed to see a light actually coming from within them. They were glowing from the inside. It’s something I’d never seen before nor seen anything like it since.

He raised his hand. “That you, Martha?”

“
No, Dad. It’s Richard.”

I stepped in and let the door close behind me.

“
I heard you were shot,” he mumbled, his mouth tight and toothless.

“
I’m fine.”

“
They called you a hero.”

“
They weren’t there.”

“
You did good, son.”

“
Thanks, Dad.”

His shriveled hand tightened into a fist that seemed so much smaller than I remembered. I laid my hand on it. It was cold like the sunfish Martha and I used to catch on worms that we dug up in the back yard when we were kids. His skin felt dry and rubbery—not at all real—like our relationship. I traced the veins on the back of his hand. Touch is important. A son needs a father’s touch. I imagined what could have been, what
should
have been, what our lives might have been if things had gone differently that tragic night some thirty odd years ago when Uncle Charlie’s brakes failed. Would Dad have thought more of me as my Uncle Gus? How much disappointment and pain had
he
endured? I squeezed his hand. It was hard and boney like the rest of him—no tenderness inside.

Shortly after 5 a.m., he opened his eyes and I saw that the light in them had gone out. He moved his hand away from mine, drew a deep breath, and as it slowly exhaled, the beep on the monitor changed to a solid tone.

And that was it. It was over.

AT HIS FUNERAL I stared at the casket and wished I could have gotten to know him better. Wished we’d had more time at the end. Wished I’d known the truth earlier. At the wake afterward, I smiled and nodded as friends and family politely recited their rehearsed phrases.
“He did good by your mother,”
many said as if they’d called a meeting and prepared an official family response. I left the house before the plates were passed around and sat in the darkened hospital room with my sister—or rather my
half
-sister.

It didn’t bother me to know there was no part of Gus in me, but I hated the fact that Martha and I were less related. There had always been some comfort in knowing that someone else in this world had the same genes as me and that they were still sane and functioning.

A nurse came in to change the IV drip and checked the tube coming out the side of her head. “Swelling’s going down,” she said making a note on Martha’s chart. I didn’t reply. I knew it was good news, but there was still a lot that could go wrong. The nurse placed Martha’s chart back on a hook at the foot of the bed and left saying that she might wake up soon.

I pulled up a chair and took Martha’s hand. People can tell how much you love them by the way you touch them. There were cuts and bruises on all her fingers and her nails were chipped and ragged, but her hand was soft, and warm like her heart. I kissed her fingers.

“
We buried Dad today,” I said in a near whisper. “You should have been there. Mom needed someone to cry with her. Listening to her sobbing almost did me in. Winston was there and he cried too, but I think he was crying for Mom, so he doesn’t count.” I rolled her hand over and examined the palm. She had a long life line and a complete “M” in her palm that I’d always heard meant you’d have money.

“
Babe, you need to wake up, get well, and come home. I don’t think Mom could take it if you died, too.” I tried to keep them back, but tears still formed in the corners of my eyes. “And I don’t know what I’d do if I didn’t have you to look out for me.”

Martha tightened her fingers around mine and it felt deliberate. “That’s good, Babe. Come back to us. We need you.” She took a deep breath and her right leg shifted under the covers, bending at the knee.

But, that was it.

I stayed another two hours hoping to be there when she did awaken, but the nurses finally ran me off so that they could give her a bath.

At the elevator, I spotted Winston in a waiting room. He had his hat pulled well down over his face and I wouldn’t have noticed him if he hadn’t had a photograph in his hand that I recognized—a school photo of Martha taken when she was in fourth grade.

“
Winston?”

He jumped up expecting someone from the hospital staff, I think, and I saw tears on his scarred cheeks. He tilted his head and the brim of his hat covered his eyes. “Hey, Rich,” he said clearing his voice. “Have you been in to see her?”

“
Yes. She’s—” I hesitated as a tear dropped off his chin. He and Mom had a special kind of relationship. He was obviously in love with her, and Mom was going to need all the love she could get for a while. “Martha’s like family to you, isn’t she?”

He nodded. “Yeah.”

“
I think she’s better. The pressure’s going down and she might even wake up in the next few days. She squeezed my hand a while ago and I’m sure she meant to do it.”

He wiped his chin and lash-less eyes. “Thanks for letting me know. They don’t give out information unless you’re family.”

I squeezed his shoulder. “You bet.”

“
I saw in the paper how you helped the police catch that serial killer. He was something, huh?”

“
It was Martha. She’s the one that figured it out.”

“
Paper said that if it hadn’t been for you, he would have gotten away. Your dad would have been mighty proud of you.”

“
He would have found a way to shoot holes in it. He’d think I was guilty of something and simply got away with it.”

“
Don’t you go around thinking like that, Rich. It’ll eat you up inside and turn your heart to stone.”

It was too late. My heart had already turned—at least as far as Dad was concerned, but there had been something there at the end I could hold on to. I patted his shoulder. “Yeah. See you later.”

I pressed the button for the elevator.

DURING THE NEXT TWENTY-FOUR HOURS, the swelling continued to go down in Martha’s head. She became more active during the night and the next afternoon opened her eyes, but seemed puzzled by her surroundings and unsure of who we were. We spent the afternoon talking and laughing, trying to bring back memories, but it didn’t seem that we were getting through. We were strangers to her. She didn’t even know who
she
was.

Though she spoke rarely, when she did speak, she mostly repeated what we’d just said. The doctor told us that it was normal for her to do that considering the severity of her injuries. He said that talking to her about her past could help to reconnect her to her memory. She said that it could take anywhere from a few hours to a few
years
for her to recover, and that there was even a possibility that Martha may never recover.

Mom managed to be strong and cheerful at first, but eventually went to pieces. The doctor gave her something to help her sleep and Sydney took her home. I stayed behind and sat up with Martha all night. If talking about her past could help, then I was going to tell her everything I could remember. I started at the beginning, the day they brought Martha home from the hospital. I told her how tiny I thought she looked and how Dad had beat me after I kissed her and made her cry. I talked about all the crazy times we had growing up and all the friends she played with in the neighborhood. I recounted how we used to bum rides down to Carolina Beach so she could spend time with Todd, and how she would take up for me when Dad got mad. She slept through most of it, but I just kept on talking. I recalled things I hadn’t thought of in years. I laughed about some of it and cried on occasion. I told her how much Dad had loved her, how she was his favorite, and that I was ashamed to admit I felt relief when he died.

I talked to her about her accident, what had been going on with the investigation, what she’d discovered about Scott McGillikin in her files, and what had happened at the farm across the river. I had grown stiff in my chair and run out of things to talk about by the time the sun came up. My foot itched down inside the cast and my shoulder ached.

I hobbled to the window, opened the blinds, and let the glorious golden-orange light fill the room. “Look, Babe,” I said looking out at the mist lingering over the waking city. “It’s going to be a beautiful day. A fabulous day for the beach. Remember the beach? You always loved the beach, Martha. You even had a house down there for a while. Remember?” I stretched my back twisting left and right and noticed that her eyes had opened and were following me. I smiled, “Good morning.”

“
Good morning,” she repeated.

The cast on my foot thumped when I took a step. “Guess who’s been asking about you,” I asked lowering myself back into the chair. “You remember Winston, Babe?” The great white gauze ball on her head moved and I took it as a nod. “He was burned in a fire.” I wiggled my toes trying to relieve the itching under the cast. “We used to go out to his farm with Mom and chase the chickens and the baby goats. You remember that, Babe?” Her eyes studied my face. “Now that Dad’s gone, I hope Mom spends more time with Winston. He brings something out in her that I’ve never seen with anyone else. A kind of shy silliness that makes her seem younger somehow. Mom’s going to be fifty soon. She deserves to have a little silliness in her life for once. Don’t you think?”

“
Richard?”

I sat forward and laid a hand on hers. “Yes, Babe. What?” All I could see of her was her eyes and they looked frightened. “Did you sleep well? Are you waking up now?”

She coughed and rolled her head to the side. “Where am I?”

“
Oh, Babe, you’re in the hospital.”

She moaned. “What happened to me?”

I squeezed her hand. “You were hit by a bus.”

And so began my sister’s recovery.

58

M
ARTHA WAS BACK TO BEING her old self with her memory fully restored a few weeks later. They replaced the bandage on her head with a smaller one and we got our first look at her face through a plastic shield she would wear for another six weeks.

After they removed the tubes from her head, the primary area of concern shifted to her one remaining kidney which was growing worse by the day.

Winston continued to stop by for progress reports and was allowed to see her after the third week. He cried like a child and I wondered if seeing her like that brought back painful memories of his own recovery.

I was proud of Mother for not only shopping for him and spending time with him all those years, but for bringing him into the family and giving him the opportunity to love and be loved. People are just not people at all until they have someone to love and be loved by. Without love, people are more like animals taking care of their basic needs and living in seclusion. Believe me, I was a perfect example.

Winston and Mom began spending more time together and he often ate meals with us. But he and Mom weren’t the only ones falling in love.

Sydney and I were now inseparable, when we weren’t working. The photography studio had begun to recover. Most of the agents had come back and the publicity had brought in lots of new customers. Students from Sydney’s dance studio went to national competitions and came back with arm-loads of trophies including a few first overall awards and a couple of national championships.