“I don’t know what we should do.”
“I think we should go ahead with it. This procedure sounds like it might work.”
“They already tried to kill her once. Do we really trust them?”
“I don’t think we have a choice.”
“We do. Of course we do. Maybe we’re trying too hard. Maybe we should accept the facts.”
“The facts are this procedure may save her.”
“But you heard her. Rory’s lungs aren’t working.”
My lungs. It’s my lungs that aren’t working. Right? I want to put my hand on my chest and feel its reassuring rise and fall. I’m breathing, aren’t I?
“We can’t just give up. We can’t do that.” His voice is soft cotton, wrapping around.
“What kind of life is it to live attached to a machine?”
“It’s only temporary.”
“Until what? She’s scarred, inside and out.” Aunt Gabrielle’s crying. “Tell me you believe me. Tell me you understand. I couldn’t help it. I couldn’t.”
“You couldn’t help what, sweetheart?”
“Nothing. I’m just tired. I need to sleep.”
Yes.
Rory
CHELSEA JUST WON’T let it go. “What does this say?”
The first time was when she handed me that book with the monk on the cover. Of course I’d figured it out by then. I didn’t even have to look. The God in All of Us, I’d told her, so casual. I thought she’d back off, but now it’s a thing. Every so often, she hands me something to read. I humor her. Sometimes words fit themselves together and sometimes they don’t. The more time I have, the better. So I pretend to be distracted by the long corkscrew of hair hanging over her bare shoulder, twisting it around my finger. “Stop it,” she says, lightly slapping my hand. She points to the page. “Right there.”
“The twin spires of Notre Dame…”
She tilts her head and looks at me. I nailed it, I know. Usually, this is enough, but she just turns a few pages. “How about this?”
Too many words and not enough white space. I’m tired. We’ve been up all night. She’d traced the tattoo on my forearm, making me shiver. “What—are you testing me?” I ask now.
“Yes, I am. What does this say?”
My kindergarten teacher looking at me with impatience. “I’m not five, you know.”
“Is that when you first noticed it?”
I don’t ask her what it is. I just gather my clothes from the chair and tug them on, keeping my back to her. I feel her gaze burning a line down my spine as I fumble with the clasp on my bra. I don’t say goodbye.
When I get back to the room, Arden’s there, on her bed with her laptop propped in front of her. She looks up at me and, I swear, the disapproval on her face makes her look just like my mom. “Where were you last night?” she demands.
“Out.” I drop my bag on my bed and reach for the towel hanging up in my closet. I sniff it, then fling it over my shoulder.
“You’re seriously not going to tell me?”
“I’m seriously not going to tell you.” I don’t know what I’m thinking. I don’t know how I’m feeling and I’m not going to talk about it with Arden. I’m not going to talk about it with anyone.
“Suit yourself.” She looks back to her laptop. “Hunter was looking for you.”
“Tell me something I don’t know.” He’s texted me a thousand times, the last one at two a.m. U ok? I’d propped myself up on one elbow to read it. If it had been me being stood up, my last text at two a.m. would have been more like Fuck you asshat. Hunter’s too nice. I don’t deserve him.
“Well? Aren’t you going to call him back?”
“How is that any of your business?”
“Hunter’s my friend, too, you know.”
“Uh-huh. Saying it doesn’t make it true.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means, little cousin, back off. Anyone can see you’ve got a thing for him.”
“I don’t have a thing for him.” Red rises up her throat and stains her cheeks. “He’s just my friend. Believe it or not. We’re just friends.”
She’s so predictable. Why can’t she just stop? Bash the walls of the box she’s hiding inside and step out? I feel sorry for her. I really do. “You can’t be friends with guys, Arden. They only want one thing.”
“Hunter’s not like that!”
I want to laugh, but I can’t change it up. She needs to know that nothing’s happened. So I give her a stern look. “Don’t tell me what my boyfriend’s like.”
“The way you treat him, I bet he won’t be your boyfriend much longer.”
I fold my arms and look at her. She tries to look defiant, but it only comes out looking worried. “He’ll be my boyfriend as long as I want him to be.”
“What about what he wants?”
I laugh. “I know what he wants. I already told you.” I pick up my shower caddy and head for the bathroom. In the stall, I let hot water drum the backs of my shoulders. Steam rises. The lucky girl, Chelsea had called me. I draw a four-leaf clover with my fingertip on the tiles.
—
I end up sitting beside a player’s mom. Not my choice. She’s the one who walked down the long, empty bleacher and set her big knitting bag beside my feet. “Hi,” she said with a smile, like we knew each other. She sat, pulling out a fat bundle of yarn and a pair of pink aluminum needles. They reminded me of the ones Grandma Sugar tried to teach Arden and me how to use. We’d both sucked.
“You know, they only put in Michael because his dad’s the coach at College Park,” she confides, because it’s been half an hour and we’re now best buds. I don’t have a clue who Michael is. I’d had to stare long and hard to figure out which of the guys on the field was Hunter, only to realize he was the one coming up to bat. He’d glanced over in my direction and paused before going on.
Not Michael’s Mom clutches my arm. “How did number twenty-three make it to second? I totally wasn’t paying attention!”
“I missed it, too.” Like I even know what that means. What do I do about Chelsea? What am I doing with her? Not Michael’s Mom buys me a hot dog and I take a big bite. I don’t even like hot dogs.
“That was a ball! That was a ball! How can they call it a strike? Blind as hell.”
“For sure.” I wrap my arms around my bent knees. It’s lame how few people are here watching, even though these games don’t count. It’s nothing like football games, where the stadium is packed with thousands of people. If I were a guy, that’s the sport I’d play. Not this one, where no one’s there to watch you shine. Unless that’s the point.
After the two teams line up and slap one another’s hands, I climb down. Hunter glances over, claps some guy on the shoulder, and laughs. I stand there, feeling stupid. I deserve the silent treatment. I deserve to be ignored. But honestly? It’s never happened. Sure enough, Hunter turns and slowly walks over. “Hey,” he says.
“Great game.” I know where this is going, even if Hunter doesn’t. This is familiar terrain for me. I can walk it with my eyes closed. “Even though that was so definitely a strike.”
“You know what you’re talking about?”
“Umpire’s blind as hell.”
The corner of his mouth twitches. He takes off his cap and runs his fingers through his hair. “So, what is this, Rory? You want to tell me what’s going on?”
“I wish I knew.”
“What kind of answer is that?”
I shrug. “The truth.”
He looks away.
“I was thinking,” I begin, and when he glances back to me, I know. Nothing’s changed.
—
We end up going back to my room. His roommate’s got a study group and Arden’s at the art studio, working on her self-portrait. I don’t know what to call it, she’d said, propping the canvas on the classroom easel—a girl walking away and looking over her shoulder. Arden had smeared blossoms of red paint around the face and t
he girl’s eyes glittered like emeralds. Arden stood beside me, nervously wiping her brushes with a stinking rag that made my eyes burn. It’s great, I told her, meaning it. Only thing was, it was like looking in a mirror.
Arden’s left the door unlocked, with a note scrawled on the dry-erase board. Back at 8. I swipe two fingers across it and close the door behind us. “I should join a sorority next year. Get my own room.”
“I thought they didn’t have sororities at Harvard.”
“Figure of speech.” I kick Arden’s clothes out of the way and sink down on my bed. “Let’s get high.”
“Can’t. Not during the preseason.”
“You’re no fun.”
“I can be fun.”
“Show me.”
This is what I know. This is easy.
Later, he reaches up to push my hair back from my face. “Hey,” he says softly.
“Hey yourself.” I am mellow, lying on my back, staring up at the scarves stretched across the ceiling. Arden and I had tacked them up in a hurry before someone caught us, but the randomness turned out to be so pretty. There’s my navy-and-green Hermès print, my fuchsia Kate Spade, my black-and-white-and-tan Chanel, my tangerine Tory Burch. It’s not fair they’re my scarves and not Arden’s, but she didn’t have scarves. All she had was dirty laundry. The RA had come by and not noticed a thing. I turn onto my side and smile at Hunter. “Everything better now?”
“Look at me.”
“I am looking at you.”
“No, you’re not. Where are you, Rory? Where are you, really?”
I’m annoyed, my pop of happy glow punctured and deflating. “I’m right here.”
“You sure?” He gives me a long searching look, as if he’s trying to see inside me. Doesn’t he know? There’s nothing there to see. I push him away and sit up. “I’m starving. Let’s grab something to eat.”
It’s weird. I look everywhere, but I can’t find my key card.
Natalie
A NOISE STARTLES me awake. I’ve fallen asleep in the chair beside Arden’s bed. I sit up, my neck stiff and sore, and glance around for the source of the noise. Is it one of the monitors? Alarmed, I straighten and look to the machines lining the walls of the room. No, it’s just Theo snoring in the chair by the door, his arms limp by his sides. He’s exhausted. He’s working hard to keep everything going. I look at Arden, lying peacefully in the bed beside me. I’d lowered the railing earlier in the night—it wasn’t serving a purpose, anyway—and now I reach for her hand, lying beneath the sheet. I’d had a nightmare: Arden had been arrested and given a life sentence. I’d talked to her through the bars of her prison cell, assured her that I would get her free. But she’d just looked at me and said she’d got what she deserved. What is my subconscious telling me? I rub my neck and push myself up.
Out at the round reception desk, two nurses sit entering information into computers. Denise looks up with a smile. “Hey. I’m glad you finally got some sleep.”
“I’m going to get some coffee. Can I get you anything?”
“Oh, no. I’m good.”
I’m in line balancing two cups and a plate when I see Arden’s face smiling down from the TV in the corner. It stops my heart with longing. It’s not a picture I’ve seen before and I wonder who took it and how this TV station got hold of it. Then, in quick succession, images of Rory and Hunter, followed by words in lurid yellow: DEADLY LOVE TRIANGLE? I pay for the coffee and pastry with trembling fingers.
Up in Arden’s room, I grasp Theo’s shoulder and he’s awake instantly. “What is it?” He comes to his feet, glances toward Arden’s bed.
“No, no.”
We talk in the family lounge and then he’s calling Hannah. How good a lawyer can she be, that she takes our calls so quickly? But she comes highly recommended by my father-in-law’s golf buddy, who says she was at the top of her class at Georgetown. That’s what impresses Theo, but I’m more comforted by her confidence, the way she drills down to the marrow: “I’ll call the station. Which one was it; do you know?” She’s a take-no-prisoners girl. She’ll demand the story be pulled; she’ll try to find out where they got the information. She doesn’t want us talking to reporters. Any media contact should be handled with No comment or, better yet, not answered at all. “Has she heard from Detective Gallagher?” I want to know. Theo shakes his head. “It’s only been a day,” he reminds me.
He’s been getting emails from Karen. Parents have been calling, wanting information. Is it true Arden Falcone was about to be expelled? Is there a cover-up going on at Bishop?
Terrible things, defeating things. I want to protest. I want to insist it’s all a lie. Arden’s a smart girl. She earned her grades. But aren’t parents always the last to know?
“I’d better go in,” Theo says, and I nod. But as he stands, I stop him. “Theo? Do you think we pushed her too hard?”
“Maybe Bishop wasn’t the best place to send her.”
We’d been so delighted when Theo got the job as headmaster. It meant we could send Arden to the best school. She’d be set for life. We’d been talking about figuring out a way to send the boys to Bishop’s brother school, but now I wonder.
After Theo leaves, I call my mother. She’s seen the news, too, and she’s been waiting for my call. “It makes me furious,” she says. “How can they do this? How can they get away with saying all those terrible things?” Her voice is shaking. “Do you think I should keep the boys home from school? I don’t want them overhearing anything.”
I think about it. Their teacher wouldn’t say anything and neither would another parent, not about something like this, not to six-year-olds. “I think school’s okay, and soccer practice. But maybe no playdates.” I picture them in their sleepers, Oliver curled under his covers like a comma, Henry sprawled out like a starfish.
“Okay.”
“And, Mom? Don’t answer the home phone.”
“Oh. Okay, I won’t.”
I look down the hall. Dr. Morris stands outside Rory’s room, talking with a man in a long, white lab coat. She’s nodding, arms crossed, as he talks. “Something’s going on with Rory,” I tell my mom in a low voice. Rory’s in a medical coma and has been drifting in and out of consciousness for days. They’ve been fighting to keep her sedated and calm.
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. But if it’s serious, Gabrielle and Vince would tell us.” But it ends up being Denise the nurse who tells me Rory’s going to be put on an artificial lung.
“Permanently?” I ask, in horror.
“No, no. It’s a temporary measure.” She shines a flashlight to check Arden’s IV.
“Her breathing’s no better?”
Denise shakes her head.
I peek into Rory’s room, but Gabrielle and Vince aren’t there. Maybe they’re talking to the doctors. Maybe they’ve gone to the hotel. I dial my sister’s number.
Christine answers the phone immediately. Her voice echoes. She’s got me on speaker in her car. “How’s Arden?”
“The same. Can you talk?”
“Of course.”
“It’s Rory. They’re going to put her on an artificial lung. Do you know what that means?”
“ECMO?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s probably what it is. It just means that her lungs still haven’t started working and they want to be more aggressive about giving them a chance to heal. Try not to worry, Nat. It’s a fairly safe procedure. It’s been around a long time.”
I sense what she’s not saying. “But?”
A pause. “But I wonder why they didn’t put her on it earlier.”
I glance toward Rory’s closed door. “Does this mean it won’t work?”
“No, no,” Christine says.
I call Theo next, and when he doesn’t answer, I leave a long message on his phone.
That afternoon, they wheel Rory out of her room. I hear the rattle of gurney wheels outside in the hall, the voices going past. Gabriell
e says, “…in here?” as she passes by.
It’s a simple surgery, Christine has explained, and sure enough, within the hour, Rory’s wheeled back into her room. I crane to hear something, anything, but all is mysteriously silent. I’ve been online so I know there’s a seventy percent chance this procedure will help. I can’t help but think of the thirty percent no one is talking about. I text Vince. How’s Rory? I’m still holding my phone, waiting for a response, when the nurse comes in to empty Arden’s Foley bag.
I stand. “I’ll be out in the hall,” I tell the nurse, and she nods.
Gabrielle’s alone in the room with Rory. She stands with her back to me, and doesn’t turn around as I approach. She’s intent on something, and as I come closer, I see she’s fiddling with Rory’s breathing tube. We’ve been told not to touch our daughters’ breathing tubes. We can’t adjust the monitoring equipment; we shouldn’t touch the bandages covering our girls’ burns. If we notice something awry, we are to summon immediately for help. “Do you need me to get the nurse?” I whisper.
She spins to face me. “Natalie! What are you doing creeping up on me like that?”
“I’m sorry. I thought you heard me coming in. I wanted to see how Rory’s doing. Vince isn’t answering his phone.”
Her hand is at her throat, her charm bracelet dangling from a narrow wrist. Every charm was given to her by Vince, mementos from their trips across the country. She’s never left America, not once in twenty years. There’s so much to see here, she once told me in a chirpy sort of way, but I know Vince always has a hard time convincing her to leave home. She inhales, turns back to Rory. “She’s doing as well as can be expected, I suppose.”
Rory’s features assemble before me in the darkness, her swollen cheeks squeezing her eyes to slits, the rise of her throat, the triangle of skin where her gown gapes open. Her pale hair spills over the pillow. Arden’s hair had to be shaved for surgery. All we’ve seen of it is that single wisp protruding from the bandages wrapped around her head.
“They’ve taken off her helmet. That’s good news.”
“Yes.”
“Do you think she’s awake?” Is she listening to us now? I try not to envy Gabrielle this.