The Scars I Bare

by J. L. Berg

  Yeah. That sounded about right.

  “You look deep in thought,” a familiar voice said from behind me.

  I turned to see Dean, still nursing the same beer I’d seen him with earlier. He’d made decent progress with it, but I could tell he either wasn’t much of a drinker or wasn’t much of a drinker tonight.

  “What? This?” I said, pointing to my expression with as much amusement as I could muster. “No, this is just the face they give you when you become a parent.”

  He smiled, something I’d grown fond of during our brief time together in the hospital. I’d do just about anything to make it appear on his face.

  Even now, the lazy grin gave me a flutter in my belly I hadn’t experienced in years.

  “No shit?” He laughed. “Do you get a membership card, too?”

  I couldn’t help but join him, chuckling under my breath. “Sadly, no, but there are some pretty harsh initiation rituals. I’m still working on mine.”

  “Pretty sure those never stop.”

  “That’s what I’ve heard,” I replied as he looked down at me, those mesmerizing green eyes capturing my gaze like tractor beams.

  “What’s it like? Single-parenting, I mean. Being raised by one, I should know, but it’s not really the type of thing you ask your mom, you know?”

  I hadn’t forgotten his mother—or much else about Dean Sutherland. It surprised me how familiar the Southern drawl in his voice seemed to me, like reuniting with a long-lost friend rather than a fleeting patient from years ago.

  “I don’t know honestly,” I answered. “I haven’t been doing it terribly long. But, so far, I’d describe it as scary, intimidating, and overwhelming. Those are just the words that come to mind at the moment. But, when I look at her, running around that backyard with that silly streamer in her hand, happy as she’s ever been, I know right down to my core that I’ve done something right, so it’s got to be okay, you know?”

  “It will be,” he said. “And hey, now, you have an entire island to help you out.”

  I knew he was just joking, but the words struck a nerve.

  I didn’t want help.

  I didn’t need it.

  I would not be that helpless person again.

  “Hey.” His hand found mine.

  The warmth of it seeped into my bones, reminding me of a simpler time.

  When a boy could touch me and it meant nothing more than an innocent caress.

  When a man could kiss me and it wouldn’t be followed with the memory of fear or violence.

  Pulling away, I felt the heat vanish, and I rubbed the spot where his hand had been. “I’d better get to bed,” I said before realizing it was nowhere near bedtime. “I have an early morning.”

  His eyes were fixated on my hand, the way I rubbed where he’d touched me, like I was trying to erase it from history.

  If only I could explain. If only I could find the words.

  It wasn’t him I was trying to erase, just the memories he’d touched.

  “Right. Of course,” he said, his voice quiet and lifeless.

  It was then that I realized the error I’d made. When he’d touched me, he’d reached out with his right hand. I’d been so frozen, so paralyzed by his touch, I hadn’t even noticed how different it felt when the false hand rested on mine.

  Was that haunted look he now carried in his eyes rejection? Was the pain he was showing because of me?

  I assumed he’d seen the tragedy in my own haunted stare, but I’d failed to see it gazing back at me.

  “I’d better go,” I said, feeling the need to flee growing stronger.

  Baggage.

  It was weighing us both down, heavy and burdensome. There was no doubt we had our own truckloads of it following behind us like a lead weight. And, if there was one thing I remembered about Dean Sutherland, it was that he deserved better than me.

  I’d gone to bed that night, feeling like a failure in more ways than one.

  I’d made a mess of things with Molly and never had the chance to make amends, and I’d basically done the same thing with Dean less than two hours later.

  It was like I’d taken a manners and etiquette class from Kanye West himself. I’d come to Ocracoke to start over, yet at the first sign of a fresh start, one full of friends and laughter and fun, I’d turned it all down.

  Why?

  Because I was a damn certifiable mess, and as much as I craved it—the attention, interaction, and kindness—I wasn’t sure I even knew how to be genuine anymore.

  After becoming Mrs. Blake Ashcroft, I’d perfected the art of lying, of creating the perfect cover story, and now, after all this time, I wasn’t sure what was left of Cora Carpenter.

  If anything.

  But there was more to it. In my effort to create a new life, free from Blake and his family’s influence, I hadn’t thought about my own.

  The family who still believed I was a happy, healthy, and thriving wife and mother. One who took family vacations but always forgot the camera. One who was never happy enough with her home remodels for a visit.

  I needed to protect them as well.

  From what exactly?

  From me.

  From the mess I’d become. From the horrors I’d endured. From the failures I’d been shielding from their eyes. It might not be the right choice, but it was the one I’d made.

  It kept them happy.

  It kept them safe.

  And, for now, it was the only option I could mentally deal with. I kept telling myself, maybe someday, I’d come clean. Maybe someday, I’d tell them the truth.

  Someday was not today, and I had only one thing on my to-do list.

  Lizzie.

  Lizzie was my priority. To keep her happy, safe, and healthy. No matter the cost. No matter my cost.

  For now, I seemed to have achieved that. So, for the foreseeable future, I’d get out of bed, I’d do my job, and slowly but surely, I’d figure everything else out.

  Starting with today.

  The getting-out-of-bed part was easy. Having a rambunctious five-year-old who woke up at the crack of dawn after sleeping in the same bed made it damn near impossible for me to do anything but get up.

  But the everything-else part?

  That was where it got murky.

  Lizzie and I made it through breakfast time, helping ourselves like Molly had instructed since I had to be out the door and at work earlier than most of the guests liked to rise. But, beyond that, I began to fumble.

  Although Molly had offered to help out with Lizzie as much as possible over the next week before school started, today was an exception.

  Or at least, I made it one.

  Being on a remote island definitely had its perks, but when it came to supplying an inn, the location wasn’t one of them. Molly often had to make routine trips up the coast for food and other staples, and although she’d offered to take Lizzie with her, the idea of my little girl even an hour closer to her father made my blood pressure rise.

  “Are you sure?” she’d asked over the phone, checking one final time to see if I’d changed my mind. “It’s really no trouble. I’ll even take her out to lunch. My treat.”

  I’d swallowed deeply, looking over at Lizzie as she finished her cereal, knowing there was no possible chance my workaholic ex-husband would be out and about on a weekday, let alone at a fast-food joint.

  But, still, I couldn’t agree. “No, it’s fine. Really. I’ll figure something out.”

  Taking a deep breath, I’d ended the call, and I had done the only thing I could do.

  I carried on.

  “Lizzie, get your shoes,” I instructed as she hopped off the worn seat of the kitchen table. “You’re coming to work with me today.”

  Letting out that same breath, I said a prayer to anyone who was listening, although I’d never been much of a religious person.

  “Please don’t let this blow up in my face.”

  Taking a moment to rinse out our dishes in the sink, I
placed them in the dishwasher and met Lizzie at the front door. She was dressed in purple shorts and a shirt that said Smart Girls Rule, and I couldn’t help but smile.

  “Do I really get to go to work with you?” she asked excitedly. “You’ve never let me before.”

  “Well, today is a special day,” I said. “It’s Bring Your Daughter to Work Day!”

  “Really?”

  “Nope.” I laughed. “But we can pretend.”

  She giggled as I opened the door, letting her step out before me. “Can I use the stethoscope? Or poke people with needles?”

  “Um…”

  “I saw a YouTube video on how to start an IV. I think I could handle it.”

  I rolled my eyes as we walked out to the car. Damn YouTube. I didn’t even know how she’d managed to get online. With no phone and no iPad, I swore, this girl was the queen of internet stealth.

  “That’s a hard no,” I answered.

  “But how am I supposed to gather a sample to look at under my microscope?”

  Laughing, I helped her up to her car seat. “So, let me get this straight. You want to poke my patients, steal their blood, and then examine it on your neon plastic microscope that Pappy got you for Christmas last year?”

  “Yeah. Why?”

  I was so getting fired.

  Hopping into the car, I started the car and began the tedious process of negotiating with my five-year old. “How about this? Why don’t I download a book on my phone about blood and cells and all sorts of stuff, and you can read it while Mommy does the poking, okay?”

  Looking up at her reflection in the rearview mirror, I could see a distinct moment of disappointment, but it was instantly replaced with a soft sigh of content satisfaction once the realization sank in.

  She was going to have access to my phone.

  All day long.

  “Okay.”

  I wasn’t sure if I’d done myself a favor or just opened about a dozen more cans of worms. With a child like Lizzie, who found anything and everything interesting, there was no telling.

  It didn’t take long to get to the clinic, but as I was beginning to learn, it didn’t take long to get to most places in Ocracoke.

  “Is this where you work, Mommy? It’s so tiny!” Lizzie said after we pulled into the clinic parking lot and I helped her out of her car seat.

  Leaning down to her height, I decided it was time for a little pep talk before stepping into my place of employment.

  That was, if I wanted it to remain my place of employment.

  “Okay, Lizzie, you know how we talk about indoor voice and outdoor voice a lot?”

  She smiled, a big, wide, ear-to-ear smile, as her head bobbed up and down making her dark curls bounce along with her.

  God, she was cute.

  So cute in fact, that sometimes, it made it hard to police her or be the bad guy because just looking at her made my eyes go all round and soft, and then all I wanted to do was hug and squeeze her and—

  What was I saying?

  Oh, right…the pep talk.

  “Right, indoor voice,” I said, getting back on topic. “Today, we need to use our indoor voices. Do you remember which one that is?”

  “Yep! That’s the one Grandmother says should be used all the time, even when outdoors.” As soon as she mentioned her grandmother, her voice took on this formal, snooty quality as she tried to mimic the awful woman who had raised my ex-husband.

  I tried not to laugh, but I couldn’t help it. Her impression of her grandmother was spot-on, and it was indeed something the stuck-up old woman would say.

  “Right. Well, ignore what Grandmother said, but do me a favor today, and talk quietly when you’re inside that tiny building.”

  Like a lightbulb had gone off in her head, she responded, “Oh! Because it’s tiny; that’s why I need to talk tiny.”

  “Um, sure. Tiny voice for the tiny building,” I answered, sort of seeing the logic in it, especially if it worked. “You ready?”

  “Yep!” she nearly yelled.

  I chuckled, grabbing her hand, and we headed for the door.

  “God help me,” I whispered under my breath.

  “Mommy, we’re not inside,” she reminded me. “You don’t have to whisper yet.”

  “You’re right, baby. Just practicing.”

  And praying, I thought. Been doing an awful lot of that today.

  Hopefully, someone was listening up there today because I had a feeling I would need all the help I could get.

  Recovery Journal: Day Seven

  This room. It’s too quiet. Every time I hear the shuffling of feet down the hall, I look and wait, wondering if someone will enter. Maybe a nurse or a doctor…anyone to put an end to the stifling silence.

  God, I can’t take it.

  I never really thought of hospitals before now. I mean, does anyone really?

  Not even when my mom spoke of my father’s death did I wonder about all those people mulling about inside. I was so young—barely three, and Taylor had just been born. I know Dad must have been in one, even for a brief while after the aneurysm ruptured in his brain. Mom said he didn’t suffer, and I always remember feeling some sort of comfort from those words.

  But I never imagined him here.

  Or anyone else.

  In the fourth grade, Kyle Keswick had to have his appendix taken out. He was gone for a week. Even then, I just thought of him as being on a sort of vacation—one where he got a cool scar and got to eat a lot of Jell-O.

  Maybe no one really does.

  Maybe that is how we stay sane—going on with our lives while the sick and dying are tucked away, out of sight.

  That is me now. I am the forgotten.

  The friend who has gone on vacation and will come back with the wicked cool scar.

  But how deep will that scar run?

  And will I be worth anything after it heals?

  Before the accident, I’d never questioned my purpose in life.

  Since then though, finding a reason to even get up in the morning seemed like a struggle. My family had pushed me, encouraging me to find my new niche in the family business now that my brother had expanded it.

  “There’s so much you can do,” my mom would say.

  “You don’t have to go out on the water,” my brother would remind me.

  But, every morning, I’d wake up, look at my front door, and never pass the threshold.

  It’d been like this for three years.

  But not today.

  Something had been bothering me since dinner last night.

  Something had shaken me, and I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.

  Try as I might, steering clear of Cora was proving to be a difficult task. I knew there was an attraction there, maybe even a mutual one, but I couldn’t pursue it.

  No, I wouldn’t.

  She’d just come out of what could have possibly been a messy divorce.

  And then there was that moment.

  The moment I’d touched her hand.

  At first, I’d thought she’d flinched, a possible distaste for my prosthesis—an obvious error on my part and something I never did. I wish I could say I wasn’t embarrassed by it, but I was. There had been far too many stares and wide eyes over the years to not be. So I’d learned to hold it close to me and protect what little dignity I had left.

  But with her, everything felt natural.

  Normal.

  So why did she react the way she did? Was she disgusted? The more I thought about it, the less likely it seemed.

  Cora was a nurse. Someone who dealt with the unpleasantries of the human body on a daily basis. A tiny touch from my plastic hand would most likely be a zero on her gross meter, right there with taking a temperature or wrapping a blood pressure cuff.

  So, why did she pull away?

  That was the question that had kept me up until the wee hours of the night. Sure, she could just genuinely not like me. That would be a hard blow to my ego, but I honestly d
idn’t think it was as simple as that. And the more I thought about that hand flinch, the less I liked the answers I was imagining.

  So, I decided a friendly cup of coffee with my best friend was in order. Nothing like a morning cup of joe with the town doctor, who also happened to be Cora’s boss, to set things straight. Maybe he’d noticed the same thing. Maybe he knew something I didn’t.

  He wasn’t going to tell me a damn thing—this I already knew.

  Molly had tried just about everything—and I did mean everything—to get that man to tell her things about some of the townspeople, and he’d never cracked.

  And all I was offering up was coffee.

  But, like I said, I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

  Jumping out of bed, I did my usual sprint to the coffee machine, but instead of making enough for one, I made an entire pot. After that was done, I headed to the shower for a quick rinse and got dressed.

  Start to finish, the whole process had taken less than fifteen minutes, and my coffee was still blazing hot as I revved up the engine of my truck and headed for the clinic.

  Again.

  But, this time, I knew what I would be walking into, and this time, I’d come prepared.

  Making the short journey in record time, I chose a spot in the back of the lot and left the prime spaces for actual patients. Jostling around the two travel mugs proved to be a bit daunting, but at this point, I’d decided nothing would tear down my upbeat mood. With some quick thinking, I shoved both mugs into the crook of my right arm, leaving my working one free to close the car door and allow me entry into the clinic.

  Sometimes, my own genius really astounds me, I thought to myself as the door closed behind me.

  Several people looked up at me and either smiled or waved.

  Man, this place was busy.

  I glanced at the front desk, seeing the mess from yesterday had doubled.

  No, tripled.

  Looking down at my coffees, I suddenly felt like a damn fool.

  What was I thinking, showing up on Cora’s second day on the job after witnessing how stressed they’d been the day before?