CHAP 3 — Close Your Eyes, Kiddo
Derek laughed when Ray locked the hospital door.
It was an ugly sound.
“Seriously?” Derek said. “What is a deaf old mechanic going to do? Yell at me in sign language?”
Ray did not look at him.
He walked to Grace’s bassinet first.
That was Ray.
Even furious, he checked the child.
Grace slept with one hand curled beside her cheek. Ray’s face softened for half a second. Then he turned toward me.
“Can you breathe?”
I nodded, though every swallow hurt.
Derek stood.
“You don’t get to come in here and interrogate my wife.”
Ray reached up and removed his hearing aids.
One.
Then the other.
He placed them carefully on the metal tray beside the stuffed rabbit.
The room changed.
It was not dramatic in the way movies are dramatic. There was no music, no thunder, no sudden darkness. Only an old man setting down the devices that connected him to the noise of the world and deciding he did not need to hear another excuse.
He rolled up his sleeves.
“Close your eyes, kiddo,” he whispered.
Derek’s smile sharpened.
“Oh, I’m going to enjoy this.”
Richard took one step forward.
Then stopped.
His eyes had landed on Ray’s left forearm.
The tattoo was faded now, blurred by age and sun and shop grease. A skull pierced by a serrated dagger, wrapped in razor wire. I had seen it all my life and never understood why Ray wore long sleeves around certain men.
Richard understood.
His face lost every drop of color.
“Derek,” he said.
His voice cracked.
Derek ignored him and stepped toward Ray with one fist raised.
“Security!” he shouted toward the door. “Get this grease monkey out of here!”
Richard lurched forward, suddenly terrified.
“Derek, stop! For the love of God, don’t touch him!”
Derek turned, shocked.
“What the hell is wrong with you?”
Richard pointed at Ray’s arm.
“You’re already dead.”
Ray looked at Richard then.
Not surprised.
Not flattered.
Just cold.
“I wondered if you’d recognize it.”
Richard backed into the wall like the room had tilted.
He knew Ray from another life. Or knew of him. Later, I would learn that Richard’s defense contracts had crossed paths with classified military units decades earlier, the kind whose names never appeared in newspapers and whose veterans came home with silence stitched into their bones.
Derek only saw an old mechanic.
Richard saw consequence.
I held Grace closer, my throat burning.
Ray stepped between Derek and my bed.
“You don’t speak to her again unless she asks you a question.”
Derek’s face twisted.
“You’re insane.”
Ray glanced toward the stuffed rabbit.
“No,” he said. “I’m patient.”
Then a sound came from outside the room.
Heavy footsteps.
More than one pair.
Derek turned toward the door.
“What did you do?”
Ray did not answer.
The lock clicked from the outside.
Then two hospital security officers and three police officers entered with Detective Mara Ellison behind them.
Derek’s face went from fury to panic in one breath.
Detective Ellison looked at my throat.
Then at the rabbit.
May you like
Then at Derek.
“Mr. Hale,” she said, “step away from your wife.”
