Across the street drapes moved as shadows passed silent judgment. And then, at the end of the road, she saw kids from her school, pedaling hard, faces red. News moved so fast in a town where zoning often made front pages.
The two boys stopped near the cruiser and let their bikes fall. The taller, breathless, a sweep of hair plastered down as he walked slow toward the ambulance.
“Is she dead?”
Duchess lifted her chin, met his eye and held it. “Fuck off.”
The engine rumbled as the door swung closed. Smoked glass made matte of the world.
Cars snaked the turns till they tipped from the hill, the Pacific behind, rocks broke the surface like heads of the drowning.
She watched her street till the end, till trees reached over and met on Pensacola, branches like hands, linked in prayer for the girl and her brother, and the unfurling tragedy that began long before either was born.
Night met others just like it, each swallowing Duchess so totally she knew she would not see day again, not the way other kids saw it. The hospital was Vancour Hill and Duchess knew it too well. When they took her mother she stood on the polished floor, light mirrored up, her eye on the door as Walk brought Robin inside. She walked over and took her brother’s hand, then led him toward the elevator where she rode to the second floor. The family room, lights dimmed, she pushed two chairs together. Across was a supply room and Duchess helped herself to soft blankets and then made the chairs into a cot. Robin stood awkward, the tired dragging him, haunting dark circled his eyes.
“You need to pee?”
A nod.
She led him into the bathroom, waited a few minutes then saw he washed his hands well. She found toothpaste, squeezed a little onto her finger and ran it around his teeth and gums. He spit, she dabbed his mouth.
She helped him out of his shoes and over the arms of the chairs, where he settled like a kind of small animal as she covered him over.
His eyes peered out. “Don’t leave me.”
“Never.”
“Will Mom be okay?”
“Yes.”
She cut the television, the room dark, emergency lighting left them in red, soft enough that he slept by the time she reached the door.
She stood in clinical light, her back to the door; she would not let anyone inside, there was another family room on three.
An hour and Walk appeared again and yawned like there was cause. Duchess knew of his days, he drove Cabrillo Highway, those perfect miles from Cape Haven to beyond, each blink a still of such paradise people crossed the country to find them, buy their homes and leave them empty ten months of the year.
“Is he asleep?”
She nodded once.
“I went to check on your mother, she’ll be alright.”
She nodded again.
“You can go and grab something, a soda, there’s a machine next to—”
“I know.”
A look back into the room saw her brother sleeping soundly, he would not move until she stirred him.
Walk held out a dollar bill, she took it reluctantly.
She walked the corridors, bought the soda and didn’t drink it, she would keep it for Robin when he woke. She saw into cubicles, sounds of birth and tears and life. She saw shells of people, so empty she knew they would not recover. Cops led bad men with tattooed arms and bloodied faces. She smelled the drunks, the bleach, the vomit and shit.
She passed a nurse, a smile because most of them had seen her before, just one of those kids, dealt a losing hand.
When she returned she found Walk had set two chairs by the door. She checked on her brother then sat.
Walk offered her gum and she shook her head.
She could tell that he wanted to talk, to bullshit about change, a slick on the long road, how it would all be different.
“You didn’t call.”
He watched her.
“Social. You didn’t call.”
“I should.” He said it sad, like he was letting down her or the badge, she did not know which.
“But you won’t.”
“I won’t.”
He had a stomach that strained his tan shirt. The chubby, reddened cheeks of a boy whose indulgent parents never told him “no.” And a face so open she could not imagine he carried a single secret. Star said he was all good, like that was a thing.
“You should get some sleep.”
They sat like that till stars leaned to first light, the moon forgot its place and held like a smear on new day, a reminder of what had gone. Opposite was a window. Duchess stood at the glass and pressed her head to the trees and the falling wild. Birdsong. A long way and she saw water, specks that were trawlers crawling the waves.
Walk cleared his throat. “Your mother … was there a man—”
“There’s always a man. Whenever anything fucked up happens in the world, there’s always a man.”
“Darke?”
She held straight.
“You can’t tell me?” he asked.
“I’m an outlaw.”
“Right.”
She wore a bow in her hair and fussed with it often. She was too thin, too pale, too beautiful like her mother.
“There’s a baby just been born down there.” Walk changed it up.
“What did they call it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Fifty bucks says it’s not Duchess.”
He laughed gently. “Exotic by rarity. You know you were going to be Emily.”
“Sore must be the storm.”
“Right.”
“She still reads that one to Robin.” Duchess sat, crossed her leg, rubbed the muscle, her sneaker loose and worn. “Is this my storm, Walk?”
He sipped coffee, like he was searching for an answer to an impossible question. “I like Duchess.”
“You try it a while. If I was a boy I might’ve been Sue.” She lay her head back and watched the strips blink. “She wants to die.”
“She doesn’t. You mustn’t think that.”
“I can’t decide if suicide is the most selfish or selfless act.”
At six a nurse led her.
Star lay, a shadow of a person, even less of a mother.
“The Duchess of Cape Haven.” Star, her smile there but weak. “It’s alright.”
Duchess watched her,
