Behind The Pines

by Lauren Brown

  They prescribed me some pain medication and cleared me to go home in two weeks, assuming I convalesced appropriately and the graft took to my face. I didn’t look at them the entire time they spoke, just stared out my hospital window. The drugs they prescribed wouldn’t help with the pain I was suffering. There was and never will be a cure for a broken heart.

  Sarah came in when they left and sat in the chair beside the bed.

  “John, how’re you doing?”

  I didn’t answer.

  “I have to go soon. I’m being transferred to an assisted living home closer to where we live, and the movers are waiting on me. I’ll be back to help with everything, I promise.”

  “Sarah…”

  She sighed. “Oh John,” is all she could say. She squeezed my hand, then stood to leave. “I’ll be back in a few weeks. Beau and Janie are here to take you to their house. We’ll get through this, John.”

  I stared out the window and watched the rain and, for every raindrop, I must have cried ten thousand tears.

  Soon though, I ran out of tears. The only thing that remained in me was an emptiness; a void that could never be filled. All I could do was blame myself. I knew he had done it. I knew it was the Bear who had killed my love, my Hope. But I still couldn’t help but blame myself. Had I never made the deal with him, Hope and my child would still be here.

  I sat on Beau and Janie’s couch and stared. I didn’t turn on the TV. I just stared. Beau had his office staff step in and help Marty and Beth cancel all my appointments. Beau was treating a few of my patients for me. It had been a week since I left the hospital and Sarah would be arriving soon. Once she arrived, she would help me move to an apartment. Beau and Janie protested, claiming I could stay with them as long as I wanted, but I couldn’t. All I wanted was to be alone.

  The police had come to talk to me at one point. They first proposed that a cigarette had started the fire. They had found two on the property.

  “A cigarette!” I yelled at the officers who looked at each other at my outburst. “Hope didn’t smoke cigarettes.” They glanced at each other with raised eyebrows as if I was the crazy husband whose wife was a closet smoker, and I had just never known about it. But I said it again, “Hope didn’t smoke cigarettes. She was pregnant and she used to beg me to quit in medical school.” I shook my head. “How could you not get to her!” I snapped at a fireman who accompanied the officers.

  “John, she was in the basement. It was the last place we expected to find her. She must have been trapped somehow.”

  I thought about how the door locked from the outside.

  Eventually, they decided the fire was due to a gas leak in the kitchen. It was an older home, refurbished on the outside, they had said, but the stove hadn’t been replaced. The police had come to ask me about details leading up to the incident but, seeing how distraught I was, had decided they’d talk to Beau instead.

  I hadn’t eaten or shaved in days, I tried to shower, but after nearly passing out, Beau suggested I take baths instead. I had to take medication to sleep at night, and even that didn’t always work. On those long nights, I often thought about the gun in my safe. How at any point I could pull the trigger and put an end to my misery. A bullet straight through my medulla. But for some reason, I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. My depression was a gravity I couldn’t escape; a weight keeping me confined in a dark, dark place.

  Sarah helped me move into my apartment the day after Christmas.

  “Call me if you need me, John. I start my new job on Monday.”

  I didn’t respond.

  “I’m only a phone call away. Don’t hesitate.” She wrapped her arms around my neck and squeezed me tight before leaving.

  I didn’t have any furniture. My only possession was my briefcase.

  I took two sleeping pills and collapsed on the air mattress Sarah had put in my empty living room. I was almost asleep when I heard a loud pounding on my door.

  I opened it to see Rick smoking a cigarette. My heart skipped a beat, my chest clenching a little tighter.

  I tried to slam the door in his face but he stuck out his hand to stop it.

  “The Bear wanted me to give you this.” He pulled out an envelope from his jacket. It was addressed John.

  “I don’t want it.”

  “All right then.” He tossed the envelope at me and walked away.

  I let the envelope sit outside my door. I returned to the mattress and tried to escape the pain. Beth had called me the day before to ask how I was doing. I think she wanted to know when the office would open again, but she didn’t ask. All the people I knew before the fire had grown distant to me. Seeing Rick, seeing Sarah, hearing Beth on the phone, was like seeing and hearing ghosts; ghosts that haunted me from my past.

  I closed my eyes, then my fists, for hours. I just squeezed them shut harder and harder until I fell asleep.

  I woke to see the envelope in front of me on the inside of my door. Rick must have come back and slid it underneath. I debated opening it all morning. I only got off the floor to go to the bathroom. I glared at my name on the envelope for several hours before finally deciding to open it.

  I crawled to it, tearing it open slowly. I was surprised by how little was written.

  9:00 a.m. Saturday.

  I read the time out loud over and over, slowly getting louder until I was screaming. Up to that point, I had only felt despair, but in that moment, reading the letter, I felt a hatred I had never felt before. I yelled, ripped the letter into shreds, and punched the floor until my knuckles started to bleed. The freshly healed bones in my nose shook, piercing my whole face with stabbing pain.

  I stood and paced the room, running my hands through my hair. My heart was beating fast as I grabbed my keys and stormed out of my apartment.

  I drove fast to my office. The only sound was that of the road under my tires and my heavy breathing.

  I pulled up to my clinic, walked past the growing weeds and unlocked the lobby door. The lights were off and the lobby was cold. I walked straight to my office, unlocked it, and opened my safe. I grabbed my 9 mm gun.

  I’ll meet him tomorrow all right.

  Chapter 15

  December 27, 2004

  I rose from my apartment floor in the morning angrier than the day before. I sat by my door, turning the gun over and over in my hand. I opened it periodically, even though I already knew it was loaded.

  I walked to my truck with the gun tucked into the back of my khakis with my shirt concealing it.

  I pulled up to his house just as the sun was making its way above the trees. There were two cars parked beside his guesthouse. I sat outside for several moments, my hatred growing within me. I looked in the mirror and was baffled to see myself. My eyes were dark and my frown seemed to have left permanent wrinkles in my cheeks. The skin on my jaw and neck had just started to return, but in a deformed manner. A fading green bruise painted the side of my nose. I slowly got out of the truck and walked up to his house. The front door opened before I could reach the handle. I stepped inside and suddenly felt a sharp pain shoot from the back of my head to my toes before collapsing to the floor.

  I awoke after some time tied to a chair in the Bear’s office. The back of my head throbbed. I forced an eye open, wincing at the pain in my head, then the other and began to panic. I tried to maneuver my way out of the rope but couldn’t. I threw all my weight into the chair over and over trying to escape. I heard Rick snicker in front of me as I strained to reach my gun.

  “It ain’t in there.” I looked at Rick. A tall, slim redheaded man I had never met before stood next to him. Rick was holding my gun. I shook violently trying to free myself when I heard the Bear enter from behind me.

  “Well hello, John.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  The Bear walked to his desk. He was wearing the grizzly mask I had seen that night Martin was murdered.

  He took it off and set it on his desk so that its gaping mouth was facing
my direction. “Look familiar?” he asked with a grin. He smoothed his hair before taking a seat. “You were right all along, John. I did indeed kill Martin Murray.” He opened a drawer and placed his revolver on his desk. “I blew his head clean off his shoulders with this beauty right here. The same 357 Magnum that I used to kill that grizzly on my wall, and the same 357 Magnum that I used to kill your wife. Just before I lit her on fire. You should have seen the look on her face when she saw me in this thing.”

  He paused reflecting on the moment. “You look like death,” he said. “And those scars are terrifying. Let them be a constant reminder of what you lost and who you are dealing with.”

  I gritted my teeth straining to free my hands.

  He retrieved a small baggie from his pant pocket and sprinkled cocaine onto his desk. He pinched the side of his nose, leaned down, and snorted the line. He shook his head and forced out a hard breath. He was quiet for several minutes as he let the drug take effect then continued, “Look, I know it’s hard. You being here in my home and everything, but”—he stood, wiped his nose, and walked to the front of his desk—“we have some unfinished business to discuss.”

  “Bullshit,” I spat in his face.

  Rick moved closer.

  The Bear put up his hand. “There’s no need, Rick. Don’t worry. John here is too weak to do anything to me. You’re a pain doctor, John. If anyone should be able to manage his or her pain in a mature manner, it should be you. I brought you here to finish our business. I warned you there would be consequences for not fulfilling your part of the deal. You know you brought all of this upon yourself.”

  I glared at him with disgust.

  “You owe me, John Livingston.”

  I hung my head when I realized there was nothing I could do. I had wanted to watch my bullet go in between his eyes and shatter his skull. I wanted to see him fall on his desk and bleed out slowly.

  “You want to know how it happened, John?”

  I clenched my eyes breathing hard. I tried to remove myself mentally before he could say it.

  “I love a good fire. The smell of burning wood is comforting to me. Remember how I told you my father died in a house fire. I can’t begin to tell you how good I felt in that moment, watching him burn, but I felt even better watching your wife and, son, was it? You were going to have a son, weren’t you?”

  I was clenching my teeth together so hard I thought they would break.

  “Yes, I believe it was. Well watching them burn was…exhilarating. Shooting her was the boring part. I have the bullet and its casing. Do you want them?”

  I let out a scream.

  He let me finish and regain my breath before continuing, “The deal isn’t over until my guys in Rio have what they want. I’m not risking all I have worked for because some coward doctor won’t agree to his end of the deal. So, you’re going to do as I say. You’re going to repay me what you owe me, or I’ll finish you here and now.” I heard him shuffle around in his desk for some papers. He got up from his chair and walked in front of me. He squatted to meet me eye to eye.

  “Look at this John.” I didn’t open my eyes. “Look at it!” He screamed in my face.

  He was holding a picture of Beau and Janie and one of Sarah. “I will burn all of them, do you understand me, all of them alive if you do not cooperate. Do you think that’s what Hope would want, John?”

  My eyes swelled with tears at the mention of her name. He returned to his desk and took a seat.

  “Here’s what you’re going to do”—he leaned forward, jabbing his finger into his desk—“you’re going to work for me for the next year. You’re going to close your office and go on ‘a soul searching hike,’ a pretend hike through the Appalachian Trail. You will stop all contact with anyone in your life and you will start a new one.”

  “Hah. A new life? You’ve already taken my life from me.”

  “No, no. That’s what I’m best at, destroying lives and then making new ones. Meet my friend, Jeremy, over there.” He pointed to the box by the door, cueing Jeremy to retrieve it.

  “I think you may have encountered him before. Remember signing all those prescriptions for fake patients?”

  The reminder made me stiffen.

  “Well, he’s the one who created the identities. He’s quite good at it actually. He’s going to give you a lesson in being”—he grinned—“near death.”

  Jeremy opened the box and spread out makeup, gray hair dye, a pair of glasses, pleated pants, a yellow button-down, white tennis shoes, and a folder titled Theodore Smith before me.

  “You are no longer John Livingston. From here on out, you are Mr. Theodore Smith, but you’ll go by Ted. Your new life is in this folder.”

  “What is this?”

  “It’s exactly what it seems. I’ve already put in a notice under your name to close your practice, I’ve closed out your apartment lease, and I have written a letter to your staff, to your friend Beau, and to Sarah, informing them that you are taking a year to hike the AT. But in reality, you will begin living and working for me at Park Pines Assisted Living Home.”

  “What? Park Pines?”

  “Jeremy will be coming to your apartment tomorrow to show you how to wear all that stuff. And you know, actually, those scars will probably help. You think so, Jeremy?”

  The red headed guy nodded in agreement.

  “I don’t understand any of this,” I said.

  Annoyed, the Bear took in a deep breath. “Look, John, I mean Ted, you are going to be a new resident at Park Pines Assisted Living with what appears to be the beginning signs of dementia and, if I’m not mistaken, a history of heart trouble and diabetes.

  “This all starts next Monday. You will live there for a year under the name of Theodore Smith. Because of the recent tragic loss of your wife, you cannot work out of your office anymore. It’s too suspicious. Yet, you still owe me, so this is what you will do to repay your debt. You will take meds from those living at Park Pines and each month your ‘brother’ here, Rick, will pick you up for a nice Sunday lunch, and you will give him all the medication you have acquired. It’s brilliant, if I say so myself.” He let out a chuckle.

  “This will never work.”

  “Oh, John. I beg to differ. It will work and I’ll make sure of it.” He cut me a sharp look.

  He motioned Rick to untie my arms. I thought about grabbing my gun from his waistband. I wanted to so badly, but Hope’s face flashed before my eyes and I couldn’t. As much as I wanted to end the Bear there in his gaudy house, I just couldn’t. I couldn’t risk the lives of Beau and Janie and Sarah.

  “Now, I’d say this is your last day as John Livingston. If I were you, I would make the most of it.”

  Stricken with disbelief, I held the box containing my new identity in my hand. They followed me as I made my way back downstairs and to my truck.

  I turned around before opening my car door. The house seemed farther away than it had when I arrived. The American flag waved subtly, casting a flickering shadow onto the Bear. He stood with his hands in his pockets, a small but obvious smirk on his face. Rick lit a cigarette and leaned in to talk to Jeremy, but the Bear never moved. His eyes remained fixed on mine. He watched me get in my truck and drive down the long gravel road towards the end of John Livingston and the beginning of the person that wrote this journal you read now; the suicide journal of Theodore Smith.

  PART II

  A Cloud’s Silver Lining

  Hope is the thing with feathers

  That perches in the soul,

  And sings the tune without the words,

  And never stops at all,

  And sweetest in the gale is heard;

  And sore must be the storm

  That could abash the little bird

  That kept so many warm.

  I’ve heard it in the chillest land,

  And on the strangest sea;

  Yet, never, in extremity,

  It asked a crumb of me.

  Emily Dickins
on

  Chapter 16

  There’s no way to describe pain. In reality, pain is just a word. It’s a word given to a subjective feeling determined solely by the person experiencing it. That word is everywhere. My life has consisted of feeling, touching, seeing “pain,” but even though I’ve felt, touched, and seen it, I cannot explain what exactly pain is. They taught us in school that physical pain is detected by the nociceptors throughout our bodies which then send signals to the sensory and association areas of our cerebral cortexes; this pain is scientific, physiological, explainable. But then there’s the pain of the soul. They didn’t teach us about that kind in medical school, and it’s a pain that I can’t explain.

  To some, the deeply felt pain is losing the one you love, to others it is the stock market crashing, and to many, it’s both. But as I sit here in Rick’s car, watching the pine trees grow taller and taller, I feel that unexplainable, soul-crushing “pain.” The word that I have used so often, that I thought I understood, has become so unclear, so intangible, so irreparable. It feels as if I was never a doctor at all.

  I can feel the cold passenger window glass on my forehead. A blank expression mars my face. The blackness that has crept over my soul is so thick that I can’t manage to move my face into anything other than a frown. I never saw this coming.

  Rick picked me up around nine o’clock this morning outside of my apartment to take me to Park Pines Assisted Living, which is about twenty minutes north of my old office. I was instructed to bring a suitcase filled with the clothes Jeremy packed for me, my folder containing my medical history, and my new body; not the John Livingston body, but the Theodore Smith body. Rick is no longer my patient but my “brother,” who is dropping me off today at Park Pines and will return once a month for a year to obtain all the pills I have stolen. I can see his reflection in the glass. The cancer has eaten away at much of his face, the whiskey most of his mind.