Chapter 4 - The Four Minutes After the Stairs
Tasha would only meet Emily.
Not me.
That was fair.
I drove my daughter to the coffee shop and waited in the truck.
She came out forty-seven minutes later looking pale.
I started the engine.
She did not open the door.
Instead she stood on the sidewalk for several seconds, arms wrapped around herself.
Then she climbed in.
“What happened?”
“Drive.”
I drove.
Three blocks later, she said:
“Tasha saw me on the floor.”
I kept my eyes on the road.
“Where?”
“At the bottom of the stairwell.”
“Was Dustin there?”
“Yes.”
“What did she see?”
Emily looked out the window.
“Me trying to get up.”
My hands tightened on the wheel.
“And?”
“He told me to stop being dramatic.”
I said nothing.
“Tasha wanted to call an ambulance. Dustin told her no.”
I breathed slowly.
“He said you were fine?”
“He said I did it to myself.”
The red light ahead seemed to last forever.
Emily continued.
“Then he took my phone.”
I looked at her.
“You never told me that.”
“I forgot.”
“You forgot he took your phone?”
“I fell down stairs, Dad.”
She snapped it.
Then immediately looked guilty.
“Sorry.”
“Don’t.”
The light changed.
I drove.
“Tasha says I kept asking for my phone.”
“Did he give it back?”
“Eventually.”
“When?”
“She doesn’t know.”
“Why did he stop her calling an ambulance?”
“Because he wanted Daniel there.”
That hit me.
I turned toward her.
“What?”
“Eyes on the road.”
I corrected.
“What do you mean Daniel?”
“Tasha heard Dustin say, ‘Call Danny first.’”
Daniel.
My son.
I pulled into an empty parking lot.
Emily looked at me.
“Dad.”
I put the truck in park.
“Daniel came to the gym?”
“Tasha doesn’t know. She went to get ice. When she came back, Dustin had moved me into his car.”
“Were you conscious?”
“Yes.”
“Do you remember that?”
“Pieces.”
“Do you remember Daniel?”
“No.”
I closed my eyes.
Not to calm down.
To think.
Anger likes incomplete information because it gets to fill gaps.
I refused.
“What did Tasha mean about what Dustin did afterward?”
“He went upstairs.”
“To the gym?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“She doesn’t know. But she said the cameras cover the garage entrance and stairwell. Four minutes after I fell, Dustin went back inside. He was gone maybe seven minutes.”
“Leaving you in the car?”
“Yes.”
“What happened to the footage?”
“She saw Ray at the office computer this morning. Dustin was there too.”
“Deleting?”
“She thinks.”
“Did she actually see deletion?”
“No.”
Good.
Distinction.
Emily stared at me.
“You’re doing that Marine thing.”
“What thing?”
“Turning everything into a report.”
“I’m trying not to turn it into a funeral.”
Silence.
Too harsh.
I regretted it immediately.
Emily looked away.
“Sorry.”
“No.”
“That wasn’t fair.”
“You’re scared.”
“Yes.”
“So am I.”
There it was.
The sentence I should have used first.
She began crying.
Quietly.
Not because of Dustin.
Or not only Dustin.
“I still love him.”
I looked at her.
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.”
“I can try.”
“You hate him.”
“I do.”
“That’s not helping.”
I nodded.
“What would?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then I’ll sit here.”
We sat in the truck.
Rain ticked against the roof.
After a while she said:
“The first time he scared me, he punched a door.”
“When?”
“Eight months ago.”
I kept my face neutral.
“We were arguing about Thanksgiving.”
“Why?”
“You.”
Of course.
“He thought I always chose you when holidays came up.”
“I barely saw you last Thanksgiving.”
“I know.”
She wiped her cheek.
“He apologized. Bought a new door. Took me to dinner.”
I listened.
“Then another time he threw my phone.”
“When?”
“January.”
“Did Daniel know?”
Emily hesitated.
“Yes.”
My stomach dropped.
“What did he say?”
“That Dustin had pressure.”
Same phrase.
“He told me fighters live with adrenaline. That sometimes they take longer to come down.”
I almost laughed from disbelief.
“Daniel said that?”
“Yes.”
“Did he tell Dustin to get help?”
“He says he did.”
“Did Dustin?”
“For a few weeks.”
Therapy, apparently.
Then camp began.
Everything became pressure again.
Emily stared at her bruised wrists.
“I didn’t think I was one of those women.”
I hated that sentence.
“What women?”
“You know.”
“No.”
“The women who stay.”
“There is no type.”
“You trained Marines. You talk about awareness all the time.”
“I also spent twenty-three years married to a woman who could hide Christmas presents in a house I searched.”
Emily stared.
I continued.
“Knowing what danger looks like from the outside doesn’t mean recognizing it when somebody you love explains it away.”
Her mouth trembled.
“Mom would hate Dustin.”
“Yes.”
“Mom would hate that I stayed.”
“No.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I knew your mother for twenty-eight years.”
“She’d be disappointed.”
“She’d be furious.”
Emily looked down.
“At me?”
“At him.”
We sat quietly.
My wife, Karen, had been dead ten years.
Cancer.
Long enough that sometimes I could remember her without first remembering losing her.
“She would ask why you were carrying this alone,” I said.
Emily began crying harder.
I reached toward her.
Stopped.
She noticed.
Then leaned into me herself.
I held her.
No command.
No plan.
After several minutes, she pulled away.
“I want to talk to Daniel.”
“So do I.”
“No.”
She wiped her eyes.
“I want to.”
That was harder.
But I nodded.
She called her brother.
He answered immediately.
“Em.”
“Were you at Iron House Monday night?”
Silence.
I stared through the windshield.
Daniel finally said:
“Yes.”
Emily stopped breathing.
“When?”
“After you fell.”
My daughter’s voice became very small.
“You saw me?”
“Yes.”
“And you didn’t take me to the hospital?”
Another silence.
May you like
Then Daniel said the sentence that changed our family.
“You told me not to.”
