“… come out there with me? The tulips are already sprouting, and I think the lilies will start in the next week or two.”
“I think I’ll just hang out here,” Maria said. She’d forgotten how important her mother’s garden had once been, and the hours they’d spent out there in the kind of silence that taught them more about each other than a thousand conversations ever could. If only time had been on her side. There were no words to explain where she was going or why she had to leave. She dropped her head onto her mother’s shoulder and wrapped her arms around her neck. It was a strange and uncomfortable embrace, not the kind either woman would have chosen for a last good-bye, and Maria dared not imagine what she would be leaving behind. Would her parents remember this? Would they mourn the loss of their daughter? Would they even go on living in this world after she left?
“I know this is going to sound crazy,” Maria said, “but promise me you’ll keep up with your mammograms. Don’t skip any years.”
“Mammograms? What are you talking about, Maria?”
“Just promise. Please.”
Her mother reached over and pulled her in for a proper hug, the aroma of her Giorgio perfume flooding Maria’s senses and forcing her back to a time when this really was her home, when the woman beside her could offer her sanctuary. “I promise I’ll take care of myself,” her mother said. “But let’s focus on you today. Let’s get you feeling better.”
“I’m so sorry, Mom. I hope you know that I never meant to do this to you and Dad.”
“You haven’t done anything to us, sweetie. Don’t worry yourself about it. Dr. Warner will know what’s going on and you’ll be back to yourself in no time.”
Her mother eased away with a gentle grace, reminding Maria that her father would be home shortly to accompany them to the doctor’s office and that she should rest before it was time to go.
And then she left.
She slipped out the back door with her gardening shoes and her wide-brimmed straw hat like their lives were not extraordinary, like her daughter was not about to disappear forever. Her mother’s absence was more intrusive than her presence, and as Maria’s fingers skimmed over the grainy, crisscrossed fabric of the couch, she could almost believe that this life was all she had. Through the window, she watched as the freshly sprouted weeds in the garden were plucked, one by one, and when her mother’s steps finally led her to the tulips, Maria eased herself from the couch and slipped into the kitchen.
The car keys had all been hidden, but the knife block was waiting for her on the far end of the counter, the glistening steel blades lined up like perfect soldiers. Maria ran the chiseled edge of the butcher’s knife over the tip of her finger, allowing the waves of angst to ripple through her body, before she returned it to its sheath.
It was the paring knife beside it that she needed—not nearly as grand and menacing, but razor sharp and wieldy. The cold metal pressed against the thin flesh of her inner wrist when she slid it up her sleeve, trying to conceal it from the watchful eyes of her grandmother, whose portrait hung on the wall. Maria slinked by her, and the rest of the family, down the narrowing corridor of the hallway and into the sanctuary of her bedroom.
The steel glistened from the side of the tub while the water rose higher and higher, sending an uncontrollable shudder through Maria’s body. It was a deed that would take more willpower than she possessed, of that she was sure, and as she sank into the tepid water, sweat trickled down her chest and into the thin creases of her belly. Will and her daughters were waiting for her when she shut her eyes, splashing through the surf and beckoning her to them under a warm and radiant sun.
“I’m coming,” she whispered, but her hands shook uncontrollably and the blue veins mapping across her inner wrists retreated like they were anticipating her actions. The knife handle was slick in her hand, and the cold steel against her skin nauseating, and despite the steam from the water, goose bumps dotted her arms. Her eyes stung from the sweat that seeped into them.
This was what Sylvia had been trying to tell her, she was certain of it. Slit your wrists and you can go home. But as the weight of the blade sank into the hollow of skin on her inner arm, Maria could feel her resolve waning. Maybe she was wrong. Maybe the images from her dream were just fantasy, and the gashes across her wrists that had throbbed even after she awoke were just lingering memories from a desperate subconscious trying to rid itself of guilt. Maybe Sylvia hadn’t killed herself to go home and Maria really had just failed her as a doctor.
“Please make this stop.” Her gaze floated up toward the ceiling, but her words crashed back down around her, drowning in the tub full of water. “I just want to go home. Please, just let me go home.”
God brought me back for a special purpose.
Sylvia’s words hammered into her thoughts, louder and louder, until she couldn’t make sense of anything. How could she be a seventeen-year-old girl sitting in a bathtub about to end her life in a deed so selfish and grotesque?
“I’m going home.” She repeated the words over and over, needing to believe them so her body could do what her mind wouldn’t allow her to do.
I’m here to protect you.
“I’m going home.”
Her body sank deeper into the water as a careless hand drifted over her barren belly and her mind grasped for the fluid image of her family. She reached for the knife one last time as an eerie silence blanketed the bathroom. The ping of water droplets dripping into the tub echoed through her ears, and the sporadic whispers of her own breath amplified in her head.
“I’m going home.”
One purpose. You get one chance.
“Stop it, Sylvia!”
The tip of the blade eased into the delicate skin of her wrist, and with a tenacity she had never known, Maria pushed until the steel disappeared beneath her skin. The pain was exquisite, and as tendons and vessels were torn from her arm she watched in horrid fascination, as if she were no longer a part of her body.
Swirls of pink danced through the water around her before vanishing under her body, and when she pulled the knife from her arm, crimson blood poured from her wound. The only sound was the roaring of her pulse inside her head, beating in time with the flow of blood from her arm, and after the world around her dimmed, it disappeared through a narrowing black tunnel. When the pulsating beat in her head ceased, the silence was complete, and for a moment there was nothing. Not even pain. Just blackness.
“Maria…” The voice was barely audible. “Maria.”
“Will?” She struggled to force the word from her mouth, but he was too far away to hear her.
“Maria!”
“Dad?” The sound of her name grew louder as her confusion deepened. The words, one moment her father’s and the next moment Will’s, intensified, until the man who spoke them was right by her side.
“Maria, hang on! Please, baby, hang on!”
“Will, it worked.”
Her voice was so weak she couldn’t hear her own words, but she was home and Will was by her side. Her smile faded under the watchful eye of her husband as she allowed herself to drift into blackness.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
LIGHTS FLASHED THROUGH MARIA’S EYES AS consciousness seeped in. The wheels of a stretcher whisked her through a hospital corridor as a face hovered above her and a stifled voice tried to force its way into her ears.
“… in there, Maria. Please, baby, just hang on.”
When the face came into focus, it was Will’s, but Maria’s voice was weak and muffled and her words couldn’t reach him. A hand from nowhere pressed an oxygen mask against her face. The mask fogged up with each breath, and the pain that tore through her abdomen, the hard contractions of labor, was unlike any Maria had ever known. Her vision waxed and waned like the tide, and when her husband came into focus again, his hands and face were stained with spatters of blood that could only be hers.
“Please don’t let him die.”
The words were just a whisper on he
r lips, but they echoed through her mind as she watched a terror she had never witnessed bleed through her husband’s eyes.
“Please, Maria. Please, baby, just hang on!” The darkness closed in again, and Will’s face faded away.
“Please,” she whispered into the blackness. “Please don’t let him die.”
* * *
When the lights returned, unrecognizable faces floated in and out of view as white coats bustled around in a frenzy. Voices yelled in the distance.
“I think she’s awake!”
“Get her sedated and intubated now!”
Maria fought with the oxygen mask still strapped to her face, and through shallow gasps of breath, pleaded with the woman standing over her.
“Please don’t let my baby die.”
As the voices shuffled to the background she felt herself drifting back to the darkness.
“Is she pregnant?”
“Someone get an HcG on that blood, stat!”
* * *
The scene was dimmed, and a calmness had settled in. There were no faces floating above her. Only silence, except for the hum of machines. Her throat burned, and when she tried to swallow, it felt like shards of glass were tearing through her esophagus.
“Maria?”
An unfamiliar voice attached to an unfamiliar face loomed over her. She was a bone-thin woman, likely in her fifties, but the wiry gray of her hair and the coarse wrinkles surrounding her eyes and mouth from decades of smoking made her look closer to seventy. She brought a Styrofoam cup of ice water to Maria’s lips with a straw. “Your throat’s gonna be real scratchy for a few days. Why don’t you see if you can get some of this water down?”
“What happened?” Maria’s words were just a whisper, but the pain was phenomenal.
“You had a tube in your throat that was breathing for you. We took it out yesterday, but sometimes it can take a few days before the swelling goes down.”
The woman placed the cup on a table next to the bed, and Maria managed to glimpse the RN behind a name she couldn’t quite make out on the name tag.
Her memory was hazy, but she knew that she was home, and she knew that her husband was there because she had seen him. It wasn’t until she reached for the cup of ice water on the table beside her that she realized her wrists were bound to the bed by leather restraints.
“Why are my arms tied down?”
“It happens sometimes in the ICU,” the nurse said. “You were givin’ us a hard time trying to pull that breathing tube out and get at your IV. Once you’re feeling more settled down, we’ll get them undone.”
“You can undo them now,” Maria whispered. “I’m fine.”
“It’s not up to me, honey.”
The room was empty but for some flowers and cards in the corner and a couple of empty plastic chairs by the bed. Recessed and dimmed lights provided a muted glow over it all, casting an artificial calm across the room. Maria’s nurse kept herself busy recording vital signs.
“How long have I been here?” Maria asked.
“You came in about a week ago.”
“Where is everyone?”
“I’ll get your family in just a bit. Visiting hours are over, but they stay camped out in the waiting room. I can sneak ’em in for a couple minutes.”
When she closed her eyes, she could almost feel the velvet of Emily’s cheeks against her own and the grip of Charlotte’s arms around her neck as her daughter’s breath tickled her ear. She could smell Will’s cologne as he leaned in to place a gentle kiss on her forehead and whisper that he loved her.
“Maria.”
Her name rang through the air in a voice that didn’t belong to any of them. It came from a woman who was supposed to be dead.
“What is she doing here?”
Maria’s throat tore as she recoiled in terror, the restraints holding strong when she yanked against them, desperate to distance herself from her approaching mother.
“Maria, please,” her mother said, as she reached for a hand that Maria was powerless to withdraw.
“Where’s Will? Where’s my husband? Where are my children?” Her eyes flashed to the hospital blankets tucked firmly around her flat, babyless belly. “Where is he?” she screamed. “What happened to my baby?”
A baritone voice boomed over the commotion of the room as a team of medical staff swarmed in and shuffled her mother to the background. “Give her five milligrams of Haldol IV and get psych back up here.”
Maria thrashed and writhed against the leather restraints, and only when a familiar searing pain ripped through her arm did she remember what she had done. Her nurse approached, a syringe of Haldol at the ready, and reached for the IV bag hanging by Maria’s bed. “We’re just gonna give you a little something to help you relax,” she said, her throaty voice and the twang of her backwoods accent heightened. Maria caught the name printed on her name tag: Joanie, RN.
“Joanie, please don’t. I’ll calm down. I promise. Please don’t give me Haldol.”
The nurse cast a hesitant glance toward the doctor who had ordered it, but he nodded his head and the medicine was pumped into Maria’s veins.
“I’m sorry, sweetie, but this is gonna help you rest, and you’ll feel better when you wake up.” She smoothed Maria’s hair back and pulled the matted strands from her face as Maria’s body stilled.
“Why are you doing this to me?”
Her words were thick and heavy as the Haldol hit its target and she faded back into the darkness.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
jenny
STEAM SWIRLED UP FROM THE BLACKNESS, the scent of hazelnut coffee lingering in the air as Jenny set the mug in front of Hank at the kitchen table. He smiled up at her, his eyes still drowsy from sleep and the shadows beneath them accented by the natural light shining through the window. She added a spoonful of sugar and a splash of cream to her coffee before she glanced out the kitchen window toward the shed. She was too busy plotting her way out there to notice that his attention had drifted past her to the screen door. It squeaked just moments before it closed, but Jenny still jumped when it banged shut.
“Sorry,” Dean mumbled as he crossed the kitchen. “Didn’t mean to scare you.” He pulled a mug from the cabinet and filled it with coffee before he turned back to Jenny. “You’re awfully jumpy this morning.”
“No, I just…” Her heart was pounding so fiercely, she expected both her husband and son could hear it, and she had to catch her breath before she continued. “I thought you were still in bed. What were you doing out there?”
“I couldn’t sleep,” Dean replied as he took a sip of coffee and sat down beside his father. “I got up early and went for a walk.”
“A walk?”
Jenny glanced back at the door, trying to quell the urge to question her son about what he may have stumbled upon out there, certain he would mention if he’d seen anything peculiar. She cringed when she thought about what she might find when she finally made her way out to the shed. Would Rachel be gone? Would there be a note? Would she be dead?
“Where’d you go?” she said.
Dean shrugged as he stood up and walked toward the hallway. “All over,” he mumbled, the tension from their argument the previous night still thick in the air between them. “I’m going to pack up and head back to school early today. I’ve got some projects due next week that I need to work on.”
Jenny watched as he disappeared down the hallway, barely able to restrain herself from following him and pulling him into a tight hug and telling him how much she loved him. He was wrong for speaking to her like that, but he was her son, and what wouldn’t she do for a little more time with her son?
“So, what was it you were going to tell me last night,” Hank said, “before we got interrupted?”
When he smiled, the creases in the corners of his eyes deepened, adding an unexpected charm to his features. Jenny had those creases too, but hers didn’t add anything but years to her face. She’d forgotten she was about t
o spill her secrets to him the previous night. In the sobering light of morning, she couldn’t imagine how she’d ever thought that was a good idea. All she could think about as she sipped her coffee and watched her husband over the rim of the cup was getting him out of the kitchen so she could get back to the shed.
“I can’t remember now,” she laughed. “Must not have been too important.”
“I guess not,” he replied, rinsing out his coffee cup and placing it in the sink. “You have any plans for us today? I was thinking about heading out to Stark Bayou with some of the guys from work.”
“No plans.” Jenny gulped down the gritty remnants of her coffee and smiled up at her husband. “I have some things to take care of around the house, so take your time. Have fun.”
She didn’t leave the kitchen until her husband and son were both out of the house. She paced the floor, brewed another pot of coffee, and checked the clock on the wall at least a dozen times, praying to God that Rachel wouldn’t appear at the back door or poke her head out of the shed before they were gone. Despite the promise Rachel had made to be gone by morning, Jenny had her doubts. She waited until the dust settled behind Hank’s truck before she ventured out the screen door, careful not to let it slam behind her.
A thick film coated the window on the side wall of the shed, and even when Jenny pressed her face up to it, she couldn’t see in. It wasn’t until she opened the door that she saw Rachel lying in the corner, in the exact spot she’d been in the previous night. Her head was slumped forward, and Jenny couldn’t pull her eyes from the quilt, straining to see if it was rising and falling over Rachel’s chest.
She stepped over the concrete floor, careful not to bump Rachel, and leaned against the wall across from the window. The pane was equally filthy on the inside, and so little light penetrated it that the room had an almost underground feel, like a tomb.
“You’re supposed to be gone,” Jenny whispered, crouching down beside her. She was surprised to find Rachel fully awake, her eyes open and her fingers fumbling with a dirty piece of notebook paper that had been folded into a tiny square.
She Wouldn't Change a Thing Page 10