Chapter 14
Summer asked for Jonah every time someone came through the curtain. She knew he was here, that his father was with him; nobody would tell her when she could see him. Lorraine had gone to ask again. Summer lay back until the shoes paused outside, then lifted her head, waiting.
Her mother arrived with a coat and an overfilled bag. Summer recognized the green sweater hanging out of the top before she saw her mother’s face, and began crying.
“Oh, sweetheart.” Her mother put the bag down and came straight to her. “I’ve got you.”
Summer pressed her face into her neck. For a while she could only say Jonah’s name, over and over, until her mother held her away enough to see her.
“Lorraine told me.” She stroked the hair back from Summer’s forehead. “I brought clothes for him too.”
“I want Jonah,” Summer said. She took the tissue her mother offered and wiped her face. “They won’t tell me how long. I don’t want him thinking I haven’t asked.”
Her mother looked toward the curtain, then back at her. “Let them finish looking after you,” she said. “I’ll keep asking.”
The examinations and samples took time. Summer agreed to the care offered, asked questions when she couldn’t follow, and answered as carefully as she could about the part of the evening she remembered.
No one could yet tell her what had been in the wine.
The gaps in her memory meant there were other questions she couldn’t answer, and she made those decisions with her mother beside her.
When she was finally left to rest, the blue skirt was still spread beneath the blanket. She pulled the blanket higher until none of it showed. Jonah’s father appeared at the curtain with his phone in his hand. Summer sat forward before he spoke.
“He’s asking whether you’re alone.” His voice sounded worn thin. “I told him your mom was coming.”
“She’s here,” Summer said. “Tell him I keep asking too.” She reached for her own phone, then remembered Jonah staring at his, unable to pick it up. “Could you take this to him? I’ve texted him something. He doesn’t have to answer it.”
He took the phone. Summer watched him carry it away, her message still on the screen: I love you. I’m waiting for them to bring me. Her mother sat beside her while they waited, with the sweater in her lap and one hand around Summer’s wrist.
When the nurse came to take her, Summer nearly cried again. Her mother helped settle the blanket around her, then stayed with their things while Lorraine went ahead to find Jonah’s father.
Jonah was sitting against raised pillows in the gray sweatshirt from home. Summer stopped noticing the hospital for a second. There he was in a shirt she had folded, his hair flattened on one side, his face turning toward the opening.
He reached for her at once. Summer stood before the chair had quite stopped and leaned into his arms. “I kept asking,” he said into her hair. “Dad said you were coming and then he went away again.”
“He was with me,” Summer said, holding him harder. “I’ve been waiting for them to let me come.”
They stayed that way until the nurse needed to check the line in his arm. Summer sat reluctantly, drawing the chair close enough that their knees touched through the blanket.
His father went out with the nurse. The curtain moved once and settled. Jonah turned Summer’s wrist over. There was a small red mark beside her thumb, and his face changed.
“When did that happen?” he asked. He touched the skin beside it.
“At the bakery,” Summer said, looking down at the burn. “I found it in the shower, before we got dressed.” She closed her fingers around his.
“They kept saying you were being looked after,” he said. “That was all anyone would tell me.”
Summer moved onto the edge of the mattress. His hand came to her waist immediately, and she leaned against him, careful of his arm.
For a while they didn’t speak. Somewhere beyond the curtain, a man was arguing about a parking ticket. Summer hated him for having a problem so ordinary, then wanted desperately to be standing beside Jonah at a machine that wouldn’t accept their card.
“Did they say what it was?” she asked. She felt him shake his head against her hair.
“They took blood samples.” He stared past her. “I told them I didn’t take anything. I kept saying it. I don’t know if they believed me. They kept asking if I did drugs.”
“So did I.” Summer lifted her head. “The same thing. I couldn’t stop saying we’d only had the wine.”
His mouth tightened. “I didn’t even like it,” he said.
Summer almost laughed, then cried instead. He pulled her close and held her until she could breathe evenly. She stayed against his shirt, listening to a cart rattle past the curtain, and nearly missed the first words when he began to speak.
“I was waiting for you in that room,” she said. “She told me you’d be back in a minute. I couldn’t even sit up properly by then.”
“I keep trying to remember it the same way and it won’t stay in order.” His fingers caught the edge of her sleeve. “Dad heard her tell me to come up. I remember the stairs. I thought I’d had too much wine, but I know I only had that one glass.”
His eyes went to the blanket over Summer’s lap. A corner had slipped, leaving a strip of blue visible. She pulled it back into place. He looked away.
“I didn’t see her come in.” His words were barely audible now. “There was blue. I thought you were back. Then things kept—I’d lose a bit, and she’d be closer.”
Summer left a hand on his forearm. She wanted to ask whether he’d known before she came in, whether he’d said anything to Kylie, whether he’d tried to call; she waited for him to go on.
“When you said my name, I didn’t understand how you were at the door and on top of me at the same time.” He looked at her then, fully, and his face twisted. “You saw my hand.”
Summer nodded. “I saw,” she said. “You couldn’t even hold your phone afterward.”
“I don’t remember putting it there.” He tried to pull his sleeve free of her hand, then stopped. “I don’t know what else I did. My pants were unbuttoned.”
“You were waiting for me,” Summer said. She caught his face between her palms when he tried to look away. “She drugged you. You don’t have to work out what you did to make me believe you.”
His eyes filled, and he pressed his face against her shoulder before the tears fell.
Summer held him while he tried to say something about the phone, about the sound he’d heard.
“That was me calling,” she told him. “I wanted you to come.” His arm tightened until she had to shift on the mattress, and he drew back at once, asking whether he’d hurt her.
Summer caught his hand before he could take it away. “No. I’m trying to get closer.”
He gave a broken laugh, then pulled her against him again. When the nurse asked whether they needed anything, Summer asked for a minute, and he held her through the quiet after the curtain closed.
Her mother brought the clothes when Summer could change. She didn’t want to leave him even for the few minutes it would take, and felt foolish until he asked how long she would be.
“Just there.” Summer pointed to the next curtained space. She touched his hand. “Mom’s helping me.”
Her mother unfastened the dress and helped keep it aside as they had been instructed. Summer stepped out of the skirt without looking back at it. In her own sweater and soft pants she felt suddenly, painfully ordinary.
When she returned, Jonah reached for the green cuff and held it between his fingers. “That’s better,” he said, then stopped. Summer sat beside him before he could try to correct himself. She didn’t want the dress on either.
His hand stayed on her arm. She let herself rest against his shoulder, both of them quiet while someone wheeled a cart past.
After a while Jonah said he wanted to speak to the police. Summer sat up, but he kept his eyes on their hands.
“I don’t want her telling everyone first,” he said. “I don’t want her twisting it into something I did.”
“I’ll tell them what I saw.” Summer reached for the call button.
She stayed until he needed to speak privately. Her own account was taken separately; she described the glasses and the sitting room, gave the times from her phone, and left the missing minutes missing.
When she was cleared to leave, Jonah still needed observation. Her mother offered her somewhere to rest while they waited, and Summer looked toward his curtain.
“I’m staying.” She put her coat over the back of the chair. “Will you stay too?”
Her mother sat down. Summer leaned against her for a minute, then stood to go back to him.
Jonah was awake when she went back. He moved his hand across the mattress to give her room, and Summer brought the chair close enough to rest her head beside it.
Her mother sat on the other side while his father went to ask how much longer they would need to stay.
Summer closed her eyes with Jonah’s fingers in her hair.
She woke a little later because his fingers had stopped moving. He had drifted off with his hand still caught in her hair, his mouth slack with exhaustion.
Summer eased her head enough to see him properly. She stayed where he could find her when he woke.