“You found her, Noah. You saved her. How will I ever repay you?”
Noah could only shake his head, guilt and grief making him resistant to her praise. Alma told him she would be back with coffee and fresh clothes for him to change into, and left them alone, pressing a kiss to her daughter’s forehead. Mer waited for her to leave before she disregarded the doctor’s orders.
“I saw her,” Mercedes whispered, her eyes steady on his. They were red-rimmed and bloodshot, and two dark circles were forming beneath them. His had looked the same when he’d encountered his reflection in the bathroom mirror.
“Who?”
“Cora.” Mer blinked rapidly, trying to hold back the tears, but they escaped and slid down her cheeks and hid in her dark hair. Someone had washed it, and it lay damp against the white pillows.
“I froze,” she continued, her voice rough. “I was in that room, terrified that if I moved he would hear me and come back, but knowing I had to get out or I would burn.”
“Mer,” he moaned, wanting to beg her to stop, but her words kept coming, washing him in horror.
“Keegan was there with someone. A man. I couldn’t see him. But he killed Keegan. Shot him right in the head. And then he made a bonfire. I was hiding under the shelves,” she rushed. “I managed to slide out, and I called 911, but I couldn’t wait for help, and I couldn’t go out the door without walking through the fire. So I went up.”
“Up?”
“I climbed the shelves, and I pushed out a ceiling tile and crawled out on one of the rafters. There was so much smoke, and I was coughing. I was afraid I’d fall. Then I saw her. I kept crawling toward her. I shouldn’t have been able to see her. I couldn’t see anything else.”
“She was part of the smoke,” he said, overcome.
“Yeah. She was,” Mercedes agreed tearfully. But she continued, not asking him how he knew. “Once I was up, I had to get back down. I slipped. One minute there was a beam beneath me, the next minute there wasn’t. I remember falling right through the ceiling tiles, but nothing after that. They think I hit my head and knocked myself out. But I know what I saw.” She was quiet for a moment, her eyes fierce, her lips trembling.
“I saw her too, Mer.”
Their eyes met and held, and for several heartbeats, they said nothing and everything without exchanging a word.
“I didn’t know for sure you were even inside. But I saw her . . . and she helped me find you,” Noah said. “I didn’t save you . . . Cora did.”
“Of course she did.” Mercedes whispered. “We always save each other, remember? It’s what we do.”
For a moment they clung to each other, their emotion making conversation impossible. But after several minutes, Noah pulled back, anxious to speak.
“I’m sorry, Mer, for all the things I said,” Noah choked out. “I was angry. Hurt. Embarrassed. But none of this was your fault.”
“I made such a mess of things,” she said. “I was trying to fix something that I couldn’t fix, and I made everything worse.”
“We save each other, remember? It’s what we do,” he repeated, but this time his voice was wry. “But we can’t save Cora from this.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve spent my whole life not having a clue who my dad is. I don’t want that for Gia. Someday I’m going to have to have a conversation with her and explain things like infidelity and use words like ‘bio dad.’ I hate that. I am her father, but I will have to strip that from her, I will have to take that from her. The comfort, the sense of self, her place in the world. It will all be shaken. Even if she’s the most confident, well-adjusted kid in the world, even if I love her as hard as I can, she’s going to be hurt by that revelation. Cora put me in a position where I have to harm my daughter, and that just sucks so bad. The betrayal—the fact that she messed around on me—that was the easiest thing to face. But she robbed Gia. And that’s going to take me a while to get over.”
“She robbed you both.”
“Yeah. She did. And yet . . . I’m still trying to protect her. You’re still trying to protect her.”
“Old habits.”
“Yeah. So you didn’t tell me what you knew. And I didn’t tell you what I knew. We just suffered and worried,” he said gently. “We can’t do that anymore.”
“Okay,” she whispered.
“Okay?”
She nodded slowly, her throat working. “Mami said the police want to talk to me.”
“They’re going to want to talk to us both. I talked to them a little already,” Noah agreed, nodding.
“Do they think I killed Keegan?”
Noah reared back, stunned. “Why would they think that?”
“Because I . . . paid him . . . to leave. And he came back. I had good reason to hate Keegan, and I was there when he died.”
“You paid Keegan to leave?” Noah gasped, incredulous.
She nodded, wincing with the movement of her head.
“Mercedes,” he breathed. “Why?”
“He promised he would go and leave you and Gia alone.”
“How much money did you give him?” Noah pressed, anger billowing up his charred throat.
For a moment Mercedes didn’t answer, and Noah raised her chin and made her meet his gaze. Fear and remorse warred in her eyes, and he smoothed the hair back from her face.
“How much, Mer?”
“Twenty grand.”
“Mercedes Lopez,” Noah whispered. “What the hell were you thinking?”
“I couldn’t let him do it. I couldn’t let him take Gia,” she cried, her face crumpling with the confession.
Noah pulled her into his arms and held her as sobs wracked her small body. Mer cried like she’d been holding it all in for decades.
Noah wanted to cry with her, but he was too stunned. Too humbled. He’d known Mercedes for twenty-two years, and she never ceased to blow him away.
***
Twenty
2003
“Dem bones, dem bones, gonna walk around,” Mercedes sang softly, touching the tiny newborn, lying in her arms. Her ears, her hands, her feet, her nose. She was so perfect. So peaceful. So sweet.
“The foot bone connected to the leg bone,
The leg bone connected to the knee bone,
The knee bone connected to the thigh bone,
Oh, hear the word of the Lord!
“Don’t sing that one,” Cora whispered from the bed nearby. “You’ll give her nightmares.”
“I thought you were asleep, Mama,” Mercedes crooned, still looking down at the sleeping baby. Cora had labored for almost twenty-four hours to bring Gia into the world. She needed to rest while she could.
Mercedes had been beside her for most of those twenty-four hours. She was exhausted too, but mostly she was relieved. Heather would be coming back soon to stay with Cora and the baby through the night.
“Sing something else,” Cora murmured. “Sing the one about the angels with no shoes.”
Mercedes complied, singing about the gates of heaven and the barefoot angels, asking God to bless the children who sleep and the mothers who watch over them.
“Cora, what’s wrong, honey? Why are you crying?” Mercedes asked, abandoning the lullaby when she saw her friend’s tears.
“I’m not sure. Happy. Glad it’s over. Glad she’s here,” Cora said, her lips trembling. Mercedes decided she had every right to cry. It had been a grueling nine months and an emotional delivery. Cora had weakened as the end neared, informing Mercedes that she couldn’t possibly give birth.
“I can’t do this,” Cora had groaned. “I don’t want to do this. I changed my mind.”
Mercedes had laughed, but swallowed her mirth as Cora leveled her with a look so venomous she’d checked her reflection in the mirror above the bed to make sure her eyelashes weren’t singed off.
They had walked, up and down the halls, Cora leaning on Mercedes when a bad wave hit, and it was then that Cora revealed the names she’d chose
n.
“If it’s a boy, I want him to be called Noah. Noah Michael. Michael for my dad. If it’s a girl, Gia Mercedes Andelin. Gia was my dad’s mother. She was Italian and Grandpa was Irish. Dad and I got his genes, but at least Gia can have Grandma’s name,” Cora had panted.
Mercedes had been peppering Cora with names from the moment she’d heard the news, but Cora had refused to tell her what she was considering. She wanted it to be a surprise. She’d also refused to find out the baby’s sex. Mercedes had considered bribing the ultrasound technician to give her the information on the down low so she could be prepared. Unfortunately, the tech was honorable—the doctor too—and nobody would tell her what the baby’s gender was. She’d suffered and seethed for seven interminable months, culling the Goodwill for the best items in impossibly boring neutrals. She’d wheedled and begged, but Cora hadn’t budged, until now.
“I’m telling you in case something happens to me,” Cora had groaned.
“Stop. Nothing is going to happen to you. You’re in a hospital surrounded by medical personnel. You’re perfectly healthy. Your best friend is a force of nature—”
“That’s true.”
“—And you are about to have a little girl who needs her mother.”
Cora had emitted a tortured moan, clinging to Mercedes, who wobbled in her heels but planted her feet and held tight until Cora’s contraction waned.
“You said little girl,” Cora had panted. “Do you know something I don’t?”
“Just a feeling. And my gut is rarely wrong. You know this. Plus . . . I need a namesake.”
Her gut hadn’t been wrong.
Two hours later, Gia Mercedes Andelin came into the world, and Mercedes had been poised to catch her and lay her on her mother’s breast. Now, washed and weighed, poked and pricked, tiny Gia Andelin was swaddled and sleeping, and Mercedes was enjoying every second.
“Duérmete niño, duérmete niño, duérmete niño, arrú arrú,” she sang while Cora listened, still silently weeping.
“Noah was happy,” Cora whispered, tears trailing down her cheeks. She closed her eyes and brushed at her wet cheeks wearily.
“I’ve never seen him so happy,” Mercedes answered, touching Gia’s tiny fingers, and smiling as the infant instinctively wrapped Mer’s finger in her fist.
“I thought maybe he would want a boy,” Cora sighed.
“Noah? The man whose best friends growing up were girls? He wouldn’t know what to do with a boy.”
When the connection was made and Noah was patched through via Skype, he was indeed thrilled. He’d looked weary—almost like the wait and worry had been its own form of labor. When Mer had lifted Gia up so he could see her, he’d greeted her warmly, but his eyes were glued to his daughter’s pale hair, her round cheeks, and her rosebud mouth.
“Look what you did, Corey,” he had breathed. “Look at that beautiful little girl. Look at our baby girl.”
When they’d signed off, he’d been beaming.
“He already loves her,” Cora murmured, her voice so soft, Mercedes considered not responding. Cora was almost asleep, her tears drying on her cheeks.
“Of course he does,” Mercedes whispered, but her eyes were on Gia. “One look is all it took. One look, Gia Mercedes, and it was all over. You’ve got your daddy wrapped around your tiny finger.”
“Just pray he never lets go,” Cora murmured. “Gia needs a daddy. Every girl needs a daddy.”
* * *
They found Keegan Tate’s body amid the burned wreckage of the salon. The fire had caused significant damage and Mercedes was no longer the only stylist at Maven out of work. Gloria Maven had begged her to come back when the restoration was complete, making big promises and dangling incentives. Mercedes hadn’t agreed to anything yet. She had a new goal—or an old dream—in mind.
The police questioned Noah and Mercedes extensively, both together and separately, adding Cuddy’s scattered testimony to the picture, and they were eventually cleared of all suspicion. Two days after the fire, Doze had been apprehended, and they would all be testifying against him when his trial began. Keegan Tate had gotten involved with the wrong people. And it had gotten him killed.
Detective Zabriskie said charges would be pressed against Cuddy for the joyride in Mercedes’s car, but when Noah intervened on his behalf, he was released from police custody as well, cautioning them to keep an eye on him.
“He’s got a bad history. Don’t let your guard down.” Detective Zabriskie warned, processing Cuddy’s release with a wariness Cuddy probably deserved, but Cuddy’s countenance fell and his shoulder hunched in shame, even as Noah explained what would happen next.
“You know I work at a special hospital, right Cuddy?” Noah asked, waiting for Cuddy’s eyes to rise to his.
“Montlake,” Cuddy muttered.
“Yeah. Montlake. The authorities don’t want to let you go to wander the streets. They want you admitted or incarcerated. They’re afraid you’re going to hurt yourself or someone else . . . even if it’s unintentional.”
“I don’t hurt people, Noah.”
“I believe you, Cuddy. But the car incident, combined with your record, doesn’t make them feel very confident. And there have been some complaints from businesses around Maven.”
“No one ever said anything. I didn’t think they even saw me,” Cuddy said.
Noah nodded. It was a sad truth. But people saw the homeless and the indigent. The problem was, they didn’t want to see.
“We have some programs at Montlake—I think I could get some state funding for you to stay there for ninety days. You could get some treatment. You would be clean. Fed. Looked after. And we could talk. Every day. And we could figure out how to make you feel better.”
“At Montlake?” Cuddy asked, awestruck.
“At Montlake,” Noah replied.
“And you’ll be my doctor?”
“If that’s what you want. We have lots of good therapists and doctors at Montlake.”
“What about my rocks?”
“You can’t take your rocks to Montlake. But I’ll keep them for you. All of them. And when you’re through the treatment plan, you can have them back if you still want them.”
“Why wouldn’t I want them?” Cuddy asked, his brows lowering.
“Well . . . if you start feeling better, maybe you won’t need rocks to keep you grounded.”
“I won’t need them to keep me from floating away?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay. But I love rocks. I especially love the one you gave me. Did Miss Lopez tell you? I’ll give it back if you want me to.”
“I have one just like it. You keep it,” Noah insisted.
“Noah?”
“Yeah?”
“I’ll go to your hospital.”
“Good. I think that’s a good choice. And I can take you there now.”
Cuddy shifted nervously, his backpack hanging low around his shoulders. “Now?”
“Do you have somewhere else you want to go first?”
“No. I don’t have anywhere to go,” Cuddy whispered.
Noah nodded once, and together they left the police station, side by side, eyes fixed ahead. It wasn’t until they were pulling into the parking garage of Montlake Clinic, that Cuddy spoke again.
“I’ll try hard, Noah. I’ll try hard to get better. But . . . the medicine doesn’t make the ghosts go away. I’ve tried medicine. It just makes me itch. Some of it makes me crazy. Even crazier than I am,” Cuddy said, a note of desperation coloring his words.
“I don’t think you’re crazy, Cuddy.’
“You don’t?”
“No. I think you might just need a little help knowing what’s . . . spiritual and what’s real.”
“It’s all real to me,” Cuddy said, his eyes apologetic.
“I know. And just because everyone can’t see it, doesn’t make it less real.”
Cuddy grinned, the corners of his mouth rising slowly until they peaked an
d the smile touched his eyes. “You’re a good doctor, aren’t you, Noah?”
* * *
Cuddy was a model patient. He fell into the routine at Montlake with a touching determination to exorcise old demons, though Noah tried not to think about demons or ghosts, or spirits of any kind. It wasn’t until two weeks after Cuddy’s admittance that Noah arrived at work to reports that Cuddy was agitated and emotional, and he’d been asking to see him.
Noah found him in his room staring out the window, his hands cupping his lean cheeks, his eyes troubled. He didn’t wait for Noah to pull up a chair before he began to pace.
“I need to tell you something, Dr. Andelin. Do you want me to call you Dr. Andelin? I would rather call you Noah.”
“You laughed when I told you my name the first time . . . remember?” Noah asked softly.
Cuddy got a distant look in his eyes, and he tipped his head as if to jostle his memory, to slide his thoughts back into his mind.
“I laughed?”
“You asked me when the flood was coming.”
“The flood?”
“I think you were referring to Noah and his ark. That flood.”
“Noah was a prophet . . . everyone laughed at him. No one believed the flood was coming,” Cuddy said, nodding his head slowly as if it was all coming back to him.
“Are you a prophet, Cuddy?”
“No,” Cuddy said, adamant. “God doesn’t tell me things. But I need to tell you something, Noah,” he insisted again.
“All right,” Noah said.
“You might laugh. It’s okay if you do. Or you might be sad. Very, very sad.” Cuddy brought a hand to his face again, anxious, scrubbing at his cheeks as though the motion comforted him. Noah did the same thing when he was agitated, and he waited patiently for Cuddy to speak again, confident he would, eventually.
“I wish I had my rocks,” Cuddy whispered.