It came back so easily, though that was partly due to the time and the call: two AM and the name on the caller ID; I almost hadn’t answered, thinking Mrs. Stefanini might be drunk and angry, lashing out. She wouldn’t be the first, only the most personal, but I was glad I’d had the fortitude to answer once I heard what she wanted, and then ashamed I was still making this about me.
Lia. Lia was gone, which seemed impossible.
My throat thickened, but I cleared it and said, Of course I’ll help, ignoring the voice in my head shouting, You’re still on probation (Lia’s voice, really, as she had always been better at warning me off my various stupidities), sitting up and gathering the covers around me, chilled despite the muggy air. I’ll do everything I can. Please, I said, grabbing a pen and paper and squinting as I turned on the light. I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to ask some questions. Is that all right?
Her exhausted voice shook, but she gave me all the details of Lia’s accident. That the car had rolled on the highway and hit a tree, that Lia had been crushed but not killed, that in the hospital they’d operated. That Lia had died anyway.
Do you know where they operated? I asked.
This was University Hospital, Mrs. Stefanini said. Sorry, Elena. I should have mentioned it. That’s why I called you. Will that make it difficult?
No, that’s okay, I said, glossing over it, my stomach growing heavier, as if I’d swallowed cement.
Her breathing sounded liquid now, as she imagined her daughter under the bright operating room lights, the surgeons opening her up, and I remembered that she was a big crime show fan, meaning that her mental movie would be graphic. Such a small thing, really, the bits of your life you never expect to add up to anything, but now it would loom large in her mind.
Where were her injuries?
Her chest, she said. Why would that matter?
It might not, I said, thinking, body parts, not wanting to go down that road but unable to stop myself from recalling the tissue recoverers, the screeners and the processors and distributors, the medical company reps and the implant surgeons I’d worked among for years. To a large but mostly secret world beyond your family and friends, once you stopped breathing, your body was a resource. That was good, really; it helped a lot of people—a walk through the burn or transplant wards was all you needed to be convinced of that—but it could go horribly wrong. Had, with Mr. Stefanini, and often did, on my end of the spectrum. If, to the public, organ donation was a Hallmark-card moment, tissue harvesting was more like adult bookstores, big business no one wanted to discuss because they fulfilled a need barely acknowledged to exist.
I said none of that. Instead, I stood and began to walk and said, The more I know, the better. It should help me focus my search. Was there an autopsy?
No. Not that I know of.
That’s good, I said, heading down the warm narrow hallway. My reflection in the window startled me, peering back in while I tried to see out; I turned away from the apparition on the dark glass and hurried on.
Is it good? Mrs. Stefanini said. No autopsy?
Yes, it is, I said, knowing that an autopsied, unclaimed body was almost always cannibalized for parts. I said, Did you sign any consent forms, for transplants?
I didn’t sign anything.
Okay. That’s a good thing too.
No, it isn’t.
I’m sorry? I said, stopping in the kitchen, where the mismatched clocks on the microwave and stove blinked. Another round of thunder storms, another power outage, which I must have slept through, the second time in a week; summer in Kentucky. Was Lia’s death somehow tied to that? There was so much I didn’t know.
Mrs. Stefanini said, I mean, I didn’t sign anything because I didn’t know she was even in the hospital. The accident was a few days ago. I’m sorry if this is confusing. It’s still confusing to me.
Of course it is, I said. The wood floor was gritty under my bare feet. I wiped my soles on my unshaven calves and said, Don’t worry. Take your time.
No, she said, growing angry, as if I was being willfully stupid. I don’t mean confusing that way. I mean the accident and its aftermath are a mess. A complete, fucking, unadulterated mess. There was no purse in the car, and the car wasn’t hers, and they didn’t even have her name.
She was a Jane Doe?
No, Elena, not a Jane Doe, Mrs. Stefanini said, her voice cracking, the fight going out of her. When she spoke again it was nearly a whisper. They had her down as Cindy.
Paper rustled in the background and she said, Cindy Lownes.
Was she talking when she came in? Did she give them that name?
No, her boyfriend did. Belmont. Belmont Pitkin. Do you know him?
I gripped the counter so tightly my fingertips turned white. No, I lied, and immediately regretted it. What if she found out? Well, she couldn’t have any lower an opinion of me than she already did. Still, it wasn’t a good sign that in a crucial moment lying came so easily to me. I wanted to stop.
Was he in the car with her?
Lia took his car. Or at least we think she did. It’s confusing. She’d been living with him and they broke up and it seems Lia went back to get some of her things and borrowed the car. For a bit, I’d lost touch with her. Her life grew . . . complicated. But he seems to have thought it was a new girlfriend, who he’d just had a fight with, this Cindy, so when the police called him about it, that’s the name he gave them.
Didn’t he go see her in the hospital?
They’re both blond, evidently, both very tall.
But surely, I started to say, and didn’t stop quickly enough.
Her voice quavering, Mrs. Stefanini said, It seems her face was battered.
Or, I thought, he was drunk. I headed back into the bedroom, eyes straight ahead so I wouldn’t see my ghostly self passing again in the window.
I’m sorry, I said, disoriented and at a loss, and really, what else could I say? The words around death are never quite right and never enough, as they don’t bring back the dead or erase the pain; it’s like trying to fill a canyon one pebble at a time. Still, we have to try. And when did they clear it up? I said. This confusion?
After.
Okay, I said. So they had to switch around the names, and maybe something happened then.
Probably, she said. All of his girlfriends looked the same, I think. He gave them three or four names. She might have been listed under any of them.
The police know, I take it?
Yes. They’re looking for her.
Good. That’s good.
Is it? she said. Will they find her?
I lied again, knowing it was the right thing to do, even as I felt bad doing so. Her voice was so full of desperate hope that I didn’t want to disappoint her. They should, I said, though truthfully a missing body wouldn’t be a high priority. There hadn’t been a crime, other than the stolen car, and the one who stole it was dead, so there wouldn’t be any charges.
Can you help them? she said, meaning, Can you help me?
Of course, I said. Though they might not want me to. It would help if you let the detective know I was going to ask some questions. The police don’t like to be surprised, I said, meaning, The police don’t like me.
Yes, she said. I’ll call him today. Or tomorrow, if you need some time.
No, I said, sitting on the bed again, though only the edge. I felt it would be somehow disloyal to move any deeper into it. I’m going down there now, I said.
Now?