The Secret Letters (13 page)

Further up the street, I found my car under a layer of ash and some kind of foam. I picked a parking ticket off the windshield, tossed it on the ground, and drove away.

I spent the next few hours at the Double T Diner on Route 40 poking a crabcake with a fork. When I got back to the house, I found Star in the living room, wrapped in Ricky's blue bathrobe. She looked surprised to see me. “Oh, hey Julie! They were doing some tests and they wouldn't let me in, so I decided to come home and take a quick shower.”

“Did you drive?” I asked, since I didn't think she had a car.

“No, I took the bus. Well, three of them.”

That sounded horrible. “Hey, I'll drive you over there in the morning,” I said. “You probably ought to try to get some sleep first.”

She was giving me a weird look, and then I realized she was probably thinking I was a total bitch for not going to see Ricky right this second, though it was nearly midnight and we'd all had a rough couple of days.

“Yeah,” I said, like I'd heard her thoughts. “See, I was in the hospital myself. I guess I had a little smoke inhalation from when I went into the building.”

“Oh my God, you were in the building?” Apparently she hadn't been consulting local media.

“Yeah, I was the one who carried Ricky out.”

She let out a little scream and burst into tears. I patted her on the arm until she calmed down enough to say, “Oh God, Julie, you're the best, best sister ever!”

“Not really,” I said, thinking of the thousand shitty things I had done as a sister, such as tying Ricky up and sticking him in a closet.

“They kept telling me he didn't even know I was there, but I
know
he knew. He'll be so glad to see you.” She wiped her eyes on the bathrobe's sleeve.

“I'll be glad to see him, too,” I said, though the idea of seeing him in that
condition scared the hell out of me.

“He doesn't look too bad,” she said, adding that he would be well soon and totally back to normal and everything would be okay. I expected to hear the words “fine and dandy,” like my mother would have said, but she didn't say them. She still wanted to go right back to the hospital, but I talked her into trying to catch a few hours of shut-eye by telling her he required rest and didn't need anyone sitting there keeping him awake, so she finally caved and went upstairs to his room.

I went into the room formerly known as Pam's and mine and lay down on the single bed without even rolling down the crocheted bedspread. When I woke up with a start, it was light outside. I stumbled into the kitchen and found Star in a too-large, tie-dyed T-shirt, drinking a cup of herbal tea. “Oh, great, you're dressed,” she said. I didn't bother to tell her that these were the clothes I'd been wearing for two days now, and I had slept in them, and they were the only clothes I owned. She seemed anxious to get going, but offered to make me some coffee. She poured the coffee into a tall paper hot-cup that must have come from her coffee shop and I started to sit down, but she hustled me out the door.

On the way to the hospital, she wanted to talk about Ricky. She asked me about our childhood and what kind of memories I had of him.

“I was ten when he was born,” I told her. “We all thought of him as our toy. He was this cute little munchkin in striped T-shirts with drool all over them, always staggering around and bumping into things, then falling down hard on his butt.” I told her how he had blond curly hair like an angel, and how our mother cried the first time she cut it. Star seemed to like hearing this stuff, so I went on and on, telling her about how he broke his arm falling off the back of Frank's pickup, and how once he stuck a piece of corn up his nose and we couldn't get it out, and how he used to puke on us all the time because his stomach was delicate, as my mother put it. I could tell she was
loving it, so I just kept it coming.

When we got to the hospital, I discovered she was wrong about Ricky: he
did
look bad, in fact he didn't look like Ricky, and I had to clamp my hand over my mouth to keep from screaming. Most of his body was wrapped in white bandages, and I couldn't see his face past a big plastic tube hooked up to a loud machine. An IV hung over him, with a bunch of other tubes going in and out, and he wasn't moving, like he was frozen. Star whispered something in his ear. We were in gowns and masks, so maybe he didn't recognize us, but he didn't react at all. Star started yakking, telling him how she ran into me, and how glad she was to see me and how I was telling her about the good old days when he was my cute little baby brother. She chattered on, though it was kind of hard to hear her through her mask, crazily cheerful like she'd been in a million burn units before, and Ricky made no response the entire time, just lay there beeping. She told him the doctors said he was doing great and was going to make a full recovery. I didn't know if the doctors really said this, but she sounded like she believed it. She went on blathering goofy stuff, then turned around like she suddenly remembered me, and said, “So, sweetie, guess who's here?”

“Hey, dude,” I said, through my mask. It felt weird to talk to someone who didn't seem to be awake, and who didn't seem to be Ricky. “It's me. Julie. You're doing great. Just great.” I couldn't think of what else to say, but I added a couple more dumb things and then Star jumped back in again.

She went on talking, and every so often I added something so he'd know I was still there, if he knew anything at all. I wanted to crawl away and find some dark place to hide. Since telling her about our childhood, I could only think about cute little baby Ricky with his wide toothless grin and messy curls, toddling around the house and climbing onto everyone's lap. I was just about to break down and sob when suddenly I remembered the time I was watching him through the window in the backyard and I saw
him pick something up off the ground. I ran outside to try to stop him and got there too late to keep him from popping a piece of dog shit into his mouth.

“Hey, Ricky,” I said, laughing a little, though I still felt like weeping. “Remember the time you ate dog shit?”

“Oh no, you didn't,” Star said.

“Yeah, he was around two. He picked it up and stuck it in his mouth. I had to dig it out of there with my finger.”

“Oh my God.” Star's laugh had an edge of hysteria. “Oh my God, that's so funny!”

“I called him Dog Boy for years,” I said, feeling ashamed of myself.

“Did you hear that, honey? I'm going to call you Dog Boy from now on.”

I could see tears streaming from her eyes, but she went on babbling in that perky, cheerful way, and she was still going strong when I waved goodbye and crept out of the room. I went into a bathroom and cried for a while, then splashed water on my face and went to find my car in the giant garage.

My next stop was to see Pam. Since I didn't have a job now, I figured I could just spend my time driving back and forth between hospitals. There were probably other things I should be doing, I thought, like talking to my insurance broker and seeing what kind of coverage I had for fire (I hadn't paid much attention when I took out the policy), but I didn't care about them.

The front desk gave me Pam's new room number, and when I got there, I wasn't surprised to find Milo in the hall, reading a magazine with a sailboat on the cover. He gave me a hug when he saw me, and I had that weird feeling again, just for a moment, like I was falling. “Your brother is in there with her,” he said.

At first I thought he meant Ricky, then Donny, but when I stuck my head in, I saw Tim in a chair next to Pam's bed.

“Julie!” she said when she spotted me. Her voice was croaky.

I was so happy to see her awake I couldn't speak. I stood there opening and closing my mouth until a nurse came in and snapped, “Only one at a time.” I waved hello and goodbye to Tim, then went back to the waiting room and sat next to Milo. His eyes were red and had bags under them, but he had shaved and looked a lot happier than last time I saw him. “What's the latest?” I asked.

“The doctors say the hyperbaric chamber really helped.” He gave me a bunch of statistics on exactly how much it had helped, especially with the CO
₂
levels in her blood.

“What's Tim doing here?” I asked, since Milo seemed to know more about my family than I did.

“He got here early this morning. I guess he took a red-eye.”

“Wow.” I didn't know what else to say.

“He's an interesting guy.”

“Is he?”

“I liked his partner, too.”

“His what?”

“His friend, Alex. I'm sorry, I assumed they were—”

“No way.” I burst out laughing. “That Alex guy is just his friend.”

“Anyway, he was telling me about his business. It's fascinating.”

“Repo? It's horrible. I hated it.”

“It's dangerous.”

“Yeah. But it turns out everything's dangerous.”

Milo stroked the side of his face like he was having deep thoughts. “I guess you take a risk with anything that matters.”

“No shit. And what do I have to show for it?”

“It was an incredible place, Julie.”

“Next time I want to take a risk, I'll go bungee jumping.” I saw Tim coming down the hall from Pam's room. “Or I'll go back to repo.”

“You're not working for me again,” Tim said. “People came crying to her and she gave them back their cars.” We gave each other the expected hug.

“He docked my pay,” I told Milo. “It cost me a fortune to work there.”

“Well, you know you always have a job at the Wild Hare,” Milo said.

“Thanks,” I said, though the thought of having to go back to work for someone else, even Milo, made me feel like puking. “I don't know what I'm going to do. I have to talk to the insurance guy.”

“We should have the money from the house sale soon,” Tim said.

“Oh, right, the house sale.”

“I guess we'll be going to settlement one of these days.”

“I guess.”

“Though Norma apparently dropped the ball on a few things. I haven't gotten any information from her for a while.”

“She's been busy.”

“Busy?” He snorted. “She's a soccer mom. How busy could she be?”

“Well, there was this little fire situation, and then before that, there was Bob leaving her for her friend Candy.”

“Say
what
?”

I gave him the lowdown.

“Well, I'll be a monkey's uncle.” I expected him to say something sarcastic about Norma, but he just shook his head like he actually felt sorry for someone besides himself, which would be a first.

“I'm going to see Pam,” I said, leaving them to talk about whatever common
ground they could come up with.

I sat in the chair Tim had vacated.

“Julie, I'm so sorry.” Her eyes began to fill with tears. “I should have stopped it.”

“Oh, no, come on. I'm just so glad that you're—that you're—” I couldn't get the words out.

“It came through the back door. We were trying to put it out but it got too big really fast.” Something dark and scary flashed in her eyes.

I tried to change the channel. “Hey, it's over. Don't think about it. All that matters is that you and Ricky are okay.” I didn't mention Ray, and I was glad she didn't ask about him.

“Is your building—?”

“Well, it's still standing.” I decided not to tell her the rest.

“You and Milo saved our lives.”

“It was Milo's idea. He busted in there while the firefighters were still bullshitting around outside.” I kept my tone light, trying not to see that moment over and over in my mind when the kitchen door stuck and I knew someone was on the floor behind it.

“Yeah, a firefighter on the news said they hate it when people do that. He called it freelancing. The doctor said if we'd been in there a minute longer, we wouldn't have made it,” she said. That darkness in her eyes again, and then, a moment of silence. Then she said in a cheerier version of her new raspy voice, “How are things at home? Is anyone walking the dogs?”

“Not exactly.”

“You're not walking them?” She looked like she was about to jump out of bed and grab a leash.

“Hey, I let them out, they're fine. How soon can you get out of here?”

“I don't know. I have to pass some kind of oxygen test first. It's like the bar exam.”

“You'll do great. You're good at tests.”

She laughed her raspy little laugh. We sat for a while, not saying anything, and then her eyes started to close.

“I'm going to get going.” I patted her arm. “Get some rest. I'll be back later.” I gave her a careful hug.

“Julie,” she said as I was going out the door, “take the dogs for a walk.”

“Okay, I will.”

“And will you send Milo in?”

I said I would.

When I found Milo and said, “Your turn,” he threw down his magazine and took off. I watched him as he hurried down the hall.

***

Sally and Max jumped all over me like I had Milk-Bones in my pocket. It was a cold, gray afternoon, but I decided to do what Pam told me, although it looked like it might rain, even snow. The poor dogs had to be bored to death by this time, and if you didn't keep Max entertained, he would chew on your favorite shoes and then relieve himself on your leg. I put their leashes on them and as we headed out the door, they turned around and smiled like they were glad to see me back at my post, then yanked me out the patio door and into our backyard. They ran with steaming breath along the edge of the hill, dragging me through the bare trees up a little path that used to lead to the woods I played in when I was a kid. There was a housing development in their place now. In the summers, we always hiked to a big pond that wasn't there anymore and fished in it with rods we made out of sticks. Our old yellow labrador, Buddy, would lie quietly,
then jump up barking for no reason, scaring the fish away. I loved Sally and Max, but I still missed our old dogs. When we were kids, Tim, Pam, Donny, and I had spent all our time chasing them through the woods. It was always the four of us—Norma was home making cookies as hard as hockey pucks with her Easy-Bake Oven, and Ricky wasn't born yet. Back then, Tim watched out for Donny and me and beat up people who picked on us for being twins. In high school, he changed and started hanging out with cool kids who made fun of us, and for a long time I waited for him to change back, but he never did.