But it was Dan, checking in.
In the mad rush to get to St. Vincent’s—the other hospital in Dover, the one for physically sick people—I had forgotten all about him. I gathered myself and tried to sound collected and calm when I answered. I didn’t want to have Dan worrying about me any more than he already was.
“Hello?”
“Are you okay?” he asked.
Had he heard something in my voice? Or was he really just making sure I was okay?
“I’m fine,” I said. “I’m not with that person anymore.”
“Where are you?”
“I’m at the hospital,” I said. “I have to see Ronnie.”
“Is something the matter?”
I must not have been able to hide my feelings as well as I thought I could. Or I just didn’t care anymore. How much good had it done my mother and me to hide everything from each other? How many messes could have been avoided if we’d just talked to each other?
“Ronnie…” I couldn’t say it. Just as I couldn’t call my mother a murder victim, it was difficult to choke out these words about Ronnie. I took a deep breath and then said it as clearly as I could. “It looks like Ronnie tried to kill himself.”
“Jesus,” he said. “Do you need anything?”
And then, as hard as it was to admit I needed help yet again, I said yes.
“What can I do?”
“Can you just come to St. Vincent’s and sit with me? I’d like to have you here.”
“I’m on my way.”
I found Paul in the waiting room of St. Vincent’s. He was sitting in a plastic chair among the other families and victims of random Saturday afternoon mayhem and maladies. He didn’t notice me until I came within earshot of him and called out his name.
He jerked his head up, his face startled. Then his features relaxed a little and he said, “Elizabeth, it’s you.”
He stood up, but didn’t offer me a hug. He seemed particularly distracted.
“What the hell happened?” I asked.
As I said it—and I’m sure I wasn’t the first person to say that in the emergency room that day—several heads turned in our direction. A middle-aged guy two seats down from Paul held a bloody cloth to a cut on his knee. And a kid in the row behind him hacked with a cough that would give a coal miner a run for the money. They all watched, not even hiding their curiosity.
Paul placed his hand on my right arm and guided me to the other side of the room, where no one was sitting.
“Wait,” I said as we moved. “Is he okay? Is he even—?”
“He’s alive,” Paul said. “They’re treating him right now.”
“Have you seen him?”
“Not yet. But the nurse came out and updated me. She said he’s unconscious but stable. That was all she said.”
“What happened? What did he do?”
“It’s not entirely clear,” Paul said. “What I know is that a nurse went into Ronnie’s room late this morning, after you left Dover Community, and found him unresponsive. Frank Allison had arrived at the hospital, I guess, and started talking to one of the detectives. They went off somewhere, and they were gone for forty minutes or so. No one was allowed in Ronnie’s room. When the nurse went in, his breathing was shallow. He showed all the signs of having suffered an overdose. They think it’s possible he’s been hiding his pills for the last few days, maybe longer. Not swallowing them when the nurse brings the medication around.”
“Don’t they check that?” I asked.
“I’m sure they try,” Paul said. “But the place is understaffed. Every nurse and every aide looks dead on their feet. Ronnie’s smart enough to sneak something past them.”
“And he just confessed,” I said. “Do you think it’s because he feels guilty? Hell, it makes him look guilty. Doesn’t it?”
Paul simply reached out to me, his hand shaking, and took my hand in his. He didn’t say anything else. We sat like that for a while. My tears had stopped, at least for the moment. Paul squeezed my hand. His skin felt cold, clammy.
“I should have seen this coming,” he said. “I should have known.”
“We both should have, I guess.”
“No, no,” he said. He squeezed my hand a little tighter. “Earlier this morning, at the hospital, I wanted to talk to the police. Remember?”
“Did you want to warn them about this?” I asked. “Ronnie’s never done or talked about anything like this. Has he?”
“No, of course not.”
He didn’t say anything else. He stared straight ahead, his hand still in mine. A nurse came out carrying a clipboard, and my expectations rose. But she summoned another patient, the guy with the gash on his knee. I watched him limp behind the nurse.
Maybe the distraction of other people’s problems brought my mind back into focus. “Paul?” I said.
“Hmm?”
“I met someone today. A man named Gordon Baxter.”
Paul continued to stare straight ahead, but I saw him swallow, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down as though he were passing a peach pit through his throat.
“Do you know him?” I asked.
Paul nodded.
“He was at the cemetery, right?” I asked. “At Mom’s funeral?”
“Yes, he was. But he wasn’t supposed to be.”
“So it’s all true, then? Mom was married to him? And they had a daughter?”
Paul still didn’t look at me, but he said, “There’s so much more to the story than anything that man could tell you.”
Before I could ask for more of an explanation, Dan came through the doors of the emergency room and headed over to us.
Chapter Thirty-seven
I stood up as he approached, and he folded me in his arms. He held me for a long time. When he let go, he looked at Paul, and I remembered that the two of them had never met. I introduced them, calling Dan my friend from school. They shook hands, formal and a little stiff, and then we all sat down again.
I could tell Dan wanted to ask a bunch of questions, but he didn’t. He sat next to me, and the three of us were in an awkward little row, nobody knowing what to say or do.
I knew what I wanted to talk about, though. I wanted to ask Paul all about Gordon Baxter and the story he’d told me. Paul had said there was more to the story. I wanted to hear it all.
But I didn’t want to get into it with Dan there. And I was glad he was there. I leaned in close to him in our uncomfortable waiting room seats. He took my hand.
“Do you want anything?” he asked. “Something to eat or drink?”
“No, thanks,” I said. “I’m fine.”
“If you need help covering your classes next week or anything, I can do it.”
“I know,” I said. “Thanks.”
“I’m glad you called,” he said. “I mean, I wish you didn’t need to, but I’m glad you did.”
“It felt like I needed you,” I said.
“Is that a problem?” he asked.
“No,” I said. “I’m okay with it.”
I didn’t know how much time passed with the three of us sitting mostly in silence. It must have been twenty minutes or so before a nurse came through the swinging doors and called out for the family of Ronald Hampton. We all perked up, and Paul and I moved quickly toward the nurse.
“The doctor is coming to speak to you,” she said. “You can wait in this room here.”
She pointed us toward a door. Paul went through. I asked, “Is my brother okay?”
The nurse smiled without much joy. “The doctor is on his way. I don’t know anything about his condition.”
Paul and I waited with the door closed. I was glad Dan hadn’t tried to follow us. He could have come into the room and heard the news from the doctor. But was it his place? Were we there as a couple? My heart started to thump as we waited. I tried to read the tea leaves. Would they have left us here to wait if Ronnie was dead? Would they tell us he was dead in a room like the one we were in? Is that how things worked?