Clover

What is that incessant beeping? It’s driving me insane and giving me one hell of a headache. I try to open my eyes, but they’re too heavy. I mumble something. I don’t even know what I tried to say, but it didn’t come out right anyway.

“Nurse, she’s tryin’ to say something,” I hear Freda’s voice say.

“She’s finally coming around. Clover? Can you hear me? Try to open your eyes dear,” an unfamiliar voice says. I try to do as she’s asking, but it’s so difficult.

“Can you squeeze my fingers, Clover?” the stranger asks again, and I feel warm fingers slide into my hand. I give her a weak squeeze. I can tell from her response this pleases her.

“Talk to her. If she opens her eyes, let me know. I’ll be just outside the door.”

I hear the woman retreat and the door click shut. Freda makes a disgusted sound.

“Girl, you have wake up. I can’t take much more of these bougie-ass nurses. They all blonde and wearing tight pink scrubs like porn-star nurses or something’,” Freda scoffs, and I push my thick eyelids up.

“There you are! Yesss. Thank the good Lord Jesus in heaven you’re back.”

“Hi,” I croak.

“Ew, girl hush, you sound like a man. They better not have given you an Adam’s apple with that new nose, or we’re going to sue.”

I laugh but stop immediately when pain shoots through my face. Freda always did know how to make me laugh. “I’ll get nurse Barbie an tell her you’re awake. I’ll be right back.”

“Okay,” I whisper.

‘Nurse Barbie’ as Freda calls her checks me over and gives me a glorious dose of pain medication in my IV that makes the tiles on the ceiling wobble and my insides melt. When she leaves, Freda props her hip on the side of the bed.

“Heather’s here. She’s downstairs getting coffee. Why do white people drink so much coffee? That stuff’s nasty, I don’t get it. Anyway, she wants to take you back to Cali with her an I told her over my dead body. I still have your room like you left it and that mountain man sent all your things home so I put it all away. You know I hate doing domestic crap like that so be grateful, aright?”

I nod. My throat is sore, and there’s no way I can keep up with Freda’s rapid-fire conversation style in my condition.

“So, tell me what happened up there. They say you offed some guy with allergy pins or something? What the hell?”

“He kidnapped Adley. They were EpiPens for Gage’s allergy to lunch meat. I had to do it. He was going to kill all of us.”

“Why didn’t he just give him what he wanted?”

“He gave him everything he had, but Lenny thought he was lying.” My last few words came out crackly and broken. It’s hard to talk about, and my voice isn’t cooperating.

“Okay, Okay, you hush. We can talk ‘bout it later when you’re better.”

“Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For being here for me and for being my friend when I was being stupid over a man.”

“Gurl, that man’s worth being stupid over. He’s hot as hell. Sounds like he got whack friends, though.”

I clear my throat and wish for a glass of water. “He used to be part of the band. They hadn’t talked in years.”

Freda gets up and walks to the small table next to my bed. She must have read my mind I think when she pours me a glass of ice water and hands it to me. I take a long pull on the straw feeling the water all the way to my stomach.

“Yeah, well, he’s still whack tryin’ ta kill little kids and shit. Why’d he choose your man to pick on anyhow?”

“Gage quit the band, and Lenny figured he owed him something because his career didn’t go anywhere after that.”

Freda pokes her bottom lip out and nods like she understands. I hope she leaves it at that. Gage and I might not be together anymore, but I still feel obligated to keep his secrets. I’m nothing if not a loyal friend. I hope this story doesn’t end up in the news and out him to the world as Apollo Mercury. He was thinking about easing back into the public eye but not like this. This is the kind of story that would run rampant in social media and in the news. People would point fingers and rake Gage and Adley over the coals over Lenny’s death, and as far as I can see, Lenny didn’t deserve to live. I only wish it hadn’t been me who killed him.

The door opens a crack, and my Aunt Heather’s blonde head peeks around it. “Okay to come in?” she asks.

“Yes, please.”

The door opens wide as well as Heather’s big blue eyes. Heather and my mother were adopted. They couldn’t have been more opposite looking and acting girls if they’d tried. Mama had long, black curly hair, brown eyes that were almost black, and a curvaceous body. Heather is tall and willowy with blonde hair and blue eyes. She loves the outdoors, and Mama would have loved the outdoors if she hadn’t always been indoors working one of two jobs.

They loved each other like blood sisters, though, and that’s all that matters.

“You’re awake! Hallelujah!” She rushes over to me and kisses the top of my hand and then the top of my head avoiding my face.

“Why didn’t you call me, Freda? You said you’d call.”

“She just woke up. I didn’t have time yet. Chill white mama,” Freda says. Freda always called Heather my white mama. We grew up in a diverse neighborhood and visited Aunt Heather a lot when we were kids before my parents died. She’d always say, “When we goin’ to white mama’s house for her fancy cookies?” I always corrected her and told her Heather was my aunt not my mama. It’s kind of ironic that things turned out the way they did.

Heather also rolls her eyes at Freda before turning her attention back to me. “How do you feel? Are you having a lot of pain? We can tell the nurse if you are or you can push this button.” She holds up a big button with a glowing green pad.

“What’s that?”

“It’s pain medicine. You push the button when you need it. Didn’t the nurse tell you about that?” She turns to Freda. “You did call the nurse in here when she woke up, didn’t you?”

“Course I did,” she says defensively with an eye roll.

I press the button and wait for the same warm mushy feeling I had when the nurse gave me pain medicine earlier. It doesn’t happen, and I’m not going to lie, I’m a little disappointed.

“I don’t think it’s working,” I say, slurring my words.

“Oh, I think you’re wrong there, sweet pea. You should see yourself. You look like your face is melting off your bones.”

She’s right, I’m not in pain. This button must give me something different. Something not as great. “Yeah, no pain, you’re right.” I feel my eyelids sliding down again, and this time I have no control, and I let them close, so I can float away into never-never land and escape what my life has become for a while.

* * *

I fold my t-shirts and place them in the top drawer of my dresser, sit down on the edge of my bed and sigh. I never imagined I would be here in my childhood bedroom living in California again when I left for Colorado four and a half years ago.

It’s been a month since my surgery. I had multiple complications and had to stay in the hospital for almost a week. Aunt Heather wasn’t about to let Freda take care of me when I was discharged. She was worried, and I can’t blame her. I wasn’t in any condition physically or emotionally to care for myself. I am only now beginning to feel the positive benefits of therapy three times a week.

The nightmares started before I left the hospital. Lenny occupied my thoughts day and night. I kept seeing the barrel of his rifle being pushed into Adley’s soft cheek, and Gage handcuffed and helpless with rage in his eyes.

In some of the dreams, Lenny pulled the trigger and killed Adley. I woke from those in a pool of sweat screaming her name over and over. In others, he turned the gun on Gage. I woke sobbing and heartbroken from those nightmares. And then there were the more true-to-life dreams where his demise was re-enacted, and I killed him exactly like I did with EpiPens to his carotid arteries.

After those dreams, I would spend days feeling conflicted. It’s difficult knowing that it’s my fault a man isn’t walking the earth anymore. It’s hard to accept that.

He was scum, there’s no doubt about it, and it was him or us, so you wouldn’t think there would be any guilt on my part.

There is though. Lots of it.

My therapist, Dr. McGillicutty, says it’s worse for me due to my lingering feelings of guilt over my parents’ death, which he is teaching me to accept as an accident. He diagnosed me with PTSD and put me on Xanax for anxiety and gave me sleeping pills to help me through the nightmares, but I don’t take any of it. I want to feel like me, and when I take those things, I’m not me.

“What are your plans for today?” Heather asks, coming to my door. She’s holding a dish towel drying her hands after washing the breakfast dishes. “Mandy and Wes are going to the movies with friends, and Carson is going into the office for a few hours, so I’m free if you’re interested in a hike.”

Mandy and Wes are my cousins. They’re teenagers now, and it’s weird to see them driving around acting like real members of society instead of the menaces they were when I left for college. Uncle Carson is a lawyer, so he’s gone a lot, and Heather is enjoying having someone to occupy her time. The nest is almost empty, and I think she’s sad that no one needs her as much anymore.

I don’t have the heart to tell her no. Hiking makes me think of Gage and Adley and thinking of them hurts more than my broken nose ever did.

“Sure, let me find my boots,” I say. Heather’s face brightens. She’s been trying to get me out of this house since we came home from Colorado.

I haven’t felt like venturing out with my swollen face and my newfound fear of strangers, but Dr. McGillicutty says it’s important for me to get out.

When we make it to Indian Rock Park, I start feeling that awful pain in my chest that I get whenever I think about Gage and Adley. The rocks remind me of the mountain and the time I spent there with them. It was the happiest time of my life since my parents died.

Before Dr. McGillicutty, I would have thought my relationship ended because I was happy, and I don’t deserve to be after what I did to my parents. To be honest, I still have to fight that warped logic. He is teaching me to believe that technically it may have been my fault, I did light the matches after all, but I was a child left unattended, and it could have happened to anyone. Beating myself up for their deaths is ruining my life, and if I want to move on, I have to stop.

Still, I miss them, and this isn’t how things were supposed to end up. It’s almost spring. If Lenny hadn’t come along, Gage, Adley, and I would be trying to find the perfect place for my summer camp. Adley would be wrapping up her first year of online school and preparing for her first year of real school off the mountain.

We were supposed to go out to dinner since we never got the chance to go on a first date. We talked about going to the movies and shopping, so many normal things that people take for granted. Those were the things we still hadn’t done. Those are the things we will never do now.

“You okay over there?” Heather asks touching my shoulder.

I stop and shade my eyes to look up at the trail ahead. “Yeah, it’s hard, ya know? All this,” I spread my arms. “Reminds me of Gage and Adley.”

“You miss them, don’t you?”

Placing my hand over my heart, I close my eyes and try not to cry. “More than you can imagine.”

Heather wraps me in a hug. “I’m sorry, honey. Trauma like that is difficult to overcome.”

I step out of her arms and murmur, “Mmm hmm.”

“Let’s enjoy the fresh air, and if you decide you want to talk about it, let me know. I’m always here for you.”

“Thank you.” We turn back to the trail and make our way to a picnic spot before I decide to talk. I haven’t told her much about Gage and his situation yet, but it’s time.

We sit opposite one another at a long picnic table, and I tell her about Gage’s life before his wife died, and how he decided to quit the band. I leave out the part about him blaming himself for Constance’s death. I know how she feels about my own blame game, and I don’t feel like a lecture.

When I’m finished, she blows out a big breath. “Wow, we all have a story to tell, don’t we?”

“Yes, and I wanted you to understand why I can’t go back there. I need to let them go back to their life before I came along and messed it up.”

She raises her eyebrows and removes her elbows from the table where she has been resting them. “You messed it up? I’d say that Lenny person did that not you. In fact, I think you were good for them.”

“What do you mean? I led the public to him and ended up killing a man who was blackmailing him for it. How is that good for them?”

“You said he was thinking about letting Adley go to summer camp and normal school. Those are moves in the right direction. I’d say you were a positive influence. Not to mention you saved their lives.”

“Yeah, I don’t know,” I say getting up and starting back toward the trail.

Heather follows me hustling to catch up. “Don’t know what?”

“I don’t know if he wanted to give up his life of solitary. I didn’t mean to influence him that way. I didn’t care if we never left his house on the mountain.”

“Yes, but you made him see how important it was for his little girl to socialize. Children shouldn’t be held hostage in their homes going to school via computer.” She realizes her poor choice in words as soon as they escape her mouth. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean…”

“It’s all right. I know what you meant, and I agree but, she’s not my child to raise, she’s his.” Saying that hurts. I had begun to feel like Adley’s mother as much as Gage’s girlfriend, and I’d hoped to be there with them for a long time.

Heather lays her hand on my back and moves it up and down lovingly. “If you love him, don’t give up. Do you see any hope of a future with him?”

“No. His life is about his daughter, and that’s how it should be.”

“Says who? You? Doesn’t he get a say in all this?”

“It’s better this way. He will forget about me, and I don’t want to be a constant reminder of what happened.”

She shakes her head. “I think you’re wrong. If he loved you, he won’t forget and he damn sure won’t forget you saved his and his daughter’s life.”

I smile a small, weak smile. “He hasn’t tried to call. He sent all my belongings to Freda’s within days of the kidnapping. Those are pretty clear messages.”

“Maybe he’s confused. Things were left so unfinished. You should call him, see where his head is at. You’ve both had time to think and work on your feelings. I think you owe it to yourself to talk to him one more time, if for nothing else than closure.”

“Maybe. For closure. I’ll think about it.”

She pulls me into a side hug, and I rest my head on her shoulder. “There’s no rush. Just think about it.”

I agree to thinking about it, but only so we can try to enjoy our hike. I’m not calling Gage. My mind is made up, that brief, beautiful part of my life is over now, and I need to start preparing for my future without them.

“So, do you want to help me look for a spot for my summer camp?” I ask, and Heather’s eyes light up for the second time today.

“Of course! When can we start?”

Not soon enough.