The Night Olivia Fell. Christina McDonald

on the rare occasion when a detective answered, they just told me to be patient, they’d let me know if anything new came up. They were always fobbing me off like that. And I didn’t have time for it. Four weeks had passed since Olivia’s fall. Only four-teen weeks until the baby would be born. And that was if we were lucky. I needed answers sooner, not later.

      I took the elevator to the floor Olivia had been moved to last week. Now that she was out of the ICU, the baby had a better chance at surviving; but seeing the ventilator and feeding tube was no less of a shock each time I arrived.

      I steeled myself against the pain and pushed open the door. Sarah was slumped over the edge of Olivia’s bed, her mouth hung open in sleep, a deep crease denting the middle of her forehead.

      ‘Sarah,’ I whispered. My sister jumped when I touched her shoulder. ‘You should go home. Go see Dylan and Brad.’

      She rubbed her arm over her eyes. ‘I couldn’t sleep. What time is it?’

      ‘Six.’

      ‘They’re sleeping. You should be too.’

      I put my purse down and slipped out of my coat, sitting in the chair next to her as the pale light edged the darkness from the room. I picked up Olivia’s hand and inspected her wrist. The bruises had faded, the broken skin mostly healed; her skin renewed itself, even though her brain never would.

      ‘I’m thinking of going back to work,’ I told Sarah.

      I realized with some surprise that I missed the rhythm of my job. The predictability. At least I knew what I was doing in accounting, what to expect. There was no guesswork, only right or wrong. Right now I was just waiting through my days, but for what? The police rarely responded to my calls. Olivia’s case was still open, but it felt like they weren’t really investigating.

      The last four weeks had passed in a slow, nauseating spin. I slept and ate little, sobbed a lot. I shoved fistfuls of sedatives in my mouth, washing them down with red wine and vodka until I’d drunk everything in my house and had no pills left to take.

      The dull lethargy that had plagued me immediately after Olivia fell was being replaced by a crazed adrenaline and an urge to know the truth. People throughout Portage Point had heard the news. They wanted to ask questions, to know what had happened, but I had no answers and no energy to explain that the police had yet to piece together any intelligible reason for Olivia’s fall.

      At least Samson had been right about the reporters – they’d eventually trickled away, in search of more urgent stories.

      The cost of caring for Olivia was mounting. My insurance was already balking and I knew I’d have to find a way to pay for everything for another three months at least. And then there was the baby. . .

      ‘I can’t lose my insurance,’ I said.

      Sarah nodded. She, of all people, knew that the weight of unexpected responsibility could be as heavy as water.

      I looked at Olivia in the hospital bed, a pale, shriveled version of herself. Eyes closed. Intubated. The incessant mechanized hush of the machines keeping her alive.

      ‘I don’t understand why the police aren’t working harder on this,’ I said, anger and frustration simmering inside me.

      ‘I’m sure they are,’ Sarah reassured me. She stood and rolled her neck in slow circles. ‘Investigations take time.’

      ‘They said the bruises were probably from the fall. But you saw them, right? They were fingerprints. Somebody did this to her.’

      Sarah looked away, and I could tell she didn’t really agree.

      I didn’t like everything I said second-guessed, my emotions and my sanity questioned. I knew what I’d seen. I just had no way to prove it meant what I thought it did.

      ‘They’re still investigating,’ she repeated. ‘We have to let them do their job.’

      I glared at her. ‘I know you don’t understand, but I need to know what happened.’

      Flames of anger curled in my stomach, and the air between us tightened. After our mother died, it was me who acted out and raged. Sarah had stayed calm and composed. She’d organized the funeral, taken care of the will, boxed up all my things and moved me in with her.

      I was a basket case in comparison. I wailed and wept, wanted to know why Mom was dead, who I could blame. When I didn’t get answers I wallowed, sinking into the grief and letting it hold me like a warm bath. That’s what losing your only parent when you’re ten does – it makes it so you can’t ever let go.

      Sarah didn’t want to talk about Mom at all. She wasn’t interested in remembering and certainly didn’t want me talking about that day. Her emotionless, brisk efficiency made me doubt my feelings. I wondered why I cared so much, but she didn’t.

      Over time I’d learned to hide my emotions. But on the inside I was still just a wreck, barely keeping it together.

      ‘Of course I understand,’ Sarah said, her forehead creasing with hurt. ‘I get it. I want to help. I know people at the Seattle Police Department through work. I’ll call around. See if anybody there can help.’

      ‘I don’t need a shrink picking my brain apart.’ I gritted my teeth. ‘I need to know what happened to Olivia. Besides, I can’t pay for it.’

      ‘I don’t mean a counselor. And I don’t mean in an official capacity, just as a favor. Maybe they can ask around, get some insight into what the Portage Point police are doing, what they’re thinking.’

      My pulse raced through my clenched muscles. I looked away, wanting her to stop talking.

      ‘The baby’s doing well,’ she said, changing the subject.

      She reached over and touched Olivia’s stomach. Somehow, despite so many tests, drugs, and X-rays, the baby was healthy. It was growing at a normal rate, swimming in the space beneath where my daughter’s heart pumped blood around her body.

      I dug my fingernails into the skin of my upper arms until they left pale, moon-shaped dents, then raked them across my upper arms, scratching at the invisible itch. The pain was sharp, intense, but in a way that felt good.

      ‘Abi, stop!’ Sarah exclaimed, her voice sharp as a ragged hangnail.

      ‘Then stop talking about the baby!’

      ‘Why?’ Her brow puckered.

      ‘Don’t you get it?’ I exploded. The spark of anger lit and consumed my insides, suddenly so bulky that I couldn’t sit still. I launched out of my chair and crossed the room to stare out the window. The maple trees that lined the park across the street were nearly bare, slowly losing the last of their crimson and gold leaves.

      ‘Get what?’

      I whirled to face her. ‘When the baby’s born, Olivia will die! So stop harping on about the baby, because that deadline means my daughter fucking dies!’

      I didn’t wait for her reply. I pushed past her and ran out the door, down the stairs, back into the driving rain.

      × × ×

      Back at home, I felt a deep, dark self-loathing stealing over me. I shouldn’t have blown up at Sarah.

      Whatever problems I’d had with my sister, whatever resentment I’d held in my heart, Sarah had always been my rock. Even when my mom was alive, it was Sarah my teachers called if I was sick, Sarah who helped me with my homework. When I was five and got lost when we were picnicking at the beach, it was Sarah I howled for under the hot white sun. I was alone and she ran to me, shouting my name, and I knew I was safe. I never felt that way with my mom.

      A sudden, vivid memory of my mother the day she died flashed through me: the blood, the screaming – was it Sarah or me? – the gun still hanging from her finger. I’d lost my mother and my childhood in one cruel day. I guess being angry and blaming Sarah was easier than moving on.