Chapter Twelve: Orange Ribs
Roused by a truck rumbling down the street, Charlie peered through the parted curtains and noticed strange clouds meandering above the treetops. They were washed orange in sunset, a memorable formation shaped like a rib cage set on its side and comprised of vertical streaks with a horizontal aisle down the middle where a sternum would be. In his illness—with eyeballs backlit by an oven and congestion gathering in his lungs—it was surreal.
He dreamed of ribs—his own rib cage, front and back. Except this cage was stainless steel, not bone, and sealed with a padlock. Within the cage, the former Charlie languished in imprisonment, thin and wan like the emaciated children in A Christmas Carol. Without shattering the rib-bars he would never be able to escape, yet they remained part of him. He tried rattling the bars with firm tugs but induced pain, shaped like an "H" on his back, the center line across his shoulder blades. The black bat materialized in his hands and he whacked it across the bars. The backlash drove him to his knees, vibrations coursing into his bones and throughout his body, exacerbating his pain.
Aspirin. Did I ever get juice? He was alone. Voices traveled up from downstairs and he understood every few words.
Don had spoken with him earlier—but if he'd been offered the solutions to every mathematical enigma in the universe, he wouldn't be able to remember exactly what Don had said to him. Something about going somewhere. The flu drug had knocked him out, impaired his perceptions. As it wore off, the aches would build and he'd go another round of roasting, throat scratchier, headache braced at a million revolutions per minute. The bed had grown lumpy and he longed to go downstairs to the brown leather sofa, find out if it would make a difference to his sensitive muscles. He flipped the pillow, searching for coolness against his face, and tossed—on a side, tangled in covers, curled up or spread-eagled, legs kicking, squirming and finicky, with arms on the pillow, over his head, to the sides, crossed under and repeating at the pillow, back where he'd begun. And to add to everything: the outside of his ear was tender, from sleeping on it folded.
He picked up the thermometer, gauged his temp. Half degree down. Whoopee. Why does it feel like it's up two? It's wearing me down. A shower would be cooling.
The orange ribs had changed color, faded to salmon and gray, dissipating in the troposphere. Charlie dozed but when he awakened it was darker; there was no light in the room. He slid over and stretched, flicked the lamp on the stand to low, his fear allayed, the Trinity kept at bay.
He had a craving for water, ice cold, with a mass of cubes and condensation dripping gleefully off the glass. He pictured pouring it down his parched mouth, soothing the heat, and reached for the water bottle—empty.
Charlie recognized the voices—Dad and Don, who else?—and eavesdropped. Why was Don still here? To apologize?
His father's voice got louder, urgent. "Donny," he was saying. "Sometimes we don't have a choice."
"I have a choice, Dad."
"Well, you're choosing against yourself. We have to bend with the wind or we'll break."
In increments, Charlie rose from bed and paused as his balance stabilized.
Don defended himself. "Look, when I get back, I'll figure it out. If we're going to argue, I may as well leave now."
"Have you told Charlie?" Alan said.
"I gave it a shot, but he wasn't up to it. He didn't hear me—or pretended not to."
At the bedroom door, Charlie's ears pricked up, bottle in hand, prepared to fetch the cold water for himself since they'd forgotten about him. Neglected in Charlieland.
"You should wait 'til he's better," Alan said. "What happened between you two?"
"I said some things."
"He's too sick to remember right now."
"Sick or no, he doesn't forget things," Don said. "I know him."
"I'm staying out of it this time. You'll have to settle it yourselves."
Don sounded brusque. "I didn't ask you to help us settle it."
The conversation ceased and in the interim, Charlie exited the bedroom, swaying, and came to the top of the stairs. The discussion resumed below.
Alan seemed to take pity on his oldest son. "I wish you'd go to that appointment."
"Out of the question," Don said. "You may as well give up, Dad, my mind's made up. Soon as I tell Charlie, I go. He should be better tomorrow."
Charlie descended the first stair step, wearing PJ bottoms and a T-shirt, barefoot.
"He won't like it either," Alan said.
After five steps, Charlie squeezed his eyelids shut, dizzy after peering down the stairwell, and he pressed his shoulder to the wall.
"Doesn't matter what he likes, this is mine to do," Don said. "But I owe him an explanation after everything we've gone through."
"Your brother could use some guidance from you. He should be in therapy. Damn it, he hates guns but he's looked into buying one. If you'd agree to a counselor he might—"
Don used the tone he did whenever he was overwhelmed. "Don't put this on me."
Recovering, Charlie continued his descent.
"All right, I'll drop it," Alan said. "But I'm not giving up. I'm gonna' keep encouraging Charlie to see Volkov—someone, anyone, whoever can help. It hurts to watch you two going down the drain day after day. And not getting along with each other on top of it."
Entering the living room, Charlie discovered his brother and father sitting at opposite ends of the leather sofa. Don faced forward with his elbow on the armrest, fiddling with a baseball, and Alan also faced forward, his legs crossed, holding a pillow on his lap, as though they couldn't stand to be near one another.
Alan saw Charlie first. "Where's your robe?" he said, getting up. "Fever broke?" He curved a hand on his forehead. "You're boiling. Go back to bed."
"The koi," Charlie said. He'd been concerned with them on and off.
Don got up, stacked two throw pillows against the armrest. "You must be antsy, cooped up all day."
"I'll feed the fish." Alan claimed Charlie's empty water bottle. "Lay down. Use the sofa."
He requested ice water and his father said he already had ice in mind, exiting to the kitchen. Once on the sofa, Charlie had second thoughts about having left the quiet, restful solitude of a bedroom.
"Want a blanket?" Don said.
He declined then watched Don grab a coverlet from the chair and bring it to him. He accepted anyway, bunching it under his elbow.
Alan brought the water, gave Don a piercing sideways glance. "I would wait," he told him, almost in a whisper as if Charlie wouldn't be able to hear three feet away.
Although it hurt to swallow, Charlie drank quickly then asked Don where he was going.
Excusing himself, Alan said this would be a perfect time to feed the koi and catch up on a few phone calls—it was up to them to work this out. "Don't push him," he said as he left. "He's not well."
"I know, Dad," Don said.
A chill swelled beneath Charlie's skin and he shivered. "You're in a hurry."
Don plopped the ball into his palm. "Maybe this can wait."
"I have a feeling next time I wake up you'll be gone."
Don paced from one end of the sofa to the other, pitching the ball repeatedly from one fist to the other. "I'm going back up Mean Marmot Trail. It's the best way for me to get over what's going on, this PTSD or PTSS or whatever they want to call it. I plan to spend the night by the cabin, what's left of it, and maybe the cave too. I don't know, I'm playing it by ear."
His pacing aggravated Charlie's lightheadedness and he turned away, tried focusing on the metal latch of the china cabinet. It glistened like gold.
"Dad doesn't get it, he wasn't up there," Don said. "I figured you would."
Charlie held up the glass and water drops sprinkled onto his PJ's. "Refill, please." Delay. Focus.
Without comment, Don obliged and reappeared in seconds, resuming his pacing and pitching. "The Bureau's playing hardball on this. First a psych eval which they've conveniently arranged for me for next week, followed by sessions with a regular shrink. I have no idea how long all this will take." He shrugged as though working out a kink in his neck. "When I get back, I think…I think I can face all that stuff, do what they want. That part I'll do for them, this I have to do for myself."
"Your job," Charlie said. He drank, swallowed carefully.
"Yeah, it's tricky."
"Reylott? You talked with Megan?"
"I talked with someone," Don said. "All unsupported sightings. If anyone tails me, I'll pick up on it."
"He fooled us before."
"Because he tapped your house and beat us to the trail. If he's alive, and he isn't, he wouldn't have that advantage this time around."
Charlie pulled himself up, sat higher. It was sinking into his foggy brain—Don was unstoppable. "I want to go with you." Please.
Don moaned, squeezed the baseball. "I knew you'd say that."
Charlie's temples pounded with the building tension. "A couple of days, I'll be—"
"Alone, Charlie. I have to go alone."
"I need it as much as you do." Walk me through it.
"I'm not arguing that. It's just something Don Eppes has to do solo, all right?"
"Reconsider."
"I'm leaving tomorrow morning. Got a new phone, car's packed." The baseball was motionless in his hand but Don paced faster, covering the whole room. "I have to prove to them I'm the same Agent Eppes they knew before Reylott."
"You're not," Charlie said. "We're both different."
"Yeah well, I don't like it. I liked the old Don and if I don't get the best part of that one back, I don't know what I'm gonna' do."
Charlie sat forward, touching the side of his head. "And me?" Marooned in Charlieland.
"To help you, I gotta' help me first," Don said. "Try to understand." He came near, accepted the leftover ice water. "I'm tiring you out. Sorry."
The fever was unrelenting and Charlie fell back, the coverlet sliding to the floor. He'd run out of words and didn't have the energy to sustainan argument, to persuade Don to wait. "I do understand," he said, "and I don't."
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