“What? What do you mean? He can’t be dead. I just saw him at the museum. He was waiting for his ultimate proof that Theo Burr lived on the island for years after everyone thought she was dead.”
“I’m sorry. He wasn’t as lucky as you, Agnes, and the kids. He was still in the museum when it exploded. Cailey Fargo is working through the debris with the new arson investigator from Manteo. It’ll be a while before we know what happened. But they called me a few hours ago about Max.”
“But if there was an explosion, how can they tell for sure? Everything must be all over the place. Even if they think Max is dead, he might not be. They make mistakes about these things in the early parts of an investigation. I’ve heard Chief Michaels talk about it before.”
I knew I sounded a little hysterical, but there was that jackhammer going off in my head and I couldn’t believe Max was dead. My mind raced away from that reality and wondered how our little museum could explode. It seemed impossible, but I knew if Gramps was telling me, it must be true.
“I shouldn’t have told you,” he said. “I’m sorry, honey. You have to get better, and then we’ll worry about the rest of it, okay?”
“Okay.” I bit my lip to keep myself from becoming a sniveling, whining mass. I had to get myself together and get out of the hospital so I could find out how this could happen. “Is everyone else okay?”
“You were the closest one to the scene. There were a few accidents when you flew out into the street. Some debris hit a few cars and caused some problems. But all of the kids and their teachers were far enough away. I haven’t talked to Agnes yet, but Ronnie said she was okay physically. I wouldn’t want to imagine how her mental state is.”
I stared at all the little plastic tubes around me. Some of them were plugged into me while others seemed to be waiting for their opportunity. The doctor came in and told us that I was banged up a little but essentially whole. He wanted me to spend the night but said that as long as there were no changes in my condition, I could go home in the morning. He told me a nurse would bring me something to help me sleep since it didn’t look as though I had a concussion after all.
He sounded like some bad TV show. Even his smile seemed off to me. Gramps waited until he was gone to tell me again how happy he was that I was okay. He reminded me how important it was that I spend the night in the hospital since the doctor thought it was necessary. “I don’t want to wake up in the morning and find out you sneaked back during the night. This is for your own good, Dae.”
“You don’t have to convince me,” I assured him, settling back against the pillow again. “Don’t worry. You can go home and get some sleep. I’m going to do the same.”
“I’ll be here for you in the morning.” He stood up and kissed my forehead. “I love you, honey. We’ll get to the bottom of what happened when you’re feeling better. You’ll see.”
After he was gone, I stared at the blank white ceiling for a long time. I drifted in and out, thinking about Max and the explosion. It didn’t seem real. My mind rejected it like a bad dream.
A nurse came in and gave me a pill along with a pep talk about going home in the morning. The pill helped the jackhammer in my head, but it couldn’t quiet my restless mind. The pep talk didn’t affect me. Of course I was going home tomorrow. With everything else that had happened, the idea seemed trivial and stupid.
I went over and over everything that had happened at the museum and afterward. I saw Max waving to us from the doorway as he always did. We all began to walk away, and I answered the phone call from Kevin as I started back to the museum after realizing that I still had the gold coin.
The gold coin. It seemed to whisper to me from across the room. I wondered if the doctor was wrong and I had a head injury after all. While I had strong feelings for certain objects, I’d never experienced anything like this before. It was as though I could hear a voice calling me.
I tried to ignore the whisper and closed my eyes for a while, only to have them pop open again. But my gaze continued to go back to the bag that held my clothes. My jeans and the Duck T-shirt that I’d worn that day were in there—along with the gold coin from the museum.
I wanted, needed, to see the gold coin again. I told myself it was because it might be the only piece of the museum still left intact. But it was more than that. There were voices inside me. I pulled up the white blanket and sheet, covering my head. But it was no use. Seeing the coin, feeling it in my hand again, had become an obsession.
Another nurse came in and checked my pulse and temperature. “Would you like some more ice water, honey?”
“No. I’m fine, thanks.” I rustled up a smile. “I’m trying to get a good night’s sleep for tomorrow.”
“That’s right.” She beamed. “You’ll be going home in the morning. Who’s the lucky girl?”
I might’ve objected to her patronizing tone, but I was too focused on getting her out of there so I could find some way to reach my clothes. It seemed to take her forever to straighten the sheets and check the IV. Why didn’t she leave?
Once she was gone, I quit asking questions about why I wanted to see the coin again. Instead, I worked on how to get over there. It wasn’t that far. But I was surrounded by so many tubes and wires, I wasn’t sure I could manage to get away from them without alerting someone who might stop me.
I sifted through the medical spaghetti and realized only one tube was actually attached to me. The only thing I had to worry about was that one line, which led to a bag of glucose hooked up to a tall, stainless steel pole. I moved across the narrow bed carefully until I could throw my legs off the side next to the pole. I used one hand to propel myself off the bed while the other hand held onto the glucose feed and moved the pole closer to me.
The tile floor was cold under my bare feet, and my knee, which hadn’t hurt since I’d woken up, started hurting again. It was my storm knee. It always hurt right before a storm. Gramps said that was because I’d injured it surfing in the rough waves off the Atlantic side of Duck. He said it was my weak knee because it was my favorite to injure.
Ignoring the pain, I rolled the pole closer to me as I got off the bed and struggled to keep my hospital gown from exposing my rear. Why did they always show people in the movies with the backs of these stupid gowns closed? Why did they create them that way in the first place?
The voices from the coin kept me on track, whispering their secrets as I gingerly began to cross the room. Looking back on it, I wonder why I didn’t think I’d lost my mind. Maybe being raised as a finder of lost things made anything seem possible. Whatever the case, I didn’t question my thirst for the coin’s knowledge, and kept moving slowly across the tile.
I was nervous that one of the nurses would come in and check on me again. They might keep me from reaching the coin and that wouldn’t do. It was the only thing in my mind, and the closer I got to that bundle of clothes, the more important it seemed.
One of the wheels on the pole squeaked at every other revolution. I cringed each time. What would happen if I couldn’t reach the coin? What if someone else got to it before me? My brain buzzed with the whispers coming from it. What were they saying? If I held it in my hand again, would I be able to hear them more clearly?
I could always say I was trying to reach the bathroom, I realized. They didn’t have to know my real purpose. If I never told anyone about the voices in the coin, I’d never have to share it with anyone.
I finally reached the chair and ruthlessly shoved the bag of clothes on the floor so I could collapse where they’d been. I hadn’t known it would be such an ordeal moving a few feet. I was exhausted. Apparently being partially blown up took a lot out of a person.