Secret for a Song

by Secret for a Song (epub)

  She barely glanced up from her food. “Hello, Saylor.”

  “What’s the matter?” I pulled out a chair and sat next to her, putting my chin in my hands. “Don’t you want to tell me all about your fun curriculum?”

  The corners of her mouth pulled in, as if she tasted something sour. “Sarcasm doesn’t become you, dear.” She took a sip of tea.

  “No, a mother who’s a fucking drunk liar doesn’t become me.” I waited for her to startle, to tell me to watch my language, but she calmly pierced a spinach leaf, put it into her mouth, and began to chew, her eyes steadfastly on her plate.

  “I found your fucking bottles of ‘water’ a few days ago,” I said. “Except when I went to take a drink, it wasn’t water at all.”

  She finally looked up at me, the only hint that what I’d said had gotten to her the slight twitch of her eyebrow. “You had no bloody business taking my car. I told you not to.”

  I laughed. “Oh, right. This is my fault. Tell me one thing. Did you always drink and drive while I was in the car with you?”

  She turned back to her salad. I pushed my chair back, stood up, and grabbed her cup of tea. She fumbled for it, but I was faster. I took a sip. Coughed.

  It was plain vodka with a splash of tea, the alcohol almost odorless.

  I set the cup back down on the table and we stared at each other for a long moment.

  “Is your whole life a lie?” I whispered, my throat closing around the words.

  She kept staring at me, but didn’t answer. She didn’t apologize, didn’t refute what I’d said. I saw the accusation there. It was because of me. She was a drunk because of me.

  I went upstairs to my room and sat on my vanity bench, staring at myself in the mirror. If her life had always been a lie, had mine, too, by association? I was her child. My life had been molded around hers, like all mothers and children’s lives are. When had she started drinking? And why? Was it to forget, to numb the pain, to simply cease to feel? Was life with me so bad that she had to be drunk to go through it?

  I opened my closet and pulled out the duffel bag I’d gotten from college. From inside a textbook I’d hollowed out to stash some of my supplies, I got a small baggie of Tylenol. Emptying out all fifty of them into my palm, I tossed them into my mouth, five at a time, and dry-swallowed them. Then I sat back down on my vanity bench, stared into the brown hollow of my eyes, and waited.

  Chapter Thirty Three

  Just to be clear: I wasn’t trying to kill myself. We Munchausen freaks are big on getting sick, but not so big on dying. We leave that to the depressives. I knew when I took the Tylenol, due to extensive research, of course, that I wouldn’t die. I might just send my liver into a state of panic and cause some nasty stomach pain and vomiting. After I’d waited about twenty minutes, which I figured was just enough time to let the pills begin to metabolize in my system, I went downstairs to Mum.

  The rest of the process was vaguely familiar. I drove myself to the hospital because she couldn’t drive me, which was different from before. But then they checked me in the instant I told them what I’d done. Their computers showed, of course, that I had Munchausen, so they didn’t do a psychiatric hold on me for attempted suicide. The nurses still treated me with respect, because acetaminophen is not something you want to fuck around with. In tiny amounts it did great things for your body like take away aches and pains and reduce fever. In large doses, well, it could kill you.

  After they gave me some activated charcoal and NAC mixed with juice, which was the antidote for acetaminophen poisoning, I was set up in a bed to be monitored. Mum went outside the room to talk with the doctor. It was some tall guy with silver hair I’d never seen before. I settled against the pillows, reached for the remote and turned the TV on to a reality show. My fingers traced the nurses’ call button.

  That was what life should’ve been: someone waiting to hear from you, someone willing to come to your aid because they knew you were in need. Attention shouldn’t have been such an expensive commodity. Imagine if people knew all they needed to get help was a simple push of a button. No explanations, no money changing hands, no skeptical looks. Just a sweet person in scrubs, smoothing back your hair, asking what she could do for you.

  On the TV, the laugh track screamed.

  Mum came back in, her face closed off, distant. “They want to keep you overnight, to make sure you’re going to be all right.”

  I nodded. “Are they going to have me speak with the psych team?” I even knew the lingo.

  “No. I was able to convince the doctor not to. I gave him Dr. Stone’s number so they can work that out between the two of them.” She looked out the window at the snow. “I should go. It’s supposed to get worse, the snow.”

  Our house was only a couple of blocks away. “You could stay here.” I tried to say it casually, like I didn’t care. I really wished I didn’t care.

  But Mum sighed. “No. I want to sleep in my own bed tonight, Saylor, unlike you.”

  “You mean you want to drink until you pass out,” I said, glaring at her.

  She got up. “I’m leaving. I have to walk, and I don’t want to walk in a bad snowfall.”

  She could’ve called a taxi; having to walk was just an excuse so she could leave. I turned on my side so I wouldn’t have to watch her go.

  My first thought as I woke up the next morning: Fucking sun. Someone had opened the blinds in my room and the sun was merrily blasting its full force through into my room. When I blinked and opened my eyes, I saw Drew sitting in a chair, watching me. He smiled.

  My palms were sweating. What did he know? How did he know I’d been admitted? Had they told him what was wrong with me? But surely if he knew, he wouldn’t be smiling at me like that. “What are you doing here?” I rubbed my eyes, sat up.

  “It sounds like you don’t want to see me, but I know better than that.” His smile morphed into a mischievous grin which I found hard to enjoy while my heart battered against my chest.

  “Seriously.” I tried to keep the panic out of my voice, but I couldn’t be sure that I’d succeeded. “How’d you get in? Don’t you have to be family for them to admit you?”

  “I let him in.” Mum came striding in, her eyes moving between Drew and me. Something glittered there, something dark and amused. It frightened me.

  Drew smiled, his expression heartbreakingly innocent and unsuspecting. I had the distinct feeling that he was some harmless creature—a ladybug or a grasshopper—that had wandered into the web my mother and I had spun. I hadn’t intended for him to get caught in it, but now that he was here, there was absolutely nothing I could do but watch him get trapped.

  “It was a pleasure meeting your friend,Saylor.” She kept that glazed smile on her face, toying with me.

  I couldn’t look at Drew or my mother. So I stared down at the IV tube in my arm and fiddled with where it was taped to the back of my hand. The pain helped me focus. It helped me remember I was the victim, that I had a legitimate reason to be there. But that was just on the surface. Underneath, I had the feeling my world was turning into insubstantial cotton, ready to float away on the first big puff of air to leave my mother’s mouth.

  But just as I was becoming resigned to this, she sighed. “Well, nice as it has been to meet one of Saylor’s friends, I’m afraid I must run. I have a class to get to.”

  Her drunk-driving class. “Oh, right.” I forced a smile, my heart speeding up again. Was she really leaving? Or would she drop the bombshell on her way out the door?

  But she extended her hand out to Drew and let him shake it.

  “It was nice to meet you, Mrs. Grayson.”

  “And you, Drew.” She smiled, held his eyes for a moment longer, and then turned to me. “I’ll be by later.”

  I nodded, and we were quiet as she walked out the door.

  Drew turned to me. “She’s really nice.” When I didn’t answer, he said, “Pierce was in the ER last night when they admitted you. I texted you late last night
and this morning, but when you didn’t answer, I came over.” He frowned. “Are you okay with this? Me being in here, I mean. You seem kinda freaked.”

  I was more than kinda freaked. This was bad. As a rule, no one came to visit me in the hospital because that just led to messy questions and messier answers. The only people allowed were my parents, and that was only because I had to have someone take care of me after. “Um, yeah...it’s just, I don’t like people seeing me like this.”

  He nodded. “Sick, you mean. I can understand that. But, you know, you’re not alone in this.”

  Questions clustered at the base of my throat, making it hard for me to breathe. I extricated one delicately. “What, um, what did my mother tell you? About why I’m in here?”

  He shrugged. “She didn’t. All she said was that they were monitoring you, and that I could ask you for details.”

  Mum had covered for me. I knew better than to think it was because she cared about me being embarrassed; it was her own reputation she was concerned about. “Oh, okay. Did you tell her you were from the TIDD group?”

  “No. Just that I was your friend.” He smiled again. “I thought it might be premature to call myself your boyfriend, since you haven’t officially called me that yet.”

  Relief coursed through me. TIDD hadn’t come up. And then another thought: Drew thought of himself as my boyfriend? I had a legitimate boyfriend. I wondered if my hair looked horrible, if my breath smelled bad. Then I wondered when I’d gotten to be one of those girls who worried about stupid shit like that.

  “You can tell people you’re my boyfriend,” I said. “I won’t mind.”

  Only a very small part of me also thought: If you introduce yourself that way, there won’t be the danger of TIDD group coming up to someone who shouldn’t know about it.

  “Oh, um, is Pierce okay? Why was he in the ER?” Now that I was certain my secret was safe, I was free to worry about other people.

  “Another complication from the sarcoma.” Drew sighed. “He was spitting up blood, but they got him stabilized.”

  The nurse bustled in then, a pleasantly plump young woman with long, wavy black locks. She smiled at the two of us. “Just coming in to take your vitals,” she said to me. “How you feelin’ this mornin’?”

  “Um, I’m okay.” I glanced at Drew. He seemed to get the message.

  “I was just leaving,” he said. “Talk to you later?”

  “Yeah.”

  He took two steps before his feet tangled together. I watched him try to lift his left foot, then overcompensate with his right when it didn’t lift as much as he expected. The result was that he fell in a twisted heap, the arm that was holding his cane tucked under his torso.

  “Oh!” The nurse left my side and hurried over to him. I jumped out of bed, was overcome with a wave of dizziness, and sat back down abruptly. The nurse looked at me.

  “Stay in bed,” she ordered. “I got him.”

  With her help, Drew picked himself off the floor. His jaw was hard, blue eyes ablaze. He refused to look at me. “Thank you,” he said to the nurse. “I have Friedrich’s Ataxia.”

  She nodded. “You okay? Why don’t I get a doctor to check you out? Make sure you didn’t hurt anything?”

  “No, thank you,” he said. “I’m fine. I have to leave anyway.”

  “Wait,” she said, putting her hand on his arm as he began to walk again. “At least let me get an aide to take you down in a wheelchair.”

  He turned to her, and in that moment, I didn’t recognize him. He looked lean and mean, a little like a fox fighting over a scrap of food. “No, thank you. I can walk.”

  He took his time, but he walked out of the room by himself. He didn’t say goodbye.

  Chapter Thirty Four

  They discharged me later that day. My liver might still suffer the consequences of my actions, but only time would tell for sure. Other than that, I was fine.

  The process was always the same: the nurse unhooked me, the doctor came in, told me I needed to see a therapist, and finished up our talk with a God-help-ya look. Pinched mouth, raised eyebrows—it was always the same.

  They told me they’d spoken with Dr. Stone’s receptionist, who said she’d have the good doctor call me himself. This was the hospital’s version of hot potato. No one wanted the douchebag patient who wanted to stay sick—I was the dregs of society relegated to the shrinks. The shrinks would take anyone.

  Mum was waiting downstairs for me, sipping a coffee. I started to wonder if it really was coffee, and then stopped myself. I wasn’t going down that road. When she saw me, she closed her newspaper and stood. “Ready?”

  “Why are you here?” I asked. “It’s not like you can drive me home.”

  Her face closed off, went blank. She was like an Etch-a-Sketch; jar her too much and she erased herself. “They wouldn’t discharge you without someone here to see you home.”

  I smirked and jingled the car keys. “It’s a case of the sick leading the sick.”

  She didn’t respond.

  Back at home, she melted away into the shadows of the house and I went to my room to get my cell phone. Drew had said he’d texted me last night; I was curious to see what he’d said, how worried he’d been. But the screen was blank—my phone was dead. I plugged it into my charger, and while it was sucking up enough juice for me to turn it on, went downstairs to grab a snack.

  My dad was in the kitchen, making himself an espresso. When I walked in, he smiled a quick, distracted sort of smile while he fiddled with the machine. “Hey, sweetheart.”

  “Hi.” I glanced at the clock on the wall: 10:15 AM. “Running late today?”

  “Ah, I’ve got a flight out at noon. I’m going to be in Arizona for a week or two.” He didn’t mention me having just been discharged from the hospital, but I wasn’t surprised. If there was something unpleasant going on, my dad left the state.

  His Blackberry buzzed on the counter. He cursed under his breath. “Just leave it. It’s probably that asshat lawyer again, trying to get me to answer. Guy’s like a goddamn Pitbull.”

  My mind flashed back to the day of Jack’s birthday party. Noah Preston was the attorney his parents couldn’t afford. I’d wondered where I knew the name from, and now I remembered: Preston was the name of the lawyer my dad didn’t want to talk to.

  I looked down at the Blackberry screen. Noah Preston wanted something from my dad—a meeting. And Jack’s parents and Drew wanted Noah Preston’s time. Quid pro quo.

  I grabbed an apple from the fruit bowl and a bottle of water from the fridge. “Have a good flight,” I said, my wheels spinning. I had some research to do.

  Back upstairs I booted up my Mac and switched on my cell phone. Surely enough, I had four missed texts and two missed calls from Drew.

  R u ok?

  Pietce said you’re in ER. Pls text me back.

  Don’t want to bug u but wprried.

  Ctl me.

  I guessed the last one was “Call me.” I read the texts over and over again. He had had a hard time getting the words out. I wondered if he’d been embarrassed about the mangled words, but too worried to delete them and try again. My heart hurt for him, for his pride and for the inevitable encroaching evidence of his disease. I listened to his voicemail.

  “Hey Saylor, it’s Drew. Um, I’ve been texting you. Don’t mean to bother you, but Pierce said he saw you in the ER and I’m worried. Really worried. Okay, just call me when you get this and you have a minute, okay? All right.”

  I felt a deep warmth radiate through me at the concern in his voice, as if I’d been wrapped in a heated blanket. I liked that he worried about me—worried so much, in fact, that he wasn’t afraid to look desperate about wanting to hear from me. I liked that a lot. I stared at his texts again, at the words he’d tried so hard to form, and an idea began to form in my mind.

  But first, I had to research Noah Preston.

  It didn’t take long for me to find Preston’s cell phone number on the inter
net. Before I dialed, I went to the hallway and peered down into the living room. There was no sound.

  “Dad?”

  He must’ve left. I walked back to my room and dialed the number, wishing I didn’t have to do it this way. I wasn’t good on the phone. That was something my generation didn’t exactly have to be good at: we were texters, master Skype conversationalists, and Twitter enthusiasts. Our phones functioned as cameras and maps and music players. Using the phone to talk on was something old people did. But Noah Preston belonged to that category, so I had to suck it up.

  “Hello?” His voice was rich and robust, and it reminded me of this very expensive bronze body oil I’d bought once on vacation.

  “Hi. I’m looking for Noah Preston?”

  “You found him sweetheart.” He said it like sweethaht, as if he was from Boston.

  “Right. My name is Saylor Grayson. Um, I think you know my dad.”

  Silence.

  “His name is Victor Grayson? He’s an attorney.” I switched the cell phone to my other hand and wiped my palm on my jeans.

  “Oh yes, the elusive Victor Grayson. And you say you’re his daughter? I’m intrigued.”

  I imagined him in a pinstripe suit, puffing away on a cigar in an office that overlooked the sea. “Well, I know you’ve been trying to contact him. I’ve seen your number on his phone.”

  “Mm hmm...”

  He was unflappable. In direct contrast, I was mopping sweat from my forehead. “I—I wanted to make a deal with you.”

  “What could I possibly have that you want, m’dear?”

  “It’s not exactly for me. It’s for a friend. I can get you a meeting with my dad, but only on the condition that you’ll meet with my friend and his parents.”

  There was a silence. Then: “Your friend, is he a potential client?”

  “Yes. And he doesn’t have a lot of money, but what he has to say is really, really important. I want you to listen to him, to really consider his case. That’s all I’m asking.”

  “And what if your father refuses to talk to me?”