Nobody's Fool

by Sarah Hegger

  The preschool had noticed Portia talking to the children through the fence and were concerned by her behavior. The school had called the police. The police had taken Portia to a hospital with a psychiatric ward where she could be evaluated. Richard, Josh’s brother, had found her. Actually, Josh said, someone called Carmen had put the pieces together.

  Holly was grateful to whoever it was.

  Josh didn’t bother her with small talk or try to bolster her with platitudes.

  Holly couldn’t have managed much of a conversation. A sick feeling of familiarity shaded the entire scene. The tight-lipped driver, the car ducking through the city, the terrible feeling of part relief and part terror, even the traffic rushing past the window, sounded the same.

  This was like a nightmare trip down memory lane. Her in the front and Grace in the backseat. Their hands tightly clasped behind the central console as Holly reached back to hold her sister’s hand. A wave of dizziness slammed her and Holly wanted to throw up.

  She had to get it together or she would be no use to Portia.

  So many times she had glanced over at her father driving. His face would be set and grim, and Holly had desperately wanted him to reassure her. Perhaps squeeze her hand and tell her everything was going to be all right. She wouldn’t have believed him, but she’d wanted the comfort all the same.

  “We’re almost there.” Josh’s eyes were like a fixed point in her crazy, lurching reality, and she clung to his quiet confidence.

  Holly went back to staring blindly out the window. Her eyes stung and she blinked them to clear the sudden misting. She was glad he was here and, irrationally, it made her furious with him.

  Josh had no business being nice. His kindness weakened her. It made her want to melt and cry.

  Holly couldn’t afford to cry. Deep inside was the hard knot that was her strength. It ran like a steel rod through her center, iron and impenetrable. She drew the ability to cope from there.

  Josh pulled into a large, tarred parking lot and drove straight to the emergency entrance. “You go; I’ll come find you after I’ve parked. Richard is waiting for you.”

  Holly jumped out of the car, slamming the door behind her.

  “Richard is inside and I’ll be there as fast as I can,” Josh called through the open window.

  “But how will I—?” He was already driving away.

  Her head spun. Helplessness pressed down on her. She forced her legs toward the entrance.

  Glass doors swished open.

  “Holly?” A more rugged version of Josh approached her.

  Holly almost burst out laughing at the uncanny resemblance.

  “I’m Richard Hunter,” he said in a deep, gravelly voice. “I’m sure you want to go straight to your sister.”

  Holly followed Richard’s tall form inside. The smell backhanded her. The combined odor of illness, humanity, and antiseptic solution washed over her and her knees locked. She hadn’t been in a hospital since the last time with Melissa. Muted white light, nondescript walls scarred from the scrape of gurneys, brisk footsteps tapping on the stippled floor. It crashed into her, paralyzing her.

  Richard stopped and walked back. Concern clouded his eyes. Blue. A lot like Josh’s eyes.

  “Holly?” His voice seemed to come from a distance and she turned vaguely in the direction of the sound. “Are you okay?”

  She couldn’t find her voice beyond the choking tightness in her throat. She needed to assure Richard she was fine, but the words wouldn’t come. Saliva flooded her mouth and she clenched her rolling belly.

  Shit. She was going to throw up.

  Plastic chairs neatly lined against the wall in rows. There were people in those chairs, discombobulated faces wearing a variety of expressions her rapidly scrolling mind couldn’t decipher.

  Plastic chairs that clung to the back of your legs and made sweaty, sucking sounds when you stood up. She and Grace used to sit in plastic chairs, backs to the wall like they were facing a firing squad. They had waited, but nobody noticed them, not Francis or the harried-looking doctors, rushing about with their white coats fluttering around their legs. Occasionally a nurse or someone’s relative had taken pity on them and tried to engage them in conversation.

  The anger writhed inside her chest, almost strangling her with its intensity. She’d been angry then, too. Angry with her mother for doing this, angry with her father for pretending it wasn’t happening, and angry with herself because she wasn’t able to stop it. It was sitting in plastic chairs outside emergency rooms Holly had learned not to cry.

  Tears were pointless anyway. Tears didn’t change anything, and they didn’t make anything better. You could cry and cry until there was nothing left, but in the end you drowned in the salty river of self-pity.

  Richard spoke to someone over her head. Vague words floated above and around her.

  “Holly?” Josh dragged her back to the present. His hand was warm beneath her elbow and she turned toward him. “Do you need to sit down?”

  His face wove into focus, beautiful and familiar, with concern tightening the skin on his forehead and chasing haunting shadows through the indigo of his eyes.

  “No.” It came out louder than she’d intended.

  He frowned and tightened his grip on her arm.

  “No.” She got her voice under control. Breathe. She sucked at the air. Breathe and keep going. There’s no other choice. Breathe, dammit, breathe.

  Richard spoke, and the words panic attack slapped her in the face. Holly snapped her spine straight. She did not have panic attacks. Carefully, she disengaged her arm from Josh. “I’m fine,” she said to nobody in particular.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Holly?”

  They stared at her with twin expressions of concern, but she had it under control now.

  “Where is she?” Her voice, perfectly controlled but emotionless and clinical, as if it existed outside of her. “Where is Portia?”

  A woman in a white coat strode down the corridor toward them. “Josh? Is that you?”

  Of course she was a friend of Josh’s. Holly almost laughed hysterically, but she didn’t think she’d be able to stop.

  “Carmen says you know my patient?” Fatigue lines bracketed the woman’s eyes and mouth, but she was still lovely.

  Of course she was. Why would Josh hang out with anything less than perfect?

  Perfect brushed Josh on the forearm. “She won’t tell us her name or anything, and she has no identification on her.”

  “Portia,” Holly said. “Her name is Portia and she’s my sister.”

  The woman transferred her attention to Holly, still keeping her eyes on Josh for part of her explanation.

  Portia had been there overnight. They were waiting for a psych evaluation, but the woman shrugged and tightened her mouth; it wasn’t always possible to make things move at the pace you wanted. The system … the words blurred around Holly. Portia was uncooperative but lucid and physically fine. Josh performed the introductions, but Holly barely listened.

  “She’s bipolar,” Holly said.

  The doctor’s eyes widened slightly. She was probably used to that and a whole lot more if she worked emergency.

  “She’s been diagnosed?” Finally, lovely lady doctor turned her full attention on Holly. “And she’s not on medication?” A slight frown marred the woman’s smooth brow.

  “She doesn’t always take it.” Holly winced at the defensiveness in her voice. It wasn’t her fault if Portia refused to take her medication. It wasn’t her fault Portia was bipolar. If she kept saying it, perhaps there would actually come a time when she believed it. “She doesn’t like the way it takes away her highs.”

  The woman nodded her blond head, as if she expected as much. “Do you know what she’s on?”

  The ground firmed up beneath her, and Holly talked lithium and other mood stabilizers they’d experimented with until they got Portia an effective cocktail.

  “She’s calm now,” the doct
or said. “She’s still refusing any form of sedation, but she’s calm enough for us to wait for a psych evaluation. I’ll take you to her.”

  The doctor walked down the corridor and motioned for Holly to join her. Josh and Richard dropped into place behind her, a phalanx of strength at her back.

  They were there, with her. It was odd and unfamiliar. She forced her attention back to what the doctor was saying.

  “So she’s gone down.” If she stuck with the facts, she’d get through this. “She was on a high when she left and it was only a matter of time. She left her meds behind.” It made her want to scream just saying it. “We knew what was going to happen next.”

  The doctor nodded. “She’s been off her medications for some time now,” she said. “She didn’t tell us much, but we ran some basic blood tests when she was first admitted. She told us she wasn’t taking anything and her blood work pretty much confirms that.”

  The doctor turned left down a corridor and through a set of double doors.

  It was quieter in this part of the hospital, and the knot in Holly’s belly loosened.

  “We wanted to run some further tests, but she got quite insistent that we not. She’s worried about the effect of the tests on the baby. I would guess her pregnancy had something to do with her coming off the medications as well.”

  Holly nodded, but the roaring in her ears muted all sound.

  The doctor talked on. “I made some calls last night and the results are inconclusive either way. There’s no real hard proof for either taking the medications or not. It’s a preference thing, and also a matter of understanding that once the baby is born, the postnatal depression could be off the charts.”

  Time slowed to a crawl as the other woman’s mouth moved and sounds came out, garbled noise that didn’t make any sense. A dislocated stillness settled over Holly as she waited for the doctor’s last statement to catch up with her. Around her, the sterile hallways lurched before righting themselves.

  Josh and Richard were just standing there.

  Her insides were numb. Her brain stuck. “Pregnant?”

  She must have stopped moving because the doctor carried on for a few steps before heading back toward her. “You didn’t know?”

  She clucked her tongue and tucked her hands into her coat pockets. “I was sure you would know, otherwise I wouldn’t have said anything.” Her eyes darted over Holly’s shoulder to Richard. “I didn’t think it was confidential. I would never have said anything otherwise.”

  “We’ll take it from here,” Richard said.

  Her vision tunneled in on the other woman.

  Pregnant?

  There was that bloody word again.

  The doctor was upset, and Richard said something to placate her. With one last look of regret, the woman turned and hurried away. The heels of her flat shoes squished on the corridor as she walked.

  Josh stood behind her. He was breathing hard, the harsh sort of accelerated sound of someone in shock.

  No. It was her breathing.

  Josh’s warm hand beneath her arm sent ripples through her system, threatening the wall of ice around her.

  Holly shook off his touch. She needed to be strong. She needed to be impenetrable.

  “Portia is pregnant.” It made sense now—this insane pilgrimage to find their mother, the coming off medication and the secrecy.

  Emma must have known.

  Josh stood close to her, ready for her to lean on him, ready to support her.

  Holly took a deliberate step away. She kept her eyes locked on Richard.

  “You didn’t know?” Richard raised his eyebrows.

  “No, I didn’t know.” She straightened her shoulders. “Let’s go see her.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Holly wanted to grab hold of her sister and rock her like a baby. The relief buckled her knees.

  Portia sat on the edge of a stripped bed in a curtained-off cubicle. Beside the precisely folded blanket sagged a white plastic bag labeled “personal belongings.”

  She was taller than Holly if they stood shoulder to shoulder, but right now, Portia looked about twelve years old.

  Holly dug her fingers into her palms as she stayed clear of the emotional vortex hurtling around her feet. Her sister needed her to take charge, the way she always did.

  Portia glanced up as the curtain rings clattered against the rails, her eyes glassy like a wounded animal’s.

  Melissa stared back at her, slumped and dejected, sitting on the edge of her bed, her hair hanging in tangled streamers around her face.

  The smile wavered on Holly’s face. She fixed it in place with determination.

  This was Portia, not Melissa, neatly dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, with her hair braided down her back. Her face was clean of makeup and, physically at least, she seemed fine.

  “Hey there.” Holly kept her distance, tense as she gauged Portia’s condition. Holly beat back the bitter tide of hopelessness. Just as Portia was not Melissa, Holly was also different than she’d been back then. She was older now, more capable and able to manage.

  As an adult, Holly understood much more. The disease was difficult to cope with and virtually impossible without medication. It came and went with vicious randomness, disappearing as fast as it came and plunging everyone into eviscerating hope. Because the one constant was that it always came back and it got worse.

  The child who’d lived through those dreadful, terrifying lows wanted to run and scream. Holly could almost hear a voice in her head urging her to run and not look. Perhaps if Francis had been there to help, to explain or to comfort, it would have been different.

  It made her hover, for a second, on the edge of stupid, pointless regret. Holly shook her head impatiently. Francis was who he was, and she was way past the point of expecting him to change.

  “Holly,” Portia said in a dead voice.

  “Hello, sweetheart.” Holly approached the bed. “I’ve been looking for you.”

  “I didn’t do anything.” Portia’s dull gaze tracked her motion. “They said I was frightening those children, but I didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “I’m glad I’ve found you. I’ve been worried about you.” Holly eased onto the bed beside her sister. She kept her tone light and noncommittal. Her fear for Portia battered at the tight confines Holly placed around it.

  Like a cornered animal, Portia would sense Holly’s fear and use it to fuel her combustible emotions. Holly was the anchor for Portia. If she slipped, got angry or upset, everything would spiral into disaster.

  “I came as soon as I figured out where you were.” Holly kept talking as if everything was normal. As if they weren’t sitting in a hospital room at all. “But I had some trouble.”

  Portia tensed beside her.

  “My car got stolen.” Holly forced a small laugh. “You hear these things about Chicago. You never think it’s going to happen to you.” It was a feeble attempt at conversation and fully deserved the disinterested silence with which it was met. “Your medication was in my car.”

  “I don’t want it.”

  “Yes, I saw from the bottles.” The medication you haven’t been taking. A surge of anger blindsided her and she swallowed. She wanted to shout at Portia and shake her. This wasn’t rocket science. This was a simple equation. The medicine keeps you stable. When you are stable, you are capable of leading a normal, fulfilled life. Therefore, take the medication.

  Except it was bigger than not taking her medication. Portia was keeping all kinds of secrets.

  It was naïve of her, but Holly hadn’t known Portia was seeing anyone. Worse, she hadn’t even known the twins were sexually active.

  Emma lived like a nun. Why should Portia be any different?

  Well, she was, way different. The twins weren’t still children, for God’s sake. Of course they were having sex. Some bipolars were known to be extremely promiscuous.

  Holly had read about it. She wasn’t blind or uninformed. She should have been prepared.
“Is that because you’re pregnant?”

  “They told you?” Portia glared at her, braced like a naughty child for her punishment.

  “I just found out.” The impotence rose up and she pushed it down. There was so much rushing through her brain it was difficult to find a clear space.

  Pregnant and alone was one thing. It was difficult enough to be a single mother. And this pregnancy would produce a child because that was the way it went. A small, defenseless child who would need to be kept secure and nurtured.

  Not cleaning vomit off her mother’s face when she lacked the will to get out of bed, or terrifying rushes to the hospital in the middle of the night when life got to be too much. No child deserved a life like that. “Did you stop taking your meds because you were pregnant?”

  Portia nodded. “I read about it online. I did the research and decided it would be better not to take anything while I was pregnant.”

  “Uh-huh.” It was getting harder for Holly to keep the anger out of her voice.

  “I was fine for a long time,” Portia said. “But I don’t think I’m fine now.”

  “No. I think you’re having an episode. What do you think?”

  Portia nodded, and then her face crumpled. “I’m sorry, Holly. I’m so, so sorry.”

  And what else could Holly do but hold her and stroke her back until the sobs gentled?

  It was all fucking pointless. There was no comforting this away. It wasn’t something a kiss and some love would ease. A good cry and a night out with some girlfriends wouldn’t touch this.

  Hopelessness slunk into the cubicle and wavered like a tangible presence before Holly.

  Portia was pregnant.

  Holly tightened her arms around her sister. God help her, she loved Portia, but it wasn’t enough to help her swallow the bitter pill of resentment. And who would help Portia bring this baby into the world and raise it? Congratulations, a bitter voice mocked in the back of her mind, you are about to be a mother.