When Crickets Cry Read Online Free PDF Page B

"I'm Annie's aunt. She's my sister's daughter."
    "Cici. I heard."
    We stood for a moment while the room gossiped around us. She pointed to my clothes. "I've met a lot of paramedics in the last few years, and you don't look like any of them. How'd you know what to do?"
    A full-length wall mirror next to the Coke machine showed my reflection. She was right. I looked like someone who'd been hanging Sheetrock. To make matters worse, I hadn't shaved in more than five years. Except for the eyes, I was almost unrecognizable to myself.
    "When I was a kid, I hung around the ER. Cleaning, doing whatever. Eventually, they let me ride in the fire truck, and we were usually first on the scene. You know, sirens, trucks, big chain saws."
    She smiled, which meant she was either buying it or too tired not to.
    "Then I worked the moonlight shift during college to help pay for books and classes." I shrugged. "It's like riding a bike." That much was true. I wasn't lying yet.
    "Your memory's better than mine," she said.
    I needed to reroute this. I smiled. "To be totally honest, it was the sirens and flashing lights that I liked best. I still keep my nose in it." Again, both statements were true, but they barely skimmed the surface.

    "Well ..." She crossed her arms tighter as if she were getting colder. "Thank you for today ... for what you did."
    "Oh, I almost forgot." I reached into my pocket and held out the small golden sandal that had been looped around Annie's neck before Cindy flung it into the gutter. "You dropped this ... in the street."
    Cindy held out her hand and, when she saw what it held, fought back more tears. I handed her my handkerchief, and she wiped off her face. "It was my sister's. They sent it back in an envelope from Africa once they ... once they found the bodies."
    She paused and let the hair fall over her eyes. This woman had done some living in the last decade, and she wore most of it.
    "Annie's worn it since the day it came in the mail." She slid it gently into her pocket. "Thank you ... a third time." She looked back toward the two double doors. "I'd better get back. Annie's gonna start to wonder."
    I nodded, and Cindy walked away. I followed her with my voice. "I wonder if I could come back in a couple of days, maybe bring a teddy bear or something."
    She turned, tucked the loose strands behind her ears, and began tying the front of her shirt in a knot at her waist. "Yes, but. . ." She looked around the room and whispered, "No bears. Everybody brings bears. Don't tell anyone, but I've started giving them away myself." She nodded. "Come back, but be creative. A giraffe maybe, but no bears."
    I walked to the parking lot, trying not to notice the smell of the hospital.

     

Chapter 4
    y alarm sounded at 2:00 a.m. I slipped down the dock and jumped into the lake. Cold, yes, but it got the blood flowing. After my swim, I juiced some carrots and apples, added a beet, some parsley, and a piece of celery for what has been called "protective measure," and then followed it with a baby aspirin. By three I had added enough temporary hair dye to turn my light brown hair almost totally black and then accented my sideburns and beard with enough gray to add twenty-five years to my profile. A little before three thirty I drove out to the road, looking like no one I'd ever met but in plenty of time to beat the traffic and make my 5:30 a.m. flight out of Atlanta.
    I sat at the gate in B concourse waiting for the flight attendants to call my row. I don't like airports. Never have. When I find myself wondering what hell must be like, I'm reminded of the terminals in Atlanta. Thousands of people, most of whom don't know one another, crammed into a limited space, all in a hurry and trying desperately to get out. No one really wants to be there because it's simply a mandatory delay, a non-place-you're not home and neither is anyone else. Everybody's just passing through. In some ways, much like a hospital.
    We landed in Jacksonville,