23. Rhett
RHETT
The sniffling stopped before I got halfway down the hallway.
I stood still and listened. Nothing. Maybe I imagined it.
That was one option. But I couldn’t get Coach’s muttered words out of my head from earlier.
Just one bite of food. Why was he having to convince Bry to eat?
What the hell could have possibly happened between the time I woke up and eight thirty in the morning?
Another broken breath from behind Victoria’s door answered that question.
I knocked softly. “Miss C? You hungry?”
Nothing.
I tried again. “Can I come in?”
Still nothing, so I let my hand fall to the knob and eased the door open.
The room was dark. Every inch of it massive and still.
I found her in the corner chair, staring at the empty bookcase.
Just sitting there. Robe wrapped around her, hair twisted up in a clip, nightgown wrinkled around her ankles.
She didn’t move when I crossed the room. Didn’t flinch when I crouched beside her. Her eyes tracked nothing. Just that blank, still stare at the wall that tightened something in my gut.
“Victoria,” I said. “Can you look at me?”
Nothing.
I placed my hand on her forearm. “Miss C.”
Still nothing. Just the slow blink of her eyes every few seconds and the rise and fall of her chest telling me she was still in there somewhere.
I left the soup on the stove and went back to check on her. She hadn’t moved.
I knew what day it was.
I’d known since I woke up and heard the quiet of the house sitting differently than it usually did. Coach and Bry were already gone when I got to the kitchen. A note on the counter said they’d tried breakfast out. Tried being the operative word.
I made soup. Brothy, simple, easy to get down. I stood at the stove and stirred it and thought about a Tuesday in April and willow trees and a woman who had been carrying this particular weight alone for fourteen years.
By the time I brought the tray back to her room she still hadn’t moved from the chair.
I set the tray down. I turned on the television. I found Golden Girls without having to think about it and I pulled up a chair beside her and I waited.
She didn’t eat. Not at first. But after a while her eyes drifted toward the screen. Then her breathing changed, just slightly, the tight shallow quality of it easing a fraction. I didn’t say anything. I just sat there beside her and let the laugh track fill the room.
Eventually I got a few spoonfuls of broth into her. She didn’t fight me.
I was gathering the dishes when I heard the front door.
Coach’s boots in the entryway. Then Bry’s voice, closer than I expected, already moving down the hallway toward us. I stepped back from the bed just as she appeared in the doorway.
She took one look at her mother and crossed the room.
I didn’t belong in that room anymore. I stepped back into the hallway and pulled the door almost closed behind me, leaving just enough of a gap that I’d hear if either of them needed anything.
I stood there for a moment listening to the sound of Bry’s voice, low and soft, and Victoria’s silence slowly giving way to something that wasn’t silence anymore.
Then Coach appeared at the end of the hallway.
He looked at me. I looked at him. Neither of us said anything for a second.
“Come on,” he said finally. “Let me look at those bruises.”
I followed him to the kitchen. He pulled an ice pack from the freezer and tossed it to me without ceremony. I pressed it to my ribs and perched on the edge of the counter while he shook three pills into his palm and handed them over.
“Trouble breathing?” he asked.
“No.”
“You lying?”
“Got too important a game coming up for that.”
He looked at my ribs anyway. Pressed on a couple spots that made me hiss. Nodded once. “Just bruising. But if it gets worse you’re seeing the doctor after Monday’s practice.”
I dry swallowed the pills and chased them with the water bottle he tossed me.
We stood there a minute. The house was quiet except for the low murmur of voices from Victoria’s room.
“You love her,” I said. Not a question.
Coach looked at the window. His jaw worked. “Can I really love her the way I want to if I’m the one putting her at risk?”
I thought about that. “Bry doesn’t let you get away with anything. You really think she’d still be around if she didn’t want to be?”
He didn’t answer. But something in his shoulders shifted.
A few minutes later Bry appeared in the kitchen doorway. Her eyes went straight to my bruised ribs and then to Coach, and whatever she’d been about to say got swallowed up in the way she crossed the room to him.
“Rhett?” she said, turning to me after a moment. “She’s asking for you.”
I didn’t hear sniffling when I pushed open her door. That was enough for now.
I crawled into bed behind her. Slid my arm around her waist. Felt her wiggle back against me without waking up.
“Hey,” she said softly, a few minutes later.
“Hey.”
Her voice was rough. “What day is it?”
“Still today,” I said. “Go back to sleep.”
She did.