First Thrills - Lee Child [138]
“Don’t cry,” he said, reaching out for her hand. Before she could stop herself, she took his hand, felt the coldness of his skin. Had it been like this since Zack’s death? The truth was that the reason she couldn’t make love to John was because his touch sent a deathly chill through her. Had John been a ghost all this time? Had he cried so many tears, wept for so many nights, that the life had seeped out of him?
He was wearing silk pajamas, a dark burgundy that only brought out the sallowness of his skin. There was a blanket folded at the end of the bed, his feet resting on top of it.
He said, “Gross,” and she took a minute to realize he meant his toenails. They were long and yellow, disgusting to look at. “John Hughes.”
“Howard Hughes,” she corrected before she could stop herself.
There was a flash in his eyes, but he didn’t pursue it. The John she knew would have never let her get away with correcting him. For the first time since she had heard from him, Pam realized that he really was dying, that this was it. No matter what she did with her life, where she went, she would do so with the knowledge that John no longer walked the face of the earth.
Granted, he would be in stasis in a vat of liquid nitrogen somewhere, but still.
“Remember,” he began. “With Zack . . . you bit . . . his toenails.”
She felt herself smile at the memory. Once, very early on, she had accidentally trimmed one of Zack’s nails to the quick. Her heart had broken at the sight of blood, and Zack’s screaming still reverberated in her ears if she thought about it long enough. After that, she had used her teeth to clip his nails, terrified she would hurt him with the sharp metal clippers. Standing beside John’s deathbed, she could almost feel Zack’s thin nails between her teeth, taste the sour, baby-soft skin of his feet.
“I . . .” John moved the mask back over his mouth and nose, and she could see his chest rising and falling. “I need to . . .”
She shushed him. “It’s okay.”
“I want to . . .”
“Don’t worry,” she said, thinking that if he apologized now, she wouldn’t know what to do with herself.
He took a few deep breaths, his eyes slitting almost closed. Suddenly, he opened them wide as if he remembered that he could die if he closed them too long. “I . . . I left you something.”
Years had passed, but she could still remember the shame she had felt when she’d had to ask him for lunch money because she’d run through her allowance before the week was out.
He had refused her request and told her to be more careful the next time.
“I left . . . you . . . something.”
She tried to keep her anger down, saying, “I told you I don’t want your money.”
“Not money,” he said, his lips twisting in a half smile. “Better.”
“Don’t give me anything, John. I don’t want anything from you.” Why had she come here? Why had she agreed to get on a plane and fly all the way out here?
To watch him die. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she had known it all along that she wanted to watch him die, watch John succumb to something over which he had no control. She had wanted to see death wipe that knowing smirk off his face, and she wanted to be standing over him while this happened, watch him realize that there was one thing out there that he could not get the better of. Let the world think of him as their loving healer, but let Pam watch him die with them both knowing what a lying, conniving piece of shit he was.
The heart monitor gave an irregular beep and the oxygen mask cleared of fog from his breath. She waited, counting . . . one . . . two . . . three . . . until he took a gulp of air into his lungs, the machinery of life moving forward.
Pam felt ashamed. What kind of person was she that she could take such plea sure in his pain? How could think these things about the father of her child?
John’s chest rose with effort. “Need to tell you . . .” he tried again.
“No,” she said. She couldn’t hear his apology, not now, not after hating him for so long. “Please don’t.” She could not bear more shame.