Even after this, I have a full day left to contend with. The neo-Nazi dying, Maddox leaving, what next? In a weird sort of way, these things make the day, and those thereafter, easier. I can always look back on the lunch where in one moment, I was completely satisfied with the procession of events that had taken place in my day and the next moment, I was leveled by some patient’s departure as the lowest, most confusing part of my life.
Still, the memory of Maddox lingers in a sour sort of way. It must be the need of that memory to run its course like the flu. I can’t understand why he was so reserved to the point of defensiveness. He was hiding something from me, sure, but more importantly, he was reserving information from the police.
He knew they were in the building and this caused him to shut out any attempts to uncover his secrets.
By now, the whole Maddox thing is beginning to prick at my mind. It becomes more and more difficult to see him in a positive light. Although my hopes for any chance for the two of us to be together have faded, I still find myself reserving a section of my thoughts for him. He will always be the one I put it all on line for, and he’s gone now but he can never be completely expelled from my mind. I can’t explain it; he just had this magnetic kind of allure that I couldn’t resist. He came into my life, flailing and kicking like a wild man, and stole my heart. Besides, it’s not like I want things to be this way. I don’t want him out of my life or my thoughts. It nice, having the whole Maddox experience to remember. He brought me back to life; he saved me from myself. At least I had that victory for a while, and even when everything seems bad, at least I can say I had passion once.
Chapter 21
The bench is making my back sore but I don’t care. A family on bikes goes by, coasting on the momentum and the slight decline. Dogs bark. Children hold footraces in the green clearings while their parents wear sunglasses under the boughs of trees. Cream-colored blobs of clouds march in line, clumsily bumping and infusing into one another. The sky is like a Maynard Dixon painting, a pale blue expanse. When I look up, the whole scene is framed in the lightly dancing leaves of the taller trees. The warm golden rays of the sun bake me in my seat while cool wisps of wind wrap themselves around my ankles and shoulders. Some lazy scent of flowers has made its way to me on the same breeze that passes over me now. From another corner where the flowers grow in un-manicured gardens these scents are sent like couriers to deliver their sweet messages. From within the depths of the foliage, birds call to one another or make music for no other reason than to set the lax tone of a listless and uneventful day. Through the branches and limbs of trees, the sun paints loose patterns of silhouetted shadows on the earth floor. Through the grass and the dirt a passage is cut and cast in asphalt for walkers, runners and cyclists. This path winds around the thick bases of trees and along the edges of open green patches of sprawling grass.
I bounce my leg which shifts the book in my hands causing the words on the page to dance rebelliously against my sight. I still my leg and read a sentence from my book, but as soon as I have had the last word my leg bounces again and the words go up and down. I have read this sentence too many times now and I wonder if it’s the setting I’m in that keeps me from moving on.
I read the sentence aloud, “What does one send to the Lighthouse indeed!” I look up and squint at the sun glaring its rays at me as if it were suspecting me of something. I look back down into my book and read the sentence again. The words tumble around in my head, bouncing off of speech recognition receptors before they are codified and arranged in packages of meaning, each with its own connotation. Just as I begin to lose interest in the sentence again, a dog pushes its wet nose into my leg and drops a ball by my foot. I set my book down, smiling and scratch the area behind the dog’s ears with both hands. When I look up, I expect to see the owner running toward me but no one is there. I look over my shoulder, back at the open field of green where other dogs play with frisbees and children for someone to claim the dog. I stand up with a slight tinge of worry in my gut and scan in every direction before looking back down at the dog. The collar around the dog’s neck has a tag with the name, Christopher, on it. No number or address follows. I sit back down and stretch out an arm to pet the dog.
Christopher’s eyes dart occasionally to other dogs and sounds in the trees but they always come back to me for instruction. I stand up and walk down the path for a little while, searching for someone who looks like they’re looking for a dog. The dog follows me as I double back in the other direction and sits every time I stop moving, like he’s waiting for my decision to move.
The sun is dipping behind the horizon and because the warm glow of its rays is disappearing, an urgent sense of finding the owner is fast becoming my priority. I don’t see any lights along the trail. In a few minutes the park will be cloaked in darkness; any chance of finding who this dog belongs to will dissipate with the light.
I lead Christopher through the park. The light has gone from this place, but I can still find my way. The dog steps lightly behind me as I make my way down the path. He trots behind me until he reaches the edge of the path and runs into a bush. I call his name and his black-tipped ears perk in my direction. I pat my thigh to get him to follow, but again he veers off the path into a bush. I kneel down and call him. He swivels his head, trying to pick up on my voice. When he finds my location, he springs from the bush and makes his way over. His eyes shine back what little light there is in the park. The pupils of his eyes are massive, much larger than I would assume they should be. He’s got thick black and white fur and his irises are a thin circle of ice blue.
We walk slower and I call to him the entire time until we reach the entrance to the park, where I see a man with a leash and a cellphone up to his ear. The man calls Christopher’s name and the dog raises its head in the direction of his name. The man runs over to me, then drops to his knee as the dog recognizes him and lunges into his arms. The owner thanks me for the safe return.
“Christopher has PRA... um...night blindness,” the owner says as he pats the dog with both hands. He probably lost his way as the sun was setting. Even now, the light hasn’t completely left the park, but I suppose it was hard enough for him out there.
The owner offers me his thanks, telling me his eyes are just as bad as his pet’s. I tell him I have always been good at seeing in this sort of light; in fact, I see best when the light and the dark mix for those brief moments. I wave them goodbye as I turn back to walk through the park to the other side. Just before the last minutes of light pass the day into night, I can see people turning on their flash lights. They click on their LED helmet lights, they turn on their red rear bike lights, they go running with their light reflective vests and in the waning hours people’s faces are obscured by the lack of light.
Through the increasing darkness, I see a face that makes my heart drop. There, in the park, I see Maddox, if only for a moment as he jogs along the path and stop for a moment to catch his breath. He locks his fingers behind his head, then moves his back to me. I look down at my feet, which are carrying me closer to him. I move like a thief: light on my toes and blocking my body with trees and bushes. Why is he here? I creep closer to him, remaining hidden from behind a tree. He looks completely at ease, like nothing in the world could possibly be on his mind. Why should he get to be so unburdened while I carry the weight of the world in my thoughts? Finally, I step out from my cover and in a loud voice shout, “Maddox.”
He turns to face me, but the eyes staring back at me don’t belong to Maddox. The face isn’t Maddox’s either. It’s just a man out for some exercise. He looks around the park in confusion, then goes back to running on the path. How could I be mistaken? Is my judgment so clouded that I see Maddox, even when he isn’t there? My thoughts must be spilling over into my senses. My eyes are now playing tricks on me. There’s got to be some joke in this: like my subconscious is trying to tell me I need resolution with Maddox. Maybe I should be like the people in the park; buy a flashlight to hel
p me see the way. I should wake up tomorrow and buy the same kind of gear but right now in the onset of the darkness, just trying to make my way and wondering, “Maddox. Where are you?” will have to be good enough.
Chapter 22
“Dr. Brasco, I need your help,” a voice cries out urgently.
Gurney beds go flying down the hallway towards the ER. Nurses and doctors grip the side railings with white knuckles as they half sprint, patient after patient, through the corridors of the building. Outside, the lights of ambulances are left on and blind me. EMTs join the doctors and nurses as more patients come flowing in. The smell of some unknown scent begins to fill the air, rising until it meets the hum of the fluorescent lights.
“Doctor, I need your help.” The voice is more insistent this time.
The scent is now thick in the air. Clouds of acrid stench reach into the nostrils and kick start memories of campfire, bonfires and the bitter stench of charred wood.
“Doctor, please!”
All of a sudden, I realize someone has been standing in front of me, another doctor whose name tag is missing. He is holding a clipboard in front of me. I grab it as he tells me that he has to help the patients. He turns away and it’s only now that I actually feel the weight of the clipboard in my hands. “Wait, what is this? What do you want me to do?” In an exhausted tone, he tells me it’s a checkup procedure.
“What kind, Doctor?” He rushes toward the entrance of the building, pushing the other doctors and nurses along as he goes. I follow him with the clipboard in my hand, shouting at the nameless doctor, “Am I authorized to do this?”
He shouts back, “Ask Eleanora, she knows which room to send you to,” and then he disappears out of the building and past the flashing ambulance lights.
Eleanora has a phone at her ear and is chopping away at the keys of a computer. I stop just before I reach her to take in the amount of people rushing in every direction. It’s like being caught in the middle of a busy intersection. People are flashes of color as they speed past me. Doctors shout for I.V.’s while nurses check vitals. The floor is scuffed by the force of black gurney wheels.
Eleanora is blind to it all and remains focused on her computer screen. I put my hand on the counter and Eleanors looks up with strained eyes. She is half standing at the computer while balancing the phone with her shoulder and head. I can hear the other voice from the telephone shouting.
I can’t talk to Eleanora now, so I lift up the clipboard and point to it in hopes she understands. She sees the clipboard and sighs; her whole body rises then sinks. She points to a door down the hall. I nod as thanks and walk toward the door. I try to read the information on the clipboard, but I run into a nurse and drop it. She fires on down the hallway like I wasn’t even there. I pick up the clipboard and open the door, looking back on all the doctors and nurses and EMTs crisscrossing through the hallway. I look down at the clipboard to quickly scan for information and shut out all the pandemonium.
I have noticed that patients usually won’t speak until you acknowledge them, so I can buy myself some time while I read the information. My eyes jump all over the page, looking for something I can recognize. It doesn’t occur to me that maybe this patient might have an injury or illness that I know nothing about. Before I can manage anything, I hear, “Lily?” from the patient and I look up to see Maddox standing across from me.
“What are you doing here?” I ask in surprise.
Through a nervous smile, he says, “Uh...well, they said to come back for, uh…”
I interrupt as soon as I realize. “A checkup.”
He sits down on the edge of the bed, putting his arms out on either side for support. I stare at him, not sure of which emotion is taking effect on my face. I shake my head and rub my eyes with my thumb and finger. He lowers his head and sighs, then looks up to me. I’ve dreamed about this, about seeing him again, and in my dreams we rush into each other’s arms but now, I just meet his raised eyes and we stew in the silence until I say, “I don’t know what to do.” He nods and puts his hands on his thighs, never looking away from me. His mouth opens a little, then closes a few times. He is breathing heavily so that the loudest sound is his lips parting and his breath.
He wipes his mouth with his hand, and says, “I have to…can I just…” He looks away then back at me.
I bite my lip and I tell him, “Maybe I should get another doctor...” He looks down then snaps his head up as I turn for the door and open it half way.
“Wait!” He asks me to stay then says, “Please, I just...I need to say something to you. Please don’t leave me.” My heart races at his request. I try not to be so taken with his gorgeous eyes, but they shine through my defenses. I shut the door and turn to him, his eyes pleading with me.
“You left. You ran out of here, not me.”
He stands and puts his palms, out telling me he had to. He says it isn’t as simple as I have thought. He lowers his hands and walks to the other side of the bed, rubbing the back of his head the whole time while I watch and wonder if I can put myself through this again. He tells me, “This isn’t how I wanted things to end up.”
“Oh, no shit, Sherlock. You just go around beating guys to a pulp and then disappear and I’m supposed to be okay with that? I don’t know Maddox, throw me a bone here, tell me something I don’t already know.” Deep inside, I want him to explain. I want a good reason for all the mayhem that he’s caused lately. What can he possibly say? I have already made up my mind about the way this conversation will go.
“I can’t just keep trying to understand you without your help.” It is hard for me to tell whether I’m talking about him or how he got here. My only handle on the moment is telling myself I know how it will end.
He looks at me and says, “I know. I understand what you must think I look like…”
I don’t wait for him to finish and say, “Like an asshole? The kind of savage that…” He tells me to wait, but I have built this up for too long, “The kind of savage who drunkenly assaults a kid and then asks for pity? Cause that’s what you look like from here.”
He lowers his head and throws up his palms at me. “I understand that, but the situation isn’t as simple…”
“What the hell does that mean, the situation isn’t simple? Try. Try to explain how it is hard for you to make this easy for me.”
He retorts, “I can’t!”
“Why not?” I demand.
He shouts back, “Because I care about your opinion of me and I don’t want to fuck this whole thing up just because I have feelings for you.” He immediately covers his eyes with his hand and turns away from me. With his back to me, he sighs and rubs the back of his head.
I move around the bed and ask him, “Are you crazy? Do you really think that is important right now? You have the police asking questions about you and you’re trying to talk about us?”
He turns around, saying, “You are important in all this. I need to tell you this because I might not ever get a chance to and I refuse to live with anymore regret. I'm through holding back for the sake of decorum. I need this.” He slows his breathing as he says, “I know you think I’m a lowlife, but let me explain.” He closes his eyes tightly and lowers his head then raises it, slowly opening his eyes to me.
I can feel the confusion and anger well up again. I tell him, “Go on then, tell me.”
The feeling subsides and Maddox says, “When I think of you, I realize I’ve always pictured our meeting each other differently. I mean, I just thought that maybe I would drop my keys in the middle of a crowded street and you would pick them up or maybe we would be sitting at a cafe and look up to realize we were both reading the same book. I just thought that when I finally found someone who could stay on my mind like you do that it would be a happy coincidence, not like what really happened. And I have been telling myself that I don’t deserve you this whole time. I’ve been telling myself I don’t deserve anything great for a long time, but I am sick of it now. Now I can see what
I’ll miss out on and it kills me because I want you. I don’t want someone similar to you or a shade of you, I want you.”
All my defenses go melting out of me. He softens my edge with his words. I shake my head and ask, “Why couldn’t you tell me what happened to you?”
He looks up, telling me, “It wasn’t my place to say.”
“What do you mean?”
“I can tell you but I have to do something first. I have to…” His eyes glaze. “You have to let me talk to Jonathan.”
Chapter 23
I’m standing outside Jonathan’s room. People walk past me with their noses buried in cell phones and clipboards. Two doctors discuss treatment, gesticulating their points with flailing hands. Every sole plods on the bleached, glassy floor. A nurse slowly walks through the ammonia-filled air as she intensely examines an x-ray. All eyes are busy and the rest of the senses operate on an autopilot basis for the sake of focus. They move in the manner of celestial bodies, governed by strict laws that push and pull them towards and away from one another. Each body glides in and out of the hallway as smoothly as if it were all mechanized and set to a distinct rhythm. The worn-out, dogged sagging eyes of those shackled to the twenty-four hour shift never move to me or the closed door in front of which I stand.
Lily's Temptation Vol. 1 Page 14