Woman in Black (50 page)

Consumed by her dire thoughts, it was a moment before Abigail noticed a stir of movement within the thick smoke pouring from the doorway to the house. Someone was in there. Karim? Had he gone in after Phoebe and managed to rescue her? Abigail's heart leaped at the thought.

That hope was dashed when Karim came running around the side of the house, shouting something that she couldn't quite make out. Oh, God. She'd only been hallucinating, willing a miracle where there was none.…

But all was not lost, it seemed. An instant later a figure materialized out of the thick gray haze. A woman holding a coat over her head. She had something—no,
someone
—slung over one shoulder.

Phoebe
.

In the next instant, Abigail was on her feet and running.

The woman sank to the ground, still holding tight to Phoebe, just as Abigail reached her. The coat covering them was on fire, and Abigail ripped off her jacket and began beating at the flames. Karim and Lila joined her, and within seconds they'd managed to put the fire out.

Both the woman and Phoebe were alive, she saw to her immense relief. Abigail, tears streaming down her face, sank to her knees before them. Who was this woman? And how had she come to be here? Was she even human … or was she an angel from heaven?

The woman lifted her head, and Abigail saw with a shock that it was Concepción Delgado. She let out a gasp. Concepción's face and hands were blackened with soot, and her hair stood out in singed wisps all over her head, like wires from a blown transformer. When her gaze met Abigail's, Abigail found herself looking into the bloodshot eyes of someone who'd been to hell and back. Eyes that weren't so much looking at Abigail as looking
through
her, as if at some unimaginable horror that only Concepción could see.

Abigail laid a hand on her shoulder. “Bless you.” It was all she could manage in her current state.

Concepción's eyes locked onto Abigail's then, and in that moment Abigail felt something pass between them before Concepción brought her gaze back to Phoebe. She gently stroked Phoebe's hair, gazing at her with a tenderness that was almost unbearable to behold. While behind her the blaze roared out of control and the wail of sirens grew louder—Abigail could now see the flashing of a bubble light through the distant trees—Concepción Delgado whispered to the girl cradled, semiconscious, in her arms, “You are safe now,
mi hija
.”

17

As Lila made her way along the hospital corridor, she could see them all assembled in the visitors' lounge—her brother, seated next to Gillian (who'd taken the train back from Philly as soon she'd gotten the news); Abigail, sitting hunched on the sofa beside her estranged husband, chewing on a manicured thumbnail; and Karim, standing tall and straight in their midst, sturdy and dependable as the hub of a wheel—and she had the queer sense that she was looking at a doctored photo in which the various people in her life had been cut and pasted to form a bizarre family portrait.

Vaughn jumped to his feet at her approach. “How is he?”

“The same,” she replied wearily. She'd been assured by the resident on call that, physically, Neal was in fairly good shape, all things considered. They'd pumped his stomach to remove the residue of the pills, and Dr. Roantree didn't seem to think that Neal would suffer any long-term effects from the smoke inhalation, though he was on oxygen at the moment. Yet in other ways, her son was a long way from being out of the woods, she knew. The fire that had nearly cost him his life was the same fire that had ultimately saved it.

“What did the doctor say?” Gillian asked. With her spiky, bleached-blond, pink-tipped hair, wearing a short kelly-green coat with a hot pink knitted scarf, black tights, and black lace-up Doc Martens, she looked like an elf on leave from the North Pole.

“They're keeping him overnight. They want to do a psych evaluation.” Lila's tone was matter-of-fact, but just saying the words made her feel sick to her stomach.

At the same time, a voice in her head protested that the only thing crazy here was that they were
talking
about Neal as if he were crazy. He'd been a little depressed, sure. Who wouldn't be, after all he'd been through? After what he'd witnessed with his dad? Really, it was a wonder he was functioning at all. But suicidal? No way.

She ignored that voice. She had to face the fact, however painful, that her son was in crisis. She couldn't keep pretending that time alone would heal his wounds. For if she refused to believe that he might not try it again, that it wasn't still a real threat, he could end up like his father.

Her gaze fell on Abigail, who looked as strung out as she. For once, they were in the same boat, except that Phoebe was in far worse shape than Neal. She was in the ICU, still unconscious and suffering from second-degree burns as well as smoke inhalation, not to mention the pills that were still in her system. No one was allowed in to see her for more than ten minutes at a time—not even her parents, which was the only reason Abigail and Kent were sitting out here when anyone could see they were desperate to be with their child.

It's going to be a long night
, Lila thought.

Vaughn walked over to put an arm around Lila's shoulders. “You don't look so hot yourself, Sis. Why don't you go to the hotel and get some rest?” He'd booked rooms for them at the Marriott across the street. “I'll call you if there's any change.”

Lila shook her head. “No. I want to be here when he wakes up.”

“At least you know he
will
wake up.” Abigail's voice seemed to rise from the bottom of a well, hollow and disembodied. Lila looked over to find Abigail staring at the wall in front of her, wearing a look of fierce concentration, the muscles in her face working in an effort to keep from crying.

Vaughn flicked a worried glance at her, but Abigail seemed oblivious to everyone and everything but her own anguish.

Kent gave his wife an awkward pat on the shoulder. “You can't think that way, Abby. She's young. She'll pull through. And I know the staff here—they're all excellent. Trust me, she's in good hands,” he said, with a conviction that seemed forced. Tonight he wasn't the self-assured doctor in command of the situation; he was just another distraught parent struggling with his own fears.

“This time, maybe. But what about the next time? What if she tries it again?” Abigail swung around to face him, her voice rising on a shrill, frayed note. “There won't always be someone around to rescue her.”

Lila thought then about the stranger who had come to Phoebe's rescue tonight. A Hispanic woman she'd never seen before but whom Abigail seemed to know. She was in intensive care at the moment, along with Phoebe. Abigail had offered to take care of all her expenses after it had become clear that the woman was uninsured. It was what anyone with means would have done for the person who'd saved their child's life, yet Lila couldn't help feeling that there was something more to it than that, some story she had yet to hear.

Kent attempted to reassure his wife. “We'll cross that bridge when we get to it. Let's just get through this, okay? Once she's back on her feet, we'll see that she gets all the help she needs.”

“I just want her
home
.” Abigail's voice struck a plaintive note. Lila couldn't help thinking that, if there had been any Abigail Armstrong fans around to witness the scene, they wouldn't have recognized this woman as the unflappable doyenne of domesticity who could whip up the perfect soufflé with one hand while getting a red wine stain out of a tablecloth with the other.

“Maybe it would be best if she stayed with me for a little while. Just until you find another place to live,” Kent suggested tentatively.

It occurred to Lila that Abigail was now homeless. They were both homeless. Abigail could easily find another place to live. But what would
she
do? She felt mildly panicky at the thought.

“That's not an option,” Abigail said tersely, clearly not in a frame of mind to be reasoned with. “She needs her mother right now. What difference does it make where we live? We can stay in a hotel, for all I care. All that matters is Phoebe. If I were to lose her …” Convulsively, she pulled into herself, making a tight fist of her body, her shoulders hunched and her arms wrapped around her middle. As she sat there shivering, despite the room's near-stifling warmth, it was clear that she needed her daughter as much as her daughter needed her.

“We're not going to lose her.” Kent made another attempt to reassure her, but when Abigail refused to even look at him, he fell silent. Seeing him slumped over with his elbows resting on his knees, his hair rumpled, and his necktie askew, Lila thought that he looked sorely in need of comforting himself.

“I know what you're thinking,” Abigail said in that same hollow, bottom-of-the-well voice. “You're thinking it's my fault. Well, you're right—it
is
. What does it say that something was so drastically wrong that our daughter wanted to kill herself, and she couldn't come to me, her own mother?”

Kent just sat there, shaking his head, wearing a forlorn look. He had to be thinking the same thing: that Phoebe could have come to him, too, and she hadn't. He had to be feeling the same guilt.

Gillian broke the tension by piping, “Anyone want coffee? I could use some myself.” She looked around expectantly, but when no one took her up on her offer, she trudged off in the direction of the cafeteria, looking strangely bereft.

Vaughn went over to Abigail and lowered himself onto his haunches so that they were at eye level. He was wearing gray corduroys and a navy turtleneck sweater that made his eyes look even more startlingly blue than usual. Over the past few weeks, the bristle on his head had turned to dark blond waves that, here and there, had given way to errant curls. He looked almost like his old self—though Lila had to remind herself that appearances could be deceiving; he wasn't out of the woods yet, either.

“It's not your fault, Abby.” He spoke gently. “This could have happened to anyone.”

Abigail met his gaze, and something in the intimacy of the look they exchanged confirmed Lila's suspicions: They were lovers. She didn't know what to make of
that
. So she decided to tuck the realization away for a future date, when she could process it with a clear head.

“He's right. It's not your fault. It's no one's fault.” All heads turned to Lila as she spoke. She was thinking about Gordon and how she'd held herself partly responsible for what he'd done. But how could she have prevented it? What could she have done differently? She'd stood by his side throughout it all; she'd even vowed to wait for him until he got out of prison. Maybe it was the same with Neal and Phoebe; maybe nothing either she or Abigail could have said or done would have altered the course of events. Lila stepped around her brother and held a hand out to her oldest and once dearest friend, saying, “Come on, Abby. Let's you and me take a walk.”

Abigail nodded wordlessly and rose to her feet.

Slowly, like a pair of old ladies who'd known each other for so long that they matched each other's strides, they made their way together down the corridor. They ended up in a small atrium tucked off to one side of the elevators, which was deserted at this hour. There were only their ghostly reflections looking back at them from the darkened glass.

“You look like hell,” Abigail said.

Lila gave a wan smile. “So do you.”

“It's been some night, hasn't it?”

“You can say that again.”

“I'm sorry I yelled at you, at the house. I wasn't myself.”

Lila smiled. “I know.”

“Thanks for keeping me from going in there. I probably wouldn't be here if you hadn't.”

“I'm just glad I was around to stop you. If Karim hadn't gotten me home when he did …” Lila felt a chill go through her at the thought, and she added with an ironic laugh, “Nice, huh? I finally decide to let my guard down and go out on a date, and look how it turned out.”

Abigail eyed her with mild curiosity. “I didn't know you and Karim were seeing each other.”

“I didn't know we were, either.”
Until tonight
. But that was a conversation for another time. The only thing that mattered right now was their kids. “Look, you can't beat yourself up for what happened with Phoebe,” Lila said when they were seated. “I went through the same thing with Gordon. I kept thinking that if only I'd read the signals, if I'd been paying more attention, I could have stopped him from doing what he did. But I'm not a mind reader. And neither are you. We're just ordinary people who don't always get to play hero.”

Abigail remained unconvinced. “Still, I should have seen it coming. If I'd been a better mother …”

“
We
should have seen it coming. It wasn't just Phoebe,” Lila reminded her.

“So what now? What do we do?” For the first time in all these months, Abigail sat stripped of her armor. For the first time, she was admitting that she didn't have all the answers. She was asking for help.

It was almost more than Lila could absorb.
I don't have all the answers, either
, she answered silently.
I wish I did
. But Abigail didn't need to know that, so she said simply, “We do the best we can.”

“What if our best isn't good enough?”

“It will be. It
has
to be.”

“I'll do whatever it takes, I'll sacrifice anything for one more chance to make things right with her. But what if she doesn't pull through?” Abigail's voice cracked. “I honestly don't know if I could survive that.”

“She'll pull through.”

But Abigail wasn't in a mood to be reassured. “It might be easier to believe that if I didn't feel so alone.”