Saint Anything (29 page)

I put out my hand, touching the front fender of my mom’s car to steady myself. Then I turned, expecting him to come at me again. Instead, I saw my dad.

He had one arm hooked around Ames’s neck, tight, the fist clenched, and was pulling him backward down the hallway, away from me. It was all so crazy and quick, and the only thing I could concentrate on was the sound of Ames’s feet jerking across the floor. My father had a look on his face I’d never seen before. I almost didn’t recognize him.

“What were you going to do?” he was saying, the words punctuated with deep, jagged breaths. “What were you going to do?”

“Hey,” Ames squeaked, reaching up to try to free himself. “I can’t—”

“Are you okay?” my dad asked me, ignoring him.

I nodded, mute. Then a light came on behind them, and I heard my mother’s voice. “Peyton? What’s going on down there?”

I looked back at my dad, at Ames’s face, now bright red. There was no way to explain this quickly, and I had little, if any, time left. So as my father pushed Ames into a chair in the kitchen, and my mother’s shadow grew visible, then larger, as she came down the stairs, I slipped into my car.

My wrists ached, and I could still feel his fingers, pressing hard on my chin. But shaken as I was, I knew there were people who needed me, and whatever else happened here would have to wait. As I reached up, hitting the button for the garage door on my visor, it seemed fitting that the same familiar creaking and grinding—just like my father leaving the night of Peyton’s arrest and my mom arriving home those lonely afternoons—would signal the start to whatever this was, as well. It had become the sound at which our lives in this house briefly revealed themselves to the world before going hidden again. When I backed down the driveway, I didn’t even look to see if anyone had come out to try to stop me—I didn’t want to know. I left the door open behind me.

* * * 

At every stoplight on the way across town to the hospital, even as my head swam with everything that had happened, I checked my phone. I knew Mac: he’d tell me not to worry as soon as there was no reason to. No messages.

U General was all lit up and busy. I parked in a nearby lot, then hurried over to the emergency room, which was crowded and loud, like Jackson but with more adults and crying babies. After I waited for a long fifteen minutes, a nurse informed me that Mrs. Chatham had been admitted and wrote a room number on a scrap of paper: 919. In the elevator going up, I kept looking down at it, like it might carry some hint of what I’d find once I got there. Magical thinking, in the most real of times. When the doors slid open, I stuffed it in my pocket.

With each thing I did—pushing the button for nine, watching the floor numbers climb, taking those first steps down the scuffed, worn linoleum of the hallway—I imagined another action happening as well. My mom awakened by the sound of the scuffle downstairs, or our voices. Seeing my father and Ames in the kitchen before spinning to look for me. Going to my room, finding the note. Scrambling into her clothes, then getting in the car to follow me. Two lives moving separately, but about to intersect soon, not unlike Peyton and David Ibarra on another night. In any moment, there were so many chances for paths to cross and people to clash, come together, or do any number of things in between. It was amazing we could live at all, knowing all that could occur purely by chance. But what was the alternative?

It—not living—was close here at the hospital. I could see it in the rooms I passed, with beeping machines, curtains pulled or open, sighs and moans. At the end of a hallway, I saw a sign:
FAMILY WAITING
. The room, which was filled with couches and recliners, a TV playing on mute in one corner, was empty. But there was a guitar case leaning against one wall, a duffel bag beside it. And on the lone table, a purse I recognized on a pulled-out chair and a bubble gum YumYum, already licked, on a napkin. They had been here, recently. And left in a hurry.

919,
I thought, going back out into the hallway. The rooms blurred as I passed them, focused only on the numbers, always the numbers. 927. I pictured my mom at the wheel, driving in the dark. 925. The hospital finally appearing in the distance. 923. That same bright, busy lobby. 921. So little time. And then I was there.

The door was open. I stopped outside, breathing hard. Just over the threshold, his huge, broad back to me, was Irv. Rosie, in a Mariposa jacket and her ponytail, seemed tiny next to him, holding his hand. Grasping her other one was Eric, hat off, his face looking young and scared. Then Layla, hair loose over her shoulders and staring straight ahead, and Mac beside her. Together, they circled the bed where Mrs. Chatham lay, oxygen mask on, eyes closed. Mr. Chatham sat in the only chair, his head in his hands.

In my pocket, my phone buzzed. I knew who it was, and that it would be the first call of many. But I didn’t budge. Instead, it was Mr. Chatham who moved, somehow prompted to spot me, and then Layla turned as well.

As our eyes met, I thought again of that long-ago afternoon in the courthouse. When faced with the scariest of things, all you want is to turn away, hide in your own invisible place. But you can’t. That’s why it’s not only important for us to be seen, but to have someone to look
for
us, as well.

Layla let go of Mac’s hand, then held her own out to me. As I went to stand between them, closing the circle, I could feel Mac looking at me. But my eyes were only on her. Then I kept them open, wide, as she closed her own.

CHAPTER
25

“FOR YOU.”

Layla sat up in the recliner, wiping a hand across her mouth. Her hair was sticking up on one side, creases from the chair’s corded fabric on one cheek. “What is it?”

“Just look.”

She took the bag from me carefully, so as not to wake her mom, who was sleeping. It was pretty much all she’d done while recovering from the mild heart attack to which the other recent episodes had been leading. During her few waking moments, she asked after Mr. Chatham, whichever of her children weren’t present and accounted for, and occasionally updates from
Big New York
and
Los Angeles
. Then, tiring quickly, she’d again drift off, leaving us to wait for the next time to ask our own questions, or be left to pose them to each other.

I sat down in the other chair. The seat was warm, recently vacated by Rosie, who’d gone to get some fresh air and some coffee. Outside, the sun was just setting. It was hard to believe it had been less than a full day since we’d all gathered here on a different night, in another darkness. You always lost track of time in places like this, or so I’d heard. But it wasn’t just the hospital that had made the recent hours seem to me like the longest in a while.

Layla opened the bag, stifling a yawn with her free hand. Seeing the contents, her eyes widened. She looked up at me. “Did you . . . ? You didn’t.”

I smiled. “Special occasion.”

“Are you
serious
right now?”

“Shhhhhhh!” hissed a passing nurse in the hallway. They moved so quietly, until they were reprimanding you.

Sorry,
Layla mouthed, clapping a hand over her mouth. Then, grinning, she dug into the bag, pulling out a box of fries from Littles and putting it on the tray table beside her. She removed a layer of napkins—nodding approvingly at my effort to prevent cross-contamination—then took out one from Bradbury Burger, followed by more napkins and a final order of Pamlico Grill’s, lining them up neatly. Then she sat back, taking them in. “The Trifecta. It’s amazing.”

“I thought you might like it.”

“I’m
honored
by it.” She sighed happily, then looked into the bag again. “Did you happen to—”

I dug into my purse for the other bag, this one full of ketchups from all three places. Of course there were tiny taste variations. Didn’t you know? “Here.”

She grinned, taking it as well, then pulled her feet up under her as she began her ministrations. As I watched her, Mrs. Chatham sighed in her sleep, shifting her feet one way, then the other.

I was tired, too, more so than I could remember ever being. With everything that had happened in the last twenty-four hours, I’d barely slept, other than a couple of hours grabbed that morning between a talk with my parents and returning to the hospital. During that short time, however, I’d still managed to miss the removal of Ames’s belongings from our house. Dozing off, I heard my mom and dad conferring with Sawyer in the War Room while one of his employees took the boxes away. When I awoke, there was only silence. I still went to Peyton’s room, though, to see it empty for myself. The bed was stripped, the windows cracked, the carpet already vacuumed. He was really gone.

In time, I’d have to make some decisions about whether to press charges, as well as see the psychologist my mom insisted I visit, both with her and my dad and alone. It was just the first step in dealing with what had happened that night and the months leading up to it. Because I’d fled to be with Layla and Mac, I’d never know the words that were said once my mom came downstairs, or the exact blows that caused the injuries Ames’s lawyer would later try to get him compensated for. Whatever had occurred, it had not only allowed me to get to Mrs. Chatham’s bedside, but also be there long enough to stay with Mac and Layla until she finally opened her eyes. For once, time was on my side.

I wasn’t aware of any of this then, though. Instead, I focused only on Mac’s hand in mine, Layla leaning into my shoulder on the other side. Even though there were a full eight of us in that small space, it was so quiet, the only sound the beeping of the heart monitor. It was scary, this quiet vigil, like something I’d never before experienced. But I wouldn’t have wanted to be anywhere else. Whatever it would cost me—and I didn’t know the entirety of that sum yet—I already knew it was worth it.

It was somewhere around two a.m. when I started worrying about my mom. I’d been expecting her to turn up at any moment, and as more time passed without that happening—not to mention another text or call—I started to wonder why. I couldn’t imagine what would keep her from coming after me, much less prevent the inevitable confrontation that would follow. By three, though, I was outright concerned. So while everyone was talking at once, relieved that Mrs. Chatham had come to and was able to speak, I whispered to Mac that I was going to make a quick call. When I stepped into the hallway, I saw her.

She was right outside the door, in a metal chair against the wall. So close that if I’d been looking, I might have glimpsed her from inside. Like me, she’d arrived at U General, asked after Mrs. Chatham, and gotten the room number. Although she was shaken by what had happened with Ames—and finally understood my protests about being alone with him—she’d still been upset with me for leaving the house. All she wanted was to get me out of there.

“But you didn’t,” I said the next morning, when we finally sat down with my dad to talk about this. “You didn’t even come in.”

My mom rubbed her eyes; she looked as tired as I felt. “I was going to. I had every intention of dragging you out of there by your hair, if it came to that.”

“So what happened?” I asked.

She looked up at me, her expression so similar to the one I’d seen on her face in the hallway the night before. Tired, sad. “I saw you,” she said simply.

Me, surrounded by people I cared about. Me, being a good person, a good friend, all the things she prided herself on having taught me. After so many months of looking at me only in the context of my brother, finally, in that bright institutional light, my mother had glimpsed me simply as Sydney, with no precedent or comparison.

Peyton had always been there, coloring the view. Big, vibrant colors first, then the grays and darkness of the last couple of years. But in that moment, surrounded by people she didn’t know in a strange room and place, I was the opposite of invisible, the sole thing she recognized. And with that came an understanding of what I’d been trying to tell her for so long: I was different from my brother. And maybe that meant that she, now, could be different, too.

I didn’t know this when I went out and found her in the hallway. I just stopped short, so surprised at the sight of her, I couldn’t speak.

“Is she okay?” she asked finally, nodding at the open door to 919.

“She will be,” I replied.

As she reached up, running a hand over her face, I waited: for directions, admonishment, something. The end of a chase meant someone was caught. Now it was just about details.

And later, they would come. Our conversation at the table the following morning would be the first of many about the last few months. We didn’t just talk about that one night, but everything, all the way back to before Peyton had ever gotten into trouble. The walks in the woods. Those long, lonely afternoons. My choice of switching to Jackson. Mac and Layla. David Ibarra. Ames. After holding it in for so long, I sometimes felt like I didn’t even have enough breath to say everything I needed to. But somehow, it came.

When the talking got hard—and it did—I’d think back to that one moment in the hospital hallway. I was used to my mother always having a plan. This time was different.

As I watched, she leaned forward, elbows on knees, and rested her head in her hands. A nurse was coming down the hall toward us, her shoes squeaking softly. She barely glanced at us. She was accustomed to anguish.

You get used to people being a certain way; you depend on it. And when they surprise you, for better or worse, it can shake you to your core. My mother had always been tough, so fierce and protective. I would never have thought seeing her fall apart would be anything but devastating. Little did I know that it was just what would give me the chance, finally, to be the strong one.

I knelt down by her chair, sliding my arms around her. At first, she stiffened slightly, surprised. Then, slowly, I felt her weight soften against me, human and living and warm. Our embrace was awkward—her hair in my face, one of my ankles slightly twisted—the way the most vulnerable and precious of things can be. But we were there, together, and in the next room I could hear that monitor beeping. Keeping track of another heart’s beat and giving enduring, solid proof of our own.