“It’s much too hard to explain right now,” Maya said. She sounded so good. So alive. “I just need to let you know I’m okay. I’m at the Cape Fear Valley Hospital…or Health Center. I’m not sure exactly what it’s called. In the birth center.”
“The birth center?”
Maya laughed. She actually laughed! Rebecca pressed her fist to her mouth, knowing that she was winning and losing something precious, all at the same time.
“I told you,” Maya said, “it’s too long to explain. Are you still at the airport?”
“No, we’re at a school and…Maya, I’m coming there. I’m coming right—”
She looked up as Adam rushed into the room. “Bec!” he said when he saw her crumpled in a ball next to the pharmacy shelves. Like the Guardsman had done a moment earlier, he dropped to the floor next to her. “What happened?” He touched her shoulder gently. Gingerly. “Are you hurt?
Smiling, not bothering to check the tears that coursed down her cheeks, she shook her head. “She’s alive,” she said, holding the phone toward him. “Maya’s alive!”
44
Maya
IT HAD TAKEN A WHILE, AS THINGS ALWAYS DID IN THE E.R., BUT Simmee was now in a room at the hospital’s birth center, and she was frightened. We had not seen her roommate, whose bed was curtained off, and Simmee kept glancing at the curtain as if she was afraid someone was spying on us.
“Are you sure they’ll bring him back?” she asked me. The baby, who Simmee was calling Baby Jack, was in the nursery being examined by a pediatrician and getting a good bath.
“One hundred percent sure,” I said from my seat next to her bed. While the nurse had been helping Simmee in the shower, I’d spoken with the hospital social worker, telling her I wanted to take responsibility for Simmee and the baby. I knew the social worker was now on the phone with Child Protective Services, trying to see how that could be arranged. My plan, which had taken shape in my mind during our wild boat trip up the river, was that I would take Simmee in as my foster child until she was eighteen—and beyond. I would do whatever was necessary to get her on her feet in the world outside Last Run Shelter, and I would not allow her to spend a single night in a group home. Not one night without me. Already in my mind, I’d turned the guest room in our house into Simmee’s room and had the mural painted on the wall of the would-be nursery for Jack.
I knew it was going to take more energy and stamina and legal maneuvering than I could imagine at that moment, but I didn’t care. I would take it one step at a time. My first step would be getting Adam to accept the idea. That, I worried, would be the steepest step of all.
Losing her baby had been Simmee’s greatest fear as we’d traveled up the Cape Fear toward Fayetteville. A close second, was her fear that Tully would be able to track her down. That’s why we’d put a good distance between us and Last Run Shelter before I was able to persuade her to let me dock the boat in what looked like a well-to-do neighborhood. I left Simmee and the baby in the boat while I ran up the bank to a sprawling contemporary house. The woman who answered my knock agreed to call an ambulance, and although she was curious, she honored my plea not to come down to her dock. Simmee was skittish enough as it was. Besides, we’d had little time to talk in the boat, and I had plenty of questions for her.
The river was flat and calm by the woman’s house, though still extremely swollen. Simmee and I sat in the boat next to the dock, surrounded by the earthy smell of the water and the leafy branches that hung over our heads.
Sitting there, I thought of how close she and Tully had seemed. I still remembered Tully standing next to her in the kitchen, contentedly inhaling the scent of her hair.
“I never would have guessed that things weren’t…right between the two of you,” I said, as we waited in the boat.
“I was pretendin’,” she said. “I been pretendin’ for a long time.”
“You didn’t love him?”
She hesitated. “I used to like him, early on. Everybody else loved him, though,” she said. “He was so good to Gran and Lady Alice. Jackson liked him, too. Gran said God sent him, and I should stick with him. But I had a yen for Jackson from the time I was little.”
Another johnboat motored past us on the water, and Simmee lowered the baby to the basket so he couldn’t be seen. I turned to look at the two old men in the boat, their fishing tackle sticking up from the bow. One of them waved to us, but I didn’t wave back, and Simmee and I breathed a sigh of relief when the boat disappeared from sight. As if knowing the coast was clear, the baby started crying. I moved closer to Simmee, helping her lower her dress over her shoulder and breast so he could nurse.
“This poor child needs a diaper.” Simmee winced momentarily as the baby latched on.
I moved back to my seat in the stern. “I know.” I was a little worried about him. The green blanket was soaked beneath his tiny bottom. “He’ll be cleaned up very soon,” I said.
She smiled down at her baby, and I could hardly believe it had only been a few hours earlier that I’d watched her nurse him for the first time in her own bed. It seemed like a lifetime ago.
She touched the baby’s cheek, then looked up at me. “Jackson was so good, Miss Maya,” she said. “I wish you could of met him. But Gran said me and Jackson bein’ together just wouldn’t work out, on account of him bein’ black, and that I should snap up Tully. She said if I pretended to love him long enough, I’d start feelin’ it for real. So I tried, but it didn’t work.”
“It must have been really hard for you,” I said. I hadn’t noticed the dark circles beneath her eyes, the chalk-white of her face, until that moment. I hoped she wasn’t losing too much blood.
“I never saw no bad in Tully, though,” she said. “The only bad thing was when me and Jackson would laugh about somethin’ from when we was kids. Tully said it wasn’t polite, since he was left out, kind of. So me and Jackson would talk by ourselves sometime.” She shook her head. “But bein’ alone with Jackson…I just kept lovin’ him more and more, and same with him.” She looked down at her baby, and I guessed she was seeing Jackson in the little boy’s face.
“He’s beautiful, Simmee,” I said.
“He is.” She smiled, but her face quickly clouded over.
“Somehow, Tully figured out our feelin’s, ’cause he said it wasn’t right for me to ever be alone with Jackson. That was the first time we fought, me and Tully. The first time he hit me, I was so shook up. Mixed up, too. I still liked him, ’cause of all he done for us, but I hated him, too. I couldn’t get away from him, though. Where would I go?”
How trapped she must have felt. Even then, sitting in the boat miles from Last Run, I knew she didn’t understand that she was free. She was too afraid that I was leading her into a different kind of trap, one with police and social workers, and I guessed that I was. It would be worth it, though. In time, she would understand all that the world outside Last Run Shelter could offer her.
“One day Jackson saw some bruises on my arm and my chin.” She touched her jawline. “He asked me a mess of questions, an’ I finally told him about Tully hittin’ me. I said maybe I deserved bein’ hit for talkin’ back to him, but Jackson said nobody should hit a girl, no matter what. He told me to keep pretendin’ like I loved Tully, and that he’d get me away from him, but he couldn’t leave till he talked Lady Alice into goin’ with us. I was really scared ’bout leavin’. Last Run was all I knew.” She looked at me. “It’s still all I know.”
“It’s going to be all right,” I reassured her.
A larger boat passed by us, closer to the opposite bank, and Simmee crouched over, trying to hide both herself and the baby.
“They can’t see anything from where they are,” I said, but Simmee stayed hunched over until the boat was well out of sight. Our own little craft rose and fell over its wake.
“I got so scared when I figured out I was pregnant,” she said as she straightened her back again. “Me and Tully always used them condoms. Me and Jac
kson, not so much. So I quick told Tully I wanted a baby with him and he was real happy and we stopped usin’ condoms, so he thought it was him got me pregnant. Jackson said we’d leave before the baby come, whether Lady Alice would go with us or not. We’d go someplace Tully couldn’t find us. He said maybe Wilmington. He said we wouldn’t stand out so much in a city and he’d have a easier time gettin’ a job.”
“Simmee.” I frowned. “I’m confused, though. What would you have done if I hadn’t shown up?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know. I couldn’t sleep trying to come up with what to do. I thought maybe I could get Lady Alice to sneak the baby away once she figgered out it was Jackson’s, or…I just didn’t know. I was gettin’ scareder and scareder. Then you showed up and everything got real clear to me.”
We heard the ambulance siren in the distance, and the closer it came, the closer she hugged the baby to her.
“I don’t want to go back to Last Run,” she said, her eyes pleading.
“You don’t have to.”
“Where will I go, though?”
“We’ll work it out,” I said, afraid of making promises I might not be able to keep, but I already knew what I wanted to do. What I wanted to happen.
“I’m sorry I lied to you ’bout things, Miss Maya,” she said. “I just…I didn’t know you was gonna end up matterin’ so much to me. I didn’t know I was gonna end up lovin’ you.”
“It’s okay,” I whispered past the lump in my throat, and if I hadn’t already known I loved her as well, I knew it then.
The nurse poked her head in the room, and I turned in my seat to look at her. “The police are on their way up,” she said.
I nodded.
“Can I git my baby back now?” Simmee asked her.
“Very soon, sweetie,” the nurse said. “The pediatrician was a little late getting to him.”
Simmee looked at me anxiously after the nurse left.
“Promise me they’ll bring him back?” she asked.
“I promise.”
She knotted her hands together on the covers, looking toward the door, then back at me.
“They won’t tell Tully where I am, will they?” she asked, for at least the third time.
“No.” She’d been upset when I told her I’d called the police.
“Police sometimes take people’s kids away from them,” she said now.
“I won’t let that happen.” The words sounded familiar to me. They were the same words Rebecca had said so long ago, after our parents were killed and the authorities wanted to put me in foster care.
Simmee glanced toward the door again. “What do I tell them?”
“The truth,” I said. “Just stick to the truth.” I leaned forward, gently tapping her arm. “You are not in trouble,” I said.
She looked over my head toward the doorway, and I turned as two police officers, a man and a woman, walked into the room. I stood to greet them, resting my hand on Simmee’s foot through the blanket, and I felt the current of anxiety running through her.
The male officer introduced himself and his partner as they stood at the foot of Simmee’s bed.
“I didn’t do nothin’ wrong,” Simmee said the second the man closed his mouth, and I could see her mind at work. She didn’t know if leaving Tully had been wrong. If living with him when she wasn’t married to him was wrong. If having a baby with Jackson was wrong. If fleeing Last Run was wrong. She was scared and covering all her bases.
I smiled at her as I sat down again. “They know that, Simmee.” I leaned toward her. “Listen to me. Everyone is on your side,” I said, as much for the benefit of the cops as for her. “Everyone just wants you and the baby—Jack—to be safe and healthy.”
“That’s right, ma’am,” the female officer said to her. I’d already forgotten her name and couldn’t read her badge from where I sat. She nodded to me. “Dr. Ward told us about your boyfriend, though, and that he allegedly killed two people, so we need to ask you some questions about him.”
Simmee looked at me, and I nodded. “Tell them everything you told me,” I said. “Tell them the truth and you’ll be fine.”
So she did, her voice softer and more tentative than I’d heard it before. She told them information she hadn’t yet revealed to me. Tully’s last name was Thompson, she said, and only then did I realize I didn’t even know her last name. It was Blake. The other person Tully had killed had been his old girlfriend. Her name was Kelly, and he’d lived with her in Myrtle Beach.
“He told me he choked her to death in the parkin’ lot of a Wal-Mart,” she said, “and he said he kilt Jackson with a…” Her voice broke, her pale face caving in on itself. Her grief was unbearable to see. Irrationally, I suddenly wished that I hadn’t called the police.
“With what, miss?” the female officer asked.
“With a hoe.” Simmee pressed her hand to her mouth.
“When did these alleged murders take place?” the man asked.
“What’s ‘alleged’ mean?”
“Did Tully tell you when he killed his old girlfriend?” I asked. I was afraid that if one of the officers defined alleged, Simmee would be afraid they didn’t believe she was telling the truth.
“Sometime before I knew him, so more’n three years ago,” she said. “An’ Jackson was just two, three months ago.”
“Did Tully have motivation to kill Mr. Harnett?” the man asked.
Simmee looked at me, and I started to define motivation, but I could tell she understood the meaning of the word. She was afraid of the answer. She pulled in a breath and let it out in a determined puff. “Me,” she said. “I was the motivation. I loved Jackson, and him and me was makin’ plans to leave Last Run together, ’cause Tully was mean to me. But we made a big mistake.”
She shut her eyes and a crease formed between her eyebrows at whatever she was remembering. None of us pushed her. We waited, and when she opened her eyes again, they were dry but full of anger.
“Jackson come over early one mornin’ to go fishin’ with Tully. Tully was out doin’…I don’t know what-all, somethin’ with the chickens, I guess. Me and Jackson was in the kitchen and he kissed me. Just light, like. Tully was at the door and seen it. He started shoutin’ and goin’ crazy. Me and Jackson said it was just a friendly kiss, and finally Tully settled down, like he believed us.” She looked at me again. “I thought he did believe us,” she said. “They left to go fishin’ then, but a few minutes later, Tully come back. Said he told Jackson he forgot somethin’. What he forgot was to smack me with his rifle.” She touched her eyebrow. “Then he went out and kilt Jackson with the hoe.”
“How do you know that?” the male officer asked.
“He told me. He pretended to Jackson’s mama like Jackson had an accident, but he told me the truth and said if I didn’t behave, he was gonna kill me, too.” She’d sped up now, hurrying through the story. “That’s when he told me about the girl. Kelly. That he’d kilt her ’cause she cheated on him, and y’all was lookin’ for him—” she nodded to the officers “—but you’d never catch him. I didn’t know what to do. I thought of gettin’ to Larry’s and tellin’ him the whole thing—”
“Larry is Jackson’s brother in Ruskin,” I said.
“But Larry don’t like me,” Simmee said. “He likes Tully, and I knew he’d tell Tully and then Tully’d find me and kill me. Then he started bein’ nice to me again, like nothin’ happened. He kept talkin’ ’bout how much he loved me and I was scared, so I just pretended I loved him back.”
“Is Jackson Harnett your baby’s father?” the female officer asked her, point-blank.
Simmee hesitated, and I could tell she was afraid that the wrong answer could somehow cost her her child.
“It’s okay,” I said, although the question annoyed me. I didn’t see how it was relevant.
A nurse picked that moment to wheel the baby into the room. He was crying in that rhythmic mewing way that always made my breasts ache with longing.
>
“Oh,” the nurse said, when she saw the police. “Do you want me to bring him back later?”
“No, now!” Simmee was already reaching toward the clear plastic bassinet, and I had to smile. She didn’t care that Baby Jack’s paternity was written on his face. She only wanted him back in her arms.
“Let’s give them privacy,” I said to the police officers, and they followed me into the hallway.
The female officer—Sgt. Rice, her name badge read—and I walked into the waiting area, while the male officer stayed behind in the hallway to make a call. A few minutes later, he joined us where we sat in a corner of the room, away from the prying eyes of the other visitors.
He nodded at his partner.
“Her story checks out,” he said.
“What does that mean?” I asked.
He looked at the notepad he held on his knee. “Kelly Angelman was strangled in a Wal-Mart parking lot in Myrtle Beach three and a half years ago. Guy she was seeing said her ex-boyfriend was the most likely culprit, and he matches the description you gave of Tully. Tully’s name is off, but only by a bit. It’s Braden Thomas Tullman and he went by Braden back then. We’ve got an amphibious unit heading to Last Run Shelter right now.”
I thought of where Tully might hide at Last Run, and suddenly feared for Lady Alice. “Jackson Harnett’s mother is there,” I said. “She’s the only other person on the island. Please make sure she’s not harmed.” Lady Alice would be so confused. “And can someone explain to her what happened? Why Simmee and I disappeared?” I thought of adding, And someone needs to tell her what happened to her son, but didn’t. She would learn the truth soon enough.
“I think we have enough information from Miss Blake for now,” Sergeant Rice said. She gave me her card, and I gave her Rebecca’s number as well as my own.