The thump from upstairs came again, followed by the clomping of footsteps. They passed by quickly, as though someone were running. The entire incident only lasted a second or two but it had both women pausing, holding their breaths as they listened.
“As we were saying,” Nicki chuckled nervously.
“We might have started something,” Taryn said with a grim smile. “It looks like the two of us together really stir this thing up.”
Nicky reached over and patted Taryn on the hand. Her fingers were warm and reassuring. “My mum has always said that I’m a bad influence.”
Bad influence or not, Taryn was glad Nicola was with her.
***
He stood above her, his face contorted in an ugly scowl. She’d always thought him to be handsome. He didn’t look handsome now, however. Not with the carelessness in which he regarded her. In his hand he held an apple. When she started to rise to her feet he took a final bite then tossed the core at her on the ground. It hit her in the face, the sweet juice smearing across her cheek.
She wanted to cry, to scream, but it would not have mattered. He was threatening her, using all of her weaknesses against her. He would go to the village and convince them of her treachery and wickedness. She believed him.
Oh, and to think that he was once a friend, a companion even.
With one last word he spat at her feet and sniffed, as tough she were nothing. When he was gone she collapsed on the ground, grieving for everyone around her. The world outside was darkening. For a moment it had been light but, like most things she’d come to love, it had only been an illusion.
Chapter Seventeen
A PATH LED FROM THE STABLE YARD into the woods behind the house. An iron fence followed the stables for awhile but, when Taryn reached the end, she found herself facing a wrought iron gate. To go through it would mean walking deeper into the woods. Her legs were aching and her head was bothering her, but she’d promised herself to try to get in a little exercise each and every day. Her online support groups were filled with people confined to wheelchairs and needing help with the simplest of things, like going to the bathroom, and Taryn was determined to remain independent for as long as she could.
“Let’s do it,” she chanted to herself.
The rusty gate opened with an ominous creak and then she was through it and entering the woods.
The dappled path was already lush with greenery, despite the fact that it was early April. Nicki had promised her that even though Wales wasn’t known for its tropical weather, once spring got underway the temperatures would rise and it would become “quite tolerable.”
“We ought to find us a bottle of whiskey and go to the pond and have ourselves a day of it when we hit sixty-five degrees your temp,” Nicki had urged her. Taryn had told her that she’d think about it.
She’d started on The Mists of Avalon two days ago and nearly had it finished. She had so many thoughts running through her mind about the book and hadn’t yet been able to process it. Nicki, for her part, had badgered the hell out of her-waiting around like an expectant mother to hear Taryn’s reactions and review of the material.
“I like her,” Taryn had gushed to Matt over the phone. “She’s incredibly sweet tempered and very talented. I saw some of her renderings of the garden. They’re extraordinarily good-much better than mine. I’m a little embarrassed for mine to be seen next to hers, to be honest.”
“You always sell yourself short,” he’d chided her.
“Not this time. She really is that good!”
Matt had whistled, a low sound that carried on for far too long. “Do you have a girl crush? Do I need to be worried?”
Annoyed, Taryn had rolled her eyes. “No, it’s not a girl crush. It’s just not often that I bond with women and it’s nice.” And even if she did have one, it was harmless.
“You bonded with Liza Jane,” he pointed out. “And Melissa.”
“Okay, I get your point,” she’d snapped. “I don’t normally bond with women outside of Kentucky, I should have said.”
But Matt had been nonplussed. “I’m just glad you’re making friends.”
“Miriam, the housekeeper, has asked me to go out to a pub with her and her friends tonight.”
“Yeah? You gonna go?”
Taryn still wasn’t sure if she wanted to go or not. She was still mulling it over. “Don’t know yet.”
But then Matt had swayed her. “I don’t know if you should. You know drinking isn’t good for you. It’s probably not a good idea.”
Guess I won’t be telling him about that bottle of whiskey and the lake then, Taryn thought grimly.
But instead of saying that out loud, she’d replied, “Well, drinking isn’t good for anyone.”
“You know what I mean.” She knew Matt meant well but sometimes he was a real stick in the mud. Matt was one of the cleanest living people she knew. She didn’t smoke, rarely drank, exercised when she could, and had limited herself to one trashy reality show a season. But Matt was practically a monk.
“Well, I’ll let you know if I go or not,” she’d said aloud while, in her mind, she’d thought, By God, you better believe I’m going now!
She’d been walking for about ten minutes when the pop in her left hip had her tumbling to the ground in surprise and pain. She knew that sound-she’d dislocated her hip. Again.
“Damn it,” Taryn moaned.
Sitting on the damp earth in the middle of the path, she shrugged off her backpack and did her best to straighten out her leg. It was curled in an awkward position behind her and she’d fallen on her knee. Taryn gingerly felt along her kneecap and winced. It wasn’t dislocated but it had a subluxation and that was no less painful.
By the time Taryn’s hand reached the top of her hip, her eyes were swelling with water. The pain, which had started as a sharp stabbing, was turning into a deep throb that was even worse.
She couldn’t sit there and hope for someone to find her, nor could she call her help. She’d left her cell back at the house and, besides, she didn’t have anyone’s number. She would have to fix herself on her own.
With her leg now straightened in front of her, Taryn gently lowered her back to the ground.
“Damn it,” she muttered aloud again. She was wearing new pants that she’d picked up at a charity shop (not secondhand here, but “charity shop”) in Lampeter. Now they’d be covered in grass and mud stains and she didn’t know how to do her laundry here.
Once on her back, Taryn slowly rolled to the left side, the good side, until all of her weight rested on the ground. Wincing with pain and cursing like a sailor, she proceeded to raise her right left into the air. She couldn’t look at it; she knew just by feeling it that her hip was terribly disjointed and awkward looking. If she looked, she might throw up. She had one shot to get it right, before she chickened out. So, gritting her teeth and closing her eyes, Taryn bent her knee, turned her leg until her knee was not pointing sideways but face down on the ground, and brought her leg down as hard as she could.
The resounding crack and her following scream were so loud that a nearby bird flew off its tree limb in disgust, losing its hard-earned worm in the process.
Taryn let out a sigh of relief and allowed her leg to fall to the ground. It still hurt, but there was respite. The weird thing about EDS was that she was so flexible she was constantly subluxing and dislocating but that same flexibility often made it easier for her to pop the joints back into place. She would hurt for the next several days, and might need to see a doctor, but she’d live. She’d once dislocated her rib from laughing too hard. She’d been alone then, too, watching “The Golden Girls”. She’d been in too much pain to wait for the ambulance. As the paramedics were walking in the door she was bending over the arm of her couch, putting all her weight on her chest with one big heave-ho.
Well, she thought, guess my walk is over. So much for that!
Slinging her backpack over her left shoulder and babying the entire right side of
her body, she gently lifted herself up and began hobbling back down the path. Her knee was bothering her more than the hip now so she favored it as she walked.
Because she could only move at a snail’s pace, Taryn began humming to herself. Music always made things better. With “Fast As You” for company, she raised her voice and slung her hair back, determined to make the most of the rest of her walk. She hurt like hell, but it was still a nice day. Sunny and not too cold.
Taryn had almost reached the wrought iron gate when a dark-headed man came waltzing from around the corner of the potting shed. He stopped when he caught sight of her and raised his hand to wave. When he saw her limping, however, he dropped his hand and sprinted over to her. The tight, springy curls in his longish hair bounced with each movement. He was tall, thin, and wore a goatee; it was definitely not Paul.
“Hey, you okay?” he asked. Without waiting for a reply, he knelt down and began feeling up her leg, checking for an injury.
“Uh, do you mind?” Taryn laughed. If she’d thought he was feeling her up, she would’ve kicked him. Since his expression was focused and intent on her wounds, however, she let it slide.
“Sorry,” he grinned. “I used to be a nurse. What happened?”
“Dislocated my hip and subluxed my knee out there on the trail,” she explained, pointing vaguely to the path behind her.
“Dislocated? You need to get to the hospital!”
“It’s okay,” she shrugged. “I put it back in.”
“Put it back in?” he asked, aghast. “How in the world did you do that on your own?”
“It’s complicated,” she said. “I wouldn’t mind you walking with me up to the house, though. I am getting a little exhausted. Even standing here talking is taking a lot out of me.”
“Yeah, yeah,” he replied quickly. He reached out and took her backpack from her shoulder. “Here, let me have this. You staying here?”
“Staying and working,” she replied. They began walking again, him keeping her slow pace. He was much taller than her and, she guessed, about her age. He wore loose-fitting khaki cargo pants, a white T-shirt, and Birkenstocks. She wondered if he might be a backpacker, staying overnight in the hostel room.
“Really?” he asked. “Me too. What brings you here?”
Surprised, she stopped and studied him. “You’re working here too? I’m the artist. I’m doing renderings of the house for the owners. Well, and for the architect.”
The man beamed from ear to ear. Underneath the shaggy hair and scraggly half-beard, he had a lovely smile. “I’m the architect! You make it pretty and I’ll put it together. Shawn Fernandez, nice to meet you.”
Taryn swallowed hard and began to shake. Unsteady on her feet now, she almost took another tumble to the ground and would have if Shawn hadn’t reached out and grabbed onto her waist.
“Here,” he cooed. “You’re not doing as well as you thought. Let’s get you inside and up to your room.”
She kept quiet for the rest of the way, allowing him to lead her and even to pick her up and carry her like a child to her room.
Taryn was mortified by the attention, especially when Nicki rushed in and began plumping her pillows and Miriam brought tea. And she was embarrassed by her rudeness towards Shawn.
But how could she tell him that Andrew had introduced himself the same way? That as she’d stood over the closed lid of his casket those same words of greeting had played over and over again in her mind like a broken record, drowning out the voice of the preacher and sounds of the mourners?
There were some things you couldn’t put into words.
Chapter Eighteen
TRY TO GET OUT AND DO SOMETHING FUN one day, spend the next two days paying for it. Taryn had never even heard of Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome before getting diagnosed with it and now it was running her life.
She was angry at her body for not being able to fight back more. Angry at herself for feeling out of control and unable to manage her health. Angry at the doctor she’d liked and trusted for dropping her like a hot potato.
“Why the hell did she go to medical school if she didn’t want to actually work with sick people,” Taryn grumbled now, riling herself up just thinking about it.
She had a lot to say about the current shape of the medical system. The pain management crisis, for one thing, was something she dealt with almost every day. Scared of facing lawsuits and being responsible for addictions, doctors no longer wanted to manage chronic pain and were getting leery about treating acute issues. At one Nashville hospital, they were sending people with broken bones home with Tylenol.
“As though massive doses of Tylenol and Ibuprofen are somehow less dangerous than proper dosages of Lortab,” Taryn sniffed now. She knew about the things NSAIDS could do to your body-after being prescribed three pills a day for over a year, she’d been hospitalized with internal bleeding, thanks to a bleeding ulcer. And it took a handful of Tylenols for her to get even a margin of relief-about four more than the FDA safely recommended on a daily basis. It wasn’t like those with chronic pain issues suddenly woke up one day and cried for narcotics; Taryn had spent years working up to them, trying everything from over the counter remedies to acupuncture and regular massage. Then there had been the muscle relaxers, the nerve pain medications, the creams, the steroids…
It was frustrating.
And now, here she was, stuck in her bed in Ceredigion House. Unable to do more than gingerly lift herself out and waddle across the floor to the bathroom when she just couldn’t hold it any longer. Nicki was bringing her food. The woman was a mother hen. Shawn had visited twice, bringing her films for her laptop from his traveling DVD collection. He seemed to favor weird foreign things with abstract storylines and hard-to-read subtitles but she watched them anyway. Paul, for his part, had tried to talk her into leaving. Miriam had simply shooed him away, shutting the door in his face.
The world outside was bleak and gray. She could see a small hill from her bed and, beyond that, the vast and barren moor. During the morning, the sheep were out in full force on the hillside, their stark whiteness a contrast to the leaden grass and austere sky. The sky was devoid even of clouds; there was very little for her to focus her eyes upon. The barren moor stretched out for miles with little interruption-the green desert, indeed. It gently curved with the subtle inclines of the land, a sea of desolation.
In her four-poster antique bed and on her soft cotton sheets, feather pillow, and downy duvet, Taryn was a prisoner. By the end of the second day of confinement, she no longer felt a part of the outside world. It was there all right, but she could only watch it from her window-she couldn’t touch it or feel it.
The dreams weren’t stopping either. The woman in the gray cloak on the moor. Running from the man whose face she could not see. Or running towards him. Laughing, singing, spinning around and around in circles. She was the woman and had yet to see her face.
In one dream they were dancing in the Music Room, the slow waltz echoing hollow in the emptiness while he spun her around the floor, her head thrown back with laughter.
Taryn had never known love like that, never known it to be so liberating and moving. When she had the dreams, she could almost believe it was real.
And then there were the other dreams, the bad ones. The ones with despair and heartache. The man who laughed at her, who tossed her to the ground as though she were garbage. The dark, flashing eyes and brooding face. The careless words that she could hear but never make out.
Matt had called a dozen times or more. Checking on her.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to come over there?” he’d pleaded.
“I’m fine,” she’d assured him. “It’s already better. I’m just babying it so that I don’t cause any further damage to the joint. I’ll be back up and walking around in a day or so.”
She’d just hung up his fourth call of the afternoon when Nicki entered her room, a cup of tea in hand. Taryn thought that Nicki must spend a good portion of her life
making tea.
“You care for some company?” she asked.
“Love some,” Taryn answered.
“That the man on the phone then?”
“Yes,” Taryn nodded and took a sip of tea. “Again.”
“He must really miss you.” Nicki took a seat in the chair she’d pulled up beside the bed. She carried a backpack with her and began removing sketchpads and stacking them neatly on the floor.
“He wants to come here. He’s asked me twice,” Taryn said. “He does that to me all the time. He’s always looking for a reason to come to me. I used to think it was charming, you know? That he couldn’t wait to rush to be my side, to rescue me. But now…”
Taryn stopped talking and quickly shut her mouth, embarrassed to be revealing such intimate details of her relationship. Nicki appeared nonplussed, though.
“Do you think he’s using you then?” she asked, cocking her head to one side and studying Taryn with big, brown eyes.
“What do you mean?” Taryn was bemused. “He’s always helping me, more like it.”
“If he can’t wait to rush off to see you, and it makes you uncomfortable, then it probably means that there’s something else going on,” Nicki reasoned. “Perhaps he’s not running to you but away from something of his.”
Taryn sank back into her pillow, perplexed. She had honestly never considered this idea and now she felt silly. But could it be true?
“He loves his job,” Taryn said at last. “He works for NASA. It’s the job he’s wanted since he was a little boy. He has quite a bit of control and power in his position and always seems to have a flock of interns to boss around. And most of our conversations are monologues on his side about what’s going on at work.”
“And yet he still doesn’t mind leaving it…”
And just like that, with that one little sentence, Taryn felt like she’d been hit by a ton of bricks. Of course Nicki was right. Nobody that happy with their life, that content, would be ready to run off at the drop of a hat. She wasn’t, after all. All this time, Taryn had just assumed that Matt loved her so much that he was willing to give up everything to be with her at the slightest notion. But perhaps that wasn’t it at all; perhaps he was simply unhappy with his life and using her as an excuse to get away.
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