by Fisher, Kari
She locks the door behind us, and pulls me up the stairs. There’s lots of stairs. We run all the way to the top of the house and into a room. She locks the door there, too.
I look around. The room is lit up with candles. There’s a crib and two beds. There’s stuffed animals and pink sheets on one of the beds. Mom sees me looking at it and tells me that one is mine.
“This is where we’re going to live and be safe, okay? We’re going to be a family. Mommy has a little brother for you in her tummy,” she explains. “He’s going to be here soon, and he’s going to sleep in the crib.”
I look down, and she’s pointing to her stomach. It’s big. I’m excited to have a brother—a real brother, not like the brother I have at the Evans’ house, who is really mean to me all the time, just like everyone else there. He has only been living with us for a couple weeks but he colored on my doll’s face and put her in the microwave.
I look down. There’s colorful foam letters on the floor, and toys. I ask if I can play with the toys, and Mom says yes.
I can hear noises from outside. It sounds like lots of people, and they’re all talking really loud.
“What do they want, Mom?”
“Those are the bad policemen. They want us not to be together, but we’re going to show them that it’s okay if we’re a family.”
I agree. It sounds like a really good plan.
Mom is walking around in the room, back and forth. There are other people in the house now. I can hear them. It sounds like they’re on the stairs.
“I have to go talk to them, okay, sweetheart? I’m going to go tell them we aren’t bad people.”
“Okay, Mom.”
She slips out of the room and I’m left alone with my toys. I hear yelling—her, and a man—and some loud noises. There’s a big bang and for a second I wonder if Mom used the gun but I never get to ask her because I never actually saw my Mom again.
A police lady comes into the room and tells me that everything is okay now. I tell her that everything was okay before, too, and that we’re going to live here with my new real brother. I ask where my Mom is and she says that Mom got hurt because she tried to use her gun. I don’t understand.
The lady picks me up and holds me close as she carries me down the stairs. She’s covering my eyes with one hand, but I push her hand away just long enough to see Mom. She is laying on the floor and she’s looking right at me, her eyes wide open—but there is a big hole in the side of her head and lots of blood on her, the floor, and up the wall.
“Mom?” I call out to her, over and over again. “Mom, what’s wrong?”
The police lady covers my eyes again and soon we are outside.
She goes to the ambulance to get me a blanket while I stand and stare at the house.
I realize we aren’t going to live in this house anymore.
I remember the exact moment I lost my mind.
Chapter Twenty-Four
How strange it feels, to go from falling asleep in your arms
To waking up alone
Oliver walks into the room and hands me a glass of water, which I accept graciously.
“Hold on, Lauren. If you’d like to drink the water, you need to take your medicine at the same time, okay?” he says soothingly. He hands me two white and blue pills.
I put the pills in my mouth, and swallow them with a gulp of water.
So nice of you to care about how I feel, Oliver.
I think maybe I caught what Oliver had—the flu, or something—whatever it was that caused him to miss work at the café. I never had a chance to ask him if he was feeling any better. I ran away too fast. I ran because he told me about his wife.
“You have a wife?” I ask quietly. My whole body aches, and my head hurts. The lights in the room are hard on my eyes and I’m certain they’re going to contribute to the migraine I will get soon.
“Yes, I have a wife,” Oliver replies nonchalantly.
How can you just so casually tell me this after we’ve slept together?
“But, we—I—Oliver, I love you. How could you do this?” I manage to voice.
“Lauren, I’ve told you several times and I will tell you again: there is nothing going on between us, okay? You need to understand that,” he explains.
Okay, I know we never labeled it, but I figured you were scared of commitment—not that you were married.
“We slept together,” I squeak. I’m not sure if he can see how hurt I am, but my heart is literally shattering as I speak these words.
“No, Lauren. We did not. For the past six weeks, we’ve only been talking. I have it all on camera and everything is documented in my notes,” he says, slowly.
Notes? Your notebook? You’re bringing up your stupid secret notebook at a time like this? Fuck your notebook.
“Oliver, you fucked me,” I say. My words are getting louder now. “YOU FUCKED ME.”
I’m crying again. I cannot believe he’d sleep around on his wife—his beautiful, perfect wife—and then deny that anything ever happened between us. He’s beginning to make me feel like I’m crazy—like I am imagining everything.
“I’m not crazy,” I tell him, as he backs away from me. “I’m not.”
“No, Lauren, you are not crazy. What you’re feeling right now is very normal for you. You’re just very sick and you need to get some rest. Those pills will help you. You need to close your eyes and go to sleep for a little while, and I will come back in to check on you in about an hour. Does that sound okay? Do you think you can do that for me, Lauren?” he asks.
I nod. My eyes are heavy. I realize that I am actually feeling quite exhausted and perhaps a bit of sleep will help. Besides, maybe he needs some time by himself to reflect on what happened between us. Maybe he’ll be more accepting when he returns. I love him, and maybe I’ll even forgive him. I mean, he slept with me so he’s clearly not in love with his wife. We can get through this together. She can move out and leave us alone—and I will move into their gorgeous Tuscan-style home. I’d have to redecorate, of course. I don’t want a constant reminder that she lived there. I’ll replace whatever pictures she has there now, with ones of him and me instead.
I curl up in my bed and drift off to sleep.
I am haunted by dreams of my mother’s face, eyes wide open—after she had been shot. I don’t know why I’m thinking of this now. I’ve suppressed this memory for years. This is an ugly time for it to return.
I found out much later, into my teen years, that the blood on my mother’s shirt had not been her own. Before she arrived at the Evans’ house, she had killed my father—the abusive, alcoholic drug addict that drove her to seek comfort in the arms of other men and in needles filled with heroin. He was in and out of her life; a vicious cycle of violent domestic abuse, verbal and physical fights, breaking up—and then getting back together again, thinking he had changed when he could never possibly come close to anything different.
I’m told that one night, after he had come back into her life for the twentieth-something time, she broke down and told him about her pregnancy. She told him that things needed to change and that she was not willing to lose custody of yet another child. His child. Of course, he accused her of having slept around, and told her the child couldn’t possibly be his—although she was certain she had not been with anyone else during the time of conception. He called her a lying whore and he beat her up one last time. He threw her and their unborn child down a flight of cement stairs to the basement of the crack house she called home. She stood at the bottom of the stairs, badly bruised, clothing torn—and he came down after her and lunged. This time, she defended herself with a gun she had bought off a friend for protection. She shot my father in the stomach and watched as he bled out all over the dirty, grey carpeted floor. She decided, in that moment, that she was done with all of this. He could never hurt her again, and now she would make sure she’d give the best life she possibly could to this unborn baby—and to me. Fearing that Children’s Aid woul
d remove him from her custody once he was born, she fled. She stole a car, picked me up—and we were off to start our new life together. My mother was broken and damaged, but in the end she only had our best interest at heart.
Oliver’s back in the room.
Has it been an hour already?
I feel dazed and groggy. It’s probably the flu. That would explain my muscle pain and weakness. I hope this passes soon, I’ve got a ton of stuff to do. I should probably check my email to see if anyone’s replied about the canvas I’m selling. Rent is due in a couple days and I still haven’t caught up on last month’s rent, which means I’m probably still being evicted. I need to deal with that. This time of year isn’t really a good time to be homeless, and I wouldn’t want to have to give NyQuil up for adoption.
Oliver is looking at some sort of chart.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“How are you feeling?” He ignores my question.
“I’m not really feeling that much better. What’s wrong with me? Did I get the flu you had? You left us short staffed at Bean There and you didn’t even call to say you weren’t going to be in. That wasn’t a very professional thing for a manager to do.”
Oliver is staring at me.
“I brought you minestrone soup,” I continue. “It was the only decent thing on the menu yesterday. Frederick’s an excellent cook but sometimes—I don’t know—he just doesn’t seem all that creative, and he serves the same meals over and over again. Why is he back, anyway? I thought he moved away.”
Shay walks into the room.
What is going on? Is this an intervention? Because I swear, guys, I don’t drink anymore.
“How is she?” Shay asks, nodding in my direction.
“The pills don’t seem to have helped. We need to reevaluate her dosage,” Oliver replies.
“Hi Lauren, do you remember me? I’m your nurse,” Shay says softly. She’s kneeling so that we can make eye contact while I’m still lying in bed.
“What do you mean? You’re not a nurse.” I laugh. “What are you two doing?”
I sit up and realize I’m tied to the bed. I frantically pull at the strap, trying to loosen it.
I just don’t understand any of this.
I begin to panic and I scream. Neither of them do anything other than stand there, watching me intently.
“What are you doing? Untie me!” I yell.
“Give her another sedative,” Oliver says sternly.
Shay walks over and sticks a needle into my shoulder. I attempt to raise my arms in my defense, but I am out again, instantly this time.
Chapter Twenty-Five
I feel so lost
I messed up gravely, and now I pay the cost
I lost my mind the second I saw my mother staring at me with a bullet hole in her head. It was a downward spiral after that. I got mixed up with the wrong people and started down my own difficult path of drugs and alcohol that lasted long into my teenage years.
Sebastien, my ex-husband, saved me from all of that—or so I thought. We met through mutual friends, who then warned me to stay away from him. They told me he was trouble, but I thought I knew him better than they did. He swooped in and pulled me away from the messy life I was leading, and took me into his home. He gave me food and a place to live. In exchange, I allowed him to control and abuse me for years. I thought it was a normal relationship, living in constant fear and having to ask his permission to do anything, even breathe.
I became completely obsessed with him. I loved him with everything I had. He led me to believe I could never do any better than him and no one else would ever want me. The second he showed any interest in anyone else, I became upset. I got increasingly jealous throughout the years and I couldn’t stomach the thought of him even speaking to anyone. He was all I had, and if he left me, I’d have no one.
And then I really did have no one. A few years into our relationship, I found out he was sleeping around on me with one of his co-workers. The evidence I found proved that it had been going on for at least a year.
After years of abuse, I decided I was done. One night, he came home well after midnight, smelling of alcohol and other women’s perfume. I had been waiting up for him and when he stumbled in, I gave him the chance to explain. When he could not come up with an excuse as to where he had spent the hours since he had left work, we began to fight. I yelled and screamed, and tears poured down my face. He finally confessed to the affair and told me everything.
I stabbed him repeatedly. Years of built-up anger were released in every swift motion with the knife.
I killed my ex-husband.
It was the most amazing and relieving feeling in the entire world.
I pled insanity and my case never even went to trial. It wasn’t technically self-defense, considering he hadn’t actually hit me yet that night—but I’m sure, if provoked further, he would have hit me. He always did. I didn’t have to worry about that anymore, though. He was dead.
Chapter Twenty-Six
I’ll stop hurting myself
But I need your help to change
“Doctor, are you requesting that we adjust Lauren’s medication?” Shay, the head nurse assigned to the psych ward, asks.
“Let’s just wait for now,” Doctor Oliver Fallon explains. “I’d like to see if I can work with her a little bit more. She has full conversations with me as though she believes we’re friends. I want to see if I can explore that further and have her explain to me exactly what was going on in her head the night she murdered Sebastien.”
“Okay, Doctor.” Shay nods. She pops open a pill bottle and dispenses several tiny pink capsules. Some of them are for Lauren, but the others are for Mia Clarke, who is also a resident of Aldona Mental Hospital. She is a bulimic woman in her twenties who has problems with her family and childhood that she still won’t tell anyone about. The doctors feel as though they are never going to get through to her. Mia thinks that the way her boyfriend, Elliot, treated her had been completely normal. When they had met in high school, Elliot told her he’d only sleep with her if she wore makeup more often. If she lost a couple pounds. If she had work done on her nose. He openly admitted to sleeping with her sister, and even took her sister on a vacation in Cancun without her. He justified that by telling her that her sister was far prettier than she was. It made so much sense in Mia’s head. He promised her that once they chose a date for their wedding, he would change his ways and be faithful only to her, but he refused to agree to any date Mia suggested.
Even now that she’s institutionalized, Mia is still waiting for him to finally commit. She talks about her hopes that he will settle down with only her and start a family. She writes letters to him every day, and he replies once every few weeks. He doesn’t usually have much to say, but he is always sure to tell her that whatever girl he is currently ‘banging’ is skinnier than she is, and knows how to give a great blow job. Several of the letters he has sent her have been so degrading that Aldona Mental Hospital has chosen to intercept them and will not allow Mia to read them. They are working on getting a judge involved, and are hoping to press charges on her behalf.
Mia is currently being monitored during every meal to ensure she is not binging and purging. She has been known to refuse meals for days, forcing doctors to step in and force feed her, hooking her up to tubes against her wishes, but with the permission of her mother—who is horrified at all of this.
Some of the nurses are half serious when they say they believe Mrs. Clarke, the mother, will finally snap and kill Mia’s boyfriend. She will probably plead insanity and end up at Aldona, too.
“Chase” also calls this place home. No one knows very much about him. The doctors haven’t even been able to confirm his identity, and he will not speak a single word to anyone. The police brought him in after they dragged him off of a man he’d nearly beaten to death. They know who the assault victim is, but he is still in a coma, so they are unable to determine the motive. They are assuming it is dru
g-related. After a brief trial where they could determine nothing, it was decided that this man would remain here until new information became available.
Chase isn’t allowed to interact with any of the other patients or attend group therapy. Several of the other residents are scared of Chase, and some even believe he is the devil. Others, such as Lauren, spend most of their time staring at him; whether it be from across the hall through the tiny window in the door, or at the cafeteria. She looks him straight in the eyes and wonders if he’ll talk to her someday. Sometimes, though, she is wary of him and can sense that something just isn’t right. The nurses ensure that he does not approach anyone when all of the patients are in the common living area.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Who exactly do you need me to be?
I am lying in bed and I can see my unfinished canvas propped up against the wall in the study. I sit up and throw my feet over the side of the bed. Walking proves to be a daunting task, and my legs feel heavy, almost like I’m walking through cement. I’m groggy. This flu has hit me hard and I dread having to go to work tomorrow, if it hasn’t passed by then. Although, I won’t mind seeing Oliver—it’s definitely one of the perks that working at Bean There has to offer.
NyQuil runs across the study and I call out to him. He scurries back this way and allows me to scratch behind his ears.
“Hi kitty,” I purr.
Oliver is in the apartment. I didn’t know he was coming, or I would have gotten dressed and put makeup on.
“Oliver.” I smile. “Did you want something to eat?”
I’m hoping I can convince him to stay for a couple hours. If I throw together a quick supper and offer him a few glasses of wine, perhaps we’ll have a chance to discuss today’s events. I am angry, but not nearly as upset as I was immediately after it happened. I understand that we all make mistakes and end up in situations we don’t want to be in, with people we don’t want to share them with. Like his wife.