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"Of course," he said. "I'll have someone check on you later."
Was that a message? That he could find me when he wanted?
I shook my head.Don't be paranoid.
He nodded at me, ignored Dani, and gave Makayla one last fleeting glance before leaving.
Dani turned back to me and mouthed a profanity-laced question over Makayla's head.
"I know, I know," I said.
"Why didn't you tell me!?" she asked.
"Tell you what?" Makayla asked.
"Nothing," we replied in unison, and Makayla raised her eyebrows at us.
"Okay!" she said, clearly thinking we had lost it. She got up and took the cup off of my bedside table. "I'm going to get some water for your flowers," she said, before heading for the attached bathroom.
"Thank you, baby," I said faintly.
"Deira, what is going on here?" Dani said as soon as Makayla was out of earshot. "That's him, right? That's the guy?"
I nodded.
"Does he not recognize you?"
I shook my head.
"What are you going to do?"
"Well, for starters," I said, "I'm going to get a new hospital room. And then I think I'm going to take you up on that offer to stay with you for a while."
TEN
CASSIUS
It had been two days since I went to the hospital. Perhaps showing up with flowers and a whole car (even if it was just a rental) was not the most subtle way of trying to ingratiate myself to the woman? And yet, in my experience, overwhelming people with gifts worked most of the time. I was aware of how charming I could be, and how effective that was when I really dialed it up.
After showering and eating that day at Scott's, I'd found myself alone at his place once he went back to work. I dozed for a while on the couch, but I kept waking up. When a few hours passed, I gave up, and texted Scott, asking him to send me the information for the private eye he had mentioned. If I wasn't going to know peace until I figured out why this woman felt so familiar, then it was best to just confront it head on. If I had to pay someone to dig up details, I would.
Frustratingly, the P.I. warned me not to expect results for a few days. I offered to pay extra, and he insisted that it wouldn't make the process go faster. He also warned me that it might be tricky to get information when I didn't even know this woman's name. I told him that finding her name was his problem, and he laughed—but not in a way that was very reassuring. Hanging up, I lay on the couch for about five minutes before I decided that while I was waiting on him to get back to me, I could try to make my own progress... a double-pronged approach! That was when I got the idea for the flowers.
I hadn't expected there to be other people with her. I certainly hadn't expected one of them to be a child, her daughter, apparently. I hadn't thought the situation could feel more real than it had the night of the crash, between the accident itself, the ambulance ride, and the long wait for her to wake up. But seeing a miniature version of this woman perched on her hospital bed, calling her "Mommy" and apparently expecting me to apologize by buying a flower shop, took it to a whole other level. I was briefly possessed by the thought of what I would have done if I'd orphaned this little girl, a thought I hurriedly shuffled away.
My instincts told me to retreat almost as soon as I'd arrived, and I should have listened, because I certainly made no headway with her, the kid, or her best friend, who I suspected of truly hating my guts. I guess that's fair. And my bumbling attempts to get her to reveal her name only made things worse. After I accepted defeat and made my retreat, I played with the idea of looking for a sympathetic nurses’ station and trying to trick and/or flirt some information out of them. But that felt like perhaps it was crossing an ethical line. The P.I. had been very clear that I should not do that. If any lines were being crossed, or, to use his words, blurred, they should be by him, not me. He knew what was merely frowned upon, and what could get you put in jail.
So, I went back to Scott's and attempted to rest. I spent a sleepless night there, had an unproductive day at work the next day, and then repeated that whole process. Mercifully, on day three, the private eye finally showed up with some news. He came into the office as I was wrapping up at the end of the day to tell me what he'd found.
"You certainly picked a tricky one," he said as he pulled a folder out of his bag. "Luckily for you, I know a few people who are familiar with that hospital." He pushed the folder across the desk to me and looked at me curiously.
"What's your connection to this woman?" he asked.
"You need to know that?" I replied. I flipped open the folder and looked at the top sheet of information. "Name: Deira Wilson" That didn't ring any bells. Damn!
The P.I. shrugged. "No, I don't technically need to know. I just kind of like to ask for my own peace of mind. Especially when one party is a woman who ended up in the hospital."
"Well, if you're good at your job, you probably know that we were involved in a car accident. I wanted to be sure she was all right, but I didn't get her information at all."
