Day Seven （Benny Abbott）
Benny Abbott
Day Seven
Gloria runs inside and we’re left clutching the gate.
“What’s happening?” Sarah shouts.
“This is all your fault,” I yell at Luna. “I thought you said she was safe!”
“She—she was!”
“Then why are they calling an ambulance?”
Luna hugs herself and stares at the ground.
I kick the gate, too furious to speak.
“We should move our cars,” Sarah says, and when that’s done we all pace back and forth in front of the garage.
At the sound of sirens, Sarah embraces me.
And then the wailing stops. They’re not turning into the alley.
We stare at each other, ears pulsing with the echo of sudden silence, then run for the street.
Sarah, the fastest, gets there first and points. “They’ve gone to another entrance!”
“Why didn’t you tell me there was another entrance?” I shout at Luna.
The other door is locked, and we’re left pacing beside the red LAFD paramedic vehicle. The longer we wait, the more people gather on the street to gawk. Finally, finally, the door opens; three blue uniforms roll out a gurney, and there she is, strapped in with an oxygen mask over her face.
“Joy!” I push through the crowd, trying to get close.
“Back away,” an EMT snaps.
“I’m her best friend. Please. Can I come along?”
They shake their heads, but I’m desperate. Her eyes are closed. She’s not moving.
“Please,” I beg. “Please.”
They’re already lifting her into the patient compartment.
One EMT, a white man with spiked hair, turns to Gloria, who watches from the concrete steps.
Gloria nods, and the EMT gestures for me to get in.
I have to sit in the front seat, and can’t see what’s happening in the back, but I’m grateful to be near her as we drive away, siren on.
“How is she?” I ask. “What happened? Is she going to be okay?”
“She’s hemorrhaging,” he says, “but she has a pulse.”
The words are rising dough in my brain, expanding to fill the space until there’s nothing else. Why is she hemorrhaging? A pulse. A pulse means she’s alive. Why is she hemorrhaging?
I ask for more but he concentrates on the road.
He turns left through a red light, and then we’re at the hospital, and there are more emergency workers now, white coats mingling with the LAFD, and Joy’s eyes are closed, her face hidden by the oxygen mask, and I’m begging to be allowed back with her, but this time the answer is no.
“I love you, Joy,” I shout as she disappears behind two swinging doors.
LUNA AND SARAH arrive ten minutes later, and we all sit together in a row of blue vinyl seats, my second time in an emergency waiting room in as many days. Sarah holds my good hand, and I close my eyes, trying to focus all my energy on Joy, willing her to be okay.
“Benny…” Luna says after a while.
“No. I’m not talking to you right now.”
“I’m sorry,” she whispers. “I’m so, so sorry.”
Her face is ashen, and it’s clear she’s hurting, but I have no sympathy or shits to give.
“You should’ve told me sooner.” Anger builds with each word. “If she dies, I swear to god…”
“She was supposed to be safe. They said she would be safe.”
“Who?” Sarah asks. “Who is they?”
Luna doesn’t answer.
“Who?” I say it too loud. Everyone nearby turns and looks: an older man with an ice pack on his shoulder; a mother and child sharing a bag of grapes; a tatted man knitting what appears to be a scarf.
I lower my voice. “Joy is fighting for her life right now. If you have any information that can help, you need to share it.”
The man with the scarf is blatantly eavesdropping. Luna gestures for me to follow her outside. Sarah squeezes my hand and offers to stay behind in case there’s news.
When Luna and I are past the sliding door trigger, she says, “It’s not what you think.”
“Go on.”
“It wasn’t supposed to be so complicated. She was just going to leave you the memoir so you knew what was happening, then hide out at the shelter while I served Xander with papers. But then she changed her mind, and got the big idea to tell you in person, in front of his cameras.”
I recall a pixelated Joy staring up at the ceiling. “So she did know he was monitoring her.”
Luna nods. “The cameras were all connected to some app on his phone. She knew he’d watch right away, see her telling you she intended to divorce him, and then—” She sighs. “She had this idea that if the two of you announced her separation in a very public way—”
“The episode,” I breathe.
“—he’d lose his mind and … you know, overreact in front of his own cameras.
The plan was to steal the footage somehow before leaving for the shelter, either to use as leverage in the divorce, or if necessary, in court.
I told her it was dangerous—there are other ways, you know?
—but she wasn’t listening to reason. So when I called to check in and she told me she’d done it, and that you were gone …
that she was just sitting there waiting for him alone… ”
“Oh my god,” I mutter.
“Exactly. I was walking into a dinner with clients, and I turned right back around. Didn’t even tell them where I was going. Xander was already home when I got there—I could see his cars in the garage—so I rang the doorbell.” Her expression tightens. “And when no one answered, I went around back.”
My head swims. I need this to be over so I motion for her to continue.
“I didn’t understand what I was seeing. Joy was obviously hurt, but he was … he was hugging her, and kissing her all over her face…”
I press my fingers to my temples. “Why didn’t you call nine one one?”
“Because it all happened so fast. I knocked on the window, and when he saw me he was … he was so angry, Benny. All I could think was, This is what Joy’s been living with?
He grabbed her arm, and I just—I don’t know, I saw red.
I started banging on the window.” Luna wrings her hands.
“I just needed to get her to the shelter before he could do anything else.”
“But I don’t understand. If you knew where she was this whole time, why keep it a secret?”
“Because I had to! I told you, if I said anything, it would all fall apart.”
“But what does that even mean? What would fall apart?”
“I didn’t know it was going to blow up like this.
She was safe. That was all that mattered at first. She was supposed to come back when she was ready.
I thought maybe a day or two. And then Xander was found dead, and how would it look if I suddenly said, Oh, hey, I actually know where Joy is?
” Luna’s crying now. “When she stayed longer, I thought—I don’t know, I thought maybe it was good she didn’t learn about Xander right away.
After everything she’s been through. Maybe it was better to protect her from having to deal with that for a little longer. ”
This isn’t an answer. Why not save me from my misery? Why let the police think I was involved? If she didn’t have something to hide she wouldn’t have kept her mouth shut for seven entire days. And then I realize there’s one huge question I haven’t yet asked. “Luna, how did Xander die?”
“You already know how he died. He drove his car off the road.” She averts her eyes. “He was probably looking for Joy.”
“He had a head injury,” I say, working through what I’ve learned. My brain hits a snag, and then something occurs to me, something I should’ve caught sooner. I narrow my eyes at her. “When did you visit Joy on Tuesday morning?”
“What?”
“You told Keller you visited Joy on Tuesday morning. But when I got there to record, Xander had only just left. Joy said we’d just missed him.”
“So?”
“So you wouldn’t have been making these plans in front of him.”
“It was a quick conversation,” she says, crossing her arms. “Out by my car.”
“Then why did you need to tell the police you were there? Why did you need to have your fingerprints taken?”
“What are you…” Her voice cracks.
I hold up a hand. I’ve just realized something else, and it’s so damning I have to catch my breath. “Cameras.” I steady my gaze on my ex-wife and add, slowly, “You’ve been saying cameras. Plural.”
Luna takes a step back.
“The camera we found was above Joy’s desk,” I continue. “Did you know about that one?”
She doesn’t respond, but I can tell by her eyes that she did not.
“Luna, where are the other cameras?”
“I … I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
But she’s lying. And all at once everything snaps into place.
Why she needed her fingerprints accounted for.
Why she so quickly listened to my late-night episode pleading for help.
Why she kept talking me out of my theories when Joy and Xander first went missing.
Why she kept Joy’s whereabouts a secret for seven days.
She didn’t need to lie to Keller. She didn’t even need to tell us Joy was getting a divorce, not if she knew Joy was alive.
She’s had one foot in this investigation from the start, letting us all get sidetracked by money transfers and audio files and search parties and fire extinguishers.
I’d all but convinced myself Joy was dead, and all the while Luna said nothing.
She knew exactly where the other cameras were, and she made sure to remove all of them. And I can only think of one reason why.
“Luna, what did you do?”
As I’m saying this, the sliding doors open, and through them Sarah calls, “They have news.”
SARAH HAS ALREADY convinced the doctor we’re family, so we’re able to get the full update.
Joy has suffered extreme blood loss due to an incomplete miscarriage.
They attempted to manage the bleeding with dilation and curettage, but this was complicated by several large uterine fibroids.
Removing these led to further complications, at which point the bleeding was so severe it was determined the only course of action was an open hysterectomy, which they’re performing now.
Sarah presses a calming hand to my back. “Is she going to be okay?”
Beneath the doctor’s blue surgery cap is a hint of fire-red hair. She rubs her clavicle with a dry, cracked hand. “She’s lost a lot of blood. It’s good you found her when you did.”
It’s a nonanswer.
“Incomplete miscarriage…” I say, thwacked with the memory of my last moments with Joy. Why did you start talking about divorce in the first place? she asked. Was it the baby stuff? Because you wanted kids and she didn’t? I’d had no idea what she was asking.
“Did you know about this?” I ask Luna. “Did you know she was pregnant?”
Her jaw is slack. She shakes her head.
“I’ll keep you updated,” the doctor says.
I watch until she’s out of sight.
By the time I turn around, Luna is gone.