THE LIFE LEFT: A GRIPPING PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLER

by L. W. WEDGWOOD

  The names of Detective Bell and Detective Boar accompanied the article. They were appealing to the public for any information that could shed light on the deaths.

  By the time she’d finished reading, she felt undecided as to whether the media were just sensationalizing unfortunate circumstances, or if an actual crime had taken place.

  Still, as she laid down the newspaper, she began to wonder if it were time to move Ron somewhere else. Why take the risk? If there was a psychopath on the loose in the hospice, then surely, she shouldn’t leave Ron in harm’s way.

  “How did your meeting go, Mum?”

  She jumped at the sudden sound. Turning, she found Abn only a few feet away. “Please don’t creep up on me like that,” she said.

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  She forced herself to calm. She hated it when she expressed any kind of anger toward him. He didn’t deserve her wrath.

  “…My meeting went well. …I got the contract. What about you? How was your day? What have you been doing?” she asked.

  “I saw Dad. He is the same. Other than that, I have been busy with my sketches upstairs. And I spent much of the rest of the day with Michael,” Abn said as he stepped up to the countertop.

  “Michael is well?”

  “Yes, he is.”

  “And your sketches? Anything interesting?” she asked while simultaneously knowing she wouldn’t get much of an answer.

  “Just the usual.”

  She could sense something else in Abn as she watched him shuffle onto a stool. Then she realized where his eyes had settled. “You read that article?” she said.

  “Yes, of course. You know I always read the papers.”

  “What do you think?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “About the article. What do you think?”

  “I do not know what you mean.”

  She could sense much more in him. She had a feeling that he wanted to talk, but something held him back. She felt as if a tsunami of emotion brimmed within him, waiting to break into the open, only held back by a lifetime of restraint. She felt as if that wall of restraint had thinned; almost to transparency. All she had to do was create the right environment and the emotion would be liberated. Life would be the reward; the life she wanted for him. A life with hope, a life with love and laughter.

  “Would you like tea?” she asked as she flipped the switch on the kitchen kettle.

  “Hot chocolate, please.”

  She smiled. “Of course.”

  “Dad is in so much pain.”

  She looked up at him as she went about making the drinks. “Is that what he said when you saw him today?”

  “It has been that way since the surgery. He is now so much worse.”

  “He had some major surgery. It will take a little while for him to settle down again.”

  “It is not just that. I think he has had enough.”

  “Had enough. What do you mean?”

  “I did not tell you this before. The other day, soon after his surgery, he said to me that he wanted it to end.”

  She almost dropped the cup of hot chocolate on the countertop as she served it. “Jesus! He’d just had surgery. He probably didn’t even know what he was saying,” she said.

  “When I saw him again today, he said the same thing. He is in so much pain.”

  She could barely believe Abn’s words. The Ron she knew would have died before saying anything that would hurt Abn.

  “Abn, I’m sure you just caught him in a dark moment. I’ve spent hours with him since the surgery. He’s never said anything to me about wanting to end anything. You have to understand, he’s not himself. The morphine he’s on will sometimes make him say strange things.”

  “I am not sure that is true; at least not in this case. I think that he knows exactly what he is saying.”

  “Don’t be absurd. He would never want to end his own life,” she said, feeling a surge of defiance wave through her.

  “You know I love him?”

  “Of course!”

  “And you know I only want what he wishes for most?”

  She raised a hand. “Stop. He doesn’t wish to end his own life.”

  “His life is ending already.”

  “His life is taking its natural course.”

  “So, if you had a bad tooth, you would leave it to take its natural course? Or would you pull it out?”

  “You can’t compare such a thing. They are completely different.”

  “Let me change the analogy then. Let us say you had a car accident in a remote part of a third-world country where there were no emergency services and no chance of rescue. The accident traps your car under a tree and you are being slowly crushed to death while in immense pain. Your husband manages to cut his way free from his seatbelt with his pocket knife. Hours pass while you suffer as he tries every trick that he knows to get you out of the car, but there is nothing that he can do to help you. The hours turn into days. You remain trapped. By the third day, you begin to accept that there is no longer any hope. Your husband has not had any food or water because he refuses to leave your side. You know you are responsible for his plight and this furthers your already unimaginable suffering. Despite the agony you are in, you know deep down that you may last days longer before your body finally gives out. You are forced to admit there are only two possible choices. You die now and reduce your suffering, or you die later and endure your agony until the natural end. What would your choice be?” he said.

  Widening in horror, her eyes remained glued to Abn the whole time he spoke. The way in which he framed the scenario seemed so vivid to her, as if it were something that had actually happened. Still, she struggled to imagine the choices he described.

  “I don’t know what you mean. I don’t really see any choice,” she said.

  “You have to try putting yourself if the victim’s position. Think as if you are trapped in that car right now. Think as if every second that passes brings you pain of the kind you never thought existed. You know that using your husband’s pocket knife to slit your wrists would be a heaven like feeling compared to the crushing pain you already endure. The only thing that is stopping you from asking for the knife is the love in your husband’s eyes. And you know that the longer you live, the less chance he will have of living.”

  “I could never slit my own wrists. I would never take my own life.”

  “And do you believe that would be the rational choice?”

  She didn’t hesitate. “Of course.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it’s not right.”

  “If you were there. If you were in that car and slowly dying in agony, I believe that you may think differently.”

  Something in his words felt deeply disturbing to her. As she sat there listening, she found her eyes gravitating more and more to the newspaper article. “I don’t think that I would think differently,” she said. But all of the fire had gone from her argument. Her mind was now a million miles away.

  “Are you sure?”

  She looked directly up at him. “Abn, the hospice deaths that have been happening. If you knew anything about them, then you would tell me, wouldn’t you?” she asked, the words leaving her mouth with involuntary fervor.

  “What do you mean?”

  She recoiled within, immediately regretting the brashness of her question. But she pushed on, despite this. “I know that you’ve been visiting Dad a lot. The detectives can see that you have been nearby when the murders have taken place. Are you sure you haven’t seen anything that could help with their investigation?”

  “What does that have to do with what we were talking about?”

  “It has everything to do with what we’re talking about. Your father lives in that hospice. He’s at risk there. There could be some nutcase on the loose.”

  “If I knew anything about what is going on, I would have said so to the detectives,” he said as he placed his empty mug on the countertop.r />
  Before she could answer, he departed. No goodnight, no hug. He just left the kitchen. As she listened to the patter of his feet on the stairs, she realized just how much she’d upset him. She knew he wasn’t coming back.

  * * * * *

  Jane kept her eyes closed, hoping beyond hope that she would sleep a little longer. Even an extra half an hour would be welcome. Much of the night, she’d spent tossing and turning, thinking about her talk with Abn. She couldn’t get their conversation out of her head. For the first time since she’d adopted him, she realized how different he was. His youth had indeed left its mark upon him and that mark ran deep. The only question was, how deep did the mark go?

  Her eyes snapped open at the sound of the front door closing. She’d chosen the master bedroom upstairs for that reason. It was situated directly above the front door. No one could arrive or depart without her knowing.

  The way the door closed told her that Abn had left the house. In the same moment, she remembered that it was Friday. She knew he had an early dental appointment today.

  As the house settled back into silence, she failed to close her eyes and claim further sleep. A different need arose, sparking life into her body. An epic battle began to unfold within her mind; one of trust and one of curiosity. To satisfy her curiosity, she knew she would have to break the trust she’d so carefully built between herself and Abn. But to deny her curiosity, she would have to endure an undetermined number of restless nights.

  Eventually, she rationalized that what Abn didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him. She needed her rest. Her sanity depended on it. Her effectiveness as a mother depended on it. Either way, she was cursed and she knew it.

  Sliding out of her bed, she pulled on her jeans and a t-shirt before making her way to Abn’s room. Standing at the door, she hesitated. She felt as if she were about to cross a line that could never be un-crossed. The countless hours of hard work she’d put into him were about to be jeopardized. Still, she found her hand turning the handle and opening the door. Any further reservations fell away as she stepped inside.

  A breeze blowing through a cracked window lifted the corner of a curtain as if waving hello. The movement startled her already frayed nerves. But as the door closed behind her, the curtain settled again.

  She set about examining her surroundings. She had no idea what she was looking for. By all appearances, the bedroom looked like any other teenage boy’s room. Books and papers covered a desk near the window. Posters of musicians she’d never heard of covered the walls. A laptop lay closed atop a perfectly made bed. None of this surprised her in the least.

  Moving to the desk, she examined the contents. Several books on calculus covered much of this area. And the notes accompanying the books confirmed what she already knew. Abn was indeed committed to the studies he’d told her about.

  Pulling open the drawer beneath the desk revealed pencils, pens and more papers. Nothing unusual there. She turned to the rest of the room.

  Looking under the bed revealed a space free of any clutter. Not even dust could be seen there. So far, the only thing Abn could be accused of was being a neat-freak.

  Standing again, she moved toward a large chest of drawers. One by one, she pulled open the drawers and examined the contents. The top drawer revealed four rows of socks; two of sports socks and two of school socks. They had been bunched and laid out with precise fashion unlike anything she’d ever seen. Color next to color, brand next to brand. And all were perfectly aligned as if their very function depended upon it.

  The next drawer she opened revealed much of the same. However, here she found t-shirts. The order appeared equally as precise as the sock drawer. She felt too afraid to touch any of the shirts, having a sense that Abn would notice the tiniest change.

  The perfection of order further baffled her as she continued her search through the chest of drawers. The boy wasn’t just a neat-freak; he was a fanatic when it came to keeping everything just so. A NASA laboratory couldn’t be more precisely ordered than his bedroom.

  It was while mulling these thoughts that her eyes came to rest upon the bookshelf near the door. At a glance, the shelf appeared as well ordered as the rest of the room. But closer inspection revealed an oversized book stuffed into the top shelf between other smaller books.

  Stepping up to the shelf for a closer look, she saw that the book wasn’t a book at all. Instead, what she’d discovered was Abn’s oversized sketchpad. Under normal circumstances, she knew that he always carried the pad with him. In fact, if she didn’t know better, she would have insisted that he’d been born with the pad in hand. It was as if it had become as much a part of him as one of his limbs. She guessed that this morning he’d neglected to take the pad with him to the dentist, deeming it unnecessary baggage.

  Part of her wanted to ignore the discovery of the sketch pad. Part of her wanted to imagine that she’d found nothing of concern in the room and that it was time to leave, time to put her reservations to rest. Her curiosity had been satisfied. What more was there to do? Despite this urge, she pulled the sketchpad from the shelf and flipped it open to a random page.

  The moment her eyes settled on Abn’s work, her previous hard-earned calm evaporated. The energy to stand left her legs. She crumpled to the floor as she consumed the image. And as she viewed page after page, her worries only further increased. The work inside of the pad did not match the order the artist portrayed in every other aspect of his life. The pages were repetitive apparitions of outright chaos. Warming toward the darkest side of abstract, the artwork showed pain, suffering, hopelessness. Nothing in the work appeared warm or happy like the boy she knew and loved. One of the sketches showed an endless line of human shapes stretching to a black horizon beneath a sky filled with planes dropping bombs on a broken city. At the head of this line, a knife hovered in midair, pointing downward at the head of one of the human forms. Below this scene, a river of fallen bodies flowed from right to left.

  Was this it, she wondered? Was this the current view of Abn’s inner mind?

  The more she looked at the page, the more she realized what showed in that particular drawing was just a small part of what disturbed her. The graphic detail of the bombs falling on the broken buildings felt bad. The hopeless darkness on the horizon felt bad. And the river of the dead only seemed to magnify all of this. But the knife eventually commanded the lion’s share of her attention and it took her some time to realize why. Something in the way the knife hovered gave it precedence over all else. It was as if an invisible hand gripped it in midair. Someone stood there gripping that knife, but who?

  “What’s wrong?”

  She jumped at the sudden sound of the voice and looked up. “Ed, what are you doing here?” she said, her heart pounding against her ribs.

  “What’s wrong? You look like you’ve seen a monster.”

  She slapped the sketchpad closed. “You just gave me a shock. I didn’t hear you come in is all,” she said, while scrambling to regain her composure.

  “Bullshit! You found something.”

  She tucked the sketchpad under an armpit and stood, fighting to force energy back into her legs. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’ve been cleaning and you gave me a fright, …that’s all,” she said.

  “What’s in the pad?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The pad you were just looking at. It’s Abn’s sketchpad. He’s always scratching away at that damn thing. What did you find in there?”

  “I just stumbled upon it while I was cleaning. I don’t know what’s inside of it. That would be snooping.”

  “You had it open. You were looking at it.”

  “I found it open on the floor. I was putting it away,” she said as she pulled the pad from her armpit and tucked it back onto the bookshelf, as if to further cement her defense.

  “Yeah, I see what you mean, Abn’s a really messy kid. You should get him to clean up after himself more often,” Ed said, while looking around the room.<
br />
  She chose to ignore his sarcasm. “Why are you here, Ed?”

  “I have a meeting. You said you would take me. Don’t you remember?”

  “Crap! It’s Thursday already?”

  “Yes. It usually comes after Wednesday.”

  “It’s been a crazy week.”

  “You forgot you had to take me.”

  “No, I didn’t. I just forgot what day it was. What, with all that’s happened with Ron recently… And then Abn… And… And…” she said.

  “And me…” he finished.

  “Yes… you.”

  “If you like, I can take the bus.”

  “What? And be late again. The last time that happened, your case worker added another month to your mandatory weekly meetings.”

  “I’m just saying, you don’t have to take me if you don’t want to.”

  “You’re here. I’ll take you,” she said, only now realizing how sober he appeared. She felt a wave of gratitude for this. The last thing she needed right now was one of his drunken episodes.

  “But you’re not going to tell me what you found in Abn’s sketchpad?”

  “I found nothing. And besides, you wouldn’t tell me what you meant when you had your meltdown at the hospital,” she said, barely believing her nerve as she spoke.

  “Jesus! That old nugget again. I told you, I was drunk. I don’t remember anything about what I said that day.”

  “That’s right, you were drunk…” she said, leaving the statement hanging in the air as if it were a stench you had no choice but to sample.

  “My brother is dying. I have a right to a little medicinal drinking.”

  “You don’t have the right to go punching a nurse.”

  “Jesus fucking Christ! I’m leaving. I’ll make my own way to the meeting. And don’t bother with offering to take me again.”

  As she had done countless times before, she regretted losing her temper with him. “Ed, I’m sorry. I’ll drive you,” she said. But she was too late. She’d unhinged him. She couldn’t stop him as he walked away.

  “I think what you found in that sketchpad will give you the answer to what I meant at the hospital,” he growled, his words thundering over his footsteps on the stairs.