Nightingale

by Amy Lukavics

  “Now,” Dad went on, satisfied at the silence. “There’s to be an engagement party for you and Robert.”

  “What?” June couldn’t believe it. “How is that possible? I haven’t even said yes yet! He hasn’t even asked me face-to-face!”

  “He will in the next few days,” Dad said. “Robert is very eager to see you. He’s under the impression that you’ve been fighting off a nasty stomach flu all this time. Is your head right enough to come out, June, or does the flu need to come back for another wave?”

  “You can’t make me,” she whispered. “As soon as I’m eighteen, I can leave and never come back.”

  “Never mind the fact that you don’t have a penny to your name that would allow such a thing,” Dad said. “If you don’t do this, I’ll destroy that typewriter of yours. You’ll never get another one. And I’ll burn that story you’re so keen on.”

  That got her, and he knew it. Her entire demeanor changed then: she went from emotionally dead and disbelieving to truly understanding. This was her life. Tears made her eyes feel heavy. The lines beneath them burned. From where she sat, she could see her story stacked clumsily on the desk.

  “I can’t stress enough how important it is that Stewart and Robert never suspect you’re unhappy in any way,” Dad went on, and June couldn’t believe his nerve. “If there is one thing on this earth that Stewart refuses to take quietly, it’s being duped. He has the power to take everything away from this family.”

  June realized for the first time that she didn’t even know the details about what Dad’s and Stewart’s business was, or how it worked, or why. It’d never been discussed in front of her and Mom. She had no way to know if her father was exaggerating or underplaying Stewart’s supposed ruthless side. She couldn’t personally imagine him getting upset enough for it to make any real difference if she were to break up with Robert. He never seemed like the type to blow his top.

  But then June remembered how Robert had shoved her into the brick wall at the school after graduation, caused her teeth to click together and the back of her head to hurt. How, before that moment, she’d thought herself silly for ever thinking he could be a threat.

  “Don’t you love me, Dad?” June asked, earnestly. She reached forward, took his big clenched fist and wrapped her hands around it. “Don’t you care at all if I’m happy? I’m your daughter!”

  Dad’s face relaxed, and he sat down beside June on the bed. “Ah, Junebug,” he said, still with too much of an edge to be considered gently. “Of course I do. That’s why I have to do this for you, even if you don’t understand it. I’m making sure you’ll be happy, honey. You’ve always been so dramatic, your mother always says that, but I never really understood what she meant until recently. You love to act as though it’s the end of the world for you, when really it’s just the beginning.”

  “I love to act...” she repeated, her voice cracking, barely above a whisper. “You have no idea what happiness even is, Dad. And especially not for me.”

  He became rigid, pulled his hand back and stood. “You’ll thank me one day,” he said, walking out without another word and leaving June to her new room and her story and her open door. She was officially free from the isolation. Nine days, June thought in wonder. It feels like it’s been closer to a hundred.

  “June,” Mom called from downstairs, as if none of this had even happened. “Your date will be here at seven tonight. Make sure to have a bath, and roll your hair first, dear!”

  June ran a bath and sat in it for four hours. She spent the time thinking, allowing herself to sink into the tub as if she were a part of it. The only thing that moved were her eyes, following the bubbles as they rolled across the surface of the water before eventually thinning out and disappearing. She breathed out hard, hoping to expel some of the poison she felt inside. When she became light-headed from it, she still felt like she was rotting from the inside out.

  She didn’t roll her hair into curlers when she came out. She didn’t put on any lipstick. She didn’t smile at Mom and Dad when she came down the stairs, didn’t make eye contact with Fred in fear that she’d kill him with her bare hands. This was all his fault, really, if you looked at it a certain way. June decided that it was much more Fred’s fault than her own. Yes, that was better.

  Robert looked shocked at June’s appearance only momentarily when he arrived. “That flu really took it out of you, huh, kiddo?” he said with disgusting concern, taking it upon himself to push a lock of hair back from her forehead with his finger. “We can just do something low-key tonight, get a few bottles of ginger ale, and maybe rent a rowboat at the park.”

  June saw Mom’s eyes sparkle as she slipped Dad a knowing look, and June realized that Robert would be proposing to her tonight, on a rowboat where she wouldn’t be able to go anywhere. She looked at Dad, who seemed to be waiting to give her a quick little wink as he set his hand on her back, leading her to the door where Robert stood with his hand extended.

  “Have a great time tonight, kids,” Dad said. “Well, I guess I shouldn’t call you kids anymore, not with this girl fresh out of high school and ready for next steps!”

  June looked back over her shoulder at her father, and the sight of her face caused his to falter just in the slightest.

  “Is everything all right?” Robert asked once they were in the car. “You seem...off.”

  June looked over at Robert, an unnaturally wide smile awakening on her face. “What could be wrong?” she said, her voice high.

  He smiled back, a little nervously if June was seeing things right. It gave her pleasure to see him in discomfort. She spent the rest of the drive imagining being his wife. She could mix trace amounts of laxatives into his morning coffee, she could rub some cooking oil onto the edge of any stairs in their house. She could use a needle to poke holes through the soles of his shoes so his feet would get wet every time it rained. She could pretend that cooking was her entire pride and joy, and then purposefully make things that were bland and off, rotten ingredients eaten with a smile.

  If she had to be a wife, June told herself, feeling at least a touch of comfort at last, that was exactly the kind she would be. She would stop brushing her teeth. She would eat with her mouth open. She would drink in the daytime and pass gas in restaurants and let their dirty stupid children wander into the street to play. At these thoughts, June smiled a little, and Robert instantly put his hand on her knee.

  “We’re here,” he said, and June realized that the car was parked.

  They were just down the street from the park, and they could buy the ginger ales at the drugstore on the way. June held Robert’s hand and said nothing, letting him pull her around this way and that, having no reaction to anything he said. But of course he took no notice, just kept talking and talking about things that made June want to die from boredom. She picked a cherry cola instead of a ginger ale, but Robert gently took it from her hand and put it back.

  “That’ll upset your stomach,” he said with a little laugh. “The ginger will help—it really will.”

  Her fingers itched to break the bottle over his head and then cut his throat with it, or her own. Either would be satisfying.

  “Thank you,” she said sweetly, her unnatural smile beginning to make her face ache. “You are just the smartest man alive, Robert. The greatest to ever live. How did I ever become so lucky as to have you as mine?”

  He laughed it off, but June could see that flicker of discomfort that she was hoping for. She let it wash over her heart, a grim and beautiful pleasure, and she let herself become hungry for more.

  Later, once they were in the middle of the pond and the soda bottles were empty, Robert asked June if she would marry him. “Your dad already said it’s okay,” he finished with, as if that would somehow blow away everything they’d said about it in the past. June wondered if he knew that her parents were already planning the engagement party. She wo
ndered if he had anything to do with it.

  June gave a cold and quick nod, grabbing the ring out of his hands and putting it on herself. It was so much lighter than she could have imagined. If she were to strike somebody with her fist, though, it’d cut the skin right open. Then she crossed her arms over herself in the cold, sniffed, and mentioned that her stomach was beginning to hurt again.

  “I think I just remembered,” she said as he pulled the rowboat up to the pond’s dock. “I’m allergic to ginger.”

  “What a thing to forget!” Robert exclaimed, wrapping his arm around her as if she needed help making it to the car. “You should lie down right away, darling.”

  Darling. She despised the word more than any other she could think of.

  When they got back home, June’s parents were waiting there with Stewart. They threw confetti and popped champagne and started discussing the details for the upcoming engagement party. It sounded like they were going to be putting a great deal of money into it, inviting a whole lot of people from the business, since Robert worked for his father. Every time June tried to imagine what it might feel like to have a party that fancy thrown in her honor, there was a funny magnetic pull in her head that made it feel like there was a needle lodged in her brain.

  After the celebrating was over and Stewart and Robert went home and Mom and Dad had gone to bed drunk, June retreated to her room and dug her diary out of its hiding place.

  Tonight I was pledged to become Mrs. Robert Dennings, she wrote in her loveliest handwriting. There will be a grand party.

  She started crying then, feeling like she couldn’t even begin to explain how she really felt about it all, not unless she wanted to fill the rest of her diary and kill her already-weak wrists, which were still recovering from her typing binges. So instead, she let herself cry and finished the entry with just a single line before throwing the damn book back into the snow boot and getting into bed with all her clothes on.

  I’ve been murdered. This is what it feels like to be dead.

  the institution

  Jessica and Cassy told June and Eleanor that Adie had supposedly died of a blood clot in the brain.

  “A blood clot?” June was skeptical. She couldn’t help but remember how hurried the nurse who was doing checks had been. It had to have been something. “Did any of you see her?”

  “No,” Jessica said quietly as the girls stood together in front of the nurses’ station, waiting for their morning capsules. “Nurse Chelsea told us when she woke us up. But she’s not here, is she?”

  “Shh,” Cassy hissed, turning her body away from the group and toward the front of the station, her sweater wrapped around herself as she shifted her weight from one foot to the other. “All of you, shut up! I mean it.”

  When June’s name was called, she stepped forward to find two blood-red capsules waiting for her in the tiny plastic cup instead of one. “The doctor is going to double your dosage from here on out,” the beaming nurse behind the protective layer of fake glass said. “Please take them right here, so I can see.”

  June hesitated. She didn’t even know what these things were doing to her in the first place; as far as she could tell there was no noticeable reaction. Still, the idea of taking two capsules made her uneasy.

  “Down the hatch, Junebug,” the nurse chirped. “Open your mouth, and lift your tongue afterward so I can see.”

  June fought the urge to turn around and look at Eleanor, and instead poured the pills into her mouth and swallowed them with the water the nurse had provided. Once they were down, she did as the nurse told her, then moved on. By breakfast, June felt fuzzy. This was more along the lines of how she’d expected the pills to make her feel the first time she took them. She wasn’t talking much, which Eleanor noticed.

  “Are you weirded out about last night?” Eleanor whispered after they’d settled onto the couch in the rec room to watch the black-and-white television in the corner. “I’m sorry if I did anything wrong.”

  June still couldn’t believe what’d happened with Eleanor. The images that flashed through her head when she thought about it were enough to make her body warm. She wondered if it would happen again. She hoped it would.

  “It’s not you,” June assured her. “I promise. Last night was wonderful. It’s just this extra pill, it’s making me feel strange.”

  “I wonder why they gave you that,” Eleanor said, biting her nails. “I don’t like that. Sometimes they change up people’s medication before...”

  June waited for her to finish. She noticed that on the next couch over, Jessica was frowning and Cassy was shooting her a sideways glance, her brows knit together as if worried. Right away, she became afraid.

  “Before what?” she demanded, but it only seemed to upset Eleanor.

  “Just stop talking about it,” Eleanor insisted, turning away from June, apparently no longer in the mood to talk. “There’s nothing we can do but wait. Have you been looking for...that thing?”

  June remembered Eleanor’s dream about Simpson, how she’d said that Nurse Joya and the doctor and the rest of the staff were looking for something. That June would be the one to find it first. That when June found it, she’d have to make sure they didn’t find it. But how was she supposed to know where to even begin looking? Furthermore, June didn’t have the confidence that she’d be able to successfully hide anything that she did find. Nurse Joya had a way of knowing things.

  “It’s only been a few hours since we woke up,” June said, a little defensively. “It’s not like I know what to do, or where to look, or how to look. And honestly, it was just a dream anyway, wasn’t it?”

  As soon as she said it, June felt guilty. She knew that Eleanor didn’t believe it was just a dream and, truth be told, June didn’t either. But the sudden pressure that came with the knowledge that Eleanor was expecting June to save them all was immense. She suddenly felt a little itchy, sweaty. She tried to sit up straighter, tell Eleanor that she was sorry, but she was having a hard time opening her mouth. Eleanor was too busy giving June the silent treatment to notice.

  I’ll try to find whatever it is, June yearned to say but couldn’t no matter hard she tried. I’ll find it and get us out of here. Just, please, look at me again.

  She didn’t have to wait long. Eleanor did turn back and notice June’s softened state, but it wasn’t because she’d chosen to look back—her attention was drawn by the sound of squeaking wheels from somewhere behind June. The instant June heard the sound and saw Eleanor’s expression, she knew that it was Nurse Joya coming for them. What if they tried to take Eleanor away? June wouldn’t be able to fight.

  She put all her strength into sitting up. It worked okay enough, but something was still wrong.

  “What’s the matter?” Eleanor asked, finally realizing what was happening. “Oh, my god, June, your eyes! Can you even hear me right now?”

  “Sss,” June slurred, an effort for yes.

  “Hello, ladies.” Nurse Joya’s voice was extremely close. June realized that the nurse must have been stopped right behind her. “I’m here to collect June for her appointment today.”

  Good luck getting me up, June thought, and then there was a set of hands underneath each armpit, and with a swift motion June was lifted to her feet, by who she now realized were two additional nurses that had come with Joya. When they turned June around, she was able to see that it wasn’t the medication cart that Nurse Joya had been pushing, but a wheelchair.

  “Wait,” Eleanor said, and June could hear the pure panic in her voice. “Wait, please...”

  “Something wrong, dear?” Joya said with an edge. “We really must get going if we’re to make June’s appointment.”

  June heard Cassy say, “Sit down, Eleanor,” and before she knew it she’d been lowered into the wheelchair. She was able to keep herself upright, but not much else. The wheelchair began to move, the b
reeze blowing June’s hair out of her face. She could hear Eleanor start to say something else before what sounded like one of the nurses cutting her off.

  “June!” was the last of Eleanor’s voice that she heard, and then all she could see was the big wooden door to the doctor’s office getting closer and closer.

  “It’s a special day for you, June Hardie,” Nurse Joya whispered in her ear. “A special day indeed.”

  When the door was opened for them, June noticed right away that something was different with the office. There was a white stretcher beside the doctor’s desk, and he was standing beside it. June realized that she’d never seen him standing before. He was exceptionally short, almost shockingly so, dressed from head to toe in what appeared to be full surgical garb.

  This is it, June thought, although the effect of the medication was allowing her to remain surprisingly calm. This is when I die.

  “Let me ask you something,” the doctor said, stepping forward. “Have you ever heard of electroshock therapy?”

  She couldn’t answer. In fact, June was vaguely aware that she wasn’t able to think beyond the immediate. Trying to concentrate on anything that came before this was wildly difficult. It felt like a literal block had been placed in her head.

  The nurses were already in the process of transferring June from the wheelchair to the stretcher. Her head was laid to rest facing the back wall. She noticed that the vent-obscuring bookshelf was now gone, exposing the wall.

  There was an air vent there. The same one June had peered through while she was crawling through the tunnel that was pooled with blood.

  “I have another question for you,” the doctor said when June didn’t answer, looking down to peer into June’s face. “Who is Robert Dennings?”

  Robert Dennings. Dennings. The name was familiar to June, but she couldn’t quite place it. Robert? Someone she knew...when, exactly? When she tried to push herself to remember, a sharp pain bloomed somewhere deep inside her brain.