J. Jance - Trial By Fire

“Mimi,” Hal said from somewhere close at hand. “Are you awake?”

She was awake and yet she wasn’t. She didn’t want to leave Rover behind. Would she ever see him again?

But Hal was speaking to her insistently, and she needed to listen. She needed to pay attention. Struggling, she finally managed to open her eyes. Hal stood above her, smiling. He looked a little better. His hair was combed. He had shaved.

“I just got back from feeding Maggie,” he was saying. “If I’m gone for very long, the concierge says he’ll make sure someone walks her and feeds her.”

The concierge. What concierge? Our house doesn’t have a concierge. What is he thinking? But Maggie? If someone is walking her and feeding her, that must mean she’s all right. That means she didn’t die. They didn’t hurt her. Thank you, God. Thank you.

Hal was speaking to her again. She concentrated on the words coming out of his mouth, trying to make sense of them.

“Win and Serenity are outside,” he was saying. “Do you want to see them?”

See them? Of course she wanted to see them. Serenity could be a bitch at times, and there were occasions when Win looked and sounded so much like his father that she wanted to haul off and hit him. She sometimes wondered if he was like his father in other ways besides looks and voice. Was Win faithful to his new wife, or did he cheat on her the same way his father had cheated on Mimi? And what was her daughter-in-law’s name again?

Try as she might, Mimi couldn’t quite dredge it up. She knew the two of them were expecting a baby sometime soon, and that the baby was a boy-would be a boy. This would be Mimi’s very first grandchild, but she still couldn’t remember Win’s wife’s name.

Why are names so tricky? Why was it she knew Rover’s name so well, but not her daughter-in-law’s or, for a time, not even her own?

But yes, these were Mimi’s children, warts and all. Despite Serenity’s and Win’s shortcomings and despite their disagreements, she still loved them. She wanted to see them. One blink for yes. One blink for yes, absolutely.

“Sister Anselm says it might be better if you see them together,” Hal went on. “She’s afraid seeing them one at a time will tire you too much. I’m worried about that, too. So is it all right to have them both in at the same time?”

What Mimi wanted to do right then was to close her eyes and listen to the comforting sound of Hal’s voice. She loved his voice. Sometimes he sang in the shower, and she liked that, too. His solid baritone. Maybe he would sing to her here, if she could just ask him.

But he wasn’t singing right now. He was patiently asking the same question in a different fashion. A yes or no fashion. “Together?” he repeated.

One blink for yes. For together. Because after that, after they left, Hal would still be here, talking to her and pushing the button. Because Mimi knew it was almost time for that. She knew it and so did he. She wasn’t sure how. It had something to do with that little thing that Sister Anselm carried around in her pocket. When it made that funny noise, they all knew it was time for someone to push the button.

“All right, then,” Hal said. “I’ll go get them. It’ll take a moment for them to get dressed. Don’t go away.”

Was he kidding? Where would she go? Of course she wouldn’t go away. How could she?

Mimi drifted for a time. The pain was there and getting stronger and pulling her toward it. Into it. They needed to hurry, otherwise…

She heard the door swing open. Win came first. She saw the shocked expression on his face. It must be terrible for them to have to see me this way.

Mimi’s son made a brave attempt at a cheerful smile. “Hi, Mom,” he said. “How’re you doing?”

Mimi couldn’t answer. It wasn’t a yes or no question. She wanted to say that she was fine, even though she wasn’t. That’s what you told your kids-that you were fine, even if you were dying. Suddenly that idea came home to her. Maybe that’s what this was all about. Maybe she was dying. If that was the case, would someone tell her, or would they leave her to figure it out on her own?

But she couldn’t tell Win that she was fine.

Win stepped to one side and Sandra… Not Sandra, Mimi reminded herself firmly. Serenity. We’re supposed to call her Serenity now!… Serenity moved into Mimi’s field of vision. The horrified look on her daughter’s face didn’t leave much to the imagination.

“Oh, Mother,” she wailed, and then she turned away, collapsing, sobbing, into Hal’s arms. Mimi saw the momentary shock on Hal’s face; then he put his arms around Serenity’s quaking shoulders and led her from the room.

That’s good, Mimi thought. The fact that Serenity had turned to Hal for help surprised her. Pleased her. But what was even more surprising was how very much Serenity had looked like her grandmother just then. She could have been a twin to the woman Mimi had been walking with on the beach a little while before Hal woke her up.

Serenity was what, thirty-nine now? Forty? However old she was, she looked like her grandmother, And probably like me, too, Mimi thought.

“Amy sends her love,” Win said.

Amy. That was Win’s wife’s name-Amy. Win stood there looking down at her, as if he was waiting for Mimi to say something, waiting for her to respond.

Someone needs to give him the code, Mimi thought. One blink. Two blinks. But if Win didn’t know the code of yes and no, had anyone told him about the button? It was almost time now. Mimi wanted it. She needed it.

Then Hal was back, standing looking at her over Win’s shoulder. “She’ll be all right,” he said.

At first Mimi thought he was talking about her-that she would be all right-but then she realized that wasn’t true. Hal was talking about Serenity. She would be all right. Mimi would not.

“Do you want me to push the button?” he asked.

Now he was talking to her. About her. One blink for yes. One blink for push the button.

Please.

For a moment after Hal led Serenity and Win Langley into their mother’s room, the waiting room was perfectly quiet. It seemed to Ali that she had the place all to herself. Then Mark spoke up. James’s friend was sitting behind her and off to one side, just out of her line of vision.

“He’s right, isn’t he?” Mark said accusingly. “That is what you’re doing-you’re taking down everything they say.”

Ali had paid the bill, but she still owed the young man something for the kindness of that cup of coffee and the Rice Krispies Treat, so she told him the truth.

“Yes, I am,” she admitted quietly, “but don’t tell them that.”

“Why?” Mark asked. “Is it because you and that nun think one of them did this?”

Obviously Ali wasn’t the only person in the room who had taken an interest in what was going on around him. Ali turned to face him. At first she wasn’t going to answer, but then she did.

She nodded. “Maybe,” she said.

“That’s what I’m thinking, too,” Mark Levy said. “I was listening the whole time that cop was asking them questions. That woman seemed a lot more upset about someone stealing her mother’s painting than she was about what happened to her mother.”

That had been Ali’s impression as well. Just then the door to Mimi Cooper’s room swung open, and Hal led Serenity out into the waiting room. She was leaning against him and sobbing hysterically. He eased her into a chair.

While Hal went in search of a box of tissues, Ali wondered if Serenity’s tears were real or if this was more a performance than anything else.

Ali glanced from Serenity back to Mark. He replied to that look with a small shake of his head that seemed to confirm that, he, too, thought Serenity’s tears were entirely fake. And why would Serenity pretend to be grief-stricken if she wasn’t?