Day Eight （Joy Moore）
Joy Moore
Day Eight
The older detective, the one with weathered skin who calls herself Keller, is very thorough. “So you told him you were leaving him, and then what?” she prompts.
My doctors kept the detectives out for a full twenty-four hours due to my drug-induced haze.
I still feel as though I’ve been run over by a traveling circus, but they need answers, and apparently my original responses weren’t good enough because Keller wants me to repeat everything in case I forgot something the first time.
“Then,” I say, “he hit me. A few times. And then I kneed him in the balls.”
Like last time, her eyes briefly flash with respect. “And then?”
“He lost his balance and hit his head on the recording table. It knocked him out for a minute. That’s how I got away.”
“And how did you get to the shelter?”
“I flagged down the first car I saw.” There’s a tickle in my throat, and I fight against it, but the cough wins. I hold my stomach in pain.
The baby-faced detective rises from the sofa to hand me my water jug. “You do know hitchhiking is dangerous.”
I adjust the bendy straw. “Not any more dangerous than staying with Xander.”
He returns to his seat.
“And your driver?” Keller asks again. “Any distinguishing details you can remember will help.”
I take a sip, pretending to think. “She was white. My age, give or take ten years. Brown hair. Silver car. If that helps.”
Keller’s expression tells me that it does not. “When did you realize people were looking for you?”
“Four days in.”
“Tell me what happened then.”
The detective failed to hide her skepticism on the last go around, so I add in a few extra details this time.
“I met a woman named Mitali that night, right before I learned Xander was dead. After I saw the headlines, I ran back to my room to be sick, and then I fell asleep, and didn’t wake up until Mitali came to visit me the next morning.
I was in bad shape, so she offered to reach out to Benny for me. To let him know where I was.”
“Only, she didn’t do that, did she?”
“No.”
“Because…?” She wants me to say it again.
“Because she never actually visited me in my room.” I stifle a sigh. “She’d left the shelter that morning.”
Keller looks like she’s trying to rein in her skepticism, but it’s clearly a struggle. “These hallucinations … you say they’re common in narcolepsy.”
I nod.
“So then wouldn’t it have occurred to you to wonder at some point if that was what was happening?”
“Under typical circumstances, yes,” I say, probably too defensively.
Typically, I can trust my environment to help me parse the truth.
I might witness the shattering of a window only to wake and discover it perfectly intact.
Or I’ll see a stranger in the corner of my room—and not just see him, but smell him, hear him, feel the shift in the air—only to understand the moment I find Potsie sleeping peacefully at my feet that no one was ever there. That it was all in my head.
But I didn’t have Potsie with me at the shelter, and this— “This was like a fever dream. I never had time to second-guess before dreams and hallucinations overlapped. If Frankie and Gloria hadn’t seen her leave Sunday morning, I would swear on my life Mitali had been in my room.
She tried to give me a bowl of soup. We had whole conversations.
” I rub my burning eyes. “You have to understand, I was extremely unwell. My meds were off. Everything was going wrong in my body. And then I learned Xander was dead. I think I just really needed to believe that Mitali was helping. Until I realized maybe she wasn’t. ”
“But that took you two days. In all that time, you never once…”
I open my eyes. I have no idea how long I’ve been asleep.
Keller exchanges a glance with Baby Face. “In all that time, you never once suspected these conversations were only in your head?”
I get it. I don’t like it any more than she does.
But instead of admitting this, I meet her unblinking stare and say, “It makes sense now. After we met at the computers, I only ever saw her in my room. I was always in and out of sleep, always glued to the bed. But none of that felt odd at the time, given the circumstances.”
Keller consults her notes again. Turns the page. I’m relieved to see she’s moving on. “You said this was your first time at the shelter.”
I nod.
“But this was not the first time Xander hurt you.”
I shake my head. “I didn’t think…” My voice breaks. I try again. “I didn’t think I needed a shelter until I realized I needed a shelter. If that makes sense.”
Her eyes soften. She nods. “Do you have any idea why Xander might’ve been driving through Angeles National Forest that night?”
“That was something he did,” I explain. “When we fought. He cooled down with a long drive. He loved that stupid MG.”
“Did he always have a ten-pound fire extinguisher with him?”
She didn’t ask this last time. “Is that big or small?”
She studies me.
“You know how easily those old roadsters catch on fire. Xander may have been a lot of things, but he wasn’t an idiot. He would never have let himself be the cause of a forest fire in the middle of a Santa Ana windstorm.”
She turns the page in her notebook. “And the money?”
I shrug. “I guess I didn’t plan that very well. I just thought it’d be safer in Benny’s account. I knew Xander would’ve locked me out as soon as I told him I was leaving.”
This prompts a soft hum. “A million dollars is an awfully big transfer.”
“I figured I would need it. Xander was going to put up an awfully big fight.”
“And you got in through Benny’s login how?”
“I copied his password when we set up our accounts together. Knowing he might lose it,” I add quickly.
“But you didn’t tell him you were transferring the money?”
I consider explaining the full truth—that it wasn’t just about financing an ugly divorce.
That I intended the transfer in part as an eff you to Xander for making all those side deals.
One million eff-you dollars. If he could hide money, then so could I.
But I stick to my original answer, remembering what I was told: keep it simple.
The simpler the better. “No. Benny didn’t know. ”
Keller makes a note. “He knew very little, it appears. So how did it come about that he came to get you when he did?”
I choose my words carefully, the same words I used last time. I tell her I couldn’t remember anyone’s cell numbers, even Benny’s, so I used another woman’s burner phone to call Luna’s office number, which I found online. Luna then promised she and Benny would come get me. Together.
“What happened then?” Keller asks.
“That’s when I started bleeding. I don’t remember anything else.”
Keller’s gaze circles my face, my bruises, and then settles on my stomach. “You’re lucky your friends arrived when they did.”
“I am,” I agree. So lucky.
She taps her finger softly on the open notebook. “One final question,” she says. “Did Xander know you were pregnant?”
I don’t have to fake the tears that spring to my eyes. “He did not.”
The room swims, but I can just make out Keller’s movements as she gathers her things. Stands. Approaches my bed. She reaches for my hand, squeezes it gently. “Thank you for your cooperation, Joy. I think you’ve given us enough answers for now. You’ve been very brave.”
Baby Face leaves a card on the hospital tray and asks me to phone them if I remember anything else. I nod, then close my eyes and pretend to sleep.
A NURSE WAKES me for checks, after which I speak with a psychologist, followed by the ob-gyn on rounds. It’s exhausting, all this human interaction after so many days without. By the time Benny returns to visit, I’m worn thin. I focus on his warm eyes, but I can tell he’s nervous.
“Hey.” I take his hand and tell him I’m better today. I’ll be okay.
“It’s not that. I mean, I’m so, so glad to hear it, but…” He pulls up a chair. “Luna called me,” he says quietly. “She told me what you said to the cops, and I guess I’m a little…”
“Confused?”
He nods. “I guess—I guess I’m curious … how much you know.”
“I talked to her too,” I say, making my eyes do more work than my words.
His expression tells me he’s starting to get it. Outside the door, a phone rings. Someone laughs. A high-pitched alarm goes off for several seconds. He rakes a hand through his hair. “So you’re not going to tell them the truth.”
“I am not.” I acknowledge it’s a risk. Those detectives aren’t through with us yet.
Leaning in close, he whispers, “Did she tell you how?”
“She was trying to defend me. I only know it was an accident.” I swallow and glance at the clock, wondering when the next nurse check will be. “I don’t think I want to know the rest. Just, please—I realize it’s a lot to ask, but I need you to go along with it. Everything I said.”
He takes this in. It’s a lot to take in. “Okay,” he says. “Okay. If that’s what you want.”
It’s what I want.
“Okay,” he says again.
We’re silent for a moment.
“Are you … did you…” His eyes search mine. “When you found out about Xander…” He runs a hand over his mouth. “I guess I wanted to ask how you’re doing. With that.”
I hesitate, briefly, and he quickly amends, “It’s okay if you’re not ready to talk about it.”
“No, it’s fine,” I say. “Do you want the long answer or the short answer?”
“I want the answer you’re most comfortable giving.”
It’s such a Benny thing to say. I rack my mushy brain for the right words. I owe him an honest answer. But I haven’t the slightest idea where to start. “To tell you the truth, I’m a long way from being okay.”
He nods somberly.
“How do you feel about it?” I ask.
He’s been holding his tongue for years. I imagine he has no shortage of opinions. But what he says instead, eyes welling with tears, is, “I’m so sorry about the baby.”
I reach out and he takes my hand. Squeezes it.
Someday I’ll tell him all my feelings about this.
That I’m equal parts relieved and devastated.
That I believe my body has both saved and betrayed me.
That if I hadn’t miscarried I’m not sure what I would’ve done.
And then I’ll remind him about the eggs that remain frozen in an Inland Empire embryology lab.
But that’s a conversation for another time. “Thank you.”
He squeezes my hand again. I’m spent, and the drugs are wearing off to reveal myriad aches and pains. “Please don’t be mad at Luna,” I say when he stands to leave.
“She should’ve said something sooner,” he says quickly, as if this has been perched on his tongue since he arrived. “She should’ve said something. If she hadn’t been so focused on protecting herself you could’ve come home sooner. You almost died.”
“But you understand, don’t you? Why she did that?”
“You may change your mind about this. You may want to tell the cops.”
“I won’t.”
“You can’t know that.”
“Fine. Maybe you’re right. But until then?”
He shakes his head in a bewildered way, as if he can’t believe what he’s about to say. “My lips are sealed.”
“And you’ll try not to be mad?”
“Joy,” he says. Because what I’m asking is complicated, and fraught, and messy, and when it all comes down I don’t like it any more than he does. But this was what we agreed on. The incomprehensible promise I made to Luna in appreciation for saving my life.
“Promise you’ll try.”
“Fine.” He spreads his fingers wide, releasing them from the rail. “I’ll try.”
“Thank you,” I whisper.
Nodding, he scratches his beard. “I have another question.”
“For you, Benny, I might have another answer.”
“Did you post a message? On our website?”
I’d almost forgotten. “Ayyy.”
“It was you? I thought it was you. It kind of sent me spiraling, but in a good way.” He explains that this post led him to find the surveillance camera above the desk, which then led to Luna, who ultimately gave up my location.
“I’m impressed.” I posted the message right after I met Mitali. Remembering our conversation in the computer lab, the only true conversation we had, I feel a ripple of sadness. I deeply hope she never has to give her husband a break from himself again.
Benny kisses my forehead, saying he’ll leave me to rest, and as he’s walking away, I blurt, “What you said that night.”
He’s already waving me off. “We don’t have to talk about it.”
“What I should’ve said was…” Because this is not a conversation for another time. Because he’s waited long enough to hear it. Because it’s true. “Me too. I should’ve said me too. I just … I need a minute.”
His entire demeanor visibly lifts, and in turn my body fills with helium. “Okay,” he says.
“Okay,” I say, matching his smile. My heart swells so quickly it hurts in every possible, complicated way. I have to catch my breath before saying, “One last thing.”
“Anything.”
“You never told me how that woman got out of the whale.”
He laughs, and it’s the best sound on earth. “You really want to know?”
“I’ve been waiting for ages.”
He grins. “Humpback whales can’t swallow humans. Their throats aren’t big enough.”
“You’re kidding. So he could never have eaten her in the first place?”
He shakes his head, and then his face grows serious. “She didn’t know that, though. When she was swept into that mouth she thought she was as good as dead.”
I hear what he’s saying. My eyes fill with tears. “You’ll visit tomorrow?”
His smile returns. “And every day after.”