Текст книги "Brain Dead"

Автор книги: Eileen Dreyer

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Текущая страница: 25 (всего у книги 26 страниц)

Chapter 26

Timmie was starting to get frantic. They'd combed every inch of Restcrest, and still there had been no sign of her father. Hospital security had been notified along with the police. They'd even called Alex, who, for once, hadn't answered. It didn't matter. With the temperature outside hovering in the teens, they didn't have time to wait.

"He was just in the main room enjoying a snack," Cathy kept protesting. "He couldn't possibly have wandered away."

Timmie wasn't in the mood for mercy. "My father could have been in New York by the time you had the first call into the police."

"They're going to get the dogs," the nurse promised.

And then they found the ankle bracelet that was supposed to keep her father safe. It had been sliced through with a dull knife—probably taken from the snack areas—and left by the side entrance. Timmie didn't wait any longer for the police or dogs or angel hordes. She shrugged into her coat and ran toward the ER.

Maybe if it wasn't busy she could get some help there. God knew the hospital was ready enough to turf the ER staff up to work Restcrest. Maybe they could also be used to help rectify its mistakes.

"Code blue, emergency room four. Code blue."

Timmie wanted to cry. There went most of her staff.

"Trauma code blue, emergency room one."

This wasn't just bad luck. It was a conspiracy. Well, at least she wouldn't have to face Cindy. Micklind should have carted her off at least an hour ago. And with any luck, at least one of the codes would be for show and only last a few minutes. Then Timmie could grab the extras. One extra. A tech with a flashlight. She didn't care.

She knew she was screwed when she spotted Ellen running down the work lane in full flight, tears streaming down her face.

Timmie tried to match her stride. "I need help, Ellen..."

Ellen stopped on a dime and pivoted. "No, Timmie. I don't have time right now. We're short-staffed, and now this. This!"

She waved her hand toward the room behind her, where the non-trauma code was in full swing, but Timmie didn't notice. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean for it to come down like this. Have the police been here already?"

"The police? Why would they be here? Has something happened to Cindy?"

Timmie lost track of all the mayhem around them. "Happened? Haven't they picked her up?"

"Picked her up? Of course not. She walked out of here right after you hurt her, and we haven't seen her since."

Oh, God. Oh, no.

"Ellen—"

Ellen flashed an unheard-of rage. "I can't right now, Timmie. Don't you see we're busy?"

"But my dad's missing. And Cindy's missing. And nobody can find Alex."

Somehow that brought Ellen to a halt. "Find him? You don't need to find him. He's right there."

She pointed to that room again, and Timmie finally saw. Standing in the far corner, her eyes swollen and red, her hands wrung together like socks in a spin cycle, her voice a low moan of grief. Mary Jane Arlington. Next to her, Barb was slipping paddles back into the defibrillator, Mattie was yanking off gray slacks, and one of the techs was lubricating an Ewald tube.

"Okay," Barb was saying. "We've got a rhythm. Now get me some dopamine, and where the fuck's the Narcan?"

"Narcan?" Timmie asked for no apparent reason. She knew damn well what Narcan was the specific treatment for.

"Mary Jane found him in his office," Ellen all but accused. "He overdosed."

And then she just spun away and ran into the room, leaving Timmie behind to stare at Alex Raymond's naked feet like a witness at a roadside accident.

She didn't have time for this. Her father was out there someplace freezing to death, or worse. Cindy was missing. Alex was a big boy who should be able to handle his mistakes like an adult.

Which, of course, was why everybody in this town, including her, had spent so much time protecting him from reality.

Timmie wasn't going to be able to tolerate much more of this reality shit herself before she caved in like a tree house full of termites. She had to call Murphy. She had to call Micklind. She had to get the hell out of here before it dawned on her just why Alex Raymond had tried to kill himself.

"Hey, man," one of the paramedics was saying to a member of the other team as they restocked. "I'm sorry I almost sideswiped you. I didn't see that Porsche sitting there till the last minute."

"Jesus, no kidding," the other guy said with a shake of his head. "Can you believe somebody'd leave a classic like that just sitting there in the driveway with its lights out?"

Timmie turned to them. "Porsche?"

They nodded in unison. "Eighty-eight candy-apple-red Cabriolet."

This was impossible. How could this possibly get worse?

Timmie was a trauma nurse. She knew damn well how it could get worse. "You didn't see anybody inside?" she asked, her hands clutched as tightly as Mary Jane's.

"Not a soul. I told your security guys. Guess they'll tow it."

Timmie didn't even bother to say good-bye. She just ran for the phone and tried her damnedest to remember the number for the police department. She finally settled for the operator, who kindly suggested 911. It took Timmie precious moments to convince her that that wouldn't work. By the time she finally got Micklind on the phone, she could hardly think.

"Detective Sergeant Micklind."

Timmie almost wept with relief. "This is Timmie Leary. Did you pick up Cindy Dunn yet? Have you seen Murphy? Do you know my father's missing?"

"Whoa, slow down. Again."

She repeated herself. "I just don't think it's a coincidence that Murphy, my father, and Cindy are all missing at the same time. Do you?"

There was a pause. A small sound of impatience. "I really don't need this tonight."

"I don't need this ever! What are we going to do?"

"Timmie Leary, outside call, line six. Timmie Leary."

That was the hospital operator, paging. Timmie's heart jumped. "Hold on." She hit the hold button and dialed the outside line.

"This is Timmie Leary." She was so frightened her voice sounded like she'd been sucking helium.

Her caller whispered, "I want to say thank you."

Just from listening, she knew. It could sound like a man or a woman. Low, soft, anonymous. But it wasn't anonymous to Timmie.

"Cindy?" she asked, hanging on to that phone as if it would help her hang on to Cindy herself. "I'm sorry about what I said. I've just been so upset lately. Can we talk about it?"

"No," Cindy said quietly. "We can't. I'm tired of trying to be your friend. After everything I've done for you, you turn on me like that. I don't deserve that kind of treatment."

"You're right. You don't—"

"Listen to me. Listen to me. You think you're so smart. You think you know everything. Well, figure this out, forensic nurse. Who do you save first?"

"What?"

"No, that's a triage question, isn't it? Well, you're so sure you know better than anybody else which patient deserves all your attention. I collected a puzzle for you tonight. I was just going to stop and get any able-bodied person to make it fair, but I got a bonus. I got your friend the reporter. And I got your father. Now, who do you save first?"

God, she couldn't breathe. She needed to let Micklind know. She needed to alert somebody here.

Nobody here was paying attention. They were hovering over Alex, or ricocheting around the trauma room like racquetballs. There was nothing she could do but hold on and wait for the rest.

"Here's the clue," Cindy said, as if asked. "What are some of the other uses for fabric softener sheets? You have five minutes to answer, Timmie. After that it'll be too late."

Click.

Fabric softener. Fabric...

Timmie punched the hold button. "Micklind, are you there?"

"Yeah, what the hell...?"

"My house! They're at my house, and she's going to set it on fire!"

Timmie didn't even wait to hear him yell "Shit!" and hang up. She just ran.

* * *

There was a car in her driveway. A nondescript Japanese sedan she'd never seen before tucked back in the shadows by the garage. Lights were on all across the first floor. The second floor remained dark. Timmie knew the police would be coming soon. She also knew she couldn't wait. Cindy was going to start dropping lighted sheets of fabric softener all over the piles and mountains of flammables in those rooms until her house, her grandfather's and great-grandfather's house, was a conflagration of old memories.

If that was all Cindy intended to do, Timmie could live with it. But Timmie knew with dead certainty that she fully intended to take her father and Murphy along for the ride.

Who do you save first?

No, Daddy. No.

Timmie knew it was probably pointless, but she walked around the back of her house to get in. No creaky step for her. She pulled open the creaky screen door to the kitchen instead, counting on the fact that Cindy had unlocked the way in.

She had.

Timmie could hear the refrigerator humming. She could hear the clock ticking in the living room. Overhead the fluorescent light flickered, and the window that lit her sun catchers had disappeared into a rectangle of night. The house seemed so still, as if it were just lying dormant. Timmie knew better. Carefully avoiding the spots that would groan, she tiptoed across the floor, all the while conscious of how much time she was using up. Measuring her breathing, her movements, by the ticking of that clock. Keeping perfectly quiet, she leaned around the doorway to see into the dining room.

Nothing.

No bodies, no Cindy, no fire.

No, not quite nothing. Standing there in the stale air of an empty house, Timmie caught the first whiff of a familiar odor. Not much. But then, not much was needed. All Cindy had to do was drop a couple of fabric softener sheets into a pool of brand-new bourbon, and this place would go up like bananas Foster.

Where was her father? Where was Murphy? How long did Timmie have before Cindy started flicking her Bic?

And most important, what could she do to stop her?

Timmie had no gun. They'd taken that away with Jason. She had no pepper spray or dogs. She did, however, have a lifetime batting average of .310. Timmie turned toward the front door for her weapon and suffered her latest shock. It was gone. Her best Louisville slugger, autographed by Stan "the Man" Musial himself. And damn it if Timmie wasn't sure she knew exactly who'd walked off with it.

Somehow, that settled her. If there was one thing a trauma nurse was, it was resourceful. And Traumawoman was resource itself. Holding her breath against discovery, Timmie crept back into her father's room and raided his memory closet. Well, if she couldn't have Stan the Man, she could at least have Marty Marion.

"You might as well come on down," she said into the echoing rooms. "The police will be here in a minute."

Cindy's voice floated, disembodied, down the stairs. "I know."

Timmie thought she could hear distant sirens already, but that might have just been wishful thinking.

"Where are they?" she asked.

Cindy laughed, and the sound bounced down the stairs. "That's for you to find out. You're so damn smart."

Timmie rubbed the back of her neck and choked up again. "All right, then, how about this. Why?"

There was a long pause upstairs. A breathy sound that might have been a sigh. "I just wanted to help," she said.

"By killing gomers?"

"That was Landry's fault," she insisted, suddenly petulant. "That son of a bitch. I loved him!"

"He wasn't even here when you started killing those old people, Cindy."

"Well, all right, that was Alex."

"Alex asked you to kill his patients for him?"

"He couldn't do that. But he told me how much they were going to cost the unit. How tough it was going to be to make ends meet for a third time. How worried he was about it."

"He told you that?"

"Yes! I was there for him a long time before you were."

By now, Timmie knew better. But now wasn't the time to argue.

"And you called Murphy so that Landry would get into trouble? Or did you just kill Alice to cost him all that money?"

Silence. "I told you. He was using me."

"What about your father, Cindy? Who asked you to kill him?"

There was a shuffling sound. A familiar clicking that sent ice skittering through Timmie's veins. "You could have at least thanked me," Cindy said, her voice small and sad. And then she tossed the first of the softener sheets straight down the stairwell.

Timmie screamed and ran, but it was too late. Cindy had dripped the bourbon down the side of the staircase, and it caught like a gas trail. As Timmie grabbed a bolt of fabric to beat it out, Cindy dropped another. And another. She walked right down the steps, floating sheets over the side of the railing like flash paper flowers.

Timmie gave up on the fabric. Paper had started to catch. The curtains were no more than a few feet away, and they were old. The pool of bourbon seemed to reach back under the hall closet door, where all her father's business papers had been kept. It was already too late. And Cindy, dropping sheets, was smiling.

Timmie leaped for her. Cindy clambered away, dropping another sheet she'd lit from the shiny silver Zippo in her hand. The paper caught fast, the smell acrid and thick, the flames licking upward toward old wood.

"It's too late," Cindy chanted, pulling another sheet free. "Which one do you save? You really gonna let Mister Murphy die just because you can't say good-bye to your father?"

"Cindy, stop it now," Timmie begged, crowding her back toward the stairs. "Help me get them out."

Cindy lifted the sheet high, flicked the lighter so that the flame shuddered in the depths of her dark eyes. "You still don't get it," she said. "I just wanted to be your friend."

And then she lit the sheet.

She was going to toss the thing right at Timmie. Timmie never let her. Winding up like she was going for the left field corner, she swung the bat straight at Cindy's arms.

Cindy didn't see the bat until the last minute. Her eyes popped. She dropped the lighter, threw up her hands. Caught the bat midforearm and screamed as her bones crunched.

Timmie didn't even wait to see what Cindy was going to do. She dove for the lighter, which was skating across the floor toward another pile of papers. Grabbing it, she scrambled back to her feet and shoved the shrilling Cindy aside to get up the stairs.

The stairs were already involved. Flames licked around the edges like logs on a hearth, and the smoke roiled up toward the second floor as if it were a chimney. Timmie choked and blinked, blinded by the sudden heat. She heard a terrible scream from below her and knew that Cindy had been caught by her own trap. But it was too late to worry about Cindy now.

Who do you save first?

It depended on who she found first.

Her bedroom was empty. Timmie searched her bed, under her bed, around the floor, into the closet. The smoke was getting too thick to see, and she was crawling.

"Daddy! Murphy, where the hell are you?"

On her hands and knees, pulling her shirt up over her nose and mouth, squinting through inky, oily blackness, the fire below moaning with delight. It was too fast, let loose in a house made for a holocaust.

"Daddy!"

She scooted into Meghan's room. Crouched lower. Heard the sirens and couldn't wait. She didn't even realize she still had the bat in her hand until it bumped into something. Something soft. Something big.

She had to bend close to recognize him. Silvery hair, soft blue eyes. Hands tied with the same duct tape that closed his mouth. She almost sobbed with relief. She almost dragged him out without looking for Murphy.

Murphy was four feet farther back. Wedged into a closet, unconscious. Taped and silent and sticky with congealing blood. Impossible to move easily, which was probably the point.

Who do you save first, smartass?

Timmie sobbed with frustration. She looked back to her father, who was calmly watching her, as if he knew that, like always, she'd take care of him. She looked at Murphy, who couldn't help himself at all. She heard the crash of something caving in downstairs and scooted over to untape her father.

"You have to get yourself out, Da," she said in between coughs. "Hold on to Murphy's leg and I'll guide you out."

He smiled. "Okay, honey."

She turned back and grabbed Murphy by the shoulders. Her lungs were bursting. Pinpoints of light danced in front of her eyes. She couldn't breathe. She couldn't think. If she stopped to worry about it, all three of them would be dead. She yanked on Murphy until she thought she was going to die, and finally felt his dead weight inch across the floor.

"Now, hold on, Da!" she yelled.

Joe took hold of Murphy's ankle and scooted right along with her. Timmie backed toward the door. She could really hear the fire now. Not the wood popping or the joints groaning. The fire. Hungry, primal, ferocious. Howling and cackling with glee, seething with power. Snapping at her like prey on a veldt. And softly, like psychotic counterpoint, her father, singing.

"'They asked me how I knew... my true love was tru-u-u-u-e..."'

"Smoke Gets in Your Eyes." Could he pick 'em or what? Timmie tried to laugh and ended up choking instead. She kept moving long past the moment she could see. Past the moment she could breathe. She finally got to a window over the back porch and punched it out.

The fire roared below. Timmie could barely make out strobes shuddering against the next house. She heard engines and pumps and voices. Not soon enough. She had to get these two out.

She looked back to guide her father on and realized he was gone. Somewhere along the hallway, he'd let go of Murphy, and she hadn't noticed. Timmie hesitated for only a second. And then, because of who she was, how she was trained, she acted. She triaged, and saved the person who had the best chance of surviving.

Breaking out as much glass as she could, Timmie pulled Murphy out onto the roof. It still held, and a pair of firefighters were just setting up to get a ladder to it. If the fire didn't reach them in the next minute, Murphy would be okay.

Timmie could hear the chaos below and knew it wouldn't be long before the entire house just folded in on itself. She turned away from the man she'd just broken her back pulling out.

"Hey, what are you doing?" the fireman yelled.

At the front of the house, two windows exploded, and the fire claimed the roof. Sucking in a few lungsful of clean air, Timmie climbed back into the window and went to save her father.

Epilogue

Murphy hated hospitals. It was bad enough spending enough time in one to get a story. But that was nothing to actually being stuck in one as a patient. Especially now that he was feeling better.

Well, less dead. He could at least talk now that they'd taken that damn tube out, and he could breathe without coughing up chunks of what looked like coal. His head didn't feel like it was going to fall off, and he could successfully count raised fingers three times out of four. Even with the cast on his arm and the stitches all across his back from where Leary had dragged him over a broken window to get him out of that house, he didn't feel nearly as bad as he knew he should. He was just restless.

Sherilee had been in. She'd helped him finish the piece on the town that had covered up a serial killer. She'd also cracked a bottle of sparkling grape juice for the third Pulitzer she was sure it was going to earn. Murphy drank his juice, wished like hell for the real stuff, and smiled like a good boy. He put up with visits from Mattie, Walter, Barb, and Ellen, who seemed committed to dispensing only innocuous news. He even sat through the dressing down he'd been handed by the police detective who'd had to break into his Porsche to get it out of the path of careening ambulances.

But Murphy didn't want to talk to any of them. None of them knew what it felt like to be immobilized. None of them realized why he had to leave.

He heard her coming all the way down the hall. She was shuffling on feet still raw from where her rubber-soled tennis shoes had melted in the heat. She looked even worse than Murphy, her eyebrows gone and her face peeling like a bad sunburn. Her hair had been singed almost to the roots. She had her burned and lacerated hands wrapped in big, protective mitts to cushion them, and she had a set of stitches on her butt that matched the ones on Murphy's back. All in all, a pitiful sight. Murphy would have felt sorry for her, except that of any of the crowd who'd stopped by to see him, she seemed the most content.

Today that contentment was a little fragile, so Murphy took it upon himself to be the entertainer.

"When am I getting out of here?" he demanded, his throat still gravelly from smoke inhalation.

"I don't know when you're going home," Timmie said, easing into his armchair. "I'm not in charge. Of anything. Ever again."

"Don't be ridiculous," Murphy retorted, trying to find a more comfortable position and just making himself dizzy. "I heard you're going to be the coroner."

"Bite your tongue."

"You mean you don't want to know how people die?"

"Not as long as I live."

"But you got Van Adder disgraced. You got Landry fired, that security guard brought up on charges, and GerySys outbid by a reputable firm that will co-op Restcrest to financial security. Hell, you even got all those nurses rehired."

"No I didn't," she said. "You did. I just got my house burned down."

"And got Davies off with a warning."

"He didn't mean it."

Murphy could tell from her eyes how much he hadn't meant it. Not something to argue about, though. He closed his eyes and leaned back against his pillow. "You been checking up on everybody today?"

He could hear her unsuccessfully try to scratch one hand with the other. "Uh-huh."

"How's your buddy?"

Timmie sighed. "Alex? They moved him out of ICU right before they moved you."

"He'll be okay?"

"Yeah, I guess." Timmie's laugh sounded as sore as Murphy's chest. "Isn't it funny how you don't realize who the stronger person is until something like this happens?"

Murphy opened his eyes. "What do you mean?"

She shrugged, her eyes looking bruised and introspective. "I always thought Alex would save me from my dad's weaknesses. And here it's my dad who was the survivor, not Alex."

"Alex will be okay as long as he has his cause."

"And an entire town to protect him from reality."

"Aren't there days when you'd like a little protection?"

"There are days when I'd like somebody to wipe my nose and schedule my naps. And when that happens, I usually end up homeless, hospitalized, and trying to figure out what happened."

"Nobody's gonna figure that out any better than they'll figure out Cindy."

Leary waved him off. "Oh, hell, Cindy's easy. She wanted to be someone. She wanted to mean something to someone. It's what we all do."

Murphy could do no more than shake his head. "You decided all this while she was chasing you around with a lighter, did you?"

"No. When she told me she'd just been trying to help. I feel sorry for her."

Murphy found himself gaping. "She's dead because she tried to kill us all, Leary. I'm afraid that doesn't inspire compassion here."

"She tried to get us to love her, Murphy. She just didn't know how."

He was back to shaking his head. "I guess that's why I'm a reporter and you're a nurse."

"Not just a nurse," she said with a secret smile. "Traumawoman."

"Uh-huh. How's your dad?"

That cost her the smile. "I don't know yet. He's hanging in there."

Murphy sat up straighter. Barb had at least filled him in on that department. "They haven't put him on life support?"

Timmie shook her head. "I won't let them. If he lives, he has to decide to do it on his own. I'm not stacking the deck just so he has a heartbeat."

"You're sure about that?"

Timmie spent a moment considering the mitts on her hands. Murphy could see the memories taking her back to moments he knew nothing about. He'd heard about them from the police, of course, and the fire crews who had stopped by to visit their two miracles. She'd done the impossible, and then crawled back in to do it again, even as the house had fallen in around her. And then, with her six-foot four-inch father draped across her back like a winter coat, she'd made it all the way to the window before the floor had given way. Only quick hands and strong firemen had saved either of them.

Murphy knew that the hospital was putting her up for a lifesaving award. He knew that damn near every person in Puckett was praying that Joe Leary didn't die after his daughter had fought so hard to save him. He suspected that Timmie didn't agree.

"I'm not going to make Daddy live just because I feel guilty," she finally said, lifting clear blue eyes his way. "I'm not going to let him die for the same reason. It's time for nature to take over. If he lives, we'll do the best we can. If he doesn't, we'll toast him like the rare character he was, and then we'll go on. It's not my decision to make."

"And after that?"

"Right now I'm just trying to find a place to live." Then she smiled, her expression suddenly clear. "At least I don't have to worry about cleaning all those newspapers out of the living room."

"My apartment's going to be available soon."

A little of that light died. "How soon?"

"I have a tentative offer from the Philadelphia Inquirer I thought I'd check out. In a couple of weeks, maybe."

She nodded. "And the rest?"

Murphy thought of that sparkling grape juice he'd resented so much. "I guess we'll see."

Timmie nodded, smiled, went back to staring at her hands. "Well, then, how about that meaningless sex?"

Murphy laughed so hard he started coughing again. "Now?"

She laughed back, and the two of them sounded like a tuberculosis ward. "You name the time, I'll name the place."

"When those things are off your hands."

She nodded. "Deal."

They smiled, content with the deal. Anticipating the rewards. Regretting the loss.

"Not a deal," Murphy said. "A date."

When he fell asleep a few hours later, he found himself smiling.

* * *

"You should be asleep."

Timmie looked up from where her father was resting to see the night nurse hovering at the edge of the door.

"I couldn't," she admitted. "Hospitals are as restful as hockey rinks."

The nurse smiled. "He's been sleeping pretty well tonight."

Timmie nodded and went back to watching her father's face. It looked tired, yellow. He was finally beginning to look small. There was a re-breather over his nose and mouth, and a couple of IVs in his arm. His chest rattled, and his urine was scant and dark. Not enough to kill him unless he decided it was time to go. He evidently hadn't come to that crossroads yet.

"He been singing at all?"

"Actually, yes," the nurse said, stepping in. "He's been humming. And whispering about women."

Timmie turned her head. "Women?"

"Yeah. I don't know who it is, but he keeps talking about 'she this and she that,' you know?"

Timmie smiled. "Not she, like ladies. Sidhe, like leprechauns. He's talking to the fairy folk."

The unit was hushed at this hour of the morning, shadowy and unfamiliar. The sun was setting up to breach the horizon, and birds chattered in the bare trees outside the window.

Daybreak. The most superstitious time of the day, when light returned, when shadows and nightmares fell away, when reality reasserted its hold on a primal mind.

When the veil grew stronger, the fairies slipped into the darkness, and humans were given permission to hope.

Timmie clasped her father's hand between hers and thought how huge it was. How all-encompassing. He was a hell of a man. Lousy husband, uncertain father, titanic drunk. Dear, whimsical, infuriating friend.

She wanted so badly to recite Dylan Thomas to him. To beg him to stay. But it wasn't her place anymore. He'd choose to stay or go as he wanted. As he needed. And she'd just wait here by his side until he decided.

"Timmie..."

She straightened at the sound of his voice. "Well, good morning, Da, how are you?"

He struggled to get his eyes open even halfway. They were still red and swollen and tender, his face raw. "Timmie..."

Timmie was pulling the re-breather free so she could hear him better when the nurse walked back in. "Mr. Leary!" she yelled in a patented old-persons-and-foreign-tourists voice. "HOW... ARE... YOU?"

Timmie's dad flinched and closed his eyes. "Hush, woman."

Timmie held on tighter, felt a flutter of a response in his hand. "How you feeling, Da?"

"Like... crap. Who hit me?"

"O'Doole."

The nurse glared, but Timmie knew better. Her father didn't have the strength to unravel the last few days. Let him nod in peace.

"Ah... he's got a mean left, that one."

"Yep."

"Timmie?"

"Yes, Da."

"Am I going to die?"

She sucked in a breath. "I don't know, Da. Are you?"

It took him a minute to work up the energy to answer. "Don't know. If I do, though..." Timmie leaned closer, and he nodded, that quick, wry quirk his father had taught him. "I gave it a good pull, didn't I, girl?"

Timmie couldn't say she was surprised at all by the tears that splashed against her hands. "Yeah, Da. You did that."

He nodded again.

Behind Timmie, the nurse snuffled like a horse. "'I will arise and go now, and I will go to Innisfree,'" she intoned, as if she were viewing a saint.

Joe Leary turned toward his daughter. "Timmie..."

"Yes, Da."

"Will you tell me... why people are always saying that to me?"

Timmie could hardly stop laughing. "It's from 'The Lake Isle of Innisfree,' Da, by Yeats. It's your favorite poem."

That got his eyes wide open. "Aw, Jesus, who said that? Do you know how tired I am of hearing that damn thing?"

Timmie laughed until the sun came up and the fairies fled into the darkness.

The End

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