Twelve days until Halloween
Corinne
“Hey, little sis,” I answer my phone midmorning, taking another gulp of coffee out of my favorite mug, the one that says This might be vodka.
Jackie takes a breath and then launches into a tirade about her husband, her kids, her maxed-out credit card and her sucky boss.
“Not all of us can be successful like you,” she finishes up, as she always does. While I love her, she does try to play the guilt card often. As though it’s my fault that I took college seriously and she didn’t.
“Jacks, you are successful,” I tell her, like I do at least twice a month. “You’re a CPA. You take care of people’s money. If that’s not responsible and successful, I don’t know what is.” Never mind the fact that she finished college only last year, and so she’s really just starting her career. Better late than never.
“You know, last year at this time, we were in Cabo together,” she points out ruefully. I glance at the wall, at the photo that proves it. Me, Jude, Jackie and Teddy are all standing on the beach, our arms wrapped around each other. The sun was on our shoulders and it had been a good day, one filled with the beach, margaritas, churros and hope.
Teddy and Jude had taken us away from reality to avoid this time of year. God, I wish we could do it again now.
“That was awesome,” I tell her honestly. “I haven’t had that much fun in forever. And when you lost your passport and gave us all a heart attack, it was so hilarious.”
I’m facetious and she chuckles. “That’s why having a doctor for a sister is an advantage. You can give everyone CPR.”
“Or you could just stop losing your passport,” I suggest. Honestly, she’s lost her passport on every trip she’s ever been on.
“I found it,” she defends herself. “In plenty of time to get on the plane.”
“You were lucky.” I take another sip of coffee and find that it’s getting cold. There’s nothing worse than that, so I get up to microwave it.
“Do you want to go with me to see Dad this weekend?”
Her question is hesitant, and I don’t know why because she knows what I’m going to say. It’s the same thing I always say. She should know—she’s asked every week for the past seventeen years.
“No.”
“Co, please. He wants to see you.”
“I don’t want to see him,” I say as respectfully as I can. “Marion is a three-hour drive from here. I can’t spare three hours, and also, I just don’t want to. That hasn’t changed.”
“He’s your father,” she reminds me. “That hasn’t changed, either.”
“He’s a felon,” I answer, and the whole conversation makes me tired. “I don’t want to visit him in prison. I don’t want to remember what he did. I’m sorry that you choose to, but I choose not to.”
“Mom would want you to,” she points out.
“I know that, but Mom’s dead. Therefore, she doesn’t get an opinion.”
God, dealing with life and death every day makes me cold sometimes. I backtrack.
“I’m sorry, Jacks. I just... I can’t. You don’t know what it was like. I was the one in that house. I was the one he left in the house with dead people. I have to cut myself off from that part of my life. I have to so that I can deal with it. If you were smart, you’d do the same.”
“He’s our dad. I can’t.”
“As our dad, he should want peace for us. Instead, he constantly tries to guilt us into doing more for him, into trying to appeal, into correcting his decisions. We can’t do that. He did what he did. We can’t change it. He’s guilty. He killed people, Jacks.”
“I know that.” Her answer is steady and solid. “But you know he wasn’t in his right mind. That’s not who he really is.”
I think about my father...the father I knew growing up. That father’s eyes always twinkled and that father had mints in his pocket. Yet that same father is a murderer.
It bends my mind, and I’m silent.
“If you change your mind,” Jackie tells me gently, “I’m going on Saturday. I can meet you and we can ride together.”
“I’m not going to change my mind,” I assure her. “Drive safe.”
“I love you, you know,” she answers. “Do you love me?”
“Always.”
It’s what our mother used to always say to us, and Jacqueline and I have kept the tradition alive.
Tradition is soothing and comfortable. We can all use more of that in our lives.
For now, though, I need some air and some exercise. I grab a sweater and Artie, and we go for a walk.
Our neighborhood is quiet, shrouded in trees and forestry, and Artie’s nails click on the sidewalk. “We’ve got to get you a pedicure, girl.”
She moves slower than she used to, though, and the clicks slow down by the minute.
I breathe in the fresh fall air, and my boots crunch through the dead leaves. It’s ironic that fall is so beautiful. It’s beautiful only because everything is dying. I watch the withered leaves tumble from the trees, every breeze carrying yet another one to the ground.
The light is unique this time of year. The sunlight seems as crisp as the air, but yet at the same time, it’s muted. It’s almost as though it knows its days are numbered before winter. I soak it up while I can, ignoring the niggling thoughts in my brain.
It seems like it did that day.
The autumn light.
It’s the same.
It’s weird how random little things can trigger memories.
My phone buzzes in my pocket, and I almost ignore it, but can’t. I have to be responsible.
“Lucy,” I greet my friend, after I see her name. “What’s up? Do not tell me you need me to come in early.”
“No.” She laughs. “Not this time. I’m coming over to do your nails before work. I saw them yesterday, and they look like something that should be scooping fish out of the lake for food.”
“As in bird talons?”
“Now you’re getting it.”
“Is there any use arguing?” I ask doubtfully, because I already know the answer.
“No.”
“Fine. You know the gate code.”
“I’ll be there in twenty.”
It’s just long enough for me to finish my walk.
I’ve also made a pot of hot water for tea and turned the fireplace on by the time the doorbell rings, and Artie is so tired that she doesn’t bother getting up.
“Hey, Luce.” I open the door. “Come on in.”
She’s lugging a caddy full of nail paint, and what looks like a tool belt, although it’s hard to tell with her baggy sweater. She always dresses like she’s wearing flour sacks, and they hang from her body in waves.
“You aren’t going to need industrial equipment,” I mention. “They aren’t that bad.”
“Ha. I brought an electric sander just in case.”
“Whatever.”
After getting tea, we seat ourselves in front of the fire, and Lucy grabs my hand, filing down my nails. I will admit, they’re a bit ragged from constant washing, but hardly talons.
“I’ve got to have some music,” Lucy tells me after a few minutes. “I’ve gotta wake up before my shift. Do you mind?”
“No, go ahead.” I wave toward the sound system. “You know how to work it already.”
Lucy and I have known each other for a year, but it feels like ten. That’s how it is when you work with someone day in and day out. They become like family. She’s good to me, oftentimes bringing me coffee at home on her way to the hospital. Her heart is as big as Lake Michigan.
She flips the power switch and fiddles with it as I pick out a nail color. First Bob Marley, then ’80s rock. She sifts through the channels. For a minute, the frame is in slow motion. Artie wags her tail once. A bird chirps outside the window. The clouds move. I pick up a bottle. The label says “Do or Die Red.”
But then Lucy settles on a station, and the music...when it comes on...freezes my hand, my fingers curled around the curve of the bottle.
Lyrics to the old song “American Pie” fill the air, swirling around me in a flurry of words.
A sudden rush of unexplainable terror wells up in me, illogical and too much to bear. The words, the music, all of it... It pounds in my head, and the memories cave in on me, and I’ve been here before, yet I haven’t.
A sense of familiarity, of déjà vu, of something I can’t place, overwhelms me, and a word whispers over and over in my head, husky and urgent and low, and I’m rooted in place.
Cunt.
The word is in my head, as loud as if someone had whispered it. It echoes, and the music and the voice... I know it. But I can’t place it.
It’s maddening.
A gate opens, and the emotions of that night unleash and surround me, suffocating me. The scenery around me swirls, and I can’t breathe. My ribs seem to collapse on themselves, one by one, like taut strings snapping, as the intercostal muscles contract and contract.
I gasp for air, but it won’t come. I hear a roaring noise in my ears, and I’m on my knees and all I can see is Artie. She’s in my face and she’s whining...and I think I might be dying. My heart slams hard harder harder, and my lungs explode.
Then cool hands are on my shoulders, and someone says my name, but the lights are exploding around me, like fireworks.
“Corinne.”
I open my eyes and it’s Lucy, and she’s calm, and she’s rubbing my back. Her hands are cool.
“Breathe. Count to ten.”
She doesn’t ask what the issue is. She’s just very no-nonsense. The nurse in her acts swiftly, and my face is buried in her bulky sweater.
I suck in air, letting it out.
I suck it in again, then let it out.
It’s minutes before I can breathe, before I can relax.
Minutes more before I can even process what happened.
“I’m sorry,” I finally say weakly, and I’m so humiliated.
Lucy stares at me, her pretty face serious.
“Why are you sorry?” she asks. “It’s a panic attack. People have them. I’m going to go get you some water.”
I nod, and I close my eyes, and I hear Artie growling.
“She won’t hurt you,” I call out. “She’s just old and grumpy.”
“Okay!”
Lucy comes back within a minute, putting a cool glass in my hand. “Drink.”
I put the liquid to my lips and something something something still doesn’t feel right.
“I don’t know what came over me,” I say. I don’t know what else to say.
“It happens,” Lucy says casually. “Don’t feel self-conscious. Lord knows, you’re under enough stress at the hospital.”
I nod, like that’s the reason. No one has to know any different.
“Don’t tell anyone, okay?” I say hesitantly. “Please.”
Lucy rolls her eyes. “I would never. You know that.”
“Thank you. Not even Jude.”
She rolls her eyes again. “I still have yet to meet that husband of yours in person. And it’s not like I’m going to tattle on you over the phone.”
“Okay.” I nod, relieved. “Thank you.”
“Do you want to ride with me to work?”
She’s still concerned, and it’s sweet. But I shake my head. “No. By the time I shower and stuff, I’ll be fine. But thank you anyway. We’ll have to take care of my talons another day.”
“You’ll do anything to escape pampering yourself.” Lucy shakes her head as she puts the bottles away. “I swear. Just don’t blame me when the patients start complaining.”
I smile. “I would never.”
“See that you don’t.” She tries to be gruff, but she doesn’t fool me. She’s concerned.
“See you at work, Luce.”
She hugs me. “You’ve got to take better care of yourself. Expect me to start nagging you about it.”
“I would expect nothing less.”
She leaves, and I’m alone, and I stare out the window, trying to suppress the fear that is bubbling up in me, gurgling to the surface like bubbles in the water.
Am I going crazy like my father?
Is this how it started for him? Irrational panic, and memories that he couldn’t explain?
With a gulp, I shove the troubling thoughts away and head for the shower.
* * *
At work, I focus on not worrying about the panic.
I have to compartmentalize. I have to do that to stay calm. It’s never been a problem before, even after the murders so long ago. In fact, that’s when I learned the skill. Every day, at school, I weathered the taunts that came from being a killer’s kid, and I was brave and defiant. But at night, in the dark, alone, I’d curled up in a ball and succumbed to fear. That was fine for me. As long as no one saw me break down, I could pretend that I was fine.
It’s a skill I utilize to this day.
I can do this.
I can be brave, defiant Corinne.
The nurses’ station is empty as I grab an orange and peel it, and I sit for a few seconds to rest my feet, checking over my shoulder for Lucy. She’s checked on me no less than four times in four hours, making sure I’m fine. It’s starting to feel a bit smothering, even though I know she means well.
I take this moment of downtime to check my phone, and a text from my husband makes my heart flutter, and I smile.
I love you today. You’re beautiful.
“Hey, what’s funny? I want to laugh, too.” My colleague collapses into the chair next to mine, exhaling deeply as he drops his head straight back against the headrest. He stares at me from beneath half-closed eyes. “Well?”
I smile. “Nothing’s funny. I was just thinking about Jude.”
Brock raises an eyebrow. “Good thoughts?”
“Obviously, Einstein. I was smiling.”
He lifts a shoulder. “True. Don’t judge me. I had three hours of sleep last night. I’m slow on the uptake.”
He grabs a coffee cup and gulps it, filling up for seconds.
“Where’s Lucy? I might get her to hook me up for a caffeine drip.”
I roll my eyes and grab a chart, trying to keep on top of my notes. It’s a never-ending task, and the charts end up in a mountain on the nurses’ station by the end of the day.
“If she agrees to that, tell me. I’ll want one, too.” I rub at my neck while I write. “Also, I’ll pay you fifty bucks to do my charting.”
“Ha. No.”
“You don’t even want to think about it?” I look imploringly at him.
He shakes his head. “Nope.”
“You’re not even sorry.”
“Nope.”
“You’re heartless.”
“No, I’m not. In fact, here.” Brock gets up and stands behind me, gripping my shoulders. He massages, and as he does, the tension leaves my neck in waves and I groan.
“Sweet baby Jesus, that feels good.”
“Yeah, I hear that a lot.”
He snickers and I ignore it. I don’t even care about boyish sexual innuendo. This feels too good. “Don’t stop.”
“Yeah, I get that a lot, too.”
“You’re a child.”
He agrees. “A child with magic hands.”
“Let me guess. You hear that a lot, too?”
“Now you’re getting it.” He rubs up and down my spine with his fists, and when he’s done, I’m almost a pile of goo in the chair.
I close my eyes, and when I open them, I notice two nurses staring at the two of us, whispering.
“Great. Now we’re part of their rumor fodder,” I say ruefully. “You’d think they’d be too busy for that crap.”
They have the grace to look away, but I can feel them whispering long after they walk away. Fantastic.
“Oh, you know how they are,” Brock says easily. “They’re easily entertained. They were buzzing for days after that chick came in last week with the shower massager stuck inside her. But seriously, they had a point. Who does that?”
I don’t know. I don’t care. People never cease to amaze me.
“Did you know that Dr. Fields is screwing around with Gabby?”
I stare at him. “Eeew. Gabby is so sweet and Fields is so...eew. And he’s on his honeymoon. He just got married. Are you sure?”
I’m indignant on his new wife’s behalf, and Brock nods in affirmation.
“Very sure. I got it firsthand from Sara. She was working a double and caught them in the supply closet.”
“Gross. What a slime.”
“Yep,” Brock agrees. “Men are dogs. They can’t keep their dicks in their pants.”
He says this so cheerfully, even though he himself is in possession of a penis.
“Jude can,” I tell him as I return my attention to my chart. “He’s got faults, but being unfaithful isn’t one of them.”
“As gorgeous as he is?” Brock’s question seems weird, coming from another man. “You don’t ever worry?”
I pause, looking up at him. “Do you have the hots for my husband, Romeo?”
He laughs quickly, turning red. “No. Of course not.”
“And no. I don’t ever worry.” I finish up my chart, proud of myself that it took one minute flat. It’s a new record for me. “He never gives me a reason.”
Speaking of my husband... I pull my phone out of my purse and start to text him.
Thank you for the flowers. I love you. I hope your day is...
Lucy interrupts me. “You guys, I need you.” Her hair is sweaty, stuck to her forehead. “All hands on deck.”
She pivots and jogs back toward exam room four, and I slip my phone back into my purse. We rush to help, and for the next twenty minutes, we’re consumed with a cardiac infarction, as a forty-year-old man with a high-stress job codes on the table.
I do compressions while Brock grabs the paddles, and the entire team acts as a unit. We’re smooth, we’re practiced, we work together with ease.
We get a pulse two minutes later, and the nurses cheer.
Brock bows. “It’s all in a day’s work, ladies,” he says, and they giggle, and I watch him flirt with all of them. He catches me looking and shoots me a sly gaze.
“I have to keep in their good graces,” he says sheepishly as we head back out to the desk.
“Must be nice to have a penis,” I tell him. “I have to rely on simply being nice.”
“Don’t be bitter,” he tells me. “Just bring them all decent coffee tomorrow. You’ll accomplish just as much. My flirting skills suck.”
I laugh and he laughs, and once again, I catch the nurses looking at us. It makes me self-conscious. We’re not doing anything wrong. It’s not like he’s flirting with me. We’re just colleagues. We commiserate together because we understand our jobs in a way no one else can. The phone rings, and he picks it up.
“This is Dr. Lane.”
He listens and punches the hold button, returning his attention to his charts.
“It’s for you.”
I feel a rush of warmth. It’s Jude. I’ve missed him today. The mere thought of this morning makes my stomach flutter, and I pick up the phone.
“Hey, babe.”
“Dr. Cabot?”
The voice is not my husband’s.
“Yes. Who is this?”
“This is Deb Camden from USP Marion.”
My heart starts thumping. It’s the prison.
“How can I help you?” Did I just say that out loud, or did I only imagine it?
“Dr. Cabot, this is a courtesy call to inform you that your father won’t be available for visiting hours this weekend. He’s currently in the clinic, being treated for non-life-threatening wounds he sustained in a fight. After that, he’ll be in solitary for a week.”
I allow that to sink in.
“Why did you call me, instead of my sister?”
“He changed his emergency contact to you last year.”
“He did?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Why?”
“Now that, I don’t know.”
“Okay. Thank you for letting me know.”
“Oh, and, ma’am?”
I pause, listening. “Yes?”
“Your father is just banged up. He’s all right, so there is no reason to worry.”
With a start, I realize that I was actually worried. Why? My father killed people, and I haven’t seen him in years.
I should feel only disdain for him.
But that’s not the case.
I shake it off and hang up.
There’s clearly something wrong with me.