The Waiting Room

by Emily Bleeker

  He was interesting to look at in a lot of ways, and the proportions of his body made her think of drawing models of different body types in college. During figure drawing she’d learned to mute the part of her brain that looked at a body as something to be attracted to, but tonight, with the soft hum of alcohol in her veins and clouding her mind, she couldn’t stop wondering what it would feel like to touch his hand. Would it be warm or cold from where the drink pressed against it?

  Veronica looked away from Mark’s pressing deep-blue eyes and swallowed against her dry tongue, scrunching her eyelids together. This was not like her. She couldn’t look at another man, not seven months after Nick died and maybe not ever again. She ran her thumb over the back of her ring finger on her left hand. She took in a sharp breath. It was missing. Where was it? Maybe she forgot to put it back on after her shower? She’d never forgotten—never. Why did she forget today?

  “I’m sorry, Mark, I might be making assumptions, but . . . I’m not ready yet. In my heart, I’m still married. I know it sounds crazy, but I can’t help it.” A lump was forming in her throat. She’d forgotten her ring. What kind of wife was she? The tears gathered in her eyes, but she tried to blink them back, terrified by the idea of crying in front of this man. But instead of pushing her further for a date or even continuing their flirtatious banter, he sat back on his stool and put his drink down.

  “Veronica,” he said in a deep and warm tone, “I think it’s beautiful that you love so deeply and loyally. Your Nick was a lucky guy. My ex couldn’t even remember she was married before our divorce much less after. You must’ve been a good wife.” He said it as though he’d just made the discovery.

  “I don’t know about that,” she said, wishing it were true but knowing she could’ve been a better wife in a lot of ways. She’d been average at best, and there had been some explosive arguments over the years. Just because she loved her husband and missed him didn’t make her perfect, but why did she need to share any of that with him? Veronica opened her mouth to say . . . something that made sense. It was easier shutting everyone out; this being-nice thing sucked.

  “I . . . ,” she started, but the stool to her right wobbled, and a small soft hand was on her back.

  “I’m so sorry I was late.” Gillian. Finally. Veronica smiled with relief, and it must’ve shown, because Gillian immediately glanced at Mark and sized him up with her eyes, starting when she seemed to recognize him. At first Veronica thought Gillian was going to make a comment, but instead she refocused on her friend. “I have a reservation. Let’s get to our table and get you some food.”

  Veronica nodded at Gillian and then turned to get her drink and say goodbye to Mark, but he was already walking away. On the counter there was a white card; this one was upside down with a personal message written on the back. Veronica palmed it, not wanting Gillian to know she’d been mildly flirting when she played the role of mourning widow so often. Mark disappeared into the crowded dining room, and Veronica couldn’t seem to locate him as she followed Gillian and the hostess to their table.

  How was she supposed to feel about their discussion and about the part of herself she hadn’t connected with in so long? Should she feel guilty . . . or relieved that she could even find the woman part of her again, the part that flirted and found men attractive? Surely in bed later she’d regret it—the drinks, the smiles, the laughter. But right now, she said yes when offered a glass of wine and no when asked if she wanted dinner, already feeling a little nauseated. She smiled as Gillian talked about Christopher, nodded when she talked about her divorce, and, most of all, pretended that she wasn’t secretly dying to read the message on the back of Mark’s business card through it all.

  CHAPTER 10

  Don’t hesitate to call. —Mark

  Veronica looked at the card again and then flipped it over to the familiar front. She hadn’t looked at it very closely the first time he gave it to her at the supermarket, didn’t even care about the bank logo at the top or his last name, but tonight she took in every detail. She’d been shy after Gillian’s loud realizations about Mark, but soon found that the alcohol and the relief at having someone to talk to trumped embarrassment.

  “Are you going to call him?” Gillian glanced at her from the driver seat of her 2003 Civic, stepping on the brake in several short jerks till they stopped at a red light. There was a piece of tape over the indoor light switch, keeping it in the off position, and all the slats on the air vent in front of Veronica were broken off, leaving a gaping hole shooting out lukewarm air. If she wasn’t feeling nauseated before, after drinking more than she had in nearly eighteen months, she was now.

  “Call him? No. No way.” She covered her mouth, wishing that she’d at least eaten something before drinking two gin and tonics and two glasses of wine. Her head was spinning, and the thrilling comfort of the early effect of the alcohol was starting to turn into an angry visitor who had stayed too long. The world blurred around her, and she focused on all the wrong things, like how the crack in the door handle pinched her palm when she closed the car door and the length of the red light that she swore was half as long last time she went down Main Street.

  “I’ve always thought he was handsome in the waiting room, but tonight he was really charming, don’t you think?” Gillian smiled, the one glass of wine she’d had with her dinner merely having a calming effect. Apparently, it wasn’t just Christopher’s twenty-first birthday they were celebrating; Gillian’s divorce was also very recently official. It was more than Veronica had signed on for. She’d said drinks and bristled at the idea of having a full-blown dinner with the woman she had nothing in common with. Plus, dinner meant she had to stay. Drinks meant she could walk out the door at any moment. She watched Gillian eat as Veronica nibbled on bread, but as she loosened up and they came to talk about Christopher’s birthday and memories of his too-short life, there was some comfort in finding out that it was normal to kind of wither when you lost part of your soul.

  Gillian was better at mourning. She said it was because she’d had more time to get used to the process, Christopher having passed from cancer two years earlier at eighteen, but Veronica still sat back in awe at the way Gillian could talk about her lost child without breaking down into fits of “life isn’t fair” and “why me.” Gillian didn’t even feel bad for herself about her jerk of an ex and the drawn-out divorce she’d just been dragged through. Drunk Veronica suddenly hated sober Veronica for not being kinder to this flawed but strong woman. She slapped the door handle and flinched back from the pinch of plastic again.

  “You shouldn’t be so nice to me,” she slurred. “I’m a bitch.”

  Gillian turned the wheel hand over hand into Veronica’s driveway and put the manual stick shift into park.

  “Oh, sweetie, you aren’t a bitch.”

  “You said ‘bitch.’” Veronica laughed. Gillian’s sweet Southern drawl sounded out of place when wrapped around that word.

  “Yeah, yeah. Tease me all you want, but you aren’t a bad person, Veronica.” She shifted her body so it turned sideways in the seat. “Carl worked in Tramway when Christopher was little, before he started working road construction. Anyway, he was one of the animal control officers that took a skunk out of someone’s attic or whatever. One day he had a call about a coyote with an injured leg limping around this really up-class golf course, so he went out to trap it and bring it in to see the vet at the wildlife preserve. When he got there, it had a piece of barbed wire wrapped around one of its back legs and hip. Every step he took, it dug in deeper, and it kept getting caught on tree trunks and shrubs, just tearing the little thing to shreds.

  “One of the groundskeepers had been trying to trap the creature all by himself and had it cornered between two buildings and the chain-link fence by the pool. Carl said the creature was bleeding and frantic and snapped at anything that even came close to touching it. The groundskeeper kept staying stuff like, ‘We just wanna help you,’ and other stuff, but of course the w
ild animal had no idea what he was talking about.

  “After checking out the situation, Carl went back to the van to get some supplies he knew he’d need to trap the thing alive, but while he was gone, he heard this horrible scream. Carl ran back and found the groundskeeper lying on the ground, the coyote on top of him, jaws around his neck. Carl had to shoot it. The groundskeeper almost died on the scene, severed his jugular, eventually lost his arm from an infection.

  “When Carl got home, he sat Christopher down and gave him a very serious talk about how an injured animal is the most dangerous kind—even the gentlest of creatures will bite or scratch when injured and trapped. He told him that it takes a trained professional with the right tools to get it right. That coyote would be alive and the groundskeeper would still have an arm if he had just waited for help.”

  It was hard for Veronica to keep up with all the pieces of the story, but the image of a seething coyote, bleeding and wrapped in barbed wire, was vivid and for some reason almost too familiar. She ran her hand over her face and through her thin shoulder-length bob, the nausea making her want to escape almost as much as the story did.

  “How does any of that make me not a bitch? You deserve a better friend than me. I can’t be a friend to anyone right now. I can’t even hold my own baby, Gillian. I can’t help you.”

  “Help me?” Gillian chuckled softly, her soft midsection rising and falling with the laugh. “Sweetie, I’m the one helping you. You are the injured coyote. You are hurt, lovie. Of course you are snapping and snarling and tripping around aimlessly. You are trapped in barbed wire, and it hurts worse the more you try to get out of it, and you try to bite any hand that tries to help you.”

  Veronica hesitated, her clouded mind halfway getting the metaphor but also not liking it, wanting to get out, wanting to lie in her own bed and go to sleep and forget the hard parts of that night and maybe even forget the way Mark’s smile made her feel and how nice it was to have Gillian as a friend.

  “Well, if I’m the coyote, then you are the groundskeeper. You don’t know how to help me; that’s Lisa’s job, and if you aren’t careful, I might hurt you. I bite. I maim. I ruin everything good in my life.”

  Veronica snatched her purse off the floor of the car and yanked at the door handle with no luck, popped the lock, and tried again, desperate to be free of the rush of warm air in her face, the sad duct tape she was tempted to yank off the switch, and the sympathetic smile on Gillian’s helpful face.

  “Veronica, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to . . .”

  Veronica slammed the car door hard behind her and stumbled on the driveway. The hot summer night didn’t bring any relief to the bile rising in her throat. The house seemed miles away, and each wobbly step on her heels made Veronica feel as though she were going to fall off a fifty-foot cliff. With very little effort, she slipped out of the nude heels and stepped into the cool grass of her front yard. Everything seemed easier as she tiptoed through the lawn and then dashed up the rough wooden steps to the rubberized welcome mat. There were only four things in her clutch purse: a tube of tinted ChapStick, a wad of cash, her phone, and her keys. Gillian had gotten Veronica’s car from the valet and moved it into the parking lot of the strip mall next door with promises to help her retrieve it in the morning. That seemed like a really good idea, since Veronica was in no position to drive or walk or even open her front door.

  With some extended effort, she worked the dead bolt and broke the seal to her front door, the alarm beeping and starting the two-minute countdown to put in the code before alarms went off. Gillian’s headlights shone through the front windows, leaving wavy shadows through the foyer and formal sitting room.

  Damn it—she waited till I got inside to leave, she thought, skipping annoyance at Gillian’s unending kindness and diving right into frustrated fury. Gillian really thought she was going to find the special magical way to help Veronica? Nah, no one could help her. No one. She closed the front door quickly, hoping Gillian finally got the message and would leave her alone.

  The house was dark and quiet. Her mom must’ve gone to bed hours ago. There was one “welcome home” light left on in the kitchen like her mother used to do when she was a teen and would go out to a party with friends. She loved that light as a kid; it let her know that even though her mom was asleep, she was waiting for her to come home. Tears built up in Veronica’s eyes. She’d been a bitch to her mom too. Worst daughter ever. Used her like a slave, yelled at her for doing everything wrong, blaming her for her father leaving, not even trying to get help. Why did her mom even want her to come home? She should’ve left the light off and bolted the front door.

  Veronica dropped the clutch on the side table in the front room and missed. It fell to the floor with a loud clack, her smartphone still inside. Another fail.

  “What an idiot,” she told herself, holding the wall for support as she headed into the kitchen. Pulling harder than she meant to, Veronica opened the cabinets under the sink and grabbed the half-full bottle of cooking wine there. She’d felt stronger before, when she was drinking with Mark, talking to Gillian. She just needed another drink, get rid of the nausea; get rid of the guilt and the pain. The bottle clanked when she set it down on the counter.

  “Shhhh,” she whispered. If she wasn’t careful, she’d wake up Sophie, and then her mother would wake up and see how stupid drunk her grown daughter was.

  Sophie.

  Veronica untwisted the cap on the bottle and took a long swig, not even tasting the thick fluid as it rushed down her throat. She broke the suction, liquid spraying out from the corners of her mouth, which she wiped away in a sloppy swipe.

  Yes, Sophie. She was asleep upstairs just like when Veronica had left. She could try now. She could try to touch her or at least pull up her blanket or smooth her hair. Something.

  Veronica reapplied the lid to the wine bottle the best she could and then turned off the light in the kitchen and made her way in the darkness to the stairs. There were thirteen wooden stairs with a carpet runner up the middle; she’d counted all thirteen every day, both ways, for five months. At the top was Sophie’s room. She placed her foot in the middle of the runner on the first step, counting and planning.

  One. Two. She’d open the door. Three. Four. She’d walk into Sophie’s room and force her heart to not pound with anticipation. Five. Six. Seven. She’d walk over to Sophie’s crib and look inside. Eight. Nine. Ten. She’d place her hand on Sophie’s back and feel her breathing through her little cotton onesie. Veronica paused; the top of the stairs was so close. She could dash up them in one giant leap if she really wanted to, but if she was being honest, she felt a little too tipsy for any kind of superhero gimmicks. Her head was already spinning nearly as much as her stomach was churning. She had to do it now; it was her only hope. She held her breath, tensed the muscles in her legs, and lurched forward. Eleven. Twelve. Thirteen.

  On the landing at the top of the stairs, Veronica turned and faced Sophie’s door. It was time. Tonight she’d hold her daughter. Tonight she’d make Nick proud. Tonight would be the start of the rest of her life.

  CHAPTER 11

  The sun played against Veronica’s closed eyelids, a reddish-orange light breaking through the darkness of her oblivion. She’d been asleep, but she was sitting up, her arms folded across her chest and shoulders chilled by the air-conditioned room. Even through the barrier of skin, the light hurt her eyes and made her head pound between her eyebrows as if a nail were driving deeper into her forehead with each waking moment. She went to rub her eyes with her hands, but a soft blanket met her face instead. It smelled of Sophie’s special laundry detergent and felt like the well-worn flannel shirts Veronica’s father had abandoned when he moved out and that she used to wear on cold days in Massachusetts.

  The chair swayed beneath her, and Veronica suddenly realized where she was—Sophie’s room. She was sitting in the rocker usually reserved for her mother during feedings. With a quick squint, she tried to make out whet
her Sophie was awake or not but couldn’t keep her eyes open long with the morning sun pouring in through a rebellious opening in the middle of Sophie’s blackout curtains. There were no little cries or whimpers, not even the shuffle of a baby rolling around or soft sigh of wispy breaths. Either she was asleep or her mother had already gotten her for the day.

  Shielding her eyes as effectively as possible, Veronica scooched to the edge of the rocking chair, away from the burning slat of light, and opened her eyes. As she’d suspected, Sophie’s bed was empty. The sheet was crisp and pink despite it being laundry day, and Sophie’s special blanket lay on the floor at Veronica’s feet. She leaned over to pick it up.

  It was comforting between her fingers, and she placed it in the crib where Sophie would normally be sleeping, with little to no anxiety. She was in her daughter’s room right now. She barely remembered it, but she crossed that threshold and sat in the rocking chair that she had avoided for so many months.

  Had she touched Sophie last night like she’d been planning? The evening went fuzzy after she got home, and besides a slow ascent to the second floor and grand plans for fixing all the hard parts of her life in one drunken moment, she couldn’t seem to make out what had happened once she got to the top of the stairs. Obviously, it had been something good, very good. Just the thought of crossing the threshold into Sophie’s room was usually enough to bring on an anxiety attack and prompt her to go run for a million miles till the panic went away, but not today. Today she felt rested and calm, almost normal.