by Greta Boris
I took my time planting the rest of the kitchen herbs I’d bought that morning in a small plot near the door. When I was done, I rose and stretched the stiffness from my back. I picked up my trowel and the empty black plastic pots and headed to the potting shed.
I was halfway across the yard when I heard the crash, followed a second later by Doug’s bellow. I stood still for a moment, then placed my gardening things carefully on the ground, and walked toward the sound. The sight that greeted me took my breath away.
Doug was on his knees in the living room, slapping at something I couldn’t see on the floor. “Watch out. They bite.” His words were laced with terror.
“What bites, Doug?” I asked.
“The dogs. All the little dogs.”
A chill traveled down my limbs. “There are no dogs, Doug.”
He howled in pain and batted at his shins. “Stop. Stop. God, I’m bleeding.”
I took a step toward him.
“Look out, Sage. The black one.” Doug backed into a corner of the room and kicked his foot at an unseen animal.
“What’s wrong with Daddy?” Lily had come up behind me so quietly I hadn’t heard her.
“I don’t know, sweetheart. Go get your brother for me. Please.”
Lily disappeared down the hallway.
“Doug, honey.” I moved two tentative feet in his direction. “Why don’t you get up? You can sit on the couch where the dogs can’t reach you.”
“Are you crazy?” His eyes were wide, pupils dilated. “The gray one is on the couch. He took a chunk out of me before you got here.” He held up his arm for my examination. The skin looked clear and smooth. “No, no, no.” His voice escalated to a shriek, legs and arms flailing. “They’re all over me. Do something, Sage. Do something.”
I reached for him, to try and soothe him. He smacked my hands away.
“Mama.” Tomas’s voice was quiet. Lily hid behind him.
“Tomas, call 911.”
“What do I say?”
“Tell them to send an ambulance. Daddy’s having hallucinations.”
I never took my eyes off my husband. I heard my children’s steps move toward the kitchen, the swinging door thud shut, and Lily’s whimpers muffle.
Doug curled into a fetal position and covered his head with his arms. He rocked back and forth, shoulders twitching. I sat on the coffee table. I wanted to be close, but not too close. That’s how I’d lived for the past five months.
Those first days after the doctors backed off the coma drugs, Doug had seen horrible images on the ceiling of his room, screamed in fear when the nurses came in to take care of him. They’d had to restrain him to change his bandages. But the delusions subsided little by little, and by the time I brought him home they’d stopped altogether. But now they’d returned.
Outside the window, I saw a mockingbird swoop and dive at a crow, defending its nest. I heard the cawing lament of the big black bird and the high chatter of the smaller one. Somebody a few houses away started up a lawn mower. The scent of dirt and basil rose from my hands and clothing. Familiar things. Familiar things that didn’t belong in this strange nightmare world I’d been living in.
I thought I heard the distant sound of a siren, but it was Doug. He’d begun keening, high and quiet. Exhaustion wrapped itself around me like a boa constrictor. I felt hollow and emotionless, like there was nothing left inside me but brittle bones.
I looked at Doug, panting, eyes squeezed shut, beads of sweat on his impossibly white forehead. Why had I tried so hard to keep him at home? To defend him? A yearning for a normal life, for sanity grabbed me with such force I hugged myself to stop the pain. God help me, I didn’t care what happened to him now. I only wanted him gone.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
KORBA’S WAS BUSY and boisterous. Olivia had forgotten about the balalaika player who sometimes performed on Tuesdays. They followed Phil, the owner, through the maze of tables to a spot in the corner close to the kitchen door. It was far enough away from the music to carry on a conversation without shouting, so she didn’t complain about the constant inhale and exhale of warm air and the parade of platters streaming past.
After they were seated and ordered a carafe of Greek wine, Tom straightened in his chair. He looked like he was bracing himself. “You’ve been mysterious lately.”
“I haven’t meant to be. Just home. With Brian.”
“I wish you’d have let me come by. I could’ve brought Mom’s famous herbal cold remedy.”
“No sense in you getting sick.” She wasn’t sure how much longer she could keep up the small talk, or how much longer she should. She didn’t want to order dinner, give him the bad news during appetizers, then talk about the weather while they ate their main meal. On the other hand, dumping him after he paid the bill seemed like bad form.
She didn’t have much experience with breakups. Only Davy, and she’d ended their marriage by throwing his things onto the front lawn and changing the locks. That hardly seemed appropriate here.
“So what have you been doing for the past week and a half?” Tom asked.
“Oh, let’s see, I watched three Disney movies, two superhero films, passed the first level of Iron Kingdom with a lot of help from Brian and ate. A ton. This week I have to catch up all the work I didn’t do last week.”
“Cold didn’t bother your appetite?”
“Oh, no.”
“So where were you when I called Tuesday? Or, Wednesday, or Friday for that matter. I figured you’d be bouncing off the walls with boredom.”
Olivia didn’t know how to answer. She’d seen the calls but let them go to voice mail. She hadn’t been ready to talk to him, but she couldn’t say that. “I don’t know, sleeping or taking care of Brian.”
“You could’ve returned the calls.”
He’d just pushed right past the small talk phase of the date, so that answered her first question. The second question was more complicated. How did one do this kind of thing? “Listen—”
But she was saved from having to stammer out what she’d come to say by Nick, Phil’s son. He set the carafe and two glasses on the table, pulled a pad from his apron, and stood at the ready.
“Do you want to share the falafel?” Tom asked her. “Then we could get some appetizers.”
She nodded. She didn’t care what they ordered. She wouldn’t be able to eat anyway. Her stomach was in tangles.
As soon as Nick walked away, the balalaika player struck up a rowdy tune. Two children, maybe four and six years of age, brother and sister by the look of them, leaped up from their seats and began to dance with abandon between the tables. Several customers clapped to the song’s rhythm and cheered them on while their parents watched with fond faces.
This wasn’t the time or place for the serious conversation Olivia had planned. She couldn’t imagine delivering her news over the heads of the jigging youngsters. I like you, Tom, but...
When the song ended, the children sat, but the atmosphere in the restaurant remained festive. It stayed festive throughout the hummus and pita bread, the salad, and the main course. Olivia wracked her brain for safe topics, redirected their dialog when it strayed too close to the cliffs, and glued interested smiles onto her face. By the time the loukoumades arrived, her cheeks hurt. She drained the dregs of wine from her glass, and nibbled on a donut, exhausted.
“Full?” Tom asked as he signed the check.
She nodded, the weight of what she was about to do piled atop the heavy dinner in her gut. It made her queasy. She marched the length of the restaurant like a condemned prisoner on the way to a painful but just punishment. When they stepped out into the evening chill, Tom wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her close. “Where to now?”
Olivia pondered her answer. It was too cold to talk to him here, on the street—both literally and figuratively. Resistance rose up strong and solid at the idea of having him in her home. “How about your place?”
As soon as the words left he
r lips, she doubted the wisdom of them. She fretted all the way along Coast Highway, and inland toward San Juan Capistrano. He probably thought she was finally acquiescing about spending the night. He’d mentioned it two or three times.
She’d never slept with him, and she knew it bothered him, made him feel she didn’t take their relationship seriously. Now she had to tell him she never would.
The truth was Davy was the only man she’d ever been with. Not that she was a prude. Her abstinence came more from anxiety than morality. She’d gotten close with Craig Caldwell—high school math class nerd—once. But as soon as she saw the excitement in his eyes, she’d shut down. It had reminded her too much of Proctor. As old fashioned as it was, she was glad that she’d made it to her wedding night intact. And she was glad she hadn’t slept with Tom now.
She pulled up to the curb in front of his place and turned off the ignition. She would make this short, sweet, and to the point. No nightcap. No long-winded explanations. She’d deliver the blow, and leave.
Tom hurried inside turning on lights as he went. She followed behind him, struck again by the austere perfection of his home. How had she ever believed they’d be good together? Her house was comfortable, like a favorite worn and faded sweatshirt. His was an Armani suit. It soothed her conscience to think it would never have worked.
Even if she hadn’t known about the boy from the Boise school, or the other child and his mother from Phoenix, she knew she and Tom didn’t mix. He was cold-pressed extra virgin olive oil. She was plain old tap water.
“Come over by the fire and get warm,” Tom said, shaking out the match he’d used to light the gas logs. “I’ll open a bottle of wine.”
“No wine for me. I have to drive.”
“You only had one glass at dinner.” His eyebrows raised in surprise.
“We need to talk.” There she’d said it, the trite phrase that started every breakup. The gauntlet was thrown.
“Oh.” His eyes narrowed.
“I’m so sorry—”
He held up a hand, stopping her. “Why don’t you tell me the issues.”
“It’s me. It’s my life. It’s—”
“Don’t jack me around, Olivia.”
“But it is my life. It’s Brian. It’s the new business. I don’t... I can’t be someone’s girlfriend right now. I don’t have time to do it right.”
Tom sat in a chair near the fire and stared at her with blank eyes. “Brian doesn’t want me around.”
“He hasn’t said that.”
“But he doesn’t have to, does he?”
The room was cold, but Olivia didn’t want to move closer to the fire, closer to him. She hugged herself instead. “What do you mean?”
Tom’s eyes flashed green in the firelight. “I’ve tried, Olivia. I reached out during soccer season. I’ve tutored him. I took him to the horse show.”
“I know you have. I appreciate it.”
“He’s not going to accept anybody but Davy. You do know that, right? He’ll sabotage every relationship you have until he’s old enough to move out.”
“It’s not about Brian.”
“But you said it was.” The frost in his voice startled her.
“I mean, it’s not that Brian doesn’t like you, doesn’t approve. He had a great time at Calavia. He talked about it for a week.”
“Good, because regardless of what happens here, between us, it doesn’t impact my offer to tutor him.”
She’d let Brian finish out the year. He only had a few more sessions. Not continuing after the Christmas break would be less awkward than pulling him now, and Brian had to see Tom at school. She didn’t want to create anymore strain on their relationship than there already was.
“What is the problem, Olivia?” he said.
She searched her mind for an explanation. “It’s this.” She gestured to the room around her. “Your home, it’s like you. So put together. You have such a tight rein on your life. I’m not like that.” She realized the truth of her words as she said them.
“So, what, I’m wound too tight for you?”
“Maybe. That’s part of it. It’s also that you’re so decided about things.” The more she spoke the more confident she felt. She’d had qualms about Tom from the beginning, but she hadn’t wanted to examine them. She’d wanted it to work. The vague doubts now grew distinct and sharp-edged as she voiced them. “You know what you want. You know where you’re going. I need space to figure those things out for myself.”
“Is it Davy?”
“No.” She spoke too quickly. His abrupt change in topic threw her. And, of course, it was Davy. Not in the way Tom meant, but she had promised Davy she’d do what she had to do to keep Brian’s and Tom’s relationship purely professional. If information surfaced about Tom’s past that resulted in his firing, Davy didn’t want Brian hurt or confused.
“Davy and I have a reluctant friendship, which is good for Brian. Davy is making an effort. I’m beginning to forgive, let go of the anger. But it’s not romantic.”
“There’s something you’re not telling me.” Tom’s voice was emotionless, like he was puzzling over a math problem.
“I don’t know what you want me to say. Nobody gave me a script. I just know this isn’t right for either one of us.”
“Speak for yourself.” His words were cold and blunt.
She felt as if she’d been slapped. She suppressed the anger that was beginning to simmer in her belly. He was hurt. What was that her mother used to say, hurt people hurt people? “Okay. Speaking for myself then, it isn’t right. For me.” She pivoted and began to walk out of the room. She’d better leave before she said something she’d regret later.
“I’ll give you time,” he said to her retreating form.
She turned to look at him so he could see her resolve. “I don’t need time.”
A small, condescending smile crept across his face. “I think you do.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
FIONA WINCED AS she rearranged herself in the chair next to the lobby desk and stretched her spine. “I’m so glad I paid extra for ergonomically designed office furniture.” Olivia smiled at the sarcasm in her voice, remembering how uncomfortable even the first months of pregnancy could be. “So, you broke up with him on Tuesday night?” Fiona continued the conversation they’d been having before her condition interrupted them.
“I did, but I’m not sure he believes it.” Olivia checked the last two boxes on the order form she’d been working on, hit send and closed her lap top.
“How can that be?”
“I told him we weren’t right for each other, and he said, ‘I’ll give you some time.’“
“Time for what?”
“To change my mind, I guess.”
“But you’re not going to.” It was a statement, not a question. Fiona had sided with Davy as soon as she learned that Tom had dated the Phoenix boy’s mother.
“No. Especially not now. I may have had some qualms about it at first, but I knew I’d done the right thing as soon as I told him.”
“It’s too bad.” Fiona ran a lazy finger in circles around her belly like she was playing with a lock of her child’s hair. “He seemed like such a nice guy in the beginning. So perfect for you.”
“Yeah, well, looks can be deceiving. Even his mother admitted he’s controlling.”
“I wonder if Sage knows you broke up. She was in this morning, but she didn’t say anything. Not to me, anyway. Did she say anything to you?”
“No, but it’s only been two days.”
“I’m sure she’ll take it in stride.”
“I hope so. The tincture has helped Brian so much. I don’t know where else to get it.”
Fiona anchored her hands, one on the desk, the other on the chair and heaved herself up. “I’m looking forward to carrying this child in my arms.”
Olivia smiled. If Fiona was this uncomfortable at five months, she couldn’t imagine what she’d be like at the end of her pregnancy. “
Just wait. My last trimester Davy had to cut my toenails for me. I couldn’t reach them.”
“Devon gave me a pedicure last week.” She pointed a sandaled foot, nails painted metallic blue, in Olivia’s direction. “He’s practicing. I want my feet to look good in the stirrups.”
“That’s important.” Olivia slid the pile of work she’d been assembling all day into her tote bag, and checked her watch. She had to pick up Brian from school right on time. He had math tutoring until 3:30, and she’d asked him to meet her out front, so she didn’t have to see Tom.
“You’re not too sad?” Fiona said, pulling on a long sweater.
“Off and on,” Olivia said. “But nothing like when Davy and I broke up. That was like an amputation.” Olivia ‘s cell phone chirped from somewhere. She followed the sound and found it under a pile of exercise tops she’d been folding earlier.
“Is Ms. Richards there,” the voice on the other end said.
“This is she.”
“I’m calling from the infirmary at St. Barnabas. Your son, Brian—don’t worry, he’s fine—but he’s had an incident.”
“What kind of incident?” A band of tension slid around the top of Olivia’s head.
“He’s disoriented, confused. One of the staff found him wandering off campus. I thought maybe he’d hit his head on the playground, but I can’t find any sign of injury.”
“Confused how?” Olivia grabbed her bags, and moved toward the door.
“What’s wrong?” Fiona’s face was filled with concern.
“I don’t know,” Olivia mouthed to her.
“He wasn’t sure where he was for a while, but he’s coming around. Aren’t you, Brian?” Olivia heard her son’s voice in the distance. “I’m at school.” He sounded distant and disinterested.
“I’ll be there in ten minutes,” Olivia said and raced to her car.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
THE NEXT WEEK and a half were a roller coaster ride. As soon as Olivia had brought Brian home from school, she’d called Dr. Gallagher’s office. His nurse suggested she keep an incident diary like the one she’d kept right after the accident, then make an appointment in a couple of weeks.