Die For You

“They’ve been waiting to talk to you,” Linda said, nodding and rubbing her eyes.

“Who has?”

“The police,” she whispered, leaning in close. “They found you in the office. Izzy it’s been destroyed, everything stolen or smashed, spray paint everywhere. Someone called nine-one-one. You were unconscious behind Marc’s desk. They brought you here and called us. Detectives are supposed to come when you wake up.”

“Those people-they weren’t FBI agents,” I said in an absurd statement of the obvious.

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “They weren’t.”

“Why didn’t they kill me?”

“Izzy!”

It wasn’t a lamentation; it was a question of pure curiosity. They should have killed me. I saw them all, could easily identify any of them and would likely be doing so shortly. But they hadn’t. Why not? To someone who constructed plot for a living, it seemed stupid, careless.

My sister put her head in her hand and I saw her shoulders start to shake a little. She always cried from stress or anger. Some people viewed it as weakness. But I knew it for what it was-her release valve. The kids crowded in around us, Trevor resting his head on his mother’s shoulder, Emily taking my hand. Trevor’s tangle of silky curls mingled with his mother’s.

“What happened to you, Izzy?” Emily whispered in my ear. Her breath smelled like fruit punch. She’d never called me “aunt” for some reason, and I was glad for it. That title seemed too formal, too old-fashioned, put a distance between us that I hoped she’d never feel. I squeezed her hand, looked into her worried face. She was rail- thin, and all hard angles, a cool city girl with a poet’s heart.

“I’m not sure,” I said lamely. She turned away, glanced toward the cop, who had returned to his seat and opened a copy of the Post. He seemed impervious to our drama, just putting in his time.

“Where’s Marcus?” Emily said, looking back at me. I tried not to cry again; one of us crying was enough. Children shouldn’t have to comfort adults.

“I don’t know, Em,” I managed, squeezing her hand.

“What do you mean?”

Trevor had turned his eyes up to me and both he and his sister looked frightened now. Then Erik came up behind them, put a hand on each of their shoulders. Both kids turned to wrap their arms around his middle.

“Okay, everyone,” he said, strong, light. He was not an especially tall man but there was a powerful, energetic force to him. Men liked him; women flirted with him. Everyone just felt better when he was around.

“Let’s all try to pull it together. Everything’s going to be fine.”

He had four sets of uncertain eyes on him. I saw him muster his strength.

“It is,” he said brightly. “I promise.”

* * *

IT WAS HOURS more before I was treated-a deep gash at my temple cleaned, stitched, and bandaged. I had a severe concussion, according to the very young doctor who attended to me. He warned me to care for the wound, take my antibiotics and rest.

“Or pay the consequences. Head injuries are very tricky. Not to be taken lightly.”

He was frighteningly pale, the skin on his hands nearly translucent, the veins beneath, thick blue ropes. He looked as if he lived day and night beneath the harsh fluorescent bulbs.

We were still in the emergency room, but in one of those curtained-off little areas no bigger than a shoe box, that same cop sitting outside. I could see his bulky shadow through the white gauzy barrier. The detectives who were supposed to come talk to me still hadn’t arrived.

“A blow to the temple can be fatal,” the doctor said gravely. “You’re very lucky.”

I didn’t have the will to answer him. My sister sat beside me on a tiny, uncomfortable-looking stool, holding my hand. Erik had taken the kids to his mother’s and afterward was planning to see what he could find out about Marcus, about the office break-in, if you could call it that. An odd calm had come over me; it was more like a brownout, the result of a brain short-circuit. You can only handle so much pain, fear, grief before your head switches off for a while. That’s how the psyche handles trauma. A clinical psychiatrist had told me this once during a research interview I was conducting for one of my novels; it made sense to me then. I understood it better now.

“Are you all right?” Linda asked when the doctor left. She’d repeated this question every fifteen minutes like a nervous tic since I’d regained consciousness.

“Can you just stop asking me that?”

“Sorry,” she said, straightening out her back, then arching it into a stretch.

“You sound like Mom.”

“Okay, okay,” she said, raising her palms in the air a little and then letting them drop to her thighs. “I’m sorry. You don’t have to get mean about it.”

“Did Erik call?” I asked.

She took her phone from her pocket and checked the screen, though we both knew it hadn’t rung. She shook her head. I opened my mouth but she interrupted me.

“I just tried Marc’s cell and your apartment five minutes ago.”

I closed my eyes. This wasn’t happening. I saw her face again, the blonde. What had she said exactly? Marcus is wrong about you. You’re going to be trouble, aren’t you? Every time I heard her voice in my head, I felt sicker and more despairing. Another phrase that was still burned in my memory started echoing as well, as much as I’d tried to forget it: I can still feel you inside me.

“That woman,” my sister said, reading my mind as usual. It has always been like this with us-calling each other simultaneously, finishing each other’s sentences, buying each other the same gifts. “Are you sure that’s what she said?”

“I’m sure.”

She leaned forward, put her elbows on her knees. She got this careful, thoughtful look on her face that she gets when she’s trying to be diplomatic. “I’m just saying-you do have a concussion.”

“I know what I heard, Linda,” I said. I felt bad immediately for my nasty tone but didn’t apologize. Instead, I closed my eyes and turned away from her.

She was quiet for a second, but I heard her tapping her foot on the floor.

“Do you want me to call anyone?”

“Like who?”

“Like Jack?”

“No,” I said. “No. Do you ever stop?”

I heard her stand up, issue a light sigh. “I’m going to find some food for us,” she said.

“Good,” I said blackly. “Take your time.”

She rested a hand on my shoulder for a moment and then walked out. I heard her ask the cop if he wanted anything, which made me feel even worse for being such a bitch. Everyone always thought of Linda as the good girl, the sweet one. I was the black cloud. I was the bad sleeper, the finicky eater, the colicky baby, the one who gave our mother heartburn during her pregnancy. Even as adults, I was the one who forgot thank you notes, who was always late and didn’t return phone calls. She never forgot a birthday, never failed to send flowers to the funeral of a distant relative, not only showed up everywhere on time but looking perfect and with an exquisite hostess gift. One of my top ten most dreaded sentences: Your sister is such a treasure, followed by a pregnant silence in which the subtext So, what happened to you? might easily be inferred. If they only knew. Not that she wasn’t those things. Just that she wasn’t only that.

I was glad for a few minutes of solitude to let some tears fall in private with no one fawning, telling me it was going to be okay. But I wasn’t alone for long.

“Mrs. Raine?”

I turned at the male voice. “I’m Detective Grady Crowe.”

Strictly by my estimate, the fiction writer notices approximately fifty percent more details than other people.