When I Was You (16 page)

We cozy up on the couch, and I let her have the remote. My mind’s too busy to focus on TV anyway.

“You’re in a generous mood tonight,” she says as she tosses the clicker aside and climbs into my lap.

She hasn’t seen generous yet.

I’m seconds from moving her hand to the growing bulge in my sweats when the doorbell rings. Sam climbs off me, and I mute the TV.

It’s seven o’clock, and I’m not expecting anyone.

“Stay here,” I tell her, reaching for the remote and turning the volume up. I’m not sure who could possibly be stopping by unannounced, but the TV should drown out any conversation I might not want her to hear.

I step lightly down the hall until I get a clear shot of the front door.

Oh, good God.

It’s just Enid.

I’m in sweatpants and a white T-shirt, but she’s already seen me through the clear glass window—no time to change into something more befitting a
prestigious doctor
. I do have matching satin pajama sets with accented piping, but those were just for show, something to wear around Brienne. They cost a small fortune, too. Every time I wore them, I felt like a schmuck. A ridiculously comfortable schmuck, but still a schmuck.

“Enid, hi,” I say when I get the door. I make a passive-aggressive glance toward my watch, but the oblivious woman doesn’t notice. “Everything okay?”

“I was just coming by to ask you that very question,” she says, wrinkled lips pursed flat.

I chuckle. If you laugh at someone when they’re not trying to be funny, it gnaws away at their confidence just enough to make them doubt themselves—another something I picked up from Sonya years ago.

“I haven’t seen Brienne in days,” she says.

Leaning against the doorjamb, I rest my forehead against a balled fist. When delivering some news, a bit of melodrama goes a long way with people like this—people who feel entitled to the details of other people’s personal tragedy.

“What? What is it?” Enid asks, the impatient old dame. Her narrowed eyes search mine, and I’m pretty sure she’s holding her breath as she waits for my response.

“Please keep this between us,” I say, voice so low it’s almost a whisper. “But she had a bit of a
breakdown
last week.”

Enid sucks in a gasp. “Is she all right?”

“Yes, she’s fine. She’s getting the help she needs.”

“Is she close by?” she asks. “Can I visit? Send flowers at least? Oh, that poor thing. After everything she’s been through. And she seemed to be doing so well! She was coming and going more, chatting . . . I thought . . .”

“We all thought she was getting better,” I say, impressed with how convincing I sound. I’m laughing at myself on the inside. Dying laughing. “I think she might have pushed herself too fast. These things happen. I see it every day with my patients.”

Enid nods, toying with the intricate diamond cross pendant hanging from her neck. It doesn’t matter what you say; if people believe you’re a doctor, most of the time they won’t argue with you when you make sweeping generalizations that sound like they’re rooted in intelligence.

“She’s at a private facility in another state,” I tell Enid, hoping she assumes that Brienne wanted to recover in private. “But I’m going to see her this weekend. I can bring flowers for you if you’d like? I know she’d love that.”

“Would you?” she asks. “I’d appreciate that. I know she doesn’t have a lot of family . . .”

Oh, Enid.

If she only knew.

“Of course,” I say, making a mental note to stop for a five-dollar gas-station bouquet of carnations on the way next time.

“Please keep me posted, will you?” she asks, ever the typical retiree with loose lips and way too much time on her hands. She moved into her house only a month or so before I became Brienne’s tenant, but it didn’t take her long to start asking around and sticking her nose in everyone’s business.

Some people might say that makes her neighborly.

I say that makes her a liability.

CHAPTER 28

“You’re not eating.” I’m seated across from Brienne at a Podunk diner on the south side of Old Hundred Saturday morning. I managed to make her day by requesting a two-hour pass after our session with Schneider. Figured it’s the least I can do, and I need to leave here today on a high note. Can’t have her hope and determination flatlining this early in the game. “Is it the food? You want to order something else?”

She picks at her rubbery yellow scrambled eggs with the thin tines of her water-spotted fork.

“I haven’t had much of an appetite since I’ve been here,” she says. “Everything just tastes . . . different.”

Yep. Mass-produced food usually does.

“Would you like pancakes instead, dear?” I lift my arm, like I’m trying to catch our waitress’s attention.

“No, no. It’s fine.” She sets her fork down and picks up a triangle of buttered wheat toast. The crumbs stick to the sides of her mouth as she chews, but she manages to smile. She’s trying to show me she’s in good spirits.

I reach across the table, slithering my arm between juice glasses and bone-colored plastic plates, and I place my hand over hers.

“I’m worried about you,” I say. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but you’re looking a little gaunt.”

“I’ll be fine.” She dabs her mouth with her paper napkin. Brienne takes a few more bites, and I catch her staring into space a couple of times.

“Penny for your thoughts.” I say the words an endearing, concerned husband would say to his poor wife.

Brienne sits straighter, taking a sip of pallid orange juice that’s more water than anything else. “I just keep thinking about that notebook.”

Ah, yes. Kate Emberlin’s diary.

That project was quite the undertaking. First, I had to collect as many handwriting samples from her as I could find, which took me almost an entire week, and even then I’d only collected twenty out of twenty-six alphabetic letters. Then I scanned the documents and sent them to some guy in Indonesia who, for a mere five dollars, turned her handwriting into a downloadable font file, which I installed on my computer. Lastly, I stayed up until 3:00 AM the following night typing up those “notes.”

I have to say, I’m not the creative type, but I think I managed to capture the fictional spirit of Kate Emberlin and our imperfect yet loving marital union in those entries quite well.

When I was finished typing them up, I printed them off, then traced over them in the notebook in pencil—a little project that took a handful of days.

It’s all about authenticity and detail.

I insisted she bring the journal with her to Crestview for two reasons. One, I wanted to make sure there was ample evidence that Kate existed in case the staff or Schneider began questioning it and the medical records weren’t enough to quell their concerns. And two, I wanted Brienne to study those words, to obsess over them, to focus on
becoming this fictional person. It’s a distraction thing. Something to keep her occupied during her stay.

“How are we doing? Everything good here?” Our waitress has perfect timing.

“Yes, everything was fine,” Brienne lies, convincingly so. Impressively so, actually. Props to her.

The waitress takes our check folder from her front apron pocket and places it between us. “Whenever you’re ready, you can pay at the register. Thanks for stopping in, and enjoy the rest of your day.”

Her voice is monotone, her eyes dead. This is a woman who hates her job.

It makes me think of Sam for a moment, of the kind of life I refuse to let her succumb to.

I reach for my wallet a second later as Brienne slides out from our booth.

“I’m going to use the restroom,” she says before darting off, and I catch her feeling around for her purse before remembering she doesn’t have one anymore. They took that when she was admitted, placing it in a padlocked locker in some back room at the facility. I imagine she feels naked without it, helpless, vulnerable.

And she should.

I’m standing in line at the register when my phone buzzes in my pocket. I glance up to make sure Brienne’s still out of sight before taking it out of my pocket.

Sam:
WHAT TIME ARE YOU OFF TODAY?

I fire back a quick text composed of a single word:
BUSY
. Sam knows better than to message me while I’m working. (She thinks I’m driving up to Albert Lea, Minnesota, to drop off a few of Eleanor’s things and some extra meds because she’s decided to extend her stay.)

I shove my phone away just as Brienne comes back, and I paste a smile on my face as I hand one of my prepaid VISAs to the cashier.

A few minutes later, when we’re climbing into the Volvo, I lean across the car and cup Brienne’s cheek, pressing my forehead against hers before kissing her mouth.

She tastes like diner eggs and sour orange juice—nothing like Sam’s cherry ChapStick–flavored lips—but I maintain my poker face and pretend it’s a meaningful gesture by taking my time.

“We’ve still got an hour to kill,” I say. “Want to take a drive?”

Brienne sucks in a perky breath, as if my suggestion has delighted her. “As long as you don’t mind.”

“Mind?” I offer a gentle huff through my nose. “Don’t be ridiculous. Every minute with you is precious, Kate. I don’t want to let a single one go to waste.”

I’ve determined the best way to be Niall-husband-of-Kate is to say all the corny things I’d never think about saying to Sam in real life. Sam doesn’t need to hear how much I love and adore her. She doesn’t need constant reassurance and pithy greeting card expressions. She knows it. She feels it. And likewise. What we have is deep, permanent, unspoken, and everlasting, and traditional romantic gestures could never do it justice.

I choose an arbitrary road and keep driving, noting the time to ensure I dump her off at Crestview on time when the world’s longest hour is over.

“You want some music?” I point at the radio.

Brienne messes with the dials, settling on some boring adult contemporary channel that fades and crackles as we dip in and out of highway hills and valleys. We truly are in BFE, and it reminds me of back home in Nebraska.

Miles and miles and miles of depressing nothingness—which is ironic, really, because who the hell would put an inpatient psychiatric facility in a place like this? More than ten minutes out here makes me want to slit my jugular.

We’re halfway into our drive when I spot Brienne glancing at her left hand—her left ring finger, specifically.

“Do you think you can bring my wedding ring next time?” she asks. “I just . . . you don’t have to wear yours. I know we’re still . . . I’m just thinking it might help jog my memory. I don’t even know what it looks like.”

“Kate, of course,” I answer without hesitation.

I make a mental note to stop by a pawnshop this week.

CHAPTER 29

“Dr. Emberlin? Hi, this is Nancy at Crestview,” the woman on the other end of the phone says as I attempt to get gas Tuesday after work. I’m on my third card, the first two declined due to insufficient funds.

I don’t have time for this.

“Nancy, hi,” I say, maintaining my composure. “Is everything okay with my wife?”

“Oh, yes. I’m just following up on those medical records,” she says. “We went ahead and had Kate sign a release so we could request them directly. Sometimes it’s quicker that way, facility to facility. Anyway, that place you gave us in Georgia that houses the medical records for the Montblanc hospital has no record of a Kate Emberlin.”

My jaw sets as I attempt to think of a response.

I had no idea they were going to take it upon themselves to request the records. I’m sure they thought they were doing me a favor but still. This complicates things.

I swipe a new card from my wallet, and it goes through.

I exhale.

“There must be some mistake,” I say. “A clerical error or something.”

“That’s what we were thinking, but they said they triple-checked. They even looked under ‘Katherine’ and ‘Katie’ and Kate with a ‘C’ and all their spelling variations.”

“That’s the problem with paper records,” I say. “They tend to get lost. I know that particular facility was struggling in their final years. I was shocked when I saw they did everything the old-fashioned way, pen to paper. Hard copy files and all that. Now I’m wondering if her file got lost on the way to the processing center.”

I’m rambling now. I should shut up.

“Yes, well,” Nancy says, “we’d really like to get her old records for her file here. Dr. Schneider thinks it would—”

I squeeze the handle on the gas nozzle. “Let me do some calling around. I’ll figure out what’s going on.”

I try to make myself sound annoyed rather than frustrated. It’s always easier to blame a voiceless, absent third party.

Leaning against my car as it fuels, I decide it’d be a great time to switch gears. “Hey, while I have you, would you mind putting me through to Kate’s nurse for a status update? I didn’t have a chance to talk to Dr. Schneider alone on Saturday.”

“Absolutely, Dr. Emberlin. One second, and I’ll page the charge nurse for you.”

Nancy places me on hold, and I grab the two declined cards and toss them in the trash can. They land on a bag of crumpled Ruffles and an empty bottle of Diet Dr Pepper. The gas pump clicks to a stop at forty-two dollars and seventeen cents, and I climb into the driver’s seat, rifling through my wallet as I wait. The thing’s beginning to fall apart at the seams. Cramming a billfold with a soccer team worth of aliases, fake IDs, stolen credit cards, and prepaid VISAs will do that. I’ve even got a handful of traveler’s checks tucked away in one of the slots for emergencies.

Juggling the cards and identities and various accounts is getting old, not to mention far more complicated than it needs to be, which is why the second I get the last of Brienne’s checks and have the cash in hand, I’m putting a significant chunk of it into offshore bank accounts under one name and one name only—my father’s.

Funny thing is, after he died, there was never a funeral, never any fanfare. It was like life just kept going on. It wasn’t until after Sonya passed that I discovered she’d been collecting his SSDI checks still, all those years later.