by Callie Hart
“Thanks, though. I mean it. I just can’t right now.”
“Do you want to take something for the pain yet?”
A shadow of anger flickered in his eyes. “I said no, Lang. I could be in pieces, bleeding out on the sidewalk, and I would still rather die than take any of that shit. Don’t ask me again.” Looked like he was feeling well enough to tell me off. That was an improvement. “What time is it, anyway?” he asked, trying to turn to look out of the window behind him. I put a hand on his shoulder, stopping him.
“It’s five forty,” I said. “Dawn’s right around the corner. Been a long time since I pulled an all-nighter twice in one week.”
“Such a rebel.” He cracked a smile, and two deep, heartbreakingly perfect dimples formed in his cheeks.
“Yeah. If you say so.” I smiled, ducking my head. “I have to go, Sully. I can’t leave the children for much longer. I was wondering if you’d let me ask you something before I go, though?”
Wariness appeared in the lines of his face. “Sure. Doesn’t mean I’ll answer if I don’t like the question, though.”
“Naturally.” No lying with Sully. Just the point-blank refusal to hand over the information you’d requested. Sounded about right. “While you were burning up, you kept shouting at someone. Someone called Crowe. I just wanted to know who he was.”
Sully went very, very still. For a long moment he held his breath, eyes on me, eyes on the ceiling, and then he sighed, long and heavy. “Crowe was a guy I served with in the army. He was a jerk and a coward. He and I were not friends. That good enough for you, Lang?”
It wasn’t. I wanted to know why Sully had been so angry with him earlier, when he’d been screaming and shouting about the men in the truck being in danger, but I knew I was walking on thin ice. He wasn’t going to give me any more information. Not today, anyway.
“All right. Well. I’ll come back later on to check on you, okay? After Rose is done with work and she can take care of the children again.”
“You don’t need to do that. I’ll be fine now. I think the worst of it has passed.”
“Even so. I’ll be back around six.”
Sully’s lips drew into a flat, tight line. He wanted to argue with me, to stand his ground, I knew, but he was a smart guy. He knew he needed the help, even if he didn’t want to admit it.
I grabbed my jacket and headed for the door.
“Hey, Lang?”
I turned around.
“Are they…you know. Are they okay? Ronan’s kids?”
I pondered on the question for a second, and then answered. “No. No, they’re not okay. Their dad just died.”
******
“If you could see your father again, Connor, what would you say to him?”
Connor looked down at his hands, and then out of the window, where a small crane had been erected on the beach to haul the twisted and battered remains of the Sea King up onto the back of a flatbed truck.
“Connor?” Dr. Fielding’s voice was crystal clear and perfectly loud through the speakers of the laptop, sitting on the table in front of the little boy, though Connor was diligently pretending not to have heard him.
“Connor, sweetheart. Why don’t you answer Dr. Fielding?” I was tired. Beyond tired. I’d already decided the children weren’t going to suffer because of the fact that I’d been out all night, tending to their sick, as of yet unknown uncle, however, so I was now on my fourth cup of coffee for the day.
Connor coughed, picking at his fingernails. “I wouldn’t say anything to him. He’s dead,” he said quietly.
“Connor—”
“That’s okay, Miss Lang. Perhaps Connor is right. Sometimes, in the early stages of grief, it can be helpful to imagine these dialogues, last words if you will, to bring closure and allow the children to say their goodbyes. In other cases, it can sometimes serve to confuse the situation. Connor, how do you feel about your life on the island? Do you like it there?” With Ophelia?”
Connor looked at me out of the corner of his eye.
“It’s okay,” I told him. “You can say whatever you like. I’m not going to be mad, I promise.”
“I hate it,” he blurted. “I hate the island. I hate not going to school. I hate Amie sometimes. She’s always too happy.”
“And Ophelia? Do you mind that your father left her in charge of looking after you?”
He was quiet for a very long time. I could tell he wanted to look at me again, but he wouldn’t let himself. And then, after a few more moments of indecision, he said, “I don’t hate Ophelia. I did at first, but now…she’s okay. I don’t mind that she’s in charge. Being here with her is better than being in an orphanage.”
“Why do you think Amie is too happy, Connor?”
“Because. She never seems sad. She’s always playing and laughing all the time. It’s like she doesn’t even care.”
“Doesn’t care that your father is gone?”
Connor looked away again, eyes narrowing out the window.
“You see, the difference between you and Amie, Connor, is that she’s much younger than you. While she’s very sad that your father is gone, her mind works differently to yours. She doesn’t feel the absence of your father quite as much as you do. That doesn’t mean that she doesn’t care, okay? It just means that she copes a little better with the sadness she feels inside. Does that make any sense?”
“I suppose so.”
“So when you see Amie laughing and playing next time, think about this. You’re her big brother and she looks up to you and loves you very much. She definitely feels a bit scared sometimes, so maybe it would be nice for you to sit and play with her. Let her know she can count on you to be there if she needs you. Do you think that’s a good idea?”
Connor lifted his head, looking directly at Dr. Fielding on the screen for the first time since the session began forty minutes ago. He looked like he had finally heard something that made sense to him. “I guess,” he said, his tone changed altogether. “I mean, maybe. If she’s not being too annoying.”
“That’s very kind of you, Connor. That’s exactly what a good big brother would do.” Fielding was sometimes a little too softly softly in his approach for my liking, but then again he was the trained and lauded child psychologist, and I was the out-of-work schoolteacher. He probably had twenty years of experience on me, and the way he’d just handled the situation with Amie actually sounded like it might make a difference around the house. If Connor started interacting with his sister more, instead of snapping at her whenever she was giddy, he might end up lifting himself out of his grief, too. If there was hope of that, then there was hope in general.
“Connor, thank you for spending some time with me today. I’ve really enjoyed talking to you. I think we’ve made great progress,” Fielding said.
Connor seemed less sure of what might or might not have been accomplished during the session. He arranged his mouth into the tiniest suggestion of a smile, though there was no hint of it anywhere else on his face. He picked up his book and his rainbow striped beanie, and carried both out of the room, closing the door silently behind him. I hated this part. Now was the time when Fielding and I completed our reviews and discussed how best I might handle things with the children over the next week, though most of the time it felt like Fielding was taking the opportunity to poke and prod at the insides of my head, too.
“Well, Ophelia. I have to say, I really do see some progress,” he said, as I sat down in the chair Connor just vacated.
“Yes, I agree. He’s been a lot more talkative the last couple of days. And he’s asked to spend more time outside. Though that was related to an accident that happened during a storm.”
“A storm?” He was using his no-way! fake-shocked voice he used with Connor, whenever the little boy told him something arbitrary. This wasn’t arbitrary, though, so it was kind of frustrating that he was using that tone with me.
“Yes, a storm. A ship was capsized out on the water close to shore. Not close enou
gh for the ship’s crew to swim to shore, though. At last count, thirteen men died.”
That seemed to get his attention. “I see. And Connor has been showing increased levels of interest in the accident that seem…out of the ordinary?”
“No. I don’t think so. I think he’s just curious. He knows people died out there. It was awful.”
“Mmm. Yes, I’m sure it was. A terrible thing, by the sounds of it.”
Ahh, the soft, coddling tone of a therapist. He managed to sound deeply wounded by the tragedy, and completely insincere at the same time. I wanted to slam the laptop closed and cut him off, but that would have made next week’s session really awkward. For Connor’s sake, I managed not to snap at him.
“What about you, Ophelia? How did the event affect you? Mentally?”
Oh, absolutely not. I wasn’t going to be psychoanalyzed by Fielding. No way, no how. It was one thing being here because it was the right thing to do for a child in my care, and another altogether to be stripped down and assessed, to have him making notes about me in his little book.
I gave him my most steely, cold smile. “I’m fine, Doctor. Thank you for your concern.”
“You didn’t know any of the deceased men that were brought in from the wreckage?”
“No. I didn’t. The only person I knew was Sully, and—”
Fielding sat back in his seat, like I’d reached through the computer screen and slapped him across the face. “I’m sorry? Did you just say Sully?”
“I did. Is there a problem?” There definitely looked like there was a problem.
“Sully Fletcher? Ronan’s brother?”
“Yes.”
“Ah. Right. I see.”
“What do you see, Dr. Fielding? I’m confused.”
“Ronan mentioned his brother many times in his own personal therapy sessions.” He looked uncomfortable, brow furrowed, as if he were hunting for what to say next and coming up short. In the hallway, the clock on the wall started chiming midday. The fifth hour had been struck by the time he continued. “Of course, patient confidentiality is still a legally binding contract, even after a patient’s death, Miss Lang, so I’m not obliged to go into any sort of detail about what passed between Ronan and me in our sessions, however I will say this. From what I was lead to believe, Sully is a courageous, very brave man who has suffered through a number of traumatic experiences in his lifetime. And when people experience all the things Sully has experienced, Ophelia, they leave a mark. An indelible one that doesn’t rub off too easily. Not without the desire to want to heal, anyway. Ronan told me often about the dangerous stunts his brother would pull. Really reckless, hair-raising stuff. His appetite for throwing himself into the mouth of hell so frequently, while commendable, could also mean that he’s putting those around him in danger at the same time. And if he’s spending time around you? Around the children?” He fell silent.
“He saved three men. No one got hurt because he reacted in a tough situation. And you speak as though Ronan wasn’t the same, Dr. Fielding. He was the one awarded the Purple Heart, remember? I’m sure he didn’t get that handing out ice cream at Kabul airport.”
“Yes, well. The situation’s complicated, whichever way you look at it. I just thought it might be prudent to give you a heads up, if you will. A friendly warning from me to you.” Here was a man who’d never had cause to use the phrase “heads up” before. He was way too proper, too refined for such things.
“Well, thank you, Doctor, for looking out for me, and for the children, but you really have nothing to worry about, I promise you.”
******
Rose came straight by after work. I’d already given the kids their dinners and both of them were bathed, so all she needed to do was sit with them for a couple of hours, watching Marvel Action Hour reruns (which Amie loved).
I was late arriving to Sully’s place. When I let myself into the lighthouse, juggling Tupperware containers of homemade Bolognese sauce and chicken casserole I’d made that afternoon, I stumbled into Sully’s living room to find him braced against a wall with a towel wrapped around his waist, water running down his torso, and a look of agony on his face.
“Jesus, Sully, what the hell are you doing?”
“Initially, I was trying to shower,” he said through gritted teeth. “Now I’m just trying not to pass out.”
“What happened? Damn it, why is there blood all over the floor?” A huge patch of carpet was soaked bright red next to the stairwell, and smaller patches were dotted between there and the point where Sully was now leaning up against the wall.
“I opened up some stitches,” he said, wincing. “It’s not as bad as it looks.”
“Where? And why did you even need stitches in the first place?” I put down the tubs of food I was carrying, wriggled out of my jacket, then hurried to check him over. At first I didn’t see the long, jagged slice down his right side, because he was cradling his arms around his body, however the source of the bleeding became all too apparent as I got closer.
“The ship,” Sully said. “The rocks out in the bay gutted her. Tore up the underside of the hull. All twisted metal and sharp edges. I saw one of the guys sink below the water, so I dived in to get him. The waves were so big out there. Linneman did his best to keep the Zodiac steady but a big one hit. Nearly took him out. It smashed the Zodiac into the Sea King. I was in between the two at the time. I got pinned. Crushed my ribs. The warped steel from the hull got me pretty good.”
“I can see that. God, Sully. Let me take a look.” He was shielding his side, body bowed over a little, making it hard for me to survey how bad the damage was.
“It’s okay. Lang, seriously. Just sit down and let me catch my breath for a second, damn it.”
“Sully, I’m not joking. Move!”
He straightened, sighing in frustration, his arms dropping loose to his sides. The cut was deep and raw, eight inches long, and it looked angry. I lifted Sully’s arm out of the way entirely, trying to get a better look, to see if it was infected, which is when I saw the beginnings of the scar. Red, mottled, violent-looking: it started at his hip and run upwards over his side, and then onto his back. I turned him, mouth hanging open, eyes growing wider by the second.
“Turn around,” I told him.
“Why?”
“Just do it.”
“My back’s just fine. There’s nothing there you need to concern yourself with,” he said in a hard tone.
“Sully. I mean it. Turn around.” Lord knows I sounded ready to do him some damage myself. It could have been the determination in my voice, or it could have been the fact that he’d lost a lot of blood and he didn’t have the energy to argue, but Sully actually did as I told him, slowly turning to face the wall he’d been leaning against, bracing both hands against the plasterwork so I could see the magnitude of the scar that spread up and onto his back, sweeping up almost to his shoulder. Twisted, puckered skin. Brilliant red and dark pink. It was healed, quite an old injury, but it looked like it had caused him a great deal of pain at one point.
“Pretty, ain’t it?” Sully asked. He didn’t sound bitter, or angry. He sounded resigned. Empty.
“Damn, Sully. I don’t even know what to say.”
“Good. Then how about you don’t say anything, and we move on.”
“How?”
He shrugged. “An accident.”
“What kind of an accident?”
Sully leaned forward even further, until his forehead was pressed up against the wall. His eyes closed. He seemed so tired. “One that involved fire, obviously.”
“How old were you?”
A long silence. And then, softly: “Old enough to know better.”
He clearly didn’t want to talk about it anymore, but I couldn’t let it go. Not without a proper explanation. Fielding’s words were still ringing in my ears, and I couldn’t help but panic. Was this a prime example of Sully trying to throw his life away, or was it something else entirely? “Was it your fault?”
I asked. “Could you have prevented this, if you’d wanted to?”
Sully looked back at me sharply. He didn’t reply straight away. “I might have been able to. But the cost of preventing this injury would have been far greater than a few inches of burned skin.”
“It’s more than a few inches, Sully. It’s your whole side. Nearly all of your back. It would have been—”
“Painful? Yeah, it smarted a little. Right now, I’m far more preoccupied by the pain in my ribcage and the open wound I’m holding together with my bare hands than something that took place years ago, though. Can you go into the kitchen and find me some alcohol?”
“Drinking probably isn’t the best option at the moment.”
“Not to drink. To sterilize this cut again.”
“Ahh, right. Sorry.” I rushed into the kitchen and started flinging open cupboard doors, trying to remember where he’d produced the whiskey from last night. It took forever to find the shelf where Sully stashed his booze. Grabbing a small, unopened bottle of vodka, I also snatched up a cloth from under the sink, brand new, straight out of the packaging, and took that with me too.
“Here. Will this do?” I showed him what I’d found.
“Yeah, that’s perfect.” Taking both items from me, he cracked the cap off the vodka bottle and poured a liberal amount of the alcohol all over the clean cloth. “If I squeal, don’t think any less of me,” he quipped.
“It’s impossible for me to think any less of you than I already do,” I informed him, pulling a face.
He pulled one back. The second he planted the alcohol soaked material against his side, his eyes looked like they were about to roll back into his head. “Ah, shit. Goddamn it, that stings.”
“Don’t be such a wimp. Here, let me do it.” I took the cloth from him. Sully grumbled, but he didn’t stop me; he placed his hands on the wall again, arching so that his back was curved up toward the ceiling, and he grimaced.
“Make it quick.”
“If I were a cold hearted kind of person who enjoyed seeing others suffer, I might take as much time as possible in this situation. Lucky for you I’m more Maria than sadomasochist, huh?” The sarcasm was thick in my voice as I dabbed efficiently at his bleeding side. Sully closed his eyes and bore it. His body slumped a little, so his head was hanging down in between his arms, but other than that he kept perfectly still while I worked. When I was done, he let go of a shaky, uneven breath and turned to look at me.