Night came, and West stayed home and did not want to be with anyone.
Her chest was tight and she could not sit long in any one spot or concentrate. Raines called several times, and when she heard his voice on the machine, she did not pick up. Brazil had vanished, it seemed, and West could focus on little else. This was crazy. She knew he wouldn't do anything stupid. But she was revisited by the horrors she had worked in her career.
She had seen the drug overdoses, the gunshot suicides not discovered until hunters returned to the woods. She conjured up images of cars covered by the clandestine waters of lakes and rivers until spring thaws or hard rains dislodged those who had chosen not to live.
tw Even Hammer, with all her problems and preoccupations, had contacted West several times, voicing concern about their young, at-large volunteer. Hammer's weekend, so far, had been spent at SICU, and she had sent for her sons as their father settled deeper into the valley of shadows. Seth's eyes stared dully at his wife when she entered his room. He did not speak.
He did not think complete thoughts, but rather in shards of memories and feelings unexpressed that might have formed a meaningful composite had he been able to articulate them. But he was weak and sedated and intubated. During rare lucid flickers during days he could not measure, when he might have given Hammer enough to interpret his intentions, the pain pinned him to the bed. It always won. He would stare through tears at the only woman he had ever loved.
Seth was so tired. He was so sorry. He'd had time to think about it.
I'm sorry, Judy. I couldn't help any of it ever since you've known me.
Read my mind, Judy. I can't tell you. I'm so worn out. They keep cutting on me and I don't know what's left. I punished you because I couldn't reward you. I have figured that out too late. I wanted you to take care of me. Now look. Whose fault is it, after all? Not yours. I wish you would hold my hand.
Hammer sat in the same chair and watched her husband of twenty-six years. His hands were tethered to his sides so he would not pull out the tube in his trachea. He was on his side, his color deceivingly good and not due to anything he was doing for himself, but to oxygen, and she found this ironically typical. Seth had been drawn to her because of her strength and independence, then had hated her for the way she was. She wanted to take his hand, but he was so fragile and inflexible and trussed up by tubes and straps and dressings.
Hammer leaned close and rested her hand on his forearm as his dull eyes blinked and stared and looked sleepy and watery. She was certain that at a subconscious level he knew she was here. Beyond that, it was improbable much registered. Scalpels and bacteria had ravaged his buttocks and now were file ting and rotting his abdomen and thighs. The stench was awful, but Hammer did not really notice it anymore.
"Seth," she said in her quiet, commanding voice.
"I know you may not hear me, but on the off chance you can, I want to tell you things.
Your sons are on their way here. They should arrive sometime late this afternoon and will come straight to the hospital. They are fine. I am hanging in there. All of us are sad and sick with worry about you. "
He blinked, staring. Seth did not move as he breathed oxygen and monitors registered his blood pressure and pulse.
"I have always cared about you," she went on.
"I have always loved you in my own way. But I realized long ago that you were attracted to me so you could change me. And I was drawn to you because I thought you'd stay the same. Rather silly, now that I look at it." She paused, a flutter around her heart as his eyes stared back at her.
"There are things I could have done better and differently. You must forgive me, and I must forgive myself. You must forgive me and you must forgive yourself."
He didn't disagree with this, and wished he could somehow indicate what he thought and felt. His body was like something unplugged, broken, out of batteries. He flipped switches in his brain and nothing happened. All this because he drank too much in bed, while playing with a gun to punish her.
"We go on from here," Chief Judy Hammer said, blinking back tears.
"Okay, Seth? We put this behind us and learn from it. We move ahead."
It was hard to talk.
"Why we got married isn't so important anymore.
We are friends, companions. We don't exist to procreate or perpetuate endless sexual fantasies for each other. We're here to help each other grow old and not feel alone. Friends. " Her hand gripped his arm.
Tears spilled from Seth's eyes. It was the only sign he gave, and his wife dissolved. Hammer cried for half an hour as his vital signs weakened. Group A strep oozed toxins around his soul, and did not give a damn about all those antibiotics and immunoglobulin and vitamins being pumped into its plump host. To his disease, he was a rump roast. He was carrion on life's highway.
Randy and Jude entered their father's SICU room at quarter of six, and did not see him conscious. It was not likely Seth knew they were by his bed, but knowing they were coming had been enough.
West cruised past the Cadillac Grill, Jazzbone's, and finally headed to Davidson, deciding that Brazil might be hiding out in his own house and not answering the phone. She pulled into the eroded driveway, and was crushed that only the ugly Cadillac was home.
West got out of her police car. Weeds grew between cracks in the brick walk she followed to the front door. She rang the bell several times, and knocked. Finally, she rapped hard and in frustration with her baton.
"Police!" she said loudly.
"Open up!"
This went on for a while until the door opened and Mrs. Brazil blearily peered out. She steadied herself by holding on to the door frame.
"Where's Andy?" West asked.
"Haven't seen him." Mrs. Brazil pressed her forehead with a hand, squinting, as if the world was bad for her health.
"At work, I guess," she muttered.
"No, he's not and hasn't been since Thursday," West said.
"You're sure he hasn't called or anything?"
"I've been sleeping."
"What about the answering machine? Have you checked?" West asked.
"He keeps his room locked." Mrs. Brazil wanted to return to her couch.
"Can't get in there."
West, who did not have her tool belt with her, could still get into most things. She took the knob off his door and was inside Brazil's room within minutes. Mrs. Brazil returned to the living room and settled her swollen, poisoned self on the couch. She did not want to go inside her son's room. He didn't want her there anyway, which was why she had been locked out for years, ever since he had accused her of taking money from the wallet he tucked under his socks. He had accused her of rummaging through his school papers. He had blamed her for knocking over his eighteen-and-under singles state championship tennis trophy, badly denting it and breaking off the little man.
The red light was flashing on the answering machine beside Brazil's neatly made twin bed with its simple green spread. West hit the play button, looking around at shelves of brass and silver trophies, at scholastic and creative awards that Brazil had never bothered to frame, but had thumbtacked to walls. A pair of leather Nike tennis shoes, worn out from toe-dragging, was abandoned under a chair, one upright, one on its side, and the sight of them pained West. For a moment, she felt distressed and upset. She imagined the way he looked at her with blue eyes that went on forever. She remembered his voice on the radio, and the quirky way he tested coffee with his tongue, which she had repeatedly told him wasn't a smart way to determine whether something was too hot. The first three calls on his machine were hang-ups.
"Yo," began the fourth one.
"It's Axel. Got tickets for Bruce Hornsby."
West hit a button.
"Andy? It's Packer. Call me."
She hit the button again and heard her own voice looking for him. She skipped ahead, landing on two more hang-ups. West opened the closet door, and her fear intensified when she found nothing inside. She, the cop, went into drawers and found them empty, as well. He had left his books and computer behind, and this only deepened her confusion and concern. These were what he loved the most. He would not abandon them unless he had embarked upon a self-destructive exodus, a fatalistic flight. West looked under the bed and lifted the mattress, exploring every inch of Brazil's private space. She did not find the pistol he had borrowed from her.