by Abigail Haas
‘But . . . ’ I stop, and try my best to focus. This is all happening too soon; I was supposed to have longer, to think things through. To get my story straight.
‘I’m scared,’ I whisper, feeling the sting of tears in the corner of my eyes.
Weber softens. ‘It’ll be OK,’ he tells me, and I want to believe him. ‘Everything’s going to be just fine.’
We sit there another hour in silence, watching the bustle of activity around us. People go in and out of the double doors, but there’s still no word of the surgery, just the smudges of blood, smeared like an accusation on the floor.
Weber doesn’t say another word and, as the moments stretch, my panic slowly blooms. He should have questions for me, about what happened tonight, about why someone is lying in surgery with a knife wound torn through his gut. But instead, he just sits there, marking the crossword of the discarded newspaper he found on the waiting-room table. The only time he speaks is to ask me if I want coffee, ambling to the machine down the hall and returning with two cups, hot and bitter.
I accept mine with a faint nod, curling my hands around the polystyrene cup. My eyes stay fixed on those doors to surgery and, every time someone steps through, I brace myself, expecting the worst.
I just don’t know what the worst would be.
Finally, the door opens on a face I recognize, the doctor who shocked him back to life. His scrubs are bloodstained, his expression grim.
I don’t move. Just like before, the world feels like it’s poised on a knife’s edge, ready to tumble either way, depending on the next words out of his mouth.
‘He made it.’ The doctor pulls off his green cap with a weary sigh. ‘He lost a lot of blood, but we were able to patch the arterial valve and stop the bleeding. He’ll pull through.’
Weber lets out a breath beside me, but I shiver, anxiety still snaking like ice across my skin. ‘Is he awake?’ I ask quickly. ‘Can I see him?’
‘I’m afraid the surgery was complicated . . . ’ The doctor pauses, ‘We were able to stabilize him, but it might be a while before he wakes up.’
‘But he will wake up?’ My voice quavers.
The doctor nods. ‘Barring any more complications, he should make a full recovery.’
I exhale.
‘See?’ Weber turns to me and I can see the relief on his face. He pats my shoulder, swallowing hard. ‘Now it’s going to be OK. Just a domestic, self-defence.’ He nods, as if talking to himself. ‘We see it all the time, they might not even press charges. You’ll be fine.’
I nod slowly, wanting so desperately to believe him, but knowing all the same that he’s wrong. There’s still a stormcloud looming, ominous and black, and when I catch a movement out of the corner of my eye and turn to see one of the younger deputies heading towards us, his expression panicked, I know that the storm’s touched down.
‘Weber?’ He pauses a safe distance away and loiters, skittish. ‘They need you back at the fire.’
‘What is it?’ Weber sounds impatient. ‘In case you haven’t noticed, I’m busy here.’
‘It’s important.’ The deputy meets my eyes for a second, then whips his gaze away as if he’s been burned. ‘You really need to come now.’
Weber sighs. ‘I don’t have time for clean-up. Can’t you find someone else to go?’
‘It’s not just clean-up.’ The deputy swallows, nervous. He tugs on the collar of his uniform, clears his throat.
I take a slow breath and brace myself, waiting for the next part to begin.
‘They found a body.’
‘Ethan, please,’ I beg again. ‘Don’t hurt us.’
His eyes come back into focus for a moment, looking at me. They soften, a glimpse of the old Ethan, the boy I used to know.
‘Please,’ I say, desperate. ‘Just let us go!’
The house is silent around us, thick with paint fumes, plastic still wrapping the furniture; blank picture frames marking places on the walls. Building tools and discarded boxes; candles and champagne.
An unholy mess. The last thing we might ever see.
‘Put the knife down,’ Oliver says firmly, edging towards him. ‘We won’t say a word, I promise. We’ll go, and this will all be over.’
Ethan shakes his head, stumbling back. ‘You’re tricking me. I don’t know how, but this is another of your fucked-up games. You’re lying. The minute I put this knife down . . . ’
‘Then what?’ Oliver finishes for him. Another half-step closer. ‘You’re scaring Chloe. You don’t want that, do you? You love her. You would never hurt us.’
‘No!’ Ethan holds out the blade, pointing it directly at him. ‘No, but you would.’
‘This is crazy, Ethan.’ Oliver tries to reason with him. ‘I’m your brother!’
‘You don’t care about anyone!’ Ethan yells. ‘You’re sick, you always have been!’
Oliver stops moving. Instead, he spreads his arms wide. ‘Fine, do it then. Kill me. That’s what you want, isn’t it?’
‘Oliver!’ I plead with my eyes, but he shakes his head slightly. Trust me, his expression seems to say, so I wait, barely breathing. I don’t understand him, calling Ethan’s bluff like this, it won’t work. He’s not thinking straight – anything could happen.
‘Come on, get it over with,’ Oliver urges him. ‘Get rid of me for good, have her all to yourself. I’m right here.’
There’s silence. Ethan doesn’t move.
Oliver snorts. ‘That’s right, I forgot, you never do anything. You don’t have the guts.’
‘Shut up!’ Ethan snaps, the blade shaking in his hand.
‘You just sit around, playing nice with Mommy and Daddy,’ Oliver continues, relentless. ‘One happy little suburban family. No ambition or imagination. Even Chloe can’t stand it any more. Why do you think we’re here, Ethan? You think there was ever any contest?’
‘I said shut up!’
Ethan suddenly swings, knocking Oliver’s face back with the hilt side of the knife. I scream. Oliver stumbles back, but right away, he lunges. He grabs Ethan’s midriff in a tackle and they go down hard, slamming to the ground, a bloody tangle of punches and gasps. The knife skitters out of Ethan’s hand, spinning across the floor.
‘Chloe!’ Oliver yells, as Ethan rears up, slamming his fist down so hard I hear Oliver’s head crack back against the ground. Oh God, he’s gasping now, bloodied on the ground. ‘The knife!’
I scramble for it, my hand closing around the hilt as Oliver rolls on top, choking Ethan, his legs thrashing wildly.
‘Chloe,’ Ethan gasps, clawing blindly at Oliver. He turns his head, his eyes meeting mine in a desperate gaze. ‘Help me!’
I watch, frozen. They’re fighting for their lives because of me. Because of my choices. And I can’t go back, I can’t change a thing, I just have to decide, right now.
It’s me, it’s all on me.
So I choose.
I deferred college for a year. It was long, drawn-out process of frustrating phone calls, pleading with distant administrators and wrangling with my dad, who couldn’t fathom why I would hit pause on my future for something he described as trivial as Mom’s ‘woe-is-me self-indulgence’.
‘I don’t expect you to understand,’ I said through gritted teeth, gripping the phone so hard I felt it dig into my palm. He had loved Mom for twenty years then left without a backwards glance; now he was surprised I wouldn’t do the same. I swallowed back my anger, doing my best to soften my voice. ‘Dad, things are really difficult here. Can you maybe send me the money you were going to pay for tuition now, instead?’
‘I’m afraid it doesn’t work like that.’ Dad sounded distracted. ‘That money was tied up in a specific fund, the rules for withdrawal are very particular. And I don’t think you should be worrying about things, your mom can look after herself.’
‘But Dad . . . ’ I paced in the small storage room, trying to control myself.
‘I’m sorry, pumpkin.’ He had the nerve to use my childho
od nickname, as if I was asking for an advance on my allowance to buy a new toy, not keep the electricity turned on. ‘Things are tight for me too, with the baby coming. If you’ve made the decision to put off college, that’s your decision, but I can’t support it, not financially.’
I hung up, my heart thundering in my chest, anger still hot in my veins. I should have known better than to expect help from him; still, it surprised me afresh every time he let me down.
He’d left us, and now, every day, he chose to stay gone.
I wouldn’t be calling him again.
‘There you are.’ A voice brought me out of my thoughts. I looked up to find Sheriff Weber loitering in the open doorway. ‘I can’t find the incident report sheets; do you know where you keep them now?’
‘Sorry!’ I exclaimed, tucking my phone away and pasting on a bright smile. ‘I was just getting more ink for the printer. Be right there!’
‘No hurry,’ Weber added, yawning. ‘It was just Mrs Farnham’s dogs acting up again, Kelly Bates says they went after her cat. Take your time.’ He shut the door and I was left alone, in the narrow storage closet that housed office supplies and spare uniforms, and all the many reams of paperwork that the Haverford County Sheriff’s department required.
This was my new job, my new life now: receptionist, filing clerk, and general errand girl down at the police precinct. It wasn’t much, and I’d been lucky to get it at all. With diner traffic slowed to a trickle, Loretta could only offer me weekend shifts, so I asked around town and found they needed someone on the front desk at the station. It was basic work: filing, answering phones, taking lunch orders from the motley crew of local deputies, but I didn’t mind the boredom of the work, it left my mind to wander, free to focus on a plan. A plan to keep my sanity intact; a plan to get me through this.
A way to keep hold of normalcy, even with my life slipping further and further out of reach.
It had been a month now since the end of summer, and I’d got us through this far. I used my summer earnings to pay the most overdue bills, and drained the last of Mom’s savings account. I rode my bike and took the bus to save on gas money; kept the heat turned off as long as possible, and took home dinner from my shifts at the diner, as many nights as I could. With my new wages at the sheriff’s department, and the meagre diner tips, I figured, we could just about make it to spring. Mom would be better by then.
She had to be.
I grabbed the box of cartridges and stepped back out into the main floor. The deputies had all abandoned their desks for lunch, but I found Weber by the front reception, regarding the files covering the floor with a twitch of bemusement.
‘Sorry.’ I hurried to explain, hoping I hadn’t done the wrong thing. ‘I know it looks a mess, but I’m reorganizing. Some of the guys were saying they couldn’t find a thing.’
‘Hey, good luck to you.’ Weber backed away from the mess, as if the avalanche of files teetering precariously on the desk were about to crush him. ‘The incident paperwork?’
‘Right.’ I looked around, then delved into a blue folder and found the right forms. ‘And do you need to file a report with Animal Control too?’
Weber sighed. ‘If I have to. One of these days, someone’ll just shoot the damn things, and then where will we be?’
‘Filing more paperwork,’ I replied wryly.
Weber cracked a smile. ‘You ain’t wrong there.’ He paused, loitering by the desk. ‘Have you heard from Alisha?’
‘Not much this week. Just a couple of emails and texts,’ I replied, sorting files again. ‘She said things are still pretty crazy.’
Weber nodded. ‘It’s strange to have her gone. Her mom keeps setting an extra place at the table.’ He gave me a faint smile, almost lost. ‘We’ve been calling, but, she’s so busy now, with classes . . . ’ He trailed off.
‘It’s just the first semester,’ I offered. ‘I’m sure once she gets into a routine, she’ll have more time.’
‘I know.’ Weber gave a nod, then tapped the desk. ‘OK then, I’ll be getting back to work.’
He headed to his office, leaving me alone to work through the filing.
Alisha couldn’t understand why I stayed. But why would she? I’d never told her what was happening with Mom, so she didn’t realize how bad it had become. She departed town in a car packed high with boxes, and I’m sure, she never once looked back. At first, she texted and called every other day. I could hear the uncertainty in her voice as she gossiped nervously about her roommate, and the dizzying size of campus, and how she needed to spend every night in the library, just to catch up. But quickly, the calls dropped off; became shorter and rushed. She found a group of girls to hang out with, and chattered happily about their pizza parties and study nights.
I dreaded and longed for her updates in equal measure. They were a glimpse of the world still outside my reach, and I couldn’t help but imagine myself in the scenes she was painting; where the biggest stress I had to deal with was nerves over a first big term paper, and the frat-boy exploits of the guys down the hall.
Instead, I had filing and telephones, a brown-bag lunch, and Haverford, turning red with fall outside my windows, the same as it had always been.
The department was quiet until after lunch when the younger deputies filed in, still talking smack-talk about a parking-lot pick-up game.
‘Blake?’ I stopped one of the guys as he passed, a younger guy in his twenties with a blonde crew-cut. ‘Your mom called for you.’
There were whoops and jostling. Blake scowled at me. ‘What are you trying to say?’
I blinked. ‘I didn’t . . . I mean, your mom really did call.’ I hurriedly passed him a slip of paper with the scribbled message. ‘She couldn’t reach you on your cell. Says you need to pick up some windshield fluid.’
‘Sorry.’ Blake looked sheepish. He crumpled the message in his fist. ‘I told her not to call here, but she never listens.’ He sighed. ‘Can’t wait ’til I move out and get my own place.’
I looked at him curiously. He’d been a few of years ahead of me in school; a football player, a big-shot as far as Haverford was concerned, which wasn’t much. There had been talk of a football scholarship to college, but nothing ever materialized. Now, he was a deputy, swaggering around town with his hand on his gun, writing up tickets for speeding and parking fines.
‘So what about you?’ he asked, leaning on the counter. ‘You at home with your folks?’
I nodded.
‘Huh, I figured you’d get the hell out of here the first chance you got.’
I shrugged, sorting files. Everyone had been surprised by the news I wasn’t heading out to Connecticut as planned. I’d brushed off their questions with a wry smile, explaining I wanted to take a year to work and travel first, tuition being what it was. Still, I felt their curiosity, looking me up and down. I was one of the good ones, a decent student, never in trouble. Not the kind to stick around Haverford a moment more than necessary. Yet here I was, a month later. Still in town. ‘Plans change,’ I replied lightly.
Blake sighed, restlessly drumming his palms on the counter. ‘Tell me about it. I’m taking some classes over at Rossmore. Figure it can’t hurt.’
‘Where’s that?’ I moved a stack of files aside before Blake tipped them.
‘Community college, about an hour away.’ Blake reached for the bowl we kept on the desk, pulling out a Halloween candy. ‘It’s lame, I know, makes me wanna put a bullet through my brain, but hey, the credits are cheap.’
‘Blake!’ A yell came up from the back of the office. Blake sighed. ‘See ya.’ He took the balled-up message and arced it into the wastepaper basket on the other side of the room. ‘And the crowd goes wild,’ he murmured wistfully as he sauntered away.
I kept filing for another few minutes, but Blake’s comment about college jittered in the back of my mind. I put the paperwork aside, took a seat in front of the battered old computer, and clicked through to a search site.
Rossmore
College.
Even the website couldn’t make it look like much. There were no beaming students studying under verdant trees, like all the glossy prospectuses I’d been browsing this time last year, but I forced myself to check the site, looking at the course catalogue and payment plans. We couldn’t afford it, not really, but still, I found myself copying down the details for admissions and financial aid applications. I was grasping at straws here, but even a class or two might be enough; enough to make me feel like my entire life wasn’t on hold. That this – this filing and planning and counting every damn dollar in the aisles at the grocery store – was a temporary detour in my future.
Because otherwise . . .
I shivered. If this was it for me now, if this town dug its claws into me and never let go, I couldn’t bear it.
I didn’t know what I would do.
Ethan came to pick me up as usual after work. I couldn’t stop myself from babbling about the college classes all the way home. ‘I can take them at night, so I don’t have to miss shifts, and the credits will all transfer once I start at Mills again,’ I told him, as we pulled up outside my house.
‘I’m glad you’re happy,’ Ethan grinned.
‘I’m not happy, I’m . . . interested.’ I corrected him. I hadn’t told anyone, not even him, how close we were to the edge financially. He knew the truth about Mom, and that was bad enough, I wasn’t about to let him in on the true extent of my desperation. ‘It’ll work out great,’ I said instead, giving him a quick smile. ‘As long as the Honda doesn’t fall apart on me again.’
‘I can always give you a ride if you need,’ Ethan said.
I shifted, uncomfortable. ‘It’s an hour away. I wouldn’t ask you to do that.’
‘Why not? Think about it. I’m always here. And anyway, it would mean more time with you, for this . . . ’ He leaned in and kissed me slowly until I ducked away.
