The Ceiling Man

by Patricia Lillie

  “I need to go to school.”

  “You don’t have any clothes. You can miss one day.” His phone rang.

  For the first time it registered that, while Abby and I were in our pajamas, he was dressed. I thought in the same clothes he’d worn the night before, but my memory was hazy.

  He pulled the phone out of his pocket and answered it.

  “Mom wants to know if she should bring anything.”

  “How do you have your phone?”

  “I grabbed it before I left.”

  “Did you grab mine?”

  “I was busy grabbing you.”

  “Oh.” I felt about two inches tall. “Can she bring Abby some clothes?”

  “I need to go to school,” Abby said.

  Jim looked at us both like we were from another galaxy and went out the back door, still talking to his mother.

  Maybe he could stay with his mother and Abby and I could go to a motel. The Edge-O-Town was looking pretty good.

  • • •

  EVELYN BUSTLED IN brimming with helpful concern. Abby fended off her hug, and she didn’t push it. I gave her credit for backing off.

  “Did you bring me clothes? I need to go to school,” Abby said.

  “We’ll worry about that later,” Evelyn said.

  “I need to go to school,” Abby said.

  The Fast Voice. Missing school could be the thing that broke her.

  “I’ll get you there,” I said. “You might be late, but you’ll get there.”

  “Not too late.” Not as fast, but still near the red zone.

  Evelyn thanked Livvy for taking such good care of us, as if we were a couple of toddlers retrieved from an elderly aunt. I resisted sticking my thumb in my mouth.

  “It’s what friends do.” Livvy politely deflected Evelyn’s gushing. Pete was nowhere to be seen. I got the impression neither of them was too fond of my mother-in-law.

  “Gather yourselves up so we can get going. Jim’s joining us for breakfast.” Evelyn was in charge.

  Abby picked up Sami’s rope leash. Livvy’s quilt fell from her shoulders. “Let’s go.”

  Evelyn looked taken aback. She might like Sami, but I didn’t think she’d thought about actually having a dog in her house. She kept quiet, the second point she earned in the space of a few minutes.

  Abby picked up the quilt and settled it around her shoulders.

  “We should go now. I am late for school.”

  “Why don’t you leave that dirty old quilt here?” Both points vanished, and Evelyn moved back to the deficit column. “We’ll get you a clean blanket once we get to my house.”

  “No.” Abby gripped the quilt. Sami ducked under it and stuck her nose out between the folds.

  “Let her take it. She needs it,” I said. “I’ll wash it and bring it back as soon as I get a chance.” The latter was directed at Livvy.

  “No hurry,” she said. “It’s Abby’s for as long as she needs it.”

  • • •

  EVELYN DID LAY out a good breakfast. Pancakes, eggs, bacon, home fries—a heart attack on a plate breakfast, the best kind. I didn’t think I would be able to eat, but when she set a heaping plate in front of me, I dug in. So did Jim. Sami didn’t join us. She curled up in the corner and nursed her scratched nose, courtesy of Evelyn’s cat. If we stayed with Evelyn long, I’d probably end up joining her.

  Abby barely touched her food.

  “I need to go to school,” she said.

  “Why don’t you stay with me today? I could use the company,” Evelyn said.

  “I need to go to school. I am late.”

  “Do you think you can find her something to wear?” I figured Evelyn would jump at her big chance to truly dress Abby like herself.

  Jim stayed out of the conversation.

  “I suppose. Abby, you need to take a shower.” Not as thrilled as I expected.

  We all smelled like smoke. It was a wonder Evelyn let us into her pristine house.

  “I took one last night. I am late for school.”

  “We had a long night,” I said. “You need to be clean before you put on clean clothes.”

  She pointed at the clock on the stove. “It is 9:07. I am late for school.”

  “Abby! Take a shower or you don’t go. No arguing.” Mad Dad met Angry Cop. Abby cringed.

  “Go on. Listen to your dad. Take a shower, get dressed, and we’ll get you to school,” I said.

  “I need to go to school.” She left the kitchen.

  Evelyn followed. “I’ll find her something to wear.”

  Once we were alone, I wanted to ask Jim about the fire. What happened? How did I end up in the ambulance?

  I wanted to ask him about Jason the EMT.

  He didn’t give me the chance.

  “What did you take last night?” Full strength Mad Dad, but directed at me.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You were dead to the world. What did you take?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Don’t lie to me.”

  “I’m not. Why would you say that?”

  “There has to be some reason you wouldn’t wake up.”

  “I swear I didn’t take anything.” Even to my own ears, I sounded guilty. If he remembers the Vicodin, he can’t check the medicine cabinet for it. I was guilty.

  “What were you doing downstairs before we settled in?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You were the last one downstairs.”

  “No. You were. You were checking the doors when I went up.”

  “You went back down after I came up. Why?”

  “I did not.” He’s interrogating me.

  “You did. What did you do?”

  He thinks I started the fire.

  “I don’t know. I don’t remember going downstairs.” I didn’t, did I?

  “Think. I brought my sleeping bag into Abby’s room. We had. . .words.”

  “You said you wouldn’t leave me alone with her.”

  “And you went downstairs.”

  “No I didn’t. I sat in the chair and fell asleep.” A vague memory of getting up from Abby’s chair stirred. Was it real or the power of suggestion?

  “You went downstairs. What did you do?”

  “I don’t remember.” He had his phone. “What about you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’re dressed. You have your phone, and I don’t know what else.”

  “What’s your point?”

  “Were you expecting something? Did you know you’d need to leave?”

  “You need to see the doctor.”

  “I already said I would.”

  Mr. Boy Scout Policeman always slept with his keys, phone, and wallet on the nightstand. There was no reason he shouldn’t have had them all next to him on Abby’s floor, but why was he dressed? Off duty, he kept his gun in a lockbox, on the top shelf of our bedroom closet. I was afraid to ask if he had that too. Did he know the fire was coming?

  “We should go now.” Abby wore an ugly sweater and green pants, both two sizes too big. Her hair was wet, but at least it was combed.

  “She wouldn’t let me dry her hair,” Evelyn said.

  “Gramma’s clothes almost fit. I need to go to school.”

  I asked to borrow Evelyn’s car.

  “No,” Jim said. Evelyn didn’t get a chance to answer.

  “It is 9:31. I am late. We need to go now,” Abby said.

  “I’ll take her. There are clean towels in the bathroom for you both. Carole, I put out a robe for you, we’ll do something about clothes when I get back. Jim, I don’t know what you’re going to wear.” Evelyn stuffed Livvy’s quilt into a black garbage bag.

  “What are you doing?” Not a calm question—I overreacted.

  “I’ll drop this off at the laundromat. Maybe they can save it. At the very least, it’ll smell better.”

  “I am late. We do not have time to go to the laundromat,” Abby said.

&n
bsp; “First you, then the quilt,” Evelyn said.

  She’s enjoying this. “I need to talk to Ms. Colley. Explain what’s going on,” I said. Someone needed to explain it to me.

  “I’ll talk to her,” Evelyn put on her coat and handed another to Abby. “Put this on. It’s cold,” she said.

  “I’ll get your car out of the garage,” Jim said. Evelyn handed him her keys, and he left without a coat.

  • • •

  WHEN HE CAME BACK, his phone was in his hand. “I made a doctor appointment for you this morning.”

  “I told you I’d make one myself.”

  “Yeah, well. You’re going today. Eleven thirty. I practically begged to get you in.”

  “Did you tell Kristi how pathetic I am?” Kristi was the dragon at the office desk.

  “I talked to Dr. Yates.”

  To get through Kristi to the doctor must have taken a good story.

  “I don’t have my car,” I said.

  “Mom will take you. You’re in no shape to drive,” he said in the same voice—a combination of soothing and stern—he used on Abby on her bad days.

  “Can’t you take me?” I didn’t stick my lower lip out, but my whine said more than my words.

  “Roberts is coming to get me. I’m going back to the house. I have to meet the insurance adjuster, among other things.”

  “Don’t you think I should be with you for that?”

  “I’ll handle it. You are going to the doctor.”

  “I don’t have anything to wear.”

  “Mom will lend you something.”

  “Oh, goody.”

  “Stop. You can go in your pajamas for all I care, but you will see the doctor today.”

  I resigned myself to going to the doctor. With Evelyn. Wearing her clothes.

  A car honked in the driveway. “I’m going back to the house,” Jim said.

  [34]

  Carole

  EVELYN HAD GOOD TASTE IN BATHROBES—I’d give her that—but as comforting as the fluffy goodness was, all I wanted was Livvy’s quilt. Maybe my longing for the quilt was misplaced emotion. Maybe it felt like home, the home I no longer had, because I wasn’t as upset about losing the house and fifteen years of souvenirs of my life as I should have been. Instead, I was serene, calm. The world was bright and shiny.

  Jim’s childhood bedroom was a shrine to Evelyn’s golden boy—baseball trophies lined the shelves, posters of bands and ballplayers on the walls, and twin beds. I wouldn’t have been surprised to find superhero sheets, but when I peeked I found plain white linens. Crisp, clean, fresh smelling linens, as if she knew we were coming.

  I sat on one of the beds and tried to force myself to feel something. Anything. The constant panic of the last weeks was gone. So were my home and a decade and a half of my life. If I didn’t know better, I would have thought I was drugged. My mind acknowledged reality, but my emotions didn’t. Maybe it’s better this way.

  I never heard Evelyn come in.

  “Abby can sleep in here. It’s her room when she visits. You and Jim can have your choice of the spare rooms. Or take both of them.”

  “I was just—thinking.” I didn’t know how long I’d sat. A blank spot. Maybe I did go back downstairs the night before and didn’t remember. Even the thought of blackouts didn’t disturb my weird serenity. I stopped worrying about my little bubble of denial. It wasn’t a bad place to be.

  “Abby said you wear a twelve, but I wasn’t sure what to get you so I just got these.” She handed me two Walmart bags.

  Sweats. Green sweats. One set in light green, one in dark. I looked like death in any shade of green, but at least they were clean. She even got me underwear.

  “Um, I didn’t know what size, so I just—here.” She handed me another bag.

  Sports bra. It would work.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “I bought everyone new pajamas too. We’ll just throw the smoky ones away.”

  “We should try to wash Abby’s. They’re her favorites.”

  “Jim called,” Evelyn said. “If we are going to get to your appointment on time, don’t you think you should—”

  “I’ll get dressed.”

  With Evelyn as my babysitter—jailer— I wasn’t getting out of the doctor. I’d have to make the best of it.

  “I didn’t get shoes. If Abby’s right about your size, I have some you can wear.”

  There wasn’t any best of it. No, there was. Evelyn still irritated me. My sanity wasn’t completely gone.

  • • •

  MY BLOOD PRESSURE was up a little, but all things considered, even Dr. Yates didn’t find that surprising. When she asked if I was getting enough sleep, I lied. Enough is a relative term.

  I did tell her about my headaches, and that my mother and probably my grandmother suffered from migraines.

  “My mother had migraines but never knew that’s what they were,” she said. “She used to hold her coffee cup against the side of her head. It wasn’t until I was in med school that I realized what her sick headaches were.”

  “My grandmother called hers sick headaches. Good description.”

  “They’re often hereditary. I got lucky and missed them.”

  “I thought I had.”

  “Have you noticed any common elements before your headaches? Particular foods? Perfumes or other strong fumes? Bright or flickering lights?”

  “Not that I noticed, but I really wasn’t paying attention.”

  “Stress? For some people, not enough sleep is a trigger.”

  “I told you, I’m sleeping fine. Different schedule maybe, but fine. As for stress, my house burnt down. I’m staying with my mother-in-law. I’m wearing ugly green sweats. And that’s just the last twelve hours.” I left out Jason the EMT. She’d probably heard about him by now. I didn’t mention how oddly unstressed I was.

  “That’s acute stress. How about chronic—ongoing—stress?”

  “Nothing out of the ordinary.” Another lie.

  “Do you have a headache now?”

  “No.” I didn’t tell her I felt better than I had in weeks.

  “You appear to be handling the current situation well. Has it all sunk in yet?”

  “I’m coping.” I didn’t need Dr. Yates to tell me the crash was going to be a bitch.

  “How about blackouts, loss of memory?”

  “Not that I recall.”

  She didn’t laugh. “I need you to stand against the wall. Good. Now touch your nose with the index finger of your left hand.”

  “I feel ridiculous,” I said but did it.

  “Just a couple of simple neurological tests. It’s best to start with simple. Now, do the same thing with your right finger.”

  Exactly why I liked Dr. Yates. No crazy tests unless they were absolutely necessary. I touched my nose.

  “You’re in pretty good shape. Especially considering the night you had. I think we should do a sleep study, but we’ll wait on that. In your current circumstances, I don’t think the results would be accurate.”

  “Hardly,” I said.

  “With your family history, the headaches are probably migraines, but we need to do some tests, make sure. Especially since you never had them until after your accident.”

  I never mentioned rolling the Jeep. She and Jim must have had quite the talk.

  “What kind of tests?”

  “Blood work. An MRI.”

  “Do we have to do needles? I hate needles.”

  At that, she laughed. “Can’t avoid it with the blood work. I’ll order the MRI without contrast and spare you that needle. You’ll just have to stay still and let them take a few pictures of your brain. I know your life is crazy right now. . .”

  You have no idea.

  “. . .but I want this done as soon as possible.”

  “Why the rush?”

  “From what I understand, you’ve been through a lot in a short time. It’s unusual, but not unheard of, for hereditary migraines to make their
first appearance at your age. You probably should have been checked out after your accident. Since you weren’t, we’ll do it now. Make sure the headaches are migraines and not something else.”

  “How about next week?”

  “I’m sure you’ve eaten today?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You need to fast, so the blood work will have to wait until tomorrow. I’ll have Kristi see if she can get you in for the MRI this afternoon. She can get you in faster than if you call.”

  Dr. Yates was serious. I didn’t see any way to get out of it. Especially with Evelyn as my babysitter.

  • • •

  KRISTI MANAGED TO get me in for the MRI, at a private radiology office, right away. “The hospital didn’t have room for you. They’re nicer at Basset & Thompkins anyway.” She lowered her voice for the last part.

  “Go directly to the office and they’ll fit you in as soon as possible. They’re in the strip mall right across from the hospital.” She handed me papers. “I got it preauthorized with your insurance company. Since you don’t have your card or anything, I thought that would make it easier for you.”

  I cursed her efficiency. I’d hoped to use the fact that my insurance card—and everything else in my purse—was ashes as an excuse to delay Dr. Yates’s tests.

  “I’m not sure we have time for this today.” I knew I didn’t want to deal with it.

  “I didn’t have any plans for this afternoon,” Evelyn said.

  With Evil-lyn the Prison Guard listening to every word, there was no escape.

  Good thing Evelyn didn’t have plans. As soon as possible didn’t mean the same thing as soon. We sat and flipped through magazines for hours.

  “Abby would look nice in this.” Evelyn showed me a picture of a young model in an old lady pantsuit.

  “You’d look even better in it.” I didn’t think she caught the sarcasm.

  “Not my color. Could be yours.” Maybe she did.

  A technician entered the waiting area and called another patient back.

  “If we don’t get a chance to eat soon, I’ll be able to get that blood work done now.” My head hurt—just a little, around the edges. From skipping lunch. Not a migraine.

  “Maybe when I pick Abby up from school, I’ll take her shopping. You can come along too, if you’re up to it,” Evelyn said.

  “We’ll see.” Abby needed clothes, we all did, but I wasn’t sure about letting her go alone with Evelyn. If I went shopping with Evelyn, my headache would turn into one of those headaches. Dr. Yates said stress could be a trigger.