The Crash

Chapter 24

24

Stepping into the basement of our house always gives me a wave of déjà vu. I’ve been down there only once since my mother died, and that was to change the sheets on the hospital bed. I expected the basement to smell like death, but it just smelled vaguely of sanitizer. Even the scent of her perfume has left the room.

Everything was just how I left it a year ago. The hospital bed is still reclining thirty degrees from an upright position. And the commode is still next to the bed, although she wasn’t even strong enough to use that at the end, and I used to have to bring her the bedpan. Even the bookcase is still filled with my mother’s magazines and her favorite paperbacks. Her favorite book was The Shining , and the one copy is so creased and dog-eared, I’m afraid if I picked it up, all the pages would simply fall out.

As Hank lowers Tegan into the hospital bed, I feel a jab of sadness in my chest. The last time I stood by this bed, I was holding my mother’s hand as she slipped away. She had been in hospice for months, but somehow we’d both known this would be the day.

Hank and I were both sitting with her that morning. She looked at my husband with bleary eyes and said to him, You’ll take good care of my Polly, won’t you?

For the rest of my life, he promised. He’d said those same words at our wedding, but somehow it meant more now, at my mother’s deathbed.

He eventually had to run to the auto shop because we were in no financial shape to keep it closed. And then it was just my mother and me, her cold, fragile hand clutching mine.

Don’t worry, Polly, she said to me. Someday, your family will be complete.

She knew about my infertility problems, of course. Aside from Hank, she was the only person who knew all the sordid details. But unlike Hank, she believed that someday, I would get my baby.

Just shows she didn’t know everything.

As Tegan gets adjusted on the bed, the subject of her pregnancy comes up. I’m an old hat at plastering a smile on my face and pretending to be delighted about someone else having a baby, but it gets harder every time. One of these days, I will open my mouth to congratulate someone on their baby, and I will simply be mute.

Her ankle is badly injured. It’s hard to say how bad it is since she won’t allow me to take off her boot, which is immensely frustrating. Imagine being a full-grown woman, on the verge of motherhood, and not even allowing a trained nurse to assess your injuries! But despite the fact that I can’t get a good look at her ankle, the amount of pain she’s in indicates it’s likely fractured. I’d bet the farm on it.

Then Tegan starts begging for pain medication.

All my mother’s narcotics are still in the medicine cabinet of the bathroom upstairs. I’ve got enough pills in that cabinet to kill a horse. Or even more easily, a five-foot-ten woman who weighs approximately 130 pounds whose entire life has fallen apart.

Not that I thought about it. Not recently anyway.

“I can give you Tylenol,” I tell her. “Nothing else is safe to take in pregnancy.”

She does not look happy about this. I would give my right arm to have a baby on the way, and she couldn’t care less what she puts in her body. But there’s no point in scolding her. I’m just trying to keep her comfortable for the night, so I’ll be as pleasant as I can manage.

“Fine,” she grumbles. “I’ll take the Tylenol.”

“I’ll go get it for you.”

Tegan asks me to leave the flashlight behind, and I give it to her, even though I hate to give up my only source of light. I have to hold on to the railing of the stairwell leading out of the basement to keep from tripping over my feet, and I climb the steps very, very carefully to get to the top. The last third of the stairwell is pitch-black. I have to wave my hand in front of me to keep from bumping into the door.

But when I get the door open, my vision returns thanks to the light of all the candles on the first floor. And I get another piece of good luck: Hank already pulled Tegan’s purse and luggage out of the car and set them down next to the basement door.

She may have requested her purse, but the luggage will come in handy too. The blankets will only do so much, and she’ll be grateful to have an extra sweater instead of lying in bed with her coat on. I decide to crack that one open first.

Unfortunately, she didn’t bring much clothing. Just a few shirts, underwear, a pair of pants. Wherever she was going, she hadn’t planned to stay long. As I sift through the clothing, I wince slightly at a flash of pain in my right wrist. Not surprisingly, it’s still smarting from where Mitch grabbed me earlier, and there’s even a dark red bruise forming that will be purple by tomorrow. I’ve been keeping my sleeves down because Hank will be furious when he sees the bruise.

And then I set my sights on Tegan’s purse. I should probably bring it down to her, but I can’t resist opening it up and looking inside. The second I get it open, the stench of whiskey hits me, and I nearly have to close it up again. But I breathe through my mouth and plow forward.

Her driver’s license lists her name as Tegan Werner. And when I check her date of birth, I get a surprise. I thought for sure she was no older than twenty, but she is in fact twenty-three years old.

Hank goes down to bring Tegan the extra blankets while I continue rifling around in her purse. I put back her wallet, which contains only two dollar bills. Who walks around with only two dollars? I wonder what her story is. Hank will yell at me again for not minding my own business, but I have a feeling that Tegan Werner has an interesting history.

The next thing I find in her purse is her cell phone. I swipe at the screen, but it’s locked. I start to drop the phone back in her bag, but at the last second, for reasons I don’t quite understand, I power it down and slip it into my own pocket.

The next thing I pull out of her purse is a flask. I unscrew the cap and take a whiff, as if there was any doubt where the smell of whiskey was coming from. It’s strong stuff too—high octane.

She’s chugging whiskey. While she’s heavily pregnant. No wonder she was so quick to request pain medications—she clearly does not give a hoot what she puts in her body. We’ve got the mother of the year in our basement apparently.

I drop the flask back in her purse, my face burning with anger. Some of us would give absolutely anything to get pregnant. And other women get pregnant without hardly trying, then poison the baby before it even has a chance at life.

It makes me furious.

The next thing I find in there is a gold lighter. I don’t see any crumpled boxes of cigarettes in the bottom of her purse, but I’m sure that’s only because she ran out. If she’s not going to stop drinking while she’s pregnant, why quit smoking?

I rummage around in her purse one last time. I discover one more item that makes me very glad I took one final look.

It’s pepper spray.

I slip the pepper spray into my pocket as well, nestled next to the cell phone. Not that I think that girl would hurt us, but I don’t like the idea of a guest in our home having a weapon.