“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.