Now That You Mention It: A Novel

by Kristan Higgins

  “Do I have a choice?”

  “You know, the Sullen but Beautiful Teenager with Bad Attitude is so 2011. Maybe you could cut me some slack and try not to be such a cliché. I love you, after all. I’m wounded and broken and need help.”

  “I said I’d do it.”

  Yoga breath, yoga breath. “Thank you. I’ll bake brownies when we get back, okay?”

  Thus, bribed by the promise of chocolate, my niece and I went to the market to stock up my perfect little kitchen. It was funny, strolling down the small aisles of Sammy’s...more people knew Poe than me. Once they said hello to her or nodded—being Sharon Stuart’s granddaughter commanded some respect—I caught a couple of them looking at me, recognition dawning, puzzlement coloring their faces. Nora? Really? That fat little nobody who stole Luke Fletcher’s scholarship? The one who put Sully in the hospital?

  Thanks to my psych rotation, I knew all about projection and self-fulfilling prophecies. Ever since the day I left Scupper at eighteen, I’d tried to be someone else.

  It was harder back here, where memories never died.

  * * *

  That night, I tried not to let anxiety get the best of me as the sun went down. Boomer was a comfort, sniffing every corner of the houseboat before flopping down in front of the gas fireplace, which I’d turned on. Washed the dishes, which was fun, being in a new place. Read, clicked on the ginormous TV, turned it off again. Then I did a security check, locked the windows—there were so many! Locked the door, then double-checked everything again.

  Man, it was quiet. At Mom’s, there was always the sound of Poe’s music, or Mom clicking away on the computer, lost in her spreadsheets. The tapping of the furnace, the place where the floor squeaked in front of the fridge, the hollow sound of the wind in the chimney. Even after fifteen years, I knew those sounds like old friends.

  Here, everything was different. The boat moved constantly, a little in every direction, rising with the tide and bigger waves, despite its tight mooring. The water lapped quietly against the hull and rocks of the cove. I caught the distant hum of a boat heading off somewhere... It was lovely, I told myself.

  And quiet. After the Big Bad Event, I hated that. I’d listened to podcasts every night, afraid to remember what had happened. Even lying there with Bobby’s arm around me, I needed something to fill my head.

  But here, if I did that, I might not hear someone coming.

  Boomer would protect me.

  Also, I had a pistol. Did I not mention that? Yep. Just in case. And yes, I knew how to use it. It was the first thing I’d unpacked (out of sight of Poe). Just the thought of it, in my night table drawer, made me feel a little bit better.

  Pretty soon, I’d have to go to bed. My mouth dried up at the thought.

  A knock, and I screamed. Boomer scrambled up, woofing hysterically.

  Someone was here. But someone was knocking, so that was... It was probably Mom. Or Poe. Through the window, I could see it was a man, and fear crashed over me, my bladder loosening...but then in the next instant, I saw it was Sullivan Fletcher.

  Who was probably not a rapist. Who I’d known all my life. Whose daughter had visited me today.

  Heart still flopping and shuddering, I went to the door and opened it. “Hi,” I said, my voice squeaking.

  “Hey,” he said. “My daughter told me you moved in here.”

  “Yeah. I did. Um...” Should I invite him in? I mean, sure, he had a kid who seemed nice, but a lot of years had passed. Did I really know anything about him anymore? Also, people (maybe himself included) felt like I was responsible for his long hospitalization. Then again, he’d recovered.

  We were alone out here. Except for Boomer, no one would hear me if I needed help.

  But I was brave and had survived all sorts of creepy, life-threatening shit. I was done being afraid (or so I told myself). New leaf, blah, blah, blah.

  “Come on in, Sully,” I said.

  He did, making the houseboat seem a lot smaller. Boomer, my alleged watchdog, nosed his hand. Sully’s mouth tugged, and he scratched my dog’s ears, meaning that from that point on, Sullivan Fletcher could’ve hacked me to pieces with a dull axe and Boomer would watch, wagging his tail, waiting for a belly rub.

  “Um, do you want some wine or something? A beer?”

  “No, thanks.” He glanced at my sling but said nothing. Was he assessing my weakness? My collarbone felt a lot better, but I wasn’t up for a fight.

  Knock it off, Nora, I told myself. Sullivan had been perfectly pleasant at the bakery last week. I had no reason to be afraid. “Your daughter seems great,” I offered.

  He smiled, and my fears dissipated by about 50 percent. “She is,” he said.

  “Do you have other kids?”

  “No.” He offered nothing more.

  “You were pretty young when you had her.” Shit, Nora, none of your business.

  “Ayuh.”

  He didn’t mention who the mother was. I glanced at his left hand. No ring.

  “So what brings you here, Sullivan?”

  He glanced out the window. “Just wanted to welcome you to the neighborhood, I guess,” he said.

  “Thank you.”

  “And give you the heads-up that Luke is staying at the boatyard for the time being.”

  There was that painful buzz of fear, and my mouth got the best of me. “Yeah. My mom told me. How is he? How’s he been doing, I mean? Uh, is he married? Does he have kids, too? Or, I don’t know, a dog?”

  Sullivan frowned slightly.

  “Sorry,” I said. “I guess I worry that he still...resents me.”

  “He does.”

  Shit.

  Boomer lay down at Sully’s feet and put his head on his shoe. Over here, dummy, I wanted to say. Mommy needs you. Fight to the death, remember?

  “He never left the island after high school,” Sullivan said, rubbing the back of his head—maybe where he’d been injured. He looked out the window. “Well, he did a semester at UMaine, but he flunked out.”

  I swallowed. “And you, Sully? What happened with you?”

  He looked back at me. “Sorry, what did you say?”

  “Were you okay? From the accident?”

  “Oh. Yeah, more or less.”

  What did that mean? “I was really sorry to hear about...you. Being hurt, I mean,” I said.

  “It wasn’t your fault.”

  “Kind of felt like it.”

  He shrugged. “Far as I can remember, my brother was the one who was coked up and driving, not you. Anyway, he heard you’re back, and it stirred up some stuff. He’ll probably have something ugly to say to you when you run into him.”

  I stiffened. You know...screw that. I’d had enough ugly things said to me by hostile men. “Well, when you see him, tell him to fuck off for me, will you?”

  There. That felt good. That was the brave me. Boomer wagged his tail in approval.

  Sullivan gave me a long look. Then the corner of his mouth rose. “Sure thing, Nora,” he said. “But he is my brother, and he’s sleeping on the couch in the office, so he’ll be around.”

  “Gotcha.”

  “He’s had some drug and alcohol issues, but he’s getting clean now.”

  Oh, fuckety fucking McFuckster. Not bad enough that he still had a chip on his shoulder. He was a drug addict, too. And lived just down the road. “Think he’s dangerous?”

  “Think I’d let him be near my daughter if I did?”

  “I have no idea. I haven’t seen you in seventeen years.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t. He’s harmless. Pathetic more than dangerous, but he never did like you getting that scholarship.”

  I nodded. Pathetic, sure. Also, I had a big dog who, despite outward appearances, had been trained to protect me. I also had my Smith & Wesson.

  “Yo
u have a good night, now,” Sully said.

  “You, too, Sullivan. Thanks for the warning.”

  He nodded, turned away to leave, and that’s when I saw it.

  A hearing aid. The BTE type—behind his left ear, encased in plastic.

  “Sully?” I asked before I could stop myself.

  He didn’t answer. Because he didn’t hear me. “Sullivan?” I said more loudly, putting my hand on his arm.

  He turned. “Ayuh?”

  “You have a hearing aid.”

  He paused, then nodded.

  “How bad is your hearing loss?”

  He hesitated a second. “Full loss in the right, losing it in the left.”

  A loon called, and I instantly wondered if he heard it.

  “See you around,” he said and then left, closing the door gently behind him.

  The second he was gone, I went to my laptop and Googled to confirm what I already knew.

  Bilateral hearing loss after traumatic brain injury.

  Luke was still mad at me. Big deal (I thought the words with great bravado). More important, Sullivan had been injured to the point where he was partially deaf. If what he said was right—I’d have to consult one of the ENTs I knew at Boston City—he’d be completely deaf eventually. Maybe soon.

  While I knew it wasn’t technically my fault, I still felt like something that should be scraped off a shoe.

  * * *

  I woke up at 3:15 a.m. Wasn’t that the time that Harry Potter had gotten out of bed to sneak into the library in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone? Or was it when the paranormal freak-out started every night in The Amityville Horror? Or was it when the twins from the hotel in The Shining... Okay, this was not a healthy train of thought.

  However, it was not a reassuring time to be awake in a strange place where, just in case a recovering drug addict or rapist or psychopath decided to kill me, no one would hear me screaming.

  Why had I taken this houseboat again? What exactly had been wrong with sharing a room with Poe?

  Boomer snuggled a little closer, and I stroked his big head. The Dog of Dogs would protect me. Once, a man had approached us on the Boston Common, and Boomer snarled. The first and only time. I had a lot riding on the idea that my dog could sense people’s intentions. He liked Sullivan, and Sullivan seemed...well, not harmful.

  I picked up my phone and texted Bobby. He’d be on call. Or asleep. Either way, I didn’t care. I missed him horribly all of a sudden.

  Hey there. Alone in my new place. It’s gorgeous. Houseboat, wicked cool. Very quiet here.

  A second later, three waving dots appeared. He was awake and answering, thank God. You doing okay?

  A little freaked out, I typed.

  You’re safe, sweetheart. I’m right here at the other end of the line.

  Tears of gratitude rushed my eyes. He knew. Of course, he did. There are no lines with cell phones but thanks.

  Another message from him popped up. Want to talk a little?

  Thx. Anything new at the hospital?

  A second later, his message appeared. Had a guy come in carrying his own arm. That was pretty cool.

  Me: Did Ortho reattach?

  Bobby: No, too much damage. Quite a sight, tho.

  Me: I bet.

  Him: Everyone misses you.

  That was nice. That was good to hear.

  Tell them I said hi, Maine is beautiful, I have an extra bedroom and can buy lobster fresh off the boat. Lily gets out August 5, so once I see her, I’ll head back to Beantown.

  There was a longer pause. Was Jabrielle with him? Were they a couple now? Was she lying in bed next to him, naked and irritable that his ex-girlfriend was disturbing her sleep?

  Him: It’ll be good to see you when you bring Boomer here.

  My heart tugged with sadness and love. We’d had a good thing, Bobby and I. A second later, another text from him. How are your injuries?

  Me: Much better. Looks like I’ll be filling in at the clinic here. Getting itchy to work again.

  A pause, then: That’s great, hon.

  Hon.

  It was time to get out of this conversation before I said something I’d regret.

  Thanks for talking, Bobby. I’m gonna make a sandwich and watch Naked and Afraid.

  We used to watch that together.

  Him: LOL. Sleep tight.

  I didn’t have any intention of getting out of bed. That would be too scary.

  Instead, I lay there, petting Boomer and wondering if Bobby and I would be married and expecting our firstborn if the Big Bad Event had never happened.

  10

  There’s a time in life when you rewrite your past. First, your teenage years. Just watch a reality-TV show. All those aspiring singers or models or designers or cupcake chefs talk about their tragic childhoods, their sacrifices and struggles. It makes for better TV if you talk about your “homeless” period, rather than the truth. “I was so mad at my mother, I slept over at my friend’s house that weekend.”

  I rewrote my past, too, starting with the minute I walked into my dorm that cold January day. But I did the opposite. I didn’t want to be known for all the misery I’d been through. I wanted to be seen as the happiest person around.

  And I was. God, I was.

  With happiness came the end of my stress breakouts, my greasy hair, my nervous sweating. Because I wasn’t miserable anymore, I only ate when I was hungry, and my extra forty pounds slipped away. I went to the ridiculously posh athletic center, started running along the Mystic River, took yoga classes, swam, joined crew my sophomore year. In class, I spoke up and found that I was funny. I listened and found that I was a sought-after friend.

  No one saw me as stealing a scholarship from the town’s golden boy; instead, my peers were filled with admiration that I was this year’s Perez Scholar, awestruck that I’d met him. And because of his generosity, I was able to buy clothes for my changing body, go out for pizza with the gang, take an interim trip to London. The scholarship provided ten grand a year in expenses. Because of this, I was practically a rich kid.

  I started separating my old self from this new person. My island self from my Perez self.

  When I did talk about some of the realities of my life, I stuck to the basic facts and was told I was so well-adjusted, so mature. When I described my childhood home, I said, “It’s a beautiful island. And very small.” I’d laugh ruefully. You know what I’m saying, it was good to leave that provincial burg behind, let me tell you!

  But I never said anything negative about Scupper Island. I had a little islander pride, at least. And Scupper was still the place of midnight bike rides down Eastman Hill, of tidal caves and pine trees that seemed to whisper secrets.

  I referred to Lily as my bohemian sister and not as the sister who was probably dealing drugs, possibly doing them herself. After Poe came into the world, I framed a picture of her and told the truth: I wished I could see my niece more. My mother...well. “She’s a classic Mainah,” I’d say. “She can fix a boat engine, chop her own wood and shoot a squirrel to fry up for dinner. She’s amazing.”

  I didn’t mention that my mother and I hadn’t had a meaningful conversation in a decade. That she seemed neither proud nor impressed by me. On Parents Weekend, I acted like a tour guide, chatting about the buildings on campus, the programs they had, the food, my roommate. My mother nodded here and there, said little and left Saturday afternoon, saying she had work to do. Most other parents stayed till Sunday.

  I aced the MCATs and got into Tufts School of Medicine, and those years rushed past in a blur. The workload was inhuman, the information endless, and half the time (more than half), I had no idea if I was parroting facts or actually learning. Some nights, I’d wake up from a sketchy sleep, terrified that it was all a mistake, that I’d be outed as an imposter, tha
t I’d be kicked out of med school, denied a residency. I had nightmares that I killed patients, that I was elbow-deep in someone’s abdomen before remembering I hadn’t taken any math classes, that I was hiding in the hospital so the chief resident couldn’t fire me. That he did fire me, and I had to go back to Scupper.

  But I held my own. When it came time to declare a specialty, and my peers were positioning themselves for the hardest fields—cardiology, oncology, surgery—I chose internal medicine with an eye toward gastroenterology.

  It wasn’t as competitive. Most people didn’t die. If I made a mistake, chances were high it could be fixed. Despite having come so far, I still felt a little bit like an imposter.

  My mother came to graduation. “So you’re a doctor now. Imagine that.” She smiled. Dr. Perez also came, hugged me and told me he was proud of me, then went off to donate another building.

  Fast-forward through my residency, which was nothing like Grey’s Anatomy, shockingly—no plastic surgeons performing brain surgery, no bombs going off in the hospital. I got a fellowship in my field, and a year later was hired by Boston Gastroenterology Associates, one of the best groups in the state.

  I rented a small apartment in a new building and didn’t have a roommate for the first time in my life. I could afford furniture...nice stuff, too. My house looked like a model home—the open floor plan with a small but perfect kitchen, a bedroom with windows on two walls. I kept it immaculate, overcome with the thrill of living on my own, being able to afford a painting, a pale green couch, plush white towels. I bought martini glasses with thin, elegant stems, modernistic lamps and a fluffy white rug. I made friends with Tyrese, the night security guard, and the Ambersons, the family with two kids in 3F. Avi, who owned the sweet little grocery store two blocks down, knew how I took my coffee and called me Doc. I belonged here.

  Heady stuff.

  I’d made it off the island, through one of the most competitive colleges in the world, through med school, residency, my fellowship. I was no longer fat, my skin had cleared up, I’d made friends with clothes, I was even reasonably attractive. I loved working in a hospital, those little cities rich with drama of every kind. The whole Lion King circle of life took place on our floors, and we doctors were at the heart of it all.