Chapter 3 - The Cold Room at the Courtyard
The post-reduction sling was not the slim, breathable neoprene support I had worn under my chiffon sleeve that morning.
It was an immobilizer—a massive, rigid contraption of blue canvas, industrial Velcro, and an aluminum stay that wedged a foam bolster between my rib cage and my forearm, locking my right limb at a precise forty-five-degree angle from my torso. Every time I breathed, the wide nylon strap cut into the trapezius muscle on the left side of my neck, a dull counter-weight to the thumping fire in the shoulder.
It was 9:40 PM when my father’s sedan pulled into the parking lot of the Courtyard Marriott off Interstate 90.
The rain that had threatened all afternoon had finally settled over the valley, a thin, greasy drizzle that smeared the highway glare across the windshield in streaks of yellow and red. The backseat smelled of cold poached salmon and lemon dill sauce; Marcus had managed to cram four foil-covered chafing trays into the trunk, but the scent had leaked through the rear seats like an oily ghost.
"Your mother is in room three-twelve with Lena," Dad said as he put the car into park. He didn't turn off the ignition. The engine idled with a rhythmic, valve-ticking rattle that had been there since two winters ago when he forgot to change the oil before the frost. "Sophia went home to her parents' place in Skaneateles. Her father came and picked her up from the venue. Didn't even say goodbye to your mother. Just loaded her bags into the back of his Wagoneer and pulled out while the caterer was still loading the linen crates."
"Sophia has some sense," I said. My tongue felt thick, furred with the aftertaste of the Versed and the two hydrocodone tablets the triage nurse had handed me with a tiny paper cup of water forty minutes ago.
"Sophia is twenty-six years old and doesn't know how to keep her mouth shut when family is having a private disagreement," Dad said, his hands remaining clamped on the steering wheel at ten and two. His knuckles were pale, the skin dry and spotted with the liver spots that had appeared after his sixty-fifth birthday. "She had no business repeating what Lena said in confidence. Women say things when they’re stressed, Tessa. You know how your sister gets when she’s cornered. She talks to blow off steam. It didn't mean she planned it."
I turned my head—the only part of my upper body that could move without sending a ripple of nauseating heat through the clavicle.
"Dad," I said.
He didn't look at me. He looked through the swept arc of the wipers at the hotel’s neon sign, which had three letters burned out: COURT___D BY MARRIOTT.
"She shoved me into seven feet of water knowing my arm was strapped to my side," I said. Each word felt heavy, like a flat stone being laid onto a scale. "If Marcus hadn't been standing close enough to grab my collar, I would have gone to the bottom. I couldn't even tread water with my legs because the dress was five pounds of soaked polyester wrapped around my shins."
"You didn't drown," he said.
It was so quiet, so flat, that for three seconds I thought the medication had made me imagine the sentence.
"What did you say?"
"I said you didn't drown, Tessa," Dad turned to me then, his eyes small, wet, and rimmed with red veins that looked like cracked porcelain. "You’re hurt. It’s bad. We’ll get the surgeon in Rochester to fix it. I’ll pay the co-pay from the emergency savings. But you’re sitting here in this car, and your sister is upstairs in a room that cost two hundred and forty dollars a night, with three thousand dollars worth of custom invitations sitting in a recycling bin behind the kitchen at Alder House, and a fiancé who won't answer his cell phone."
He reached out, his hand hovering over my left knee, then dropped it onto the emergency brake between our seats.
"Lena’s whole life just stopped sixty minutes before it was supposed to start," he said. "You have your job at the firm. You have your apartment. You have your independence. Lena needed this. She needed Caleb. He was the one who was going to keep her steady."
"He was an anchor, Dad," I said. "Not a probation officer."
"Don't be clever," he snapped, the old, administrative bite returning to his voice. "This isn't one of your legal briefs. This is your sister. She’s upstairs crying so hard she threw up in the wastebasket. Your mother has been on the phone with Caleb’s parents in Connecticut for two hours, and his mother won't even put his father on the line. They’re treating us like... like we’re trash from the canal."
"Where did Caleb go?" I asked.
"He went to his brother’s cottage on Keuka Lake," Dad said. He turned the key, finally killing the engine. The silence that rushed into the sedan was cold, smelling of old carpet and wet wool. "He left a note on the steering wheel of Lena’s car. Three sentences. Didn't even use her name."
"What did it say?"
Dad pulled his key from the ignition, his fingers fumbling with the leather fob.
"It said: 'The wedding is canceled. Do not come to the house on Elmwood. My lawyer will contact your father regarding the deposits.'"
He opened his door. The interior dome light flickered on, harsh and yellow, illuminating the gray stubble on his cheeks and the greasy stain on his lapel where a drop of pool water had dried into the wool.
"He called a lawyer, Tessa," Dad said, looking down at me from the open door frame. "Before the sun even went down. That’s the kind of man he was. He was looking for an exit, and you gave it to him on a silver platter."
May you like
He slammed the door before I could answer.
I sat in the dark of the passenger seat for four minutes, listening to the rain tick against the thin sheet metal of the roof, watching my father’s silhouette walk through the automatic sliding glass doors of the lobby, his shoulders hunched against the damp, his hands shoved deep into his tuxedo pockets where he still had forty-eight unused custom matchbooks printed with the words: Lena & Caleb — Forever Begins Today.
