He looked to Joe.
Amy’s eyes teared. “I’m sorry,” she said.
Joe was there. “Amy, it’s not your-” But Joe didn’t finish. She pulled Amy into her arms and held her close.
Louis thought suddenly of the small, blurred picture he had of Jean, the only photo that existed of the woman for all he knew. He thought of Shockey, lying in a bed somewhere in this huge, anonymous place without anyone to care whether he lived or died. He had a sudden, jarring vision of a cruel man named Moe, one of the countless blank faces whose blank homes Louis had passed through as the foster system funneled him downward. He thought of all of that and knew that Amy needed to know the truth.
She needed to know where she came from.
He met Joe’s eyes. She was thinking the same thing.
Joe led Amy from the room, giving the officer stationed outside a nod as they went by. They walked a short ways down the hallway and finally, Joe stopped and took Amy’s hand.
“Amy, come sit here with me for a second,” Joe said, pointing to a bench.
Amy sat down, but her eyes went beyond Joe to a woman sitting at the end of the hallway, who was sobbing into the shoulder of an elderly man.
“I have to tell you something,” Joe said, sitting down. “Amy, Owen Brandt isn’t your father.”
Joe held her breath, watching Amy’s face as it passed through surprise and confusion before settling into a lost look that made Joe’s heart ache. Then Amy’s expression changed, and Joe could almost see the girl’s mind racing, racing backward as it searched desperately for a sign or a clue to remember. For a second, Joe regretted telling Amy about Brandt. Her sense of identity was so fragile, and as despicable as Brandt was, he was the only real link to her past.
Except for Shockey. Even if there was no way to prove he was Amy’s father, he had loved her mother. This was an awful place to tell her, this ugly, sterile hallway. But Amy needed to know this, too.
“There’s something else I need to tell you,” Joe said.
Amy had been staring at the crying woman down the hall and looked back at Joe.
“It’s about Mr. Shockey,” Joe said. “He might… Mr. Shockey and your mother knew each other before you were born. They loved each other.”
Amy blinked in surprise but said nothing.
Joe drew in a breath. “Mr. Shockey thinks he might be your real father.”
Amy’s eyes widened, with surprise but also with an odd look of recognition.
Joe touched her arm. “Are you okay?”
Amy could only nod.
“This is a lot to take in, I know,” Joe said.
Amy didn’t seem to hear her. She was just sitting there, staring at nothing.
“Where is he?” she asked.
“Mr. Shockey?”
“Yes, where is he?”
When Joe didn’t answer immediately, Amy searched her face. “Did he get hurt, too?” she asked.
Joe nodded. Then she linked her arm through Amy’s. “Let’s go find him,” she said.
The nurse at the ICU stopped Joe and Amy at the door, telling Joe that children weren’t allowed to visit. Joe took the nurse aside, discreetly showed her badge, and explained why she wanted Amy to see Shockey. The nurse told her Shockey was not going to regain consciousness.
“I don’t think you should let her see him,” the nurse said.
Joe glanced at Amy, who was waiting at the door. “She can handle it,” Joe said.
The nurse led them into the small room. Joe watched Amy’s face as she moved forward slowly, taking in the monitors and tubes, the bleats and blips of the machines that were forcing air into Shockey’s ravaged lungs.
Shockey’s head was wrapped in gauze. Only the left side of his upper face was visible, the skin mottled purple, the eye swollen shut.
None of it seemed to bother Amy. She went right to the bed and looked down at Shockey.
“Can he talk?” she asked softly.
“No,” Joe said from the shadows.
“You said he loved Momma?”
“Yes. Very much.”
“Is that why he was trying so hard to find her?”
“Yes. He tried for a very long time.”
Amy looked like she was trying to figure something out. She turned back to Joe. “How old am I?” she asked.
The question surprised Joe, because there was no reason for Amy to wonder when exactly Jean and Shockey had been together.
“You’re sixteen,” Joe said.
In the dim light, Joe saw that the answer pleased Amy. At least there was that.
Amy turned back to Shockey again. She was quiet, just standing at the bedside, staring down at him. Even when a shrill beeping sound brought a nurse into the room, Amy didn’t move. The nurse briskly adjusted a machine and left.
“Why didn’t he come get us before?” Amy asked.
The words had been spoken in a whisper, and Joe wasn’t sure she had even heard right.
“He didn’t know about you until just a little while ago,” she said finally.
Amy fell silent again. Joe let out a breath of relief that her answer seemed to satisfy her. For now, at least. There would be a million questions later.
And no one left to answer them, Joe thought, looking away.
“Does he want me now?”
Joe’s eyes shot back to Amy. There was nothing to do but lie. Not for Shockey’s sake but for Amy’s.
“Yes,” Joe said.
It had hit her only in that second. She was going to take Amy back to Echo Bay. The thought had come out of nowhere and left her heart beating so fast that Joe felt a sudden warmth flood her body. It was just the rush of adrenaline, she knew, the same rush that came when you were afraid or backed into a corner. But that was exactly where she felt like she was right now. There was no other choice. There was no one else.
The beeps of the machines moved in to fill the silence. Joe was watching Shockey’s swollen eye, almost willing it to open. Finally, she focused on the jagged green line jerking slowly across the heart monitor.
“He’s going to die,” Amy whispered.
She picked up Shockey’s hand and wove her fingers through his.
Chapter Thirty-seven
He wasn’t going to die. Not like this, damn it.
Brandt stumbled on through the brush and mud. The icy rain stung his face, and his hands were so cold he couldn’t feel them anymore.
He stopped, trying to get his bearings in the dark. Where the hell was he? Was he going south or north? He couldn’t even figure that out anymore. There was no moon and no lights out here and if he didn’t figure this out soon, he was going to freeze to death.
He pulled up the soaked collar of his denim jacket and trudged on through the mud and blackness.
A sudden memory hit him: his father walking ahead of him, the crackling of his boots on ice the only sound in the gray morning light. Trees bent and broken from the ice storm the night before, barbed-wire fences dripping ice daggers. And then, there in the field, the frozen carcass of a calf that had gone lost in the storm.
