Caroline deserved a swimming pool full of tears, but Emily couldn’t cry them for her. She was numb to her own pain; her tear ducts were paralyzed.
“I know you and Caroline were very close, but there are others who care for you. Me, for instance, as well as Dr. Perry, and the hospital staff.”
People who are paid to care, Emily thought dully. If there was anyone else in this world who loved her, where was he or she? No one had come to see her—not a solitary soul. What kind of person had she been that no one cared if she lived or died? Even her beloved Caroline had only known her in her coma. Maybe the old woman wouldn’t have loved her if she’d known the real Emily.
“I’m here for you, Emily,” Belinda said. “We’re all rooting for you.”
The words were meaningless to Emily. Belinda might as well have been reading a grocery list. Move along, Dr. Phil, Emily thought. You’re getting nothing from me.
Perpetua, Belinda’s guardian angel, sat in front of the computer monitor, observing her charge. “Belinda loves to sing, although she’s not especially gifted at it.”
Rhianna was looking over Perpetua’s shoulder. “This isn’t American Idol. I don’t care how well she sings, just so long as she gets through to Emily.”
“Unfortunately, Belinda’s been depressed for weeks and hasn’t felt like singing much,” Perpetua said, distractedly patting the severe bun on the back of her hair. “It’s been much harder to communicate with her lately. Her dark thoughts are deafening. I can barely get a word in edgewise.”
Rhianna’s fists curled in frustration. “Don’t I know it?”
“I had no idea how loud a person’s thoughts can be,” Caroline said, gazing sadly at Emily.
“I’ll do my best to give Belinda the suggestion,” Perpetua said. “I am encouraged that she wanted to help this young woman. It’s an excellent sign. Before Emily came along, there were days when she could barely drag herself out of bed.”
As Emily drifted off to sleep she heard the first note come out of Belinda’s mouth. It sounded like the last honk of a dying mallard. The notes that followed were equally mournful. What was she doing? Why wouldn’t she just go away?
“I get by with a little help from my friends,” she sang.
It was an old Beatles song. Emily had no choice but to listen to one clunker note after another. The mangled melody was almost unrecognizable, but the words were familiar and for some odd reason, they started to move Emily. Each time she heard the word “friend” it was like a shovel breaking through her defenses and letting in veins of light.
“Stop,”’ Emily said softly after several stanzas.
“What?” Belinda’s purse tumbled off her lap. A cell phone and a collection of cosmetics rained down on the floor.
“You’re singing,” Emily said.
“Was I singing? I guess I didn’t realize it. You know how you get a song in your head and it just takes hold? But never mind that. Listen to you, you’re finally talking to me.”
“You sing even worse than Caroline,” Emily said in a near whisper. “And that’s quite a feat.”
“Oh God, I know...My ex-husband would always change the station when I’d sing along to the radio in the car.” She smiled. “I can’t believe you’re talking...finally! Thank God.”
Emily pressed a hand between her breasts. “It was too hard to talk. It hurts here...so badly.”
“Of course it does, Emily.” Belinda shot up from her chair and stood by her bed. “I heard Caroline was an incredible woman. And she loved you.”
“I couldn’t even go to her funeral,” Emily said. Her chest heaved and shook.
Belinda hovered over her, touching her hair, saying, “I’m sorry. I know she meant a lot to you.”
Emily cried for Caroline and Belinda stayed near, holding tissues to her nose and talking softly into her ear. Her ministrations to Emily didn’t feel bought and paid for; they felt sincere and empathetic, as if Belinda understood a thing or two about pain.
For the first time since Caroline’s death, Emily didn’t feel as if she’d been abandoned by the entire world.
Twenty-Eight
I can’t understand why you aren’t answering my letters. This isn’t a prank. There’s something urgent I must tell you about your wife.
Wanda signed her name to the letter and stuffed it into an envelope.
How many letters had she written so far? Wanda was beginning to lose count, but she was going to keep churning them out until she got what she was after.
Four months ago, Wanda had sent Ryan Blaine a registered letter discussing her suspicions about Susan. When she didn’t immediately hear back from him, she guessed she’d been written off as some kind of nutcase. Who could blame the man? He probably received all sorts of strange mail. And she didn’t want to get into the specifics about his wife in case someone else read his letters, maybe even Susan herself. Still, she kept writing, a few notes every month, until two weeks ago she’d started to write Ryan Blaine every day, hoping her persistence would pay off.
This nastiness with Susan Blaine plagued every moment of Wanda’s life. She played the recorded answering-machine conversation with Susan several times a day and spent all of her free time scouring newsstands and the internet at the library, looking for any mention of Ryan and his wife.
Any sane person probably would have given up by now, but Wanda had never considered herself close to normal. If what she believed about Susan Blaine were true, it’d be a mortal sin for her not to try to alert Ryan Blaine. She was the only person in the world who knew what his wife had done, and Wanda was partially to blame. How could she live with herself if she didn’t bust her tail to expose Susan’s secret?
As she sealed the envelope, the phone rang and a curt male voice asked for her by name.
“Speaking,” she said.
“This is Gordon Hoyle, calling on the behalf of Ryan Blaine.”
Wanda let the letter float to her bedroom rug. “It’s about time,” she said with a relieved sigh. She sat down on her twin bed. “I thought I’d never hear back. I’ve written so many letters my hand’s about to fall off—”
“Yes, you have,” Mr. Hoyle said, his voice an angry staccato. “And I’m calling to ask you to stop. You’re not the only woman writing letters condemning Ms. Blaine, but you’ve certainly been the most persistent.”
“Other people have been writing Ryan Blaine about his wife? I don’t get you.”
“Letters from heartbroken women, just like yourself, who are upset that Mr. Blaine is married.”
“Heartbroken?” She knew her voice sounded screechy, but she couldn’t help it. “You don’t understand. I’m seventy-one years old. I’m not—”
“I recognize obsessive behavior when I see it,” Mr. Hoyle interrupted. “You’ve been classified as a security risk by my office.”
“I’m not a security risk, I tell you. I’m just trying to help. This is a very serious—” She paused, weariness settling heavily on her shoulders. “Has Ryan Blaine even read my letters?”
“Look, lady, I’m trying to do you a favor. Stop writing letters and this will go no further. But if you continue—”
“He needs to read my letters!” Wanda shouted. “Better yet, put him on the line. Is he there? It will only take a minute of his time. I have proof of—”
Mr. Hoyle wasn’t listening. He continued to drone on as if reading from a script. It was exasperating. “If you continue, legal actions will have to be taken. I’m sure neither of us wants that.”
“Let me speak with Ryan Blaine! It’s urgent. I’m not some nut ball, I tell ya. I’ve been on the six o’clock news. In my hometown I’m known as the Hot-dog Hag. Won’t somebody listen to me?”
Twenty-Nine
Several days after she’d squeezed out her very first tears over Caroline, Emily was moved to a pr
ivate rehabilitation hospital paid for by an anonymous donor who’d read about her plight. Word had leaked out to several newspapers about her miraculous awakening, but on the same day her story became known, a commercial jet went down in the Allegheny Mountains, killing all two hundred and fifty passengers on board. The crash dominated the media for days, and Emily’s news was buried in the back pages.
No one bothered to revive the story, likely because of Emily’s former station in life. If she’d been a teacher or a nurse, surrounded by loving family members, her miraculous recovery would have been a more popular human interest story. But because of her unsavory past, Emily didn’t make a very heartwarming subject.
Belinda eventually told her about the circumstances that had led to her yearlong stay in Magnolia Manor. How she’d been assaulted in a deserted alley. How she’d been nude and left for dead. How it was believed that she’d been a homeless crack user and had no family members, at least none that had come forward during the year she’d been in her vegetative state.
“We don’t even know your last name, Emily,” Belinda said, twisting her small pale hands on her lap as she sat beside Emily’s bed. “But the doctors are pretty sure your memories will gradually return. At least most of them. Thank God, you probably won’t remember the assault itself.”
Emily should have been devastated upon hearing the details of her past life, but for some reason she was unmoved. Belinda could have been reciting the plot points of a Lifetime movie; she felt no sense of identification or shame when it came to the actions of the pre-coma Emily. Maybe, when her memories started to filter back, regret and self-loathing would set in, but for now she was indifferent. It was as if she were lugging around a bag of someone else’s dirty laundry. The only thing she cared about was regaining her independence, which meant learning how to walk again.
At the rehabilitation hospital Emily threw herself into a regimen of physical therapy so grueling it would make an Olympic athlete weep. Because her muscles had been inactive for so long, her orthopedist was doubtful she’d ever be able to walk again. But Emily ignored his pessimistic predictions and labored each day until sweat beaded on every surface of her body and she was limp from exhaustion. She endured several hours of daily exercises with elastic bands to increase her range of motion, choking back tears and persevering even when the pain was so severe she felt she might black out.
After only a few weeks of being strapped onto a tilt table, a padded device with a footboard intended to strengthen her emaciated muscles, she astounded the medical staff by forcing her withered chicken legs into a standing position.
After the tilt table, she graduated to the parallel bars and was determined to take her first step. Her doctors thought the swift recovery of her bones and muscles bordered on the miraculous. Emily credited Caroline’s nightly massages. The love had flowed from the old woman’s fingers to Emily’s limbs, keeping them from complete atrophy.
Throughout her recovery, Belinda was there for her, spending every minute of her free time at Emily’s bedside.
“Don’t you have a life?” Emily teased when Belinda bustled into the hospital room loaded down with cartons from the Chinese restaurant.
“What I have is tofu and broccoli, no MSG,” said Belinda, who always changed the subject when Emily touched on personal matters. She knew something was troubling her counselor. Whenever she thought Emily was sleeping, Belinda listened to music on her iPhone, crying silent tears. Now and then, Emily heard traces of the music and was surprised by how jarring and dissonant it was. It wasn’t the kind of music she would have expected Belinda to enjoy.
“I don’t why anyone in their right mind would eat tofu,” Belinda teased. “It looks like brown Jell-O.”
“Mmmm,” Emily said as Belinda spooned a few tablespoons of tofu and broccoli out onto a plate and placed it on her tray. “Smells good. I think I may have been on a macrobiotic diet at some point in my life.”
“Macrobiotic?” Belinda said. The counselor was a devoted carnivore and was at that moment tucking into some barbecued spare ribs and shrimp toast. “What’s that?”
“Mostly whole grains and sea vegetables. I have memories of eating lots of bowls of miso soup. Wouldn’t that be novel? A crack whore on a macrobiotic diet.”
Belinda flinched as she looked up from her meal. “Hush your mouth.”
“I’m sorry, crack ho.”
“Emily!”
“It’s hard for me to imagine doing anything so unhealthy. I really hate the smell of smoke. One of the orderlies snuck a cigarette and came into my room smelling to high heaven.” Emily pinched a piece of tofu with her chopstick and popped it in her mouth, chewing thoughtfully. “Maybe I smoked organic crack.”
“It’s my guess that you’d been doing drugs for only a short while,” Belinda said, dabbing at her mouth with a napkin. Emily could tell Belinda was uncomfortable discussing her checkered past. “I imagine you had a whole different kind of life before it took a wrong turn.”
“I’m pretty sure I worked with animals at one time,” Emily said. “I have all these memories of handling dogs and cats.”
“That’s terrific,” Belinda said, clapping her hands. She continually gushed over Emily’s accomplishments like a young mother swooning over her preschooler’s refrigerator art. “Just give it some time, and most everything will come back to you.”
Emily wasn’t in a big rush to retrieve her memories. She feared they’d distract her from her path to wellness. Still, snatches of her past kept returning to her: a first Communion, a Valentine’s Day party, maneuvering a small sailboat as the wind whistled in her ears. None of her recollections, however, provided any concrete clues to her identity.
Her strength was returning more quickly than her memories. After four months of aggressive therapy, she took her first tentative step using a walker. A few days later, Belinda picked her up from the hospital to celebrate.
“It’s girls’ day out,” she said with a playful smile. “And we won’t be coming back until the cows come home.”
Her friend wore a pair of blue jeans—Emily had never seen her in slacks before—and a red scoop-neck top. The outfit accentuated all her round curves, reminding Emily of a vine-ripe tomato.
Belinda whisked Emily off to a manicurist, and before she knew it, all twenty of her nails were buffed, filed, and polished with a coat of bright red called “Too Darn Hot.” Afterward, the two women lunched at a small austere Japanese restaurant. Emily took slow, mincing steps with her walker, but Belinda was infinitely patient.
Once they were seated and served, Belinda leaned across the blond wood table to reach for the ceramic container of soy sauce. Emily noticed her fingernails were painted a sparkly blue color, an odd choice for a woman who typically dressed in conservative tailored suits.
“Did you also get a manicure this week?” Emily asked, pointing at Belinda’s hand.
“I meant to take this off,” Belinda said, cutting her eyes to her plate. She was suddenly very busy mixing soy sauce with stiff dabs of wasabi.
“It’s an interesting color choice. Youthful.”
“Yes, I guess it is,” Belinda said quickly. “You know, they serve green-tea ice cream here. It sounds revolting, but it’s actually quite good.”
Clearly the nail polish was a sore subject. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to say something I shouldn’t have.”
Belinda didn’t reply. Instead she chased a sliver of ginger around her plate.
Later, after they’d left the restaurant and were on the expressway driving to the mall, Belinda abruptly turned to Emily.
“I didn’t mean to be so evasive when you asked about my nail polish. I wear it because it reminds me of someone. I hope you don’t mind, but I can’t talk about it just yet. The pain’s too fresh.”
“I’m sorry,” Emily said. “I shouldn’t have said an
ything.”
“It’s been a rough few months for me,” Belinda said, pulling down the rearview mirror to check her lipstick. “You’re the first client I’ve had since my...loss. I’d intended to take a lot more time off, or even quit counseling altogether. But when I heard about you from some of my coworkers at the hospital, I asked to be assigned to your case. I’d developed a really dark view of the world, and then you came along…a bona fide miracle.”
Emily nodded. There were some days her awakening felt more like a curse than a miracle, but she was glad she’d indirectly helped lift Belinda out of her doldrums.
“I also have a confession to make. I’m undergoing grief counseling with the pastor of a nondenominational church in town.” She laughed softly. “Probably sounds like the blind leading the blind.”
“No. Asking for outside help when you’re a counselor yourself seems like a brave thing to do.”
“I had to see someone. I was drinking a bottle of white wine every night, sleeping twelve hours at a stretch—anything to numb the pain. I had to snap out of it for the sake of my son.”
“I didn’t know you had a child.”
“An eight-year-old. You’ll meet him one day. No husband though. We’re divorced.”
“So what kind of advice does your pastor give you?”
“Right now, he’s teaching me to put my life in the hands of an HP,” Belinda said, switching on the windshield wipers. A desultory drizzle had begun. “Surrender, he keeps saying to me.”
“HP?”
“Higher power. God, I suppose. Sometimes it’s hard for me to believe there’s anyone up there, much less someone keeping tabs on what Belinda Hobbs is up to on a daily basis.”
After Caroline had died, Emily, too, had been doubtful of God’s existence, but now she just wasn’t sure. She figured she hadn’t been very religious before the coma. How many prostitutes/druggies, after all, were devout churchgoers?
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