Professor next Door

by Summer Cooper

  “Tara, baby. Seriously. We should work.” He pushed me away gently before taking my hand as he stood. “You had some kind of idea when you pulled all of those boxes out of the attic, tell me.”

  “Nooooooooo! I want sex!” I felt like Rikki for a minute but let him off the hook by smiling at him teasingly. The throbbing in my body hadn’t stopped. It sat there, tormenting me as I walked behind him.

  “I’ve created a monster. Later, I promise!”

  We settled at the table, a cup of coffee now in front of me, and we started looking over the files once more.

  “These are her medical files. You’re planning on heading to medical school, have a look at those and see what you can discover.” Galen handed me a thick folder filled with papers.

  “How did you get this? Why did you get this?” I looked at the confidential file then back at Galen.

  “I spent a few weeks looking for answers myself, just after her death. It was declared an accident so I put it all away. Rikki needed me, I didn’t have time to go hunting for a ghost.” He looked away but I’d seen the pain in his eyes. It tore at me and I wanted to hold him, but as he’d said, we had work to do.

  “What about doctor-patient confidentiality?” I asked, concerned I might be breaking the law.

  “She’s dead, Tara. Those laws no longer apply. Besides, I’m her husband, I can share them with whoever I like, right? I think. I’ll call Bill later. Anyway, as far as I’m concerned, you’re part of my legal team now. Open away.” He waved at the file before he went back to his own, a stack of what appeared to be bank statements.

  I started digging through the folder, feeling as though I was intruding. I’d made it through a good stack of her appointments for a variety of complaints before I got to a stack from her gynecologist. Everything had gone fine at first, and then there started to be pages stapled together, then more. I paused at those, reading over them carefully.

  “Kayla had gestational diabetes?” I glanced up to see Galen nodding absently, a yellow highlighter in his hand as he occasionally swiped at a line item.

  “She did, yes. Her doctor was managing it.”

  I felt my brows knit as I stared down at the paper in my hand. I reached for my tablet, a gift from Galen, and did a search on the syndrome I knew only a little about. An idea was forming, but there was only one record of Kayla having seen the doctor after she gave birth to Rikki.

  “Galen?” I asked, still staring at my tablet, reading another purported expert’s opinion on how long gestational diabetes lasted after the mother had given birth. I was finding that opinions varied and there was no clear conclusion on the duration. I took away the idea that gestational diabetes should be monitored far longer than a week or two after birth. Maybe even into the second year of the child’s life.

  “Yes, baby?” He’d moved on to a different pile of papers, his reading glasses sliding down his nose in a way that was impossibly sexy. I smiled to myself but ignored the twinge of arousal that shot through me. It was time to work.

  “Why did she stop going to her doctor?”

  “What?” He glanced up at me but then what back to his papers.

  “Why did Kayla stop going to her doctor?”

  “She didn’t, she had several appointments after she had Rikki. Quite a few, in fact. It seemed she was going once a week or more at times!” He looked up at me now with confusion.

  “There aren’t any more papers after her first appointment after Rikki was born. Are you missing some or did she change doctors without telling you?” I held up the paper I’d mentioned, waving it at him. “That’s the last appointment.”

  “I’ll give the office a call.” He went to make his phone call and I made more coffee for us. When he came back into the room he didn’t look pleased.

  “They said they sent me everything in her files. That she stopped coming without an explanation after her last appointment. Who was she seeing then?”

  I looked up at him, not able to give him any kind of answer. “It’s hard to say, maybe her insurance records will show that?” It was the only answer I could think of.

  “I’ll find those then. There has to be an explanation for this.”

  Galen dug through another folder and gave a loud sigh a few minutes later.

  “Found him.” He didn’t look overly happy about his discovery.

  “What is it?”

  “He’s a psychiatrist. She was seeing a psychiatrist several times a week just before her accident.” A thoughtful look crossed his face and he put his head in his hands.

  “That’s a good thing.” I reached over to touch his hand but he pulled away as though I’d burned him.

  “No. I didn’t know she was seeing a psychiatrist. She was hiding it. That means I was the problem, right? She felt like she couldn’t tell me.” I could see the torment he felt in the way he clenched his jaw.

  “No, Galen!” I began to reassure him, but he gave me a look so I stopped.

  “Come on, Tara! Why would she hide something like that from me?” His head went back in his hands, clasping at the back of his neck like the world was falling down on him.

  “I don’t, I wouldn’t...”

  “No,” his words muffled against the table as he leaned down to it for support. “You wouldn’t, unless it was me that was the problem. Unless it was me that had sent you over the edge.”

  He stood, gathering up a few things as he went, and walked out of the room, leaving without a word.

  “Galen? Where are you going?” I ran after him, worried now.

  “I’m going... I just need to clear my head, Tara. I’ll be back soon.”

  I couldn’t stop him, but the thought flew through my head that maybe those were Kayla’s last words to Galen. He wasn’t... no, he couldn’t be.

  “Galen!” I called out and he paused, the door open now.

  “Yes, Tara?” He didn’t look back, he just stood there, his shoulders slumped in defeat.

  “Rikki and I, we need you, you know? Don’t forget to come home, okay?” I didn’t want to declare that I loved him, not yet. Not without knowing for sure that he loved me and by his walking out I wasn’t feeling assured of it.

  “I know, babe. I’ll be back.” He left then, closing the door quietly.

  I stared after him, my heart breaking for him, breaking for all of us.

  I went back to the table, looking down at the papers. For a moment I resented the woman that had come before me. I felt like an ass, but there it was. It felt like she was ruining my life from the grave.

  I sank into a chair, calling myself a million different names. Kayla had not done this to us on purpose, I knew that. It was her parents, it was Galen. Kayla had only tried to escape. Whether her death was an accident or suicide, she’d been trying to leave Rikki and Galen behind. She couldn’t handle whatever was happening to her and she’d run away.

  Just as Galen was doing now.

  I sighed and grabbed the papers Galen had been looking over.

  Kayla could have been seeing the doctor for any number of reasons, maybe she’d realized she needed help and was trying to protect her family, maybe that’s why she’d left them? It was so irrational to think of a woman leaving her baby, to even consider it, but I knew personally it happened. Not every mother is cut out to be a mom. My mother knew that and left. It would seem Kayla had known that as well. That’s why she’d left Rikki with Galen rather than take her baby with her.

  My eyes kept going back to the last report with her gynecologist, something tingling in my brain, but I wasn’t sure what. I picked up my tablet, wondering what diabetes did to a person. I felt confused when I saw Type 1 and Type 2 were different from gestational diabetes. In today’s world, it’s hard to not watch television without seeing some kind of information about diabetes, or catching glimpses about the rise in Type 2 diabetes in America and how obesity caused it. Kayla hadn’t been overweight, though. I glanced back at the report and saw she’d actually lost weight.

&nb
sp; That’s when my eyes saw it at last, the thing that had been screaming at me, but my brain had refused to see. Under the diagnosis section, the term for her diabetes had changed from gestational to Type 2. I looked back at my tablet and saw that there was a difference, and that women that had gestational diabetes could sometimes develop Type 2. It would appear Kayla had not only developed it but developed it far earlier than was usual. While gestational diabetes can be asymptomatic, Type 2 diabetes could present in a number of ways with a variety of symptoms. Without care it would only get worse. Over and over again we’re told that Type 2 diabetes is caused by obesity, but according to the research I was reading, that wasn’t always the case.

  I froze when I saw the word fainting. What if Kayla had been avoiding proper treatment for her diabetes, thinking her weight loss had cured the problem? Could she have passed out in the car while driving, her emotional state exacerbating the problem? I stared off into space, my brain running far too fast.

  “There were no skid marks on the road.” John’s words came back to me, replaying in my head.

  If she’d passed out, she wouldn’t have known she was about to die. She wouldn’t have reacted with panic, she’d have just driven into a light pole without a clue of what was about to happen. It all made sense!

  I ran around the room, looking for my phone to call Galen home. I couldn’t find it and John pulled up into the driveway just as I was about to scream, Amanda not far behind him. They came in, laughing and carefree, but all I could do was stare at them with an odd mixture of horror and excitement.

  “I think I know why Kayla died!”

  21. Galen

  Tara’s words as I left really struck home with me. They were so close to the words I’d said to Kayla as she walked out of our lives without a backward glance. Rikki and I need you, don’t go! I drove around town, needing to think, but unable to decide where I needed to be. I soon found myself heading in the direction of Cascade Springs Nature Preserve. That was as good a place as any.

  I climbed out of the car and found a kiosk selling water. I took a bottle and began a trail meant for beginners. I thought a good hike out of the noise of the city might do me some good. I looked around the world of greens and browns and wondered how many animals I might not see; how many hidden dangers were only a moment away.

  Not because I was afraid of being hurt, but because it was the reality of the world. In my suburban life, I often forgot wild animals were still lurking around, that the ground could shift beneath my feet, and that my world could be torn away. I’d been reminded of it recently. With a few words, that lawyer—whatever her name was—had shredded my life into pieces.

  I remembered the look in Tara’s eyes as she’d listened, how her heart broke before my eyes as the lawyer insisted I’d been carrying on an affair during Kayla’s pregnancy. That was the part that got me. That affair had ended long before Kayla became pregnant.

  Why was Sarah lying, and lying straight to my face? What was in it for her? I knew she was a merciless bitch back when I’d had the fling with her, but this went beyond anything I’d thought her capable of. Was she in need of money? Had Kayla’s parents promised to pay her?

  The stream I stared at offered no clues, so I crossed it and kept walking. At least I’d worn trainers, jeans, and a t-shirt this morning when I’d left the house.

  Poor Tara. Her face replayed in my mind, the hurt, the uncertainty, the fear that I wouldn’t come back—an echo out of my own past.

  I loved her, I knew that now. I loved her more than I’d ever loved a woman. Her quiet, gentle manner had won me over. Behind a facade of soft armor there was a hard woman, willing to love just as hard as a warrior, and she’d decided I deserved her love. I could see it on her face even though she tried to hide it. I could feel it in her touch and hear it in her voice.

  I wanted to tell her I loved her too, but my love had never been enough for anyone. Would it be enough for her? I thought about it as I settled on a large stone at what appeared to be a springhouse just above a stream. The cold, dark interior beckoned to me, but I knew there’d be little in it that nature hadn’t put there. I felt like that springhouse.

  Did Tara deserve to be held down by a man another woman had already rejected? Whose father had rejected him? I was only good for women like Sarah, women that were users just as much as I was.

  Tara offered so much more. She offered a kind of hope, the promise of a different world. She stole my breath away. I couldn’t look at other women now, I didn’t want to. I just wanted Tara.

  I looked at the rock structure built over a stream to keep food cold a long time in the past and had a rather odd epiphany. Even if things appeared to no longer have a purpose, under the right circumstances they do. They can have a new purpose and a better purpose than before. Maybe I was good enough for Tara. Maybe I could change and be the man she deserved.

  I turned around to head home, not seeing the slippery rock beneath my foot until my shoe slid off it and I landed hard on my head. The world went dark.

  22. Tara

  “Has Galen answered his phone yet?” John came back in from the back porch, the smell of charcoal burning on the grill making my tummy rumble.

  “No, not yet. I didn’t think he’d be gone this long. I’m going to call his lawyer and tell him what I’ve learned, then I’ll try Galen again.” I picked up the phone and went into the living room to see Amanda playing with Rikki.

  I’d spent the day entertaining Rikki, waiting for her father to come home. He spent most of his weekdays at work so she didn’t notice that he was gone. If he didn’t come home soon she’d notice and start asking questions. I hoped he came home before that started.

  I watched her as I waited for the lawyer to pick up the line. She was one of the reasons I wanted it all to be over. She deserved a life with her dad, a life where she knew she was loved. I wanted to be a part of that love-fest as well. I loved Rikki and I loved her daddy. I wanted to fight for them both.

  I heard Bill’s voice on the other end of the line and an image of the sophisticated, yet oh so southern gentleman popped into my head. He really was the typical southern lawyer.

  “Tara, what can I do for you, honey?”

  “I had an idea and can’t get hold of Galen, so thought I’d best call you.” I gave him back my sweetest southern girl drawl, all but fluttering my eyelashes. I thought the news could free Galen, even if it didn’t explain the affair that Sarah woman had made claims about.

  She was lying; I just knew it in my heart. Galen had sworn that he hadn’t been having an affair when Kayla was pregnant and not when she’d died. I believed him.

  “Is Galen at work?” Bill sounded puzzled.

  “No, he took some time off. He went out for a drive, and he’s not come back yet.”

  “What? Where did he go? Why isn’t he at home?” It sounded as if Bill was searching for something on his desk before he came back on the line. “Tara, how long has he been gone?”

  “A couple of hours? It’s been a while.”

  “He wasn’t supposed to leave town. We have to find him.”

  “Well, he could be at work or at a bar, I doubt he’s left town!” He was panicking me, making me afraid I’d created more trouble for my husband.

  “You could be right but we have to find him. If you hear from him let me know.” Bill hung up, even as I protested, the reason for my call unspoken.

  “Damn!” I whispered to myself as I went into the kitchen to vent my anger out of Rikki’s view. What had I just done? Where was Galen? I needed him.

  I was on the verge of tears when the doorbell rang, and Rikki screeched at the unusual sound. Most of us knocked on the door. I sent her a soothing shush as I went to answer the caller.

  I was still looking back at her as she started to do a dance on the floor, her moment of fear forgotten.

  “I’m sorry, what can I...” I trailed off, the world becoming a tiny pinpoint as I saw who was at the door.

  23. G
alen

  As I came back to awareness, I felt pain burst in my head and my ankle. What the hell had happened to me?

  I sat up gingerly, unsure which injury needed my attention first. The world span and I felt nausea rise as I sat up, so I decided my head needed the most attention. Pain, fuck, a lot of pain, blood, holy fuck there’s a hole in my head!

  Panic swamped the nausea for a moment and I reached into my pocket for my phone. I found it in pieces, a victim of my fall. I breathed deeply to bring air into my body so I could calm down. That was step one, I told myself as panic tried to rise at the sight of my phone. I had no way to call for help!

  With gentle fingers, I explored the tender spot on the back of my head once more. Alright, not as deep as I thought, around three inches long, I could deal with it. I just had to get back to my car. Which brought me to my ankle.

  I pulled the leg of my jeans up and felt the swollen ankle through my sock. Yeah, just going to leave that alone and try to get out of here. I shifted positions, moving to my knees, an action that made my ankle scream in angry protest. The world swam around me and I fell over once more. Fuck me, how am I going to get out of this?

  It was dark, I couldn’t see any wandering forest rangers or bears with picnic baskets that might lend a hand. I giggled at my own joke, and that made the panic rise even more. I was hysterical, maybe it was blood loss? I searched in my pockets but found nothing I could use as a bandage for my head.

  “Alright, Galen. You’re an intelligent man, how are you going to get out of this?” Even the act of speaking made pain pulse through my head. Internal thoughts, man, internal!

  I tried to scoot along, pulling myself with my arms, but found that any movement of my ankle made electricity burn through my entire leg. It was a no-go.

  How the hell was I going to get out of this? Tara must be going crazy with worry. I wiggled my arm around until I caught a beam of moonlight and saw that it was already past eleven. Yeah, she’d be in panic mode for sure.