People swarmed them, meaning well, wanting explanations, needing statements, demanding answers. With everybody added to the crowd, Anne watched Tommy drift away from her. His mother emerged from somewhere and flung herself at him, hysterical and grasping.

His eyes met Anne’s for just a fleeting second, and she knew exactly what he was feeling—like he had been dropped into space as the safety net was pulled out from under him. He had no one. And no one had him.

Anne turned to Vince. Taking the gold necklace from the pocket of her torn, dirty pants, she pressed it into his hand, then pressed herself into his arms and turned herself over to him. As he held her tight and told her everything would be all right, she just pressed her ear to his chest and listened to his heart beat. For those few moments, everything else was just noise.

Closing her eyes, she slipped away from consciousness. The last thing she remembered in her mind’s eye: Tommy standing alone in a little red boat, his hand to his heart as he drifted out of view until all that remained was the faintest memory of his sad little smile.

Chapter 93

93

Anne came to to the sound of hushed voices in the hall outside her hospital room.

“. . . broken ribs . . . collapsed lung . . .”

“... oh my God . . . we’re lucky she’s not d-e-a-d ...”

“I can spell.”

Her voice was rusty and dry and didn’t carry very far, but it carried far enough.

“Hey, look who’s back,” Vince said with a soft smile as he came to her bedside.

“Oh, Anne Marie!” Franny exclaimed with a pained expression. “You look like a raccoon!”

Anne raised the head of the bed with the remote control, catching a glimpse of herself in the small mirror on the wall. Two black eyes. A fat lip. Stitches in her chin. Raccoons would have been offended by the comparison.

“Hey,” Vince objected. “You should see the other guy. They had to airlift him to LA. Our girl got a couple of good licks in. She knocked his eye out with a tire iron!” he said proudly.

Franny was horrified. “Oh my God!”

“Gave him a skull fracture, broke his nose . . .”

“Who are you?” Franny asked her, as if perhaps she had been possessed by some much-tougher entity than the one he thought he knew.

“I’m alive,” she said simply.

“Oh, sweetheart,” he said, melting. “I don’t even know what to say.”

“I’ll be sure to mark this day on my calendar,” Anne said dryly.

“I want to hug you, but I’m afraid you’ll hurt me. I was going to say that the other way around, but you beat a man’s head in with a tire iron, so . . .”

Anne tried to smile. She hurt everywhere. Her ribs hurt, her head hurt, her lungs hurt. She felt like she’d been run over by a truck.