The Pirate Queen (31 page)

It was on the way to Duke, the rain-soaked interstate drying in the sun, that Gwennie called to say she was flying in before midnight that very night. Just as Luke had said. She had gotten nearly the last seat on a flight from New York to Raleigh that was cheaper than any flight she had ever booked in advance. “So it’s silly not to take advantage,” she told Saphora.

“Of course,” said Saphora. “I’m glad you’re coming. I’ll already be in Raleigh. I’ll pick you up then?”

“All right,” said Gwennie.

Saphora was glad she’d at least have Gwennie knocking around the house all weekend. She had Luke to thank for that.

Senator Weberman’s security guards were stationed, like before, out in the hallway. They sat eating a late afternoon meal of the better food from the catering company. Saphora was about to enter the room when a nurse came out from behind the station. “Mrs. Warren, I’m glad to see you.”

“Is there any change?” asked Saphora.

The nurse, a Chinese girl by the name of Kew, looked around the station, making sure it was only the two of them. “Actually, I was changing his glucose this morning, and I could have sworn his eyes opened.”

“Did he say anything?”

“I’m not sure about it, Mrs. Warren. But I thought I saw a movement out of the corner of my eye. Then I turned and he was still, like always.” She meant well; she was a young nurse who had learned English in the South. Her accent was as pert and pretty as any Carolina girl’s.

“I’ll sit with him until after dinner, Kew. Then I’ve got to pick up my daughter from the airport. If I brought her over tonight, would that be all right? Visiting hours will be over.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” said the nurse.

Good. A people-pleasing nurse. She would be a cinch to manipulate. Saphora thanked her and walked right into Bender’s room. She was sick to death of the antiseptic smell of hospital rooms. Convalescing should smell like garden soil, she thought, or cherry candles.

She sat right down next to Bender’s bed as if she might make his eyes flutter open, like Kew had said. She got down next to his ear and whispered, “I saw Reverend Mims about your questions. He told me some things.” She sat back and thought how foolish it might appear to others to keep trying to wake Bender from his coma. Who cares, she would do it anyway.

She pulled his Bible out of her choke-a-horse-sized handbag. “Here’s the way it is, Bender. I don’t have any idea how to figure out your questions about God or heaven. I guess you might be wanting to find answers right about now what with your situation and all. I don’t want to give you the wrong impression. I don’t have the answers either. But this is how it was told to me by Reverend Mims.”

She opened the Bible to where Bender had circled the part about God saving his tears in a bottle. She turned to make sure she was not disturbing the man who had been moved in next to Bender. Mort was gone. The new patient was either so doped up he was out of it or else floating like Bender between the hospital floors and heaven.

“Pastor Mims says that back in the ancient days people considered water precious. Giving up tears was like a sacrifice for their loved one. So saving tears was sacred. I don’t know about all that, but I’ve shed a lot of tears for you, Bender.” Mims had talked to her for as long as she asked questions. She paused as if giving him a moment to think about what she was saying. “I shed tears long before now, like all of the nights your place in our bed next to me was cold and empty.
Truth be told, Bender, I’ve filled up gallons of tear jars for you. You’d think I’d be all dried up by now, but instead …” She stopped, feeling like the Neuse was bursting through her walls again. She started crying but covered her mouth as if he might wake up and tell her to get ahold of herself. Then it came to her that if the ancients believed tears were sacred, then maybe there was something to it. She sobbed in the quiet of the hospital room with Bender still, her tears falling on his upturned hand as if he were catching them to carry around with him as he hovered between the hospital floors.

Gwennie’s flight was fifteen minutes early, she said, since a New York tailwind had blown her plane south on a summer coastal stream. She kissed Saphora, but instead of heading straight for the luggage carousel, she said, “Mama, I brought someone with me, a friend from the office.”

A tall man about Luke’s age appeared from behind her as if Gwennie cued him to step up and make some grand New York attorney’s entrance. “Mrs. Warren, I work with Gwennie at Bart and Ludstrum.” He was a loving Italian man, kissing Saphora’s cheek as if they had met from the long past.

“Gwennie, you didn’t tell me,” was all Saphora could think to say.

“I know. It was last minute. This is Mario. He works litigation at B&L.”

“Are you working on a case this weekend?” asked Saphora.

“Of a sort,” said Gwennie. “He’s just broken up with his girlfriend. Truth is, I found him staring out his window at the New York skyline this afternoon.”

“She felt sorry for me,” said Mario.

“But I thought your flight was full,” said Saphora.

“Mama.”

“I’m sorry. It’s just a surprise,” said Saphora. “Mario, we’re working through this situation with Gwennie’s daddy.”

“I won’t be a bother, Mrs. Warren. I can even get a room at one of the inns,” said Mario. “I’ve just got to get the weight of this week off me.”

“He only needs a place to take a walk and clear his head. I called and, boom, we found a seat that was canceled,” said Gwennie, not taking her eyes off Mario.

“Boom!” said Mario. “Here we are.”

“You can stay with us.” Saphora said. “There’s room all over. I’ve got the whole house to myself. So you’re not dating then?”

Gwennie looked at Mario and laughed as if the two of them shared some secret. “We’re not dating. I’m just his shoulder to cry on this weekend.”

“She’s been wonderful, Mrs. Warren,” he said. “Southern women are so sympathetic.”

“I’m sure,” said Saphora. She helped Gwennie find her suitcase.

“I’ll get the rental car,” he told Gwennie.

Once they congregated in the hospital, Mario set up shop in a waiting area as if he could run an office from anywhere. He had his laptop open, a latte perched in his cup holder. His black polo shirt was open all the way as if he felt completely at home in their company. He took out a headset and then said, “The two of you go ahead and catch up. When I turn on music, I can’t hear a thing.”

“I’d like some time alone with Daddy first, Mama, if that’s all right.” Gwennie went up the elevator alone while Saphora sat in a chair across from Mario.

Saphora liked Mario well enough. He was a likable sort. But she had imagined finally having Gwennie all to herself for the entire weekend. But wasn’t it like Gwennie to handle the whole issue of Luke with a good-looking Italian diversion?

Mario rested his thonged feet on the magazine table. “All she’s talked about is her father. They must be very close.”

“Bender dotes on Gwennie. She was the only real athlete out of all three of our children,” said Saphora. He did adore her if for no other reason than the shelves of trophies next to his in the library. “The boys tried out for a few teams. But everything Gwennie set her mind to, she tackled. She’s a lot like her daddy.”

“My father loved me for my accomplishments too,” he said.

She hadn’t exactly said that, but he was perceptive to notice. Or maybe just experienced. “Were you an athlete?”

“Tennis and golf. State champion, national junior PGA tour.”

“Your girlfriend must be sorry you broke up with her.”

“Evie broke up with me. Wasn’t willing to wait on my career. Now she’s interested in a senior partner at another firm.” He looked like a whipped pup. “I’ve heard he’s married.”

“It’s a sad state of affairs, the way girls go after men in high places.”

“Does anyone fall in love anymore, Mrs. Warren? I’d like to know.”

“It’s easy falling in love, Mario. It’s staying in love that boggles the mind,” said Saphora.

The elevator door opened. Gwennie came out, looking as if she would bean the next person who talked to her. “There’s some Chilean nurse on duty who barely understands English. She won’t let me in because visiting hours are over.”

“Want me to try and get you in?” asked Saphora. “I know of a nurse who will help.”

“I’m too tired to fight the forces. We’ll just have to drive back tomorrow.”

Saphora looked out the large window. It was the time of night when the sky is so close to midnight that the trees look like they’re floating in milk. Her eyelids were heavy, so she told Gwennie she’d have to drive them back home.

“Let’s get a hotel room,” said Mario. “I’ll pay and that’ll be my treat to you ladies for taking in a stranger.”

“Mario, I’m going to take you up on it,” said Saphora.

“Deal,” said Mario.

“So what were you two doing?” asked Gwennie. “Solving the world’s problems?”

“She’s coaching me in matters of the heart,” said Mario.

“My mother?” asked Gwennie. She was tired. Sarcasm pierced through her usual diplomacy.

“Sure. Where do you think you got all your brains?” he asked.

The next morning, Gwennie was able to get right in to see her daddy. Saphora and Mario joined her. Kew was raising his bed and opening the window drapes, letting in the morning sun. “There you are, Mrs. Warren. I heard your daughter got thrown off the floor last night,” she said. “If I’d been here, I’d have given them what for.”

“Kew, if I may ask,” said Mario, “can you tell me about his brain patterns?”

“Sure. He’s got the vitals of a man half his age, strong heart. But his brain is quiet as a butterfly.”

“What do you know about brain patterns, Mario?” asked Gwennie.

“I was premed before I figured out that my sympathy was better suited to litigation,” said Mario.

“Litigation requires no sympathy,” said Gwennie.

“That’s me. Mr. Coldheart,” said Mario.

“I don’t believe that,” said Saphora. Nor could she believe that she was already taking up with him. “I mean, I guess if you’re a litigator, you do have to hold people out at arm’s length.”

If anything was evident, it was that Gwennie did not need an exact duplicate of herself. But she would be the last to admit it.

Gwennie held on to Bender’s hand for about the length of time he might have held on to her when, as a little girl with the flu, she begged him to sit by her bedside. But restlessness and a blocked cell phone signal soon overtook her patience, and she was ready to head for Oriental.

The drive back was as clear as if yesterday’s storm had never come. When Gwennie was not on her phone with her assistant, Mario was talking to her as he drove the rental car right behind them. The two of them wrangled office staff around their cases from a distance as if they were duke and duchess of all things legal. Gwennie had girls otherwise off for the weekend holed up in her office looking through old cases as if their lives depended on whatever it was they had to find. Mario was no different. But where Gwennie captained them around in the same way her father ran a surgical team, Mario negotiated with charm, or so she seemed to indicate.