Her arms went loose and I pulled away to see Zeus staring at me with that soft face that made my tummy strange.
“You’re not gonna die, kid. Let’s stay positive, yeah?”
“You don’t know. You’re not a doctor.”
“No, but I’m Zeus. I throw lightning bolts and I’m king of all the gods. I know you ain’t gonna die and now all you gotta do to get better is believe me. Yeah?”
I stared at him. He had really pretty eyes with lashes thick and dark like a lady.
“I don’t wanna die,” I whispered.
Betsy squeezed me really hard but I didn’t take my eyes off Zeus.
He leaned as close to me as he could. Without meaning to, I reached up and put my hand on his fuzzy cheek. He flinched like I’d hurt him but then he said, “Bad things happen to good people, kid. Sucks that you’re sick at all. Tellin’ you now, you’re gonna get through this and even though I won’t be around to see it, I promise you, I know it. You said you trust me, right?”
I nodded mutely, stuck somewhere in his silver-dollar eyes.
“Then believe me,” he ordered.
“I believe you,” I whispered.
“Mr. Garro, we’ve been told you are healthy enough to be transferred to provincial detention,” a voice said over my shoulder and I jumped around to see three uniformed police officers come into our small curtained space.
My daddy followed.
“Daddy, no,” I cried out as the men came into the room and one of them began to tell Zeus something in police-talk about his rights. “Daddy, NO!”
“Louise, what in the world are you doing out of bed and with this man?” he demanded, jerking forward to grab my arm in a painful grip and tug me toward him. “Jesus, you never listen. Why can’t you do as you’re told?”
“Daddy, he’s my guardian monster,” I tried to explain. “You can’t take him away to a bad place or else no one will look after me.”
“Don’t be a baby, Louise. You have Nanny looking after you. Your mother and I pay her a very fine salary to look after you and Beatrice and teach you French.”
“Je deteste le francais!” I screamed. “And I’ll hate you too if you take Zeus away. He saved my life, Daddy!”
“He put it in danger in the first place,” my daddy yelled right in my face and I was so shocked that I stumbled backward and fell. Only my daddy’s hard grip on my arm kept me hovering over the floor. “I will not hear you defend him. Now, this nurse is going to take you back to your room where you will stay until I say otherwise. Do you understand?”
“Please, Daddy,” I whimpered because he was hurting my bad shoulder by holding me like that, and especially because I didn’t want my guardian monster to go away.
For the first time in my life, I felt like I had a champion.
“You’re hurtin’ her,” Zeus told my daddy from behind me and even though his voice was calm there was something mean in it that made me scared for my daddy.
Daddy sneered at him. “Mind your business. You seem to have more pressing matters at hand. How do those cuffs feel, Garro? You better get used to them.”
I gasped as I turned around to see Zeus’s big arms behind his back locked up in silver handcuffs.
“Daddy,” I cried again. “Please, don’t do this.”
“S’okay, kid. It’s not your dad that’s done anythin’, it’s me. When you do somethin’ bad, you have to pay penance for it, like in church, right?” I nodded. “Right. Well it’s the same with the law only you pay penance by going to prison.”
“Shut your mouth,” Daddy ordered him then turned to Betsy. “Take my daughter to bed and do your fucking job. Make sure she stays there.”
“I won’t forgive you, Daddy,” I told him as Betsy gently ushered me toward the curtain. “Ever.”
“I can live with that,” he said, then he ignored me and stalked right up into Zeus’s face. He was a lot smaller because every man was a lot smaller than Zeus, but he still threatened him. “If I ever see you anywhere near my daughter or this family again, I will personally see to it that your life is ruined beyond all hopes of repair. Understood?”
Zeus looked down at my daddy as if he were a bug that landed on his boot, easily crushed but not worth the bother. “You threaten a man like me, Lafayette, be prepared to reap the fuckin’ consequences.”
Then with his head high and his body at ease despite the handcuffs, Zeus led the officers out of his curtained room and through the emergency room to the waiting police car outside.
Betsy let me watch as they drove away, tucked under her arm and against her breasts so that my tears got caught in her pink scrubs.