Fireproof

CHAPTER 69

Maggie had turned down Tully’s offer to drive her to the hospital. Someone needed to wait and secure the crime scene until Ganza’s crew got there. Besides, it wasn’t the first time her mother had attempted suicide. In fact, Maggie had lost track of how many times Kathleen O’Dell had tried to kill herself.

The first time it was sleeping pills. Then pills and alcohol. Five years ago when Maggie was in Nebraska, working a case, Kathleen decided to use a razor blade for a change of pace. Her therapist at the time called the cuts hesitation marks. After all, if she was really serious she would have cut vertically, slicing the veins open instead of across.

It had been three years since her last attempt. Julia Racine had been there that time, too. At a restroom sink in a Cleveland park, just before a rally for a religious organization.

Later Maggie asked Racine what it was that she said to convince her mother to stop. Racine told her, “I said I was already in a shitload of trouble with her daughter and maybe she could give me a break.” Of course Kathleen had laughed at that. She could relate. For the last twenty years she had felt like she was in a shitload of trouble with Maggie, too, because she had constantly let her down.

Maggie realized that ever since her father’s death, her mother had exchanged and swapped out her addictions like they were fashion trends, from Johnnie Walker to Valium to sex, then religion and health food and back to Johnnie Walker. The other day when Maggie walked in on her mother trying to get rid of Patrick, she recognized the signs that her mother was drinking again without needing to smell it on her breath.

When Maggie finally got to the hospital, a nurse in the ER directed her to intensive care. In intensive care a unit secretary told her she’d need to wait for the doctor and pointed out a lounge at the end of the hall. In the lounge, Maggie found Julia Racine.

Her sweatshirt had so much blood on it that Maggie thought Racine had been injured, too. Even when she realized it all belonged to her mother, when Racine looked up, Maggie asked, “Are you okay?”

It was the first time she had caught Racine speechless. The younger woman simply nodded and ran her fingers through her hair, leaving it more spiked than usual.

She shrugged and said, “I hate hospitals.”