I find my flip-flops under an ottoman, shove my feet into them, and race for the door.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Traffic isn’t bad for a Sunday evening, but I weave around what cars there are on Roswell Road, making liberal use of my horn. A traffic light turns yellow, and I fly beneath it just before it turns red. But I have to stop at the light at Glenridge, where the Church of Scientology has taken up residence in an old brick-and-column structure that looks like the bastard offspring of a Williamsburg mansion and a dentist’s office. I find myself thinking I will convert to Scientology if I can get to my sister in time. If I’m not already too late.
The light changes. By some miracle there are no police around as I gun the Corolla through the intersection, narrowly missing a pickup truck laden with ladders and paint buckets. Then I’m going down the long slope toward I-285 and the overpass. Ahead, an orderly array of red taillights crosses the highway. I blow through another yellow light, nearly clip a slow-turning SUV, and then I’m racing up the slight rise to the overpass itself. The sun has dropped below the horizon, but I can see a figure on the sidewalk, halfway across the bridge, standing at the rail. The safety barrier, a chain-link fence that usually rises up from the rail and curves inward, is gone—a few days ago a utility truck overcorrected on a turn and scraped the rail, tearing a long gash in the fencing. Aside from a waist-high iron rail and some plastic orange netting above that, there is nothing between the figure on the walkway and the open air to the highway below.
I pull the car as close to the side of the road as I can, stopping abruptly just at the start of the bridge. I punch on the hazard lights and get out of my car. A UPS delivery van rolls past, giving a quick blast on its horn, the exhaust blowing my hair back.
It’s Susannah, all right, thirty feet away, leaning against the railing, peering down at the interstate traffic flowing twenty feet beneath her.
“Susannah!” I call out.
She keeps looking down. I walk toward her slowly, wary of spooking her. “Susannah?” I call out again.
“I dropped my phone,” she says, still looking down at the highway. A tractor trailer zooms past below. Absurdly I think of alligators in a moat. “It just … slipped out of my hand,” she continues. “Almost hit a car. Jesus, that would be a shitty way to go. You’re driving along and someone drops their iPhone through your windshield. But it didn’t hit anyone.”
I come to a stop maybe six feet away, nerves on edge. I hate heights, and I feel if I glance one more time over the rail, I’ll either be sick or fall. My stomach clenches at the thought. I swear I can feel the bridge sway ever so gently beneath my feet. Another passing car honks indignantly. In the distance to the east, above the tree line, I can just make out the tops of the King and Queen towers, the greenish glow of their crowns like a pair of spectral eyes observing this family reunion. I try to ignore everything except my sister. She still looks down at the interstate as if mesmerized by what she sees.
“Susannah,” I manage to say. I think I sound relatively calm. “What are you doing?”
“Thinking about jumping,” she says.
Someone drives past in an SUV, the passenger window down, shouting. All I can hear is, “—you crazy?”
“Susannah,” I say. “Suze. Let’s … let’s get in my car. Come on. I’ll take you somewhere. We’ll get ice cream or something. A beer.”
“I don’t want a beer,” she says. She is still looking down.
“I’ll get you whatever you want,” I say. “I’ll buy you a whole fucking bar. Just … don’t.”
She turns her head to look at me then, and I see tears have tracked down her cheeks. “You know what I want?” she says. “I want Mom.”
Her words are a sword through my heart. I open my mouth, close it again.
“I know it’s stupid,” she says.
“It’s not stupid,” I say.
She holds a furious grief in her eyes, like an unbearable flame. “I want to jump,” she says in a small, tight voice.
“Please don’t,” I say, my voice cracking. “Don’t do that, Susannah. I … I don’t want you to. Please. We can get you help. I’ll get you help.”
She leans against the railing as if winded. Below her, traffic streaks by at seventy miles an hour.
“Come on,” I say, extending my hand. “Just walk over here. It’ll be okay. I love you. It’s okay. I love you. Come on.”
Slowly, as if she has to decipher the meanings of my words, Susannah frowns, glancing at me. Then, quickly, she straightens up. A bright panic shoots through my heart.
“Okay,” she says in the same small, tight voice, as if speaking is painful. And she reaches out and takes my hand, then walks into my awkward hug, leaning against me as I clutch her and choke back sobs. Behind me, cars continue to honk, the passing commuters bearing witness to my sister avoiding death, again.
I DRIVE SUSANNAH to Northside Hospital, the closest ER. It’s known as the Baby Factory because most suburban moms in Buckhead and Dunwoody and Sandy Springs deliver their babies at Northside. Both my sister and I were born there. Taking her to Northside makes a strange kind of sense—she was born there and she will avoid dying there.
Susannah sits in the front seat and stares out the passenger window. I don’t know what to say and don’t want to just babble at her, so I
