Separate, p.15
Separate, page 15
“It’s a huge park.”
“Big enough for two soccer matches. Sports leagues practice year-round, even T-ball. There’s no diamond, but grass is soft and more fun to slide on. I remember desperately wanting to show off for my parents, and whacking more of the tee than the ball. Thunk, flop, out. School teams have fields on the school grounds, but those are closed to the public because of vandalism and wire thieves.”
“People love this park,” Na softly observed.
“It’s a hangout. Pretty much everywhere else is rugged forest or pastures. Don’t picnic in a pasture.”
Na stared at her feet. “You know Boone Hales at the museum?”
“He got me through state history. It was like Ms. Stumpfknell had moral objections to my graduation.”
“Boone spoke bittersweetly about memories being linked to locations. There’s no avoiding memories in small towns. Boone loves this park because it reminds him of his wife.”
“Yeah?” Doug listened.
“It’s a gravestone to me. A turfed epitaph. I met the mayor here. And Wade, in person.”
“Wade? What happened?” An idea flashed into Doug’s head: the lumberjack, angered by the cabin’s destruction, had murdered Na’s friend. He summarily discarded it. More self-blame. This is about Wade and Na, not me.
“They don’t know. He died last night. Most people think his negligence killed his friends. I bet they label it suicide.”
“Based on what I read . . .”
Na smashed a shoe into the ground. “Exactly why it’s unfair.”
Flirting was ludicrous. But Doug’s attraction was an organic diversion in unnatural circumstances. Their nascent will-they-won’t-they relationship drama protected him. Sickening horrors and life’s gloomy destination were pit traps. Na, even at this moment, was his safety harness.
But they had shared days, not experiences. The park represented an accumulation of history to him. Footprints layered on footprints, each unique set related through blood and citizenship. If people made a town, new generations founded new towns on old stones. Na, understandably, felt none of that. Regardless of their differences, he vowed to back her up and give her his faith.
Doug motioned at a red-and-white-striped signboard ahead: “Birch Knot, the best when nothing’s open. Its popularity is a mystery.”
“Isn’t that Dr. Elmir’s car?”
“Weren’t you with him a few minutes ago?” Doug glanced backward, as if the hotel’s vehicles were still visible.
“I haven’t seen him. And he didn’t leave a message. He’s going easy on me,” Na flatly reported.
“Yeah, good.” Double good: change subjects. Nothing can be done about Wade. “How are you?”
“Eh.”
“Bad day?”
“Eh. I’m fine. Strange he’s here. We’re sitting separate. Since he doesn’t want me busy, we’re not having a working breakfast.”
“Suits me.” Doug had invited her here in the first place to get public privacy.
Through the central front door, a front desk divided the restaurant’s bright red-and-white interior into halves. The desk was unmanned, but a server hauling armfuls of dirty dishes promptly greeted them. “He-ey,” she drawled. “Have a seat. We’ll be right there.”
Doug hesitated, and Na whispered, “Back booth.” She had noticed them before Doug: Taryn and Dr. Elmir, chatting over mostly empty plates which had been pushed aside.
“We’ll keep it brief,” Doug confirmed.
The restaurant had few customers. Three families were seated in the right half, one of which displayed a birthday banner. A sprinkling of pairs and singles occupied the left half. Upon reaching Taryn’s table, Na led. “Morning, Dr. Elmir.”
“Na, Doug, I’m apologizing to Taryn for sending her down a multitude of dead-ends. Her father was right: heartbreaking losses aplenty, but no prior history of what we’ve seen—you’ve seen. What are you two up to?”
He. Is. Sapped. Doug spotted bereavement’s toll in Dr. Elmir’s dulled poise and hollow eyes propped up by squinting. Doug had sunk into the same mood the year after his parents’ death.
“Brunch,” uttered Na.
Dr. Elmir tapped a dish. “Milky eggs, if that’s your taste.”
“I’ll mosey through the menu, see what’s good for my stomach. Why hurry, right?”
“Yes. No hurry today, Na, and we’re not heading home yet. But this is too grim for a sophomore novice. I shouldn’t have teetered back and forth about your role. You believe you’re fine now. Great. Fine. But trauma sneaks up and leaps out once your mind’s done processing. Or worse, it manifests years later as your perspective changes, when your kids are sophomores in college.
“Succinctly, you’ve been definitively damaged physically, and possibly psychologically. Relax. Heal. I trust Doug to watch over you. But keep your energy up. I’ll ask when I need help with fitting tasks. To wit, it’s a slow week in the office for you, not a furlough.”
“Fine by me. We’re going to order. I haven’t eaten. Take care, Taryn.”
“You two too.” Taryn smiled back.
Doug waved and trailed Na. He asked again, “You’re really okay?”
“Legitimately.”
In their own booth far from their elders, Doug handed Na a wrinkled laminated menu he’d nabbed from a neighboring table. “No recommendations. Go with your gut.”
“What’s spiral-cut chicken?”
“Jokes: their shtick.”
The server neared their table. “Are y’all ready?”
Na passed the menu to her. “Regular grilled cheese and water.”
“Cobble-cobble salad for me.”
Cringe. The server nodded and departed.
“And water, please,” Doug called after her.
Na grimaced. “You have something to tell me? Don’t delay on my account.”
“More trespassers messed around in that cabin last night, the dentist’s. I . . . lost it. I took a gas can and burned it to cinders.” Doug switched gears before delivering the punchline. “That’s why I couldn’t sleep. Now you can’t go back. It’s gone, and so’s the lumberjack.”
Na gaped. “Wish you’d done it a month ago. That eyesore was the only Milton address not haunted.”
Doug swept away his questions about her desire to meet the lumberjack. Na was irritated and wanted peace, it seemed. Being there for her, supporting her, didn’t mean needling her into talking. Her mood was familiar to Doug. When he was mired in dejection, quiet was all he wanted too. Their meals arrived quickly, and they ate in anxious silence.
Na aligned her utensils on the rim of her plate. “I’m heading back.”
“Me too.”
“I don’t need an escort.”
I’m supposed to watch over her. She’s upset, though. “I have to open Stuffs,” Doug defended, “but you go. I’ll stay and pay.”
Doug jogged back through the park not five minutes later, trying to drain excess energy from his overcharged battery. In that short time alone, he tallied a shamefully long list of mistakes he’d made during the hour spent with Na. I’m exhausted, he consoled himself. And everything considered, her moodiness is justified. His full gut gurgled from sleep deprivation too. A sonorous, bubbly warble preceded a loud burp. But it was a weekend, and Doug couldn’t excuse another day away from Stuffs. He switched to high-knee jogging to aid digestion.
At the far side of the park, his hopping turned to sprinting. Ahead of him lay Na, motionless and face down in the grass, mere inches from the sidewalk. Her hair splayed about her. He thought better of flipping her over, in case she’d hit her head. Oh God. How far’s the truck? One, two blocks? He dialed 911 on his own phone and puked.
45
“Confirmed she’s stable, Kath. Vital signs good. The sling means meds—might explain her unconsciousness.”
“Alright, Martin. I’ll radio the clinic. Odds are she’s one of theirs.” Milton’s old center had square corners and a tidy layout. Outside town, the roads were wandering squiggles. In their wisdom, Milton’s forefathers had opted to pave disjointed logging routes trampled by 1800s laborers. “Sharp turns ahead, so—”
“The usual, got it. Say, Kath, can you turn down the A/C?”
Mid-reach for the radio, she diverted her hands to the ambulance’s dashboard knobs. Vent: check. Fan: check. “It is down. It’s off off.”
“Couldja triple-check? It’s freezing back here.”
“Really?” Martin never teased when they had a patient on board. Kath glanced up at the mirrors. Before her eyes, Martin’s face coagulated into mortuary wax. In more than a decade as an EMT, she had not seen a man this shade of ochre. His arm stiffened into a club and slammed the side of her head. She would bruise, but Kath was more worried about her partner. “Martin!”
A crash would be worse. She looked back at the road and tucked inside her seat, bracing for more hits as she tried to maintain control of the ambulance. The hits kept coming, one after another. Some thumped harmlessly against the front passenger seat, as if he couldn’t aim his strikes. “Martin!”
The next hit her ear, rippling heat through her skull and knocking her glasses crooked. The distortion from her lenses made it hard to steer cleanly. Her trained arms automatically adjusted to the new visual input and oversteered. Kath braked and closed an eye to minimize the distortion and correct their course.
Too late. Martin’s next swing jammed forward into the wheel. The ambulance veered into the rocky embankment and rolled onto its side. The impact threw Martin toward Kath. Dazed and concussed, she tried running through emergency procedures: Howzit patience, howzit patience. Nothing made sense. Goose bumps rose along her arms. She felt cold.
Kath heard a rumble, an engine, and . . . whines? Suddenly, she felt heat again in her face and legs. Waxy Martin stretched into a vista of agony and regret, then wheezed and crumpled onto the van’s bottom side. “Mar—” Kat didn’t finish his name before she blacked out, just like their securely fastened passenger.
46
Irritation brought Na back: she railed against the iciness running up her forearms. “Cold!” The metal buckles on her restraints held fast.
“Hello, Ms. Bensen,” a man’s muffled voice rippled. He must have been wearing a mask or lurking behind a partition. Captured like Na was, it relieved her that he was not at her bedside.
“Where am I? I can’t move. I can’t see. Why am I blindfolded?”
“Do you remember what happened?”
I remember being ticked. “I was in the park.” Shit, I fainted. How did I . . . ?
“You had a seizure.”
“I haven’t shaken, like, ever.”
“The blindfold is protection. Visual stimuli exacerbate seizures. Some devices—the cardiogram—have aggravating lights. A single seizure could cause catastrophic damage.”
“Why am I tied up?”
“More protection. Healthy patients without preexisting conditions hurt themselves during tremors. They fall or twitch and gore themselves on objects. For you, belts and cuffs are doubly important.” The man’s mechanical voice disquieted Na; its professionally removed tenor lacked Gina’s solemn tinge. Yet his voice had intensity. “Your stupor has broken. But it may recur. You are as safe as I can make you. This is temporary, I assure you. After all, you must be mobile to evaluate the treatment. When I am confident you have stabilized, treatment will resume.”
“What should I do?” What can I do?
“You are a curiosity. Plausibly unique. Listen to me. Together we will unearth the roots of your crisis.”
“How about when I need to get up?”
“Your disorder is severe. Meditate. Sleep. Do not despair: you are being carefully watched.”
“So, what, holler? Hello? Are you there?” W-T-F does that mean?
She had forgotten to ask his name. And where the hell am I? Is it weird that I’m still in my clothes? The man had her records, which seemed like a good sign. If she wasn’t in the clinic, she was somewhere in their network. I’ll know for sure if Gina comes. She’ll come if this is the clinic.
Sedation was the only explanation Na had for sleeping again. Instinctively, she swung her legs sideways off the bed to get up and use the bathroom. As she sat up, she returned to the here and now by replaying her most recent memories. Am I late for a class or appointment? Do I need a shower? How does my arm feel? Where did I slee— Blindfolded, tied to a bed. But she opened her eyes nonetheless, and saw herself.
Separate again, tethered and weightless, a bubble in her core inflated with despair. She had barely repossessed her body last time. She had lost her cool and begun to degrade. But she’d survived, which provided a tiny thumbtack of determination to do better. I will not be Krasue, lost and forever hungry.
Na snagged an idea, a benefit, from the rim of her scrambled mind. The blindfold doesn’t matter. Physical reality remained gauzy and askew. Competing overlays of existence flitted in and out of focus. A thin, invisible tether still confined her in this otherworldly vacuum, holding her near her body, and she could not explore beyond her vicinity. Thank goodness. Her room had long gray walls, dim lighting, square meters of empty space, and an underground, basement-like coldness. A curtain was drawn around a second bed on the opposite side of the spacious room. This was not the clinic. It was a cell. This feels all wrong.
A shell rolled in on a wheelchair pushed by a man. Na knew the slumped, lifeless husk was alive, but not how she knew; it contained energy. The man, in contrast, had double solidity. His body and spirit overlapped perfectly. They unified a point occupying two realms, and Na felt drawn almost like gravity. He ushered the wheelchair to the curtained bed and spun it so the shell faced the door. He ignored Na completely and exited without a word of comfort for either patient. Is he the doctor from before? She had to move quickly.
Krasue. Krasue’s prodding had made Na’s body twitch and spasm, which meant Na could too. And Na had more freedom now, a lightness different from the massless suspension she’d experienced before. The tether was pliable and lax. With a thought, Na gracefully slid downward next to the bed. The optical confusion from being locked askew and out of sync could be managed because Na knew what to search for. A corded nurse call ran along the bed and ended next to her physical hand. She had to press the button on that clicker.
Na touched her actual hand with her spirit’s. As before, a swirling screech of visual noise threatened to suck her back into her drugged, immobile body. Not yet. She held back, pushed herself away, and clawed at the appendage with pumping grips. Come on. Come on. Her hand flinched at first, a tiny flick of the wrist, then seized and crushed the call with force that turned her knuckles white. Victorious and unable to resist the pull longer, Na succumbed and dispersed back into her incapacitated self.
47
Zeb hung up. He’d been right about Na needing observation and was grateful for Doug’s assistance, despite the dilemmas caused by his involvement. Once more, Na had to be given precedence over his work. Trouble looks for her as much as she looks for it.
Doug said she hadn’t responded to his texts or messages, so Zeb’s first call was to the clinic. They knew Zeb was responsible for her and could tell him things they couldn’t tell Doug. The receptionist agreed with what Doug had said, that an ambulance would have taken Na to their clinic, yet she was not there. Furthermore, no ambulances had radioed to say she was inbound. As far as they knew, Na was fine.
He called Taryn. “Hello, it’s Zeb.”
“Hey, Zeb! Thanks again for the meal.”
“Sure, sure. Listen, I need your help. Na’s missing.”
“What?”
“Doug called 911 after she fainted in the park. They picked her up, and that’s the last we’ve heard of her. She’s not at the clinic, which is where everyone says she should be. I’m stumped.”
“Hold on. An ambulance came and got her?”
“That’s what Doug said, yes.”
“There was a crash earlier. An ambulance lost control and went off the road. I had to send a crew to divert traffic. The paramedics lived. They’re still getting treated, I think.”
“What?! When I asked the clinic, they said they didn’t have any patients like that. I asked just in case they had her and couldn’t ID her. Did they lie to me?”
“Oh, no, the crash was on one of those looping roads that goes around the town, faster but longer. Where it was, they shuttled the victims to Veronica Hospice instead. I think that’s why. I don’t know. Anyway, they’ve got a small emergency ward. I bet that’s where she is.”
“Can you give me directions? I don’t think they can tell me anything over the phone.”
“Why don’t you pick me up? I’m not doing anything my dad can’t. And the route there isn’t direct because that road is closed.”
“Yes. Good idea. I’m heading there now.”
48
A nurse had answered her call just as the doctor had promised, which gave Na a tidbit of reassurance that she wasn’t in immediate danger. After using the restroom, Na had been strapped back into bed. She asked to be left unrestrained, but the nurse had shrugged and reapplied the buckles and blindfold. Those ten minutes after he answered her call were a blur from the mixture of sedatives, sleep, and disorientation. The nurse might have been the same man who had brought in the wheelchair.
Stationary like this, Na found herself reaching out again. If she was going to keep separating, it seemed like a good idea to practice reunifying. What if she hadn’t been on a hotel bed, or with Doug in the woods, or in a public park?
With minimal effort, Na rose vertically and alongside her hospital bed. The tethers were no stiffer than an hour ago, and terra firma no clearer. She acclimated by symbolically extending her incorporeal limbs and spreading her fingers and toes. These are mine? They don’t have muscles, do they?
