Oblivion (23 page)

After a few moments of silence, he admits, “You don’t look well.”

I’m spiraling down into the dark place again. Already I’m not sleeping much. Food will be the next sacrifice, if the words keep tormenting me this way.

Even when Ritchie places the back of his hand on my forehead, I’m too numb to flinch away from his touch. “You aren’t warm.”

“Can I just …” I have to lick my lips mid-sentence to continue. I’m so parched. “If you won’t let me write, can I lie down?”

“Are you drunk?”

“I don’t drink.”

“Hungover?”

“I don’t drink. Just want my pen. Just have to write.”

“Do you want to go home?”

I shake my head and slouch farther down in the chair. I can’t imagine going home to the place above the Vagabond, where I’ll shiver and breathe in decades of mildew, and I
know I’m not welcome at Lindsey’s. “I just need to … I need to write. Please.” The room is spinning out of control, becoming a swish of navy blue and green, and a bright white light flashes at intervals. I’m going. I’m going. Going. I allow my eyes to flutter closed.

“Let’s get you to the nurse.”

With the pressure of Ritchie’s hand under my elbow, I stand. Walk. But I’m not really here. Not really present. Numb. Cloudy.

I hear, if only in the recesses of my mind, my mother’s bracelets clanging. Someone strums a guitar. She’s singing.
Let my love open the door
.

God, I miss her.

Her song swirls inside me.

I sway to the rhythm.

She’s turning Tarot over her swollen belly.

Candles burn, masking the lake water scent of the old building with vanilla and cinnamon. A breath of lake breeze whips through the white sheers in a white room. I’m falling asleep in a mound of yellow and pink pillows.

Gripping a rosary in my tiny, two-year-old hands, worrying at the center stone until it falls out.

I’m lying on a cot.

Someone’s looking at me.

Palmer.

I scramble to sit, struggle to open my eyes.

But I’ve been in such a deep sleep that it’s hard to stir.

“Easy, Callie.”

“No!”

“Callie.” An index finger strokes my right knee.

“No, no, no!”

“Callie. Callie, it’s me.”

John.

His voice is distant, and my body is numb everywhere, save the hot space on the inside of my right knee where he touched me. I concentrate on the spot, willing its warmth to spread over me. I wiggle my toes, and some feeling returns. Do the same with my fingers.

Eventually, I manage to peel my eyes open.

I’m in the nurse’s office at Carmel.

He cracks a smile. “You okay?”

“Yeah.” And I do feel better. I wonder if I only needed a decent rest. “Yeah.” I lick my lips. “I’m okay.”

“That’s good,” he says. “You want a ride to your appointment?”

“Ride?”

“Well, yeah. Lindsey left already, so I thought—”

I tuck a few fingers beneath the cuff of my sweater and twist the face of John’s watch toward me. “Jesus!” It’s three fifteen. School’s over. I slept the entire afternoon.

“You must’ve been tired.”

“I was.” I rub sleep from my eyes.

“Come on.” He juts his chin toward the door. “I’ll get you to your appointment.”

“You have practice.”

“Screw practice.”

“I can take a bus.”

“Callie, did I do something wrong?”

I reach for my penny loafers. “Yeah. You neglected to respond to the mating calls of Lindsey Hutch.”

He sighs. “With us, I mean.”

“No.” I shove my feet into Lindsey’s old shoes.

“Then stop avoiding me.” He flattens his palm against my thigh. “Let me help you.”

Ten minutes later, we’re on our way to Ewing’s office. I’m sucking on a butterscotch Dum Dums pop, one John had tucked in his glove box from his last visit to the bank.

He glances at me. “Are you …”

“I’m fine.”

“No, I mean, is there a chance you could …” He brings the car to a stop at a light and burns me with a steady stare.

I pull the candy from my mouth and try not to sound irritated. “I could … what?”

“Lindsey’s telling people you’re pregnant.”

My heart bottoms out in my gut. “Really?”

“I hear she posted something on Facebook about being excited to be an aunt. Tons of people saw it before they even got to school.” He licks his lips and hesitantly continues. “Then you were sick today, and—”

“God, can she ever be a bitch!” A cavern hollows out in my chest.

“If you are, it means something about you and Elijah because—”

“Are you kidding me?” I can’t look at him. The hollow spot deepens. “I’m not.”

“I’m just saying. We used a Trojan, so …”

“Why are you acting like this rumor is true?”

The car begins to roll. “I said
if
.”

“Well, stop wondering what if. I’m not!”

“Sorry.”

“I’m sure you are. I’m sure you’re sorry you ever laid eyes on me.”

“No. God, Callie …”

I turn up the radio and allow Eminem’s tortured commentary to fill the space between John and me. Memories of a masculine hand feathering over a pregnant belly flash in my mind. I see it, plain as day. As quickly as the image startles me, it fades.

After a few measures, he punches the dial with his thumb, silencing the music. “Listen, I just think I deserve to know. If you’re still … you know … with Elijah …”

“I have a hard time thinking that’s any of your business, anyway. We hooked up. Maybe we shouldn’t have. But regardless, what happened homecoming night doesn’t obligate you, doesn’t have to change what I am to you.”

“Hey … relax.”

“I’m a mess. I know that. You don’t have to be part of it, and considering Lindsey, maybe you shouldn’t be.”

“I just asked a question, if there’s a chance this rumor is true—”

“You
didn’t
ask—you assumed it was—but it isn’t.”

“Okay.” His hand falls on my thigh.

It feels comforting.

Silence hangs between us. Finally, he speaks up: “Can you try to understand that I wasn’t asking to accuse you, but because … If Elijah’s still hanging around, that means something. Not judging you. Just want to know where I stand, you know?”

I soften a little. “Okay.”

He’s nodding.

“Lindsey’s a bitch. Who saw the post?”

He glances at me out of the corner of his eye. “Pretty much everyone, but don’t worry. I’ll set the record straight.”

I’m alone with the words, with fragmented memories that don’t make sense, with the fear that Hannah’s gone because I couldn’t save her. But suddenly …

I drop my hand atop John’s.

Suddenly, I don’t feel as alone as I used to.

T
here are certain times I’m reminded of the benefits of having a mother. Bundled in a stadium blanket, half lying, half sitting on Dr. Warren Ewing’s leather sofa whilst he counsels me is one of them.

The chills and queasiness have returned, and the words are dancing in my brain like a club beat. My notebook is open, propped against my thighs, and my pen moves, as if of its own volition while I speak. It’s never been this bad before.

If my mother were here, she’d be feeding me crackers and tea. Singing. Turning her cards.

“I won’t quit until we know, Callie,” Ewing says.

That makes two of us. Only where I don’t have a choice, he does.

“So,” he continues. “Where’ve you been staying, if not at the Hutches’?”

“If I tell you, you have to report it.”

“The place above the Vagabond?”

I write—
Stripped yellow linens dried with the breeze of the sea
—and exhale a deeply held breath. “Yes.”

He nods. “Callie, the state has provided ample accommodations for you.”

“Lindsey and I are in the middle of something.” I place a hand over my forehead and swear I can feel the words vibrating beneath my flesh. “She’s telling everyone I’m a lesbian. And pregnant.”

“Pregnant lesbian.” When he says it, it sounds so absurd that I wonder how anyone at school is buying it. “Are you?”

“If I am, I’ve sure wasted a lot of time with Elijah, haven’t I?” I try to laugh, but it hurts my head too much.

His fingers become a steeple, which supports his chin. “I meant pregnant.”

“No!”

“Hmm. Why is she saying these things? What happened?”

“John happened. We sort of … hooked up.” I yank up my sleeve and present John’s watch. I don’t want him to think I irresponsibly fell into bed with John; he needs to understand the circumstances, although he’d tell me that he isn’t judging me, anyway. “This fits into the puzzle somehow.” I reiterate what John said at Lake County PD, about my knowing the inscription, about my remembering it, as if I’d seen it. I tell
him about my mother’s reading John’s aura and fortune.

“Do you … this may seem unorthodox, but … can we call him in here?”

After I give half a nod of consent, Ewing is already at the door, inviting John into another of my private realms. At this rate, he’ll know more about me than he ever bargained for. Before John even takes a seat next to me, Ewing’s on him: “Tell me about the day you found the rosary.”

John lowers himself to the sofa, licks his lips, and glances at me, as if I breached his secret about his believing in otherworldly energies and distinctly anti-Catholic ideologies.

I shrug an apology, although I don’t feel as if I owe him one. This is the one place I shouldn’t have to censor or explain myself.

After a brief pause, John answers, “I’d been thinking about it, you know, since I met the mystic—Callie’s mom—at the Vagabond.”

“Serena told you where to find it?”

“A little over a year ago, yeah. She told me where to dig, and when Hannah went missing, I dug. There it was.”

Ewing squints at him. “And why were you looking for it?”

“I took her seriously, I guess. Because of the watch, what she knew about the watch.”

“He wasn’t really looking for the rosary,” I say. “He was looking for Hannah Rynes.”

“I was looking for both,” he corrects me.

“Hmm.” Ewing nods.

“It was worth a look. I mean, what if I’d been given this information, and Hannah had been there the whole time, and I hadn’t looked?”

“You think the mystic was leading you to a missing person.”

“I did think that.” John leans back and pulls my feet across his lap. “It’s crazy how much she knew, and she said I’d find the body of an angel there, too.”

“Did you go to the police with this lead?”

“After I found the rosary, absolutely. They said they’d follow up on it.”

“Following up on it probably meant asking my mother what she meant,” I interject. “And she probably couldn’t explain herself.”

Ewing rises from his chair, walks to the door, which he opens. “Thank you for your time. She’ll be out in twenty minutes, give or take.”

After John makes his exit, Ewing resumes his seat, cocks his head to the right, and says, “On the record: I want you to take the Ativan.”

I begin to nod.

“But off the record … you’re remembering things. I feel like you’re on the brink of a breakthrough, and if you think the medication will quash it …” He shakes his head. “Use your best judgment, all right? I’m going to trust you
to know what you need to do—take it if it’s unbearable. Don’t, if you feel like you’re getting somewhere.”

“Okay.”

“And there’s no wiggle room on this. Go back to the Hutches’.”

“I can’t. She’s telling people—”

“You said it isn’t true.”

“It’s not so much that she’s lying. It’s that people will believe it if she says it. I don’t like people thinking that way about me.”

“Is there any part of you that thinks that way about yourself?”

My first impulse is to shake my head, but now that I think about it … “Maybe. I mean, there’s Elijah, and there’s John, and not much room in between.”

“When you and Elijah first got together, did you ever assume he’d be the only guy you’d love?”

I shrug a shoulder. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

“Statistically, that would’ve been rare. The expectation that we’ll end up with the very first people who cross our paths is unrealistic. So, in that vein, what you’re doing with John is very, very normal. You’re moving on. Creating distance between you and Elijah. You’re not a bad person for doing it.”

Tears threaten to well in my eyes. There’s a tickle in my nose. “That’s rational. But Lindsey isn’t.”

“What Lindsey thinks of you can’t concern you.”

“Easy for you to say. You’re not the resident pregnant lesbian of Carmel Catholic.”

“Has your perception of Palmer changed based on what the congregation insists is true about him?”

I shake my head.

“Then why would your perception of yourself change, just because Lindsey’s spreading a ridiculous rumor?”

I’m lying on the itchy carpeting in the apartment above the Vagabond. The establishment below me is closed now, so the place is deathly, eerily quiet. I don’t like the quiet any more than I like the solitude.

Not that I’m alone. Someone else lingers, someone knows I’m here. Someone’s waiting for me to exit.

I steal a glance out the window every now and again, but I can’t see anyone amongst the harbor lights.