The Lies We Told (13 page)

I
KNEW
I
HAD A FEVER EVEN BEFORE
I
OPENED MY EYES
. M
Y
mind was logy, thick with the heat, and I was soaked with perspiration. The room was filled with rosy light, and I guessed it must be close to dusk. I must have slept for hours. I remembered waking up long enough to check the wound on my leg. There it was—a gash nearly the length of my shin that someone named Duchess Alice or Queen Alice had stitched closed with thick thread. The skin around it was hot and red, and I knew I was in trouble. Deep trouble, in too many ways to count. At least one of my ribs was broken. It ached when I took in a breath and made me yelp when I changed position on the bed. My head had a throbbing lump near my right temple and the hair above my ear felt stiff to the touch.
Blood
.

I’d awakened one other time to use the small bathroom with its cracked blue wall tile and rust-stained tub. My intestines still grumbled, but the worst was over.
The water,
I thought, remembering the glass of water the girl—Simmee?—had given me.
I can’t drink any more of that water.

I got out of the bed, straightening the ragged old towels I’d been lying on. Opening the door of the room, I walked into the dark, narrow hallway. So far, I’d seen only that hallway and the bathroom across from the room where I was staying. Where was I? What had Simmee called it? A shelter? I only remembered bits and pieces of my brief conversation with her.

The dizziness teased me, and I had to brace myself against the walls as I walked down the short hallway. I was barefoot. Where were my shoes? The hallway opened into a small kitchen. I had the feeling everything about the house was small. I leaned against the doorjamb in the kitchen, keeping my breathing as shallow as I possibly could to avoid the pain in my rib cage.

The kitchen was a pale pink, the sort of soft pink someone might use in the room of a baby girl. The appliances—a short, round-shouldered refrigerator and an electric stove—looked ancient. A small rectangular table surrounded by four chairs sat in the corner near the screen door.

A second open doorway stood to my left, and I headed for it. I found myself in a living room full of mismatched furniture far too big for the space. The sofa was a broad brown-and-cream plaid, its cushions sagging. A green floral chair, overstuffed and missing one ball leg, tilted in the corner behind an ottoman. A dark brown prefab wall unit held a small TV that I doubted still worked now that TVs had gone digital. The wood-plank floor was covered by an oval rag rug. Despite the shoddy furnishings, the room was neat and uncluttered. I walked across the room—it took me only four steps—to peer through the two curtainless, shadeless windows. Outside, I could see only the deep green of shrubs that blocked all but a few rays of pink sunlight from entering the room.

I turned around to head back to the kitchen, and that’s when I saw the guns. I caught my breath, grabbing the edge
of the tilted chair to steady myself. The two guns were propped against the wall near the living room door. Were they rifles? Shotguns? I didn’t know the difference. The only type of gun that would be forever branded in my brain was the Colt automatic that had killed my parents.

I wanted to get out of that house. I needed to get back to the airport and Rebecca and Adam.

“Simmee?” I called as I walked into the kitchen again, but my voice sounded as though I hadn’t used it in months. I pulled open the screen door, nearly falling down the two concrete steps that led into…not a yard, exactly. More of a jungle. The world outside the house was so green that it made me woozy, and I had to hang on to the rusted iron railing that jutted from the steps. The brush and woods were wildly overgrown, and the trees seemed to cradle the house with their branches. I was in a suffocating green cage. Ahead of me and to the right, though, I could see a path through the undergrowth. It was narrow and uneven, carpeted with sandy white soil and crisscrossed with tree roots. It entered the tangle of green at a vertigo-inducing angle, inclined a little, then veered to the left out of my line of sight. My stomach heaved just looking at it. I lowered myself to the top step and closed my eyes.

“Well, hey, Miss Maya.”

It was a man’s voice. I forced my eyes open, and saw Simmee and a young guy walking toward me from the path.

I gripped the railing and tried to stand, but the muscles in my legs wouldn’t cooperate. It was like trying to stand on limp spaghetti.

The guy rushed forward. “Easy, now,” he said, offering me his hand. I leaned hard against him as I rose to my bare feet. “Let’s get you back inside,” he said. “Sim, you get the door. That’s a girl.”

Simmee opened the screen door for us, and the man helped me into the kitchen. He pulled out one of the chairs from the table, and I sank into it, letting out my breath. I tried to smile at them. “I’m a mess,” I said.

“Oh, no, Miss Maya,” Simmee said. She opened one of the cabinets and pulled down a plastic glass. “You’re just beat up somethin’ fierce.”

The man grinned at me, his arms folded across his chest as he leaned against the side of the old refrigerator. “Well, all I can say is it’s good to see you among the living.” He studied me with a curious smile. “You don’t remember meeting me this mornin’,” he said. “Do I got that right?”

I shut my eyes, trying to sort memory from dream. He didn’t look familiar, but I did vaguely remember seeing a man in the doorway of the room where I’d slept. “Begins with a T,” I said, looking at him again. He was staggeringly handsome. Mid-twenties, maybe, and very fair. Blue eyes. Blond hair. He had a strong, square chin and a broad chest beneath a black T-shirt. Gold hair shimmered like sunlight on his forearms.

The guns,
I thought.
The guns are his
.

Simmee filled a glass with water from the faucet. “This here’s my husband, Tully,” she said. “He’s the one that saved you.”

I had so many questions for him. Where did he find me? Where were the other people from the helicopter? But all I could seem to manage was, “I need to get to the airport.”

“Here you go, now, Miss Maya,” Simmee said, handing me the glass. “You need to drink. You’re all dried out inside.”

My hand shook so violently as I tried to take the glass that Simmee had to hold it to my lips. I suddenly remembered my bout of diarrhea and pushed her hand away. “The water,” I said. “Where is it from?”

Simmee looked surprised. “The tap, of course.” She pointed to the sink.

I shook my head. “I think maybe that’s what made me sick during the night.”

“You sayin’ our water’s no good?” Tully smiled, and I was relieved that his voice was teasing.

“I…maybe because of the storm?” I guessed. “Or maybe you all are just used to it and my system’s not. Do you have any bottled water?” I looked around the kitchen as though I might spot a bottle of Dasani or Aquafina, and knew the quest was ludicrous.

Simmee and Tully both laughed. “Water’s perfectly fine here, ma’am,” Tully said. “But hey, Sim. Check them bags I found with her. I saw some bottles of water in one of ’em.” He pointed beneath the table. I leaned over, wincing at the pain in my rib, and saw my backpack along with a couple of duffel bags on the floor. I felt as though I’d bumped into a friend in a foreign country. In an instant, though, the real-life nightmare came back to me.

Brace for a crash!

I remembered dropping like a stone, my hands pressed against the window of the helicopter, the treetops coming closer, closer, the litters pressing hard against my legs.

“Oh,” I said weakly, as I sat up straight again, rubbing my temple in confusion. “Where
is
everyone?” I searched Tully’s face as Simmee bent over for the baggage. “The people who own these other bags? Where are they?”

“Let me get them, honey,” Tully said to Simmee, gently moving her aside. “Down too low for you.” He scooted the other chair out of the way, drew the bags from beneath the table and slid them in front of the stove. They stank of fetid water.

I hated the way he avoided my question, but right then, I was hungry for what I had in my backpack. I pointed toward
it. “I have pills in there to sterilize water,” I said, glancing from Tully to Simmee. “And antibiotics. I have a fever. I think…” I stopped myself from saying the wound on my leg was infected, which it most certainly was. I didn’t want to insult them again.

Simmee handed me the backpack, and for the first time, I realized she was pregnant.
Quite
pregnant. She wore a loose, sleeveless dress, but still. How had I missed that round belly?

The pack was wet and smelly beneath my fingers as I struggled to open the clasp. My hands trembled from hours—days?—without food or water, except for that one glassful that had gone straight through me. I finally managed to flip open the top of the bag and reach inside.

“You’re a doctor, right?” Tully asked from the doorway as I pulled a bottle of water from the backpack, uncapped it and drank. My stomach balked, and I forced myself to pause in my drinking.

“Yes,” I said, remembering that Simmee had asked the same question. “How did you know?”

“All the stuff that was with you on the chopper. I looked through some of them bags for identification. Saw all the first-aid stuff.”

“Where are the others?” I asked as I unzipped the plastic bag that held the antibiotics. I shook two capsules from one of the bottles and swallowed them with the rest of my water. “Where are the people who were with me on the helicopter?”

Tully scooted the second chair closer to me, turned it around and straddled it. “Ma’am,” he said, “I’m sorry to tell you this, but I believe you was the only one that made it out of that bird alive.”

“Oh, no.” I remembered my patient, the little boy, as clearly as if I’d seen him only moments earlier. I remembered Janette,
the nurse. “Are you sure?” I asked. “Did you find me…where did you find me?”

“Ma’am—Miss Maya—we had some serious floodin’ from these sister storms. I was out in my johnboat on Billings Creek checking out the damage and I saw the chopper. It was stuck in some trees. Not real high up. Looked like it broke a bunch of branches and come to rest maybe fifteen, twenty feet from the ground. The side was tore off and y’all fell out. Like you wasn’t strapped in.”

“We weren’t,” I whispered.

“I climbed up and could see a lady… Was the pilot a girl?”

I’d forgotten that. I nodded. The motion sent my head spinning again.

“Well, she was still in her seat, but she was…” Tully shook his head. “She passed,” he said quietly. “Everything from the plane was on the ground, half in the water, like.”

“She don’t need to know everythin’,” Simmee said quietly.

“I want to know,” I said. “There were three patients and a nurse besides the pilot and me. You didn’t see any of them?”

“No, ma’am. The water was right swift. You wouldn’t believe it. Usually just a trickle through there. Only thing that saved you was you got caught in the branches and whatnot on the bank. You and these here bags. It’s a miracle you landed where you did or you wouldn’t be here. And a miracle I got to you when I did, ’cause that water was still rising.”

Why me?
I thought, starting to tremble again.
Why did I live and not the others?

Simmee leaned close to me, resting her arm around my shoulders. “You was meant to live,” she said softly, as if privy to my thoughts. She smelled of powder or laundry soap or something clean and beautiful. How she could stand being so close to me and my stench, I didn’t know.

“Thank you for rescuing me,” I said to Tully, my voice thick. I clutched my rancid backpack to my chest. “I’m with DIDA,” I said. “That’s a doctors’ relief organization and we’re working out of the airport in Wilmington. I need to get back there.”

He shook his head. “The water…it’s been crazy. It was already way higher than normal, but it come up even higher overnight and washed my johnboat away. Snapped the rope where it was tied to the dock. Ain’t never happened before. We was already cut off from the mainland. We can’t go nowhere till the water goes down or we get our hands on another boat.”

Trapped
. I remembered the word Simmee had used to describe our predicament.

“Is this an island?” I asked.

“Not usually,” Simmee said. “But it is right now.”

“This here is Last Run Shelter,” Tully said. “It’s connected to the mainland by a skinny ol’ strip of land. When it floods, we’re usually stranded for a few days. Maybe a week at most. But I ain’t never seen it flood like this.”

“Me, neither,” Simmee said, “and I lived here all my life.”

“How far is it to the Wilmington airport?” I asked.

“As the crow flies, about fifty miles,” Tully said, “but there ain’t no crows that can carry you.”

“Well…” I looked around the kitchen. “Can I use your phone?”

Simmee laughed. “We ain’t got a phone.”

“I had a BlackBerry—a cell phone—with me.” I started digging through my backpack again. “The cell towers were down, but maybe they’re back up by now.” I pulled medical supplies, a flashlight, batteries and two MREs out of my bag, setting them on the table. “My phone’s not here,” I said.

“Maybe it fell out?” Tully suggested.

I remembered Dorothea running toward me with the pack
as I was loading the little boy on the chopper. Maybe it had fallen out then.

I looked at Tully in frustration. “Is it possible…I know you’ve already done a lot for me, but could you go back to where the helicopter went down and wait there for help to come? Or at least leave a note saying where I am?”

“Not without a boat,” Simmee said.

“People will be looking for me,” I said. “My sister’s a doctor with DIDA. My husband, too. They’ll be looking for me.” My voice broke. “How will they find me?”

“You’re alive, ma’am,” Simmee reminded me, and I knew she was telling me I should feel grateful for that fact. “Everything else’ll sort itself out in good time.”

“I know,” I conceded, but only momentarily. “Maybe one of your neighbors has a boat? Or at least a phone?”