Chapter 39
Morgan
There are three people left in the bar—one couple from out of town and a loner who makes me think of Rory, even though he’s a grumpy mid-fifties Latino.
I haven’t been having the best day. Or week, for that matter.
I miss Rory. Her stuff is gone, and Barty’s gone too. Princess is sad, moping around the house. But maybe she’s feeding off my energy.
My friends can tell too. Kit came by earlier to give me a big hug and Hunter’s been behind the bar with me. He told me to go home, but I didn’t want to. Maybe it was some ridiculous hope that Rory would still show up after visiting her grandmother.
To pass the time until the guests leave, Hunter and I play darts.
“With you joining the lodge, that makes five. I’m still hopeful that Kit will join somehow,” Hunter says.
Last week, I sold the ring. I contacted a few of the closest jewelers and the first one that got back to me drove all the way up here to buy the ring from me. So now I’m flush with cash and am a proud new member of the group chat for buying the lodge.
Yay.
Can’t you feel my enthusiasm?
“Uh-huh,” I say, so Hunter will keep talking.
He’s excited, and I like that my friend has found an outlet for all his energy, aside from wrangling our generation of Herevians into backyard barbecues and Sunday Funday brunches.
He’s been a great boss, and I don’t want that part of our relationship to end.
He drones on about setting up co-op paperwork and the idea of throwing a new ownership party at the top of Sirens Valley.
My phone rings in my back pocket and I ignore it. I’m not expecting any calls, I don’t really want to talk to anyone, and it’s my turn anyway and I need two sixteens and a twenty.
The phone stops ringing, I nail the double sixteen, and the phone starts up again. I retrieve the darts with one hand and pull out my phone with the other.
It’s Rory’s grandmother.
“Hello?”
“Morgan?” There’s something urgent and wild in her tone that has the hairs on the back of my neck rising.
“Yeah?”
“Rory’s in the hospital after a hit-and-run. Come pick me up. Right now, Morgan!”
She hangs up before I can fully process what she says, and then I turn to Hunter, my eyes wide. “I gotta go.”
There’s no barging through the door shouting, “Where is she!” Instead, I trot after Mrs. Patterson, who’s plowing along with her cane while her voice wobbles with emotions.
We get directed down the hall after verifying that Mrs. Patterson is Rory’s next of kin, and weave through the maze of rooms and curtains until a nurse pulls one aside and there she is.
“Oh,” Rory’s grandmother says next to me, and that one word is infused with so much. Rory’s eyes are closed and she’s lying prone in the hospital bed. Staff buzz around her.
Her face is . . . her face is bad. There’s road rash on one side and dried blood on her chin and lips. Her nose looks wrong, and her loose hair has grass and gravel in it.
My heart feels like it’s in the wrong place, like I misplaced it weeks ago and have been looking for it. Like the beeping of the machine Rory’s hooked up to is my heartbeat, not hers.
How could I have let Rory go without fighting harder?
“Valerie Patterson?”
I glance over and there’s a doctor beside us, consulting paperwork on a clipboard. Mrs. Patterson hasn’t made a sound yet, and the look on her face can only be described as devastation. She lost her daughter, Rory’s mother, years ago, and now she might lose her granddaughter.
I swallow thickly. “Yes, that’s her.” I carefully touch Mrs. Patterson’s elbow and direct her attention away from Rory.
The doctor continues. “Your granddaughter is lucky she was found so quickly. I know it looks bad, but she’s sedated right now while we prep her to set the bone. She has a broken tibia, and obviously you can see the damage to her face—”
“Wasn’t she wearing her helmet?” Mrs. Patterson interrupts.
The doctor hesitates. “Her helmet was nearby, but she wasn’t wearing it at the time of impact.
The police will be checking in once we get her stabilized and awake to try to piece together what happened.
But for now, what you need to know is that her injuries only look bad.
We don’t detect any internal bleeding. She’s in good hands, and we’ll get her sorted. ”
The nurses start to wheel her bed out to the hallway but Mrs. Patterson shouts, “Wait!” And moves to her bedside.
The nurses stop, and Mrs. Patterson briefly sets her hand in her granddaughter’s and squeezes.
After a few seconds, she pats the hand and lets them move on. “Thank you,” she tells the staff.
We wait. I pace often, wondering if I should even be here—if Rory even wants me here. But I admit that I just can’t be anywhere else right now. The woman I love just went through something terrible, and if she wants to kick me out, push me away, when she’s awake, then she will.
What was she doing on the road so late anyway? It was well after the time she normally came into the bar, and I try not to read too much into it. Try not to hope that she was going to visit me. It’s more likely she and her grandmother had a fight and she left to blow off some steam.
Mrs. Patterson sits with a deceptive calm, her eyes closed, her hands clenched on her cane. If Rory was out on an escape, if they fought, I’m sure Mrs. Patterson is a wreck.
I sit down beside her, our thighs almost touching. I’m here.
Rory’s leg is set and they move her into a room. Same chairs, different location. The police come in and ask us a few questions.
Mrs. Patterson explains that Rory was helping her pack, and tells them what time Rory left her apartment.
“Where was she going?” the police officer asks.
Mrs. Patterson points at me. “His bar.”
I sit up.
They ask Mrs. Patterson a few more questions and then turn to me.
“What is your relation to Ms. Fox?”
“She’s—she was—my fiancée.”
They ask me about our breakup and the whole stupid story comes out—word vomit, really, way more than they were bargaining for. They ignore most of it.
“Where were you at the time of the accident?”
Oh god. They don’t think . . .
“I was at my bar.”
“Can anyone corroborate?”
“Yes,” I say, with more bite than it warrants, probably. I know they’re just doing their job, checking to make sure I have an alibi. “My manager was there with me, there were three customers there when I left, and we have security cameras.”
They take down Hunter’s information, but the whole thing leaves me feeling sick to my stomach.
But not as sick as their next question.
“Do you know anyone who would want to hurt her?”
After the cops leave, a nurse comes out to find us.
“She’s waking up,” they say. Mrs. Patterson and I creep into the room.
Rory’s blinking awake, her leg suspended in a cast. “Grandma?” she asks, her voice hoarse.
Her hair is a little tidier, like someone’s combed through it, her road rash cleaned up, and her nose is in a splint.
I notice other things I didn’t see before: her right eye is swelling, the eyebrow is split; her lips are dry and slack, like maybe she’s gotten a shot of Novocain.
Her eyes focus on me, and she says my name, and my heart breaks more for her when I see that something’s missing—her right front tooth. Does she even know yet?
I school my face to erase the shock, but I can’t stop the tears from filling my eyes. I’m so glad Mrs. Patterson called me.
Mrs. Patterson stops at Rory’s bedside and gently sets a hand on her granddaughter’s hair. I stand beside her and hover my hand above hers, half unsure if it would be welcome, half unsure if I can touch her without causing pain.
Rory rolls her hand palm-up, her fingers uncurling, and I slip my hand into hers. I drop my head down and close my eyes, kissing the back of her hand. It stays there when I hear Rory’s sobs, and her grandmother softly comforting her.