Apologize, Apologize! - By Elizabeth Kelly Page 0,60
the doors and all the windows in the house open wide, Ma and Bingo free to leave, neither door nor window to block their way.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
I CAME TO A FEW HOURS LATER, MY HEAD POUNDING, THE ROOM spinning, my jaw wired in place, harsh light in the hospital corridor overhead, nurses whispering confidentially, the low-grade olfactory smear of liquor and residual anesthesia making me sick to my stomach. Pop was crazy drunk and bent over me, his hair an irregular skyline, his florid Celtic face inches from my own and sounding like a refugee from Going My Way.
“There, there, Collie, you’ve had a terrible time. You’ve just come out of surgery. Your mother, God bless her, she packed quite a wallop, the strength of the bereaved, she had, the madness of a corpse. But you’re on the mend and your papa is here and I’ll take care of everything. You haven’t a worry. And Mammy and Bingo are in heaven, and I’ll bet there are dogs in heaven, aren’t there, Collie? Now, you must not try to talk. And you’re forbidden to think. I don’t want you thinking of anything, just that your papa is in charge and everything’s taken care of, everything’s perfect, never better,” he said, slurring and choking back sobs.
I stared at him, finally aware of what people mean when they refer to a feeling of sudden terror.
“And I don’t care what anyone says, you’re the bravest one of them all, and I’ll fight to the death anyone who says otherwise. If you’d gone in after him, you’d be dead, too.”
He took my hand in his. “I’ve never been more proud of you, Collie. I’m bursting with pride in my son. You did the practical thing. Let no one tell you otherwise.”
Pulling a deck of weathered cards from his back pocket, he swerved unsteadily from side to side. “Are you thinking of a card, Collie? Pick a card.”
Drawing himself up, he swayed back and forth, complained of not feeling very well, and passed out cold and blunt on my chest, all two hundred pounds of him. He was covering my face, the cards spraying across the bed. I couldn’t breathe. He was like a plastic bag over my head. I was seeing stars, resigned myself to dying right then and there, when one of the nurses spotted my predicament, and she and an orderly pulled him off me—it felt as if the whole world were shifting—and they shook their heads in disgust at his condition.
I closed my eyes and went away. Hours passed, maybe days. The next face I saw was my own, taking blurry shape in the form of the great and powerful Peregrine Lowell standing over me.
“I suppose you’d like to know what happened to your mother,” he said. “It appears she died of something called stress cardiomyopathy—it typically occurs among middle-aged women who’ve suffered a great shock or trauma, although I pointed out to the doctors that King Lear succumbed to the same condition, an example which seemed to elude them altogether. It isn’t always fatal, it doesn’t need to be fatal; however, in the case of your mother, unfortunately, it proved quite deadly.”
He inhaled deeply and then exhaled slowly, as if he were making an effort to control his breathing.
“Now, Collie, let me say that none of this is your fault.” His gaze was slightly deflected, his focus was on the black beret he held in his hands, his fingers clenching and unclenching the fabric. He paused and stared into my eyes. “Now, I acknowledge the temptation to lay the burden of blame at your doorstep. After all, it was your idea to go caving, to take along your younger and inexperienced brother, to attempt such an ill-conceived venture with so little consideration for your safety.”
Setting aside his hat, he began to smooth the sheets on my bed as he talked, straightening out the wrinkles and tucking in the edges until I was so tightly wedged in white cotton, I felt as if I’d been consigned to a pod.
“As a result, not only is Bing dead, so is your mother and so are two other young people, including Telfer Ferrell’s only grandson. I have no doubt but that your mother would be alive today had she not been faced with the horrendous shock of Bing’s terrible and premature death.” He paused and surveyed his handiwork, his lips curving into a half smile, my immobilization somehow satisfying to him. He leaned down, his eyes