The Hunt Club_ A Novel - Bret Lott [17]
Then came three tiny knocks at the door, my mom’s voice: “Honey? You okay in there?” She paused. “Honey, the nurse is here to check up on you.”
I looked at the piece of brown glass again. Constance Dupree Simons had come all the way here, the world looking for her, to hand me this, what looked like a paperweight you might buy at the Market downtown, except for the rough edges of the thing.
No one more invisible than a doctor’s wife, she’d said.
And tell him I loved him, she’d said, too.
“Honey, everything all right?” Mom said. “Huger?”
I looked in the mirror again. No bandages, my head no bigger than ever. But I knew something. In that head—my head—was something important enough to make her come to me.
The only problem was I had no idea what it could be.
“I’m okay,” I said. Then I leaned over to the toilet, flushed it. “Just using the toilet,” I said, and held the paperweight in my palm so no one would see it when I came out.
Next morning Dr. Buck came in early, woke me up. I lay on my stomach, my hand inside the pillowcase under the pillow, in it this glass thing. I squinted at him for the light above the bed again. I let go the paperweight, rolled over, sat up.
The blinds were open, the sky through them gray, though I could tell it wasn’t cloudy. Just early.
Mom’s cot was empty, the blanket and sheet they’d given her folded at the foot, the pillow set on top of them.
“Where’s Mom?” I said.
Dr. Buck put the clipboard on the bed, flashed that penlight in my eyes a couple times more, the pain almost gone. He put a hand to the back of my head, felt the bump back there.
“Can’t say as I know, bo,” he said, and gave a quick smile. He picked up the clipboard. “We’ll keep you here maybe another hour or so, then you’re good to go. Okay?”
I looked back to the window. Through the blinds I could see pieces of the tops of other buildings, pieces of palmettos and live oak and the red metal and gray slate roofs of old houses way off and down.
Charleston.
I closed my eyes. I wanted home: Hungry Neck.
“I’ll be ready,” I said.
He turned, went for the door, but stopped, and I opened my eyes. He looked at his clipboard, at me again. “That was something, yesterday.” He paused. “What happened. What you saw.” He put his hand up to the doorjamb, tapped his fingers.
“Yep,” I said.
“Hope your uncle’s okay.” He gave that quick smile. “Hope he’s all right out there without you.”
“He’s been alone before,” I said. “He’s a big boy.”
He tapped the doorjamb one last time. “You got that right, bo,” he said. Still his redneck talk didn’t sound right, or real. He cleared his throat. “You take it easy, hear? And give my best to your uncle, when you see him next.”
“Okay,” I said.
Mom showed up around eight, all her makeup on, hair done. She had a nice blouse and pants on and had a little carry bag with her, one of those flowery free things you get when you buy a few dollars of soap at the Belk. She was laughing when she came in, behind her a nurse, a big black woman with her hair pulled tight into a ponytail. She was pushing a wheelchair.
Mom got this big smile on her face, said, “My baby is awake!” and set the bag on the bed. “Dorinda here says Dr. Morrison’s signed you out already. I myself went home to get you some clean clothes, not to mention taking care of myself. Nothing like sleeping on a cot to give your hair a royal mess.” She sat at the foot of the bed. “But of course the doctor’s already here and gone.”
“The governor’s signed your reprieve,” the nurse said, smiling.
Mom was pulling stuff out of the carry bag now: a pair of jeans, socks, a green-and-white plaid shirt. “Dorinda’s going to wheel you out, once you get your clothes on.”
They