Chelsea Cain - Heartsick

“Sure.” Claire plucked a piece of gum from the jar and handed it to Susan.

Susan unwrapped it and put it in her mouth. Her hands were still sore from the tape, and her wrists were raw. The gum was sugary and hard. “It’s stale,” Susan declared sadly.

“Just a few more questions,” Claire said. “Before your mother breaks down the door.”

“My mom’s here?” Susan asked, surprised.

“Outside,” Henry said. “They practically had to put her in a half-nelson to keep her out of here while we wrapped up.”

Bliss was there. Bliss had come and was waiting for her. It was something a mother would do. Susan imagined the cops having to deal with her. Bliss was probably bossing everyone around, threatening to go to the Citizen’s Police Action Committee. Susan smiled happily.

“What?” said Claire.

“Nothing,” Susan said. “Go ahead.” They had been going over the same questions for almost an hour. Susan felt that she had recounted, minute by minute, every interaction she’d had with Paul Reston since she was fourteen years old. She had told them how he had manipulated Addy. Now she didn’t want to think about him anymore. Her head throbbed. The EMTs had used butterfly bandages to tape the cut on her forehead shut, but she was going to have a hell of a black eye in the morning. She wanted a cigarette. And a bath. And she wanted her mother.

Claire was leaning against one wall, Henry against the other. “You’re sure he didn’t mention any other girls, girls we might not know about?” Claire asked.

“I’m sure,” Susan said.

“And you didn’t save any letters that he sent?”

There had been hundreds of them. She had tossed them in the bonfire on her dead father’s birthday while she was still in college. “I got rid of them all. Years ago.”

Claire gave Susan a careful appraisal. “And you’re okay? You don’t need to go to the hospital?”

Susan touched her neck, where an ugly red mark had formed. It stung, but it would heal. “I’ll be fine.”

There was a knock at the door and Henry opened it and Archie Sheridan walked in.

“Maybe we can wrap this up in the morning?” he asked. “Let Susan go home and get some sleep?”

“Sure,” Henry said. He glanced at his watch and turned to Claire. “You still up for heading back to McCallum’s?”

“For what?” Archie asked.

“He wants to see if he can find that goddamn cat,” Claire said. She made a face at Archie. “He’s such a softy.”

“What?” said Henry as he and Claire left the office. “I like cats.”

Archie’s hair and clothes glistened with condensation. He looked like something that had been left in the yard overnight and now was covered with dew. Susan wanted to leap into his arms. “You’re all wet,” she observed.

“It’s raining,” Archie said.

“Thank God,” Susan muttered. And then she started to cry. She felt Archie kneel down next to her and put his arm around her and pull her into his wet corduroy blazer. She let herself sob. Not because she wanted to, but because she couldn’t stop it. Her whole body shook, gasping for air. She hid her face. Archie smelled like rain. His sweater scratched her cheek, but she didn’t care. After a few minutes, she looked up and saw that Henry and Claire were gone.

“Feel better?” Archie asked softly.

Susan held her hands out in front of her and watched them quaver. “No.”

“Afraid?” he asked.

Susan considered this. “The expression ‘scared shitless’ comes to mind.”

Archie looked her in the eyes. “It’ll pass,” he said.

She examined his face, his eyes full of kindness, his pupils tiny. That had been quite a performance on the boat. If it had been a performance. “What are you afraid of, Archie?” she asked.

He slid her an amused, suspicious glance. “Is this for your story?”

“Yes.” She looked at him for a minute and then laughed. “But we can go off the record if you want.”

He was thoughtful and then his face grew dark and he seemed to shake some prickly idea from his head. “I think I’m done being a subject for a while,” he said.

She nodded, and in that moment she realized that Archie had never told her anything, never let her see anything, that he didn’t want her to know. It didn’t matter. He could have his secrets. She was done with hers. “He said that I was his person,” she told him. “He said that we all have people in the world we belong to. Connect with. And that I was his. He said that there was no denying it.”

Archie laid his hand on her arm. “He was wrong.”

She rested her fist on Archie’s chest. “Well, anyway,” she said, “this is going to sound dorky, but thanks for saving my life.”

“It doesn’t sound dorky at all.”

She leaned forward and kissed him. It was a light kiss on the lips. He didn’t move. He didn’t reciprocate, but he didn’t pull away, either. When she opened her eyes, he smiled at her gently.

“You’ve got to get over that,” he said. “The older men in authority thing.”

She made a face. “Right. I’ll get right on that.”

Susan walked outof the office into the foyer of the patrol office. She saw her mother before her mother saw her. Bliss’s red lipstick was faded and she looked small in her big leopard-print coat. Quentin Parker, Derek the Square, and Ian Harper were huddled a few yards away from her, and Bliss stood by herself against the wall. Ian saw Susan and smiled, but Susan barely gave him a glance as she went straight to her mother. Bliss looked up and burst into tears and wrapped her arms around Susan. She reeked of menthols and wet old fur and pressed against Susan like they might merge into one person. Susan was aware of her colleagues watching, but she was only slightly mortified.

“They told me about Reston,” Bliss said in a shaky whisper. “I’m so sorry, baby. I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Susan said. She peeled her mother off of her and kissed her on the cheek. “I think it’s going to be okay now.”

She squinted past them through a bank of rain-splattered windows and for a second she thought it was daylight, until she realized that the lights were from the TV cameras. She was news and they all wanted a shot of her for the local morning shows. She was definitely going to have to do something different with her hair. Maybe dye it blue.

“Hey,” Susan said to her mother. “Can I bum a cigarette?”

Bliss’s brow furrowed. “You’ll get lung cancer,” she said.

Susan fixed her steely gaze on her mother. “Give me a cigarette, Bliss.”

Bliss dug a pack of menthols out of her enormous purse and held one out toward Susan. Then withdrew it when Susan reached for it. “Call me Mom,” she said.

“Give me a cigarette.” Susan paused and scrunched her face up with effort. “Mom.”

“Now try Mother dearest.”

“Give me the fucking cigarette.”

Bliss laughed and handed Susan the cigarette and then pressed a plastic lighter into her hands.

Parker stepped forward. “We need to talk,” he said to Susan. “And only partially because I want to scoop the assholes waiting outside.”

“I’ll give you the facts,” Susan said. “But I’m filing a harrowing personal account in the morning.”

There was Ian. He was wearing a Yankees sweatshirt and jeans, clearly pulled on after a middle-of-the-night phone call, and all she could think was, You went to sleep when you knew I was missing? You asshole.

But he looked at her like nothing had changed. Like she hadn’t changed. Well, she hadn’t changed. But she planned to. She put the cigarette in her mouth, lit it, and handed the lighter back to her mother. She only vaguely noticed that her hand was still trembling.