Mine To Lose

by Lockhart, Cate

  ‘Oh my God, I’m going to call an ambulance,’ she said frantically. I gave her another thumbs-up while all I wanted to do was shut the lid of the laptop to end the call. It was rather embarrassing to have someone listening to me puking my guts out via satellite.

  ‘Just keep making a noise so I can hear you.’

  All I could manage was a loud grunt as I crawled to the bathroom on all fours, still spewing now and then, hoping to be well enough to clean up this mess before Jordan got home. I could hear Pam giving the emergency operator my details, telling them to get the police to force the door in if I didn’t open it. I managed to make it as far as the bathroom entrance, then my cheek slammed against the tiled floor.

  Chapter 16

  ‘Hold still, Katie. I just need two more seconds,’ Dr Pane requested in her plain voice, which cut through my sensitive ears like razors. I pinched my eyes shut, realising that I didn’t make it to the toilet before fainting, and that Jordan must have had to clean up my vomit. How humiliating! I opened my mouth to speak, wanting to ask her where my husband was, but she hushed me even as my arid lips separated.

  ‘Rest. No need to talk now. Alright?’ she informed me as gently as her stern demeanour allowed her. I nodded obediently, listening to all the hollow voices and sounds somewhere around me in the tin can that housed my brain.

  ‘Thank God I was properly dressed when it happened. Thank God I had to get dressed to Skype Pam. Oh shit! I still have to let Pam kn ... was all I could think as oblivion kissed me again.

  And I was gone.

  When I came back to the land of the living – well, the infirmly living anyway – things were much quieter. The lights were low, and I was right back in the ward I had previously escaped from with a light warning and much hope. I was even too weak to sigh in misery, but I had to correct my posture. The bed was hard and cold on top of my body being misaligned from being pinned down under the strap hold of unnecessarily tight sheets over me, and I wrestled in anguish to loosen the linen.

  From her peripheral, the sister on duty noticed me and immediately came to help.

  ‘Careful,’ she cautioned, ‘or you’ll rip out your IV.’

  ‘What time is it?’ I whispered.

  She looked at her watch and answered, ‘It’s just past 5 a.m. Just rest. Doctor will see you just before breakfast.’

  ‘Wait,’ I said. ‘What happened? What’s wrong with me?’

  She shook her head. ‘Dr Pane will have a word with you when she comes on her rounds,’ she explained sympathetically.

  ‘Can you at least tell me if it is serious?’ I asked. She looked uncomfortable, but not entirely sullen either.

  ‘Dr Pane will give you all the details later, alright?’

  There wasn’t much I could do other than let it be for the moment. After all, the nurse had told me as much as she was able, and it wasn’t as if I could even lift my head, let alone get up and walk out.

  ‘Thank you.’ I nodded and laid my head back on the pillow, looking up at the slow carousel of the ceiling. Like that of our offices, the ceiling consisted of that familiar uniform ceiling board that featured those ornate cracks that gave it a crude texture on sight. My ears hissed, and my head felt thick. Faintly, I could feel the devilish scratch of a debilitating headache confined in the pen of painkillers that filled my skull like candy floss.

  I looked up at the twirling ceiling hovering over my undulating bed and picked one specific fissure to follow, mesmerising myself to sleep. The base of my skull was burning and tight, as it used to feel after a night of headbanging when I was younger. My eyelids grew heavy as I tried to ignore the pulsing pain in my skin from the fever I had contracted again. The place smelled like ammonia and crisp bedding, floor polish and old flowers. My throat pulled taut as I gagged from the mixture of odours, but mercifully my heavy head sank into the pillow, and my bed consumed me.

  ***

  Barely a heartbeat later, it seemed, I woke again in the bustling of the morning rounds. My first thought was where my husband was. I had not seen him at all since before I Skyped Pam. It distressed me something awful that he wasn’t present, even though I knew it wasn’t visiting hours yet. Finally, Dr Pane came around the corner and entered my room. I dreaded the imminent third degree I was due, but she smiled instead.

  ‘How are you feeling, Katie?’ she asked. There was no sign of reprimand, and that was something for which I was only too grateful. After my ordeal and the soreness that apparently attacked me full force in retribution for the night’s peace, I could not deal with emotional discord either.

  ‘I feel like I’ve been in a tumble dryer,’ I admitted. She hardly looked surprised at my description.

  ‘Yes, that sounds about accurate,’ she sighed. With weathered, but dainty hands she opened my chart and made some notes in silence.

  ‘Dr Pane, I did nothing wrong,’ I started to explain. ‘I stayed indoors as you ordered, I swear.’

  ‘I know,’ she interrupted. Then she locked eyes with me, and I felt a jolt of nervous tension shoot through me. I was in trouble. Evenly, she said, ‘You stayed indoors.’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘You kept warm.’

  ‘Yes, Doctor. I did everyth ...’

  ‘Including getting drunk, so your husband tells me,’ she stated firmly.

  I quickly took inventory of all the things she had said and what I did subsequently. My memory took me through everything she told me and how to take my medicine. Day by day, I ran through my recollection until one memory hit me like a ton of bricks. Now her statement made sense. ‘Drunk,’ I said slowly. ‘Oh, my God, I did not even think about the medication and the drinking ...’ I relayed to myself while she waited for my full positives to function. ‘Doctor, I felt completely fine that night I drank. I thought I was well enough ...’

  Again, she did not have the patience to suffer my lack of common sense and cut in, ‘Well, you were lucky it wasn’t worse.’

  ‘To be fair, you didn’t tell me not to drink,’ I attempted a solid argument because she hadn’t told me not to drink.

  ‘I also didn’t tell you not to stick your finger in a wall plug, yet you refrained from that,’ Dr Pane retorted. ‘Come now. It is pure logic, as you should know, that you shouldn’t consume alcohol while on medication. Better yet, while still recovering from a weak immune system, why on earth would you think to further impair your health like that?’

  I had to acknowledge the absolute recklessness of my actions.

  ‘I don’t know what to s—’ I murmured.

  ‘Of course you don’t. There is no logical reason for what you did, Katie. Unless you were deliberately trying to kill yourself?’ She presented me with another scenario I didn’t even consider before. ‘Katie, I care very much about you, as I do all my patients. If there is something wrong, please talk to me.’

  I suddenly knew what it felt like to be on the other side of the desk in my line of work. How often did I ask perfectly polite people that very question on suspicion of their actions.

  I shook my head, ‘No. I would never attempt suicide. I love my life. I swear. I don’t know why I was so stupid!’

  Dr Pane just stared at me, waiting for me to say more. I recognized the method. It was the same technique Pam used to wring out that dishcloth. But I had no other explanation than a pure lapse of reason, absolute idiocy.

  ‘Your kidney infection has flared up again. That is what caused the symptoms you have been feeling,’ she declared.

  I nodded. ‘Really?’

  ‘I’m afraid so. You need you to start looking after yourself until you’re given a clean bill of health from me, right?’ she appealed to me.

  ‘Absolutely, Doctor,’ I replied, and I meant it. ‘Will I be going home soon?’

  ‘Yes,’ she answered while she scribbled a prescription or two in my chart for the nurse to dispense. ‘I’m going to give you another course of antibiotics to take home with you.’ Dr Pane cocked her head to the side. Her eye
s were kind again, sparkling with compassion.

  She clamped the lid of the chart down and slipped it under her arm.

  ‘After you have completed that second course of antibiotics, I will examine you one last time and only ... only ... if I clear you then, are you to continue as before. Do I have your cooperation?’ She smiled.

  ‘It’s a deal.’ I smiled back, but in truth, I wanted to collapse in a heap of tears. Apart from being back in the hospital, I was in terrible pain all over.

  Chapter 17

  Thanks to Pam doubling as Florence Nightingale and Jordan’s well-intended chastisements on my regard for my health, within a week I was doing great. In fact, I’d never felt better. Jordan was obviously elated that I was home so much. He brought me flowers almost every day, accompanied by little chores and praises, more than usual. I felt so important, not even giving Martha much thought, which had to be a first. I could tell Jordan was shaken by my second hospital visit, and it only seemed to make him appreciate and love me more.

  When Martin rang me on Friday morning, my first thought was that he was going to advise me not to return on Monday, but to take another week off. When I heard what he had to say I was nearly floored.

  ‘Carol’s brother wants to see me?’

  ‘Yes,’ he replied.

  ‘But why? How does he even know who I am?’

  ‘I have no idea, he just said it was urgent. He sounded very upset, though.’

  Shit, I thought to myself. Had he somehow managed to find out the truth about Carol, or had James, by some miracle told him what a bastard he was to his sister. I doubted it. He was too much of a coward.

  ‘Did he say when he wanted to meet?’

  ‘Around ten on Monday. Did I do the right thing saying yes? Because if you don’t ...’

  ‘It’s absolutely fine, Martin. I wouldn’t have turned him down.’

  ‘Good! So how are you feeling?’

  ‘Crazy.’

  Martin chuckled, something he did not do often. ‘It is strange, isn’t it? We always think that our routines are mundane until we deviate. I know this from experience. We don’t realise just how important our work routine is to our lives; that stability and kinship with colleagues.

  ‘You’re right,’ I agreed. It was true. I always wished I had more time to spend at home, but now I was going crazy with the monotony. At least at work there were different cases and people every day, different scenarios and challenges. At least at work I had a purpose, where at home I was just Jordan’s wife, ruler of the nest. I knew that would sound bad if I said it out loud, but I was just aware that I was worth more than this.

  ***

  On Saturday morning, I awoke to the feeling of kisses. Before I even opened my eyes, I felt a myriad of kisses, falling like snowflakes on my face, neck and chest. As soon as I felt one kiss release, the next would touch my skin on a completely different area with warmth. It made me giggle.

  ‘Jordan?’ I whispered in the quiet darkness of 5.30 a.m. ‘What are you up to?’

  ‘Nothing. Just scouting,’ he answered. He knew I liked morning sex, and I made sure he didn’t forget it.

  By 7.00 a.m. he’d jumped in the shower, and I was trying to clean the kitchen as fast as I could. At the very last minute, Jordan had informed me he had a surprise for me, and I had half an hour to be ready.

  ‘Hurry, woman!’ he shouted from the bedroom as he dressed. ‘I thought you liked surprises.’

  ‘Yes, yes, I do. Like flowers and chocolates. You can’t just spring things on me without warning and then expect me to have prepared for it,’ I shouted back as I wiped down the worktops.

  ‘That’s why it is called a surprise!’ he retorted.

  ‘Not when I’ve got a million things to do, it’s not. That’s called inconvenient,’ I whipped back.

  ‘Oh, stop being pedantic!’ he said, appearing in the doorway. ‘You’re going to love it, and you’re going to be sorry you were so obstinate about cleaning up first.

  Throwing the cloth in the sink, I mumbled inaudibly, ‘I swear to God if your mother comes around poking her nose in here and sees the state of the place, your head is going to roll.’

  He gave me a stern look. ‘I heard that?’

  His phone rang suddenly from the windowsill. As I was nearest, I moved towards it.

  ‘I’ll get it!’

  Jordan came storming behind, ‘No, no! I’ll get it. You go and get ready. It’ll be work!’

  ‘Oh, Jesus, on a Saturday!’ I moaned loudly while Jordan took the call.

  ‘Hello?’

  He mouthed for me to hurry and left the room as he talked. ‘Oh, hey! Yes, I know I was supposed to ...’ His voice grew vague and reverberated between the bare walls of the hallway until I could hear his muffled voice in the living room.

  ‘You get dressed,’ I mimicked Jordan, opening my side of the wardrobe. Having no idea what this new surprise was, I had no idea what to wear. In the end, deciding to go casual, I picked a pair of skinny jeans and a black leather jacket.

  For footwear, I chose low, thick heel ankle boots that looked like the illegitimate child of Doc Martens and Prada. I was ready. Jordan could surprise me with anything now.

  He came in looking less enthusiastic and tossed his phone carelessly on the bed. Without a word, he put his jacket on. I was a bit disappointed that he didn’t notice my ensemble, but instead, I asked, ‘Problems?’

  ‘Just ... uh ... what does it matter?’ he frowned without looking at me.

  ‘It doesn’t. I was just asking because your mood is visibly diminished by that phone call. Do you have to go into work? Aren’t we going out anymore?’ I asked.

  I tried to sound neutral to please him, but Jordan just shook his head.

  ‘No! No, we are going.’ He sprayed a squirt of aftershave on his chin. ‘We are definitely going.’

  He smiled a little. Reminded of what he had planned, it seemed to lift his spirits again.

  ‘Jordan, we aren’t going skydiving again, are we?’

  ‘Oh no. Not this time. Not again.’ He laughed.

  I was relieved. He looked like his old self again. He always looked miserable when his workplace called him when he was at home, especially on a weekend. Even though he didn’t strictly keep normal hours, weekends, and bank holidays – they meant nothing to the entertainment industry.

  His phone rang again, but this time, I snatched it off him and switched it off.

  ‘You know, it’s not a crime to not be at work’s beck and call. You are actually allowed to have a life?’

  ‘I was going to turn it off when we reached our destination. I didn’t want it to get wet,’ he replied.

  ‘Jordan, why would your phone get wet?’ I asked.

  He crossed the room and took me in his arms and kissed me. ‘I never said that did I?’ he replied, pulling me along out of the bedroom.

  ‘You said you don’t want your phone to get wet, meaning ...’

  ‘There is a possibility of getting wet, but it’s not guaranteed, so lighten up. You’re going to love it,’ he comforted me. ‘By the way, nice boots.’

  Chapter 18

  It was raining, but just a mild drizzle this time. I ran up to the doorstep, listening to the rubbery patter of light droplets on the hood of my yellow raincoat and sucked up the crisp muddy air through my nostrils. I was happy to be at the old Victorian house again, but I was alone – all alone? I tried opening the front door, but it was locked.

  I took off again, running all the way around the detached house, looking for anyone who could put me at ease. My heart raced as the loneliness took me, but I refused to relent until I found someone. Tears welled in my eyes, threatening to spill onto my cheeks as I tried one window after another. Like the front door, they were all locked tight, curtains drawn to shut out the world. As my tears breached my eyes lids, the rain now came down hard, shattering the peaceful setting, and I ran to an old metal shed in the garden for shelter.

  Somewhere throu
gh the showers, I could have sworn that I could hear a baby crying. I cocked my head and strained to listen. Again, the wailing persisted through the clatter on the corrugated iron roof above me. Thinking that it came from a neighbour’s house, I poked my head through the opening and looked around, but to my horror all the other houses had vanished! Not only was I alone at the house, but now I was entirely alone in the town. My heart sank. The more I cried, the louder came the baby’s wailing until it came from right behind me.

  Startled, I turned to see.

  Ahead, on the decking, I saw my grandfather sitting on a rocking chair, holding what looked like two babies in each arm. He looked up at me with that warm contentment I used to know when he told me war stories, yet he said nothing now. The babies calmed, and I watched Gramps get up and walk towards me holding them out to me. He smiled and nodded for me to take them.

  I reached out. My heart soared with happiness as my fingers barely touched the woollen shawl. All of a sudden, Gramps started moving backwards. Pain was etched on his craggy features. I opened my mouth to tell him to come back, to give me back my babies. But my words were nothing but slurred hums, as obscured as the grey that reached from the yard across the expanse of nothingness. Gramps paid no attention to me and turned away momentarily. When he turned back to face me, he wasn’t Gramps anymore, but Jordan.

  Jordan stood there, just staring at me as if I’d done something terrible. His eyes were bloodshot as if he had been crying, but his expression wasn’t one of sorrow. I watched as his brow furrowed, and he lifted the babies into the rain.

  ‘No!’ I screamed mutely. Jordan smiled faintly and dropped the shrieking babies without his eyes straying from mine for even a flinch. As I tried to catch the babies, I lunged forward over the railing. Below there was no ground but a chasm of darkness that fell immeasurably deep into the earth. I jumped, wanting to save my babies, and I was soon hurtling into the black mouth.

  ‘Babykins?’ Jordan cried out. ‘Are you alright? You sound like you’re having a nightmare.’