Rehab Run

by Barbra Leslie

  “Come on,” he said. “Let’s get you settled, princess.”

  “I hope one of you clowns went to the liquor store,” I said. “This is my vacation.” And of course that made us start to laugh – some vacation – and I started to fall off the crutches. I’m elegant that way. Debbie caught me handily. She was strong, at least as strong as I was. Or used to be. “One of these days, I’m going to stop getting in trouble,” I said. I was out of breath, trying to make it to the back door. “I’ll have a quiet life. I’ll take up knitting.”

  “I knit,” my brother piped up. “It’s very relaxing.”

  Debbie had set up the room off the living room as my bedroom. It obviously was usually a study, or a den, but there was a real bed set up, and a couple of books and things were sitting beside it. A small rolling cart was at the foot of the bed, with some neatly folded clothes and toiletries on it. A vase of lilacs was on the windowsill.

  “Laurence did it,” Debbie said. “Well, most of it.”

  “It’s wonderful, you guys. Thank you.” I was so glad to be there. I sat heavily on the bed. Debbie went to get me some water, while Laurence showed me where all my things were, unpacked and easy to get to.

  “And look,” he said. He opened the drawer in the little table next to the bed, “a corkscrew, and a screwdriver!”

  “Aw,” I said, “that’s very sweet. My StabbyScrew.”

  “That sounds fairly disgusting,” he said. “But I know it’ll make you feel better.” He lowered his voice. “There are tools everywhere. And she said that’s nothing – she has a whole woodworking studio in the garage.” He shook his head. “Lesbians.”

  “Teach her how to knit, why don’t you,” I said.

  “What’s this, now?” Debbie brought both of us bottles of water, and there was a nice bottle of wine. On a tray. With three glasses. “Are you casting aspersions on my sexual orientation?”

  “I just don’t know how you could want to have sex with women, but otherwise you’re perfect, my dear.” Laurence kissed her cheek, and she reddened. He picked the bottle of wine up off the tray. “Especially now. Sancerre!”

  “I have no idea what that means, but I’ll have a glass of wine,” I said. “And maybe one pill.”

  “Bean, you may have two. Every four hours.”

  “With wine?” Debbie said. Her eyebrows were somewhere at her hairline.

  Laurence and I looked at her. He shook his head sadly. “Oh, Debbie. You haven’t spent much time with Danny yet. But you’ll learn, my dear. You’ll learn.”

  “I have a high tolerance,” I said. “A glass of nice white wine and a couple of Percs? That’s a healthy, balanced lunch, compared to the way I was living a year ago.”

  Debbie and Laurence moved chairs around and we all sipped wine. There was a large window in my room, looking over the lake.

  “Listen, you,” she said to me, pointing at me with her wine glass. “Go to town on the wine, or your prescribed painkillers, or whatever. But no crack here, capiche? No cocaine.”

  “Debbie, unless you plan to go and get it for me, I have no way of getting anything of the sort.”

  She looked uncomfortable. She looked like she wanted to say something.

  “Out with it,” my brother said.

  “I saw your chart and the police report on the incident,” she said. She twirled the wine glass around in her hand nervously. “You had cocaine in your system when they brought you to the hospital. They tested you for everything before your surgery.” She looked at me. “We’re friends. I trust you. I gave you the key to my gun safe, for God’s sake, which obviously could have gotten me fired. Could have landed me in jail, actually, and still could if you decided you wanted to snitch on me.” I made a sound with my mouth that indicated how likely that would be. “But this whole thing has scared the shit out of me, to be honest. And even though I know there’s no more danger, the whole thing was around drugs. I know Dickie Doyle is your friend, Laurence, but, frankly, since his escape from hospital I’m not convinced he didn’t have some part in what happened. I know that wherever he is, he’s a mess. And sick. Possibly dead by now.”

  Laurence shook his head.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to – look, all I wanted to say is that my life is usually pretty boring, you know? Good boring. I mean, the job has its share of adventures, but nothing like what happened.”

  “And thank God for that,” I said.

  “Exactly. And while I’ve never had any huge issue with drugs, other than the people who traffic them, this whole thing has put the fear of God into me. I don’t let any of my friends smoke weed anywhere near me anymore.”

  “I’m surprised you ever did, you being RCMP,” Laurence said.

  “Well, I’ve always been careful not to be in the room. But sometimes I still feel that there’s something out there in the woods, and… I just don’t want drugs in here,” she finished lamely. She gazed out the window.

  “Debbie, don’t worry,” I said. “I know what you mean. I do. And yes, I did have a quantity of cocaine earlier that night. It was my birthday.” I didn’t tell her that Dave had procured it, and that he and Laurence had already discussed the fact that they were going to monitor me with it, until we found Dickie. She might have been a friend, but she was still a cop. And I didn’t want to get Dave in any more trouble.

  “I slipped up once. Once. There was a lot of stress. A lot of stuff going on. I’d just nearly died in the Bay of Fundy. It is not going to happen again.”

  “Okay. I believe you,” she said after a pause. “Let’s eat.”

  “You eat a lot,” I said. “You must have the metabolism of a mouse.” She was strong, but very lean.

  “I love food,” she said. “I don’t know why I don’t gain more weight. My parents were both kind of big. I’ll be one of those people who balloon at forty.”

  Laurence went to help her in the kitchen, and I sipped my wine, looking at the lake.

  I knew what Debbie meant about the woods. I had no morphine in my system and had only taken one Percocet, six hours earlier. I was clear, and the thudding in my leg reminded me that I was not hallucinating.

  But as I looked at the lake, I saw someone in my peripheral vision, at the edge of the woods. Someone looking at the cottage.

  But when I swung my head around, they were gone.

  My heart was pounding, and I knew as certainly as I was sitting there that it wasn’t over.

  It wasn’t fucking over.

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  Debbie and Laurence brought in tuna sandwiches and potato salad cold from the fridge, and the three of us ate and drank wine, and the whole time my brain was clicking. Should I tell them? Debbie was a cop, and I knew she had at least one gun. But if there was someone there, I didn’t want Laurence going running into the woods.

  And really, wasn’t it more likely that I imagined it? It had only been a week since I had witnessed Pamela shoot her son and then herself, and then I had my ordeal in the bunker with Dickie and Mary. Things had been playing at the edges of my vision down in the hole, and I had put it down to fever, but what if I was having some kind of visual hallucination or something? A brain tumor? Or, I could be going crazy. I felt full of death, and I felt cheated of the normal life I had been starting to plan. Des Murphy had reminded me of my dad.

  Dr. Singh had said that maybe I’d wanted to trust Des like I had trusted Paul Belliveau in Toronto. Paul had risked his life to save mine, and he had been a protective father figure at a time when I really needed one. And she had also reminded me that it was only just over six months since my twin sister had been murdered. I had never been one to think about my emotions much; I’d always led with my fists. But I also knew I’d had enough trauma to last me a lifetime.

  So, either I had a brain tumor, I was crazy, or there was someone lurking in the woods watching me, us, again. Or still.

  Crack, please. Really. I closed my eyes and inhaled, imagining I was sucking crack smoke into my lungs.
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  “Danny?” Debbie said. “Are you okay?”

  “I am,” I said. “I think I just hit a wall. I think I need a pill. Or two.”

  Laurence took the pill bottle out of his pocket and put two in my palm as he took my plate. I was surprised to see that I’d eaten everything on it.

  “We should leave her to sleep,” Debbie said. “You remember where the bathroom is down here?”

  “Yup,” I said. “Thank you so much, Debbie.”

  “I’m doing a shift tonight. I was supposed to have it off, but somebody called in sick. I’m so sorry, I’m going to have to leave you. Are you staying?” she said to Laurence.

  “I was going to take a quick run to town, check on a few things. But I’ll be back in a couple of hours.” He looked at me. “Will you sleep? Will you be okay?”

  “Yes, I’m going to sleep.” As they were walking out, I asked Debbie if she had a pen and some paper. “I like to make lists sometimes, when I can’t sleep. It calms my brain down. Dr. Singh said it’s good for me.” She said no such thing, and I rarely made a list that didn’t involve eggs and bread, but whatever.

  Half an hour later, both cars had pulled out of the driveway. I hopped over to the door, nearly crashing into the furniture, and, not for the first time in this cottage, stuck a chair under the handle. Foolproof against homicidal killers, as everyone knows.

  I lay back on the bed, glad to be alone despite everything, and finished the wine, feeling it mix with the painkillers. I curled up with the sun warming a cozy spot on the bed, and drifted to sleep.

  * * *

  I woke up to a phone ringing.

  The phone in the kitchen. The only phone, as this was the area with the famously poor reception. The dead spot. Well, I supposed so.

  I debated getting up and trying to get to it. I hate the sound of a ringing phone; it’s so intrusive and jarring. But I had a feeling the phone had started ringing in my dream, so it would probably stop before I could get to it. And with all the furniture in my way and my lack of skill on the crutches, I doubted I’d make it. And besides, it was obviously not going to be for me.

  It was nearly sunset. I had slept for hours. I might have just gone back to sleep, but I needed to use the bathroom, and I knew it would take me a while.

  My leg felt okay, and when I got off the bed I tested some of my weight on it. Not great, but it was the first time I’d felt like it might actually heal someday. It had been the most painful injury I’d ever received, and something about its placement – so high on my leg, so close to my core – had made me feel more vulnerable than anything else ever had.

  Between one crutch and my good leg, I made it to the bathroom off the back door.

  Of course, it had no shower. I was going to have to attempt the stairs tomorrow.

  I looked in the mirror and thought maybe I looked better than I had. But that was probably the lack of fluorescent lighting; every day in the hospital I’d felt like I looked worse than the day before. Luckily, I wasn’t particularly vain.

  I went back into the living room and looked out over the lake. The sunset was beautiful and looked oddly like a winter sunset. Maybe it was the lack of city smog, but I spent a minute getting lost in the blues mixed with the pink and orange. Then I moved to the window and, with difficulty and feeling like I was going to keel over, I closed both sides of the curtains.

  I wanted to go home. I wanted to go back to Toronto. I wanted to feel safe.

  I felt safe when I was taking action. Not safe, exactly, but in control and completely in the moment. No busy brain getting in the way. But right now, I was literally and figuratively hobbled, and feeling like I was either going crazy or being watched. Possibly both.

  I wished Laurence would get back. I started toward the phone to call his cell, when I remembered us giving our SIM cards to Jonas back at the safe house. I didn’t have my cell, not that it would work here anyway, but even if Laurence had his phone back I didn’t know the number off by heart. I relied on my contacts list.

  Jesus, what a lazy race we’d become.

  I made my way back to the bedroom and closed the curtains there too. I couldn’t see anyone now, but the light was nearly gone.

  I sat down on the bed and picked up the pen and paper Debbie had left. I decided to write things down. I made myself comfortable, pushing the pillows behind me. Just as I touched the pen to paper, the phone rang again. Of course. Not five minutes earlier.

  I decided to try, at least. It could be Laurence.

  By the time I made it halfway across the living room again, the phone had stopped. And I remembered that it was an old-fashioned wall phone, with no call display. I sat on the old La-Z-Boy near a small bookshelf, the closest seat to the phone.

  I rifled through. Some very old Harlequin romances – Debbie’s mother, I supposed, or stepmother, depending on when she came into the picture. Probably not young Debbie, figuring out she was a lesbian and devouring the most hetero kinds of books on the market. Telephone books going back to 2001, for whatever reason. A few more recent bestsellers, airport-type books.

  And on the bottom shelf, what looked to be high-school yearbooks. Debbie’s parents probably went to the same school that Rose did. Probably everybody around here did, actually. I debated going into the bedroom to get my paper and pen, in case I could find anything interesting and make notes.

  I sat for a minute, frustrated at the fact that a simple act like going into the next room to fetch a pen could possibly turn into such a decision. I felt a surge of anger again, at Dave and Ned, and even right now at Laurence. He should be back by now.

  Then I realized I did helpless and sick about as well as a man does, and I told myself to deal. I may have called myself some names while I was at it. On top of everything, I was a bit premenstrual. Hormonal and feeling helpless: my favorite combination.

  I grabbed the few yearbooks that were in the bookcase and took them back into the bedroom. One trip, instead of back and forth; and if the phone rang, I’d let it ring.

  I noticed the bottle of Sancerre had a bit left, and once I settled myself back on the bed, yearbooks and paper in my lap, I took a swig from the bottle.

  1992. Same year as the one Dave and I had seen at Dickie’s. Dave had gone back in for them, in fact. If he had found anything exciting that we hadn’t already seen – i.e., Des Murphy was the captain of the hockey team – I probably would have heard about it, despite my moratorium on any news.

  I love other people’s photo albums and yearbooks, almost especially if I don’t know them. I find myself making up stories about the people in the pictures. I find it relaxing. Going through people’s underwear drawers? You can keep it.

  I read a few of the grads’ write-ups, all in the same prose style as Rose’s had been. Seemed like about half or more of the kids had plans to go off to university. I studied pictures of the Chess Club and the Badminton Team.

  Really, it wouldn’t matter what year or what school you were looking at, the Chess Club always looked the same, full of kids who were unpopular in high school but who would more than likely be successful in life.

  Finally, I turned back to the grads again, and searched for Murphy.

  Desmond Murphy came screeching into the world on December 8th 1974. He tells us he was a preemie baby, which some of the girls of the grade 12 class might not find surprising!

  I raised my eyebrows. How did that get by the staff censors?

  His love of fast cars and fast women came to an abrupt halt when he and Rose Carlisle knocked each other out during Co-Ed Volleyball in grade 10.

  Yeah. Fast cars and fast women, all before grade 10.

  Not only has Des been captain of the hockey team since grade 11, but some say he may have even broken the speed of sound at Ferryman Lake in his souped-up dinghy. His favorite subject is Phys Ed, and his dream is to marry Rose and coach other people’s rugrats. His other dream is that he keeps his hair until he’s at least 30. Dream on, Des!

  Handsome k
id. Same cleft chin. Hair that was already starting to recede; no wonder he was worried about being bald by thirty. I leafed through a few more grad pictures, then went to the sports teams and extracurricular activities.

  One was labelled “Fall Clean-Up,” and showed a bunch of fresh-faced kids raking leaves.

  One was Des, clowning around with Rose Carlisle. She was laughing, ducking from him slapping her butt or something, the way it looked. She was thinner than I had expected she would be; she was one of those girls with a full face but a slim body.

  They looked happy.

  I saw the hockey team photo again, and had a quick look at the girls’ teams. I checked basketball and volleyball first. She was tall, but Rose was obviously not a sporty girl in school. I couldn’t find her in any of the club photos. Well, she wound up at Bennington. She probably spent her time studying, when she wasn’t attached at the hip to Des.

  I found only one more picture of Rose.

  There were a few pages of candid shots of the kids around school, set on the page at jaunty angles, showing how much fun the students and staff got up to. Rose was at her locker, leaning with one hip holding her up, reading a book. I couldn’t see the cover. There were two girls standing beside her, but she didn’t seem to even notice them. The other two girls were mugging for the camera and sticking their bellies out. There was something off about the picture, and I flipped back to it.

  The other two girls were sticking out their bellies.

  Rose wasn’t. Rose was pregnant. From what I could tell, quite pregnant. I was no expert, but maybe six months? Not like she was about to drop, but not like it wasn’t noticeable either.

  Rose and Des had a baby.

  I forgot how to breathe for a minute, and then I headed for the phone.

  I moved carefully through the space, cursing myself for not leaving a lamp on. I didn’t know the layout well enough to risk crashing through and falling.

  I wondered if Debbie’s gun safe was open, or if I could find the key. Or if I could even make it up the stairs just now.