One Last Song

by S. K. Falls

  I arched my back, pressing harder against him, aching for him to take it further. And so he did.

  There is nothing more, I thought as we tumbled into infinity. There is nothing more in life than this, than us, right here, right now in this moment. We are life; we are fate.

  * * *

  Afterward, I lay curled in Drew’s arms, with him fitted snugly against my back. There was a trail of clothes from the bench to one side of the bed. It was funny how you could read them like a book.

  He nibbled the spot right under my earlobe, making goose bumps sprout on my arm. “What are you thinking?” His hand traced lazy circles on my thigh, then stilled.

  “Mm. Just looking at our clothes, like Hansel and Gretel’s breadcrumbs.”

  He chuckled. “Hansel and Gretel were brother and sister. Let’s not make that comparison.”

  I turned so I was facing him and smiled. “You’re right. I didn’t think about that.”

  He kissed me, and then his eyes fell on my bandage. His expression sobered. “You’re sure that’s nothing serious?”

  I blushed and turned again so I was facing away from him. I found I couldn’t repeat the lie otherwise. “Yep. That’s what the doctor said.”

  “Dr. Daniels. The one Carson uses.”

  “Mm hmm.”

  He breathed deeply, his chest pushing against my upper back. “If you trust him. Carson says he’s okay, not the most competent doctor. But his parents like him.”

  “Mine do, too,” I said.

  There was a brief silence as I tried to swallow away the bitter aftertaste of my lie.

  “Hey,” Drew said, nuzzling the back of my neck through my curls. “I’m sorry I brought it up. I can tell you’re self-conscious about it.”

  “It’s okay.” He didn’t realize the truth—that I was self-conscious not of my bandaged wound, but of the reason that I even had it.

  “I’ve had so much crap happen to me after I got diagnosed with FA that I don’t even think about the self-conscious aspect of it anymore, I guess. TIDD group hazard.”

  I picked up his hand from where it lay on my waist and examined it. “You know, I can’t tell that there’s anything wrong with your hands. They look so graceful.” I kissed his fingertips one by one.

  “It’s getting harder to do the simplest things,” he said. “I won’t even really be thinking about it and then bam, I can’t text some word I used to text before. Or I can’t brush my teeth for the full two minutes like I used to be able to. Stupid shit like that. I think when my coordination really goes, it’ll be the small stuff I miss.”

  I thought about my mum, the water bottles of vodka I never noticed. The cups of tea always at her elbow, which were probably more than just tea. “Yeah. It’s the smallest things that really make a life what it is.”

  * * *

  I got home and let myself in right around dinnertime. The living room was quiet, and so was the den, the TV turned off and silent. I’d never noticed before that our house smelled weird.

  Every house had a smell. Ours had an anti-smell: the absolute absence of any kind of scent that would give a clue about the people who lived there. There wasn’t a trace of the food we ate, the perfume we wore, or the scent of our clothing.

  I’d once been to the Hood Museum of Art on a school field trip. The entire place had felt like a mausoleum, and I’d been sure it was haunted by the spirits of the ancient cultures whose works were on display. There was no smell, no warmth, no feeling of life. Even the curators seemed to me to be fake. Our house felt exactly the same way.

  Crossing into the kitchen, I found Mum seated at the table, eating a salad and drinking tea. “Been learning anything useful in drunk-driving class?” I didn’t even try to disguise the venom in my voice.

  She barely glanced up from her food. “Hello, Saylor.”

  “What’s the matter?” I pulled out a chair and sat next to her, putting my chin in my hands. “Don’t you want to tell me all about your fun curriculum?”

  The corners of her mouth pulled in, as if she tasted something sour. “Sarcasm doesn’t become you, dear.” She took a sip of tea.

  “No, a mother who’s a fucking drunk liar doesn’t become me.” I waited for her to startle, to tell me to watch my language, but she calmly pierced a spinach leaf, put it into her mouth, and began to chew, her eyes steadfastly on her plate.

  “I found your fucking bottles of ‘water,’ ” I said. “Except when I went to take a drink, it wasn’t water at all.”

  She finally looked up at me, the only hint that what I’d said had gotten to her was the slight twitch of her eyebrow. “You had no bloody business taking my car. I told you not to.”

  I laughed. “Oh, right. This is my fault. Tell me one thing. Did you always drink and drive while I was in the car with you?”

  She turned back to her salad. I pushed my chair back, stood up, and grabbed her cup of tea. She fumbled for it, but I was faster. I took a sip. Coughed.

  It was plain vodka with a splash of tea, the alcohol almost odorless.

  I set the cup back down on the table, and we stared at each other for a long moment.

  “Is your whole life a lie?” I whispered, my throat closing around the words.

  She kept staring at me, but didn’t answer. She didn’t apologize, didn’t refute what I’d said. I saw the accusation there; what I’d suspected was true. It was because of me. She was a drunk because of me.

  * * *

  I went upstairs to my room and sat on my vanity bench, staring at myself in the mirror. If her life had always been a lie, had mine, too, by association? I was her child. My life had been molded around hers, like all mothers’ and children’s lives are. When had she started drinking? And why? Was it to forget, to numb the pain, to simply cease to feel? Was life with me so bad that she had to be drunk to go through it?

  I opened my closet and pulled out the duffel bag I’d gotten from college. From inside a textbook I’d hollowed out to stash some of my supplies, I got a small baggie of Tylenol. Emptying out all fifty of them into my palm, I tossed them into my mouth, five at a time, and dry-swallowed them. Then I sat back down on my vanity bench, stared into the brown hollow of my eyes, and waited.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Just to be clear: I wasn’t trying to kill myself. We Munchausen freaks are big on getting sick, but not so big on dying. We leave that to the depressives. I knew when I took the Tylenol, due to extensive research, of course, that I wouldn’t die. I might just send my liver into a state of panic and cause some nasty stomach pain and vomiting. After I’d waited about twenty minutes, which I figured was just enough time to let the pills begin to metabolize in my system, I went downstairs to Mum. I wanted her to know what I’d done; I wanted her to see how her actions had caused me to take myself right to the brink. I wanted her, I suppose, to suffer as much as I was suffering. And guilt was as good a form of punishment as any.

  The rest of the process was vaguely familiar. I drove myself to the hospital because she couldn’t drive me, which was different from before. But then they checked me in the instant I told them what I’d done. Their computers showed, of course, that I had Munchausen, so they didn’t do a psychiatric hold on me for attempted suicide. The nurses still treated me with respect, because acetaminophen is not something you want to fuck around with. In tiny amounts it did great things for your body like take away aches and pains and reduce fever. In large doses, well, it could kill you.

  After they gave me some activated charcoal and NAC mixed with juice, I was set up in a bed to be monitored. Mum went outside the room to talk with the doctor. It was some tall guy with silver hair I’d never seen before. I settled against the pillows, reached for the remote, and turned the TV on to a reality show. My fingers traced the nurses’ call button.

  That was what life should’ve been: someone waiting to hear from you, someone willing to come to your aid because they knew you were in need. Attention shouldn’t have been such an expensive commodi
ty. Imagine if people knew all they needed to get help was a simple push of a button. No explanations, no money changing hands, no skeptical looks. Just a sweet person in scrubs, smoothing back your hair, asking what she could do for you.

  On the TV, the laugh track screamed.

  Mum came back in, her face closed off, distant. “They want to keep you overnight, to make sure you’re going to be all right.”

  I nodded. “Are they going to have me speak with the psych team?”

  “No. I was able to convince the doctor not to. I gave him Dr. Stone’s number so they can work that out between the two of them.” She looked out the window at the snow and then back at me. “I’m going to ask you something, and I’m only going to ask you once. I want you to be honest with me.”

  I stared at her, the distance between my hospital bed and her visitor’s chair yawning wider. Honesty? She was demanding honesty now, after so long? I didn’t know if I could give it to her. But curiosity won out. “Okay.”

  She took a deep breath, her thin chest filling with air and then slowly deflating as she spoke. “Have you…” She looked down at her hands, folded neatly in her lap, as if she couldn’t hold my eyes while she said the words. “Do you hurt yourself because of some kind of childhood trauma?”

  I stared at her, confused, but she still wasn’t looking at me. “Trauma?”

  She met my eyes, reluctantly. “Yes. Sexual trauma, for instance. Recently, one of Dr. Daniels’s former patients filed a lawsuit against him. Her lawyer says there might be others who come forward. It made me think of you.”

  I laughed and her eyes hardened. “You think the only reason someone could be as messed up as I am is because some old dude screwed them when they were little?”

  She pursed her lips in a flat, hard line. “There’s no need to be vulgar.”

  “Yeah, well. I’m sorry to disappoint. I must just have been born this way.” Tears threatened behind my eyes as disappointment twisted deep inside me. In spite of myself, I wanted to give Mum that easy out she was obviously so desperately seeking. I wanted to say, You’re right. That’s why I’m so fucked up—it’s all Dr. Daniels’s fault. But that wasn’t it; I was messed up long before he showed an interest in me. There was nothing to explain my crazy. I had no excuse.

  I waited for her to leave, but she didn’t. Finally, I looked back to see her watching me, expressions all across the spectrum warring on her face. “Saylor… sometimes people do things because it’s all they know. Their actions may be dictated by what they’ve faced in their lives. Sometimes people are more than what you think they are.”

  I held my breath. The question came out a whisper. “What do you mean?”

  But her face cleared. The expressions cleared; here was the perfectly blank Sarita mask, back on. Whatever she’d wanted to say, whatever she’d been hinting at was gone. Mum stood. “I should go. It’s supposed to get worse, the snow.”

  Our house was only a couple of blocks away. “You could stay here.” I tried to say it casually, like I didn’t care. I really wished I didn’t care.

  But Mum sighed. “No. I want to sleep in my own bed tonight, Saylor, unlike you.”

  “You mean you want to drink until you pass out,” I said, glaring at her.

  “I’m leaving. I have to walk, and I don’t want to walk in a bad snowfall.”

  She could’ve called a taxi; having to walk was just an excuse so she could leave. So she could undo the almost-conversation we’d been having. I turned on my side so I wouldn’t have to watch her go.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  My first thought as I woke up the next morning: fucking sun. Someone had opened the blinds in my room and it blasted merrily, full force into my room. When I blinked and opened my eyes, I saw Drew sitting in a chair, watching me. He smiled.

  My palms were sweating. What did he know? How did he know I’d been admitted? Had they told him what was wrong with me? But surely if he knew, he wouldn’t be smiling at me like that.

  “What are you doing here?” I rubbed my eyes, sat up.

  “It sounds like you don’t want to see me, but I know better than that.” His smile morphed into a mischievous grin which I found hard to enjoy while my heart battered against my chest.

  “Seriously.” I tried to keep the panic out of my voice, but I couldn’t be sure that I’d succeeded. “How’d you get in? Don’t you have to be family for them to admit you?”

  “I let him in.” Mum came striding in, her eyes moving between Drew and me. Something glittered there, something dark and amused. It frightened me.

  Drew smiled wider, his expression heartbreakingly innocent and unsuspecting. He was some harmless creature—a ladybug or a grasshopper—that had wandered into the web my mother and I had spun. I hadn’t intended for him to get caught in it, but now that he was here, there was absolutely nothing I could do but watch him get trapped.

  “It was a pleasure meeting your friend, Saylor.” She kept that glazed smile on her face, toying with me.

  I couldn’t look at Drew or my mother. So I stared down at the IV tube in my arm and fiddled with where it was taped to the back of my hand. The pain helped me focus. It helped me remember I was the victim, that I had a legitimate reason to be there. But that was just on the surface. Underneath, I had the feeling my world was turning into insubstantial cotton, ready to float away on the first big puff of air to leave my mother’s mouth.

  But just as I was becoming resigned to this, she sighed. “Well, nice as it has been to meet one of Saylor’s friends, I’m afraid I must run. I have a class to get to.”

  Her drunk-driving class. “Oh, right.” I forced a smile, my heart speeding up again. Was she really leaving? Or would she drop the bombshell on her way out the door?

  But she extended her hand out to Drew and let him shake it.

  “It was nice to meet you, Mrs. Grayson.”

  “And you, Drew.” She smiled, held his eyes for a moment longer, and then turned to me. “I’ll be by later.”

  I nodded, and we were quiet as she walked out the door.

  Drew turned to me. “She’s really nice.” When I didn’t answer, he said, “Pierce was in the ER last night when they admitted you. I texted you late last night and this morning, but when you didn’t answer, I came over.” He frowned. “Are you okay with this? Me being in here, I mean. You seem kinda freaked.”

  I was more than kinda freaked. This was bad. As a rule, no one came to visit me in the hospital because that just led to messy questions and messier answers. The only people allowed were my parents, and that was only because I had to have someone take care of me after. “Um, yeah… it’s just, I don’t like people seeing me like this.”

  He nodded. “Sick, you mean. I can understand that.” A pause, during which he came forward and smoothed the hair back from my forehead. “But, you know, you’re not alone in this.”

  Questions clustered at the base of my throat, making it hard for me to breathe. I extricated one delicately. “What, um, what did my mother tell you? About why I’m in here?”

  He shrugged. “She didn’t. All she said was that they were monitoring you, and that I could ask you for details.”

  Mum had covered for me. I knew better than to think it was because she cared about me being embarrassed; it was her own reputation she was concerned about. “Oh, okay. Did you tell her you were from the TIDD group?”

  “No. Just that I was your friend.” He smiled again. “I thought it might be premature to call myself your boyfriend, since you haven’t officially called me that yet.”

  Relief coursed through me. TIDD hadn’t come up. And then another thought: Drew thought of himself as my boyfriend? I had a legitimate boyfriend. I wondered if my hair looked horrible, if my breath smelled bad. Then I wondered when I’d gotten to be one of those girls who worried about stupid shit like that.

  “You can tell people you’re my boyfriend,” I said. “I won’t mind.”

  Only a small part of me also thought: If you i
ntroduce yourself that way, there won’t be a need to mention TIDD.

  “Oh, um, is Pierce okay? Why was he in the ER?” Now that I was certain my secret was safe, I was free to worry about other people. It was weird, this feeling of caring. It was sort of like taking off your sunglasses and seeing the world in its correct hues: jarring and discordant, but also right somehow.

  “Another complication from the sarcoma.” Drew sighed. “He was spitting up blood, but they got him stabilized.”

  The nurse bustled in then, a pleasantly plump young woman with long, wavy black locks. She smiled at the two of us. “Just coming in to take your vitals,” she said to me. “How you feelin’ this mornin’?”

  “Um, I’m okay.” I glanced at Drew. He seemed to get the message.

  “I was just leaving,” he said, planting a kiss on my forehead. “Talk to you later?”

  “Yeah.”

  He took two steps before his feet tangled together. I watched him try to lift his left foot, then overcompensate with his right when it didn’t lift as much as he expected. The result was that he fell in a twisted heap, the arm that was holding his cane tucked under his torso.

  “Oh!” The nurse left my side and hurried over to him. I jumped out of bed, was overcome with a wave of dizziness, and sat back down abruptly. The nurse looked at me.

  “Stay in bed,” she ordered. “I got him.”

  With her help, Drew picked himself off the floor. His jaw was hard, blue eyes ablaze. He refused to look at me. “Thank you,” he said to the nurse. “I have Friedreich’s ataxia.”

  She nodded. “You okay? Why don’t I get a doctor to check you out? Make sure you didn’t hurt anything?”

  “No, thank you,” he said. “I’m fine. I have to leave anyway.”

  “Wait,” she said, putting her hand on his arm as he began to walk again. “At least let me get an aide to take you down in a wheelchair.”