When Skye walked through the hospital door, five Penderwicks, two Geigers, and both of Jeffrey's parents were immediately on their feet. Jane jumped out of her chair so quickly it crashed into the wall. She could see her sister trembling from across the room. Before Skye had taken two steps into the building, Jane reached her and wrapped her in a hug.
Skye quivered like the pages of Jane's books fluttering in a breeze. She didn't hug Jane back. She stood motionless, in a shellshocked daze.
"He's…he's okay." Skye sounded like the words didn't quite make sense to her. "But he's a mess."
The news had already told Jane both of those things. She'd watched agents carrying a broken, bloody, utterly exhausted Jeffrey from his five-day prison on a hospital tv. Mrs. Tifton had screamed – a genuine, bloodcurdling scream that made Jane's cells freeze up with instinctual terror.
"I know, I saw. We all did." It wasn't meant to make Skye feel any better; it was just honest. Jeffrey was alive, Skye was as happy as she was going to get. Jane could understand nothing about what Skye had been through, but this part she knew well. The joy came first, but it faded just as fast, replaced with a constant, aching worry. There wasn't a single thing Jane could do to help with that. She wasn't naïve enough to try.
Skye leaned back, so Jane let her go.
"You saw…" Skye was momentarily confused, then her eyes locked on the television behind Jane's head. "Oh."
Jane nodded. "We saw everything."
Skye's face reddened to a deep scarlet. "Like, everything everything?"
Jane's lips pulled into a playful smirk. "You mean did we see you sucking Jeffrey's soul out his mouth?"
Skye made a face. "Gross, Jane."
Behind them, Tommy coughed out a laugh.
"It's called the Dementor's Kiss for a reason," Jane said with false innocence. She looked back at Mr. Penderwick. "Sorry, Daddy."
Their father waved away her apology, his face lit with a teasing smile of his own. In fact, their entire party was donning varying degrees of the same expression. Even Mrs. Tifton didn't seem particularly displeased.
"Shut up, you guys," Skye grumbled. "Not another word."
Nick wolf whistled.
Skye looked ready to throttle him. "You're not funny, Nick."
Then quietly, so that only Jane could hear, Skye said, "I told you I love him. I wasn't lying."
This time, the words warmed Jane's heart the way that they should have the first time. She silently apologized to love for being so bitter and pessimistic about it. A momentary (albeit reasonable) lapse in judgment – she was a romantic through and through.
"You don't need to tell me," Jane whispered back. "I've known that longer than you have."
Skye punched her arm. "You can shut up too."
For once, Jane was happy to have Skye hit her. She wanted to linger on the topic of Skye and Jeffrey's kiss. It was light. Normal. She would her sister about making out on any regular day. But Skye was uneasy with the conversation, and Jane didn't have the heart to put her through any additional discomfort. Skye deserved a little comfortability. The universe owed her that much.
Jeffrey was in surgery. His broken leg was being operated on. The doctors had talked to Alec and Mrs. Tifton privately, so Jane didn't know any more than that. They'd seemed worried. Additionally so. Jane had watched both them turn an identical shade of green, then white, then back to green over the course of that conversation. Alec had nervously fidgeted with his keys until they'd abruptly fallen from his hand. It didn't matter that the doctors were helping him, it didn't seem fair to Jane that Jeffrey had survived everything he had just to be sliced open and prodded at. Surgery only meant more pain. All Jane wanted was for the suffering to at last be over and done. She sighed. That wish wouldn't be granted for a long, long time.
As if she'd read Jane's mind, Skye asked, "Have the doctors said anything?"
All eyes turned on Jeffrey's parents.
Alec's mouth was set in a grim line. "Nothing useful."
"How can you say that?" Mrs. Tifton demanded. There was a sharp edge to her words. "They said he should be dead."
Alec's expression turned stormy and angry. "That's not exactly useful, is it? I don't want to hear that."
"And you think I do? You think I want to hear about my son being hurt like that?"
"No, but—"
Mrs. Tifton didn't let him finish. "But he was. That's reality. We have to accept that so we can help him."
"Oh, I've accepted it," said Alec bitterly. "I'm not an idiot. I know he was almost killed. Believe me, I know that better than you do."
"What is that supposed to mean?"
Skye flinched. She knew what it meant. So did Jane. She wondered how many times Alec had tormented himself by rewatching what Dexter had sent him. She didn't have a single doubt that he'd looked at it again.
"Nothing," Alec spat. "I should have known when I met Dexter. I should have fought for custody."
"For custody?" Mrs. Tifton's voice was shrill and defensive. "What would that have done? You were an absentee father. No court would have given you anything."
Skye crossed her arms. Jane thought she might jump to Alec's defense, but she stayed silent. Jane held her breath, riddled with an anxiety she didn't totally understand. Maybe she just wasn't ready to listen to another fight.
Alec glared at Mrs. Tifton in a way that made even Jane want to shrink away into the corner of the room.
"That was not my fault, Brenda."
Mrs. Tifton sucked her lips into her mouth like she was holding back a retort. Then she said, "So you lied. You are still angry about that."
Alec threw up her hands in a gesture that clearly said unbelievable. "No, I'm not. But don't ever call me an absentee father."
Mrs. Tifton muttered something under her breath that Jane couldn't hear. She didn't have to know that it wasn't polite.
"I loved Jeffrey the day that I met him," said Alec, his voice rising. "I wished I had a son like him before I even knew who he was. Do you think you'd be able to say the same thing?"
It was uniquely interesting for Alec and Jeffrey to know for a fact how well they would get along even if they weren't related. Alec loved Jeffrey with more than the automatic love a father has for his son merely because he exists. They were best friends. In a weird way, he was blessed by that knowledge.
Mrs. Tifton was less touched by that idea. "How dare you?" she said quietly. Then louder, "How dare you?"
Alec shrugged. He didn't seem to regret what he said. "I just wonder if Jeffrey had spent more of his time with me if this would have happened at all."
"Yes, it would have. Alec, he left!" Mrs. Tifton shouted. "He hated Dexter so much he went to boarding school. Boarding school! He already lives in Boston with you. I never see him because I married that…that horrible, disgusting…that monster of a man. What else could you possibly want? You already replaced me!"
"That's not my fault either."
Mrs. Tifton glowered darkly. "For the love of god, Alec, if you still hate me, just say it. Don't pretend to care. I never needed that."
Alec opened his mouth, then shut it when he realized he hadn't yet thought of what to say. His glare didn't falter.
Jane took it upon herself to fill the silence. "What is wrong with you two?" She didn't mean it maliciously. Truly, she was baffled.
"What?" said Alec, as if Jane wasn't asking a justifiable question.
"You've been so good all week. Better than the rest of us. You get Jeffrey back and now you want to kill each other again? Are you serious?"
Alec glanced at Mrs. Tifton out of the corner of his eye. An amused smile played at the sides of his mouth. "What, this? This is nothing."
Mrs. Tifton looked like she wasn't quite ready to give up the fight, but she too was gradually winding down. "That's true," she admitted grudgingly. Then she too smiled, just a little. It was hardly there. She gestured between herself and Alec. "We know how to fight."
"Invented it, I think," said Alec. "I left a few dishes out once and this woman poured a jar of pasta sauce into my saxophone."
Mrs. Tifton flushed a pale pink. "It was more than a few dishes."
Alec waved his hand to tell her to be quiet. Jane might have been biased, but she thought it was kind of cute – flirty, like they'd actually stayed married the past seventeen years.
"And then she had the audacity to be angry when I bought a new one."
Mrs. Tifton straightened up. "Well, I'm sorry. You spent $900 and they shut off our water."
"You broke it!" Alec was laughing. "And maybe we could have afforded the water bill if you didn't a two hour shower every day."
"Okay what about you?" Mrs. Tifton shot back. "What about the time you dumped your soda down my dress a minute before my marketing presentation? I didn't have time to change, I was humiliated."
"That was an accident."
"Oh no it was not! You said, "that's for killing Larry." She looked around at their captivated audience. "Yeah, he named his saxophone Larry."
Alec's faced flooded with guilty embarrassment. "Did I say that? Damn. Alright, it wasn't an accident."
Mrs. Tifton giggled – an actual, schoolgirl giggle. It didn't suit her. "I yelled at you for hours that night."
"And I felt vindicated." Alec snorted. "God, we were children. Who let us get married?"
"We should sue," said Mrs. Tifton. "For emotional distress."
Jane was fascinated. They all were. Mr. Penderwick had his arm around Iantha, and the two were shaking with laughter. Nick rolled his eyes, but Jane could tell he was equally entertained.
"How long did you last after that?" asked Rosalind.
"Two weeks?" said Alec, unsure.
"Nine days," said Mrs. Tifton, quite sure.
"Wait…" said Skye with a light, sarcastic gleam in her eyes. "You really were married? That's not some ultra-weird alternate reality you've both been lying about?"
Mrs. Tifton raised her eyebrows. "Jeffrey had to come from somewhere, didn't he?"
"I know, but it's always been a little hard to believe," said Skye.
"That's what I said!" Jane backed her up.
"Yeah, who the hell are you?" Skye asked Mrs. Tifton. "Most respectfully of course."
That made Jane nervous, but Mrs. Tifton actually laughed. She was so relaxed. She seemed normal, just like every average parent that hadn't grown up a spoiled millionaire. Jane thought it was a good look on her.
"Alec brings out a special side of me. No one else can, not even Jeffrey. I keep it very hidden."
"Do I?" Alec grinned. "Interesting."
"Wipe that smug look off your face, McGrath. You bring out my vindictive side too."
"Can't win them all." Alec tried to smother his grin, but it was too stubborn. "Poor Larry. Shot down in his prime."
Mrs. Tifton's smile slowly faded into a more thoughtful expression. She looked at Alec like she was staring right into his soul and reading his deepest thoughts. Jane made a mental note of that. She liked that image. She could find a place for it in her next book.
"I should have stayed," said Mrs. Tifton, surprising Jane immensely.
Alec pondered that for a moment. "No. No, you shouldn't have. You hated that apartment, my dog, my job, my friends—"
"I wasn't your biggest fan either," said Mrs. Tifton. "And that was a horrible apartment, I'll have you know."
"It was fine," Alec disagreed.
"We had mice!"
"Okay, so it was cheap. We didn't have money."
"You barely had a job," Mrs. Tifton pointed out.
"You didn't."
Jane smiled broadly. They were done fighting, this was banter. It was adorable. In an odd way, it reminded her of Jeffrey and Skye. It was juvenile, like they were still twenty years old and sparks were flying in all sorts of wild directions.
Everyone was laughing (even a few eavesdropping strangers). Jane was elated to see smiles on all their faces. The world was almost right again. At least as right as it was going to get.
"I don't hate you," Alec told Mrs. Tifton softly. "Truly, I don't. It's important to me that you know that."
"Is that so?" she said in a near whisper.
"Call me an absentee father again and repeat the question."
For how angry that comment had made him, he certainly joked about it with great ease.
Mrs. Tifton brushed her hand down the side of Alec's arm. It was such a simple gesture, but it carried so much intimacy. "I shouldn't have said that. It was unfair and uncalled for."
"You're both of those things a lot."
Mrs. Tifton exhaled through her nose. "Just let me apologize."
Alec caught her hand when it dropped from his arm. "It's okay. I'm agitated too."
Jane's imagination took flight and her head soared into the clouds. The immersed herself in a vision of Alec pulling Mrs. Tifton into his arms and telling her that he never stopped loving her. Mrs. Tifton said "oh Alec, you've always been the one for me. I was too prideful to realize." They kissed. Everyone applauded.
Jane shook herself out of her daydream. It was beyond strange for her to be supportive of those two getting back together, but she was. She thought of Skye and Jeffrey. She looked at Rosalind and Tommy, even her father and Iantha. There was no shortage of romance blossoming from this tragedy. Jane couldn't think of a better thing to pave the way toward subsequent healing. And heal they must. There would be a lot of that going around. Jane was viciously reminded of that by the return of one of the doctors. Dr. Hawkins, she believed his name was. Her worry rushed back. He asked for Jeffrey's parents once more.
"Just tell us what you have to say," said Mrs. Tifton said, sounding tired. "They'll ask about it and I don't want to have to remember."
Dr. Hawkins scanned the group with a warm but saddened look on his face. He took a few more steps toward Mrs. Tifton and Alec so that he was speaking to them directly, but loud enough so they all could hear. Skye hovered closely behind him, wringing her hands.
"Your son in a survivor," he said. "I've been a doctor for a long time. I've never admired a patient so much just for living."
That was not as comforting as he'd intended it to be.
He had a yellow folder in his hands that he gave to Mrs. Tifton. She took it but didn't open it. Jane felt a surge of concern just from the mere thickness of it. Skye had been in and out of the hospital in a single day. From the looks of it, Jeffrey would not be so lucky.
"Dr. Zhang is in surgery with Jeffrey now. He's an excellent orthopedic surgeon. I want to go over Jeffrey's injuries with you so you can know what to expect. Understand a little about what we're doing to help him."
Alec slid his arm around Mrs. Tifton's shoulders. She leaned against him, looking frightened.
"Jeffrey's suffered what we call a comminuted patellar fracture. That means that his kneecap split into multiple pieces – in this case, four. Dr. Zhang will go in and remove the bone fragments that are too small to be reattached, then he will wire together the remaining pieces and fix them with screws."
Alec nodded gravely and pulled Mrs. Tifton closer to him.
"We also discovered a tibial eminence fracture, likely caused by hyperextension. Unfortunately, that ruptured his posterior cruciate ligament. The damage there caused what is called popliteal arterial thrombosis, blood clotting in the artery that runs through the back of the knee."
That was a lot of big, scientific words that Jane did not understand, but she understood fracture and blood clotting. And rupture. Rupture couldn't possibly be anything but bad. Her heart thudded violently against her ribs.
"The damaged artery has been repaired with a saphenous vein graft. During the PCL reconstruction, the ligament is attached through transosseous femoral fixation, when it is anchored through the bone."
Jane was miles past lost. She didn't have even the slightest inkling about what the doctor was telling them. It did nothing to ease her worries; it only made them worse. This is just the knee surgery, she thought. There is so much more.
"No surgery is required to repair his broken ankle," Dr. Hawkins continued. "As is often the case, his posterior malleolus fracture is coupled with a lateral malleolus fracture – the tibia and the fibula at the ankle joint. They share ligament attachments, so a posterior malleolus fracture commonly results in that second break. Thankfully, the fractures are both stable, so there is no need to operate. It will heal on its own given time and the proper brace."
"Will he even be able to walk again?" Mrs. Tifton asked, dangerously high pitched.
"If all goes well, yes. That's the hope."
That wasn't an answer. It gave them nothing. Jane swallowed back irritation.
"We took several x-rays that showed us additional breaks, but they should all similarly heal without surgery. He has three broken ribs. Two on his left side, one on his right. There is a Colles fracture in his right wrist, which means the broken end of the radius is tilting upward. His left wrist is sprained, but no broken bones. We also found compression thoracolumbar fractures in his t6 and t7 vertebrae. That kind of break is often caused by taking blunt force to the back."
"You mean like being beaten with a golf club?" Skye spat. As soon as she'd shut her mouth, she looked like she wanted to take the words back.
Mrs. Tifton squeaked out a small cry of alarm and stumbled. Alec tried to hold her up, but he was weak in the knees himself. When Mrs. Tifton fell to the floor, she dragged him down with her. Neither of them bothered to attempt to stand.
Dr. Hawkins turned his head toward Skye. An expression of sickened disbelief crossed over his face. "Yes," he said. "Exactly. We'll put him in a back brace for at least eight weeks, and it will be alright."
Skye's eyes were shining. "He had a broken back, broken ribs and he threw himself against chains trying to protect me from…from…"
Skye stomped away five paces, then returned with her hands balled into tight fists at her sides. Furious tears flowed down her cheeks. "Moron. Heroic moron," she gasped.
Dr. Hawkins waited, but when the silence continued, he knelt in front of Mrs. Tifton and Alec. "Would you like me to stop?"
They both shook their heads.
"We took a CT scan because of his…visible head trauma."
Skye gave a single, harsh laugh like "visible head trauma" was a massive understatement.
"He has a mild intracranial hematoma, but its small enough that it doesn't need to be removed. We will monitor it in the upcoming weeks to ensure it doesn't worsen, but it should go away on its own."
That was not reassuring either. Jane was ready for the doctor to leave. She wished Jeffrey's parents had told him to stop.
"The last thing is we gave him a total of 280 stitches to close the lesions on his back, his arms, his torso, and his face."
Everyone stared, openmouthed. He'd only said four, but it seemed to Jane like he had listed off all of Jeffrey's body parts.
"280?" said Alec, like he had misheard the number.
"He'll have more than a few battle scars, but the cuts will heal nicely. I stitched him up myself." Dr. Hawkins gave them a slight smile. "He's going to be alright. He's got a long road ahead of him, but there is a lot for him to be proud of."
"Proud of?" Mrs. Tifton hissed. "He's a victim. That is not an accomplishment."
"Surviving is an accomplishment," the doctor said. "A great one. It's crucial that he understands that. I hope you can all believe it too."
"He's right," said Skye. She looked down at his sweatshirt and tugged at some of the blood dried into the fabric. "Jeffrey's really brave."
Jane wanted to hug Skye, but she got the feeling it wouldn't be appreciated. She hugged herself instead.
"Do you have any questions for me?" Dr. Hawkins said gently.
"How long until we can see him?" asked Mrs. Tifton.
"He'll be in surgery for a couple more hours, and he should wake up maybe thirty or forty minutes after that," said the doctor. "That's hard to say though, he badly needs rest."
There were no further questions. That is, none that were spoken out loud. Jane had about a million swirling around inside her head, but there were none that she trusted the doctor to answer.
When Dr. Hawkins was gone, Alec looked up at Skye from his place on the floor. "He hit him with a golf club?"
Skye rubbed her hand across her cheek. Her shoulders slumped. She nodded. "I didn't mean to say that. It sort of slipped out."
"What else did he…" Mrs. Tifton couldn't finish. She crawled shakily to her feet and sat in an open chair. Alec followed suit. She lay her forehead in the palm of her hand.
Skye stared at her shoes. "I don't want to talk about it," she said. "I'm sorry. I can't. Watching it – that was the worst thing I've had to go through. I've been trying to forget. If he wants you to know, Jeffrey can tell you."
The worst thing she has gone through. Jane's soul fractured into pieces like the bones in Jeffrey's knee. She didn't know how Skye could say that after the abuse she herself had suffered. Skye was unwaveringly loyal, and she would be till her very last breath, but Jane still could not make sense of it. Skye was telling the truth, there was no question about that. It impressed Jane as much as it hurt her.
Mrs. Tifton pressed Skye a little bit, though it was more like she was working through the information she had already been given. "You said he threw himself against…" She stopped, rephrasing. "He chained him up?"
"Yes." Skye said it like it should have been assumed. Probably it should have been, but Jane thought Mrs. Tifton had been wise not to think about such things.
"A lot," Skye added. She didn't look up from her feet.
"And he beat him with a club?"
"Don't!" Skye's hands flew to her head like she was trying to keep it from exploding. "Don't, I can't stop seeing it."
Mrs. Tifton finally started to cry. Jane thought it was a miracle she had made it so far.
"He's just a kid. My baby boy," said Mrs. Tifton. "This was…it was all because of the divorce? He attacked Jeffrey! Besides that, it was my choice. Why didn't he try to kill me?"
"That's what he said." Skye finally tore her eyes away from the floor. "But I don't think that anymore. I think he's wanted to hurt Jeffrey for a long time, and then he didn't have anything to lose, so he did."
"That doesn't make sense!" Mrs. Tifton cried. "Jeffrey has always been polite around him, a little awkward maybe, but he's an angel."
"I wouldn't try to understand him," said Mr. Penderwick. "Jeffrey is the politest teenager I've ever met, but it wouldn't make a difference if he was a delinquent. Nothing Dexter did was remotely justifiable."
"I hope they kill him," Skye said venomously. "In prison. I hope they hear what he did, and they kill him for it."
No one disagreed. If anyone could deserve that, Dexter did.
"I'd do it myself if I could," said Skye. "I would do everything he did to Jeffrey and then I'd murder him. And I would love it."
Skye talked a lot about murder. Jane had heard her spout numerous death threats over the years, but this was the first time she had ever believed that her sister actually meant it. She could visualize Skye standing over Dexter and crushing his kneecap beneath her foot or yanking his nails from his hand. Though she couldn't fault her for that, it terrified her.
"It's probably a good thing that you can't," said Mr. Penderwick. "I think we've had enough violence for one lifetime."
"Then why do I feel so fucking violent?" Skye muttered.
Jane hesitantly put her hand on Skye's shoulder. She was reassured when Skye didn't jerk away from her touch.
"Jeffrey will calm you down when you see him," she said.
"He better," said Skye. "Because right now, I feel like I could kick a puppy. I hate this feeling."
"No kicking," said Mr. Penderwick firmly. "Come sit, Skye. Try to relax."
With a show of great reluctance, Skye sat next to Mr. Penderwick. She crossed her arms and glared fiercely at everything that moved.
"Churchie will be here soon," Mrs. Tifton offered. She sniffed loudly. "She's excited to see you."
Churchie. Jane felt a little bad. She'd been so overwhelmed that she had hardly noticed that Churchie was no longer with them. Skye's dark expression softened a fraction at the thought of seeing her, but she still looked menacing, like she could tear apart the room with only her gaze.
Jane got that. They still had hours before Jeffrey would be awake. It was much, much too long to wait.
