Page 34 of Mad Mabel

Something flickered across his face. Barely. A twitch at the corner of his mouth. A lift of one eyebrow, so slight I wasn’t sure I’d seen it. The air between us grew tight, brittle. As if the room itself disapproved of my tone.

“Are you being clever, Mabel?”

I dropped my gaze to the white knitted blanket pulled over my knees. I’d been moved to a new room—mercifully. This one had a window, but no balcony. Fewer places to fall from.

“No,” I said. Quietly.

He stepped over to the window and leaned against the sill. For a long moment, he inspected his fingernails, turning his hands under the light like a man trying to remember what dirt looked like.

Then he looked up. “If you know,” he said, “why aren’t you more upset?”

He made no attempt to hide the accusation in his question. If anything, asking it gave him pleasure. Like he was a detective and this was the gotcha moment.

“I am upset,” I replied. It was true, I was. And yet I wasn’t crying. I hadn’t shed a tear in two days. It wasn’t that I wasn’t sad. To the contrary, my pain was too enormous for tears. “Are you?”

Hatred darkened his eyes. He pushed off the windowsill and moved to the end of my bed. “Who are you to ask me that?” he roared.

His raised voice had the desired effect of intimidating me into silence, so I didn’t answer.

“What were you two talking about, anyway, before she… she… jumped?” he asked after several seconds.

It took me by surprise, this question. Given the calculated way he was asking, I didn’t feel inclined to answer. So I shrugged.

But he wasn’t letting it go.

“Mabel?” His gaze burned into me. “What were you talking about?”

“I don’t remember.”

Of course I remembered. We were talking about Susan McGinty. Did he know that?

“You’re lying. Did you argue? Did you say something to upset her?”

I examined his face for guilt, or responsibility. Neither was present.

“Did she really jump from the balcony?” he asked.

I shouldn’t have been shocked. I knew he’d never take responsibility for the part his relationship with Susan McGinty had played in her death. I never expected he’d attribute responsibility to me. Silly of me, since isn’t that what he’d done with Kitty?

“Susan McGinty,” I said quietly.

Now he was the one to look shocked. “Pardon?”

“You asked what Mum and I were talking about. It was Susan McGinty.”

I didn’t expect guilt, or an admission. I certainly didn’t expect him to apologize for suggesting I had something to do with it. And so, I wasn’t sure why I said it. Maybe, as he’d suggested earlier, I was trying to be clever.

A nurse bustled into the room, saving us both from speaking.

“How’s the patient?” she said. “Ah, Dad’s here. Good.”

My father smiled and acted pleasant as the nurse did her checks, refilled my water, and completed her paperwork, but I could tell she sensed something was amiss.

“Is everything okay in here?” she asked finally.

“Fine,” my father said.

She nodded, glancing at me. “You’re okay, Mabel?”