Hiding Places, page 14
“I don’t think I can do this,” she said.
“What choice do you really have?” Abby replied. She looked so much like Tom. The cadence of their speech was the same. “You either walk into that building now, or you miss the opportunity to say goodbye forever.”
Neither option sounded good.
Ellie didn’t want to say goodbye. She didn’t need the closure of seeing Tom’s body in a casket. The memory of him at the table in the restaurant was burned into the back of her skull. She’d already stared down this new reality in flickering red and blue as police pushed past her.
“How’s your mom?” Ellie asked hesitantly. Her shimmering green eyes met Abby’s for the first time.
“What do you think? She’s a wreck, Ellie,” she choked out. “We all are.”
Ellie stared straight ahead, then took a deep breath and got out of the car. Abby had picked out a black stiletto heel that immediately sank into the grass. She stumbled a few feet before just taking them off, holding them by the heels in her good hand as she walked across the damp lawn to the funeral home. Her feet were wet and cold but she didn’t care.
She entered the one-story building. It was obvious they were running late; there were already many friends and relatives milling about. She’d been here before. The decor was stuffy, singed with time of the decades it had hung there. There was a main, wide hallway that ran down the center of the building and a large room on either side. One was for guests to visit with each other, while the other had some chairs and the casket. She stood in the main hallway for a moment, trying to get her shoes back on, when Maryann approached her.
Ellie looked up at Maryann, Tom’s mother, with pink, puffy eyes. She had always been a very proper woman. An elegant black dress hugged her small frame, adorned in sparkling jewelry with auburn hair perfectly in place. She had a presence of authority, like a pageant mother you didn’t want to cross.
Ellie began, “Mrs. Paxton, I am so—”
She felt the sting of Maryann’s fingers on her cheek, but she hadn’t seen it coming. The quiet hum of the proceedings dropped to silence, and nobody moved. Ellie stood with her mouth open, not understanding what just happened. Mr. Paxton rushed over to his wife, ushering her off into the side room, and Ellie just stood in the center of the hall. Somebody took her by the elbow into the opposite room, and when she finally snapped out of it, Abby and Tom’s aunt were talking at her. Ellie’s mother stood just behind them. She looked past all three and laid eyes on Tom’s casket. The mahogany had the sheen and elegance she would’ve hoped for. It suited him.
The words the two women were saying started to come into focus for her, but it didn’t matter. It was obvious she was not welcome here. The newspaper that arrived at the Paxton’s front door must’ve been headlined Murderer, not Hero. Ellie turned around and walked out the front door, removing her shoes once again and trudging across the front lawn. She walked the two-and-a-half miles home, through traffic and on wet sidewalks, tights torn, shoes in hand. She collapsed on the couch and laid there, catatonic, until morning.
Ten.
Her confidence improved, if only slightly, upon waking that morning. She’d already faced everyone once, and now that she knew to keep an arm’s distance from Maryann, today might be a little easier. Maryann was a religious woman from the South, and there was no way she would hit her again in a church. Ellie wasn’t mad. She understood. Maryann had lost a child, someone she’d loved for thirty-two years, in a way that was somehow both preventable and unbelievable. Ellie understood that the grief was infinite.
Ellie eased into her kitchen for the first time and made herself a cup of coffee. She walked around the house, giving herself a tour like she hadn’t lived there for the last four years. The warm mug in her hands dulled the heartache as she sat down in the dining room, looking around the room where they’d had dinner together each night. She remembered one evening she had experimented with a new Thai recipe. Not realizing how spicy the chiles were, she’d added a full pepper to the dish. She and Tom had become red and sweaty looking at each other across the table, laughing. They’d spent the next half hour pacing, flushed and nauseated, then laid on the floor in misery together. Ellie had never seen a face that red before as they recovered on the creaky boards with a bag of Wonder Bread between them. When the heat finally died down, they’d laughed for ages and eventually had ice cream for dinner instead.
She toured the back porch where they’d relaxed on weekend mornings and had their coffee. Just last month, they’d enjoyed a quiet Saturday morning. The weather was gloomy, soaked in a late summer fog, and the whole morning had been so still. Until a rabbit rocketed onto the porch, skittering across Ellie’s bare feet, and diving off the other side. She was so startled that she’d dropped her coffee, the mug shattering on the weather-worn boards. Tom had spent the rest of the day relentlessly teasing her, dancing around the yard impersonating Elmer Fudd, searching for more rabbits. It became his favorite bit for weeks.
The old wooden staircase creaked as she ascended to explore the bedrooms they’d hoped to fill one day, one of which was currently Tom’s office. Occasionally, he would stay up all night, crunching numbers for work and making plans. He didn’t have to work so late, but he’d loved problem-solving, just like she did. Ellie would visit late in the night and stand in the doorway in her pajamas, watching the lines in his face wax and wane as he’d calculated the numbers. Tom wouldn’t even look up, but he’d always say the same thing: I just need to figure out one more thing.
One bedroom was mostly empty, containing some workout gear on the floor, a nursery chair Ellie had found at a thrift store, and a bookshelf. She tried to mentally erase the plans she’d made for the room, but looking around made it more difficult. In her vision, she could picture some future version of herself tending to an invisible crib on the far wall of the room, easing into the charming nursery chair in the corner. She could almost see Tom making a face at a diaper, standing at a changing table that didn’t exist yet. The images were so clear, they were almost real.
Ellie crossed the threshold of their bedroom and her dread was replaced with an unexpected sense of ease. She took a deep breath and sat down on the end of the bed. She’d finally splurged and bought the bedroom furniture she’d been keeping an eye on for the last two years. They’d moved her old mishmash of random pieces to the attic for now, and the bedroom had finally felt more like a sanctuary than just a room for sleeping. The whole space was light and airy, in that classic New England style. The floors creaked, but she liked it that way. It wasn’t clear how long she had been on this ghost tour when the sound of her phone ringing in the living room broke her trance. She walked back downstairs and saw that it was James. This time, she picked up.
“Hey, how are things going?” he asked. His voice lifted her spirits, if only slightly.
“Um, so far so good. My mother-in-law slapped me and I walked home from the viewing barefoot. Couldn’t be better,” she said sarcastically.
“Ellie, I’m sorry. I wish I could’ve been there for you,” James said. She was surprised he’d called at all. It was a welcomed interruption, but the clock caught her eye—the funeral was starting soon.
“Me, too,” she said quietly into the phone, more seriously now. “But the funeral starts in an hour, and I need to get ready. Can I call you tomorrow?” she asked.
“Of course, whenever. What time is your flight back to Chicago?” Ellie realized she hadn’t made a reservation yet.
“I’ll send you the details when I book it,” she replied. The judge said she needed to return immediately after the funeral, but it had slipped her mind.
“Okay. Well, I hope today goes a little better for you,” James said.
“It probably can’t get worse,” she said, quickly hanging up the phone. She climbed the stairs again and did a brief web search on Tom’s computer. The only remaining flight left at noon tomorrow. A few clicks later, she’d booked it and then crossed the hall back to the bedroom and started to get ready. Ellie was so emotionally worn from the week behind her, she didn’t have anything else to give. She went through the motions: a quick shower and the same slept-in black dress. Ellie left her hair down, the way Tom liked it, and walked downstairs. She jumped when she saw a man sitting in her living room, but quickly realized it was her brother. He was going through three baskets that were on the table, eating an apple. They weren’t very close, but he must have been instructed to deliver her to the funeral.
“These were on your porch. It looks like they’ve been there for a while,” he said.
She heard another noise and realized the washer was on. The duffel bag she’d dropped by the door was gone, although Tom’s suitcase was still there. Certainly, her brother would never touch her laundry.
“Mom’s here too?” she asked. Simon nodded.
Her mother appeared around the corner and came directly at her. She didn’t have the same air of authority or elegance that Mrs. Paxton had, but you didn’t mess with a woman who’d been a nurse for thirty years. She was assertive and direct, although sometimes a little cold, and she got exactly what she wanted. And right now, Linda wanted a hug. She crossed the floor to wrap her daughter in her arms. Ellie weakly returned the gesture, and as they separated, Ellie’s mother did a once-over.
She reached for her forehead. “What god-awful resident did these?” Nothing had changed. Same old mom.
“I don’t know, but can you take them out? It’s been six days.” Ellie laid on the couch as her mother pulled up a chair before gently removing the tiny sutures from her forehead with tweezers and a nail scissor. She wiped them clean and applied a swipe of antibiotic ointment. Ellie fished a regular office stapler remover from Tom’s desk, and Linda struggled to extract the much larger medical-grade staples, but eventually got all three. A few drops of blood formed at the site.
“Shouldn’t you have a cast on there by now?” her mother asked, looking down at the worn splint on her left wrist as Ellie sat up on the couch.
“Yeah, think you could handle that too?” Ellie joked, sitting up.
“What were you doing in Chicago all week? Don’t they have orthopedics there?” Ellie’s mother said, not acknowledging her joke.
“I don’t know if you’ve heard, Mom, but this week was a bit of a disaster. I was arrested, remember? Getting a fresh cast wasn’t exactly my top priority,” Ellie sassed.
“But sleeping with some actor days after becoming a widow was?” she spat right back.
Yup, same old mom.
“I wasn’t sleeping with anyone,” Ellie started, getting up from the couch. “He let me stay at his place while he was in the hospital, and then hired the lawyer that got me out of jail,” she argued. “Maybe you should thank him instead of accuse me.” Ellie had intentionally avoided the newsstands and airport bookstores. She didn’t want to see what they had to say, but she could safely assume the pictures of her and James in front of the hospital had graced another front page.
“I’m sorry,” her mother said. Ellie was taken aback. She blinked a few times, wondering if she had heard that correctly. This was not usually a woman who apologized. “I can’t imagine what you’re going through.”
“I have to go back to Chicago tomorrow, the judge only allowed a special pass for the funeral. I’m not supposed to leave Illinois for a while,” she explained, glossing over the apology. She knew that couldn’t have been easy for her mother to say.
“I don’t understand why they arrested you. Didn’t you stop the shooting?” her brother asked, finishing the apple.
“Yes. The lawyer said the murder charge wouldn’t hold up, but they’re trying to prove medical negligence since I saw the shooter in the ER last month,” she explained. “Apparently, some rich gun nuts have persuaded the DA to make mental health the criminal in this tragedy. Set a precedent, or something.”
“Will you lose your license?” her mother asked.
“I don’t know. Probably,” Ellie shrugged. That was the least of her concerns at the moment. She had plenty of money saved, and she was fairly certain Tom had a life insurance policy through his work. “Don’t we need to get going?” she asked. Ellie didn’t want to talk about this anymore.
She grabbed her purse by the door and got in the back of her brother’s car. “Are you my bodyguard for today?” she asked, half joking. Her brother Simon was much taller than the rest of the family. He towered over her at six foot two, and he didn’t slack on the weight lifting. Sometimes, she questioned if they were only half-siblings, they were so different. In the back of her mind, she knew there was a reason that he was the way that he was. Ellie had been pretty young when their father left, but she still remembered his reign of terror. Her brother was a few years older and dealt with a lot more of it than she had. As she watched her mother get into the front seat, she vaguely wondered if her father was still alive, and if he had seen the papers and recognized Ellie.
Simon pulled up to St. Mary’s church, the one Tom’s family attended. The old stone building towered above Ellie, and she realized it looked very similar to the church where the gunman started his attack. That was probably why Tom had noticed it—the familiarity. She got out of the car and spotted a group of her friends waiting by the front of the church. She shut the door and stood with her hand on the handle. Closing her eyes for a second, she fought the urge to get back in.
As much as she didn’t want to interact with anyone, the slim chance that she would wind up in a prison in Illinois lingered in her mind. This could be the last time she saw them for years. They exchanged warm hugs and condolences, asking how she was feeling and how they could help. It was all so mundane, Ellie realized. With a few exceptions, she barely knew these people that stood in front of her. She appreciated that they had shown up, but Ellie knew now that she had always kept them at arm’s length. She could truly feel that buffering distance as she looked at the faces in front of her. They stared back at her exactly how she knew they would—a damaged victim.
The exception was Jules. She stood at the back of this crew, knowing Ellie would find her eventually. Her bright red hair was easy to spot in a crowd. Ellie circled the group and enveloped Jules in a tight hug, as her husband Dan gave her a pat on the back.
“If it isn’t my friend, the murderer,” Jules whispered so nobody but Ellie could hear. She could almost feel the smirk. They had worked in the local emergency department together and had the same morbid sense of humor. Ellie smiled authentically, shaking her head.
“Thanks for coming,” Ellie said to Jules and Dan.
“We’re here for you, babe. Whatever you need,” she said, the look in her eyes was less pity and more concern.
“What you do need is a proper cast. Look at that ragtag thing on your arm,” Dan said. Ellie had completely forgotten he was in orthopedics. Dan and Jules had met at the hospital and had a whirlwind romance while Dan had been married to someone else. It was a big scandal, but now they had been married for five years. They were the happiest couple Ellie knew.
“Yeah, I haven’t found the time. Do you have supplies? It’s a simple radial fracture, nothing complicated,” Ellie explained. This conversation was more comfortable, even if it wasn’t appropriate for a funeral—another distraction.
“Sure, we’ll get you fixed up tonight,” he said, nodding and offering her a sympathetic smile. Ellie breathed a sigh of relief. One less appointment, one less thing to worry about. The easiest path forward was accepting help from others, but it was difficult to let go of control. She was learning. This week she had accepted plenty of help with minimal resistance. Reflecting back, she didn’t know how she would’ve gotten through without it. She would probably be sitting in a jail cell.
The troops rallied around her, and they walked into the church. A few relatives on the Paxton side nodded or waved to her—most just stared. Ellie didn’t know what they’d heard, but she didn’t care. She sat in the front pew with her mother, Simon, Dan, and Jules. The Paxtons sat adjacent to them.
The funeral service was much longer than Tom would’ve wanted. If he had been in attendance, he would’ve complained the whole ride home about the lengthy sermon. The priest droned on about how nothing in this world was accidental—how there was greater meaning in letting go of the grasp people think they have in the world. Tom didn’t believe in fate or destiny. He was pragmatic and believed in free will, that people were in charge of their own actions. Ellie wondered if this event would’ve changed his mind.
She didn’t stay to mingle; there was no receiving line. She didn’t dare stand next to Mrs. Paxton, accepting condolences from family and friends. Ellie, Jules, and Dan snuck out the side door, and she got into their car this time. Dan drove them to Ellie’s house, briefly stopping at his office on the way.
Ellie kicked off her shoes and sat on a stool in the kitchen while Dan cast her arm. She ate an apple with her other hand while Jules paced in front of them. Her pale skin was nearly fluorescent in the kitchen light, but there was a healthy flush to her cheeks dotted with freckles. “What’s your plan here, Ellie?” she asked.
“I don’t really have one,” Ellie shrugged. “I’m legally mandated to go back to Illinois, so I’ll head there. I’ve been staying with a friend, and the lawyer seems to know what he’s doing so...” she trailed off.
“A friend?” Jules asked, raising an eyebrow, a new little spark in her brown eyes. “I saw the paper.”
“Yes, a friend,” Ellie asserted. She wasn’t sure what else to say about James. “There’s nothing there, we just... didn’t want to be alone. He’s... nice.” Nice? What a stupid word.
“Nice, huh? And he also just happens to be a gorgeous specimen of human,” Jules teased, picking her way through one of the baskets from the porch.
“He’s a ten in my book,” Dan said, pumping his eyebrows at her playfully.
“Yes, nice,” Ellie asserted, instantly regretting her word choice as she felt the warmth building in her cheeks. Dan finished with the cast, and Ellie stretched and flexed her fingers. This fit much better; she could finally use her hand again. “Thank you,” she said to Dan, still wiggling her fingers.
