Free The Laughterhouse by Paul Cleave Page A

smile at me and hold my hand, the vegetative state a permanent one barring a miracle or an advancement in technology, both of which I pray for.
    I don’t see Nurse Hamilton anywhere, and I head straight to Bridget’s room. She’s asleep. There is a soft bedside table light and the curtains are closed.
    A year ago I’d have brought flowers for Bridget, but a year ago I could afford them. Between the medical bills and my own bills, as it stands I’m only a few months away from losing my house. I don’t tell any of this to Bridget. If somehow she could understand I wouldn’t want her to worry. The drunk driver who put my wife into this condition should have been responsible for paying all the medical costs, but that’s not the way things work in this world. He never took responsibility, not until I took him into the middle of nowhere with a shovel and a gun and made him beg for a forgiveness I couldn’t give him. I pull up the chair next to Bridget and take hold of her hand and spend thirty minutes with her.
    When I leave I’m hit by a tiredness that makes me aware I’ve been working since five in the morning, when I was driving around hotels looking for Lucy Saunders. And I’m not just tired either—because the thing keeping me from falling asleep and hitting a lamppost is the hunger pains, a hunger so strong it feels like it’s developed claws and is digging its way out from my stomach. So maybe it is a good thing I’m going home now, because I get to concede to the pain and pull into a drive-through at a fast-food restaurant. There’s a line of cars ahead of me and I keep myself entertained by trying to stay awake. Eventually I get to order something, and the guy who passes me my food looks like he keeps himself entertained by trying to eat every burger that isn’t sold by day’s end. I drive to a park and sit in the dark as one day ends and another begins. Mine is the only car around. My midnight snack is in pieces before Ieven get to take a bite, the burger also having absorbed some of the flavor of the small cardboard box. I get through it pretty quick along with the drink—ten bucks well spent because I feel more awake. I sit in the car and think about the two dead men, both retired, certainly a connection between them. These two might be the only victims or there may be more. Future victims, retirees maybe, the same thing linking them to an event in their past. The dots are there, but not clear enough to start connecting.
    I leave the park as another car arrives. It comes straight at me with its lights off. I swerve out of the way and almost hit a tree. Maybe it’s another PI coming here to eat a burger or a couple of kids wanting to fool around.
    I head back out into the wet streets, and as often happens to me at this time of night, I start thinking about my wife, and about my daughter, and I can feel my mood darkening. Sometimes, even three years after the accident now, I just start to cry. I don’t feel tired anymore, I don’t feel hungry—sometimes like this I don’t really feel anything. I wipe a finger at my eyes before they start leaking, and suddenly I’m compelled to go and see my little girl, to make sure she’s safe. I drive to the cemetery and park by the church next to another car. I make the trek toward my daughter’s grave in the misty rain, thinking about the two dead men and wondering what, or more accurately who, it was they had in common.

CHAPTER NINE
    Caleb’s wife won’t appreciate the flowers. She hated him in the end, had to, otherwise she never would have left him. She acted like it was all his fault, everything, their dead daughter, all that blood he spilled at the slaughterhouse. He just couldn’t help himself, couldn’t she see that? It was his job to protect his family, it was his job as a father, as a husband, and as a man. If he couldn’t do that, then it was his job to make people pay. It’s basic genetics. So there are flowers for her and flowers for his