Then came a second of stunned silence, and in that second there was no pain either. I forced my eyes open and saw a brightly lit room where four men and one other woman stood, frozen, a record stopped in mid-spin on its turnstile, a planet stopped in mid-spin on its axis.
Or maybe it was only half a second.
Then everything revved again, too fast, and there came the obscene wave of pain and shouting and blood and pain and the drop of the cleaver on the island and the Jesus and the My god and the pain, and I was on the floor, crouched over my hand, clutching it with my other hand, and there was blood, so much blood, and I heard, Someone get a dish towel!
I heard: This is what happens!
I heard: No, don’t—Russell! No!
I heard a machine’s whir and grind.
I heard: She needs to get to a hospital.
I heard: Not from here.
I heard: We need her gone.
Ellen bent down and draped a dish towel over my bleeding hand, and my whole arm screamed, and I saw black, then Victor Flowers’s kitchen, then black, then Victor Flowers’s kitchen.
Ellen was cooing in my ear. I concentrated on her words, struggling to hear them above the roaring in my head.
“… get up, sweetie. You need to get up.”
“No one breathes a word of this,” said Victor, who had come back into the kitchen with our coats. “Not ever.” Then time jumped ahead. Ellen was wearing her coat. She was laying mine over my shoulders. I was standing again, leaning against her.
Stay awake, I told myself. Stay awake. Everything depends on it.
“They’re gonna go to the police,” Jason said.
“No,” Victor said. “Emily, you need to make sure she never talks. To anyone. Am I understood?”
“What’s she supposed to tell the hospital?”
Blood spilled onto the floor. My blood. People were saying words to each other.
“No one can make her talk,” Victor said. “And she’s not gonna talk. Make sure she knows her life depends on it.”
Mine. My life depends on it.
“I’ll make sure,” Ellen said.
“Not a word, Emily. I’m holding you responsible. You keep her from talking and I’ll make sure you get your buy-in back.”
“When?”
“No, you don’t ask when. You just say okay.”
I was up, barely, on my feet, Ellen’s arm around me, supporting me.
Stay awake, I told myself.
Ian held open a door leading outside. Every step brought a fresh shock to my hand. We were outside. The door shut behind us.
The outside lights revealed a harsh, muted world. Snow in the trees, snow on the grass, snow falling and blowing and vanishing into the black bay far below. The frigid temperature kept me awake and moving. Ellen slowly guided me across the lawn, one foot on the snow-covered grass, then the next, around the side of the house, toward the front, and closer to the car on the street, the trees and shrubs and hedges around Victor Flowers’s property making private our shameful, excruciating exodus. I fell. Ellen got down on her knees and helped me sit up, and then she helped me stand. Then we were moving again, moving across the surface of a new planet, frozen and harsh and windswept. I stumbled again and grabbed her coat tighter, nearly pulling us both down. She held on, keeping us up, and then we were trudging together once more, my good arm reaching around her waist, underneath her thick coat, and I held on as we cut a path through the fresh snow, leaving a wake of blood.
“We’re a boat,” I said.
“What?”
All I could manage was to repeat, “A boat.”
She shushed me. “Come on, honey, we’re almost at the car.”
She led me to the passenger side. Sill holding on to me with one arm, she found her keys and unlocked the door, pulled it open, and eased me into the seat.
“I’ll drive a mile and then call 911,” she said.
“No!”
“What are you talking about?”
“Take me home.” I had trouble catching a breath, forming words. “Don’t argue.” I could hear my words slur. “Hurry.”
“No, Nat—that’s crazy.”
“Drive me home!”
“Honey, you need a hospital. They can’t make you talk. Even if they call the police, the police can’t make you say anything you don’t—”
“Stop talking.” With my good hand I had fished my phone out of my pocket. I held the home button and said, as clearly as I could, “Call Harley.”
The phone echoed me—Calling Harley—and started to ring. Ellen’s tires spun in place.
Harley answered. I would always consider this to be the miracle of my life. “Natalie?”
The tires caught traction. We pulled away from the curb.
“Are you home?” I asked.
“Yeah, I’m home. Natalie, what’s—”
I interrupted her with all the words she needed to hear and not one extra. First aid. It’s bad. My fingers. Thirty minutes. My apartment. Don’t tell anyone. Please. Do it. I ended the call. When she called back a few seconds later I let it go to voicemail.
Elevate. I should elevate the wound.
“Natalie?” Ellen said.
Blood soaked the dish towel. Blood on the car seat. Direct pressure.
“Natalie, are you still with me?”
Stay awake. Elevate.
We passed the exit for the amphitheater where long ago I had seen Pearl Jam with my friend Jamie Carr and her older brother Lance, who’d been in college. The band had looked old. Lance had looked old. He kissed me by the bathrooms. His lips pressed hard. Direct pressure. Snow struck the windshield.
We passed the exit for Bayshore hospital.
Wipers pushed away the snow. Wipe. Wipe. Snow snow blood blood, blood in the snow, like a boat’s wake—
“Another fifteen minutes. Okay? Natalie?”
—fourteen thirteen
