With his customary loud sigh of exasperation, Clifford Allen pushed himself out of his chair, pushed the tail of his shirt back into his jeans, and stepped into the center of the room to face Elizabeth.
The rest of the group watched in silence.
“Now,” said Warburton. “Clifford, you know what to do.”
He nodded. Looking less smug than usual.
“Elizabeth, you can talk to Cameron. He will not reply to you. He will not react. He will simply … be there to listen. You may begin.”
Clifford stood still, hands at his sides, watching her with an impassive face. For once, there was no mockery in his eyes, only the calmness of waiting.
Elizabeth looked at his shirt, not at his face, as she tried to summon up an image of Cameron Dawson. “I miss you, Cameron,” she began in a hesitant voice. “It’s really lonely without you. And the worst part is not even knowing what happened.”
Clifford said nothing.
“I stayed in Edinburgh as long as I could. I badgered the searchers until they were sick of the sight of me. I walked the beach. I wouldn’t give up.”
Opposite her, the figure stood motionless.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do without you. It seems so disloyal to give up without any proof. Like abandoning you.”
Through her tears, the man’s shape blurred.
“But why shouldn’t I abandon you? Why shouldn’t I? Didn’t you abandon me? Didn’t you go out alone in that stupid boat even when I asked you not to? And I asked to go along and what did you say? ‘Too much we-erk to do, dear. Can’t stand any distractions.’ I was a distraction. Oh, yes. The work came first, didn’t it? I was an afterthought. If there weren’t any seals to be tracked, or paperwork to catch up on, you might spend an evening with me.”
The man was silent.
“When did my wishes ever matter to you? Did you ever think what would happen if you got yourself killed in a storm at sea? What would I do, widowed before I’m thirty? What am I supposed to do, now that you’re gone forever, and past caring about me? What am I supposed to do? Find somebody else?”
He stood facing her. Impassive.
“Well, why shouldn’t I? What else am I supposed to do? Kill myself? Am I supposed to spend the rest of my life building shrines to you? It’s always you, isn’t it? I hate you, Cameron! You were thoughtless, and selfish, and inconsiderate, and pigheaded. You were an arrogant fool who thought that he and his little boat could take on the great North Atlantic. Well, you were wrong! And you died for it, but so what? Your suffering was over in a couple of minutes. Two minutes? Five? I’m the one who has to hurt for years. I’m the one who’s hurting after all this time. Damn you, Cameron! Damn you! Damn you!”
Elizabeth began to cry, and as she stepped forward to beat her fist against the impassive figure of a man before her, Clifford took one step back. Out of her reach.
She stood alone in the circle and cried.
Emma O. was watching Deep Space Nine on the television in the patients’ lounge. She was alone, but it would have surprised her to be told so. Half her friends were right there on the screen in their Star Fleet uniforms, and she valued their company above all others. They had made the top of her list of friends. When Elizabeth MacPherson, dressed in street clothes and carrying a purse, came in to say goodbye, Emma forced herself to glance away from the flickering screen.
“So you’re getting out legally this time, huh?” she said.
“That’s right,” said Elizabeth. “That last session with Clifford finally did it. I let it all out. I think it’s time to start moving forward now.”
Emma nodded, her eyes straying back to the space station. She knew this episode. There were still a few more minutes before the good-looking Dr. Bashir appeared in the program, and then nothing could distract her from the screen. “Well, good luck,” she said. “I hope things work out for you.”
“You, too, Emma,” said Elizabeth. She tried to think of something else to say, but even insincere pleasantries like “I’ll miss you” or “I’ll write” seemed wasted in the vastness of Emma’s indifference.
At that moment a man poked his head into the lounge. “Deep Space Nine?” he said. “Wish I had time to watch it with you, Emma. Hope it’s a good one. Bye now.”
Emma O. waved toward the door without looking up, but the man was already gone.
Elizabeth was still standing there, though, staring first at the door and then back at the Trekkie on the sofa. At last she said, “Emma, could I ask you something?”
“Shoot.”
“That man just now in the doorway? Was that kindly old Dr. Dunkenburger?”
“Yep.”
“The shrink I’ve been talking to while I was here?”
“Yep.”
“And is Dr. Dunkenburger about thirty-five years old … with wavy blond hair … Robert Redford’s features … and the body of a quarterback?”
“Yep.”
Elizabeth thought about it. “I’m getting well, aren’t I?”
Emma O. grinned at her. “Yep,” she said, and turned up the sound.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
SHARYN MCCRUMB is a New York Times best-selling author whose work has been cited for “Outstanding Contribution to Appalachian Literature.” She has received the Chaffin and Plattner Awards for Southern fiction, two Best Appalachian Novel awards, and many other honors. She launched her acclaimed Appalachian Ballad novel series with If Ever I Return, Pretty Peggy-O.
Sharyn McCrumb has been writer-in-residence at King College (Tennessee) and Shepherd College (West Virginia), and she has lectured on her work at universities and libraries throughout the United States and Europe. She lives and writes in the Virginia Blue Ridge Mountains.
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