Seeking Carolina (Bitterly Suite Book 1)

by Terri-Lynne Defino

  “We should go,” Charlie said. Johanna nodded. He went to the van, she to the Audi.

  “I can’t go home,” Efan was saying. “I’m going to the hospital. I’ll sit at her bedside.”

  “Will they let you?” Gunner asked. “You’re not next of kin.”

  “She isn’t dying!” Efan put a hand over his mouth. “I’m sorry. So sorry. It’s just…I didn’t realize how deeply I love her. It’s so fast, but…there you have it. I love her. I have to be there when she wakes. If they won’t let me in her room, I will wait outside of it.”

  Gunner gently clapped his shoulders. “If you’re sure.”

  “Will you call us if she wakes?” Nina asked. “Or if they give you a hard time.”

  “No one gives me a hard time.” Efan smiled a shaky smile. “Would you refuse this face?”

  He hugged Nina, then Johanna. They waited while he got into the car and headed back north. The silence in the minivan was anything but contented. Johanna leaned against Charlie, eyes closed and wishing.

  How did the most perfect night of her life turn so quickly?

  The food, the contest, the music and fireworks and laughter. The plan for the rest of her night, the rest of her life. All gone. Every happy spark in her soul doused for a patch of black ice on a country road.

  Her head snapped up when the car stopped. Johanna blinked awake, lifted her head from Charlie’s shoulder. “Stay with me.” Johanna barely felt her mouth move, though she heard her own words clearly. “Please, Charlie. Stay with me.”

  Charlie took her face in his hands, kissed her brow.

  “I wouldn’t leave you now for anything in the world, Jo. I already called Charlotte.”

  * * * *

  This man lies beside you, and only holds you gentle against the fearsome night. He was the boy you used to sneak in here, when you were just a girl. I see him in this man’s sleeping face. Naughty sylph. Such abandon. My highest hopes were for you. Of all, you were the wildest, most free. Sorrow slid from you like water from a selkie. Now it holds you close. Banish it, and they all will—my Valkyrie, my Madonna, my precious sprite. Wild women caught and sang the sun in flight! You are who they look to. You cannot let them go gentle into that good night, lest they learn too late, and grieve.

  Banish we burdens from these halls! Life is joy! Not madness and secrets and headless ghouls. Rage, my sylph. The light cannot die if you rage against it.

  Chapter 9

  Four Calling Birds

  Efan stood in the hallway with a woman in a white coat, their heads close together and voices low. He lifted his head, motioning Johanna, Emma, and Nina closer, held out his hand as they drew near.

  “Then she must be moved,” he was saying, and gestured to the sisters. “These are the ladies Coco. If some sort of permission is required, they can give it.”

  “What’s going on?” Nina asked. “Julietta needs to be moved where?”

  “Ladies?” The woman in the white coat gestured them into a conference room and closed the door behind them. “I am Dr. Faust, currently your sister’s physician. May I speak frankly?”

  “Please do,” Emma said.

  “There is nothing physically wrong with Julietta,” she began. “Not even a bruise from the seat belt. There is nothing we can do for her here. This hospital has no psychiatric ward, and I have no expertise with psychiatric matters. From what Mr. Bowen has given me concerning your sister’s past—”

  “Mr. Bowen?” Johanna asked.

  “That would be me.” Efan raised his hand. “I have only repeated what Michael told me last night in the car, about Julietta’s parents being untreated psychiatric patients who died in a car crash when she was a toddler, and that she nearly died as well.”

  “That’s not exactly how it went,” Emma said.

  “Forgive me. It is what Michael told me.”

  Emma turned to Dr. Faust. “I was in the crash too, and I was older.”

  “Can you tell me what happened?”

  “I hardly remember. I doubt Julietta does either. We were both knocked out.”

  Dr. Faust and Efan exchanged glances.

  “What?” Nina asked. “Tell us.”

  “Perhaps we should sit.” Dr. Faust gestured to the conference table and chairs. “Mr. Bowen, would you get the ladies some coffee?”

  “Of course.”

  Efan put pods into the coffeemaker and pressed the necessary buttons. Johanna focused on him, on every move he made.

  It’s worse than we feared. Oh, Jules.

  “Your sister woke crying,” Dr. Faust began. “She was calling for her father.”

  * * * *

  Johanna put her head in her arms, closing off the hospital conference room, her sisters, Efan and Dr. Faust still discussing their best options. She wanted it to be yesterday, wanted last night to have never happened.

  If not last night, it would have been another time.

  Johanna’s own voice in her head sounded callous, however truthful. Julietta’s breakdown had been building since she was a tiny girl strapped into a car seat, bleeding and in pain, while the emergency crews cut her free, while she screamed for her father.

  “She is fine staying for today,” Dr. Faust was saying. Johanna picked up her head. “But other than keeping her comfortable, there is nothing we can do for her here.”

  “I’m not putting my sister in a ward.” Nina said. “That is absolutely out of the question.”

  “She has reverted,” the doctor continued. “At the moment, she is a little girl who just suffered a terrible tragedy. She needs the proper care, doctors who know how to bring her back without causing more harm.”

  “No wards. I will not have her subjected to what goes on there. There must be private facilities available.”

  “Of course there are, but insurance rarely…”

  “Fuck the insurance,” Nina raged. “I’ve got money. Show me where to sign.”

  “Nina.” Efan rose from his seat, his hands raised in supplication. “There is a better option. Will you listen?”

  “We’re listening,” Johanna answered for her. “Nina, come on. Sit.”

  “There is a small hospital at the academy,” Efan began. “A private one. A colleague of mine, the school psychiatrist, has technical rights to practice there. If I can pull the proper strings, we can get her in a bed, and he will treat her himself, at least for the time being.”

  “There is a good chance she will come out of this on her own,” Dr. Faust said. “Follow-up care will be necessary, but there is no reason to believe this event is in any way indicative of the sort of mental illness your parents suffered from. PTSD is vastly different from—”

  “PTSD?” Emma asked.

  “Post traumatic stress disorder,” Efan answered.

  “Isn’t that a veteran thing?”

  “Common misconception,” Dr. Faust said. “Traumatic events embed themselves in our brains, so to speak. In many cases, the person suffering has no idea what is causing the seemingly random anxiety that, when you really dig into it, isn’t random at all. A time of day can trigger it, or a sound. It could be any number of things. Then there are episodes like Julietta is experiencing—a full-blown reversion to the moment of trauma, brought back by the car going off the road.”

  “I thought psychiatry wasn’t your area of expertise,” Nina grumbled.

  “It isn’t. That’s about all I know, which is why I feel your sister needs to be with someone who knows more.”

  “What do you think?” Efan asked them all, but looked at Nina. “She will be close by, and in a private room that will not bankrupt you should her insurance refuse.”

  “Who is this colleague of yours?” she asked. “Not some crusty old Freud-devotee, is it?”

  “He is neither old nor a great admirer of Freud, I assure you. He’s a good man. Dr. Sam Chowdary. A good friend. I called him last night and he is very happy to be of assistance.”
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br />   Nina folded her arms over her chest. Johanna held her breath.

  I didn’t realize how deeply I love her.

  Efan’s words echoed back from the night prior, earnest and bewildered. Johanna’s heart swelled, pulled him into her family as swiftly and completely as it had Charlie’s children.

  “All right,” Nina said. “Jo? Emma?”

  “For now,” Emma answered. “But if she doesn’t come out of it—”

  “She will.” Johanna rested a hand on her sister’s arm. “She will, Emma.”

  “Whether she does or doesn’t, it’s a first step.” Efan stood up. “It’s all we can take. Doctor? Can we see her now?”

  “I will go look in on her. Wait here.”

  * * * *

  Whether for the sedatives administered or shock, Julietta did not respond to any of them. Her unfocused eyes moved from face to face, lingering only on Johanna’s, and only for a moment. Efan spoke quietly to her. Nina held her hand. Emma kissed her cheek. When it became too obvious to ignore her lack of any reaction, the sisters filed out one by one, leaving Efan at her bedside.

  “This is bad,” Emma whispered outside the door. “Thank goodness Gram isn’t here to see.”

  “I’m certainly glad she’s dead,” Nina drawled. “What a thing to say, Emma.”

  “You know what I mean. She…” Emma averted her gaze. “She must have gone through stuff like this with Mom.”

  “Dr. Faust said this is completely different—” Johanna began, but Emma cut her off.

  “I heard what she said. I also know what I remember.”

  Nina grasped her sister’s hand, and for the first time, Johanna understood why she and Julietta had always been closer when it was Nina she had grown up with, Nina who had cared for her in the house in New Hampshire.

  “You both remember more than Jules and I do,” she said. “We’ve never talked about it.”

  “What is there to talk about?” Nina let go Emma’s hand and turned away. “Why share that kind of pain when it isn’t necessary?”

  “Well she obviously remembers,” Johanna insisted. “Something, anyway.”

  Emma flopped into a chair that hissed air from the cushion as she sank into it. They all waited for it to go silent, collected whatever thoughts whirred overhead.

  “Hindsight is a cruel, cruel thing.” Nina shook her head slowly. “All these years, the anxiety, the need for order and control. It’s all there, like a roadmap to be followed. Dammit.”

  “We couldn’t have known,” Johanna said.

  “I should have. I was too wrapped up in my own life to notice.”

  “Don’t do that to yourself, Nina. Don’t do it to us.”

  “I was in the accident too,” Emma said quickly. “Why does Julietta have PTSD and I don’t?”

  “Maybe because she was injured?” Johanna answered. “Maybe she’s just wired different.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Ladies?” Efan entered the conference room smiling. “The ambulance is here. They are going to move her now.”

  “Ambulance?” Emma asked. “Why?”

  “Policy. They can’t discharge her in her state, but they can move her.”

  “I thought they were keeping her through tomorrow.”

  “I got everyone to cooperate.” He grinned. “It is my gift.”

  “You sure it’s safe?” Nina asked.

  “Absolutely. And it’s for the best. Sam will better know how to handle whatever state she wakes from sedation to, and she’ll be closer. To all of us.”

  The sisters and Efan waited in the hall while Julietta was transferred to a stretcher and strapped securely in. An IV in her arm, Julietta stared straight ahead. Efan lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it.

  “I’ll be right behind you, cariad,” he said, and placed her hand gently down again, but it didn’t stay down. Julietta’s unfocused stare shifted as her hand came up again, reached out at first unsteadily, then most definitely for Johanna.

  “I’m here, Jules.” Johanna rushed to her sister’s side. “I’ll go with you in—”

  “Mommy…” Words trembled. Hands grasped, pulled Johanna in close. “Mommy. I didn’t mean to. I didn’t.”

  Johanna leaned closer. “You didn’t mean to what, sweetie?”

  “I pushed him and it fell off,” Julietta whispered. “I was scared.”

  Julietta wailed, a sound like a teakettle coming to a boil. Her wail became keening and thrashing that had Dr. Faust injecting something into the IV port. Another moment and Julietta was staring placidly again, but her eyes were locked on Johanna. As they wheeled her out of the ward. As they wheeled her through the hallways. As they loaded her into the waiting ambulance and closed the double doors.

  “What did she say to you?” Nina asked.

  “I—I’m not sure,” Johanna lied. “She thought I was Mom.”

  “Someone should go with her,” Emma said. “If she thinks you’re Mom, you should.”

  “Bad, bad idea.” Nina shook her head. “You saw what just happened. I’ll go.”

  “It’s probably better than none of you do.” Dr. Faust put the matter to rest. “Who knows what memories will be triggered, and why. It’s best to keep the stimuli down to a minimum.”

  “What about me?” Efan asked. “Could I ride with her? I know she’s not herself, but there might be a small part of her that will know me. I have no connection to her past further back than a few weeks. Perhaps I will be a comfort to her.”

  Dr. Faust nodded. Efan pounded on the ambulance door, dug into his pocket and pulled out his keys. “Will one of you take my car back to Great Barrington?”

  “Is it automatic?” Johanna asked.

  “Stick.”

  “Then I’m out. Nina?”

  “I got it. Where are you parked?”

  * * * *

  Julietta spoke no more, not even when she saw Johanna again. Dr. Sam Chowdary had been waiting when the ambulance arrived. Johanna breathed an immediate and relieved sigh. Young and handsome in the way of a Bollywood actor, he took charge immediately, focused all his attention on Julietta. He spoke to her as if she would respond, wrote notes even though she did not. Most comforting was he greeted Efan with a warm and concerned embrace that made no excuses for itself.

  “I will need some background information,” he said once Julietta was settled into a private room in the tiny, but well-funded Great Barrington Academy Hospital. “A private interview with each of you would be best. Ms. Coco-Allen, I understand you have pressing matters to attend to back in New York.”

  “Nothing that can’t happen without me,” Nina answered.

  “Nevertheless, we will start with you. If you wish, I can interview you today, your sisters tomorrow. Mrs. Chambers? Ms. Coco? Will that be all right?”

  “Sure.”

  “Yes, it’s fine.”

  “Excellent. Ms. Coco-Allen, if you would give me a few moments to prepare, I will be with you shortly.”

  Dr. Chowdary acknowledged each of them with a slight bow, and left them outside of Julietta’s room.

  “Does he meet with approval, ladies?” Efan asked, his face wide and wanting as a child’s.

  “He’s great,” Johanna assured him. “I feel better with her here. With him.”

  “How did he know our names,” Nina asked, “down to the form of address we each prefer?”

  “I informed him,” Efan answered. “Was I incorrect?”

  “No, not at all. It was just…odd. And odd that you know, come to think of it.”

  “Not when you were mostly raised by my mamgee.” He laughed. “Very forward thinking for a woman from a certain time. She despised the fact that a woman’s marital status was announced in her name and, from what my Mum tells me, was quite pleased to adopt Ms. when it first came about. She always told me, ‘Cariad, names are important. They have power.’ I didn’t think it was fair, women getting to choose from three
titles when men only got one. Do you know what her response was?”

  “I couldn’t guess,” Johanna said.

  “She told me that went to making up for the years upon years they got no choice at all.”

  “I like your mamgee. Does it mean grandmother?”

  Efan nodded. “I lived with her during my childhood and teen years so I could go to the boys’ school in her district. When one is the fifth son and seventh child, funds do grow meager. Mamgee was as happy to have me as I was to be free of my older siblings.”

  “Ms. Coco-Allen?” A nurse stepped out into the hall. He waved her to follow.

  Nina turned to her sisters. “I don’t know how long I’ll be. Why don’t you two go home and send Gunner to get me?”

  “No need,” Efan said. “I will stay with Julietta for a while, then take you home.”

  “Are you sure?” Emma asked. “I don’t mind waiting.”

  “I am positive. Go home. Rest. It has been a wearying twenty-four hours.”

  “Is that all it’s been?” Johanna asked as she and Emma sat in her car, waiting for the heat to kick in.

  “Not even,” Emma answered. “This time yesterday, we were all just waiting for night to come. I can’t believe this.”

  “Me either.”

  Emma turned sideways. “Do you have the locket on?”

  “Always.” She pulled it out from under her clothes. “Why?”

  Lifting it from her sister’s hand, Emma clicked it open, brought it close to her face. “You really do look exactly like her.”

  “Not exactly.”

  Emma’s gaze shot up. She pursed her lips. “You do. It doesn’t mean—”

  “I know,” Johanna pushed out a long breath. “I know. Habit. I do look like her.”

  Emma closed the locket, rubbed circles on the etched surface with her thumb. “Where do you think this really came from?”

  “I have no idea. Maybe Gram just bought it and put all those stories to it, for us.”

  “You don’t believe that.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because you believe in the wish. No, don’t deny it.” Emma let the locket drop. She turned in her seat, facing front and putting the car in gear. “I know you don’t think so, but I do too.”