The Space Between Words

by Michele Phoenix

  I shook my head—violently—against the hospital pillows, as the walls and ceiling began to buckle around me. She came closer, and I felt her hand grasping my shoulder.

  “You have to believe me, Jess. This—this pretending. It’s not good. It’s not real. You have to believe me, Jess.”

  “He’s alive!” Anger acidified my voice.

  “Jess—”

  “Get out, Vonda. Get out!”

  I saw it all, in retrospect. Horrific and obscene. I heard her words. I saw her leave—and I waited for Patrick to return.

  Time lurched. Night deepened over Balazuc, its void a magnifying force.

  Then day—again. Unbearable and cruel.

  I found the stew in the fridge and ate only a bite before nausea sent me staggering back to bed, begging for oblivion.

  I didn’t answer the knocking at the door. I didn’t have the strength to see another person. It went on for what felt like forever. Loud and insistent. Then it stopped.

  It resumed sometime later. More determined this time. “Jessica, it’s Mona.” Her voice cut through my despondence. “Jessica? Could you please open the door if you’re home? Your car hasn’t moved in a couple of days and . . . I just want to be sure you’re okay.”

  I pulled a pillow over my head and closed my eyes.

  “Jessica.”

  Time had passed, but I wasn’t sure how much.

  “Jessica?”

  Her voice felt nearer this time—its closeness threatening. “Jessica.” Feet hurrying to my bed. To Patrick’s bed. Hands on my shoulders. Tentative. “Jessica, it’s Mona.”

  I resisted her touch, curling tighter into myself. “No.”

  “Jessica . . .”

  “No!”

  I heard her feet retreating, the front door opening. “Grant! Connor, go get him—he’s in the barn.”

  Footsteps returned. The mattress sagged as she sat next to me and lifted the pillow off my head. She pulled the hair back from my face, and I covered it with my hands.

  “We’re going to get you help. Jessica—we’re going to get you a doctor, okay?”

  More footsteps. Heavier and quick. “What’s going on?” Deep voice. Concern.

  “Get Docteur Fabian. He said to call him if we ever needed anything, and . . .”

  Retreating feet.

  Minutes later, muffled voices. French words. Being turned onto my back. A stethoscope. A pressure cuff. A flashlight in my eyes. Intrusion.

  More words I couldn’t really hear. One sounded like “shock,” another like “hospital.” Someone held a wet towel to my forehead.

  I tried to force my mind to connect again. “No . . .” A whisper.

  “Jessica?” Mona’s voice.

  “No hospital. Please.”

  “We need to know what’s wrong—”

  “Please . . .” I poured the shreds of energy I could muster into forcing my eyes open, squinting against the brutal light of day. Mona crouched by the edge of the bed, her face close to mine. Grant and an elderly man stood in the doorway.

  Mona leaned in close. “Tell me what you’re feeling. Have you been sick? Or taken a fall or . . . ?”

  “I’m not sick.” I cleared my throat and tried again, more loudly. “I’m not sick.”

  “But you’ve been holed up here for . . . You haven’t been out, not even to eat. And . . .”

  I could only imagine what it looked like to her. What I looked like.

  “There’s a retired doctor here. Docteur Fabian—he used to run the village clinic and lives two doors down. He’s taken a look at you and . . . Let’s just take you to the hospital and have you checked out, okay? He really thinks it’s best. Just to be sure . . .”

  I shook my head. “I’m not sick.”

  “Then . . . Jessica, what is it?”

  I bit my lip as reality and pain surged back. “It’s . . .”

  Mona took the glass of water Grant handed her. “Here. Can you sit up a little?”

  She snaked an arm under my shoulders to pull me up, and the world tilted a bit, then righted itself. She held the glass against my lip and I sipped. The water felt reviving. I tried not to look at the two men standing near the bedroom door, a red-headed boy just a bit behind them.

  Mona released me and I lay back against the pillow, looked into her kind, concerned face, and knew I had to speak the aching words.

  “My friend died,” I whispered.

  Agony.

  Mona’s face softened instantly, and some of the tension seemed to fall from her shoulders. “Oh, Jessica. Oh, I’m so sorry.”

  Grant said something to the doctor, who was still standing near the door, while Mona used the wet towel to soothe my face. “Elle est en état de choc,” I heard the elderly man say. “Il voudrai mieux qu’elle consulte un médecin à l’hôpital.” She’s in shock. It would be best for her to see a doctor at the hospital.

  “Please,” I begged. “I don’t need a hospital.”

  Mona hesitated, then said, “Let’s give it a little time, okay? You rest for a bit and we’ll reevaluate later.”

  Grant translated for the doctor, and I saw the elderly gentleman nod. Then he made a tsk-tsking sound with his mouth and turned to leave the cottage, a pitying look on his face. I tried to quell the sob rising in my throat. This was too much. This—was—too—much. The men stepped out as I began to wail.

  After the torturous moment when reality resurged, my mind retreated into blankness and surfaced only gradually again. I felt its fits and starts like an actor and a spectator—overwhelmed and disengaged, consumed and removed. It was a schizophrenic, lurching re-emergence in which pain and apathy wrestled for control. Apathy soothed pain, and pain jarred apathy.

  There were seconds—just seconds—as my eyes opened after sleep when the world felt unshrouded again. Then memory maimed.

  Mona’s kindness over the next few days layered guilt over grief. She stepped into my suffering with quiet words and gentle touch. She cared for me as if I were family, attentive to my every need and generous to a fault with her time and resources. It was she who coaxed me out of the bedroom and onto the living room couch on the day after she’d found me curled up on Patrick’s bed, horror-stunned and paralyzed. It was she who stood outside the bathroom door after convincing me to shower, who brought me soup and ate with me.

  We hadn’t spoken about Patrick since she’d found me. She’d washed my sheets and replaced my towels and checked in frequently during the day. “I don’t want to intrude, but I need to make sure you’re well,” she said on the third day since I’d lost Patrick. The illusion of Patrick. “I need to ask . . . ,” Mona said after I’d stared at the surface of my soup for a while.

  I nodded. She did. And she’d been patient. I looked up and attempted a smile.

  “Is there anyone back home who knows you’re here? Family members who should be told . . . ?”

  Her question took me by surprise. I’d expected her to ask about Patrick—about how my friend had died. But it made sense, from the little I knew of Mona, that she’d also be concerned about those who loved me.

  “I talked to my parents before we left Paris,” I said, my voice rough from lack of use. “They know I’m on a trip and won’t be in much contact, so . . .”

  “Do they know about your friend?”

  I blinked back tears. I didn’t have the energy to cry. They thought I was traveling with Patrick and had sounded glad for the diversion, despite their misgivings, the last time I’d spoken with them. “They knew we’d planned this trip, and—”

  “Jessica,” Mona said, putting down her spoon to look at me with the same expression I’d seen a couple times before. She seemed to hesitate. “You keep saying ‘we’—about leaving Paris and now about this trip . . .”

  I hung my head. How many times had I spoken in the plural when those I spoke with had seen only me? “It’s . . .” I didn’t know where to begin. I didn’t know how to fit words into a sentence so they’d mean what I needed th
em to say. I tried to look directly at Mona, but it made me feel too broken. “I thought I was traveling with Patrick,” I finally said, my eyes trained on the poppies in the watercolor above the table. Saying his name out loud felt liberating. And shattering. “Patrick’s my friend,” I added, blinking again at the treacherous tears. “My roommate back home. I came to France to travel with him and—he died. He . . .”

  I breathed. Once. Twice. Deeply. I didn’t have the courage to describe the way he’d been killed, those final moments my mind played back incessantly in the darkness of the night. Mona gave me the time and space to still my roiling thoughts. “He died—” The words stunned me into silence again. “He died a few days ago. Nearly two weeks. And somehow . . .” I looked at her then. Desperate for someone to reassure me. To tell me I wasn’t as crazy as I felt. “I somehow thought he was still alive. With me. In my mind, he was in that car.” I felt myself frown. “He was driving the car. He was talking—joking. It was so real. He was so . . . there.”

  I shook my head and tried to make sense of the illusion that had been so viciously compelling. How had I believed—for such a long time—in the presence of a person who was not only absent, but dead? Yet part of me had known, since Vonda’s visit to the hospital, that my friend was gone. I could see it so clearly now. Sitting alone in Patrick’s apartment for days after my release. Letting my subconscious talk me into a trip that would allow the illusion to endure. Driving myself out of the city, into the comforting beauty of southern France. All the while believing the fantasy that I was not alone. That Patrick was speaking to me. Caring for me. Protecting me.

  “He was right there,” I said, a bit breathless, pointing at the couch where he’d last sat. “And . . .” I glanced into the bedroom where Mona had found me. “And in there too.”

  Mona reached across the table and squeezed my arm. I looked down and felt the humanness of touch. She was real. And Patrick hadn’t been since . . . “The mind is a miraculous thing,” Mona said softly. “And it can be a powerful buffer. It shields us as best it can from what we can’t escape and . . . and I guess it thought it was doing you a favor by erasing your friend’s—”

  I had to shape the word in my mind before speaking it. “Death,” I finally said. Then I added, “Murder.”

  Mona’s head snapped up, and I could see her quelling the questions my admission had triggered. “Is it something you’d like to talk about?” she finally asked.

  I wanted to. And I knew I should. But I wasn’t sure my mind could bear putting words to what had happened.

  “I don’t think I can right now,” I answered.

  “Then you shouldn’t,” she said with a kind smile.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered, finally looking directly into her face.

  “No need for that.”

  “You’ve been so kind and so . . . Anyone else would have sent me to the hospital. Or put me out on the street. Or . . . or tried to call someone.”

  “Grant said to give it a couple days—to keep an eye on you and let you sort it out—and I’ve learned to trust his instincts.” She stood and took our bowls to the kitchen sink to rinse them.

  “How many guests have you turned away because I’ve overstayed my welcome?”

  “None,” she said. “This isn’t exactly tourist season in these parts.”

  Fear fluttered in my stomach. “I know I need to—to make some decisions. And move on. Maybe leave in a day or two, if it’s okay for me to stay a bit longer.”

  “Nonsense.” Mona wiped her hands on a yellow dish towel and shook her head at me. “You stay until you’re ready to go—in every sense. You won’t find a quieter place than this to rest, and . . . I’d feel better if I knew you were a little less shaky before taking off again.”

  “I’m not sure—”

  “Besides, I miss having guests here during our low season. If you’ll agree to give someone back home a call and let them know that you’re all right, I’ll block out some more days for you.” She looked at me—kind and compassionate—then leaned against the kitchen sink as her expression grew pensive. “Take it slow. Rest. Let your mind untangle itself. You’ll know when it’s time to move on.”

  She left our bowls in the dish drainer and went to the front door. “You need anything, you call. Same as the first day you got here,” she said. Then she nodded at the sewing box on the coffee table. “I found it on the floor when I came in looking for you the other day. It’s a beautiful piece.”

  The door clicked closed behind Mona. I sat at the table and stared across the room at the box I’d found with Patrick on our last treasure hunt together—on my treasure hunt, I corrected myself. On my treasure hunt alone.

  NINE

  MY MOTHER’S VOICE WAS SHRILL WITH WORRY. She called for my dad to pick up the phone in their living room, and he got on the line too.

  “We’ve been beside ourselves,” she said. “You said you’d text us every day and—”

  “Why didn’t you?” My father wasn’t one to show emotion. The fact that he’d asked the question was evidence of his concern.

  “Are you still in southern France, sweetie? We’ve been so worried . . .”

  I tried to picture my mom sitting at her kitchen table with the spiral phone cord stretching down to her from the receiver high up on the wall. My dad sitting in his light-blue armchair in a living room encased in floral wallpaper. The images were so serene—so unmarred by tragedy—that I hesitated to shatter them by explaining my reality.

  “Are you there, Jess?”

  It was the concern in my dad’s voice that made me tell them, as briefly as possible, that Patrick had died in the attacks in Paris and that I was taking some time to gather myself again.

  “But . . .” My mom sounded shocked and perplexed. I didn’t blame her. “Didn’t you say you were on this trip with him?”

  “I’ve been . . . confused.” The word felt anemic, a pale expression of the grief that had sent me headlong into a merciful oblivion. I didn’t tell them much more. There’d be time for that later. My father wanted to know details, of course—to understand what had happened. And my mom wanted to be sure that “my heart” was okay. Something in me resented the words she used, the sympathetic tone of her voice as she begged me to fly home so they could take care of me.

  “You’ve been injured,” she said, pleading. “And you’re dealing with so much, honey. Between what you saw and . . . and . . .”

  “Would you like me to look into a ticket for you?” my father asked. “Tell me what the nearest airport is and I’ll get my guy at the travel agency on it.”

  It took several minutes to convince them that I’d be staying awhile longer, that I was in a beautiful, safe place, and that I’d contact them again soon. Though I could still hear the concern in their voices, they finally agreed to let me stay as long as I needed.

  “Just communicate with us, okay?” my mother said. “We just need to be sure you’re safe.”

  I hung up the phone, depleted from the exertion of trying to sound well.

  I was woken from a nap by a knock on the door late the following morning. My muscles felt stiff as I got up from the couch. I wondered if sadness could cause physical pain.

  Grant stood outside the door when I opened it, a large basket of kindling in his arms.

  “Figured you might be running low,” he said.

  When I failed to answer, he asked, “Have you used the fireplace since you got here? I thought maybe with the cool evenings . . .” His voice trailed off.

  “I—no, I haven’t.” Patrick and I had considered it on our first night in Balazuc, to take the chill out of the air, but . . . The force of the delusion slammed me again. Patrick had never been here. I glanced at the fireplace and its cast-iron grate, then looked at Grant. “I don’t really know how to start one.”

  He raised the basket he was still holding. “Care for a quick lesson?”

  I really didn’t. There was nothing I wanted. Not a fire to sit by or a le
sson on how to light it. But, reminding myself of my hosts’ kindness, I moved out of Grant’s way and pushed the door farther open.

  Just a few minutes later, a fire burned in the hearth. The warmth felt life-giving, and I moved the sewing box onto the floor so I could sit on the edge of the coffee table, closer to the flames.

  “Nice piece,” Grant said, eyeing the antique.

  “We found it at—” I stopped myself and took a breath. “I found it. At the flea market in Langogne.” I felt another wave of grief gathering and braced for its onslaught.

  Grant acknowledged my correction with an inscrutable look, then turned to move the basket of kindling to the side of the fireplace. “So . . . paper, kindling, small pieces of wood, then large,” he said again as he rose to leave. “In that order. You may need to blow on it a bit until the kindling catches.”

  “Thank you.” I attempted a smile. “I’m used to fireplaces that turn on with a switch.”

  He smirked. “That’s why I thought you might need a lesson.”

  I’d expected some discomfort from him as he came face-to-face for the first time with a woman he’d last seen wailing in the cottage bedroom, but there was only calm consideration in his expression. “Mona says you’ve been doing better.”

  I felt a flush of embarrassment and looked away. “I think I am.”

  Silence stretched.

  “And she tells me you may be staying a few more days.”

  “She tells me the same thing.” I tried for another smile.

  “You’ll learn that arguing with her is pointless.”

  “I’ve gotten that impression.” I took a breath and gathered my courage. “I want to apologize for . . . for what you saw in here on Monday.”

  “Please . . .”

  I held up a hand to stop him. “I’m—I’m a bit ashamed of . . .”

  “Don’t be.”

  I wanted to explain what he’d seen, to assure him that I wasn’t crazy. But if I didn’t believe it myself, convincing him would be a futile endeavor.

  Grant watched the fire for a moment more, then turned his attention to me. “Do you need anything?” he asked.