Such Dark Things

by Courtney Evan Tate

  “He’s been my best friend since kindergarten.” Tyler’s hands shake as he speaks. “We did Scouts together. We were both going away to Caltech next year. We were going to share a dorm.”

  Were. Past tense.

  Tyler’s eyes meet mine, and his are full of shock, of pain, of disbelief.

  I don’t want to tell him that the real grief is yet to come, when the reality of death sets in, when the absence of his friend is so pronounced that it rips a giant hole in his life. I don’t need to tell him. He’ll discover it soon enough.

  “I’m sorry for your loss,” I tell him sincerely, and there’s suddenly a lump in my throat because it never gets easier. I’ve been an ER doc for years now, and death is not something I’ve ever gotten used to.

  It’s at this moment that shrill screaming rips apart the ER, a long wail filled with angst and torment. I know who it is without even checking.

  It’s the poignant grief of a mother, the pain in the scream unmistakable. Jason’s mother’s sorrow is haunting and raw, and it echoes into my bones, where it vibrates my core.

  The sound lodges in my heart, and for a minute, I allow myself to feel it, to know that in a way, I caused that pain. I couldn’t save that boy. That mother’s life is irrevocably changed. His father’s, his family’s, his friends’. The wife he might’ve someday had is gone, the kids, the life.

  It’s not your fault, I tell myself, like I always do.

  But that doesn’t change the fact that his life dangled in my hands on a string, and I had to cut it.

  Snip.

  “We’ll get you fixed up,” I tell this boy, the one who is alive. “Don’t drink and drive again.”

  Tyler shakes his shaggy head. “I won’t. Can I see Jason?”

  I shake my head. “You don’t want to right now. Trust me. Wait until he’s been cleaned up.”

  And the mortician has patched his skull back together.

  Tyler nods and closes his eyes, and Jason’s mom continues to wail in the background.

  I tune it out, because this is my life, and if I don’t harden myself to it, I’ll go insane. I’ll become a whimpering basket case who rocks in a corner because I see this kind of thing every damned day. Chicago is full of accidents and crimes and sickness.

  “Do you know where my phone is?” Tyler asks as I’m almost to the door. “It’s got the video on it. It’s the last time... I mean, it’s the last time Jason was alive. Maybe his mom will want to see it.”

  His mother will want to see the exact moment her son crashed into a stone median at a hundred miles per hour and died? I seriously doubt it.

  “I’m not sure where it is, or if it even survived the crash,” I tell him. “You’ll have to check with the police. They’ll be here later to question you, anyway.”

  He gulps and I take my leave, relieved to escape his pain and fear. Sometimes I can’t help but allow those things to leach into me, and the emotions of desperation and grief are exhausting.

  Lucy meets me at the nurses’ station, and she’s cleaned up now and wearing a fresh top. It has pumpkins on it. She thrusts a yogurt and an orange at me.

  “You haven’t eaten all day.”

  She’s right. I forgot. It happens a lot around here on busy days. When lives hang in the balance, who has time for eating?

  “Thanks,” I tell her, taking the food gratefully. I hate yogurt, and the orange isn’t ripe yet, but it’s better than nothing.

  “You’re going to get too skinny,” Lucy tells me, standing in the middle of ringing phones and overflowing stacks of charts. “And your husband probably likes your boobs the way they are. Also, he’s on line four. You forgot to call him back earlier.”

  Damn it.

  Jude called around noon. Almost six hours ago.

  Son of a bitch.

  I grab the phone.

  “Babe, I’m sorry,” I tell him, without bothering with hello. “It got crazy here today. There was an accident on the Dan Ryan, two kids drag racing... It’s been one thing after another...”

  “Corinne, it’s okay,” he interrupts, and his voice is warm and patient. Like always. I feel a pang of guilt, because he really is patient with this stuff, with my schedule.

  “I couldn’t save one of them,” I tell him, and my voice is suddenly small, so very quiet.

  “It wasn’t your fault,” my husband tells me seriously. “You know that.”

  I imagine Jude’s eyes getting warmer with his words, the golden notes flickering amid the depths, almost like the moss in Lake Michigan on a sunny day. His eyes are like honey, various shades of golds and greens, all swirled into one color. That’s always been one of my favorite things about him.

  “I know.” Because I do. I always try my best. I took an oath to heal and protect, and I take that very seriously.

  Jude sighs.

  “Somehow, I wonder about that. What time are you coming home? Should I wait dinner?”

  I eye the orange and the yogurt next to me, and the patient board that is lit up like a Christmas tree.

  “No,” I answer tiredly. “The board is full, and it’s only Brock and me here tonight. I can’t get away until later. But I’ll be home before bed.”

  “You need some sleep tonight, Co,” Jude points out. “You’ve been running on fumes this week.”

  “I know.” And God, do I know. I feel a hundred and five lately, instead of thirty-five. “I’m starting to look like the Crypt Keeper.”

  Jude laughs, a sincere bark. “You are not. You’re beautiful and you know it.”

  I examine myself in the silver coffeepot next to me. My reflection is distorted with the curve of the carafe, but I get the gist. My blond hair was neat this morning, but now the bun at the nape of my neck is falling apart. There are bags under my eyes, and Lucy is right. I’m going to look haggard soon if I don’t watch it.

  “You’re partial,” I point out to my husband.

  “Maybe. Just come home sometime today, okay?”

  I agree and hang up, and before I can take even one bite of the yogurt, a nurse is calling for me from an exam room.

  I yank at my stethoscope so that it doesn’t pull my hair as it drapes my neck and walk into exam room five.

  “Whatta we got?” I ask the nurses, and I dive into work.

  Concussion.

  Chest pain.

  Neck pain.

  Bowel impaction.

  At 8:00 p.m., Lucy pokes her head into the room I’m in.

  “There was a bus accident,” she tells us. “A bus full of kids coming back from a basketball game. No fatalities, but...”

  But I’m going to be here awhile.

  Abdominal pain.

  Kidney stone.

  Ankle sprain.

  One patient turns into another, from bus accident victims to the geriatric. As always, the clock ticks faster and faster when I’m on the floor, and by the time I take another breath and catch up on charting, it’s 11:00 p.m.

  Damn it.

  I do my charting quickly, scribbling in the pages until my sight blurs.

  “You ready, Doc?” Lucy smiles tiredly at me as I grab my purse. She’s holding her own. “I’m heading out. We might as well go together, right?”

  “Sure.”

  We’re too tired to chat much in the elevator, and I’m so exhausted as I trudge across the parking garage that I feel like my legs won’t hold me up. It’s dark, and as usual, I keep close watch from my periphery. There is a parking attendant, but he circles the entire garage, and I seldom see the orange lights flashing on top of his car.

  “God, I hate this garage,” Lucy mutters, her gaze flitting along the secluded shadows.

  “Me, too,” I agree.

  It would take only a second for someone to jump out, for someone to grab me.

  “They
should film horror movies here,” she adds. I chuckle but flinch away from the dark edges of the concrete. I keep moving, one foot in front of the other.

  Lucy peers ahead of us. “What the hell?”

  There’s new graffiti painted on the wall in front of my space.

  CUNT.

  The hateful word drips in neon-blue paint, dried now. In my opinion, that word is the worst thing in the world to call someone. Worse than bitch, worse than whore. I don’t know why. It just is.

  I look over my shoulder quickly, scanning the entire dark garage. Shadows move, the wind whistles, but no one is there.

  We’re alone.

  This is just graffiti.

  It’s not directed at me.

  This is Chicago. Vandalism is to be expected.

  Calm.

  Calm.

  Calm.

  “That’s charming,” Lucy says wryly. “I’ll call someone tomorrow to have it cleaned, Dr. Cabot.”

  “Corinne,” I correct her. “We’re outside of the ER now, Lucy.”

  She smiles. I wouldn’t care if she called me by my first name always, but she’s a stickler for the rules.

  “Where are you parked?” I ask her. She motions to a few rows away.

  “Get in. I’ll drop you off.”

  We get into my car, and we both lock our doors.

  Thirty seconds later, she gets out at her car. “See you tomorrow.”

  “’Night, Lucy. Drive safe.”

  I’m so tired that I wish I wish I wish in this moment that I lived in a house closer to the hospital, instead of a suburb outside of town. I just want my bed. And my husband. I want to be away from the graffiti and the crime and the noise.

  I nose out of the garage, into traffic and toward home.

  The lights of the city turn into the tree-lined streets of the suburbs, and somehow I manage to hold my eyes open for the duration of the drive. I punch in our gate code, and the wrought-iron gates swing open, granting me entrance.

  Our home is at the back, and it’s the only one in the neighborhood that doesn’t have jack-o’-lanterns or witches adorning the lawn.

  That’s okay by me.

  I don’t do Halloween.

  The house standing in front of me reminds me of why I live here, though, and of why I work so hard.

  It’s for normalcy, for happiness.

  For this.

  Jude and I work hard for this life, for the pleasures and comforts that we have. Our home is proof of that. It’s large and renovated and lush. It’s four thousand square feet of the American dream, nestled deep in an expansive subdivision away from the bustle and noise of the city. This is why I make the drive every day. This home is my quiet sanctuary, my respite from the chaos of my life.

  I pull my car into the garage next to Jude’s Land Rover and walk quietly into the house. My husband left a light over the sink on for me, but other than that, the house is dark and so silent that the quiet almost seems to buzz.

  I creep through the house and almost trip over our dog in the kitchen.

  “I’m sorry, girl.” I bend and scratch Artie’s ears. Her fur has gotten wiry in her old age, white around her muzzle and eyes. She stares at me now, almost in accusation, because I’m coming home so late and disturbing her sleep. “I’m sorry,” I tell her again, as though she understands. She lays her head back down and watches me until I disappear into the master suite.

  I brush my teeth, but that’s all I do. I strip off my germy scrubs, release what’s left of my bun and climb into bed naked, like I do every night. Jude stirs, sits halfway up and peers at the clock.

  “Well, technically, you did make it home today,” he says, his voice husky with sleep, and the clock says eleven fifty-eight, so he’s right.

  “I know. I’m sorry.”

  “I know.”

  He’s oblivious to my nudity, and I to his, and he lies back down. Before long, he’s snoring lightly, and even that doesn’t keep me awake. I fall into sleep, and I stay there for hours.

  2

  Now

  Jude

  I wake with a start.

  My eyes open, and I search the dim room for what woke me.

  I skim over the familiar objects in my bedroom. The furniture, the walls, the bold abstract art, before my gaze falls upon my phone.

  That was the noise. It vibrated with a text against the wood of my nightstand. I blink the sleep away and reach for it.

  I miss you. I hate this place.

  My wife.

  My head falls back on the pillows, my hand grazing the empty side of the bed. The sheets there are cold. Corinne should be there next to me, her breath even and strong, her hair splayed out on the pillow, her warmth leaching into my body.

  But she’s not.

  I don’t know how she got access to her phone.

  I miss you, too, babe, I answer. Um. How do you have your phone? Isn’t that against the rules?

  They aren’t supposed to use their cell phones at Reflections, since the devices are considered a distraction from treatment. As a therapist myself, I can’t say I disagree with that theory.

  I had a bad night, so the day nurse is giving me 5 min to chat with you.

  My gut contracts at that, at the notion that she has to get “permission” to talk with me, and once again I wonder if we’re doing the right thing. If I’m doing the right thing. I pushed hard for her to admit herself so that I wouldn’t have to do it against her will.

  But the idea of Corinne in a mental hospital kills me.

  Are you ok now? I ask.

  Her answer is immediate. Not really. I’m ready to come home.

  She adds a smiley face, but I know she’s not feeling smiley. No one in her situation would.

  It’ll be ok, I assure her again, as I have four thousand other times this week. I promise.

  I’ll take your word for it, she replies, and if I concentrate, I can almost see the wry expression on her face as she types. Her blue eyes will be wide, her brow furrowed. I smile. I love you, Ju.

  I love you, too.

  I gotta go, she tells me. My five minutes are up. See you Saturday?

  Yes! I answer. I’ll be there.

  Who would’ve ever thought I’d have to schedule a visit to my wife within a two-hour visiting window? Not me. Not her. In fact, not anyone who knows us.

  But it’s our reality.

  I burrow my head under my pillow, as though if I tunnel far enough into my bed, this new reality will escape me. It doesn’t, though. The image of finding my wife the way I did, in a pool of blood and insanity, will stay with me for the rest of my life.

  I’ll never be able to unsee it.

  My dog whines two minutes later, saving me from the memory, her bladder having shrunk with her old age.

  “Just a minute, girl,” I mumble. “Give me a few minutes.”

  She can’t wait, though, and I eventually haul myself out of bed, trudging out into the October cold, opening the back door.

  Artie ambles out and relieves herself, taking her time. She sniffs at this and that, and I know she can’t see what she’s doing. Her eyes are cloudy with cataracts, and she can’t hear a thing.

  “Come on, girl,” I call to her, loudly, shivering. “Get in here. It’s cold.”

  When she’s good and ready, she returns to the house, and after I feed her breakfast, I throw some clothes on. I go running every morning. It used to be for fitness reasons only, but now it is also to relieve stress.

  Lord knows, these days I’ve got an excess amount of that.

  I run my normal route, through the running trails at the park, through the trees. I can see my breath and my shoes crunch through the dead leaves drifted into piles on the ground. One foot in front of the other, pounding down the path, because this is someth
ing I can control. I can run and run and run, until all thoughts evade me, pushed out of my brain by the simple and basal need for oxygen. The need to breathe.

  The human body is interesting in that way. It will allow your mind to play its games, right up to the point where the basic need to live overtakes all else. My lungs burn more and more. I ignore it as long as I can.

  It’s only when they feel about to burst that I finally stop, my hands on my knees as I pull air into my lungs. It takes several long minutes of thinking about nothing but breathing before I come back to the present.

  Back to reality.

  The Chicago traffic hums in the distance, as people race to work, but I’m removed from it here. This park is secluded and quiet, tranquil and removed. It’s a nature reserve, and if you close your eyes, you truly feel like you’re alone in the middle of nowhere.

  Until a twig behind me snaps.

  Startled, I whirl around.

  I scan the tree line and the moving limbs, and there’s not another human soul here. The wind blows and bites at my face, and there’s nothing out there but the sun rising in the distance.

  I’m alone, as I always am on this trail at this hour.

  No one is here, and Corinne’s paranoia has affected me.

  I wasn’t alone, Jude! she’d told me, babbling until she lost consciousness in the ambulance. I wasn’t alone.

  But everyone knows she was. The alarm hadn’t been tripped. No one had broken in. It’s understandable why she’s paranoid, after living through what she did so long ago, but the fact remains, she has grown paranoid.

  She had been alone that night.

  Just as I’m alone now.

  Jesus, Jude, I mutter to myself, and I take long steps, jogging toward home, even now fighting the urge to glance over my shoulder. I’m being a dumbass. I take the porch steps two at a time.

  My house is a mausoleum without my wife, enormous and quiet, and I hate it. I didn’t get married for this.

  I’m resentful of my own thoughts as I shower and shave, the fog steaming up the bathroom mirrors. Corinne isn’t here to remind me to turn on the exhaust fan, so I don’t.

  With her gone, I do everything as I always would. Something in my head tells me not to change anything, because to change things while she’s gone might set her back.