the other end of the state. They divorced, and in so doing Nick had left a gaping hole in Zack’s young life and Maggie full of grief and contempt. Three years ago, Nick died of cardiac arrest and was cremated.
Even after all these years, the very syllables of the killers’ names made Maggie’s stomach leak acid.
For maybe twenty minutes, she and Kate sat by Zack’s bed without speaking. Then Maggie said, “I don’t even know him anymore. Since Nick died, he barely talks to me. He’s like a stranger, like someone else’s son.”
“He’s on his own now,” Kate said. “He’s got school, he lives in the city. Kids do that. They grow up and go off on their own. It happens to every parent.”
“Does it? Weeks after he and Amanda broke up, he finally told me. I’m like the last person to know what’s going on in his life. I sometimes feel childless.”
“What was he doing biking in the middle of the night anyway?”
“At a friend’s house playing cards.” Then she added, “He’s got a gambling problem.” The moment the words hit the air, she wished she could pull them back.
Kate glared at her in dismay. “He has?”
“He’s in debt. I don’t know how much, but he’s been trying to gamble his way out.”
“How do you know that?”
“Bills and overdraft notices used to come to the house till I spoke to him.” She shook her head. “I’m a lousy mother.”
“No, you’re not. And you’re not responsible for his financial problems.”
“I wish I believed in God so I could pray. I really do.”
At the foot of the bed, she spotted Zack’s backpack with his laptop in it. He brought it wherever he went because he was working on his master’s thesis to meet a deadline. The topic was the influence of Darwinian theory on Mary Shelley’s
Maggie looked at the backpack, knowing how much he had put into the paper. Then she began to sob again. Kate put her arm around her. “He’ll be back.”
Maggie’s eyes roamed over the monitors, coming to rest on the orange squiggle monitoring his heart. As she fixed on it, she sent up a silent prayer that there would be billions left in that big stallion heart. “The last time I was here was when he was born. Twenty-four years ago. June six, seven eleven at night. I can still remember when they handed him to me.”
“Of course you can,” Kate said.
Zack had arrived a week early, while Kate and her husband, Bob, were in California on business. “Did you know he was born with a caul?”
“A caul?”
“Part of the amniotic sac had covered his head. The nurse gasped. I guess she was new and hadn’t seen that before. The doctor broke the sac and removed it from his face. Later he said that in olden times a caul was a sign that the baby would have mystical powers.”
“I never knew that.”
“Others believed it was a sign the child would grow up to be a demon.”
“And like most legends, it’s just that—an empty legend.”
“I suppose, but I wish I hadn’t heard that.” She glanced at Zack. “Like maybe there’s some kind of curse or something.”
“Pardon my French, but that’s plain bullshit.”
Maggie squeezed her hand again. “What if he doesn’t wake up?”
But, ironically, Jake’s murderers killed God for her. For a year or more she had stumbled along with her life on autopilot, her will all but extinguished. Eventually she moved out of near lethal grief to a state of seminumbness in order to raise Zack. Three years after Nick secreted himself in his monastery, a Brother Thomas Albani from the same order showed up with an urn of Nick’s ashes. To add insult to injury, the ashes sat on the fireplace mantelpiece at home at Zack’s request.
“What if this is punishment?” she asked.
“Punishment for what?”
“For not believing. What if this is God getting back at us?”
“My guess is that this was an accident pure and simple,” Kate said. “You’re a dedicated teacher who does volunteer work for abused children. If God’s in a punishing mood, He’s got the wrong person.”
3
Maggie spent the night in a chair beside Zack’s bed. She didn’t sleep much, dozing off and waking in fits. Zack did not move throughout the night—his face remained pale and inert, his eyes sealed shut. His only movement was the rise and fall of his chest to the respirator. The only signs that he was alive were the pulsing and squiggles of the monitors.
At one point during the night, the resident doctor asked her to step outside while he, a nurse, and an aide examined Zack. When they were finished, the physician spoke to her. “The good news is that he’s still stable and there are no signs of intracranial bleeding.”
“Thank goodness,” she said. “But when’s he going to wake up?”
“He’s in an induced coma, so it’s hard to predict. He did sustain a serious concussion so we have to wait until the pressure and swelling come down. Then we’ll back off on the barbiturates and ventilation.”
The word
“We certainly hope so.”
“You mean he could still remain in a real coma?”
“Well, there’s a slight chance, but we don’t expect that.”
She studied the doctor’s eyes and thought she saw another hideous possibility. “What about brain damage?”
“We see no signs at this point, but it’s still hard to tell,” he said. “But we’ll be treating him aggressively.”
* * *
Later that day, the doctors reported that the swelling had gone down in Zack’s brain and that they would reduce the barbiturates. It was the best news so far. At Kate’s insistence, Maggie overnighted in a hotel nearby instead of commuting to Carleton. Meanwhile, Kate drove to Maggie’s place and packed a suitcase of clothes for her.
Sometime before noon, Damian Santoro called Maggie to ask if he, Anthony Lawrence, and his roommate, Geoff Blessington, could come for a visit. She agreed. They arrived in the early afternoon and sat around the bed, staring in disbelief at Zack, who looked like a battered corpse in the bed. Maggie explained how the accident had happened and summarized what the doctors had said.
The news was sobering, but they found solace in the fact that Zack had suffered no internal injuries.
Maggie looked at the three of them. “You’re his best friends,” she said, “and I’d appreciate you being straight with me. I know he gambles more than he should. I also know that he’s fallen into arrears on rent and other matters. I don’t mean to put you on the spot, but does he owe any of you money?”
They glanced at one another, each hoping another would take the question. Finally Anthony responded, his eyes fluttering. “No, not much.”
“How much, exactly?”
“I don’t know … maybe … four hundred dollars.”
Maggie looked to Geoff. “What about you, Geoff?”
“Only about three fifty. But it’s not a problem.”
