Chapter Eighteen Amanda #5
“No, I couldn’t take it anymore, so I stopped reading. You should do the same. Both of you. Put your phones away.” She gives Connor a stern look, and he slides it into his back pocket. “What did the cops say, exactly?” Becky asks me with concern.
“Just that they wanted to get everything down, whatever that means. And Dad got a bit testy about social media. I’m not sure if that was a good or bad thing.”
“It’s understandable that he’d be angry,” Becky says. “He should see what he can do to get that group shut down.”
“I hope the cops see it that way.” I check my watch. “We should probably head back up to the ICU. Mom might be out of surgery by now.”
We gather our belongings and leave the cafeteria.
As we walk down the corridor to the elevators, Becky nudges me to look at my phone.
I need to talk to you, but not in front of Connor.
A chill grips my heart. I glance at her, and she puts her finger to her lips to say, “Shh.”
We reach the elevator, and Connor presses the button.
When the doors slide open, we step inside and ride up in silence until we get off on the ICU floor.
We walk to the waiting area, and I pick up the wall phone to call the nurses’ station.
They tell me that Mom is still in surgery, so I relay that information to Becky and Connor.
“I need to use the washroom,” I say to Becky. “Want to come?”
“Sure.” She turns to Connor. “Have a seat. We’ll be back in a bit.”
Without looking up from his phone, he nods, and Becky and I start off down the hall.
“Why do I feel like you have something terrible to tell me?” I ask. “I’m not sure if I can handle any more bad news.”
She wraps her arm around my shoulders. “Sorry, but I need to come clean.”
I frown. “What are you talking about?”
We reach the bathroom but decide to keep walking because neither of us really has to go.
“I might have said something to the police that made them suspicious,” Becky finally confesses.
“When I was dropping the chili off at your house this morning, two RCMP officers came to the door looking for your dad. I told them he was at the hospital, but they asked who I was. I said I was your mom’s best friend, and they had questions. ”
“Like what?”
She hesitates. “Well . . . they asked about your parents’ relationship, and I couldn’t lie. Not to law enforcement.”
Becky hesitates again, and I have to prompt her. “Please, go on.”
“I told them something you don’t know, and now I’m afraid that they’re going to ask you about it, and I want you to hear it from me, not them.”
My heart starts to race, and I stop at the end of the hall. “What is it?”
Becky presses her fingers to the space between her eyebrows. “A few weeks ago, your mom talked to a lawyer about the possibility of a legal separation, maybe even divorce.”
I draw back slightly, as if Becky just swung a punch at me.
“She hadn’t made any firm decisions,” Becky explains, “but you know that she was tired of your father’s promises about spending less time at the restaurant.
He kept saying he’d do better, be more attentive, but nothing ever changed.
On top of that, the restaurant was struggling financially, and he was asking her for money, but she didn’t want him to touch the trust fund that was intended for your education.
That’s why she talked to a lawyer. She wanted to know what would happen to her savings if she . . .”
“Got a divorce,” I finish for her.
I realize my heart is pummeling my rib cage, and I’m starting to feel sick to my stomach.
“I think,” Becky says, “at the end of the day, what she really wanted was to give him a wake-up call.”
“And what did he say when she told him?” I ask with bated breath.
“I don’t know,” she replies. “Only your mom knows the answer to that.”
I back up against the wall and slide down to a squat, where I gather my hair in my fists and squeeze. “So they were arguing on the rocks.”
“Probably,” she replies.
“And there were witnesses.”
“Yes, and I suspect the police are contacting those people as well, to confirm what they saw.”
My eyes sting with tears as I look up at her. “Do you think he pushed her? And that someone actually saw him do it?”
Becky shakes her head and speaks with desperation. “Honestly . . . I have no idea what happened.”
My throat constricts, and I swallow hard.
This isn’t real. There’s no way Dad would push Mom off the rocks.
They love each other. And Dad loves Connor and me.
We were a close family once, and I genuinely, deep down in my bones, believe that he wants us to be close again.
I heard him crying in his room last night, and he remembered the cinnamon toast. He apologized for not being around more.
And he hasn’t been to the restaurant since any of this started.
Although maybe he’s been texting Martina all this time. God knows what’s going on there.
Slowly I try to rise, but I’m unsteady. Becky offers her hand and pulls me to my feet.
“You don’t think they’re going to arrest him, do you?” I ask. “Will they put him in jail?”
“I don’t know. It depends on what happened, what he says about it, and what the witnesses say.”
Feeling dazed, I walk slowly back to the ICU. A fog rolls into my head. It’s cold and numbing, but I fear hysteria is just beyond it.
“Amanda!” It’s Connor, calling to me from the end of the corridor. “Mom’s out of surgery! She’s back in her room, and we can see her!”
With relief, I exhale. “Maybe she’ll wake up.” I turn expectantly to Becky. “Then she can tell the police it’s not true.”
“That would be wonderful,” Becky replies, but I sense a pessimism in her.
I understand it, but I don’t want to be infected by it. I want to manifest a positive outcome, so I shake off the fog and run down the hall.