“What’s he doing here?” I whispered.
“Drops in from time to time to rearrange the displays and generally annoy me.”
Eric breezed through the door, caught sight of me, and aimed a dazzling smile in my direction. “Hi, Han. How the hell are you?”
“Doing good,” I lied. Eric always called me “Han,” even though he knew I hated it. “Been worried about you, Han. Heard you’re facing additional surgery.”
I stared at him stupidly, wondering who’d blabbed. “I haven’t decided about that yet.”
“Well, good luck with it.” He ran the back of his hand along a set of brass wind chimes, setting them to dancing and singing.
Ruth emerged from behind the counter, grabbed me by the arm, and dragged me toward the street. “Watch the store for a bit, will you?” she called over her shoulder.
Eric shrugged and shook his head. “Can’t, I’m afraid. I’m meeting someone.”
“Get off it, Eric. As long as you continue to own part of Mother Earth, you can sit your buns down behind the counter every once in a while.”
“But-”
“Don’t you ‘but’ me. I’ll be back in an hour. Hannah and I need to talk.”
Ruth left Eric stammering useless protests and steered me down Main Street to the city dock. We bought decaf cappuccino at Starbucks and carried it to a bench overlooking the water. “So what are we going to do now?” I asked. I watched a red cigarette boat noisily exuding smoke, hops, and testosterone belch its way up the narrow channel called Ego Alley, U-turn, and mosey back out to the bay. Thank God it was winter or we’d have been treated to the sight of the operator’s bare torso, with gold chains tangled in his chest hair. I wrapped my hands around my paper cup to warm them. “Is it possible to be cured of something that never happened?” I wondered aloud.
“You mean learn to live with something you believe happened when it actually didn’t?” She removed the plastic lid and sipped her coffee. “I don’t know.”
We sat in silence for a few minutes, watching the tourists stroll back and forth on the crosswalk between the city dock and the market house.
Suddenly I had a brainstorm. “Wait a minute! That’s the key! It’s not up to Georgina to prove it did happen. We have to prove to her that it didn’t.” I set my coffee down on the brick planter next to me and turned toward my sister. “Think about it, Ruth! If such a thing happened, wouldn’t there have been signs? Physical signs?”
“Possibly.”
“I wonder where Georgina’s medical records are?” I asked.
“Lord only knows, we’ve moved so many times. If Mother doesn’t have them, they must be at some Navy hospital somewhere. Where are yours? Or mine, for that matter?”
“Mine have been overtaken by events,” I said, thinking about the fat folder in Dr. Wilkins’s office with sheet after sheet detailing my cancer surgery, chemotherapy, and extensive follow-up treatment. Being able to lay my hands on a record of a tetanus shot I had back in 1959 seemed the least of my worries. “Help me put it together, Ruth.”
Ruth leaned back on her hands and stared into the pale winter sky. “Georgina had her tonsils out when she was five…”
“But they wouldn’t necessarily have been looking…” I turned my head away. “… down there.”
“I vaguely remember a severe bladder infection…” Ruth’s voice trailed off and the silence was filled with the chatter of a group of boisterous tourists.
I couldn’t see any way around it. “Somebody needs to ask Mother, then.”
“Oh, sure!”
“Maybe I could inquire about my early records. Say I need the information for my reconstructive surgery.” The minute I said it, I realized what a stupid idea that was. Mother was no fool. In my eagerness to avoid talking to Mom about Georgina’s accusation, I was grasping at straws. I sat quietly and we stared at a seagull pecking energetically at a dirty pretzel.
I retrieved my coffee and took a grateful sip. “At this late date, I have a feeling it’s a case of ‘he said, she said.’ ”
“Hannah, I told you. Stop worrying. By the time I get back from Bali, this will all have blown over.”
This was the second time in less than an hour she’d mentioned her damn trip. How could she be going about business as usual when our world was coming apart around us? I turned to face her. “I can’t believe that you’re still talking about that trip!”
Ruth’s eyebrows lifted in surprise. “I’ve been planning this trip for over a year. Paid for it in advance. It’s a package deal, Hannah. Nonrefundable.”
“One might consider the situation at home somewhat in the nature of an emergency.”
“One certainly might, but it’s not going to do me or anybody else any good if I stay home moaning and groaning.”
“I need you, Ruth.”
“And I need this retreat! It’s something I’m doing for myself, Hannah. You, of all people, should understand the importance of that.” She slipped the plastic lid inside her empty cup and squashed the cup flat. “I need to be extra careful now that you’ve screwed up the odds.”
“Odds? What odds?” I didn’t have a clue what she was talking about.
“Having a sister or mother with breast cancer increases my risk of getting it by twenty-five percent.”
I leapt to my feet and glared down at Ruth, who frowned and shook her head slowly from side to side. “I always warned you that working in Washington-”
“It’s not my fault I got cancer! I can’t believe you’re laying this on me! Not here. Not now.”
I must have been shouting, because she grabbed my hand and pulled me down onto the bench beside her. “Shhh. I’m just trying to explain why I won’t give up my trip. It’s for my health, as much as for my business.”
At that point I felt like wishing her good-bye and good riddance, but as satisfying as it would have been to punch her in the nose, I really wanted Ruth to stay and I told her so. Begged her even. Said I’d run an ad myself offering to sell her reservations.
“I only regret I won’t be back in time to help out when you have your reconstruction.” She slipped her arm around my shoulder and drew me close.
I shrugged her arm away. “If I have it.” I didn’t even try to hide the anger in my voice. “Georgina’s certifiable, Daddy’s flirting with hard liquor again, one or both of them may have killed that damn therapist.” I grabbed my sister’s arm and squeezed. “Have you seen Mother? She looks like something the cat dragged in! The family’s falling apart, Ruth, and you’re leaving me all alone to pick up the pieces.”
“Everything will be fine, Hannah. You’ll see.”
But I didn’t think so. What I thought was that Ruth or no Ruth, I would do whatever it took to uncover the truth. If only I knew where to begin.
chapter 7
Monday dawned clear and cold. I started the coffee and put water for the oatmeal on to boil before dashing outside in my pajamas to pick up the newspapers. I walked back to the kitchen, preoccupied, scanning the headlines. Nothing new about the Sturges case in the Baltimore paper. I wondered if no news was good news, and told Paul that I would be holding my breath until someone I wasn’t even slightly related to was arrested for the crime.
Twenty minutes later, Paul left for the academy. I thought he’d be staying home on Martin Luther King Day, but he claimed he had work to catch up on. I was still sitting at the table over a cup of cooling coffee. I had no game plan; but I had promised Paul I’d think twice before going off half-cocked. So far I had thought no further than planning to put in a few hours at the library, then check in with my parents.
At nine, dressed in jeans, a white turtleneck shirt, and a warm tweed jacket, I left the house and headed up Prince George Street toward College Avenue. At the replica of the Liberty Bell I turned left and cut across campus on the grass. There was probably some rule against walking on the grass, but nobody was around to stop me.