Billy Straight

71

Kathy Bishop awoke at nine, sweating, chilled, in terrible pain. Stu punched the call button and held her hand. She looked at him, but from her face he couldn't tell what she saw. Where the hell were the nurses- he wanted to run over to the station but didn't want to leave Kathy.

Finally they came, and he had to control himself from screaming at them.

Now Kathy was sedated, back asleep, and he realized it hadn't taken that long after all.

Get a grip.

The room felt like a cell; he'd left only for an hour, when Mother had vanned all the kids over at five-thirty and they'd gone for burgers and fries at a local McDonald's. All six were quieter than usual, even the baby. He assured them they could see Mommy soon, played around, told jokes, thought they were buying the Daddy-as-usual bit but wasn't sure. He felt out of it, some imposter inhabiting Daddy's body.

The kids started acting up, and Mother said, “Let's go, troops.”

On the way out, Stu noticed other diners staring and he filled with anger.

What's wrong, turkeys, never seen a big family before?

He stayed hot all the way to St. Joe's. Weird; he'd never had a short fuse before.

Meanwhile, Petra and Wil were chasing what looked to be a multiple killer and he was calling airlines, catching guff and bureaucratese, turning up empty, no record of Balch booking any flights, but with all the turndowns he'd received, who knew?

He used to be able to worm stuff out of bureaucrats. Mormon charm, Kathy called it, kissing his forehead and favoring him with her come-hither wink. He loved that wink.

Not an ounce of charm in him tonight. He held Kathy's hand. Limp, lifeless. But for the warmth of her skin, he might have panicked.

Breathing evenly. The machines said she was fine.

No more airlines to call, not a damn thing to do but wait.

For what? More pain?

Too wound-up to sleep, he got up and paced the room. He needed to sleep, needed to be together for Kathy… the stack of TV Guides sat on an end table. Maybe stupid, derivative Dack Price plotlines would get him drowsy.

He was into the second volume when he felt his posture slacken and his eyelids droop. The third made the room grow dim.

Then something filtered through the fatigue.

Words, sentences- something a little different.

Now he was sitting up. Wide-awake.

Rereading… wondering… should he call Petra?

Strange- maybe nothing. But…

He didn't even know where Petra was. So out of touch. Could his judgment be trusted?

He'd try to find her. Worse came to worst, he'd have wasted some time.

Wasting time was his new hobby anyway.