The Anesthesia Game

by Rea Nolan Martin

  “Hello?” he says curtly.

  “Hey,” says Hannah. “Sorry to burst into your evening, but I’m just wondering about Daizee.”

  “Yah, well, she’s laying down, but nothing’s happening. I’m with her now, but about to head up to the house and watch it online.”

  She repeats her earlier request. “Can we watch it here?” she says. “Online? It might pick up some spirits…”

  “Signal’s not so great over there,” he says flatly. Silence.

  Even though Hannah knows the signal’s not that bad—she’s on the phone now, isn’t she?—she doesn’t push it. Instead, she trots down the hall and ducks into one of the small conference rooms, the ones where they deliver all their rotten news, and shuts the door. This is a conversation she doesn’t want overheard.

  “Can you just please tell me what’s wrong?” she says. “I’ve got a lot on my plate right now, if you haven’t noticed.

  “Oh, do you?” he says. “And what would that be?”

  She curls her features up like a fist. “Excuse me?! It’s not like you to be such an asshole, Jonah. Seriously. You know exactly what I’m dealing with here…Syd…”

  “Oh really?” he says. “Syd?”

  Hannah’s just…speechless.

  “No clue at all what’s pissing me off?” he says.

  “No,” she says. “But I’m all ears.”

  “You’re all worried about Syd, is that right?” he says.

  “Of course that’s right.” She leans back on the stiff couch cushions, exhausted. Her head aches something awful, and with this lovely new twist, she just wishes she had a nice refreshing bucket of sulfuric acid to pour over her head.

  “Look, I’m sure you care about Sydney, Hannah. But the game’s over as far as the Florence Nightingale routine is concerned.”

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  “It means Aaron told me what you’re charging him for helping out in Darien. He must’ve thought I knew. How very mercenary of you.”

  Her body goes limp.

  “You did it for the money.”

  “No. No, Jonah. I didn’t. I love that child with all my…”

  “Your designer heart?” he says. “Is that what you love her with?” His breath is heavy. “Honest to God, I thought…”

  “What?” she says. “You thought what?”

  “Nothing.”

  “You thought I changed?” she says. “I have. You thought we might have a chance? We do!” She gathers steam. “I told Aaron what I needed to get out of hock,” she says. “I’m not technically charging him for taking care of Syd. But I helped him out of a hellhole and he seemed completely fine with helping me out of mine.”

  “There’s something wrong with the logic here,” he says. “Something very wrong with you trading the care of your niece for that much money.”

  She swallows a lump the size of a gold coin, and clears her throat. She stands and walks to the water cooler. “Then I won’t accept it,” she says. “That’s all there is to it. I’ll forfeit all of it.” Tears brew, bubble up, and spill over. “Don’t you think I’d sell the farm to get her back?” Oh my God, she’s Vesuvius. She can’t manage anymore; he’s done her in. She leans over the counter and turns inside out.

  “Hannah,” she hears him say softly.

  “Fuck you!” she screams and pitches the phone against the far wall. “Fuck you and all your fucking principles.”

  Life’s a mess, really. Principles pile up and press you into a corner of your own making. Right now, Hannah doesn’t care if she has a place to live or not, if she’s interred in debtor’s prison, or not. If she ever sees Jonah again, or not. The hell with him! She and Mitsy and Syd have each other, and that’s all they need. It’s all they ever needed.

  Who knew?

  Mitsy

  At two AM Hannah falls asleep on the recliner in the cramped hospital room, as Mitsy curls up on top of the thin white blanket at the end of Sydney’s bed. Her right hand rests on her daughter’s ankle; she feels the warmth. Her child is alive.

  She barely closes her eyes before she tumbles like Alice into the rabbit hole of her dream. And just like Wonderland, it’s insane. At first she knows it’s insane—it feels insane—but soon she becomes so much a part of the activity that it makes sense. It’s as if someone plucked her out of Virginia and dropped her in an ancient burning cottage in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by vineyards and spirits and powerful attachments to complete strangers that couldn’t feel more real or familiar.

  She feels her awareness sink into the broken body of a young woman with the gravity of a lead weight. She and this woman are one. Instantly, she experiences confusion and a storm of physical and emotional pain. Where the emotional pain is coming from she doesn’t know until she looks up. There against a blood orange moon she watches two eagles fly away with her youngest sister, Alicia, clutched precariously in their talons. Her heart wrenches and she cries out, “Nooooo!”

  On her knees, she reaches forward, but there’s something wrong with her legs and she can’t get up. Someone calls out “Marguerite, where are you?” Is she Marguerite? She must be. Though what she’s doing there, she has no idea.

  She tries to protect her gray robe from the fire that smolders around her. Columns and walls crumble. Another sister, Helaina, is being dragged out of the cottage at a distance by someone Marguerite can’t see. Marguerite fears she may be left to die. She wonders why no one sees her or Alicia. Do they even know Alicia’s been rescued—or was she kidnapped?—by eagles? Her head spins with terror. Where are the eagles taking her beloved sister? Do they mean her harm? Will she ever see Alicia again? Who lit the fire?!

  Just as the smoke overcomes her and she is about to expire from the fumes, one of the reviled gypsies from a camp in the lower village scoops her up and lifts her into her muscular arms. This woman has the strength of a man. Someone calls out to the gypsy, “Dorenia,” he says, “hurry!”

  Carrying Marguerite, Dorenia charges out of the fire with a steady, confident gait. Marguerite inhales a sharp fragrance from a tiny metal container on a string around Dorenia’s neck. The spicy orange elixir keeps Marguerite alert for a brief period. Her senses are piqued. She hears the gypsy’s jangling bracelets, earrings, and the charms clinking on her belt and shoes. The brilliant red and green dyes in the raw silky fabric of her dress and kerchief stick to the walls of Marguerite’s imagination. This is what a savior looks like, she thinks. Sounds like. Smells like. Even as she feels her spirit diminish, the memory burns an indelible image in her mind. The orange elixir helps her collect her thoughts, but the spicy scent diminishes in the charred air. It’s all she can do to whisper her final words in Dorenia’s ears, “Find…her,” she says, choking on the smoke. “Save…her.”

  “I will,” the gypsy says. “I promise.”

  Hours later, Mitsy awakens in the hospital room, her eyes feasting on the red hot dawn through the window as it burns like a wildfire, striated, across the hills on the horizon. Her tongue is paste. Her head aches with a nearly unbearable pressure she can’t remember experiencing since she was last in Darien. She can’t go back to that; she won’t. She’ll never be that weak again. She loathes that helpless woman. Whatever pain she has to bear from whatever condition or stress she might have, she will bear it in silence and with dignity. She will push through it. The farm has restored her self-respect. She won’t misplace it again.

  “Hey,” whispers Hannah from the recliner in the corner. She’s covered to the neck in a white blanket. “Weird night.”

  Mitsy pushes herself up and off the bed slowly and gently, trying not to awaken Sydney. She beckons Hannah out to the hall. They drag themselves like zombies to the ladies room, where individually-wrapped toothpaste and brushes sit in a basket. Other baskets with mini-deodorants, combs and lotions are scattered about. They do what they can with what’s there.

  When they’re finished, Hannah grumbles, “Want me to get you some coffee?”


  “Let’s both go,” Mitsy says. “I need a walk.” She checks her watch. It’s only five AM, but three hours of sleep is better than none, she supposes. Not that she feels like it did any good.

  They lumber along the smooth tile floor in stocking feet, first notifying the nurse’s station that they’ll be downstairs if needed. They walk like they slept in contorted positions in tight spots, because they did. Their limbs move stiffly. Their skin smells as antiseptic as their surroundings. They’re not so young anymore. Stress shows up everywhere—etched on the soft flesh of their cheeks, inscribed on the grainy corners of their enflamed eyelids. Hannah reaches over to slip an errant lock of Mitsy’s freshly dyed hair behind her ear. Mitsy tucks the designer label of Hannah’s mohair sweater beneath the collar.

  On the way to the elevator, Hannah says, “I had a wicked dream. You, Syd and I were in a burning building. Pure chaos.”

  Mitsy processes this information, waiting for more as her own dream slowly regurgitates. Was it the same dream?

  “I don’t know what happened to Syd, if it even was Syd,” Hannah continues. “It didn’t really look like her, but in my mind…it was definitely her. Probably because the girl was in trouble, I don’t know.”

  “Where was it?” says Mitsy as she presses the elevator button.

  Hannah shrugs. “I don’t know. Middle of nowhere in more ways than one. It was confusing. Someone I didn’t trust was carrying you away in her arms. But it wasn’t you, really. Or you had a different name. And…” She stops herself.

  “And what?” Mitsy says.

  “Nothing. Just a dream. I can’t remember all of it.”

  “Or you don’t want to,” says Mitsy. “Because I died, right? And you’re afraid to say it.”

  The elevator doors open and they enter, Hannah staring at Mitsy. “I wouldn’t say…”

  “I did,” Mitsy says. “I died. It’s okay.”

  “Are you guessing that, or do you know?” Hannah says, frowning deeply.

  But Mitsy doesn’t answer, because she loses her breath, hanging onto the waist-high steel rail in the elevator as it descends. “Is it my imagination, or is the pressure in this elevator a bit much?” she says.

  “There’s a lot of pressure in general,” Hannah says, “physical and otherwise. My sinuses are killing me, for one thing. But I don’t think it’s the elevator.”

  “It’s like a layer of the atmosphere was injected with plutonium,” says Mitsy. She frowns at Hannah. “So it isn’t just me? Because I don’t want to go back to that creature I was. But my limbs and just…everything feels so heavy.”

  Hannah shakes her head. “I don’t know, maybe it’s both of us. Let’s see how we feel after a gallon of coffee.”

  Downstairs at the breakfast station, they place coffee mugs on their tray then select a banana, a croissant, and a couple of bottles of water. After they pay, they find a table flanked by two oversized armchairs in a corner of the café.

  “These chairs look comfy,” Hannah says sleepily. She climbs into one of them and huddles up, shrinking into the warmth of her coffee. She blows on the steaming liquid, and sips. After a minute, she says, “There’s something I have to tell you, Mits.”

  Mitsy is rooting through her purse for any kind of painkiller. Her head is in serious danger of imploding. “What’s that?” she says absently.

  “Not that I want to,” Hannah says. She sits back in the chair, crosses her legs, and takes a sip. “I definitely don’t want to.”

  Mitsy finds her tin of aspirin and throws two in her mouth. “Well, go on,” she says, mildly irritated.

  “Jonah is pissed at me,” Hannah says. “Because of, uh…something I did that I haven’t told you about.”

  Swallowing a bite of banana, Mitsy grimaces. “For God’s sake, Hannah, just say it. Isn’t there enough drama in our lives?”

  Hannah’s hands shake as she clutches the warm cup, burying her nose in the steam. “I, uh…that is, Aaron…”

  Mitsy freezes. “Oh no, Hannah, you didn’t…”

  “What?!”

  “You didn’t sleep with…”

  “What?!” Hannah exclaims, at the same time jumping back and tipping the chair into the wall. “God no!” A stream of coffee splashes her chin, her sweater and pants and general surroundings. “Ouch! Oh my God, this is so fucking hot!” She grabs a pile of napkins from the tray and blots the coffee on her lap, the chair, the table. “Are you kidding me?” she says, still reeling. She runs to the station for a new pile of napkins.

  When she returns, Mitsy says, “It’s not as if I can’t see the attraction. You’re more suited to him than I ever was. If you hadn’t been so young when Aaron first came to ride…”

  “No!” Hannah’s jade green eyes are the size of quarters as she continues to mop the coffee from the table, rim, and floor. “Good God, Mitsy.” She shakes her head. “But that’ll make my confession so much easier.” She dumps the napkins in the trash and sits back down. “All I want to do is patch things up with Jonah,” she says. “That’s it.”

  “Then what is it?” Mitsy says. “What’s the big bad news?”

  “I got into a bit of a financial mess,” Hannah says. She bites her bottom lip.

  “Uh huh,” Mitsy says instead of— what else is new?

  “It all happened after Jonah left,” says Hannah. “It wouldn’t have happened if he hadn’t left.”

  “Why? Because if Jonah had stayed he would have paid your expenses?”

  “No.” Hannah sits back, considering that thought. “To be honest, my expenses were part of the reason he left.” She leans forward earnestly. “I got into a bit of a spending problem, I think. I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know? Come on, Hannah, you certainly do know.”

  “When you asked me up to Darien, I was just starting to write a book. An awesome book!” Hannah nods confidently. “Award-winning, in fact. The concept is just amazing! It’s called…”

  “Get to the point,” Mitsy says.

  “Fine, but you know I can do it, Mits. I can easily write a book. You remember my early beginnings, don’t you? I have it in me! The title is…If Only…and the concept is…”

  “Hannah.”

  “Okay, fine. So I wanted to write the book, but you needed me, so I was conflicted, but of course I flew up. It was the right thing to do.” She shakes her empty cup. “I thought I could write the novel at the same time I helped with Syd, but I …” She shakes her head. “Anyway, in the end, Aaron agreed to pay my expenses.”

  Mitsy shrugs. “That’s it? Well, of course we’ll pay your expenses, Hannah. It’s only fair. And anyway, I told him that would be the deal from the get go. End of story. You’re absolved.”

  “Not exactly. I got myself into a big hole, and I knew Jonah wouldn’t believe I’d changed unless I came up with a way to pay it all off. So…”

  Mitsy raises her eyebrows. “What’s the number?”

  “A few days ago Aaron told me if I spent the next year with you and Syd, he’d pay the entire amount.”

  Mitsy smacks the table. “Bastard! So he’s been planning his escape!” She closes her eyes, absorbing the deceit. She knew it.

  Hannah sighs. “Sorry, Mits. But it wasn’t premeditated, at least on my part. We didn’t even strike the deal until the other day.”

  “What’s the amount?”

  Hannah looks around. “I need a refill,” she says.

  Mitsy places her hand over Hannah’s. “It’s okay,” she says. “Whatever it is, I’ll pay it, not Aaron. Neither one of us needs his money.”

  Hannah’s slim torso shakes, her eyes tear, and she chokes up. “I didn’t do it for the money, Mits. I did it because I love you both. Syd is like…” She pats her chest. “…my own.”

  Mitsy nods solemnly. “How could I doubt that?”

  “Okay then.” Hannah rocks her head back and forth as if to give herself momentum. “Fifty thousand dollars is what I told Aaron. Plus uh…repairs.”
>
  “How much for repairs?”

  Hannah stares at the floor. “Something like, I don’t know…two hundred?”

  “Two hundred thousand?!”

  Hannah buries her face in her hands.

  “Holy shit!” Mitsy says, genuinely floored. “$250,000? What about the farm; is it mortgaged?”

  Hannah breathes deeply. “About forty percent.” She shuts her eyes. “I had to, Mits.”

  “The horses?”

  “Jonah owns half of them. He wants to buy the farm from me. Send me out to pasture in a townhouse in DC or somewhere he thinks I can’t get into trouble. I thought we would get back together.” She runs her hands through her hair. “I honest to God thought there was a chance.”

  Mitsy stares at her. “All those new clothes in the guest room, Hannah, my God.”

  “I know.”

  “You have to return every one of them.”

  “But now we can share them!” Hannah says wide-eyed. “You fit in them too!”

  Mitsy glares and Hannah shrinks. “Fine,” Hannah says miserably.

  “You have a problem,” Mitsy says, understanding that Hannah isn’t the only one with an escape hatch. She has one too. They all do. “Go get your refill,” she says, “and bring one for me.”

  While Hannah fetches coffee, Mitsy performs a few calculations in her head. Last she remembered she had about two million in her account, based on her portion of the inheritance that Aaron had invested. Obviously living with him, not to mention living in her bedroom, she had no reason to spend it. As much as she’d love to lecture her sister for the next two hours, there’s too much going on to waste that kind of time. After all, Hannah supplied a lot of energy just when Mitsy could barely breathe. How can Mitsy deny her now?

  When she sits back down, Hannah says, “I’ve turned over a new leaf, Mits, I have. I swear.”