I hung up with Mr. Andora, feeling drained but relieved. I’d done it. The hardest part, and I’d done it. But then the phone started up, jangling all through The House. I plugged an ear. Had our phone always sounded so piercing? I snatched it off the receiver, less interested in answering it than in making it stop.
“This is Linda Donnelly,” said the voice on the other end of the line, the name sounding familiar but far too distant to grasp. “I’m a resident in training at Tallahassee Memorial. Who am I speaking to?”
“Pamela Schumacher,” I said. “I’m the chapter president of The House.”
“I know who you are,” she said. “Do you remember me?”
I cast around for some kind of clue, but it was as if my memory had melted, like those clocks in the Dalí poster Denise had hung over her head.
“I’m your scholastic adviser. I was chapter of the 1967 class.”
“I apologize,” I said, mortified. I could not believe I’d blanked on the name of a member of our advisory board. I did not see how the evening, the morning, whatever we were in, could get any worse.
“Forgiven. You’ve had quite a night, from what I’ve gathered around here. Do you need anything? Can I help?”
“That is so kind, Dr. Donnelly,” I said with extravagant deference, hoping to make up for my earlier gaffe. “I’m hoping they let us go see the girls soon. Actually, would you be able to share their room numbers with us?”
There was a half-second pause. “Eileen and Jill are both in surgery at the moment, but I can get you that information once they’re out.”
“Thank you,” I said. “And what about Denise and Robbie?”
That pause again, but there was fear in it. I could sense it through the phone. “You mean for identification purposes?”
My hand, on the stainless-steel counter, was slick enough to slip. I buffed away the smudges I’d left behind with the switchblade of my elbow. “What do you mean, for identification purposes?”
“I mean identifying the bodies.”
“I’m confused,” I said testily, though I wasn’t. I couldn’t have been, otherwise I never would have taken a tone with an alumna. I must have understood enough that I knew I would be forgiven, that what had happened occupied the realm of the unforgivable.
“Robbie and Denise expired before they reached the hospital,” Dr. Donnelly informed me clinically. “Did no one tell you this?”
There was a calendar on the wall. A circle around today’s date. It was Super Bowl Sunday, I remembered. Denise was meant to make the dip for the party we’d been invited to later. I’d have to let them know, I thought, that they would be down a dish.
“I was told they were fine.”
“Who told you that?” Dr. Donnelly demanded.
“The sheriff.”
“Put him on the phone, right now,” she said, sounding impatient and bossy. Sounding like me. “Do you have anyone else there to advocate for you? A school official or anything like that?”
I shook my head numbly, then remembered she couldn’t see me. “No.”
“I’ll be there as soon as my shift ends. That’s in one hour. Okay? Can you go and put the sheriff on the line now?”
“Yes,” I said, and set down the phone. Realizing something, I picked it up again. “No, actually. I mean, not right now. I need to call Robbie’s and Denise’s parents.”
“That’s his job.”
“No,” I said. “You don’t understand. I just told them Robbie and Denise were fine. I have to be the one to make it right.”
“You called them and told them…” Dr. Donnelly trailed off as she absorbed the full impact of what I’d done. “Okay,” she said softly. “I’ll be there soon. I need you to hang in there for me, okay, Pamela? We’re going to help you.”
I was shaking my head no. Hanging in there was just not possible after what I’d done.
“Pamela?”
“Okay,” I lied.
* * *
It is the moment that visits me in the middle of a meal at my favorite Italian restaurant, when the pedicurist sets the timer for the five-minute massage, or while I am decorating the house for Christmas. You don’t deserve to feel pleasure, this moment reminds me, not when you caused this level of pain.
“Yes!” Mrs. Andora cried when she picked up the phone a second time. “We’re on our way. We’re running out the door!”