I don’t argue because my brain has gone numb. It’s just like Mom to put everyone else’s needs before her own. She must be dying to get to the hospital, to see Ricky, but she’s still worried about me, making sure I’m okay. I take a quick shower, then put on my same dirty clothes, and when I come out, Mom has set out a small breakfast for me. I take a tentative bite of buttered toast and wash it down with a swig of coffee, gripping the hot mug gratefully.
“They wouldn’t let me see him,” I say. “Because I have this cold. Brenda is there, though.”
Just like when I was little, Mom rests the back of her hand, cool and reassuring, against my forehead. “You’re burning up,” she says. “Finish your toast, then we’ll go.”
“Did you see the news about Amy? About the arrest?” I blurt out.
Mom nods. “That was odd, wasn’t it? For that guy to confess now, just when he was about to be released? I think he wanted people to know what he did. Then again, some long-term prisoners don’t know what to do when they get out, so they commit another crime just to go back. Or in his case, admit to one. I’m just glad he’s been locked up all this time. I hated to think whoever killed poor Amy was running around loose.”
“How do they know it was really him?” I press. “Couldn’t he just be saying he did it?” I think back to the blue car parked in front of our house and Amy Nessor climbing into the back seat. Could it really have been this guy all along? This Marcus Daley?
Mom doesn’t answer right away. She must be able to guess at how Amy’s murder has haunted me, although she has no idea how it shaped my life. Or maybe she’s thinking about Ricky and not paying attention to my questions at all.
“He had her braid,” she says. “It was buried in a lock box beside the shed in his mother’s backyard.”
This piece of information is still sinking in to my fog-filled brain when my phone rings. The sound jolts me back to the present. I glance at my splintered screen anxiously where a number I don’t recognize pulses back at me.
“I think it’s the hospital,” I say, my mouth going dry. I answer the phone, turning away from Mom’s fear-filled eyes. My voice comes out as a rasp and I have to clear my throat to repeat myself. I am trembling, but it has nothing to do with my fever.
“Zoe?” A clear, bright voice says. “It’s Amir.”
CHAPTER THREE
•
AT THE SOUND OF AMIR’S voice, I sink into an even thicker bog of confusion. There is an awkward silence before I am able to speak.
“I thought you would be at work,” Amir confesses. “I was kinda hoping to leave a message.” He gives a light laugh and I remember how his eyes used to light up whenever he laughed.
I am halfway down the hall to the bedrooms, but I can still sense my mother’s anxious presence in the kitchen. “Amir …” I say. My head is swimming with half-formed thoughts, with emotions I thought I’d buried long before. “I’d love catch up, but Richard, my brother, was just in an accident and …” I need you. I close my eyes, trying to shut out the image of collapsing into Amir, into his familiar arms and the happiness they once promised.
“Oh! Oh god! I’m sorry. I hope everything’s alright! I didn’t mean to —”
“He’s in a coma,” I say. I don’t know why I’m telling him this. I was wrong. I was wrong. I was wrong. “I just came home to get my mom. I have to go back. I told the hospital I’d be right back.”
When I return to the kitchen, Mom is watching my face, her eyes wide with worry.
“It wasn’t the hospital,” I say. “But we should go.”
MOM OPTS TO DRIVE, AND I let her, because I am so exhausted. My eyes close as we hit the outskirts of Dunford. I am tired, but also lulled by the comfort of Mom’s presence as she guides the car so capably toward Jefferson Memorial. As always, she is unflappable in a crisis. How could I have forgotten that? My head is swimming with Marcus Daley’s confession and the strangeness of Amir calling and an overarching, pounding fear for my brother. It’s a relief to feel myself drifting off, letting go of reality even if just for a minute. When I open my eyes, we are turning into the hospital parking lot.
“No change,” I am told, when I pick up the phone outside the ICU to inquire about Ricky’s status.
Today is supposed to be my interview with Crystal Clear Solutions, although no one from work has called to check in with me. Is anyone expecting me to show up given that I’ve been off for so many days? Is Bruce wondering right now where the hell I am? “I thought you’d be at work,” Amir said. What on earth prompted him to call? He must know I have a boyfriend. Which reminds me, shouldn’t I tell Jason about the accident? Shouldn’t I be collapsing into his arms right now? Was Amir just being friendly or was there something else, something more to his call? The look on his face the morning I told him I couldn’t marry him comes back to me in a rush. The disbelief, the confusion, and then the pain. But I only broke off our engagement because I thought — I pull out my phone, frantic to find out more about Marcus Daley. I don’t understand. Confusion and anguish pound in angry waves against my skull.
There is a yellow bar spreading across my cracked screen, making the display next to impossible to read. I set my phone aside in frustration just as Mom
