House Arrest (15 page)

Sam smiled. “Don’t worry. Emily didn’t give away any secrets. She just asked me a hypothetical question: How could someone under house arrest sneak out for a few hours, without being caught.”

Wow. Emily might be braver than she looked.

Sam wrinkled up his face, as if he was thinking hard. “I assume these few hours can’t be during an afternoon scheduled for work, like today?”

“Right.”

“I did a little detective work. It’s an interesting challenge,” Sam admitted. “Like I told Emily, a good computer hacker could get into the electrical grid and turn off the juice to a whole sector. They would go looking for a transformer malfunction. Two problems, though. First, it could be fixed pretty quickly, and then you’d be caught outside the house.”

“They’d slap me right in jail. What’s the other problem?”

“It’s risky. Even with a top-notch hacker, there’s a decent chance of being caught. These are felonies.”

He’s worried about himself, Pippa thought. And Emily. He’s worried that she’ll decide to help me and we’ll all get into trouble. “Have you told Emily about this research?” she asked.

“No,” he said. “Not yet.”

•

She could tell by the garlic aroma that Francie had already started making dinner. That was a bad sign. Pippa kicked off her wet boots, left them on the newspapers next to the door, In the kitchen, Francie didn’t turn to say hello, kept stirring the soup on the stove.

“Hi,” Pippa said. “Pretty nasty out there.”

“Where were you?”

Pippa hesitated. She didn’t owe Francie an explanation, especially if she was in a crabby mood already. Francie wasn’t her mother. But Pippa had never heard that tone of voice from Francie either. Maybe she should just give in and apologize.

“Shall I start the salad?” Pippa asked instead.

“I want to know where you went.”

“It’s no secret,” Pippa said. “I went to Children’s Hospital, to visit the little girl my nurse Emily lives with. Her niece, or cousin or something. She had an emergency operation. I kept her father company. Sam. What’s the big deal?”

“For that you risked getting caught, and put in jail?” Now Francie looked at her, her expression a mixture of fury and disbelief. “Less than a week before your pre-trial hearing?”

It was a big deal to Francie, Pippa realized, pulling lettuce and vegetables from the refrigerator. But the truth was that Pippa had forgotten about the hearing. Which was weird, considering how much she had been looking forward to seeing Tian, even in a courtroom.

Sure, she had skipped out her afternoon at the Tea Room, but Francie had no right to talk to her that way. “I didn’t think it would be a problem, as long as I was gone the same time I’m usually gone for work.”

“That’s not the point.” Francie added a miserly pinch of dried herbs from the bowl on the counter next to the stove, and leaned forward to sniff the steam rising from the simmering liquid.

“What is the point?” Pippa asked.

“The point is why are you socializing with people outside the family?”

Pippa started washing lettuce leaves, ripping them into pieces, and tossing them into the spinner. The noise of the faucet gave her a minute to think. For four years the family had been everything to her. What had changed? Was it Tian being in jail? Abby’s death? This new baby?

Pippa turned off the water and looked at Francie. “Lots of reasons. I was lonely. I wanted to help Emily, so she’ll help me. Sam was fun. He’s got this crazy mustache that twists around at the ends and he played finger puppets with Zoe.” Why was she blabbing about mustaches? Francie didn’t care about Sam. “Our family is falling apart, isn’t it?”

“Out of the mouths of babes.” Francie crossed her arms over her chest.

“Stop treating me like a child.”

“Stop acting like one. Things are rough now, but if we stick together, if we take care of each other, we’ll be okay.”

“Without Tian? He’s the one Isis talks to.”

Francie smiled her chopped-off smile that was gloomy at the corners, and shook her head. “Isis will speak to anyone who listens. Tian doesn’t have a private line. Besides, if you ask me, some of his rules are stupid and need changing.”

“Now you’re the one who’s being disloyal to Tian, and disrespectful to Isis.” Pippa paused before continuing, her voice soft. “I think if I had real friends in the family, maybe I wouldn’t have to look outside.”

Maybe she shouldn’t talk like that to Francie. But every word was true.

19 ~ Emily

Anna’s hand clutched the doorframe. “It’s her shunt.”

“We shouldn’t have come,” I said.

Aunt Ruth looked from Anna to me. “What does that mean?”

“The shunt tubing could be plugged, or broken,” I said. “In either case, her brain swells with the extra fluid.” I tried to ignore the memorized illustrations from the pediatric neurology chapter popping into my brain.

Anna rested her forehead against the doorframe. “She’s in surgery now.”

“Damn. Why didn’t Sam notice sooner?” I put my arms around Anna. I knew we shouldn’t have trusted him. “What were her symptoms?”

“Oh come on.” Anna pushed me away. “We left Zoe with him less than forty-eight hours ago and she was fine.”

“Maybe not,” I said. “Remember how teary she was last week? We should have suspected something. Tell me exactly what Sam told you.”

“That Zoe didn’t get his spoonerisms. I thought he gave that up years ago. Doesn’t matter. We have to get home.” She left the living room.

We followed her towards the bedroom. Ruth whispered to me, “Spoonerisms?”

“Sam and Zoe like to joke that way,” I whispered back. “You know, when you switch the first letter of words? It’s their secret language.” I grabbed the two backpacks from the floor of the closet, nudged the half-flat basketball back in and held it with my foot while I closed the door.

Anna talked while she stuffed shirts and socks into her pack. “Sam said that after I brought her upstairs Monday evening she was quieter than usual. He thought she was just tired and maybe worried about me leaving, and that’s why she wasn’t picking up on the spoonerisms.”

Aunt Ruth brought our bathroom stuff into the room, sorting toothbrushes and combs and shampoos. She handed them to Anna.

“Tuesday after school, it seemed worse. Sam called the pediatrician and got an appointment for today. But early this morning, he spoke with the neurosurgeon’s office and they said to bring her to the ER for a CT scan.”

Aunt Ruth stood behind Anna, hugging her lightly but not getting in the way. Aunt Ruth had always been good at that.

I knew we shouldn’t have come. “So while we were tossing dirt onto Ivan’s coffin, Zoe was in shunt failure.” The minute those words were out, I wanted to snatch them back. I mumbled “I’m sorry” but they both ignored me.

“The scan showed enlarged ventricles.” Anna collapsed back against Aunt Ruth’s chest. “Which means the shunt isn’t working.”

“So what are we waiting for? Let’s get down to the ferry.” I buckled my pack and grabbed my jacket.

“The last ferry was at 3:15,” Ruth said.

Anna turned to me. “Cousin Kevin will take us over to Rockland. He said to hurry, a nor’easter is coming.”

•

Halfway to Rockland, we ran into fierce winds and swirling snow. I couldn’t tell if the turmoil in my stomach was caused by the swells or the worries. But Kevin delivered us safely through the tossing and the howling to the calmer waters beyond the harbor lighthouse. I clutched both backpacks while Anna hugged Kevin through his rubber jacket slick with wet snow.

Anna insisted on driving, said she needed something to do. She put Cajun fiddle music in the CD player and seemed to lose herself in the rhythm. I folded my long brown scarf into a pillow and leaned against my door. The defroster made ominous pinging noises but the snowflakes melted on the windshield. My thoughts tumbled and tossed, images rushing at me like the headlights of oncoming traffic. Zoe lying pale and silent on the stretcher the last time her shunt failed, wearing a blue OR cap that covered her eyebrows. Sam drawing puppet faces on the soft tips of his fingers and acting out whispered stories. Aunt Ruth telling me that Daddy went to prison and died there alone, so that Momma could take care of me. Could it have been my fault that my mother felt so impossibly lonely? These flashing memories were jumbled up with images of Pippa in trouble, in premature labor or bleeding, unable to get help because she was tethered to her house by that stupid ankle monitor.

As we passed Portland, Anna turned the music down. “How’re you doing?”

“I’m scared. Aren’t you?”

“Terrified. But she’s probably out of surgery by now, and this is pretty routine, you know. She’ll be fine.”

I nodded. Anna didn’t need to be reminded right now about all the potential complications, about how cerebral swelling or high fever or infection could destroy brain cells. “Do you want me to drive?” I asked.

“Not yet. Talk to me. Distract me.”

“What about?”

“How about this afternoon? Are you okay?”

“I don’t know.” I rested my forehead against the cold windowpane. “I don’t know what to think anymore.”

“You mean what Laura said? That she admired your parents?”

“That, and what Ruth said. While you were on the phone.”

“What?”

“That my mother was the one who planned their crime, their protest, whatever you want to call it. My dad took all the blame so Momma could stay home with me.” I rubbed the bump in my nose, but it didn’t ease the pain in my head. “Ironic, huh? That she could be so strong as an activist, but gave up on being a mother.”

“Does that matter, who was the leader?”

“I don’t even know what kind of people they were. How could they risk a janitor’s life for some pie-in-the-sky idea?”

“You knew them,” Anna said. “What kind of people were they?”

“They were wonderful.” I buried my face in my icy hands.

Anna was quiet for a few minutes, then said, “You once told me about the nurses’ union you joined in Portland. About the strike at the nursing home, leaving the patients inside while you marched on the picket line carrying signs. What if something awful happened when you were walking the picket line? What if an old guy choked and you weren’t there to save him?”

It was to protect our patients that Chad started the union, and I joined it. I hated the negotiating, the demands. Most of all, I hated the strike. I worried all the time that something would go wrong, that a patient would be overlooked and suffer. As I packed my suitcase after a week of striking, I wondered what my father would have thought about his daughter joining a union and striking. What he would have thought about my walking away.

I turned to Anna. “We made all these contingency plans. We did everything we could to keep the patients safe. Anyway, that’s different. We had to strike for the patients, for better staffing levels, because it wasn’t safe the way it was.” I reached forward to the dashboard and turned up the heat.

“Maybe your folks felt the same way.” Anna’s words tumbled out fast, as if she had held them back for a long time. “Maybe Arnie and Jemma felt like they had to do something too.”

“Maybe. And look what happened.”

“People can’t control everything, Emily.” Anna sounded annoyed.

I knew that I was being unreasonable. Even as I spoke, I could feel the edges of my anger unraveling. Those days were over and done with. There was too much to worry about in the present, with Zoe in surgery and Pippa’s request.

“I can’t think about that now,” I said. “Our kid could die.”

Anna flashed me a weird look. Our kid. I knew that Zoe was Anna’s kid, but she felt like mine too. I glanced sideways at Anna, wondering if I had stepped over some line. But she looked straight ahead, switched off the windshield wipers. The storm was losing power.

I rewrapped my scarf around my neck, and reached into my jacket pocket for my gloves. My fingers touched one of the lucky stones. I rolled it into the palm of my hand and cradled it there.

“Accidents happen.” Anna’s voice was softer now.

I wished she would just leave this alone. “Yeah,” I said. “They do. But people have to take responsibility, don’t they? For collateral damage. What about the janitor’s family? Did he have a little girl too?”

“Don’t go there, Emily. Your dad went to prison. He took responsibility. And your mother suffered too.”

“Ruth said she died of guilt.” I stared through the windshield into the dark night, thinking about the sour fruity smell I woke up to most mornings in that small room. “But that’s not the whole story. I think Momma drank.”

“I’ve heard that.”

“What?” I turned to her.

“That she drank, because she couldn’t face losing Uncle Arnie.”

The first few months Momma told me we’d be moving back to Portland, but pretty soon that talk faded away. On my twelfth birthday, I climbed into Momma’s lap, even though I knew I was too old. Wrinkling my nose at her familiar smell, her odd mixture of sour apples and cloying sweet, I leaned my forehead against hers. “One-Two-Three-Owl,” I said. She didn’t seem to remember the game. Over the next few years, the blue leached from her eyes until they were empty. She died the day after Thanksgiving the year I turned fifteen.

It struck me then. I had never asked about the cause of death.

I glanced at Anna. I didn’t want to have this conversation. I didn’t want any of this. How did I let myself get talked into returning to the island anyway, when I knew it was a bad idea? And now Zoe was sick.

Anna was back on the strike. “There are laws against striking too, aren’t there? Injunctions? Would you have continued the strike, if it was illegal?”

Why didn’t Anna can it about the strike? “I don’t want to talk about this any more.” I opened my hand and let the lucky stone fall back to the bottom of my pocket. “Any of it.”