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On the television mounted in the corner of the room a redBreaking Newsbanner is flashing…
I let Jesse leave and walk over to the television, expecting the headline to read:Missing woman Sylvia Stone found.
The security guard sends me the side-eye as I grab the remote and turn up the volume.
A young brunette is reporting in a ditch next to the interstate. Her eyes are laser-sharp, her face a little pale. She’s mid-sentence.
“…woman was found beaten to death on this very access road that I am standing on right now, along Interstate 314, just past mile marker twelve. Her identity was confirmed by the Tennessee driver’s license found in her purse. Please take a look at your screen. If you recognize this woman or know anything about her, you are asked to contact authorities immediately…”
A picture of Crystal Cheri’s face fills the screen.
40
Rhett
Sylvia is sleeping when they finally allow me inside her hospital room. I pace the edge of her bed, one eye on her, the other on the door, still waiting for Stroud to arrive.
He doesn’t, and as each hour passes I grow increasingly curious. The detective should be chomping at the bit to talk to Sylvia and find an angle to arrest me. Why isn’t he? Where the hell is he?
The hospital room is tiny, dated. The paint is peeling, the floor is stained. A dead fly lies in the windowsill. I wonder how it died upside down, and then I wonder how long it’s been there and why someone hasn’t disposed of it. I grab a tissue, carefully pluck the carcass from the sill, toss it into the trashcan.
The afternoon has turned a gloomy gray, and also cold, based on the elderly couple shuffling across the parking lot in coats and scarves. The man is wearing a newsboy cap. He reminds me of my father. George Cohen died sixteen days after my conviction. My mother, Cici, two years later, of cancer. I wasn’t allowed to attend either of their funerals.
A few feet from the couple, a woman paces the sidewalk, sucking a cigarette, her head bowed against the frigid wind. Brown leaves spin around her feet. Her trainers are untied. Next to her, a handicapped child sits slumped in a wheelchair, asleep. I am suddenly struck with an overwhelming sense of melancholy. Why is there such pain and sadness in this world?
Why does being out feel so much like being in?
I close my eyes and remind myself of my dream of a cabin, somewhere deep in the woods, cut off from the world. A place of my own, surrounded by nature and countless sunrises. I turn away from the window.
You’ll do it, Rhett. Just get through this first.
* * *
Finally, around seven in the evening, Sylvia wakes.
Her eyes find mine immediately. I hurry to the side of the bed.
Sylvia turns her head, her brown hair fanned over the pillow like a spider’s web. She opens her palm. I slip my hand inside hers.
“I told them it wasn’t you,” she whispers.
“I know you did, thank you. Are you okay?”
She nods, but squirms uncomfortably under the sheets. The IV connected to her arm beeps angrily.
“Do you need another blanket?”
“Yeah… one of those heated ones. Please.”
I page the nurse and we wait silently until the blanket arrives and the door is closed once again.
I stretch the heavy, warm fabric over her legs.
“Sylvia, is there anyone you want me to call for you?”
“There is no one to call.”
I hesitate, remembering her telling me that she doesn’t even know who her father is.
