The Edge of Nowhere (47 page)

No one’s fault, Seth thought. Absolutely no one’s frigging fault.

At the nurses’ station, he said, “He’s waking up,” and they knew at once what he was talking about. One of them picked up a phone and began to punch in numbers while another got to her feet and headed to Derric’s room.

From all of this, Seth knew that the undersheriff would be arriving in short order to see his son. Because she was still a missing person to him, Becca was going to be someone the undersheriff probably would want to talk to. Plus, there was still the matter of that cell phone and how it would look to Dave Mathieson if he made the connection between her, it, and leaving the scene of Derric’s accident. So Seth went back to the hospital room and stood in the doorway to get her attention.

The nurse was bustling around the bed saying, “Look who’s awake! My, my, we’ve had a sleep, haven’t we,” and generally talking to Derric in the way someone talks to a five-year-old. She was writing on a chart and checking the IV bag and chatting away about “Mom and Dad are going to be very happy with
this
turn of events,” and completely ignoring Becca who was sitting next to the bed with Derric’s hand in hers like a lifeline he was clinging to.

Seth was about to call out to her and tell her that they should split before the undersheriff showed up when she stood and said to him, “Yeah, we should go,” and then said to Derric, “I’ll be back. I’ll keep them safe for now.”

Derric didn’t seem to want to let go of her hand, though. The nurse didn’t like this one bit. She said with false heartiness, “Now, Derric, the doctor’s going to want to have a look at you and we can’t have your little friend here when that happens, okay? She’ll be back, won’t you dear?”—this to Becca—and then, “See there? She’s nodding. That means yes. You can let go now.”

Derric, though, looked only at Becca. She bent over the bed and kissed his forehead. Then her lips met his and they lingered for a moment. His hand touched her cheek. Her hand touched his.

“Enough of that, now,” the nurse said in a jolly fashion. “Let’s not get him all excited, dear.”

“I’ll be back,” Becca said again to Derric.

He nodded. He turned his head as she moved toward the door. His eyes met Seth’s. He nodded again in the weak greeting of someone whose strength has been depleted. Seth said, “Hey, man. Good to see you again,” and when Derric murmured, “Care of,” Seth knew he was referring to Becca. He said, “Sure. You get better now, okay?” When Derric nodded again, Seth felt a link had been forged between them.

He and Becca ducked out of the room. In Becca’s hands was the lunch box of letters. He said, “You don’t want to leave those with him?” but Becca shook her head and said, “He wants me to keep them for now.”

“They mean something, don’t they?” Seth said. “I mean, they have to do with him and you, huh?”

Becca looked at him and then at what she was holding. She said slowly, “I didn’t think about that. But I guess you’re right.”

Seth said, “It was weird, but when he looked over at me . . .” He didn’t know how to complete what he wanted to say, but it turned out he didn’t need to because Becca said, “Yeah. I felt it, too.”

They went down the corridor. As they headed across the hospital lobby, Undersheriff Mathieson came in the door at a run. Seth thought about hiding. He thought about stuffing Becca next to an artificial plant with large dusty leaves. But this wasn’t necessary as it happened. The undersheriff was intent upon getting to his son. As with the forest and the trees, he saw nothing else.

FORTY-THREE

B
ecca descended from the bus into the cool afternoon air of Coupeville to feel a soft mist blowing up the street off the waters of Penn Cove. She yawned and slung her pack to her shoulders. It was heavy with books and with makeup work for the time she’d missed at school.

She’d been busy making things up to Debbie Grieder as well. She was back to cleaning rooms and helping the kids with their homework, and there was a form of peace among everyone in their little group. Josh, especially, was a joyful boy now that the prospect of seeing his Big Brother Derric again lay in front of him.

Becca and Debbie had talked about trust, but it seemed to Becca that something was not being said between them.
Seth
and
who he is
and
what I thought
constituted the only whispers from which Becca could derive a few clues, though. From these she figured that Debbie knew she’d been wrong about Seth but was having trouble apologizing for this.

At the door to the hospital, Becca fished the AUD box from her backpack and plugged it in. She went to Derric’s room but found it empty. He’d been moved to a regular room, she was told. Out of a coma, he didn’t need constant care any longer.

Becca felt a surge of happiness. It seemed, then, that Derric was entirely back in body. What remained to be seen was whether he was back in spirit as well.

At his room, she was stopped by yet another nurse, who informed her that the patient was allowed only two visitors at a time and she would have to wait. The nurse was all business, and she made it clear that there were
no
exceptions.

Becca figured there was no point to arguing. She could return to the lobby and wait awhile there because she had enough homework to do to keep her busy till the end of the semester. She was about to do this when the door to Derric’s room opened. Rhonda Mathieson and Jenn McDaniels stepped out. It would
have
to be Jenn McDaniels, Becca thought.

A smile broke over Rhonda’s face. She cried, “Jenn, look who’s here! The very person Derric was just asking us about.” Jenn scowled at this, but Rhonda went on, saying to Becca, “I wasn’t sure how to get in touch with you.”

“No one is.” There was an edge to Jenn’s voice. “If you don’t run into her sneaking around Langley like an FBI agent, you just don’t see her.”

Becca ignored this. She said to Rhonda, “I’ll give Derric my number. He had it before but he might’ve lost it.”

Jenn scowled again.

Rhonda said, “Good. You go in and see him. And when you’ve finished your visit . . . Jenn and I are heading to the cafeteria for a snack. Join us there if you can, okay?”

Jenn shot Becca a look that said she hoped that Becca’s snack would be slugs on toast. Becca told Rhonda she’d try to come to the cafeteria. Her real intention, though, was to hightail it back to Langley as soon as her visit with Derric was over.

She went into his room. Derric’s leg was raised in traction as it had been earlier, and seeing him like this with his leg trussed up, Becca was reminded of how bad the break had seemed when she found him in the woods. She wondered what kind of athlete he’d be able to be when this was all over.

“They’re saying it’s going to be okay,” he told her as her gaze met his. “Not this year, though.”

“Did you just read my mind?” she asked him.

He laughed. “If I could read chicks’ minds, I’d have all the right moves and I’d be dating that chick from the vampire movies. But nah. You were looking at my leg, which is what I spend most of my time doing, so I figured you were wondering the same thing I wondered when I woke up and saw it.” Then his face softened noticeably. He patted the mattress next to him. “Glad you came.”

Becca knew he meant her to sit on the mattress, but she was suddenly shy. She sat on the chair next to the bed instead. He looked wonderful, she thought. He looked as good as the day she’d met him, all smooth dark skin and dazzling smile. She tried to figure what she should say to him and felt knotted up inside with everything she wanted to tell him but still could not. She saw on his table a pile of schoolbooks, so she forged a path in that direction. She nodded at the books and said, “You and me both,” and he said “Yeah, bummer,” in a way that told her he knew what she meant. It was odd and yet perfectly natural that they would communicate in this shorthand fashion. It made her want to reach for his hand and hold it, but she was acutely aware that he was no longer a boy in a coma but a boy watching her closely with his great dark eyes and an expression of anticipation on his face.

He said, “I don’t remember very much. There was just . . . all of a sudden this dog was there and he was crashing into me. I guess I was off balance or something. I think I scared him and he sure as heck scared me. And then I woke up and Dad was bending over the bed and here I was.”

From this, Becca understood that Derric didn’t remember anything about regaining consciousness with her at his side. She felt unaccountably sad, while at the same time not knowing what her sadness actually meant. She said quietly, “Derric, I think Rejoice brought you back.”

His dark eyes seemed to grow darker. Cautiously, he said, “What?” and she told him about finding the letters, bringing them to the hospital, reading one of them to him. She looked around for a moment and saw the photograph she’d held that day, and she picked it up once again. She said, “Rejoice is one of these little kids, isn’t she?”

He said nothing, and Becca looked from the picture to him and saw that his eyes were filled with tears. She whispered, “Oh no. Did she
die
? Is that why you hid the letters?”

He shook his head. No, no, no. Tears began to roll down his cheeks. He turned his head away from her, and she saw how hard his throat was working and from this she knew he was struggling to stop crying, which was only making him cry even more. From this Becca realized that he wanted to leave again, to go to that place he’d been in his coma, so she grabbed his hand. She said, “
Tell
me what happened to her. I’m your friend. Now and always. Derric, you
have
to tell me.” She thought of all the terrible things that happen to people in Africa because of political insurrections, civil war, genocide, famine, and disease. “Please, tell me,” she repeated.

He said, “I left her.”

“What?”

“I never said she was my sister.” The tears continued to roll down his cheeks as he turned back to Becca. “I had the chance to be adopted and I
still
didn’t say. So they didn’t know.”

“The Mathiesons?”

“Everyone,” he said. “She was three years old and I was eight and I never said. There were so many kids and the boys and girls lived in separate buildings. My mom came with her church group and she said she wanted me and the only way . . .” His fingers closed into a fist. “So I didn’t say anything and I didn’t tell her about Rejoice and when she came back with my dad and he and she said ‘Do you want to be our son, Derric?’ and she didn’t say anything about adopting a daughter, I didn’t tell them. I was so scared they’d change their minds.” He turned his head away in grief.

Becca saw how it had occurred. She saw that this secret was the heaviness and the sorrow she’d always felt in him, and she understood why his soul had persisted in crying out
Rejoice
. She sat on the edge of the bed. She took his hand. She said to him, “It’s okay.”

“It’ll never be okay,” he said. “I thought if I wrote to her and she could see how happy I was and if I promised to bring her here when I could . . . Only how could I do any of that when I couldn’t even mail the letters because then they’d know, and even if I mailed them, she couldn’t read them . . . ?”

“You need to tell them now,” Becca said, “They’ll find Rejoice. They’ll bring her here.”

“I can’t tell them. What kind of kid leaves his own sister behind? What kind of kid pretends he
has
no sister? Would you have done that?
No one
would have done that. They’ll
hate
me. I hate myself.”

Becca was silent because she had no answer. He’d done a terrible thing but he was far from being a terrible person. And yet he’d just come face-to-face with one of those facts that her grandmother had always called “a real gut stabber, hon.” In life, there were no do-overs. There was simply what you did and then living through what happened next.

She said, “Derric, you were desperate. There isn’t anyone who wouldn’t understand that. You were a little kid. You wanted parents who would love you and take care of you and that’s who you were and that’s what you did. But the person you are now wouldn’t do that. You wouldn’t even be able to.”

“I don’t
know
that,” he wept.

“I do,” she said,

She hugged him then and he clung to her. She caressed his back and she cupped her hand around his head. Then over his shoulder she saw the door to his room swing open.

Jenn McDaniels walked in. But she stopped dead at the sight in front of her: Derric and Becca in each other’s arms. Pure hatred chiseled its way across her face. When she saw this, Becca absolutely knew it was a hatred that wasn’t about to dissipate anytime soon.

She left, then. There was nothing more to be said in front of Jenn, and Becca could tell from Jenn’s expression that she wasn’t about to leave her alone with Derric again. So she told him she would be back soon, and she headed in the direction of the lobby.

Once there, though, she saw that Undersheriff Mathieson had just entered with a stack of magazines in his hand. Becca figured she could get by him without a problem because he still didn’t know who she was, but just at the moment she was set to do this, she heard Rhonda Mathieson call out from behind her, “Becca! Don’t leave without saying good-bye.” And then what was worse, she went on to her husband, “Dave, here’s your mystery girl. Here’s Becca King.”

Becca cringed inwardly but she faced the undersheriff. She said, “Mystery girl?” with as casual a smile as she could manage.

Dave Mathieson looked her up and down. He said, unaccountably, “
Chubbette
?”

Becca eased the earphone of the AUD box from her ear. She knew that if there was ever a time to catch whispers, this was it. But all she caught were
nuts to think
 . . .
what’s wrong with boys . . 
. and she was trying to make something from all this when she realized the undersheriff was speaking to her asking her where the dickens she’d been staying and did she know how much she’d worried her aunt? From this, Becca realized that, despite her every suspicion, Debbie Grieder had not betrayed her, even when she’d felt betrayed herself by Becca’s relationship with Seth Darrow.