Miss You Mad: a psychological romance novel

by Atkinson, Thea

  I stumbled back to the house. Stepping over the two inert forms, I fell into a chair and poked fingers into the corners of my eyes. I realized that I hadn't yet phoned the police. I didn't think it would matter. The ambulance would be here soon enough and all hell would break loose.

  I spied the teapot. Might as well have a cup of tea; it might actually be the last cup I'd have as a free man. Despite the fact that both had been self-defense, how would I ever explain two murders? I picked up a half empty cup from the table and poured the liquid into the other cup. Because I liked my tea sweet, I put in lots of sugar, and then poured the still hot water into the mug and took a grateful sip.

  I grimaced because even after four teaspoons of sugar it wasn't sweet, but I drank it just the same. Hannah's shadow fell across the open door just as I was draining the last bit.

  "What took a so long?" I asked her.

  "Couldn't find the phone. Is she okay?" Her face looked so hopeful I hated to have to tell her the truth.

  I shook my head.

  "Oh no," she said and hugged herself. I watched her deflate like a balloon as she collapsed into the other chair. I noticed she leaned away from the stalker.

  "No worries. He's dead too," I said, surprised at how calm I sounded. Neither one of us moved. We just stared at each other until sirens sliced the air.

  ""Time to pay the Piper," I said.

  She furrowed her brow, looking at me as though she were just seeing me.

  "What are you drinking?"

  I tilted my head toward the teapot.

  "Did you add sugar?"

  "Not that it did any good."

  She gave a great sigh and stood. Then she grabbed my hand as if I was Lot and she the angel dragging me from Sodom.

  "I think you're going to have to have your stomach pumped."

  William was on a regimen of loneliness and medication. It seemed most of the world didn't or couldn't understand what drove him. They locked him away from regular human kind. They put him in some sort of institution where daily life was some sort of stage to be examined. Foolish society. They went along with their lives, paying little attention to what life was actually about. Society went along with their lives without taking stock of where it was headed. They didn't live; they existed.

  Thankfully, William had discovered Elton John. The old stuff, the classics, they crept into his heart like a shadow crossing sand. Such writers, he and Bernie. They knew exactly how to pluck the soul's strings. Now that William had so much time on his hands, now that he had at his disposal nothing but time, in fact, he could take some moments--hours of it-- and do nothing but bask in the shade of lyric and music.

  One of the nurses had given him an old MP3 player shortly after his arrival. He'd been laying on his cot, atop the one crisp, white sheet and grey, wool institution blanket that covered it. His cell was cool, kept that way by an ill-tempered air exchanger meant to distribute the sickly smells of closeted inmates throughout the building. All it managed to do was double the stink and triple it. William held his breath often as he waited out the day. He thought mostly of a small beach, and a tiny house.

  He imagined the broken backs of two old boats that led the way up a short, dirt road. He saw them perfectly in his mind.

  She, the nurse, had peeked into his window almost every day when he'd first arrived. He supposed she worked odd hours. He also supposed she took pity on him as he lay, staring, barely breathing, until she decided to change his life and offer him distraction.

  But that was months ago. Now, she kept her distance even when she slipped his tray of dinner and medicine beneath his door. The dinner always seemed cold, the medicine, the same medicine, William knew, as was in his pill bottles back in his bathroom cabinet. Except now, the medicine didn't keep the other at bay. The other had, like his shadow, become part of him.

  He knew it as surely as he knew different slants of light would alter its shape. William felt as if he'd gone through the fire, and all that was chaff had been burned up. All that remained was the pure, hardened into one vessel. He and his other had formed some sort of treaty.

  It was wild, that other, untameable. But it had come to tolerate him, and William had come to respect it. It kept him company.

  Sometimes he caught sight of the nurse's trimmed nails and the slender figure of her fingers as she pushed the silver tray forward. Sometimes she even stood after to peer between the lines of unbreakable glass in the door's window. It was almost as if she wanted to be certain he was still there, locked tightly in his room. Her hair was black, always pulled back into a severe roll. Black too, were the long lashes that fringed large brown eyes.

  His journal had been taken away along with his pen. But every now and then, a guard allowed him to use a crayon and laminated paper. Today had been one of those every now and thens.

  William and his other paced the cell, waiting, waiting for those slender fingers to push his dinner into reach, holding onto the plastic covered paper with purple crayon lines scrawled across. When she came, his black haired nurse with the large pitying eyes, he'd slip that paper beneath the door for her. A little tender of affection for his Ophelia.

  I ended up none the worse for wear, actually. Oh, the stomach pumping wasn't exactly the best experience of my life, but I knew I deserved it. The colonel didn't fare so well, though. He broke every bone in his plastic body.

  Shakespeare recovered I hear. I'm still not sure whether he was unconscious, or pretending. In any case, officials put him in an institution for the criminally insane. Seems a case had been quietly building back in Toronto over his mother's mysterious death. Arsenic. Just like the stuff he put into Hannah and Belle's tea.

  Within a week of my ordeal, Gina had taken over my position managing that which I never should have begun in the first place. She'd be much better at it anyway. I, on the other hand, was made for gardening. It was a little like playing God; you plant a seed in soil that isn't always perfect and yet magically two small leaves break the surface of ground. Sometimes, of course, seeds fall on rocky earth, sometimes on fair, but with enough light, and enough shade, the plant begins to thrive. From there on in, it's a matter of feeding and watering. There really isn't that much to do; plants have a mind of their own.

  One thing I did, though, as soon as I got out of the hospital, was phone Helen's nephew, Richard. I bought the place from him after I'd sold the house and BMW--took a beating on both of those, let me tell you. Hannah accepted the situation quite easily. I still don't know if she agreed to live with me because she loves me or whether she loves the cottage. I suppose it doesn't matter. She lives with me. Anyone can see that.

  I let her believe we're still renting. She likes living on the edge of materialism. I can't quite give up my hold on having to own something. She's inside the solarium, right now, painting under what she calls the best conditions. For two days now, she's been industriously dipping a ragged tea bag into different colored acrylics and dabbing them onto a canvas that she has textured with tealeaves. The solarium faces the northern exposure, and at night we can even see the North Star through the center pane. Hannah says the north face provides the best light. It's a shadowless light but it isn't too glaring.

  As for Howard, he's pushing up daisies from six feet under. My fault, though I was cleared of any wrong doing. At first, Hannah took it hard. She didn't want to believe Howard had been all that sinister. Then she got angry. Then she cried. Then she recovered. Pretty much like the rest of us when we feel betrayed. She doesn't paint nude online anymore, though. She says, strangely enough, that no matter what mask a person wears, natural or not, reality still lurks beneath--able to be viewed should another take the time to look. I don't have a clue what she's talking about or what it has to do with painting nude. My only guess is that I was right when I suspected it was a diversion. Maybe she wanted people to look at her, not her painting. But that makes absolutely no sense.

  And so I'm left to ponder the whole ordeal, try to make some sense of it.
I end up thinking how happy I am that there is still some place within me that's still dark, that hasn't been touched by the light in a way that would reveal too much.

  Things aren't all wrapped up in a neat and tidy package the way they would be in a movie. Humanity simply isn't like that. Everyone needs their shady places to retreat into when things get too bright and unbearable. Without our dark and shady places, the light inside would make us too unbearable for other people to approach. Darkness makes people want to on a light so they can see through, but too much light and all they do is shield their eyes. They see what they want to see and everything else is safely hidden away right in plain sight.

  Black and white, dark and light allow us to find some harmony.

  At any rate, I've discovered it's tough living here in this small, inviting building. I can't sleep at night. I'm not exactly sure why, except I dream of Dad a lot. He comes out of the shadows and shines a light in my face. That's it. Of course, sometimes my dreams are about regular things. In many of them, my childhood friend, Kevin, is nodding appreciatively at the shade of white Dad has painted the house. I have the feeling when I wake up that something has been settled.

  I've fixed up the gardening shed and left it unpainted. The original had gained a nice neutral tone over its life. Most bits of that are still there held together by new boards that I'll allow to gray by weathering. It's restful, that gray. Neutral. The eye lingers long on neutral tones. It likes to linger on colors that allow shadows. That's something I've learned from Hannah; I've learned a lot from her, actually, especially about shadows. Apparently, if a shadow falls on grass, the shadow isn't black as I'd originally believed, but a darker green. If a shadow is cast on blue, its shade becomes darker blue.

  I don't mind eyes lingering on that gray shed with its darker gray shadows that are almost black when the sun is low in the sky. But I often wonder what color would be the shadow on white. Would it be a darker white? Impossible. White doesn't get darker, no sir, it gets lighter. It reflects sun; it reflects light. The eye doesn't like to linger long on pure white. It might as well look directly at the sun. I think of the Eskimos up north where there's nothing but mile upon mile of snow and sun shining and reflecting off that icy white. I imagine they squint a lot. I imagine their eyes travel the horizon hoping to find a neutral color, one where their eyes can rest and linger, take everything in.

  Today, although I know Hannah will protest when she discovers it--perhaps even flip out if I know her like I think I've come to--I'm going to paint with her. The last time I was in town, I picked up a few gallons of white wash. The shed can stay as it is, but the place where I sleep, the place where I live and love and lurk like the rest of shadowed humanity, that place should be white.

  Pure white.

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  THANKS SO MUCH FOR READING

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