‘Your daughters?’ I ask.
He glances at the photo and nods. ‘Yeah, they’re great. Though they only have two activities: shopping and finding everything I say or do mortifying.’
‘Sounds just like Hannah,’ I laugh.
If I’ve ever stopped to think of Nate these last twenty-two years it’s been only occasionally and never with regret, but now, seeing him again, it’s like the past has collided with the present and atoms are splitting inside me. It’s discombobulating. Unwelcome.
Well, possibly unwelcome.
Clearing some papers off a chair, Nate gestures for me to sit. I do. Nate leans against the edge of his desk. I eye his gun, holstered at his waist, and his crotch, which is right at eye-level, then look away, flustered. I’m bombarded with memories of us having sex in the way that only teenagers have sex, with total abandon and excitement and terror and curiosity.
‘OK,’ he says. ‘I can probably get the first charge dropped. I just need to have a word with the officer who pulled him over. The second one – the drug charge – is going to be harder. But he doesn’t have any priors on record, and he has you to vouch for him.’
‘Absolutely,’ I say, nodding madly, wondering how he doesn’t know about Gene’s prior DUI. I wonder if I should mention it but decide not to.
‘So,’ Nate continues, ‘I can make this disappear just this one time.’
‘You can do that?’ I ask him, relieved.
He nods.
‘Nate, that’s . . . I don’t know what to say . . . how to thank you . . .’
‘Just buy me coffee sometime,’ he says.
‘OK,’ I say, swallowing. Is there something in his smile or am I imagining it? Does he really mean it or is that just something people say?
A knock on the door blasts me back into the moment. A uniform cop pokes his head in and tells Nate someone is looking for him. I stand up and Nate ushers me out of his office with his hand resting on my lower back, and I feel it there, imprinted, even after he moves away.
I find Hannah in the waiting room, flirting with the police officer behind the desk.
I glare at the officer, who’s happily flirting right back at her. He’s at least eight or ten years older than her. There’s a line of disgruntled citizens waiting behind Hannah, but neither of them appears to have noticed.
I clear my throat and Hannah looks up and runs over. ‘So?’ she asks. ‘Is Gene going to jail?’
‘No, they’re letting him off without pressing charges,’ I whisper.
‘Seriously?’ Hannah asks, scowling at me as though she’s disappointed. ‘What did you have to do? Sleep with that cop dude?’
I whack her on the arm.
‘No, I’m serious,’ she answers, laughing. ‘He was totally into you. I could tell. And he’s hot, you know, for an old guy.’
I whack her again. ‘Hannah,’ I hiss.
‘What?’ she asks. ‘You dated him, didn’t you?’
I nod, blushing.
‘When did you break up with him? Or should I ask why?’ she says, elbowing me in the ribs and laughing.
‘Before I went off to college,’ I mumble.
I glance up and see Nate behind the counter, talking to the deputy – the guy Hannah was just flirting with. Maybe he’s the one who pulled Gene over. He’s frowning and shaking his head and I panic that maybe he’s refusing to drop the charges. But Nate says something – clearly pulls rank – and the cop, though still scowling, finally nods.
Nate gives me a thumbs-up. Victory.
Ten minutes later Gene’s free.
Chapter 14
Dr Warier discharges me with all the usual caveats and paperwork and I promise to return if I experience any sort of symptom at all, reassuring him that I’m not planning on leaving the hospital, not while June is still here. She’s being stubborn, refusing to wake up, though they’ve taken her off the critical list and the doctors are saying she’s stable. Stable but unresponsive.
I’ve tried talking to her. Gene’s tried singing to her. Hannah’s tried reading to her from a joke book. Robert sits quietly by her side, holding her hand, not saying much.
‘She’ll wake up,’ Laurie tells me, squeezing my arm as she helps me pack my things into an overnight bag. Robert’s with the insurance person again, handling the paperwork for June and me – God knows how much this stay in hospital will be costing our insurance company, but based on the final bill for June’s cancer treatment, I can only guess it’s close to a million already. Hopefully our insurance will cover it all again.
There’s a knock on the door and we look over to see Nate entering. ‘I heard you’re being released,’ he says to me, nodding hello at Laurie.
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Robert said you’d told him we could go home?’
Nate nods. ‘Yeah, forensics have released the crime scene.’
I swallow hard. I don’t want to go home. I can’t bear the thought of it, but Robert says that we have to. I gave up arguing with him, reasoning that it doesn’t matter much anyway, as I’ll be at the hospital with June most of the time. I’m only going back there now to grab a change of clothes.
‘It’s a mess, I’m afraid,’ Nate says with a grim smile. ‘I tried to get forensics to be as tidy as possible and clean up after themselves but they’re beholden to no one, those guys.’
‘It’s OK,’ I say.
‘I’ll organize a cleaner,’ Laurie says to me.
‘Good idea,’ Nate says. He pauses then asks, ‘How’s June doing?’
At the mention of June I feel wobbly and overcome. ‘She’s the same,’ I croak.
‘The docs say anything more?’
I shake my head. ‘They don’t know when she’ll wake up,’ I tell him.
What I don’t say is that they refused to answer me when I asked if she would ever wake up. ‘Have you got any leads?’ I ask, hopeful.
‘We’re investigating a few lines of inquiry.’
I have watched enough American Crime to know that means they’ve got squat.
‘I actually came by to ask you to come down to the police department later, if
