Still Life

by Joy Fielding

  A sigh trembled in the air between them. “She loves you, though. Before your accident—and I think everybody’s pretty much decided that’s what it was—she was always asking when we could go visit her aunt Casey. And ever since I brought her to the hospital, she keeps bugging me about when she can come see you again. She has all these books she wants to read to you. Well, I’m not sure if she can actually read, or if she’s just memorized the stories. Janet has read those fairy tales to her so many times, she knows them all by heart. Janet’s her nanny. I had to fire Elise after I caught her helping herself to my stash of weed. Honestly, it’s so hard to find good help these days.” She laughed. “Just kidding.”

  The magnificent aroma of freshly brewed coffee wafted toward the doorway. Casey felt her mouth begin to water and tasted the rich, roasted taste of the coffee beans on her tongue.

  “And speaking of good help …”

  The disparate smells of coffee and lavender fought for supremacy as they entered the room together, like a pair of hostile, conjoined twins.

  “Here’s your coffee,” Patsy said.

  “Thank you.”

  “Careful. It’s hot.”

  “Hot and black. Just the way I like it. Thank you,” Drew said again.

  “Listen, I’m really sorry about the misunderstanding earlier. I appreciate how it must have looked to you.”

  “Well, I appreciate your appreciation, so let’s leave it at that, shall we?”

  The doorbell rang.

  “Who’s that?” Drew asked.

  “Probably her therapist.”

  “Hot and black,” Drew said, a wink in her voice. “Just the way I like it.”

  TWENTY-ONE

  “Well, hello there,” Jeremy said, striding into Casey’s bedroom. “Haven’t seen you in a while. How’ve you been?”

  “Fine,” Drew answered. “Nice to see you again.” Casey recognized the strain in her sister’s voice to sound casual.

  “You’re a little late,” Patsy told him. “Everything okay?”

  “There was a bad accident on the expressway earlier this morning, and they were still clearing it away when I got there, so I was stuck for a good twenty minutes. Sorry about that. The good news is I’m here now, and that coffee smells great. Think you could spare another cup?”

  Casey pictured an overly ingratiating smile light up Patsy’s eyes. “How do you take it?”

  “Cream, lots of sugar.”

  “White and sweet,” Drew said under her breath, as Jeremy approached her bed and Patsy exited the room.

  Casey absorbed the intensity of Jeremy’s gaze as he leaned in to have a better look at her. “Hello, Casey. How are you feeling today? Happy to be back home?”

  No, I’m not happy. I’m not happy at all. You have to get me out of here.

  “Apparently her blood pressure spiked some,” Drew told him, “but it’s back to normal now.”

  “Yeah, that’s pretty much to be expected.”

  “So I’ve been told.”

  “She does look a little pale.”

  “That’s what I thought.”

  “Well, we’ll see if a little exercise can’t bring some color back to her cheeks.”

  “Do you want me to leave?”

  “Not at all.”

  “I don’t want to be in the way.”

  “You aren’t. And I’m sure Casey appreciates the company. I know I do.”

  Casey felt his hand on her forehead. Could he feel her mind working? Listen to me, she thought, as hard as she could. My husband did this to me. He tried to kill me, and he’s going to try again as soon as he thinks he can get away with it. Which will probably be sooner rather than later, now that it looks as if the police have abandoned their investigation. You have to stop him. You have to get me away from here.

  “She doesn’t have a fever, does she?” Drew asked, drawing closer.

  “No. Her forehead’s nice and cool. And speaking of nice and cool, that’s a cool little necklace she’s wearing. You give her that?”

  “Yes. How’d you know?”

  “’Cause it looks like you.”

  “I look like a shoe?” Drew laughed.

  “You know what I mean.”

  “Well, thank you. I think. I mean, I’ll take that as a compliment.”

  “Good. That’s the way it was intended.” Jeremy took Casey’s hand in his own and started to manipulate her fingers.

  “Can I ask you a question?” Drew asked after several seconds had passed.

  “Fire away.”

  A moment’s hesitation. “What’s your opinion of Patsy?”

  “Professionally?”

  “Professionally and personally.”

  A brief pause. “Personally, I don’t know her very well. But she’s always seemed nice enough. Professionally, I’d say she’s competent, knowledgeable, compassionate. Patients like her. She’s certainly dedicated to your sister.”

  “You think so?”

  “You don’t?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Did something happen?”

  “I’m not sure,” Drew said, and Casey pictured her sister glancing toward the open bedroom door, in case Patsy might be lingering outside. “When I got here, she was wearing one of Casey’s expensive scarves—that one, actually,” she continued, no doubt pointing to wherever it lay, “and I got mad and told her to take it off, probably said a few things I shouldn’t have….”

  “She have an explanation?”

  “She said she was just about to put it on Casey when I came in.”

  “You don’t believe her?”

  “Would you?”

  Jeremy lowered Casey’s right hand back to her side, picked up her left. “Well, normally I’d be inclined to give her the benefit of the doubt. But …” He began moving Casey’s fingers back and forth.

  “But …?”

  “But something tells me your instincts are pretty good. So if they’re telling you she was trying to pull a fast one, then I’d say she was trying to pull a fast one.”

  Casey could actually feel her sister’s grateful smile.

  “Thank you,” Drew said.

  “For what? What does Mr. Marshall think? Does he know?”

  “He knows. I’m afraid he doesn’t share your faith in my instincts.”

  “Well, then, let’s hope it was an isolated incident.”

  “Yeah,” Drew agreed. “I guess the important thing is that she’s a good nurse, right?”

  Jeremy began massaging the muscles in the palm of Casey’s hand with his thumb. If only she could grab that thumb, Casey thought, trying to squeeze back, to give him some sign she was aware of what was going on. If only there was a way she could let him know….

  “Well, technically, she’s not actually a nurse,” Jeremy said.

  “What do you mean she’s not a nurse? What is she?”

  “She’s a nurse’s aide.”

  “I don’t understand. Why would Warren hire her to look after my sister if she’s not a nurse? It’s not like he doesn’t have the money….”

  Jeremy’s fingers began applying pressure to Casey’s wrist, rotating it gently from left to right. “Don’t go getting all upset. Patsy’s more than qualified for what needs to be done here,” he explained. “Your sister doesn’t really need an RN at this point.” He began rotating Casey’s wrist in the opposite direction. “And like I said, Patsy is knowledgeable and competent. She tends to go the extra mile, as far as her patients are concerned. Plus, she’s very familiar with Casey’s condition. She’s been actively involved in her care for months. I wasn’t surprised when Mr. Marshall hired her. Frankly, I thought he was lucky to get her.” He returned Casey’s hand to the bed, picked up her other hand again, began manipulating its wrist. “But you don’t like her.”

  “I don’t like her,” Drew said quietly.

  The sound of footsteps on the stairs. The smell of fresh coffee approaching.

  “Coffee,” Patsy announced cheerily f
rom the doorway. “Cream, lots of sugar.”

  “If you wouldn’t mind putting it on the nightstand for me. Thank you,” Jeremy said, moving Casey’s arm up and down from the elbow.

  Casey felt the bounce in Patsy’s steps as she crossed the room to deposit Jeremy’s coffee on the small table beside the bed.

  “Anything else I can do for you?”

  “No, thank you. That’s great.”

  “What about you, Drew? You ready for another cup?”

  “I’m fine, thank you. Actually, Jeremy was just showing me some exercises I can do with Casey. Maybe you’d like to stay so he can show you, too.”

  “How about you show me later? Right now Mr. Marshall needs me to take care of a few things for him.”

  “I thought your job was taking care of Casey.”

  “Casey is in very good hands at the moment,” Patsy said sweetly, refusing to take the bait. “Just holler when you’re done, Jeremy.”

  Casey assumed from the ensuing silence that Patsy had left the room.

  Please. You have to help me. You have to get me out of here.

  “So, okay. I’m a total bitch, right?” Drew stated. “I mean, could she be any sweeter?”

  “I don’t know,” Jeremy said. “I tend to be a little suspicious of people who are too sweet.”

  Again, Casey felt Drew smile. “So, just how is Casey doing? Is she improving at all?”

  “Well, it’s hard to judge levels of improvement when a patient is comatose, but your sister has good flexibility and an excellent muscle base, so we’ll just keep plugging away. Here, why don’t you start on her other arm…. That’s right … just do what I showed you last time. That’s perfect. And I’ll get started on her legs.”

  “How realistic are her chances of being able to walk again?”

  “Well, there’s no physical reason why she shouldn’t be able to. There was no injury to the spinal cord, and her fractures have healed nicely. If we keep working these muscles,” he said, lifting the sheet from Casey’s legs and starting to massage the bottoms of her feet, “then once she wakes up, once her brain starts sending out the correct messages, I see no reason why she won’t eventually regain complete use of her arms and legs.”

  “But first she has to wake up.”

  “First she has to wake up.”

  I am up, dammit. Why isn’t my brain sending out the correct messages?

  “The patient’s brain has been rocked,” Casey recalled one of her doctors saying.

  How long ago had that been? How many weeks? How many months? How much time before her damn brain stopped rocking? Would she have enough time? Come on, brain. Concentrate. Start sending out the right signals. Fingers, squeeze my sister’s thumb. Feet, kick at Jeremy’s hands. Do something. Do anything.

  “So how long have you been doing this sort of work?” Drew asked.

  “Not that long,” Jeremy replied. “A little over four years.”

  “And before that?”

  “The army.”

  “The army?”

  “Long, sad story.” He sighed, as if debating whether or not to tell it. “I was working as a therapist. My wife and I were struggling to make ends meet. I had a shitload of student loans to pay back. The army offered to repay those loans if I enlisted. The recruiting officer said I’d be stationed stateside, that I likely would never be sent overseas, and that in the very unlikely event that I was, I’d be assigned to the medical unit and probably wouldn’t see any direct combat. I was stupid enough to believe him.”

  “Where’d they send you?”

  “Afghanistan.”

  An audible intake of air. “What was that like?”

  “Not exactly my idea of a good time.”

  “The recruiting officer lied to you about everything?”

  “Well, that’s the thing. He didn’t exactly lie. No, he was very careful in his choice of words. He said I’d be stationed stateside, which I was—for about six months. He said I likely wouldn’t be sent overseas, that I probably wouldn’t see any direct combat….”

  “But you were sent overseas, you did see direct combat.”

  “Yes.”

  “Were you scared?”

  “Yes.”

  Drew’s voice fell to a whisper. “Did you kill anybody?”

  A long pause. “Yes.”

  “That must have been so awful.”

  “Yes,” he said again.

  Casey felt him reach across her for his coffee, heard him take a tentative sip.

  “I don’t think I could ever kill anyone.”

  “You’d be amazed at what you’re capable of doing. Especially when someone’s trying to kill you.”

  “How long were you over there?”

  “Twenty-three months, one week, and five days. But who’s counting?” He tried to laugh, but the sound caught in his throat and stayed there. He took another sip of coffee. “By the time I got home, my wife had pretty much moved on. She came back for a while. We gave it the old college try, but it didn’t work out. I found out later that she’d been pretty much living with another guy while I was away. Anyway, what’s done is done. No point moaning about what can’t be changed.” He returned his attention to Casey’s feet. “How about you?”

  “Me?”

  “How are things working out for you?”

  Casey felt Drew shrug. “I guess I’m still a work in progress.”

  “Haven’t quite decided what you want to be when you grow up?” Jeremy asked.

  “Is that awful? I mean, I should know. I’m almost thirty. I have a child.”

  “You’ll figure it out.”

  “You think so?”

  “I know so.”

  “Well, I appreciate the vote of confidence. Thank you.”

  “For what?”

  “Do you mind if I ask you another question?” Drew asked.

  “Go ahead.”

  “What’s it like to kill somebody?”

  Silence. Then, “I’m not sure I can answer that.”

  “Sorry,” Drew apologized quickly. “It’s none of my business. I shouldn’t have asked.”

  “No, the problem isn’t with the question. The problem is I’m really not sure how to answer it. I’m not sure how it felt, to be honest. I was so scared.” He paused, took another sip of coffee. “You’re in a strange country, you don’t speak the language, you don’t know anything about the damn Taliban. All you know is that you’re a long way from home, and that you’re supposed to be bringing democracy to these people who are trying to blow your brains out. And bombs are going off, and land mines are exploding, and in the end, you don’t give a shit about democracy or the Taliban or anything else except getting out of that hellhole alive. Your adrenaline is constantly pumping and your heart is racing nonstop, and when you fire that weapon and you see that body drop, you don’t have time to feel anything, except maybe relief it wasn’t you. Maybe in the beginning, you feel a little elated that you actually managed to hit some thing, or maybe you feel sick to your stomach. I don’t know. All that destruction. All that blood. How can it not get to you? But eventually, that’s just what happens. Sooner or later, you don’t feel anything.” Another pause, another sip of coffee. “That’s probably the worst part. To kill another human being and not feel anything at all.”

  Was that how Warren felt? Casey wondered. Had he felt nothing while plotting her death? Nothing at all?

  “Sometimes it feels great,” Drew was saying, “not feeling anything.”

  “I think that’s what they call a contradiction in terms,” Jeremy said.

  “I guess. But isn’t that why most people do drugs, so that they don’t have to feel?”

  “Is that why you do them?”

  “People think you do drugs to get high,” Drew answered, talking more to herself now. “But it’s not to get high so much as it is to get to that point where you’re so high that you’re floating above all the crap and the pain, so you don’t feel anything at all—” She broke off. �
��Spoken like a junkie in need of a fix,” she said, and tried to laugh.

  “Are you?” Jeremy asked, letting go of Casey’s leg and returning his coffee to the end table beside her bed.

  Dear God. Are you?

  “Well, I don’t shoot up, if that’s what you’re asking. I’ve never done heroin. Not because I haven’t been tempted, but I have this phobia where needles are concerned. I snorted it once, mixed it with some cocaine, but it made me throw up, and I hate throwing up almost as much as I hate needles. You ever do coke?”

  “I tried it a couple of times,” Jeremy said. “Loved the getting high, hated the coming down. Decided it just wasn’t worth it.”

  “Yeah, I’ve decided that a couple of times myself.” Drew laughed.

  “What about your sister?” Jeremy asked, returning his full attention to Casey, bending her right leg at the knee, then straightening it out again, then repeating the action over and over again.

  “Oh, no. Casey would never do drugs. Never. Ever.”

  Only because I was so afraid of letting down my guard.

  “She was always such a straight arrow. Never skipped classes, never got drunk, never slept around, always did the right thing.”

  Only because I was terrified not to.

  “Always in control.”

  Somebody in the family had to take responsibility.

  “She’s not in control now,” Jeremy stated.

  “No, she’s not,” Drew agreed. “How fair is that?” She squeezed Casey’s hand. “She spends her whole life being the good daughter and the perfect wife and the consummate professional, and look how she ends up. You join the army to pay off a few student loans and end up killing people. I spend half my life shoving enough drugs up my nose to kill a small elephant, yet here I sit, alive and relatively healthy. So, what’s the point of anything, I ask you?”

  The point is that we have no control. The point is that there are no guarantees, that we never know what’s going to happen in life, but we can’t give up. The point is that, fallible as we all are, we have to keep trying, we have to keep reaching out to others….

  “Oh my God!” Drew exclaimed.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “She just squeezed my hand.”

  “What? Are you sure?”

  I did? I squeezed your hand?