The Last Deep Breath

8

On West 4^th, Ellie in his doorway with the blade in her side, Grey rushed to her and clamped his hands to the wound and was surprised at how little it was bleeding. She said, “Jesus, don’t pull it out.”

“I won’t.”

“How bad is it?”

“Bad enough.”

“You know anyone who can help?”

“No hospital, huh?”

“No.”

“Let’s get you inside.”

All of this after not seeing each other for more than a decade. It was a little surreal, but somehow still expected, perfectly natural.

She put an arm around his neck and he half-carried her into the vestibule. His apartment was on the third floor. They got a rhythm going as they moved up the staircase, where she’d sort of take a tiny jump and he’d lift her up three steps at a time. On the second floor landing the manager was cleaning up old Chinese restaurant menus on the floor. The guy glanced at the knife handle in terror.

Grey said, “Look away. You didn’t see anything, right?”

He got the key into his lock and opened the door. It clunked against the surround-sound speaker.

Ellie asked, “You know anyone who-”

“A medic I was in the Army with. Let me call him. If your liver hasn’t been nicked he can probably help. If it has, we need to take you to the emergency room.”

“Goddamn it.”

Grey got her down onto his couch, propped pillows behind her head, threw a blanket over her to help with shock. She hadn’t been stabbed long ago, which meant it had happened fairly nearby. She’d been in the neighborhood and he hadn’t known.

He grabbed his cell and called Tough-Shit Sherman. T.S. answered on the first half-ring, barked, “The fuck?”

”It’s Grey. I’ve got my sister here at my place. Knife wound, not much bleeding. Looks like a two, maybe three-inch puncture. The knife’s still in. Think it missed the stomach but not sure about the liver.”

“First thing, don’t pull the blade out.”

“I’m not going to pull the fucking blade out.”

“Any black discharge?”

“Not that I see.”

“Good. If he was seeping liver bile you could cross her off your Christmas card list.”

“Just get here,” Grey said and hung up.

He looked down and Ellie was grinning at him, a welled drop of blood on her lower lip. He wasn’t sure if she was hemorrhaging internally or if she’d taken a smack in the mouth. She was radiant and lovely and looked exactly like the little girl he’d known and nothing like her at all. They’d only been in foster care together for about twelve months, but it was an important time, a year that would never merge with the rest of the years, never fade, never soften. He considered her to be his sister and always would. He’d looked for her several times over the last decade, but she’d hit the streets at fourteen and he’d never so much as caught a hint of her after that.

She raised one hand, her fingertips speckled with dry blood, and brushed the hair from his eyes. “You look good,” she said. “I’ve missed you.”

“Don’t talk, Ellie.”

“I want to talk. It’s been long time since we’ve talked.”

A thousand questions boiled up in his throat, but he had to go with, “Who did this to you?”

“It wasn’t his fault.”

“Whose fault?”

“Johnny’s.”

“Somebody named Johnny stabbed you in the guts and it wasn’t his fault?”

Her gaze unfocused for an instant, then she centered on him again. She wet her lips. “Did you look for me?”

“Yes.”

“How hard?”

“You dropped out of the system when you were fourteen.”

“I thought maybe I could change,” she said, and for an instant her exquisite face fell and her bottom lip trembled, eyes suddenly wet. And then just as quickly the moment of weakness was gone and she was beautiful and hard again. “Do you know anything about what happened to Pax?”

“He lives outside of Fort Bragg, but right now he’s back in Iraq.”

“He’s a soldier?”

“Career.”

“And what are you?”

Even though his eyes didn’t brighten with tears, his own moment of weakness hit him. “A fuckup.”

“No you’re not. You just still need to find what you’re good at.”

He’d lost his family, been abused by foster parents, kicked out of school, booted out of the Army, had nothing of value except the car, couldn’t hold a steady job and worked temp manual labor wasting his days waiting for something to happen. He wondered if this was it.

“Where’ve you been?” he asked.

“For the last few years, L.A. mostly.”

“Doing what?”

“Being very stupid.”

It made her laugh, which led into a coughing fit that went on so long she nearly convulsed.

“How long have you been in New York?” he asked.

“Eight months.”

He swallowed thickly. A knot in his chest tightened even further. “And you knew where I was that whole time. Why did you wait so long to come by? Why did it have to be like this?”

“I’ve watched you,” she said. “I didn’t…I didn’t want to make things worse.”

“There is nothing worse.”

T.S. rushed in through the door with his medical kit, moved to Ellie’s side, looked her in the face and said, “Goddamn, woman, you’re gorgeous.”

“Thank you,” she said and started vomiting bile.