“I’m trying to find out who fathered Jean’s baby. I gather he was married.”
“She mention any names?” Royce asked. Ann had returned with a fresh basket of bread, which she passed to him. He took a piece and passed the basket on to me. I placed it on the table, unwilling to be distracted by ritual gestures.
“She says Jean didn’t tell her, but she must suspect someone. I’ll let a little time pass and try her again. Bailey indicated Jean was trying to find out who her own father was, and that might open up some possibilities.”
Royce pinched his nose, sniffing, and then he waved the idea away. “Probably some trucker she took up with. Woman never was particular. Long as a fella had money in his pocket, she’d do anything he asked.” A second mild bout of coughing shook him and I had to wait till it had passed before I responded.
“If it was a trucker, why conceal his identity? It almost has to be somebody in the community, and probably somebody respectable.”
“Hogwash. Nobody respectable would be caught dead with that whore. …”
“Somebody who didn’t want it known, then,” I said.
“Bullshit! I don’t believe a word of it-”
I cut him off in a flash. “Royce, I know what I’m doing. Would you just back off and let me get on with it?”
He stared at me dangerously, his face growing dark. “What?”
“You hired me to do a job and I’m doing it. I don’t want to have to justify and defend every move.”
Royce’s temper flared like lighter fluid squirted on a fire. His hand shot out and he pointed a shaking finger in my face. “I’m not taking any sass from you, sis!”
“Great. And I won’t take any sass from you. Either I do this my way or you can find somebody else.”
Royce came halfway out of his chair, leaning on the table. “How dare you talk to me that way!” His face was flaming and his arms trembled where they bore his weight.
I sat where I was, watching him remotely through a haze of anger. I was on the verge of a comment so rude that I hesitated to voice it, when Royce started to cough. There was a pause while he tried to suppress it. He sucked in a breath. The coughing doubled. He pulled out a handkerchief and clamped it across his mouth. Ann and I both gave him our undivided attention, alerted by the fact that he couldn’t seem to get his breath. His chest heaved in a wrenching spasm that gathered momentum, flinging him about.
“Pop, are you all right?”
He shook his head, unable to speak, his tongue protruding as the coughing shook him from head to toe. He wheezed, clutching at his shirt front as if for support. Instinctively, I reached for him as he staggered backward into his chair, struggling for air. It was suffocating to watch. The coughing tore at him, bringing up blood and phlegm. Sweat broke out on his face.
Ann said, “My God.” She rose to her feet, hands cupped across her mouth. Ori was transfixed in the doorway, horrified by what was happening. Royce’s whole body was wracked. I banged on his back, grabbing one arm, which I held aloft to give his lungs room to inflate.
“Get an ambulance!” I yelled.
Ann turned a blank look on me and then mobilized herself sufficiently to reach for the phone, punching 911. She kept her eyes pinned on her father’s face while I loosened his collar and fumbled with his belt. Through a rush of adrenaline, I heard her describe the situation to the dispatcher on the other end, reciting the address and directions.
By the time she put the phone down, Royce was gaining control, but he was soaked in perspiration, his breathing labored. Finally the coughing subsided altogether, leaving him pale and clammy-looking, his eyes sunken with exhaustion, hair plastered to his scalp. I wrung a towel out in cold water and wiped his face. He started to tremble. I murmured nonsense syllables, patting at his hands. There was no way Ann and I could lift him, but we managed to lower him to the floor, thinking somehow to make him more comfortable. Ann covered him with a blanket and tucked a pillow under his head. Ori stood there in tears, mewing helplessly. She seemed to grasp the severity of his illness for the first time and she cried like a three-year-old, giving herself up to grief. He would go first. She seemed to understand that now.
In the distance we heard the sirens from the emergency vehicle. The paramedics arrived, taking in the situation with a practiced eye, their demeanor so studiously neutral that the crisis was reduced to a series of minor problems to be solved. Vital signs. Oxygen administered and an IV started. Royce was hefted with effort onto a portable gur-ney, which was angled out of the room to the vehicle at the curb. Ann went with him in the ambulance. The next thing I knew, I was alone with Ori. I sat down abruptly. The room looked as if it had been ransacked.
I heard a tentative voice from the office. “Hello? Ori?”
“That’s Bert,” Ori murmured. “He’s the night manager.”
Bert peered into the living room. He was maybe sixty-five, slight, no more than five feet tall, dressed in a suit he must have bought in the boys’ wear department. “I saw the ambulance pull away. Is everything all right?”
Ori told him what had happened, the narrative apparently restoring some of the balance in her universe. Bert was properly sympathetic, and the two swapped a few long-winded tales about similar emergencies. The phone started to ring and he was forced to return to the front desk.
I got Ori into bed. I was worried about her insulin, but she wouldn’t discuss it so I had to drop the subject. The episode with Royce had thrown her into a state of clinging dependency. She wanted physical contact, incessant reassurances. I made her some herb tea. I dimmed the lights. I stood by the bed while she clutched my hand. She talked on about Royce and the children at length while I supplied questions to keep the conversation afloat. Anything to get her mind off Royce’s collapse.
She finally drifted off to sleep, but it was midnight before Ann got back. Royce had been admitted and she’d stayed until he was settled. A number of tests had been scheduled for first thing in the morning. The doctor was guessing that the cancer had invaded his lungs. Until the chest X rays came back, he couldn’t be sure, but things weren’t looking good.
Ori stirred. We’d been speaking in whispers, but it was clear we were disturbing her. We moved out through the kitchen and sat together on the back steps. It was dark out there, the building shielding us from the smudged yellow of the streetlights. Ann pulled her knees up and rested her head wearily on her arms. “God. How am I going to get through the next few months?”
“It’ll help if we can get Bailey cleared.” “Bailey,” she said. “That’s all I hear about.” She smiled bitterly. “So what else is new?” “You were what, five when he was born?” She nodded. “Mom and Pop were so thrilled. I’d been sickly as an infant. Apparently, I didn’t sleep more than thirty minutes at a stretch.” “Colic?”
“That’s what they thought. Later, it turned out to be some kind of allergy to wheat. I was sick as a dog … diarrhea, ferocious stomachaches. I was thin as a stick. It seemed to straighten out for a while. Then Bailey came along and it started all over again. I was in kindergarten by then and the teacher decided I was just acting up because of him.”
“Were you jealous?” I asked.
“Absolutely. I was horribly jealous. I couldn’t help myself. They doted on him. He was everything. And of course he was good … slept like an angel, blah, blah, blah. Meanwhile, I was half-dead. Some doctor caught on. I don’t even know now who it was, but he insisted on a bowel biopsy and that’s when they diagnosed the celiac disease. Once they took me off wheat, I was fine, though I think Pop was always half-convinced I’d done it out of spite. Ha. The story of my life.” She glanced at her watch. “Oh hell, it’s almost one. I better let you go.”
We said our good-nights and then I went upstairs. It wasn’t until I was ready for bed that I realized someone had been in my room.
13
What I spotted was the partial crescent of a heel print on the carpet just inside the sliding door. I don’t even know now what made me glance down. I had gone into the kitchen to pour myself a glass of wine. I popped the cork back in the bottle and tucked it in the refrigerator door. I crossed to the sliding glass door and opened the drapes, then flipped the lock and slid the door open about a foot, letting in a dense shaft of ocean breeze. I stood for a moment, just breathing it all in. I loved the smell. I loved the sound the ocean made and the line of frothy silver curling up onto the sand whenever a wave broke. The fog was in and I could hear the plaintive moo of the foghorn against the chill night air.