Free Unbreathed Memories by Marcia Talley

you’re there. Pick up.” The silence stretched into an endless minute while I breathed quietly into therecording. “Pick up, dammit!” The line merely hissed and crackled.
    I hung up, counted to ten, and dialed again. This time Scott answered on the first ring. “Sorry, Hannah. I was putting Georgina to bed.”
    Almost unconsciously, I checked my watch. Six-thirty. Scott was putting his wife to bed like a child. “So, what happened with the police?”
    “Oh, God! They questioned her for hours. But she hung in there! Your baby sister hung right in there, Hannah. A regular trouper.”
    Yeah, sure . I could see it now. Flashing those jade-green eyes, seeking Scott’s approval for every lying word. I wondered how well Georgina’s demure damsel-in-distress act had played with the businesslike Sergeant Williams.
    Beating around the bush was never an option with my brother-in-law, so I got right to the point. “So, Scott, tell me this: What did Georgina say that made the police think they needed to talk to Daddy?”
    “How—?”
    Good. I’d caught him off guard . “They showed up in Annapolis over an hour ago.”
    Scott cleared his throat and mumbled something I didn’t understand.
    “Scott? Are you there?”
    “Sorry.” He sighed heavily. “Seems your father went to a therapy session with Georgina. He had a disagreement with the doctor.”
    I was hoping Scott would be more forthcoming about Georgina’s interview than the police had been, so I wasn’t about to make it easy for him. “A disagreement? What about, for Christ’s sake?”
    “Her treatment, I suppose. Or maybe her medication.”
    Liar , I thought. Aloud I asked, “What kind of treatment?”
    I knew I’d touched a nerve when he snarled, “You know I can’t talk about that!”
    “You mean it’s something you can talk about with the police—who the last time I noticed were complete strangers—rather than with your family?”
    “That’s not what I mean and you know it.”
    “Then I ask you again, Scott. What kind of treatment?”
    He paused before answering. “Diane was urging Georgina to confront her demons head-on.”
    “Demons?”
    “If Georgina is going to be pulled from the abyss, she has to face what happened to her.”
    I hadn’t made it as far as the abyss. I was still stumbling over the demons. And then I made the awful leap. The words tumbled out of my mouth before I could stop them. “Daddy? A demon?”
    “So. You know about it.” His voice was calm, matter-of-fact.
    “You think Daddy’s a demon?”
    “I didn’t say that, Hannah. You did.”
    I lost all patience with my brother-in-law. “That’s the biggest crock of shit I’ve ever heard! How can you believe such crap?” I fumbled for the right words. “Daddy never touched us inappropriately. Never!”
    “Well, Diane was certainly right about that!” Scott sounded disgustingly pleased with himself.
    “Right about what?”
    “She warned Georgina to expect denials.”
    “Well, of course I’m denying it! Nothing like that ever happened.”
    “Hannah, you realize that by refusing to face this issue head-on, you’re no better than a coconspirator?”
    I gasped. “We’re all coconspirators, then. Ruth, Mother, Paul, probably even the paperboy and the Avon lady.” I fell back against the wall, breathless, as if I’d just taken a quick punch to the stomach. Scott was hopeless. If he wanted to label us coconspirators, I had a label for him, too. Enabler.
    I took a deep, steadying breath. “I want to talk to Georgina.”
    “She can’t come to the phone right now.”
    I’ll bet. Another handful of colorful pills had sent her off to la-la land . I wondered what Scott would do if those prescriptions ever ran out. “Will you have her call me when she wakes up?”
    Scott neatly sidestepped my question. “I’ll tell her you called.”
    I knew that nothing I said that day was going to change his mind about Daddy, so I tried another tack. “Have you completely