Strings

by Emma Lea

  There was no easy car space outside the coffee shop for her this morning and she had to drive around the block a couple of times before eventually finding one several streets away. That was fine, she could do with the exercise and the walk would clear her head. She opened the door of the cafe and breathed in the scent of fresh coffee and part of her tension leaked away. Coffee could do that to a person. She ordered her usual and then picked it up from the end of the counter before finding her booth and sliding into the seat. She had kept an eye out for her friend, but she hadn’t seen Mandy anywhere. That was okay, she would wait.

  Nadine pulled out her notebook and scribbled down a few of the phrases that had been circling her brain, getting lost in the music that was on constant repeat in her head these days. The song that she had shown Vanessa was finished, but it was like the simple act of finishing that first one had opened the floodgates. Before, when she was in rehab, she had just written down words that described how she was feeling. They were more poems than actual songs. But the one that she had shown Vanessa was a fully-fledged song, her first. Now she had more and it seemed that each time she wrote one, another one appeared in her head in its place. She briefly wondered if this was how Stevie felt. She had once told them that she was always writing, that she had notebooks full of songs that she may never show to anyone. Nadine liked the idea that maybe that would be her one day too.

  “Hey Nadine,” Mandy said sliding into the booth.

  Nadine looked up and blinked. She didn’t know how long she had been sitting there writing, but her notebook had pages of words scribbled on it and her coffee cup was empty.

  “Hey Mandy,” Nadine replied and stretched. “I was waiting for you.”

  Mandy quirked an eyebrow. “You were?”

  “Yeah. I wanted to ask you about last night.”

  Mandy furrowed her brow. “Last night? I don’t understand.”

  “You know, when I came over to your place.”

  Mandy shook her head slowly. “No, that wasn’t last night. That was the night before.”

  “And last night too,” Nadine insisted.

  “I had a date last night,” Mandy said. “This really cute guy asked me out the other day at work. We went to that new wine bar that opened up.”

  Nadine slowly shook her head. “No,” she said, drawing the word out. “I came over to your place because I’d had a fight with Jace and we watched Vampire Diaries.”

  Mandy looked at her puzzled. “Why would we do that? You had that big dinner with Gabe and his sister.”

  “No, it got cancelled, remember?”

  Mandy leant across the table and whispered to Nadine. “Are you okay?” There was concern in her voice and in her eyes. “I know things have been a bit rough for you and if you need me to tell Gabe that you were at my place, then that’s fine but… I’m worried about you.”

  Nadine couldn’t breathe. Her chest felt like it was wrapped in tight bands as she looked at Mandy. None of this was making sense. She had gone to Mandy’s place. They had watched the television. She had gotten a text from Gabe saying that the dinner was cancelled. She’d fallen asleep on… well, in her car, which she still couldn’t explain but the rest of it had all happened…hadn’t it?

  Mandy slipped out of her seat and slid in next to Nadine, rubbing her back in comforting circles. “Breathe, honey,” she said softly. “Take a big breath for me.”

  Nadine tried to drag in air. She tried to shut off the panic in her brain. She closed her eyes and just thought about her breath. She thought about how the air felt when it inflated her lungs. She thought about how it felt as she expelled it through her mouth. Nadine shut everything out except her breath until the tight bands around her chest began to loosen.

  “It’s okay, honey,” Mandy said. “I can lie to Gabe if you need me too. I know that things are a bit crazy in your life and I have your back, okay? Just calm down. You’re scaring me with the no breathing thing.”

  Nadine laid her head on Mandy’s shoulder, her eyes still closed.

  “If I wasn’t with you last night,” Nadine whispered, “then where was I?”

  “Well,” Mandy said, her voice soothing. “When you called me, you were at a bar.”

  Nadine sat up and turned to her. “A bar?” and then after a pause she said. “Wait. I called you?”

  Mandy nodded. “You wanted me to meet you at this bar you had stumbled upon. There was live music in the background and you were telling me what an awesome band they were. You told me about your fight with Jace and the meeting with Derek and how you just couldn’t face the dinner with Amaya. Not after the shit day you’d had.”

  Nadine couldn’t remember any of what Mandy was saying, but why would Mandy lie to her? What would she gain from that?

  “Was I drunk?”

  Mandy laughed. “You were something all right,” she said. “I’d say a little bit more than drunk and maybe a little high.”

  Drugs? Nadine hadn’t touched anything since the night she nearly overdosed. That event had scared her straight. Until now. Had she really gotten drunk and high and made up the whole night with Mandy?

  “Look,” Mandy said, pulling out her phone and flicking through her photo gallery. “This is Mitch, my date.”

  Nadine looked at the photo of Mandy and a very nice looking guy. They were sitting in a bar that she didn’t recognize and smiling at the camera.

  “This was last night?” Nadine asked.

  Mandy nodded. “And he’s already texted me today and asked me to go out with him again.”

  Nadine tried to smile, but her head was all screwed up. Not only could she no longer rely on her own memory, but now she was making up alternate ones.

  “Uh, Mandy? I’ve gotta go.”

  “Oh, okay. I’ll see you later?”

  Nadine nodded as she shimmied out of the booth. “Yeah. I’ll call you.”

  Nadine walked. She didn’t have a destination in mind, she just needed to get out and away. It was happening to her. She had to admit it to herself at least. The very thing she feared was happening to her and there was nothing she could do to stop it.

  Nadine remembered her mother like it was only yesterday. Louise was beautiful. Both Vanessa and Nadine took after her with their long dark hair and blue eyes. But there was something about Louise that set her apart. She glowed. She had a smile that could light up a room and when she looked at someone she focused all her attention on them and made them feel like the only person in the world. Well that’s how Nadine felt whenever Louise had looked at her. She had loved her mother, had wanted to be like her.

  Louise was so talented. She’d never met an instrument she couldn’t play and her voice…her voice was unforgettable. Whether she was singing to a packed crowd or just murmuring a lullaby to Nadine as she curled up on her lap, Louise’s voice was pure. Nadine had wanted to be just like her. Louise was her hero.

  But then things changed. They stopped performing as much as they had. Their brand of folk music wasn’t as popular as it had once been and the many members of the band started to spend more time getting high than trying to find work. Louise’s behavior changed too. Nadine remembered long episodes of depression where Louise would shut herself in her room and not speak or interact with anyone for days. Nadine remembered the tiny little house that their father, Jack, had moved them into when the band broke up. That was the first time Louise had spiraled. She had felt caged in by the domesticity of the house and the lack of creative outlet. It was the first time Nadine and her siblings had had a home apart from the yellow school bus that they’d lived in as they travelled across the country.

  So many things changed that year. They were sent to school for the first time. Prior to that they had been homeschooled. Nadine hadn’t even known that places like school existed. She hated that first month and hadn’t understood why things had to change. Louise had practically barricaded herself in her room and their father was the only one who she would let anywhere near her. Until one day, it
changed.

  Nadine remembered coming home from school to see her mother in the kitchen baking cookies. Louise couldn’t cook and the cookies were bitter and burnt, but Nadine had been so happy to see her mother that she hadn’t cared. Louise had looked like an angel to her standing in the kitchen with the sun shining behind her and giving her a glow. The next several months had been like a fairytale. Louise would often sneak them out of class so that they could spend the day with her. They would explore the city or head out of town and into the woods for a hike. They would sit around in the living room and play songs and Louise would teach them all a new instrument. It was like summer holidays, Christmas and New Year’s all rolled into one.

  Inevitably the depression came back. Louise once again felt trapped by the four walls of the house and the expectations on her to be a wife and mother. Jack had taken a job to support the family and Louise hated that too. She hated that their little family of troubadours had been bought to heel by society. Nadine’s father loved Louise to distraction and he hated seeing his wife so unhappy. Jack tried to do anything and everything he could to please her but he was torn with the need to look after his family financially as well. They fought loudly, yelling and screaming at each other and then they made up, just as loudly.

  Nadine remembered the night they died with such clarity that she had to stop and sit. She didn’t often let herself think about it, but she needed to come to terms with the fact that she herself was spiraling and if she wasn’t careful she would bring her family down with her. Just like Louise had done.

  Nadine had come home from school hoping that her mother was still in one of her good moods. There had been an unusually long streak of happy Louise and coming home each day Nadine had prayed that it would continue. As soon as she walked through the door she knew something was off. There was no music playing and there was no burnt cookie smell permeating the air. The house felt abandoned and sad. Nadine had gone straight to her room. She knew that Louise would have locked herself away again and Nadine just hoped that it would be a short episode this time.

  By this time all the Court siblings were all too familiar with Louise’s symptoms. They knew that when she was in this depressive state that it was just best to stay away from her. She could get violent - as Jace had found out when he had tried to help her. So they kept out of her way. She was prone to yelling at them for no apparent reason if she caught a glimpse of them. Jack was the only one she would let near her when she was in this state.

  Jace had called their dad to give him the heads up. He had come home early from work and made them dinner before going into the bedroom he shared with their mother. They heard the raised voices. They knew their parents were fighting. They could hear Louise accuse Jack of loving the children more than he loved her. She yelled at him for confining her to this awful existence and stifling her. Jack had pleaded with her, cajoled her, tried everything to calm her down. Finally he convinced her to go for a drive with him.

  Jack pulled Jace aside and had words with him before he’d bundled Louise into the old VW Combi van that was Louise’s car. Louise had insisted on driving. Jack let her. The three sibling stood at the door and watched the van reverse out the driveway. It was the last time they saw their parents alive.

  The police report said that it had been an accident. It said that Louise had lost control of the van and it had broken through the barriers and careened over the side of the bridge and into the river below. Concerned friends comforted the Court siblings with the fact that it had been a tragic accident - not that it was much comfort when they had been left orphans. It was much later that Nadine found out the truth. Louise had driven off that bridge purposely. She had taken her own life and the life of Jack without thought to the three children she was leaving behind. Louise had been so completely owned by her disease that she couldn’t see past it. And that was what Nadine was afraid was beginning to happen to her.

  The blackouts weren’t a bipolar symptom, but the reckless behavior was. It made sense to Nadine that she would block it out because the last thing she wanted to do was face the truth. The doctors had been wrong. She was just like her mother and just like Louise, if she wasn’t careful, she was going to destroy her family all over again. The only problem was, she didn’t know what she was going to do about it.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Gabe had hoped that work would distract him from his concerns about Nadine, but no such luck. He found himself drifting when he should have been listening. He found his mind wandering to the fear that he’d seen in her eyes when he had argued with her about the text message he had supposedly sent to her. She had truly believed that he had messaged her to tell her the dinner had been postponed. That was when he had let go of his anger, but he hadn’t let go of the worry. Something was going on with her and she was keeping it from him.

  Gabe understood how hard it was for her to trust. She had only ever had Jace and Vanessa to really lean on and even now those relationships were rocky. The adults in her life had let her down and she had grown up believing that she wasn’t worthy of love. He knew all this. He’d had a front row seat to her inner mind when she had sat in that chair and told him all about the way her parents had died. And the events leading up to it. And the fight where Louise had made it clear to her three children that they meant nothing to her. Except that had been her disease talking. Of course they didn’t understand that, not at that young age, but it had been reinforced when Louise had decided to kill both herself and her husband, leaving the children alone in a world that had no idea what they had lived through.

  He also knew that Nadine’s breakdown over the summer had to do with her own fears of ending up like Louise. He had read the reports from the doctors at the facility where Nadine had been admitted. He had consulted with the head physician on her case. They had assured her that she wasn’t bipolar. None of her symptoms were characteristic of the disease, but she hadn’t really believed them. Or him. He could see that clearly now. She still thought she was heading down the same path as Louise. She thought that it was inevitable. And these latest episodes were only reinforcing her beliefs.

  What Gabe didn’t know was what was actually happening. What was causing these blackouts and changes in behavior? He knew that she was feeling stressed out and worried over her relationship with Jace and he knew that the tour was scaring her, but were those things enough to cause her to act out in this way? And more importantly, what could he do to help her?

  The phone on his desk rang and he picked it up distractedly, his mind still chasing Nadine around in his head.

  “Dr. Rousso,” he answered.

  “Dr. Rousso this is Detective Ramirez.”

  “Detective,” Gabe said. “Are you calling to tell me you have found Jeanie?”

  “Yes and no,” the detective replied. “We know that she is in the area, but we don’t know where.”

  “Fucking hell,” Gabe swore softly under his breath.

  “We would like you to come in and speak to us. Maybe you can help us determine where she might be hiding and what she might be up to.”

  Gabe ran a hand through his hair, pulling on the strands in frustration. This was the absolute last thing he needed. He was too worried about Nadine to even begin to think about Jeanie and what she might be up to.

  “Sure,” he said. “I have a few more patients this afternoon but I can come by after that. Will that suit you?”

  “Yes,” the detective said, “whenever you get here is fine. In the meantime…” the detective faded out and Gabe sat forward. “Be careful. We believe she might have fixated on you again.”

  “There’s no ‘again’ about it, detective,” Gabe said tiredly. “She never stopped fixating on me which you all would have known if you had listened to me when I warned you about letting her out of custody. The woman is a born actress and she is patient. She knew the only way to get out was to be the model prisoner and so that’s what she was. She probably even came across as soft-hearted and caring. No dou
bt she looked after other inmates who were bullied or marginalized in some way.”

  The detective was quiet on the other end of the phone and Gabe wanted to swear again only this time louder and longer.

  “That’s what she does. She lulls you into believing her act and then she springs her trap. I should know. She had me completely fooled right up until she stuck that needle in me.”

  Still nothing from the detective. Gabe sighed. “I have another patient due. I will talk to you later.”

  He hung up the phone and tilted his head back to the ceiling.

  “Fuck,” he breathed as he closed his eyes and tried to find his calm.

  He knew it was too much to wish for to have Jeanie flee the country. He knew she was not finished with messing with him or his life. He didn’t think she ever would be. The parole board had been so taken in by her and her act. He knew she had swayed the guards and that she had made people doubt that she could have possibly done any of the things she had been accused of. But Gabe knew better. He had seen the other side of her, the side she kept hidden from everyone else. He had been her god damned victim and no one had listened to a word he’d said. No one had understood just how dangerous she was and now she was out there and he had no doubt whatsoever that she was hunting him. And he had no idea what she planned to do when she finally got a hold of him.

  Gabe took a deep breath and knocked on his sister’s door. They hadn’t yet discussed what had happened last night and now he would have to tell her about Jeanie. This was not going to go well.

  “Come in,” she said and Gabe opened the door and stepped into her office, closing it behind him.

  “Gabriel,” she said and he detected a note of hurt in her voice along with the not-so-restrained anger.