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“Back in August. This last August.”
“Okay. But you recognized him?”
“Yes.”
“Can you describe him?”
Her brain was leaking, yet her eyes were dried out, were being sucked into her skull from the inside.
“Big,” her mouth tried to say. She shook her wrist in the cuff. Closed her eyes to see the Corner better in memory. “White guy. Dirty blond hair. Very tall.”
“How tall? Ma’am?”
He’s too fuzzy for you to speak to. Wait for him to tune into the right station.
“Ma’am?”
“He wore black,” she said. “He had old Reebok sneakers, white. Gloves. A shirt with a skull on it.”
“A skull?”
“A yellow skull. Yellowed shoes, yellowed skull. Tall. Big. Huge. He hit his head. Will you—can you call my children? I want to talk to them.”
She felt herself fading, her body pulled physically into sleep, but remembered something important, said, “Do you think he’d go after her again? He was after my daughter. You have to watch out for her, he could get her now, he could—”
When she opened her good eye, the sergeant had been blinked out of existence.
—
A nurse made of pointy edges was poking at her here, putting something around her there, pulling at a bandage, lifting the cover on her eye, switching something under the blanket.
“Was—were the police here?”
“I dunno, hon.”
Then she saw the yellow flowers wilting on the side table. The sergeant hadn’t put them in water.
Relief let her release her hands, gone to fists in their cuffs.
The sergeant was here. He’s probably arresting the Corner right now. And then you’ll get the children from your father-in-law, and he hasn’t had them long, it will be okay—
The pain woke her next. She clicked the little red button and nothing happened. There was no light out the window, but as usual it was bright in the room, the door open to the hall. She called the nurse and told her the red button wasn’t working.
“Sorry, honey, that means you’ll have to wait. It’ll work again when it’s safe. But this is good timing, you’re due for a blood draw.”
Vial after vial. She looked the other way.
“Can you untie me?” she asked the nurse.
“Sorry, hon. It’s for your own safety. Anyhow, that decision’s above my pay grade.”
“Can you help me call my kids?”
“It’s the middle of the night, hon. Plus, I don’t think the number’s right. Man that picks up always ends the call right off.”
There was a crack in the ceiling. Maybe her memory of calling had slipped through a crack like that. She looked at it, thinking about the blue-scrubbed man who faded in and out to lecture her about the damage to her head.Orbital fracture. He repeated words but never explained them. She pictured a cartoon cat hit on the skull, stars rotating, orbiting, around a massive bump, the cat staggering and black eyed.Please, kitty, don’t you bite!
That sounds right. That sounds exactly right. Cartoon stars. Fractured orbit.
