Healing Waters (13 page)

“Bethany,” she said between her teeth. “Listen to me. Honey, it's all right.”

How could there have been anything “all right” about the scarlet face and the pumping fists and the crazed eyes that looked as if they had finally seen the monster they'd imagined—and found it worse than anything they'd conjured up.

“Bethany, stop!” Roxanne cried.

“Uh—you need to get this child out of here, now,” someone else said.

Other voices poked in: “What is going on?” “Other patients are getting upset.”

Sonia's voice rose from her chair above the others. “Lucia, can you do something?”

The room was reduced to silence. Even the screaming little girl fell into soundless sobbing, though she still tried to wrestle herself out of Roxanne's grasp. I felt all eyes on me as I leaned over and put my face close to hers.

“You're done here, aren't you?” I said.

She bobbed her head and looked up at me, although I knew she didn't see me. Amid the blotches on her chubby cheeks, the blue eyes peered out from an abject fear that would erupt again if she dared open that shivering little mouth.

I looked at Sonia, bent in the chair, hands outstretched but useless as she stared at her daughter. Real fear came through the holes in her mask.

“Do you want me to take her out?” I mouthed.

She barely nodded.

“Come on,” I said to my niece. “Let's find a better place.”

I didn't reach for the still rock-tight fist, but she followed me through the maze of bodies, still crying noiselessly except for the distressed huff of her breathing.

I kept making turns until I reached an exterior door and pushed through it, releasing us into a blast of heat and light. I hadn't seen the sun for days, and I blinked as I waited for Bethany to creep through the door and join me. We were in a fountain courtyard where cherubs splashed happily, as if the world on the other side of that door were not inhabited by suffering humanity and the people who strove against the odds to take care of them. This little girl certainly shouldn't be one of them.

“How 'bout that seat over there?” I said, pointing to a park bench just out of spitting reach of the cherubs.

She nodded, still hiccupping, and followed me once again. When I sat down, she hiked herself up, one bottom cheek at a time. She was something of a cherub herself. I hadn't seen my niece since age two, at an event Sonia had done in Philadelphia in 2005. I'd never experienced my sister on stage before, and I was so overwhelmed that I didn't connect with Bethany during the hour I did see her—an hour filled with offstage drama.

We had dinner that night after Sonia's evening address—my parents, Sonia, Bethany, Chip, and me. Sonia took one look at my newly expanded size and drew an immediate conclusion with her eyes.

When Chip excused himself to go to the restroom between the salad and the main course, Sonia announced that she could see Chip had a drug problem and that in my heart I probably knew it too, which accounted for my gaining “so much weight.” Dad called her crazy, to which she replied that naturally he would defend Chip because he himself was an alcoholic. Dad vowed never to speak to her again. Mother fell into a black silence. I went home numb.

There hadn't been much opportunity to bond with my niece on that occasion.

I swept my gaze over Bethany now as she sat, motionless as the concrete figures in the water that she gazed at. She had the Brocacini thick, dark hair, which hung in limp ropes down her back. The bangs stuck out over her brows like a Yorkshire terrier's, as if someone had chopped them off when they noticed her round, blue eyes were being concealed.

She wore a baggy beige T-shirt over beige-and-beiger leggings, whose narrow stripes widened at her calves and knees and were mercifully hidden above that. Pudgy heels peeked from creamcolored Crocs, which now hung motionless from the bench.

We sat through a few more splashes from the fountain, and then she opened her little red bow of a mouth and said, “Can we stay for a while? I like it better here.”

I forced myself not to smile at the Tennessee drawl, a miniature version of what I'd been hearing from the Southern contingent.
Kin
for
can
.
Heah
for
here
. Only she made it sound natural.

“We absolutely can,” I said.

Her body language didn't change, and yet I felt some of the tension leave her. I reached into my pocket and pulled out a Hershey bar. I unwrapped it, broke it in two, and held out half.

“Wanna share?”

“Yes, ma'am,” she said—and snatched the candy out of my hand. She devoured it before I even bit into mine.

“Chocolate makes things better,” I said.

She didn't answer. We sat some more and watched the cherubs play in all their stillness for a long time.

Finally another thin woman, younger than everyone except Marnie, stepped out of the building. She had hair redder than Roxanne's and skin so pale I could almost see the sun burning her as she came toward us.

“Hi I'm Yvonne I'm the nanny I'm taking Bethany back to the hotel.”

She said it all without punctuation, and without a glance at Bethany. I thought the child stopped breathing.

I'm Lucia I'm the aunt and you aren't taking her anywhere,
I wanted to say. But Bethany slid off the bench and stood stiffly.

“They said for me to take you to see the Liberty Bell or something,” Yvonne said to her.

“It's a little hot for that,” I said. “The lines will be long.”

The nanny looked relieved. “Okay, then I guess it's TV in the hotel. I know you won't go in the pool.”

Bethany's head jerked up.

“Okay, okay, forget I said that.” Yvonne jerked her own head toward the door. “We'll go to McDonald's and get a Happy Meal. How's that?”

“
And then we're going home?”

It was the first hopeful sound I'd heard chirp from her mouth, and even at that it was more like a plea.

“First thing tomorrow morning. You blew the surprise for your mom, so you'll have to wait till she gets home to talk to her.”

I wanted to slap her. Bethany just let out a long sigh and dutifully trailed Yvonne to the door. Once there, she stopped and looked back at me.

“Are you ever coming to my house?” she said.

Before I could answer, she dropped her chin to her chest and disappeared through the doorway with Nightmare Nanny. It was as if I were watching myself go.

Bethany would not be absorbed into the compost heap in my chest. No amount of chocolate could erase the frightened cherub's face that tore at me from the top of the pile. As soon as every scrap of Abundant Living had blown out, I marched into my sister's room.

Sonia sat straight up on the bed, eyes on the door as if she'd summoned me. Before I got two steps in, she had the floor.

“They shouldn't have brought her here,” she said.

“Ya think?”

She stretched up another inch. “I had no idea she was coming. I still don't know who's responsible, but I will see that—”

“What difference does it make whose fault it is?” I planted my hands on the footboard. “Bethany needs—”

“I know.” The in-charge edge softened. “She didn't need to see this yet. But it's you I'm concerned about.”

I blinked at her as she tried to crane her neck toward me.

“Will I,
sorella
?”

“Will you what?”

“Will I have you in Nashville?”

I let go of the bed and crossed my arms.

“Is that a no, you won't come?” she said.

“It's a ‘gee, sis, you could have asked me first.' ”

Sonia had the gall to look surprised. “I thought we talked about it.”

“No, we didn't.”

“Okay, that's it.” She glared at the empty pill cup on the table. “No more pain medication. It's messing with my brain. I really thought I'd spoken to you about it.” She let out a long breath. “Look, Lucia, you've held up better than anybody else, and they all went to a hotel at night. You haven't even left the hospital.”

I opened my mouth, but she went on as if she were on one of her platforms.

“You can also tell me who I've talked to in the last twenty-four hours, in fifteen-minute increments—which my precious Marnie cannot do because she's completely stressed-out.”

She stopped to lick her lips. I didn't go for the ice water.

“Besides all that, I know you and Chip have things to work out.”

I got still. She slanted her body forward.

“Don't think I haven't noticed he's not around here, supporting you—and that isn't all because it's too hard for him to be in a medical environment anymore.”

“I didn't come in here to talk about him,” I said.

“He's benefited from our recovery program, Lucia, and I know the two of you would do great with our Recapture Your Marriage course. I'd give you plenty of time to work on that together.”

She groped for my hand with her gauzy one. I let it hang between us.

“You're saying bring Chip with me?”

“Of course. I wouldn't ask you to leave your husband here.” She pulled the hand away and folded it across her chest. “I wanted you to come to Nashville with him in the first place, if you'll recall.”

“I thought he didn't work for you anymore,” I said, voice stiff.

“That was his choice. He can come back if he wants. Same salary. I'll pay you both well.”

Good. He could go back to working for Sonia and have his little thing with Marnie right under my nose.

I jammed my hands into my pockets. Why was I even thinking like this? No way I'd go.

“You can work on other things too,” Sonia said. “I bet you haven't even looked at the materials I sent you on weight loss.”

My neck jerked.
Faithless and Fat
, wasn't it? I'd gotten as far as the introduction that told me I needed to be delivered from the sin I literally wore on my body. The implication, barely buried between the lines: fat people don't go to heaven.

I'd forgotten which trash can I'd dropped it into.

Sonia leaned further toward me. Her eyes, even trapped as they were, took on the condescending sag that made my hackles stand up.

“You're not working right now anyway,” she said, “and quite frankly, I think it's time you trusted God to heal your grief so you can serve again. You have a gift for taking care of people that comes straight from Him, and you have an obligation to use it.”

My stomach wadded up. “I'm not grieving.”

“But you can't bring yourself to go back into a hospital nursery, can you?”

I snatched up the water pitcher from her tray table and hurtled myself toward the bathroom.

“You obviously did something to calm Bethany down when you took her out of here.”

I froze in the doorway.

“You always loved her. She needs you.”

My fingers cramped around the handle.

“This is too much for a little girl,” she said.

I turned back to the tray and slammed the pitcher onto it. “They brought her here to surprise you. Obviously nobody prepared her for the surprise
she
was in store for.”

She caught my hand under hers this time. “This is exactly what I'm talking about. You really knew Bethany before I did. I think you're the only one who can walk her through this.”

Don't. Don't you even use this on me.

“I know it's asking a lot,” Sonia said, “but nobody can give her what she needs right now except you. This is God's will.”

Curse you, Sonia Cabot.

“I've started a conversation with the admin office,” said a toocheerful voice in the doorway. “The social worker will be in tomorrow.”

I had never before been happy to see Marnie. I half-ran to the restroom down the hall and hid in a stall. Not even bothering to sit down on the toilet, I pressed my forehead against the cold metal and imagined myself saying no to Sonia.

No, I can't pack up and leave my house for three months.

No, I can't take my husband back to Nashville where he can be with
his lover.

No, I can't keep track of your meds and your appointments while
some twenty-year-old fawns over him and I read about how faithless
and fat I am.

No, I can't dump everything to do your bidding. Again. I can't. I
won't.

But my imagination wasn't up for it. I only saw that little cherub face, heard that fragile voice saying, “Are you ever coming to my house?”

“Yeah, Bethany,” I whispered. “I guess I am.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

A
s the cab drove me home to Havertown on Sunday, I wondered how the life I'd left there could possibly have gone on. Why were cars still pulling into the drive-through grocery at the Swiss Farm just as they always had? Why were people still standing in line at Rita's Water Ice as they were on every sweltering summer day?