Gregg Hurwitz - You're Next

‘It’s Friday,’ she said. ‘I know Mom’s not… she can’t… but maybe you and I could-’

‘Not right now.’ He struggled to hide his apprehension. His tone gave off more irritation than he would have liked.

‘Why not?’

‘ Because .’ He glanced over at her. ‘Oh, come on. What?’

‘You yelled at me.’

‘I didn’t yell at you.’

Vehicles clogged the exit. Two, three streetlight changes should be enough to shove them through onto residential streets. Then he could weave for a while, find another motel, hole up until… until what ?

He risked another glance over. Kat’s face was flushed, the skin puffy around the bridge of her nose, as it got before she cried. What could he do? Half the time she was more mature than he was, but right now she was eight and missed her mother and wanted ice cream.

Fifteen minutes and twenty constipated blocks later, he found a Rite Aid. Kat sat on a Lilliputian chair by the ice-cream counter. She ate her Rocky Road looking down into the cone.

He was not forgiven.

Watching her nibble around the scoop, savoring each bite with almost mournful focus, he realized that the scene felt like a last meal.

Back in the car, amped on sugar, Kat’s anger boiled away. She strained at the seat belt, singing, ‘ Miiiss Suzy was a ki-iid, a ki-iid, a ki-iid. Miss Suzy was a ki-iid, and this is what she said-’

Mike drove, fumbling at the wheel, cell phone at his face. ‘The doc get the fax?’

Shep said, ‘Just.’

‘ Waah waah, suck my thumb , gimme a piece o’ bubble gum-’

‘What now?’

‘Don’t know,’ Shep said. ‘But wherever Annabel goes, we can’t keep tabs on her anymore. We have to sever all contact. It’s the only way to keep her safe.’

‘What if she-’

‘You have to let her go.’

‘- was a tee-nager, a tee-nager, a tee-nager, Miss Suzy was a teenager, and this is what -’

‘I can’t . She’s my wife. I need to know how she’s doing.’

‘Even if that kills her?’

Mike fought his face back into place. Took a few breaths. ‘Anything on Kiki Dupleshney?’ he asked.

‘I just put out the word twelve hours ago.’

‘- piece o’ bubble gum , go to your room, oooo aah , lost my bra-’

‘I know, Shep, but-’ Mike looked over at Kat, finishing the thought in his head: But I don’t know how much longer my daughter can hold up .

Snowball II got into the song and dance now, swinging along, Kat kicking up the stuffed-animal legs, a Vegas revue gone polar. She was punch drunk, coming apart at the seams. She needed to run in circles until she fell down.

Shep said, ‘Cat-and-mouse games take a lotta waiting, Mike. You know that.’

Traffic had loosened; Mike had a full tank of gas and nowhere to go.

Miss Suzy’s life cycle had drawn to a close: ‘- to heh-ven, to heh-ven, Miss Suzy went to heh-ven, and this is what she said .’

He set the phone in his lap and watched the streetlights whip by overhead. All those people on the sidewalks, shopping and pushing strollers, going about their normal lives.

Seven hours until that first flight departed for St. Louis.

‘- oooo aah , lost my bra , help me , choke choke choke, tra -laaaaaa! ’

A nanosecond of silence.

Mike exhaled with relief.

‘Miiiiiiiiiiiss Suzy was a bay-bee, a bay-bee, a bay-bee-’

They passed a public park with grassy hills and picnic tables and jungle gyms. Severing the third verse, Mike pulled off, and they used the bathrooms. He waited nervously outside the women’s room until Kat reappeared. They sat at one of the picnic tables, Mike wearing the rucksack and digging through the grocery bags to come up with food. He found himself checking the parking lot, the trees along the perimeter, the guy in shades walking his dog. Kat picked at her food. He couldn’t blame her; they’d had peanut butter for five straight meals, and the bread was stale.

‘That sandwich isn’t gonna eat itself,’ he said.

‘But if it did,’ Kat replied, ‘that would be really cool.’

‘Want me to get you a hot lunch somewhere?’

‘No. Really. This is fine.’ Kat took a bite, made a big show of chomping to emphasize the hardship. He soaked in the smart-ass sight of her.

Clouds moved overhead, dimming the park a few watts. Mike thought about a one-way no-companion ticket to St. Louis. 5:30 P.M. Her boarding passes crinkled in his back pocket. He fussed with his fingers. Cleared his throat. ‘Your mother and I, when we got married… Man, did we want a baby. We wanted you more than anything . Do you know that?’

Kat nodded impatiently, her eyes on the fenced jungle gym below. ‘Can I play?’

He fought his voice steady. ‘Of course, honey,’ he managed.

She bolted down the slope, leaving her sandwich behind. He cleaned up and followed, watching from outside the fence. He indulged in a brief fantasy: her on a tire swing in an expansive St. Louis backyard, Annabel’s brother waiting on the porch with his new bride and some lemonade.

He thought of that playground from his childhood, of the wail of that distant bell and how he’d emerged from the yellow tunnel to see the empty parking spaces along the curb. Can you tell me who you belong to?

His heart was racing. Needing to be closer, he circled the fence and pushed Kat on the swings. For a time there was nothing but the sand under his feet, a pleasant breeze, and his daughter rotating away and back, away and back. Her curly hair, flying up in his face, was badly tangled and smelled like fruit punch. The scene, this scene, never changed. She could have been two or five. He could have been twenty-nine or thirty-three.

He pushed her, his hands light against her back, letting her go, catching her, letting her go again.

Holding Mike’s faxed transfer order, Dr Cha appeared in Annabel’s room, where she had left Shep, baffled.

‘I will need to have a conversation with the receiving doctor. Then I’ll require a signature from the critical-care transport team.’

Shep said, ‘Huh?’

Dr Cha said, ‘Do you think you could arrange that for me?’

Shep said, ‘What?’

Dr Cha said, ‘Excellent,’ and disappeared.

Shep turned to Annabel to see if she was keeping up any better than he was, but she remained still on the mattress, hair matted, eyes closed.

The bedside phone rang. And again. And again.

Shep trudged over and picked up. ‘Yeah?’

‘This is Dr Cha. And this is…?’

A very long pause.

Shep said, ‘Dr Dubronski.’

‘Dr Dubronski, have the risks of transfer been explained to the health-care proxy?’

Shep picked at his teeth with a nail. ‘They have.’

‘Are you familiar with Annabel Wingate’s case?’

‘I am.’

‘Would you like to discuss the plan of care now or once the transfer is complete?’

‘Once it’s complete.’

‘Excellent. Will you be sending your own critical-care transport team?’

‘No?’ Silence. ‘Yes.’

Click. Dial tone.

Light footsteps, a brief knock on the door, and then Dr Cha reappeared with a form on a clipboard. She tapped cheerily with a pen. ‘I’ll need a signature here.’

Shep scribbled something.

She glanced down at the page. ‘Insert doctor-handwriting joke here.’ She kicked the green foot pedal and wheeled Annabel’s bed out from the wall, guiding it into Shep’s hands. Steering the attached cart and IV pole, Dr Cha walked Shep down the hall and into the elevator, then leaned in and hit the button for the third floor.