The Missing Year

by Belinda Frisch

  “We’re from the same social circles, Dr. Reeves. I filled out my fair share of Blake’s paperwork.”

  “Why ask Jeremy to act as attending?”

  “He was the only other person who knew Blake was sick. Someone had to make sure that his treatment didn’t cause an interaction. Jeremy was supposed to watch over Blake, and he did. Maybe too well.”

  “The ASO?”

  Lila nodded. “Jeremy never talked to me about it or I would’ve told him no. Joyce Coleman, Merrick Memorial’s CEO, called me when he filed the paperwork. The hospital was one of several authorized for the trial. ASO may have slowed the Huntington’s, but it couldn’t stop it. I knew it, Blake knew it, and Jeremy knew it, too. But he insisted that once Blake pulled through from his surgery, he’d see things differently.”

  “Jeremy expected Blake’s near-death experience would make him want to live?”

  “He did.”

  “Did you ever tell him you suspected Blake had put himself in harm’s way?”

  “No. If I had,” she paused for a long moment, “he’d have expected what I was going to do next.”

  “Which was?”

  Lila finished her second glass of wine, which had come while they were talking. “I asked Joyce to have the Ethics Committee vote against Blake being started on the trial. It meant telling three more people that Blake was sick, but they were sworn to secrecy.”

  “And they went along with the CEO’s request?”

  “Come on, Ross. You’ve worked at a hospital, right? No one steamrolls the CEO.”

  “Why did Jeremy think Blake would survive? Once the extent of his injuries made it clear he had little chance of recovery, why try him on an experimental drug protocol?”

  “The early tests were inconclusive, making Blake’s prognosis uncertain. There were small signs of hope, the kinds of things people would hold on to.”

  “But not you?”

  “Especially me, but I kept going back to the Nelda Harris case, to what Blake had asked me to do. Jeremy and I argued over the ASO. I told him Blake wouldn’t have wanted it and that asking for it had more people than Blake would have wanted knowing he was sick. Jeremy and Blake were like best friends. Jeremy wasn’t thinking clearly. He said he was going to help Blake regardless of what Blake wanted. That’s when I knew I had no choice. Without an advance directive, Jeremy was going to expose everything Blake wanted hidden.”

  “What about Ruth? Why didn’t Jeremy tell her Blake was sick?”

  “Same reason I didn’t, I guess. Jeremy had made a promise to Blake to not tell Ruth, specifically. Whether he told her or not didn’t matter. She was going to take his side. Taking mine meant letting Blake die.”

  “Ruth said there was no way Blake would have signed that kind of paperwork.”

  Lila stared at the center of the table, her eyes filled with tears.

  “Lila?” Ross tilted his head to get a better look at her face. “What’s the matter?”

  “When you love someone, you do anything for them, right?”

  “What did you do?”

  A long silence passed.

  “Lila, what did you do?”

  “What I had to. I knew what Blake wanted the night the Nelda Harris verdict came in, but he was so preoccupied after that, so … not himself … that he didn’t have time to make sure everything was taken care of, legally speaking.”

  Ruth had been right.

  “You forged the advanced directive?”

  Lila wiped the tip of her nose with the back of her hand and nodded.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

  The early bird diners had long since gone home, the Downtowner nearly silent. Morgan balanced herself on a stool at the end of the counter in front of a towering slice of apple pie. Her feet were so swollen that she had untied her shoes.

  Ross tucked a hundred dollar bill into the billfold for charges totaling less than fifty and gestured for Lila to follow him.

  “It’s getting late,” he said. “We should go.”

  Ross wanted to understand why Lila had forged the advance directive, but part of him wondered if Ruth and Jeremy weren’t right in their anger. While Blake was terminal, his death wasn’t necessarily imminent. Head shots where the bullet had been successfully retrieved could have meant a partial recovery at the very least.

  The fine line between compassion and murder was blurry.

  Lila put on her windbreaker and said, “I don’t want to go back.”

  “You don’t have a choice.” Ross set the money on the counter next to Morgan’s plate.

  Morgan opened the billfold. “Don’t you want your change?”

  “No, thank you. We’re all set.”

  “Thank you. Thank you so much.”

  “Good luck with the baby.”

  The crisp night air felt good as Ross left the diner with his jacket slung over his arm. The smells of grease, onions, and meatloaf permeated his sweater, making him feel like he needed airing out.

  “That was a nice thing you did.” Lila crossed her arms over her chest, stopping the wind from grabbing her jacket.

  “She was attentive.” Ross didn’t want a big deal made.

  Lila climbed into the passenger’s seat and hesitated to fasten her seatbelt. “Wait.”

  “For what?”

  “Can’t we stay out a while longer? I feel like we still need to talk. With you leaving and all—”

  “If you’re worried I’m going to tell someone what you did, don’t be.”

  “I’m not.” Lila shrugged. “I’ve had thoughts of telling someone myself to get rid of this guilt, but that’s not what this is about. I thought you might support what I did, having watched your wife suffer. I’m worried that you, the one person who might see my side of this, can’t, and I wonder if that means I did the wrong thing.”

  “I’m not here to judge, Lila.”

  “Maybe I want you to. I need someone to know what I did and at the very least agree with why I did it.”

  “I’m not sure I can,” Ross said, “because acknowledging that you made the right choice means admitting I made the wrong one. You wanted to know if Sarah had ever asked me to help her die when things got really bad for her. I lied.”

  “She did ask for your help.”

  “She was in the worst pain and I couldn’t do it. I wouldn’t be the reason she was gone. I wasn’t sure I could face our friends and family afterward if I had given her the right combination of pills to help ease her into a peaceful death. Turns out, I couldn’t face them anyway. I was sure they could see Sarah had begged for a merciful passing and that I had refused her. I was ashamed for not being able to be what she needed, for doing the wrong thing.”

  “There’s no right answer.” Lila wiped her eyes with her sleeve. “No matter what, you would have blamed yourself. The day of Blake’s funeral, I almost told Ruth everything. Nearly everyone held me responsible for his death. I pretended not to know that, but I heard them whispering. I loved my husband more than anything and I would have thought the people who knew us knew that, but even Ruth questioned my motives. She threatened to expose me, to ruin my life. The only way to stop her was to ….”

  “Attempt suicide?”

  Lila turned to face the window. The diner lights cast her features in shadows and glistened off the tears rolling down her cheek. “I wanted the whole thing over, but I wasn’t about to go to jail for doing the right thing.”

  “You’ve been hospitalized for a year to avoid being exposed?” No wonder the medications hadn’t worked. “What was with that stunt at the lake?”

  “I meant what I said. Every day since losing Blake has been like drowning. I have no idea how to live without him. I don’t know what to do next.”

  “But at least now you don’t have to look over your shoulder, right? Now that Ruth knows Blake was sick, she’ll back off. Me telling her that lets you off the hook.”

  “Maybe. I had expected Jeremy to tell her long before now.”

  �
�What about Jeremy?”

  “Jeremy had enough of a hand in things to want to keep quiet.”

  “If all you needed was for someone to clue Ruth in, why didn’t you do it?”

  “Mostly because I’d promised Blake I wouldn’t, but if I had told her, do you think she wouldn’t have been suspicious of that, too?”

  “Did you ever plan on going through with it?”

  “Killing myself? Yes. I had every intention of dying. I locked the door between the garage and the house and disabled the carbon monoxide detector to keep from alerting the neighbors. I got into Blake’s car and put our song, Keep on Loving You, on repeat on my mp3 player.” She smiled. “It was my way of having Blake with me when I went. I closed my eyes and waited.”

  “You didn’t tell anyone what you planned to do?”

  “Brenda, the woman who found me, obviously suspected, though I didn’t come right out and tell her I was suicidal. Ruth knew when I gave her Princess. I could tell she knew, but she didn’t bother trying to stop me.”

  “Now that she realizes Blake was sick, I think she feels bad about that.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

  Lila and Ross made the return trip to Lakeside in silence.

  Lila stared out the partly open window, her long hair blowing in the breeze. Her chest rose and fell with slow, heavy breaths, punctuated by occasional sniffles.

  Ross, figuring she was airing out the diner smells, turned on the heat. “Aren’t you cold?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “Lila?”

  She turned and stared at him with the vacant look of someone whose thoughts were a thousand miles away. “Promise you won’t tell.”

  Ross could barely hear her over the wind and the vent fan. “Tell who what?”

  “The hospital, Dr. Oliver. Promise me you won’t tell any of them what I did or why.”

  “You have my word.”

  Ross pulled into the Lakeside parking lot around midnight, well after ten o’clock lights out.

  Guy paced outside the entrance, wearing a winter hat, a parka, and gloves. There was no telling how long he had been out there. He hurried toward the car as soon as Ross shifted into Park.

  Lila met him halfway across the lot.

  “Lila, are you okay?” Guy set his gloved hands on her shoulders and looked her over by the glow of the motion-activated parking lot light.

  “I’m fine. I’m just tired.”

  Mark, who Ross had noticed was watching from the window, joined them, looking less than pleased.

  “Mark, I’m sorry,” Ross said. “I didn’t mean to put you on the spot. I did what I had to—”

  Guy interrupted. “Mark, take Lila to her room, please.”

  Mark shook his head as he did what he was told.

  “What were you thinking taking Lila out of here?” Guy said.

  “I followed protocol, Guy. I left everything Mark needed for Lila to be on an authorized outing.”

  “In the middle of the night?” Guy’s face was red, either from anger, the brisk wind, or both. “Where did you take her?”

  “I don’t like the suspicion in your tone.”

  “Where, Ross?”

  “We were at the Downtowner all night. You can call and check with our waitress, Morgan. She’ll remember us if you mention a larger than usual tip.”

  “What were you doing at the diner?”

  “Talking, going over the past. Getting to the bottom of what you wanted me to.”

  “Did Lila tell you why she tried to kill herself?”

  “She did.”

  “And?”

  “I think this is a conversation better had inside. I need to grab my things.” Ross headed toward the front door with Guy close behind him.

  “Ross, what did Lila say?”

  Ross turned on his office light. “I swore myself to secrecy, but in my professional opinion, Lila is no longer a threat to herself.”

  “What do you base that on?”

  “Change of circumstances.” Ross gathered his few personal belongings.

  “What circumstances?” Guy ripped off his gloves and hat, flustered.

  “You’ll have to ask her.”

  “You know she won’t talk to me. That’s why I brought you here in the first place.”

  “I’ve been thinking about that. There has to be a reason Lila doubts you. To be honest, after all that’s happened, I don’t trust you. Treating Lila is all about the money for you, isn’t it?”

  “Do I need to remind you that you are currently a Lakeside employee, or that I can terminate your employment in Chicago with a single phone call? In case you’ve forgotten—”

  “I didn’t forget, Guy.” Ross reassembled the cardboard box he’d arrived with and taped the seams. “But you’re only half-right. You can call the hospital. At this point, I’m not even sure I care if you do, but I do not work here. Wasn’t that what all the fuss was about earlier? The state doesn’t consider me an employee, which is why they’re all over you about Joshua.”

  “It’s paperwork, Ross. I have a call in to HR in Chicago to get what I need.”

  “Don’t bother. I’m going back.”

  “To the hospital?”

  “To Mattie, my girlfriend. There’s been an accident.”

  “Jesus, Ross. I’m sorry.”

  “I wish I could believe that. You know, I came here as a favor because you said you needed help. You misled me and then dumped Lila’s case on me when you knew how hard it would be.”

  “I didn’t know—”

  Ross pointed a finger at Guy. “Don’t do that. You knew.”

  “I did this for your sake, Ross, as much as for Lila’s. I know how hard things have been for you since losing Sarah. Dan’s told me—”

  “What has Dan told you? That I’m losing it at work? That I’ve gone over the deep end? Southeast Memorial chews people up and spits them out. I’m not the only one with problems there. I do what I have to to get the job done.”

  “Which is why I knew you could get Lila to open up. You understand each other. I thought if you saw your situation from a different perspective—”

  “My situation? Losing my wife isn’t a circumstance, Guy. It’s a tragedy. It’s not something you can fix with pills and weekly therapy. That’s where you went wrong with Lila. She’s not mentally ill. She’s sad and she needs someone to talk to.”

  “I tried talking to her.”

  “Someone other than you.” Ross piled the last of his things into a box and folded the ends in to seal it. He pushed the over-pruned bonsai tree across the desk and said, “Do me a favor? Make sure Lila gets this.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

  Ross’s phone had been ringing all morning.

  Guy had left several messages, all of which Ross promptly deleted. He’d had enough of Lakeside and the evasiveness that went with it. He thought back to when he had accepted the job offer, on how bleak things had been. The job offer seemed a godsend after fighting with Mattie and being forced to take leave from the hospital.

  Now he knew better.

  “Good riddance,” he said, packing the last of his toiletries.

  He had overstayed his welcome.

  The motel room hadn’t been cleaned in two days. The sheets were wrinkled, the pillow case stained with drool, and the trash cans were overflowing. The tiny bar of soap in the shower had been worn paper-thin and he was adding water to the bottle to get shampoo.

  He couldn’t think of a better time to be checking out.

  Ross booked a red-eye flight and headed for the cemetery, stopping at a local florist along the way for an arrangement of lilies, which had always been Sarah’s favorite.

  He lowered the window far enough for the cool breeze to blow through his hair and tried to push the doubts Lila had planted out of his mind. Sarah’s had been a natural death. That he had no hand in it provided him comfort, sparing him shame and guilt. Pulling up to the cemetery gates, the sick feeling he anticipated had been repla
ced by the need for closure.

  Camille was already there, leaned against her car, waiting.

  “You ready for this?” She tied a giant helium balloon bouquet to a cooler handle.

  “I think so.” Ross eased the floral arrangement out of the passenger’s seat and helped Camille with her things. “What is all of this?” The cooler’s wheels dug into the dirt as he dragged it along.

  “It’s a birthday party, right?” Camille carried a bag with a blanket and who knows what else inside.

  “It feels like we’re moving in.”

  “Maybe we should. It’s almost as nice here as your last motel room.”

  “You’re never going to let me live that down, are you? It was convenient.”

  “It was a dump.” Camille led the way down the worn central path to the plot where Sarah was buried. Red, orange, and brown leaves blanketed the grass. “Happy birthday,” she said to Sarah’s headstone, brushing the grass clippings from the black granite ledge of the heart-shaped marker. “Guess who’s finally here to see you?” She gave Ross a nudge. “I know,” she whispered skyward. “I’m shocked, too.” She carried on the one-sided conversation as if she didn’t know to be sad.

  Ross stared at the epitaph: “Beloved wife and daughter,” and the memory of Sarah’s burial came rushing back. She had appeared so diminutive, even in the smallest adult coffin. Her skin was an off-shade, her face caked with flesh-colored makeup. A coral color painted her lips, the ends of which were unnaturally sealed. She died looking twenty years older than her chronological age, the cancer having taken her youth but not her beauty.

  “Ross? Are you all right?”

  For as sad as he was, seeing Sarah’s headstone reinforced her death’s finality. “I think so.”

  “Then aren’t you going to say something to her?” Camille spread out a blanket and unfolded the beach chairs that sat only inches above the grass.

  “Like what?”

  “Like, uh, ‘Happy Birthday’ for starters.”

  Ross sat in one of the chairs and said a reluctant “Happy birthday.”

  Camille scowled.

  “What? I’m no good at this. I can’t carry on a conversation with someone who isn’t here.”