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Insurance

The blood drains from my father's face. "I-um..."

I can tell he wasn't prepared for this. Maybe he thought I wouldn't remember after being hit so hard. Maybe he was expecting someone else to have the answer I was looking for. In either case, he clearly did not have a script for telling his formerly deceased daughter why she was back from the other side, and also apparantly alive.

Alive. I turn that word over in my mind. Could it be possible? I sit perfectly still to see if I can feel my heart beating. I can't. I stil don't need to breathe, either, so maybe the numbers under the heading "blood pressure" belong to someone else. I leave my questions for the time being and look back at my father. "Honesty, please."

He swallows. "Okay. you know how the election is coming up. I needed to be a shoe-in for mayor. To be frank, I owed some bad people a lot of money, and my approval ratings were low, the lowest they'd ever been." He swallows. "We-I came up with a plan." He pauses and walks to the window.

A plan?" I say, after a few moments of silence. He turns back to me, but doesn't look me in the eye.

"I needed you to be in the hospital. I needed the public to see me as a family man."

I stare at him while his words sink in. "You killed me." My voice is flat. It's a statement rather than a question.

"It was an accident, Eden. I never meant to hurt you." He hangs his head.

I'm in shock. I can't move or speak. My own father killed me. For ratings. My vision reddens. If I were able to get out of this bed, I'd murder him with my bare hands. "Never...meant to...hurt...me." I repeat his words, not really comprehending them.

"I'm sorry, Eden." I watch tears trail down his cheeks and settle into his wrinkles. "I'm so sorry." A sob escpaes his throat.

I take a deep breath and close my eyes. "Does Mama know?" I ask, my eyes still closed. I can't stand to look at the man beside me.

I hear him sigh. "No. No one else knows, other than you and I and the men I owed money to."

My eyes snap open. "What men? What money?"

"I-I started gambling. At first it was just a little thing. Five dollars here, ten there. Nothing I couldn't control. But then the stkaes started getting higher, and my winning streak started going downhill. A couple of men from Tennessee offered to front me some money, with the promise I'd pay it back, plus interest. I couldn't. So they threatened me. Gave me a deadline to have the money by. I was out of options, Eden. I thought maybe I could either fake your death and collect on the insurance money, or buy some time with sympathy if you were in the hospital."

I scoot up in the bed. Every nerve in my body is begging me to knock the man out, but I try to stay as collected as possible. "So you're telling me," I begin, but have to pause because of the waver in my voice, "you're telling me I died because you had a gambling problem?"

"Shh, keep your voice down, Eden. We're in a hospital."

I could care less where we are. We might as well be on the moon. "That's another question. How am I in the hospital when I'm supposed to be dead?"

He laughs, but it's without humor. "I'm actually kind of proud of this one. We're in Richmond. Miles away from home, where no one knows us. I pad off the doctor and nurse to keep quiet, and also to see if there's any chance of bringing you back."

"Back? Back? Have you not noticed I've been back for months?" I try so hard to keep my voice at a conversational volume, but it doesn't work.

"I know. I had to figure out how to get you help without raising any suspicions."

"This is your fault. All of it. I can't believe you'd murder your own daughter just to get out of paying your debts." I'm furious. If I were still alove, I'd be in tears. I thrash against the restraints, but of course, they don't budge. "What about Cal?"

"Cal was...in the way. I was afraid he'd figure things out. He was the closest person to you, he was bound to piece everything together. And then Amelia. That was a classic case of wrong place, wrong time. Though she did come in handy afterwards."

"How did you do it?" I grit my teeth, unsure if I'm ready to hear the answer.

"Do what?" He's evading the question.

"How did you bring me back? How did you learn how to do it?"

He walks over to the door and opens it. "Oh, darling, I didn't bring you back. I needed you dead. Well, more to the point, I needed your multi-million dollar life insurance policy." He closes the door with a click.

My eyes burn, and my mouth tastes metallic from the pints of blood the doctor has pushed through my veins. I lay back on the pillows and close my eyes, hating the fact that I am so helpless. I hear the door open and close again. "Go away," I mutter from the bed, "I'm not in the mood."

"Hey." Cal. I open my eyes. I've never been happier to see him in my life. "I came to check on you as soon as I could."

"I'm okay, I guess." I give him a weak smile. He doesn't return it.

Cal crosses the room and drags a chair to my bedside. "Ede. It's okay to not be okay." My smile fades. He knows. I stare at him for a moment, torn between being hurt and being angry.

"Did you know?"

My question throws him for a loop. I can see the confusion written all over his face. "Know what?"

"That my father was the one that killed me." I study his face for clues as it turns from shock to horror. "Or had someone do it. He didn't make that part very clear."

"God, Ede. No. God, no. I really thought you'd killed yourself because of the baby, right up until you showed me different."

"Well, he did. For the insurance money." I keep my tone matter-of-fact. "You, too."

"Wait, why me? What did I do?"

"Guess he thought you were too much of a Sherlock. You were a liability, so he got rid of you. And Amelia." I can't keep the distaste out of my voice.

Cal stares at me, eyes wide. "But-but that's your dad."

I laugh, but the sound is flat and humorless. "Trust me, I know. Turns out that blood doesn't matter when you stand to get millions of dollars and there's no suicide clause on the policy."

"Jesus, Eden. I'm sorry. If I had known..."

I wait for him to continue, but he doesn't.

"If you had known..," I prod.

"If I had known, I wouldn't have let him just walk out of the hospital."