“Last chance, Mitch. Pull your shit together and tell me where the hell you are, or I’m turning around!”
Nothing but silence, then the faint sound of whining—sirens come through on the other end of the line.
I roll down the windows to see if I can hear anything. Mono’s big but not that big, and there’s no wind tonight.
A light wail ignites in the distance.
I hear them. The unmistakable cry of sirens. I see the lights sawing through the night, rippling over the sky in flashes of crimson and blue. They’re headed toward the old river—it flooded out a few years ago, so no one bothers with those backward arteries—apparently no one but Mitch.
I race through a stale red light, honking my horn like an idiot. I cut through the overpass just this side of the river and find the strobe lights stopping up the air with their seizure of colors—a manmade rainbow of death.
Dear God, not tonight. If Mitch dies, Lee is going to crack a hatchet through my skull.
I park next to a fire truck blocking all access to the road up ahead. No sign of Mitch, but I get out and head over to a group of firemen to get some answers.
“What’s going on back there?” I try to sound casual as if I were simply making chitchat with the silver-haired firefighter.
“Accident. Road’s closed.”
I glance past him to find three firefighters working over a body lying limp on the ground.
Then I see it, Mitch’s pickup on the side of the road with the hazards on.
“I know that guy.” I push past him. My adrenaline kicks in, and for a second I think I’m going to pass out. I’m not exactly a hero when it comes to blood and gore. Not sure what to expect as I circle the front of the truck. My heart starts racing. It beats so damn fast it creates an echo in my throat.
Two EMT workers kneel over Mitch while one of them shines a giant flashlight onto his chest. I stagger over and find his bright red shirt sliced open, and I’ve got a sick feeling his shirt wasn’t that color to begin with. An oxygen mask is glued to his face, and his eyes track up to mine. He gives a hard blink before lifting his fingers toward me.
I drop to my knees. “It’s going to be all right, buddy.” I tremble the words out while trying to hold back a river of tears. I think I just lied, and I pray I didn’t because suddenly I want Mitch to live out a very long existence. “What happened?” I glance up at his truck. “Did he get hit?” I’m met with narrow gazes.
“Sorry, sir, it’s family only.”
“He’s my brother.” It comes out so fast I hardly have time to process the lie—only I don’t think it is one. I’ve always thought of Mitch as family, always. I lean in toward him. “Mitch, look at me.” His eyes roll back into his head, and he passes out momentarily before struggling to open them again.
“Sir, you need to back up. Your brother was shot. He’s losing a lot of blood.”
His words are drowned out by the blare of a siren. I wobble over Mitch, and his vulnerable body. A long yellow arm reaches up and pushes my head between my legs, tells me to breathe.
I don’t need any other explanation. I turn my head and vomit.
I have a feeling I know exactly what happened.
The EMT’s try to convince me to come along for the ride, but I assure them I’m fine. They need to take care of Mitch, not my pansy ass. As soon as I heard the word surgery it made me sway again.
I pull one of the EMT’s aside before he hops into the truck.
“He’s going to make it, right?” I’d die in his place for that to be true.
“We’re doing everything we can.”
I watch in horror as they scream away. His words didn’t sound too promising. I get on the horn and call Colt and fill him in, tell him to get Janice and Lee and head to Mono Bay Memorial, then call Mom and ask her to watch the kids.
I jump in the truck and head in the opposite direction.
There’s one person I’m guessing who won’t want to visit Mitch on his deathbed anytime soon.
All of the lights are on at Hudson’s. I can’t help but note how cheery everything looks inside. Just throw my life in the shitter and get on with yours like it’s fine and dandy. I haven’t spoken to him since he slammed me into the wall and filled me in on yet another one of my wife’s indiscretions. I try pounding my fist through the door and wait for someone to answer.
Candi swings it open, and the smell something burning in the kitchen blasts over me like a necrotic heat wave.
“Where is he?” I barrel past her, grazing over her belly in the process.
“He’s in the shed.”
I bolt out the door, hurdling a dozen rotting tires on my way to a suppressed beam of light shining through the old tool shed. He builds million dollar garages for rundown pieces of shit and refuses to knock down this glorified outhouse. That’s Hudson in a nutshell.
I peel open the door to a fog. The stench of stale pot stagnates in the air. Hudson is lying back with his eyes partially closed as he blows smoke over at me. I reach down and pluck him off the floor, limp as a ragdoll.
“Someone shot, Mitch. You know anything about this?” I squeeze my hands around his neck until his eyes bulge from the pressure. He claws at my arms until I relent.
Hudson breaks out in a coughing fit, spitting in the dirt behind him. “I’m not qualified to say anything until I have an attorney present.” He gives a goofy grin.
“Shit,” I bark in his face before knocking him into the grass. The sound of his laughter lights up the night as I sprint back to my truck.
Stupid. I’m so fucking stupid to have anything to do with my brother—let alone speak to him—insinuate criminal activity. I bang my hand against the driver’s side window.
“Everything okay?” Candi shouts from the porch.
I don’t bother answering. Instead, I burn up the dust on the back of my tires as I leave Hudson’s metal graveyard for what I pray is the very last time.
Tears blur my vision.
I put this whole thing in motion. I think I finally did it—killed Mitch.
Please God—don’t let him die. I swear to you I didn’t mean it.
Mitch, who I would trade a thousand Hudson’s for, we would have been good brothers. We were at one point, but we let a girl get between us once.
Still do.
21
The Dreamer
Lee
Peppermint moon.
Those were the last words my mother whispered as she ran out to the soon-to-be wreckage of my father’s hatchback. Peppermint moon. It hangs bright over the hospital as Colt speeds me in by the arm, but I’m resisting. It happened this way that night—my sister and I were taken to the emergency room by the sitter to see if there was a chance my parents had survived.
That’s what we’re seeing tonight—seeing if Mitch has a chance.
Colton scrambles out a word salad to an orderly behind a big gleaming desk and he points a crooked finger upstairs to the ICU.
My heart races as we stumble down the hall. Colt leads us in a panic until we land in front of a nurse’s station that greets us with a bevy of women huddled around a patient’s chart.
Mitch is still in surgery, and we’re forced to wait in a small, crowded room that holds the odor of stale coffee and crisp newspapers.
“We’re not going to lose Mitch.” I say it to myself, but Janice moans in agreement.
Colton tucks his head between his legs, until his face swells, red as vinegar. The veins in his neck plump like cables.
I close my eyes and busy myself with the task of begging God to let Mitch live. There’s no way I could lose Mitch—not after everything I’ve been through. I can think of a thousand things I’d like to say when he finally wakes up. I’ll rectify this entire situation with Max and Mitch, right here in the ICU. I refuse to let Mitch go. I’ll be his dutiful widow if I have to. I just need him to hear the words he longs for, coming from my lips.
A shadow darkens the doorway, and Max comes barreling i
n like a dark knight in shining armor.
“What happened?” Colton snaps.
“I don’t know.” Max pulls me in tight and lands a hard kiss on my mouth. I can feel his lips trembling over mine. He’s just as frightened for Mitch as I am. Max runs his hands over my back warming me. It feels good, safe to be held by him like this. “I got a call—it was from his phone. He never said anything. I didn’t want to worry Lee, so I took off looking for him—heard a siren and followed it.” He swallows hard and his Adams apple rises and falls. “They said he was shot.”
Max looks bewildered, his eyes dart around the room as if he were still trying to piece it together, but there’s something layered beneath his concern. I could always tell when Max was trying to stretch the truth... Oh God.
“We need to talk.” I drag him out the door, not waiting for an answer.
We head down the hall and behind a brick wall leading toward a staircase.
“What the hell is going on?” My hands tremble uncontrollably. I can hardly hold onto his fingertips.
“Nothing.” His jaw clenches. Max cuts a look out the blackened window and his eyes go dark as if God himself turned the light out in his soul. “By the time I got to him, he was already being worked on.” He grits it through his teeth, his eyes glossing with tears.
“You know something.” It comes out breathy, disbelieving that he would hold anything back from me. “He’s not going to make it is he? Was he—is he gone? Are they trying to revive him?” The world slows to a crawl. The walls warble in and out, and my voice comes back to me as a demonic echo. I spin around and try to run, find him, break into the room they’ve locked him away in and speak to him—kiss him one last time.
Max pulls me in by the waist and smooths my hair back as if he were comforting a child.
“No, Lee. I swear he’s going to live.” Max exhales hot into my hair. “He was conscious when the ambulance left. They had the wound taped up to stop the bleeding.”
I pull back and examine him. His eye twitches, his jaw pops as I inspect him.
“You’re acting strange. You know something.” I try to pull my arms from his stranglehold but Max is holding on for dear life. “I can read you like a book, and you’re not telling me everything. Did you see something?”
His gaze shifts to the floor. Max shakes his head, but his cheeks light up like flames refuting his actions.
“Who would do this to Mitch? Where was he?”
“Old road, south of the riverbed.”
“That’s practically abandoned.” My heart throbs in my throat like a fish out of water. “You don’t think he ran into a drug deal, do you? Or maybe—”
I take in a breath that never ceases. I forget how to breathe altogether. The dim hall fades to cold, grey steel.
“You—” I try to jab him with my finger, but it wags in the air like a stranger to my body.
Max bears into me. He doesn’t even bother to deny it.
“You bastard.” My hands slap over his chest as I try to push him away, but it comes out weak. Max restrains me by the wrists with no real effort.
“I swear to you. I had nothing to do with this.”
“That’s because you had your moron of a brother do this. You think your hands are squeaky clean, but I can see the blood on them thick as gloves—Mitch’s blood.” I spit in his face. “I fucking hate you, Max Shepherd. I hate you!” I scream it out for everyone to hear, and mean every last word.
Two hours slog by slow and meandering like a glacier drift. Max sits stoically by my side as though he wanted to be there, as though he cared, but he can’t fool me. He’d just as easily sit next to Mitch’s casket—dig his grave if we let him. I’m an idiot to have trusted him. I let the wolf in my life, and now Mitch is going to pay with his.
A surgeon enters briskly, half masked, dressed in powder blue from head to toe.
“He’s going to be all right.” His silver eyes crease into a smile as he gives the news. “There was a clean exit—no vital organs were harmed. It narrowly missed the scapula, but he’s pretty banged up. It took a lot to stop the bleeding.”
“Where is he?” Everything in me exhales with relief. Mitch is alive.
“In recovery. You can visit, one at a time.”
I don’t wait for him to finish, just speed past him on my way to sweet, gorgeous Mitch who I’ve tortured endlessly since he’s come back.
A nurse leads me to a man lying on a gurney with wires and tubes hanging out of his every part, and in no way does he resemble my precious husband.
It takes my breath away to see him like this. I’m horrified at what I’ve caused. I lean in toward him and pat his forehead with my fingertips. He’s bloated, his eyes glossed over with a thin seam of liquid.
“Mitch.” I take his hand, and I swear his fingers move. “Can you hear me? Squeeze my hand if you can hear me.”
Slight pressure builds around my fingers. Real or imagined I can’t tell, but I run with it.
“Mitch, I’m so sorry I brought this plague into our lives. I swear I never thought…” I let the words hang there. I don’t know how to finish the sentence. I could have never known. I would never have even dreamed Max would do something like this.
Max comes up and lands a hand on my shoulder. I hope he heard every word.
“I swear to you”—he whispers heavy in my ear—“I had nothing to do with this.” Max leans in and inspects Mitch. His lips tremble from the sight, and he crumbles.
Max pushes in close to his ear. “I will find the bastards that did this. And I promise you, I will kill them myself.”
My knees quiver with the heft of our new reality.
I place my hand over Max’s cheek and wipe away his tears.
I can read Max like a book. These are real tears. Max didn’t do this. He couldn’t have.
Could he?
Mitch
It takes several minutes of pleading with my body for my eyes to peel open. Long slow blinks, that’s all I get. I can make out Mom and Colt in a blur, then Max with Lee tucked under his arm.
I try to wipe my forehead, but my arm is secured, tied down to the bed and I’m wrapped like a mummy from the neck down. For a brief moment I’m reminded of a torture technique they used back home. I think I just called China home.
My eyes stay open long enough to process this isn’t the guest room back at the house. I try to sit up and my body won’t follow orders.
That’s right. Eat this turned out to be a bullet with my name on it. The convict with the golden tooth grins at me from inside my eyelids. It all comes to me with perfect clarity.
A strange dream comes back to me—a beautiful dream of Lee in a windblown wheat field. She promised if I woke up she’d leave Max—tell him right there and then.
I give a placid smile over at her. Too bad you can’t play back dreams—show them to people. I’d love for Lee to see how bad she wanted me—how she demanded that I live and blamed this whole nightmare on Max.
“Don’t strain yourself,” Mom says, laying the cool of her hand over my forehead. It feels so damn good. It forces me to close my eyes in appreciation.
“Are you in pain?” Lee’s voice.
I shake my head and blink up at her. Her face is swollen and blotchy around her eyes but her beauty shines through, and a knot the size of a softball swells in my throat.
“Hey, buddy.” Max pats my hand. “They’ve got you on Dilaudid. It’s ten times stronger than morphine—makes heroin look like baby aspirin.”
“Nice,” I manage. My voice sounds as though I’ve been sucking on gravel.
Colton crops up, and for a second I think it’s me looking down on myself. “When you’re up for it, the police want to swing by. They said they’ll check in with you tomorrow.”
Max shifts into Lee. He looks uncomfortable—guilty. Who else would want to blow a hole through my heart? I press my lips together. I’ll have to invite Max to the big meet and greet with the cops, see if he wants to offer up any info
or maybe just turn himself in and save us all the effort.
The nurse asks everyone to leave, says I need my rest. One by one they say goodbye, but Lee stays, inspiring Max to linger by the door and listen.
“I love you,” she whispers through a broken smile. Two long black tracks mark where her tears have been.
“I know.” Still can’t get the words out.
“If you died, I would die.” It comes out as a fact. She looks dazed, unsteady.
I close my eyes trying to escape this nightmare. “Don’t say that.”
“It’s true. I can’t do this earth thing without you. I thought I could, but I was wrong.” She swallows a laugh. “The nurse said I could spend the night.”
“No. Be with the kids. Come back, though.” I offer a lame smile. Everything feels off, and for the first time I notice I’m able to track the scenery with my eyes and have it linger with an optical echo. “Go and kiss Stella and Eli for me. Tell them I love them.”
“I’ll be back”—she leans in and presses her lips to mine, hot and wet—“first thing in the morning.” She drifts to the door and blows me a kiss. “I love you deeper than the ocean, Mitch Townsend.”
My heart soars—makes me forget all about pain and bullets.
That night I dream in parchment—stacks and stacks of paper—white, red, blue, pink, yellow, brown. People with dark carpets of hair bustling around me like a river of humanity, folding paper—writing—prison bars. Someone calls my name, and I turn around. It’s Gao. He holds his hand out to me—tells me to come back. He’s got one more thing for me—wants to show me something, then I wake up.
A sharp pain ignites in my groin and my lids fly open. A heavy boned nurse has her hands over my crotch. She’s either trying to make sure I have a very good morning or my balls are about to get knifed off.
“Catheter is backlogged.” She doesn’t bother looking up at me. She might as well be talking about someone else entirely. “I’ve done it without waking a patient before.” She yanks at my dick like it’s a nozzle of some broken down appliance.