Still Life

by Joy Fielding

  “I’m telling you—she just squeezed my hand,” Drew repeated, excitement growing in her voice.

  Casey felt Jeremy remove her hand from Drew’s.

  “I’m not feeling anything,” he said after several seconds.

  “I wasn’t imagining things,” Drew insisted. “I swear, she squeezed my hand.”

  “Can you do it again, Casey?” Jeremy squeezed her fingers, as if to show her how.

  Yes, I can. I can. There. I’m squeezing. I’m squeezing.

  “Anything?” Drew asked.

  “I’m not sure.”

  What do you mean, you’re not sure? I’m squeezing your fingers so hard they’re going to break off. Pay attention, damn you. I’m squeezing.

  “Come on, Casey. You can do it,” Drew urged.

  “Do what?” Patsy asked from the doorway.

  “Casey just squeezed my hand,” Drew said.

  “What?”

  “Can you do it again, Casey? Can you?” Jeremy asked.

  I’m trying, dammit, I’m trying.

  “Nothing,” he said.

  “You were probably imagining it,” Patsy said.

  “I know what I felt,” Drew argued.

  Patsy approached the bed, grabbed Casey’s other hand. “Okay, Casey, if you can understand me, then squeeze my hand.”

  Dammit, I’d break it if I could.

  “I don’t feel anything.”

  “She squeezed my hand,” Drew insisted. “She understands.”

  “Even if she did squeeze your hand,” Jeremy said, “that doesn’t mean she was reacting to anything specific.”

  “What does it mean?” another voice asked, entering the room.

  Warren, Casey realized, a sinking sensation in the pit of her stomach. How long had he been standing there?

  “It was most likely an involuntary muscle spasm,” Jeremy explained.

  “But it could be more than that,” Drew said. “It could mean Casey’s starting to regain the use of her hands. It could mean she’s trying to communicate. Couldn’t it?”

  “It could,” Jeremy conceded. “But we shouldn’t get our hopes up just yet.”

  “Jeremy’s right,” Warren said, taking Casey’s hand from Patsy’s and lifting it to his lips, gently kissing the tip of each finger. “We’ll just have to wait and see.”

  TWENTY-TWO

  It was the middle of the night, and the house was completely still.

  Casey lay motionless in her bed, wide awake despite the lateness of the hour. How much time had elapsed since the episode earlier in the day when she’d squeezed her sister’s hand? How many hours had she spent going over every detail of what had transpired? Had she really squeezed Drew’s hand, and if so, had it been a deliberate act on her part or merely an involuntary muscle spasm, as Jeremy had suggested?

  Warren was certainly curious to know the answer. He hadn’t left her side all afternoon. He’d sat by her head, monitoring her for the slightest twitch, eating lunch in his chair and forgoing his dinner, occasionally taking her hand in his and coaxing her in a soft, gentle voice to squeeze his fingers if she understood anything he was saying. “I love you so much,” he’d whispered on more than one occasion, loud enough to be heard by whomever else was in the room.

  Were they so easily fooled? Casey wondered, then answered her own question. Of course they were fooled. He’d fooled everyone. And she—the biggest fool of all.

  Jeremy had left when he’d concluded his therapy session, telling Warren he was very pleased with Casey’s progress and that he’d see her again on Monday. Drew had stayed until the end of Guiding Light before kissing Casey’s forehead, and after reminding Warren about his pledge to increase her monthly allowance, she promised to return the following afternoon and bring Lola with her. Patsy had been in and out of the room all day, ostensibly looking after Casey but mostly fussing over Warren, until she reluctantly retired for the night at around eleven o’clock. Warren had remained at Casey’s bedside until the end of the David Letterman show. Then he’d pressed the power button on the TV’s remote control and plunged the room into silence.

  It had been that way ever since, Casey thought now, listening to the assorted squeaks and clicks a house makes when everyone is asleep. Everyone except me, she thought, realizing that in the last twenty-four hours she hadn’t lost consciousness once, that she’d been awake for every second of every minute of every hour of the day. There’d been no merciful blackouts, no reprieves from the monotony of lying on her back for hours on end, listening to the voices from the television compete with Patsy’s inane yapping or Warren’s false protestations of love. Only Drew had provided her with a much-needed jolt of adrenaline. That she’d managed to squeeze Drew’s hand …

  Had she? Or had it been wishful thinking on her sister’s part?

  And was the fact she was no longer losing large chunks of time something to be celebrated or something to be rued? Was she getting better, or was she even worse off than she’d been before?

  How could anything be worse? she wondered, sensing a slight shift in the air.

  Something was happening.

  Someone was coming.

  Casey felt her heartbeat quicken. Someone was watching her from the doorway.

  “Casey,” her husband said after several minutes. “Are you awake?” he asked, as if he expected an answer.

  What was he doing here? Casey wondered. Had he come to finish the job he’d started? How? By holding a pillow over her nose and mouth until she stopped breathing? By injecting an air bubble into her veins with a hypodermic? “I don’t know what happened,” she could almost hear him sobbing to the ambulance attendants who rushed to the scene, the distraught husband trying to come to terms with this latest tragedy. “I came in to check on her, and I knew immediately something was wrong.”

  Or would he bide his time and wait until Patsy discovered her in the morning?

  Wasn’t that his usual modus operandi—staying one step removed?

  “I couldn’t sleep,” Warren told her now, his voice steady and calm as he crossed the bedroom floor to stand by the still-open window. “How about you?”

  Was he just here to make conversation? Casey wondered. Had he been having trouble sleeping, as he sometimes did, and reflexively turned to her, as he often had, for comfort in the middle of the night?

  Why are you here?

  “It’s really beautiful out. Warm. A little breeze. The sky is full of stars. The moon’s almost full. You’d love it.”

  I loved you. With all my heart and soul. How could you have done this to me?

  “So, is it true?” he asked, moving slowly toward the bed. “Did you really squeeze Drew’s hand?” He took her palm in his. “And if you did, if it wasn’t just the product of your sister’s overwrought imagination, the question is, was it simply a muscle spasm, or were you trying to communicate?”

  So they’d spent the last several hours kept awake by the same gnawing questions, Casey thought, tortured by the same things. They were still in sync, even now.

  Except they were never really in sync. It had all been an act.

  Foreplay, she scoffed.

  To murder.

  Warren squeezed Casey’s fingers. “You can tell me, Casey,” he whispered seductively. “You know you’ve never been able to keep anything from me.”

  He’s right, Casey thought. She’d always been an open book where he was concerned.

  “Tell me, what do you think about, lying here all day and night? Do you understand anything of what’s happening?”

  No. I don’t understand a thing, least of all you.

  “I can’t imagine how frustrating this must be, assuming you do understand. Not to mention terrifying. And boring. And humiliating. And God only knows what else. I think I’d be as mad as a hatter by now if I were you. Are you as mad as a hatter, Casey?”

  Maybe. Maybe I am.

  “Are you aware of time? Of the hours of your life slowly passing you by?”

  E
very hour, every minute, every second.

  “So, what do you think about? Do you think about me? Do you think about how happy we were?” He perched on the side of her bed, began absently stroking her thigh through the thin blanket that covered her.

  Oh, Warren, she thought, her body tingling at the touch of his hand, despite everything. We were happy, weren’t we?

  “I have to admit, I do miss you. I miss the interesting conversations we used to have. I miss your laugh. I miss how you used to snuggle up against me in bed, the way you’d poke your cute little butt into my stomach. And I miss the way you touched me.” He took Casey’s hand, moved it slowly to his leg. “Here,” he said, guiding her hand beneath his silk robe to his bare thigh. “And here.” He pushed her hand toward his groin. “Do you miss this?” he whispered, moving her hand higher still.

  What was he doing? Casey wondered. No, this isn’t happening. This isn’t happening.

  “It’s been so long,” he said. “And I’ve been such a good boy. You’d be so proud of me. I actually think I’ve been a better husband since the accident than I was before it. More attentive, more thoughtful. Certainly more faithful.”

  What are you saying now? That you were unfaithful to me?

  “You never had any idea, did you?” Warren asked. “Not the slightest clue, I’ll bet. It was always one of your greatest charms—your naïveté. Despite your upbringing, you still believed in marriage and monogamy. You still believed in fairy tales.”

  Casey realized with an unseen shudder that her husband was talking about her in the past tense.

  “Although I have to admit that, unlike your father, I was very discreet.”

  Why are you telling me this? Are you hoping for some kind of reaction?

  Warren leaned in closer, his lips grazing the side of her mouth. How far was he going to take this? Casey wondered, wishing she could turn her head aside, that she could pull her hand away, use it to slap him, hard, across the face. Was that what he was looking for?

  She felt his hand suddenly at her throat, felt his fingers sliding down her neck, then stopping in the space between her breasts.

  “Your breasts will get bigger,” Gail had said during their last lunch together, just after Casey had informed her of her plans to get pregnant. The fact she’d actually been considering having children with this man made her want to gag.

  Could he feel her revulsion? Casey wondered, holding her breath as Warren’s hand lingered for several seconds over her right nipple, then quietly withdrew.

  “Guess you really can’t move,” he said after a few more seconds had elapsed. He stood up, letting the hand he’d been holding flop down against the mattress, like a dead fish. “Sorry. I had to make sure you weren’t—what’s that word Dr. Keith used? Malingering? Yeah, that was it. A definite hundred-dollar word. Anyway, that was my own little test, unorthodox though it may have been. And while I admit to finding it disconcertingly more pleasant than I’d anticipated, necrophilia isn’t really my thing.” Casey felt her husband moving restlessly about the room. “So, what to do, what to do,” he muttered. “You’re a real conundrum, Casey. You know that? What am I going to do with you?”

  Haven’t you done enough already?

  He suddenly swooped closer, grabbed her chin roughly with his hand, forced her head up. “Can you see this light? Can you?”

  What was he doing? Was he shining something in her eyes?

  “No blinks, powerful or otherwise,” he said with obvious relief. Casey heard fumbling and surmised he was returning a tiny flashlight to the pocket of his robe. “So, we know you still can’t see. But it’s just a matter of time, isn’t it? And timing is everything. Right? Right? Dammit, Casey. Are you in there? Can you hear me? Do you have any idea what’s going on? Shit,” he exclaimed, releasing her chin.

  “Is something wrong?” Patsy asked from the doorway.

  Casey heard Warren gasp, felt him jump.

  “I’m so sorry,” Patsy apologized immediately. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  Casey pictured the two of them standing on opposite sides of the bed, Warren in his black-and-gold-striped bathrobe, Patsy in a long, probably flimsy nightgown that undoubtedly revealed considerable décolletage.

  “How long have you been standing there?” Warren asked.

  “Just a few seconds. I thought I heard voices.”

  “Unfortunately just mine,” Warren said, punctuating his sentence with a slight laugh of embarrassment.

  Nice touch, Casey thought.

  “Is something wrong?” Patsy asked. “Is Casey all right?”

  “She’s fine. I just couldn’t sleep,” Warren explained. “I thought I might as well get up and see how she was doing.”

  So considerate. Always thinking of others.

  “Can I make you something to eat? You didn’t have any dinner. You must be starving.”

  “Not really.”

  “How about some tea?”

  “No. Thank you. You should go back to bed. It promises to be pretty hectic tomorrow. I’m sorry if I woke you up.”

  “Don’t be. I’m a light sleeper. You actually saved me from a very unpleasant dream.”

  “Really? What was it about?”

  “Standard nightmare stuff. Faceless, knife-wielding man chasing me down a dark alley, and I’m screaming, but nobody can hear me. And he’s getting closer and closer….”

  “Does he catch you?”

  “Nope. Like I said, you saved me.”

  Too bad.

  “My hero,” Patsy said.

  “Glad to be of service.”

  “Do you ever have nightmares?” Patsy asked.

  “Not since I was a child. At least none that I can remember.”

  “You’re lucky. I remember all my dreams. I have this one where I’m standing on a stage, about to give a speech—God only knows why because I’ve never given a speech in my life—and I look down, and I realize I’m completely naked.”

  Well done, Patsy. Get him focusing on your more tangible assets.

  Warren chuckled. “I think that’s a fairly common dream.”

  “What do you think it means?”

  Please spare me the sophomoric dream interpretations.

  “Sounds like some kind of performance anxiety to me.”

  “Have you ever had that? I mean, in court, not in … You know what I mean.”

  I’m sure he does.

  “I don’t go to court.”

  “You don’t?”

  “I’m not a litigator.”

  “What sort of law do you practice?” Patsy asked. “I asked Janine once, but she was a little vague.”

  “Vague?” Warren repeated with a laugh. “Not a word I’d normally associate with Janine.”

  Casey groaned. Did she really have to be an unwilling eavesdropper to this grotesque mutual seduction? Was her condition not pitiful enough?

  “I do mostly corporate and commercial work,” Warren continued. “And lately, a little bit of strategic planning as well.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I advise companies on the best way to accomplish their goals and help them draw up a curriculum to realize those objectives.”

  Not very good at it, are you?

  “Sounds very complicated.”

  “Everything sounds complicated at three o’clock in the morning.”

  “How about something nice and simple like a cup of hot chocolate?” Patsy offered.

  Nice segue, Patsy. I’m impressed.

  “It might help you sleep,” she added.

  “I don’t want to put you to any trouble.”

  “It’s no trouble. Honestly.”

  “Sure, hot chocolate sounds …” A sob caught in Warren’s throat. “I’m sorry,” he said, his voice suddenly awash in tears. “I’m sorry.”

  Guess he’s not a big fan of hot chocolate.

  Casey felt Patsy rush to Warren’s side and gather him in her arms, his head collapsing against her shoulder as he cried
.

  “It’s all right,” she heard Patsy say. “Let it out. Let it out.”

  “It’s just so awful.”

  “I know.”

  You have no idea.

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “Don’t be.”

  “I’m trying to stay strong for Casey….”

  “Nobody can be strong twenty-four hours a day.”

  “Sometimes I feel so desperate.”

  This is beyond desperate. I know it’s three o’clock in the morning, Patsy, but wake up, girl. The man’s a cold-blooded killer.

  Casey felt her frustration beginning to burn a hole in her stomach. She wanted to grab Patsy by the shoulders, shake some common sense into her. Sure. Like I’m in any position to judge. It took a coma to wake me up.

  “You’re doing everything humanly possible,” Patsy told him.

  “But it’s not enough, is it? It’s never enough.”

  “Don’t do this to yourself, Warren,” Patsy urged.

  “I feel like such a failure.”

  “You’re not a failure. You’re the best man I know.”

  And suddenly the room fell silent, and Casey could see even without the benefit of sight that their positions had reversed, that Patsy was now the one in Warren’s arms, and that his lips were pressing down tenderly against hers.

  “Oh, God, I’m sorry,” Warren apologized immediately, pulling back. “I’m so sorry. Please forgive me.”

  “It’s all right,” Patsy rushed to assure him.

  “It’s not all right. I don’t know what came over me.”

  “It’s okay. I understand.”

  “How could I do something like that?”

  “Nothing happened, Warren.”

  “I’ve put you in an untenable position. I’ll understand completely if you want to leave.”

  “I’m not going anywhere.”

  “I had no right.”

  “You were upset. You’ve been beside yourself with worry.”

  “That’s no excuse.”

  “It’s okay,” Patsy said again. “It was my fault as much as yours.”

  Another silence. Then Warren’s voice: “You’re so sweet. Casey’s lucky to have you. We’re both lucky,” he added.

  Casey felt a slow smile creep along Patsy’s moonlit face. “How about I go make that hot chocolate now?”