Chapter Thirty-One Sienna
Chapter Thirty-One
Sienna
“Congratulations,” she says while she squeezes the inflation bulb. “You’re doing well.” I remain quiet while she listens with her stethoscope and reads the gauge. She peels at the Velcro and removes the cuff from my arm.
“Have you been following social media?” I ask curiously while missing my phone at the bottom of the ocean.
“Yes. It’s a shame what happened to you. No one deserves that.”
I take a moment to digest this. “I suppose everyone thinks my husband is guilty.”
“That’s what it sounds like,” she replies, “but it’s not for me to say. That’s what the courts are for.”
She finishes up and leaves the room.
Tired all of a sudden, I close my eyes and use my imagination to recall what happened before I drowned. All the events of the day. I remember, quite clearly, writing broccoli on the magnetic grocery list on the refrigerator when Nate walked in the door.
From there, I lie quietly and replay each moment. I see the landscape on the old Lighthouse Route. Most of all, I remember my certainty that Nate would never change.
The move from the ICU to the neurosurgery floor exhausts me.
Not long after they situate me in a private room, a young man delivers breakfast on a tray.
It’s been days since I’ve chewed and swallowed anything, which feels daunting after having a tube stuck down my throat.
But I’m tired of all these needles and tubes sticking out of me, so I pick up my spoon.
Just as I’m about to give the warm broth a try, Amanda and Connor walk in. Amanda takes a look at my breakfast tray.
“You’re eating,” she says. “This is huge.”
“Don’t get too excited,” I reply as each of them greets me with a kiss on the cheek. “I haven’t swallowed anything yet. I don’t have much of an appetite.”
“Are you feeling okay?” Amanda asks.
“I feel great,” I reply, because I don’t want her to worry anymore. I’m sure she’s done enough of that.
They drag two chairs to either side of my bed.
“Any news about Dad?” I ask. He’s been on my mind all night. Everyone seems to believe he tried to hurt me, but I don’t know what’s real anymore. I went to heaven, for pity’s sake. Or at least I think I did. I don’t know.
“Nothing this morning,” Amanda replies. “Just more people expressing their opinions on social media.”
“I haven’t seen any of that yet. Can I look at your phone?”
“I’m not sure you want to see that stuff, Mom,” Connor warns me. “It might upset you.”
“I appreciate you being protective,” I reply, “but I really need to know what’s going on. I’d like to know what evidence the police have because I still have no recollection.”
“I think that’s the problem,” Amanda says. “You have no recollection, one way or the other.”
“But it’s impossible to remember something that didn’t happen,” I argue.
“True,” she replies, “but do you remember getting hit by the wave?”
I stop and think about it, carefully, but I still can’t recall that exact moment.
“I’m sure it’ll come back to me,” I assure them. “Other memories have been returning, one by one. I think I just need time to recover and get off the pain medications.”
An ambulance siren blares somewhere outside, and it strikes me with a sense of urgency. “What about your uncle Arthur?” I ask. “Has he been in touch?”
Amanda clears her throat. “Yes, but we don’t want him to come here and pressure you to remember.”
“But maybe that’s what I need,” I tell her. “To be pressured.” We all trade glances, and I feel heat in my cheeks. “I’m worried about him. And now that I’m more coherent, I’d like to talk to the police. I want to know what smoking gun they have, if they’ll tell me.”
The telephone next to my bed rings. It startles me enough to make me jump, but I can’t reach it.
Amanda stands and answers it. “Hello?” Her eyes meet mine. She holds the handset away from her, covers the mouthpiece with her palm, and whispers, “It’s Uncle Arthur.”
My breath comes short with relief and anticipation. “Tell him I’m out of the ICU and to come here as soon as he can. I want to talk to him in person.”
Amanda brings the handset back. “She’s feeling better, and she wants you to come here as soon as you can—”
“Ask him how Dad’s doing,” I interrupt before she has a chance to hang up the phone.
Amanda asks the question and relays the information to me. “He says not great.”
My chest feels tight, as if there’s a weight pressing down on it. I can’t bear to imagine Nate in jail. Does he even know I’m awake?
Amanda hangs up. “He’ll be here in fifteen minutes.”
I look down at the broth on the tray in front of me and push the rolling table off to the side. “I don’t think I can eat right now. I’ll save this for later.”
Arthur slowly approaches the foot of my bed. It’s been a few years since we’ve seen each other, and I notice a difference. He’s gained a few pounds and lost some hair. I hate to think it, but he’s starting to look like his father.
His face goes pale at the sight of me, and he inclines his head with sympathy. “Sienna. My God.”
Amanda vacates her chair at my side and offers it to him. He sets his briefcase on the floor and moves to give me a kiss on the cheek.
“It’s good to see you,” I say. “I’m sorry it’s been so long.”
“No, I’m the one who’s sorry,” he responds. “I shouldn’t have let my baby brother get so caught up in the rat race.”
I chuckle. “That’s a polite way of putting it.”
His gaze takes in the cuts and bruises on my face, the bandage on my half-shaved head, the cast on my arm. “Is there anything I can do for you?”
“You can tell me about Nate,” I doggedly reply.
Arthur sits down, his expression unmistakably serious. “I’m not sure what you know at this point.”
“I know that he’s been arrested and that people think he’s responsible for what happened to me. That’s about it.”
Arthur nods, and I brace myself. “He spent last night in jail, and now I’m waiting to hear about the discovery and a date for the arraignment. We’re working on bail, but it takes time.”
My lower back starts to ache, so I shift a little on the bed. “Becky told me they found evidence that incriminates him. Do you know what that is?”
“Not yet,” he replies. “And frankly, I don’t think it’ll stand up in court because it can only be circumstantial. Unless Nate is lying to me and he took detailed notes, confessing a brilliant master plan to do you in.”
“That would’ve been a genius move.”
“If that’s what they have, I’ll eat my shirt.” Arthur takes hold of my hand. “Unless . . .”
“Unless I tell you that I remember him pushing me,” I say.
Arthur shrugs, as if he knows it’s a ridiculous question, but he still wants to hear my response.
I look down at my fingers poking out of my cast. “I wish I could tell you that I remember the wave hitting me, and that Nate was twenty feet away, but I honestly don’t recall that moment. I only remember the shock of realizing I was in the water.”
Amanda pipes up. “The doctor said it’s normal for her memories to be vague after her head injury, and that they might come back to her.”
“Would it be possible for me to speak to your doctor?” Arthur asks. “You’d need to give permission for that.”
“I’ll give it,” I reply. “No matter what happened, I want the truth.”
Arthur studies my expression. “What’s your gut telling you?”
My children watch me closely, and in the end, I decide to be an open book.
“My gut tells me that he’s become very self-centered since he opened his restaurant, that he put the restaurant before his family, and he’s chipped away at the love I’ve felt for him.
But I don’t think he’d ever try to hurt me. ”
Arthur looks down at my good hand and speaks flatly. “Here’s what I think. He needs to go on a yoga retreat to Costa Rica.”
I consider this carefully, then chuckle. I realize it’s the first time I’ve laughed since I woke up. I’m surprised it didn’t hurt.
“Are men allowed to go to those things?” Connor asks, genuinely curious.
Again, I chuckle.
“Of course,” Arthur replies. “Are you interested?”
Connor waves his hand in front of his face. “I’ll stick to hockey, thanks.”
“If it helps,” Arthur says, returning to the subject at hand, “just remember that the burden is not on us to prove that Nate didn’t do it. The burden is on them to prove that he did. So we’ll just have to wait and see how strong their case is.”
“Will you see him today?” I ask. “And does he know I’m awake?”
“I saw him last night,” Arthur replies, “and I told him. But you should know . . . he was pretty down. I was worried. But that news made all the difference.”
“We don’t want him to go to prison,” Amanda says.
Arthur rises from his chair and picks up his briefcase. “Based on what I’m seeing here this morning, I’d like to believe that the odds are in his favor. Let’s go with that, okay?”
I want to trust Arthur’s gut instincts, but after everything I’ve been through—the highs and lows of happy times followed by shock and trauma and disaster—I’ve learned to never take anything for granted.
Arthur has gone, but my children are still here, one on each side of my bed.
I’m sleepy, and my head hurts, mostly because of my skull fracture, but there’s also an element of stress in my pain.
Since Arthur left the hospital, I’ve had time to lie still and reflect, to imagine Nate getting arrested and escorted to a jail cell. Spending the night there.
No amount of hurt regarding our marriage or hostility over his obsession with the restaurant can dampen my concern for him. I’m worried. All I want to do is see him as soon as possible and tell him that his family hasn’t abandoned him.
I wake to the sound of a nurse changing an IV bag and pressing buttons on a machine. The sky out the window has gone gray, and I suspect it might snow.
“You’re awake,” Amanda says.
I turn my head on the pillow. “What time is it?”
“Almost two o’clock. You’ve been asleep for a while. They brought the lunch tray, if you’re hungry.”
When I try to sit up, Amanda gets out of her chair and adjusts the head of my bed. She then rolls the tray table toward me.
I examine the bowls of red Jell-O and soup with rice and tiny pieces of chicken.
“How’s Oscar?” I ask as I remove the clear plastic lid from the soup.
“Good, but he misses you.”
“I miss him too.”
Amanda seems relaxed, lounging back in her chair. “That first night that you were gone, he ran all over the house looking for you. We felt so bad for him.”
Her words stir a memory in me, or maybe it was just a dream. I returned home to say goodbye to my children before I left this world. I floated through the front door, but no one saw me except for Oscar.
“Where’s Connor?” I ask.
“He went home to walk Oscar,” Amanda explains. “Becky picked him up about an hour ago.”
I scrape the soup bowl clean. Then I reach for the Jell-O and feel good about the return of my appetite.
“Can we talk about Dad?” Amanda asks. “I want to tell you what it was like having him at home.”
I push the rolling table off to the side. “I’m listening.”
“It was different,” she says. “He was just . . . trying harder, I guess. He made cinnamon toast for me.”
I draw back slightly with surprise. “It’s been a long time since either of us made that for you.”
“Yeah, I’d kind of forgotten about it,” she replies, “but obviously Dad didn’t. And we talked in the kitchen. It was nice. It reminded me of how he used to be.”
I don’t want to pry or push her to reveal every detail of their conversation. Sometimes my motherly inquisitiveness makes her shut the open door between us. “I’m glad you had that time together,” I simply reply.
“Me too. Although it wasn’t all warm fuzzies. I woke up because I heard him crying.”
The weight of those words cuts at my heart. “Really?”
“Oscar heard it too. Dad sounded really upset. I never heard anything like that before. He was always so together, you know? Those pictures of him on the website in his chef’s uniform .
. . he looks so tough and determined, but that’s not who he is.
” She stares at me, sending a piercing challenge, daring me to disagree.
I nod, and she relaxes slightly.
“You’ve talked to me about his father,” she continues, “and I think, deep down, he’s just lost. Even more so, now that he’s in jail and might lose us.”
A quiet pain spreads through me, slow and deep. I can’t bear to think of Nate all alone, coping with this ordeal.
Amanda picks up her phone and starts swiping. Our conversation has come to a dead halt, but I understand that she needs to tune out for a moment, so I wait patiently. She swipes again, reads something, and taps a few buttons. “Oh, my God.”
“What is it?”
“Connor just texted.” Her cheeks flush with color, and she squints as she studies her screen.
“What’s he saying?” I ask.
“Someone just posted a video on Facebook. Apparently, someone was filming when you were swept off the rocks. It’s all there.” She gets up and moves closer to show me her screen.
My pulse races, wild and uncontrollable, because I don’t want to relive that ordeal, yet I need to know what Nate was doing when I fell in the water. I need that question answered. Unequivocally.
The video starts with an older man standing on the rocks, smiling and pointing, but then I enter the frame in the background.
“That’s Dad behind you,” Amanda says as we watch. “But he’s not even close.”
Then I disappear.
“Play it again.” I watch the whole scene, from the first second I enter the frame. I’m hopping down the sloping rocks. Then a gigantic explosion of water crashes over me, and I vanish. Only then does Nate enter the frame. He runs desperately to the spot where the wave had taken me.
“Does the RCMP know about this?” I ask, dumbfounded.
Amanda starts to thumb a message. “They will in about two minutes, as soon as I text Uncle Arthur. And whatever evidence the cops think they have, I’m pretty sure this’ll crush it.”
With a surge of relief, mixed with nausea from watching how I’d vanished into that frothy white surf, I rest my head against the pillows and shut my eyes.
All I can see, over and over, is Nate running to the edge of the rocks, coming to an abrupt halt, placing his hands on his head in despair, and then desperately pacing back and forth, scanning the churning water below.