Summerland: A Novel Read Online Free Page B

something, but she didn’t feel anything. The room was warm, but Demeter couldn’t stop shivering.
    She heard the incoming helicopter. Medflight. Someone was being flown off-island. Someone was really hurt. Was it Penny? Penny was D.O.A. Did they fly dead people to Boston? Certainly not. So it must be someone else: Jake or Hobby. The Castles’ house was on the flight path of the air ambulance, and every time Demeter’s mother, Lynne, heard it incoming, she would genuflect and say, “God bless the patient. God bless the mother of the patient.” In this way, Demeter had learned that it was even worse to be the mother of the hurt person that it was to be the hurt person herself.
    A nurse approached Demeter and lifted up her chin. Demeter was convulsing into the pillow she held against her chest.
    “I think she’s in shock,” the nurse said aloud to herself.
    Shock? Probably certainly correct. When the Jeep smashed into the sand, there had been an impact like the apocalypse, a world-ending smash. A horrible shattering noise, an acrid smell. And then the Jeep had tipped over, and Demeter had gotten that roller coaster feeling in her stomach. She had tucked her head to her chest. One hand had gripped the door handle, one hand had pressed against the seat in front of her, the seat where Jake was sitting. The Jeep tilted to the left, and Demeter might have crushed Hobby with her oppressive weight, but she was literally dangling from the harness that was her seat belt.
    At that moment she had seen the unnatural angle of Penny’s head.
    All of a sudden, everything that had happened in those seconds became unthinkable. Demeter’s mind shut off. Dark screen. Was this shock?
    To the nurse, Demeter whispered, “Are my parents here?”
    The nurse wasn’t familiar to Demeter. She said, “Yes. But I can’t let them see you just yet. We have to examine you. And you have to talk to the police.”
    They had the bottle of Jim Beam, for sure.
    She said, “Did someone get flown to Boston? Someone from the car?”
    The nurse was taking her pulse. She looked levelly at Demeter. “Yes.”
    “Who was it?”
    “I can’t tell you that.”
    “Is it bad?” Demeter asked.
    “Yes,” the nurse said. “It’s bad.”
    The nurse took her blood pressure, checked her eyes, her ears, her nose, her throat. Asked her to stand up, asked her to move her limbs, her digits. Asked her to say the alphabet backward, asked her her home address, her date of birth, and the date of Valentine’s Day.
    “February fourteenth,” Demeter said. “Not a favorite.”
    The nurse gave a dry laugh. “Does anything hurt?”
    “Not really,” Demeter said, though there was something in her mind like a coin at the bottom of a well. Something shiny that she wanted to pick up but couldn’t quite grasp. She closed her eyes and tried to concentrate. Then she realized that the shiny thing was Penny, but Penny was D.O.A. Dead. Demeter leaned forward and vomited all over the floor.
    The nurse jumped out of the way, but she wasn’t quite fast enough; she got splattered. Her turquoise scrubs, her nice white sneakers. Demeter vomited again. All that Jim Beam and the bag of cheese puffs that she’d eaten by big, guilty handfuls in her room, but not too guilty because cheese puffs were mostly air.
    The nurse made a noise of disgust, which she then tried to cover up with gestures of concern and practical care. She reached for a shallow dish and called for someone to clean up Demeter’s mess.
    The nurse asked, “Have you been drinking tonight?”
    Demeter gagged and spit in the shallow bowl. Should she lie and say no, or should she tell the truth? The truth didn’t alwayshelp. This was a lesson Demeter had learned that very night: some truths should never see the light of day.
    “Yes,” Demeter whispered.
    The nurse patted her on the back. She said, “The Chief is coming in to talk to you. Okay?”
    Oh God, no, Demeter thought. Not okay. The Chief and her father