by L. B. Carter
Kayna cocked her head, her eyes flipping back and forth between them, and hiked the kid squirming to get down further up her hip. “You guys spending the day here?”
Nor shook his head. “We were just finishing up. So if you need help...?” He let the offer hang. Reed kicked him under the table. Sure, it was off-topic and counted as ‘mingling’ with the locals, but she looked stressed, her curls going every which way. Where was Liam?
“No, I’ll be okay. Once they’re running around, they’re more manageable, and it’s only a few more hours until my mom gets off shift and can take them back. Thanks, anyway.” At least her mom was supporting her.
“Crap,” she groaned, tossing her head back in distress. Having finally managed to slip his little hand through her fingers, one rugrat took off toward the door. “Can you...?” She held the other one out to Nor, her eyes tracking the escapee as he detoured around tables, moving pretty fast for a short-legged toddler.
“Sure,” Nor took the kid under the arms.
At the same time Reed said, “I got him,” and took long strides to catch the little head now approaching the door.
“Thank you!” Kayna called after Reed, gratefully.
Thankfully, the door was too heavy for the little boy to successfully shove open. Nor and Kayna watched as it opened a few inches, through which he tried to squeeze his skull. Reed swooped in and scooped him up, tossing him into the air while u-turning to head back to the table. The kid giggled and clutched at Reed’s neck, enjoying his new high vantage point perched in the crook of one arm.
“Never mind, I can take him back. Your brother’s fast.” Kayna reached out to the other kid, whose brown eyes were staring into Nor’s with fascination, one set of fingers shoved in his mouth, drool cascading around his fist. Nor stared back. He didn’t really have much experience with kids besides holding a bottle upended in an infant’s mouth when Mother’s office neighbor had to run to the lab to check something. The barista called Kayna’s name.
“Sorry, can you hold him for just another minute?” She didn’t wait for an answer, taking off to grab her drink from the counter.
Nor settled the kid on one of his knees. He’d stopped wriggling at least, still pretty much using his entire focus to stare into Nor’s soul. It was unnerving. “Hi,” Nor tried, unsure if they spoke at that age. No reaction. “What’s your name? I’m Nor.” The boy’s digits came free from his mouth with a pop, jaw still wide. A few teeth were visible in his pink gums. He grabbed at Nor’s chin, leaving a streak of warm saliva. Nor winced. The kid smiled. Nor wasn’t sure he wanted kids.
“You drooling again?” Reed teased, as he sat back down, mimicking Nor’s pose with the kid he’d rescued. He bounced his knee, jostling the child who let out a shriek of joy, laughing loudly. “Again, again,” his high-pitched voice chanted when Reed paused. Reed complied. The sound of the boy’s mirth filled the room. The baby at the next table began to cry. Its mother gave one last scathing look their way, before scooping up her carrier and heading toward the exit. If she couldn’t handle a little noise from normal human behavior, maybe she shouldn’t be out in public.
“Okay, I’m back. Sorry about that,” Kayna appeared in front of them again, sucking eagerly on a straw. She gave a shiver and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Brain freeze. Trying to drink too fast while I’ve got someone else to hold the rugrats.”
“It’s okay, take your time,” Nor volunteered. The kid warming his thigh bounced a little bit, watching his brother. Nor turned his leg into a galloping horse, too. Wide innocent eyes swung back his way and the mouth, still hanging open, turned upward at the corners. Nor smiled back.
“Wow, you guys are pretty good with them.” Kayna marveled. “Want a full-time babysitting job?”
“I do hear babies are pretty good chick magnets,” Reed observed, noticing a few customers smiling their direction.
Nor rolled his eyes. “You don’t have anyone else to babysit?” he asked Kayna. “What about Liam?”
“Pshh, they’re not his problem, he claims.” Love triangle. Damn. “Mom can’t afford a sitter. The big sister gets all the joy of entertaining them.”
Wait. “These are your brothers?”
Kayna startled, then let out a laugh, choking on her iced coffee for a moment. “You thought they were mine? Wow, what a comment.” She shook her head in mock hurt and Nor blushed a bit. Inside, he was relieved. “They’re my step-brothers. My step-father’s in the military, so he’s not around to help, and Mom’s a nurse, so she works long and weird hours. Lucky me, I get a peek into the single-mother life.”
A nurse? Nor felt a warm palm against his cheek and turned back to Kayna’s step-brother. “More,” the boy begged. Nor made his leg a bucking bronco, keeping his arms tight around the kid’s soft middle so he didn’t topple. “Did you ever have Mr. Tate for chemistry?” Nor asked Kayna suddenly.
“Yep, last year. It was awful when he died. He was a really friendly guy; there was no indication he was hurting. Why?”
Reed’s attention was on the kid he was making faces at, but Nor knew he was listening avidly. “I was looking into BSTU and heard his daughter was going there.”
“Jennifer.” Kayna shrugged, taking another sip. She stole the chair the baby’s mother had vacated. “She was in chorus with me. Poor thing didn’t come to class for weeks after it happened. I don’t blame her. What a shock. My mom said she found him.”
“Was your mom working when it happened?”
Kayna swallowed another gulp and nodded. “She saw him brought into the ER. Jennifer was with him then. She could barely speak to the police through her sobs. Of course it was too late; it had been hours since he’d died. It’d been a DOA—dead on arrival,” she explained unnecessarily. “My mum tried to comfort her until her family arrived.” She shook her head sadly. “I don’t think anyone can ever really be comforted for something like that, though.”
“Nayna!” called the kid who was now receiving raspberries on the cheek from Reed.
“Hi there, buddy! Having fun?” He reached out grabby arms for her and was passed over.
“Her family?” Reed asked, leaning elbows on knees, now that he was liberated of his jockey.
Nor’s rider twisted at the waist trying to see his siblings, so Nor flipped him around, keeping an arm locked around like a seatbelt. Kayna shifted so the boys faced each other and gave one her straw and the other her empty cup to play with. The remaining ice cubes made it a perfect impromptu rattle. A dribble of brown liquid plopped from the upended cup onto Nor’s jeans.
“Oh, yeah. I keep forgetting you guys are new here. Her aunt, uncle and cousin live in town too. Though they’re not much comfort. Asking for sympathy from that girl is impossible.” She made a face like the coffee left a bad taste in her mouth.
“Who’s her cousin?” Nor queried.
“Oh, the school princess: Shayna Tate.”
Hot damn. Forget Jennifer, they had another Tate within their grasp. Someone who’d probably be delighted to be ‘in their grasp’, considering her shameless promiscuity. Maybe Nor would take on Katheryn and leave the cheerleader to Reed. They didn’t need Liam’s know-it-all sister, in the literal sense, when they had a friend of hers who’d heard it all.
“She’s a witch with a capital B. Tilly heard someone saw her blatantly making out with some guy at Mr. Tate’s funeral.” Kayna was disgusted. “I hope Jen is doing okay at BSTU now; she’s with her mom at least. Although, she didn’t even come to the funeral—her mom, I mean—so not a super lot of support.”
“I’m sure” Nor said absently, pulling his head back to avoid getting his temple smacked with an iced coffee cup. No support reminded him that Liam had said Kayna was with Sirena the previous night. He was about to ask how she was doing, and if Kayna knew why they hadn’t been called in by the police, when the kid on Nor’s lap tossed the cup at his brother with shocking accuracy, hitting him right on the forehead. Wailing ensued.
“Nice aim,
” Reed commented. Nor shot Reed an exasperated look as he tried in vain to help Kayna calm the screaming kid down. Customers were no longer looking over with adoration.
“I’d better take them,” Kayna said, remorsefully. “Sorry for the intrusion and thanks for giving me a break for a bit. Good luck finishing your homework.” She somehow finagled one kid per hip, one happy as a clam, waving to Nor and the other red-faced, weeping wetly into Kayna’s neck.
“Well,” Reed said, watching them go.
“Well,” Nor parroted. “It’s still not the kind of car accident we were looking for.”
“But there’s definitely a connection,” Reed finished.
“The irony of a carbon monoxide death producing a widow who’s an expert in climate change is a little too convenient.”
“Obviously. But coincidences are known to happen.” Sometimes Reed played devil’s advocate. Father advised them to avoid getting stuck on one hypothesis. This time it felt more like Reed was almost hopeful the two deaths weren’t related; that’d make their first independent job a lot more complex. Reed probably wanted simple after the last disaster. Reed shrugged. “We’ll just have to do some digging with Dr Katheryn Powell and the supposed bitch, Shayna Tate.”
“I assume you’ll be wanting to take the second one: the cheerleader.”
The chair grated on the tile floor as Reed stood and closed his laptop. “Hmm, insofar as wanting to ‘take’ her, she’s a little young for me. Though I’m definitely ‘digging’ that option, I’m not the high schooler here.” He picked up his laptop and gave his eyebrows a wiggle. “This seems like a good chance for you to learn how to talk to girls, little bro. I’ll take the lonely widow.” He turned for the exit, ignoring Nor’s eye daggers sinking into his back.
Chapter Eleven
“How did that make you feel?” Dr. Spelmann rested his forearms against the shiny top of the large mahogany desk, fingers interlaced on his notepad as he waited calmly for his patient’s response as though it weren’t the most idiotic, cliché enquiry from a psychiatrist. Magnified eyes blinked lethargically behind thick rimless lenses.
He didn’t even care what her reply was; he got paid to listen. A therapist’s whole job was to let people whine at him all day. He didn’t have to really say anything profound or even fully pay attention, just let people blather on about their problems. Rena probably wouldn’t listen either. That much complaining would get on anyone’s nerves, moreover irreversibly depress their spirit, which might explain the droop to his cheeks and the heavy creases in his forehead—the only feature adorning his bald head.
He closed and opened his eyes again, waiting patiently, the entire process taking as long as it took the toe of Rena’s shoe to scuff the floor three times. Maybe patience was really what was needed for this job. “Jane?”
She ground her teeth. Dr. Spelmann had been there since the beginning, back when she’d been Jane Doe. She wished he’d switch to the name she’d adopted. One would think a guy who claimed to understand the subtle effect of a minute detail on someone’s psyche would allow her the courtesy of respecting that she was no longer merely an anonymous survivor. Besides, the acknowledgment would be in his best interest if he ever wanted a thoughtful answer—let alone any answer—to his queries.
Otherwise it would always be: Pissed off.
“How did you feel when your opponent pinned you to the mat?” he repeated.
How would anyone feel in that situation? How would Dr. Spelmann feel, with his arms pinned, his body smothered by someone twice his size—more than that in weight—while unable to breathe? How would he feel if he were physically attacked for the second time in as many weeks? Probably just as vulnerable, helpless, trapped as she had!
He already knew the answer to his question. That’s not what he really wanted from her.
“Jane, if you don’t voice what was going through your head in these situations, you’ll never be able to move on. You need to understand your reactions to stress so you can correct them or at least prepare for them in the case of future events.”
Stress was a cute word for “dying.” Perhaps Dr. Spelmann needed to take Mr. Sanderson’s anatomy class if he didn’t understand how breathing was essential to living. And what did he mean future events? What, did he think she wanted to experience that again? Third time’s the charm? Well, unless the car accident was the first time. In which case, check, check and check. Done. Time to not do that again. Actually, how about skip it in the first place.
Shame the giant degree framed behind him on the wall didn’t certify Dr. Spelmann a mad-genius mind, acknowledging his ability to create a time machine for her.
He sighed and sat back in his over-sized swivel chair, his fingers uncurling to form a peak beneath his chin. They almost made the shape of a gun poised for suicide. Had any of his patients done that? Did he ever consider such an end, inundated as he was with negative feelings all the time?
“I realize this is hard to talk about. But that’s exactly why it must be addressed. You’ve had two… encounters since you last saw me only a few months ago. That’s a lot for anyone to handle. Doubly so for someone with a traumatic past such as yours. It’s too much to keep bottled up inside. Let’s try to get to the root of this, shall we?” He shook his head and shifted his glasses to perch on top of his shiny head, then stood and walked around his desk as he continued.
“I’m not suggesting you revisit the entire incident. I won’t drag you back through all of that today. We simply need to isolate and discuss what you may have felt in that moment, so that you can learn to work through those emotions.” He leaned against the desk, hands sliding into the front pockets of his pressed black slacks. “That way you can better defend yourself.”
Defense against JT and Lenny? Or against her own morbid instincts?
Rena shifted the clipboard in her lap and scribbled with the stupid pen he’d given her. The flower glued to a spring that protruded from the top bobbled and swayed as she wrote. She flipped the board around and held it up.
He unhurriedly slid his glasses back down—he might use up the whole hour just adjusting himself at that rate—and hunched over for a better look at her poor penmanship. His head shook as he straightened again. “No, I know you’ve been doing boxing; we discussed the importance of emotional release through physical exercise last time we met. I don’t mean physical defense. I refer of course to emotional defense, in here—” He touched the second button under the open neck of his pressed grey shirt. “—and mental defense, in here—” He touched the pads of his fingers to his temple. “—which is just as, if not more, important than your physical being. You may not have experienced lingering bodily harm from these attacks. However, your mind, your emotions are wounded. We need to remedy that. That is a joint effort. I cannot assist you if you do not first assist me.”
Now he was sounding like a yoga instructor feeding her some bogus holistic healing crap. Could they just skip to the silent meditation part, please?
His bug eyes were still staring. She chose instead to watch her leg swing. The rubber on her sneakers was horribly dirty compared to the polished loafers pointing toward her. The carpet was equally immaculate. They could sit cross-legged on the floor and practice some ‘ohm’s’ or, in her case, silent breathing with no fear of marring the seat of Dr. Spelmann’s trousers.
Dr. Spelmann uncrossed his legs and suddenly dropped into a squat, his knees cracking, entering her field of view to make eye contact. With the angle of his head, one eye appeared bigger than the other. “Sirena,” Dr. Spelmann said, startling her. “I urge you to try. Not for my own benefit; you owe it to yourself.” Her band snapped on her wrist. Without looking down, he covered it with his weathered palm.
Their position reminded Rena of Nor’s blue eyes staring into hers, their hands overlapping atop her clay.
She dropped the flower-pen on the clipboard, pulled free, and shoved her fists under her thighs. Dr. Spelmann was half right. She didn’t owe it to
him. However, neither did Rena owe it to herself. Therapy wasn’t needed to avoid those situations for herself, except to bolster the locks on her mental box ensuring she didn’t go back on her plan. It was fundamental that she learned how to avoid these situations for those she put in danger.
“Sirena?”
She took a deep breath and made eye contact. Her resolution must have shown in her eyes because Dr. Spelmann blinked again, gave a slight, pinched smile and then pushed himself—leisurely—to a stand.
Rena pulled her hands back out and immediately began to write while he seated himself again. His fancy chair was evidently not quite expensive enough since it groaned as his thin frame eased onto the plush leather, the sound being the only noise other than the scratch of her pen, her toe stilled against the floor. The flower flailed every which way helplessly as if in a hurricane.
Rena’s confession wasn’t the truth, of course. That was remaining fastened in the box if she could help it. The seemingly obvious words flowing onto the page were more metaphorical: It made me feel...like I was drowning.
◆◆◆
“Hmm.”
Dr. Spelmann’s forehead wrinkled further as his eyes flicked rapidly across and down the page, proving not everything he did was lethargic.
A bit more of the green tape holding the flower to the pen became unwrapped and rapidly lost its stickiness under the oil from Rena’s fingers.
He pushed his slipping glasses further up his nose and flipped the paper up to reveal the continuation underneath.
Her elastic snapped. His lips pursed.
When he got to the bottom, he leaked the air from his lungs and gently set the clipboard onto his desk before folding his hands across it again. Finally, his huge eyes looked up at Rena.