The Missing Year

by Belinda Frisch

  “You’ve been generous with donations and you’re good with the patients. We’re naming the unit in your mother’s honor, The Helen Reeves Center for Memory Care, and we need an on-staff psychiatrist. I thought—”

  “Yes.” Ross leapt at the chance for change, and to have a life that more fully involved Mattie. He thought for a fleeting moment about what would happen if their relationship failed, but quickly decided that no matter what it took, he wasn’t going to let that happen.

  “I haven’t even told you the specifics yet.”

  “Then tell me.”

  “We’re offering a Director’s title, a position on the board, and a salary of fifteen percent above your current pay.”

  “Twenty.” Ross figured he might as well negotiate.

  “Fine, twenty.”

  “That was easy. And the hours?”

  “Monday through Friday, day shift. On-call for emergencies only, providing you’re flexible. We don’t have everything worked out and there could be more hours, especially in the beginning, but that’s short-term. We’ll do what we can to work with your schedule.”

  “What about Mattie?”

  “What about her?”

  “Now that you know about her and I dating, I don’t want this to be a problem at work. I can’t take the job if it affects her.”

  “Mattie is one of the good ones, Ross, and I’ve known you were dating since the beginning. You two aren’t the best at hiding things. I trust you both to keep things professional.”

  “I’m sure we can manage. Does she know about this?”

  “Not yet. I wanted to let you decide first.”

  “Then the answer is yes. I want the job on one condition.”

  “Which is?”

  “I get to tell Mattie I’m taking it.”

  CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO

  Ross returned to the hospital after emptying his house, his heart firmly lodged in his throat. He knew if Mattie had left, she wasn’t the least bit interested in reconciling. Something told him she loved him too much for that to be the case. He smiled when he reached her room and found her sitting on the edge of the bed, waiting. Her auburn hair had been tied in a side braid that cascaded over her shoulder and down the front of her red cowl neck sweater. A pair of black calf-high boots covered the lower half of her jean leggings. Without being told, no one would know she had been hospitalized. Ross had forgotten how beautiful she was out of scrubs.

  “I wasn’t sure you’d still be here.”

  “Where would I go?” She shrugged her right shoulder.

  “You could have gotten a ride.”

  “I could have, but you have me intrigued.”

  “How are you feeling?” Ross piled Mattie’s things—a bag of clothes, her purse, and several floral arrangements—onto a cart and unfolded a wheelchair.

  “I’m not going out of here in that.”

  “Either I bring you out, or a nurse does. It’s part of the deal.”

  “What deal?”

  “The one I had to make to spring you from this place.”

  “I was due to get out anyway.”

  “True.” A young woman wearing crimson-colored scrubs entered the room, went over Mattie’s discharge instructions, and handed her a prescription for a painkiller Mattie insisted she didn’t need. Ross had never met the woman before and had forgotten her name as soon as she said it. He was too eager to get Mattie to the car, to tell her the news about Carebridge.

  “Think you can give me a hand with her things?” he said to the nurse. “Or maybe you want to take the wheelchair?”

  “I have to take the wheelchair. It’s policy.”

  “I’m not riding out of here in that thing,” Mattie said.

  “You could always stay,” the nurse said.

  “Fine,” Mattie reluctantly agreed. She sat in the chair, put her feet on the footrests, and pouted all the way to the car.

  Ross eased Mattie into the passenger’s seat, nodding thanks to the nurse as she headed back through the parking garage with the wheelchair.

  “That wasn’t so bad, was it?” Ross unloaded Mattie’s things into the trunk.

  “It was only slightly humiliating. Thank you for picking me up.”

  “Are you sure you’re all right?” Ross slammed the trunk and got into the driver’s seat.

  “For the last time, I’m fine. I’m not going to run a marathon any time this week, but that’s the extent of things. Stop asking.”

  “Will do.” Ross started the car, taking several turns around the garage before pulling onto Main Street. He wiped his sweaty palms—one then the other—on his jeans and hoped Mattie couldn’t see how nervous he was.

  “What’s wrong?” Mattie crossed and uncrossed her legs.

  “With?”

  “You look like you have something to tell me.”

  She knew him too well.

  “Tim called me today,” he said, “about the new memory care center.”

  “About the dedication?”

  Apparently she had heard it was being named after his mother.

  “About working there. Tim offered me a director’s position.”

  “Oh.” Mattie didn’t sound thrilled. “What did you say?”

  “I said I wouldn’t take the job if it meant our relationship had to remain hidden.”

  “So you admitted we were a couple.”

  “Are a couple, Mattie.” Ross reached for her hand. “And I didn’t have to admit anything. Tim already knew. What’s the matter? I thought you’d be excited about this.”

  “You’re going through a lot right now. Between Arlene Pope, the New York trip, and everything with work, you’re stressed and you’re reaching. I can’t be your crutch, Ross. Now’s not the time to try and focus on a relationship. I mean—” Mattie stopped mid-sentence and looked around. “Wait a minute. Ross, where are we going?”

  “There’s something else I wanted to talk to you about.”

  “What else?”

  “Nothing bad. At least, I don’t think it’s bad.” Ross turned onto his street, hit the button on his remote, and pulled into his garage. “I want us to have a normal relationship. I don’t want to only be with you at your apartment.”

  “We agreed—”

  “I know what we agreed to, but let’s make a new agreement. No more agreeing to things that make no sense. You and I are meant to be together, Mattie. I know that now. Come inside, please?”

  “I’m not comfortable.”

  “We’ll get you right into bed.”

  “I don’t mean my back. I mean I’m not comfortable here.”

  Ross helped her out of the car and eased her into the house. “I’m trying to change that.”

  Mattie’s eyes darted back and forth across the nearly empty space. “Were you robbed?”

  “I might have gone overboard.” Ross had taken down pictures, the coat rack, and packed Sarah’s windbreaker. He had sent the recliner to storage, along with anything else that had been more hers than his. “I want to show you around.”

  “Ross, I—”

  “It’s not right for me to try and fit you into someone else’s life, Mattie. We need space to be us.”

  “I know how much having her things around meant to you.”

  “Not as much as you do.” He pulled her to him, expecting her to push him away, and kissed her when she didn’t. He wrapped his arms around her waist, careful not to hurt her and whispered, “I missed you” into her ear.

  “I missed you, too,” she said tearfully.

  Ross dried her eyes and stood squarely in front of her. “I love you, Mattie. I want you in my life. I want to take care of you, to nurse you back to health, to be the person you wake up with every morning. I want you to stay with me.”

  “Here?”

  “Would you do that?”

  Mattie nodded. “I will,” she said. “If you’re sure.”

  Ross led her up the stairs to the former guest bedroom he had moved into. “I’ve never been
surer of anything in my life.”

  CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE

  Ross awoke to the sound of Mattie’s heavy breathing and the warmth of the morning sun through the window on his face. Beautiful memories filled the space, heralding a new beginning. Ross held absolutely still, watching Mattie sleep on his arm, admiring the peaceful softness of her expressionless face as he breathed in the scent of her soft hair.

  His fingertips had gone numb, but he didn’t dare wake her.

  When the phone rang, he didn’t have to.

  Mattie startled awake and looked around the room as if she’d forgotten where she was.

  Ross fumbled with the cordless phone and tingling hands, finally hitting the Talk button on the fifth ring.

  “Hello?”

  “Ross, it’s Guy.”

  Ross would have thought the dozen plus unanswered voice mail messages said all that needed saying, but apparently subtlety wasn’t Guy’s forte.

  “We have nothing to talk about, Guy. I thought I’d been clear on that,” he said. “Unless this has something to do with Joshua, in which case I will deal with the state directly.”

  “That’s been taken care of.”

  When Ross had left, the state investigators were digging through Lakeside like ants in an ant farm. He couldn’t help wondering what might have been said in his absence. “How so?”

  “Joshua’s expected to make a full recovery,” Guy said. “I told the state you had a family emergency and Dan sent the paperwork I needed to complete your file. Everything is set, except for Lila. Ross, there’s a problem.”

  “Is she all right?”

  A look of concern came over Mattie’s face.

  “I need to know what the two of you talked about that night at the diner,” Guy said.

  Ross’s gut said something terrible had happened. He got out of bed and began pacing. “Lila didn’t hurt herself, did she? Tell me she’s all right.”

  Mattie reached for him, stopping him in his tracks.

  He held her hand and took a deep breath, her presence comforting.

  “She’s not hurt,” Guy said. “But everything isn’t all right, either. I had no choice but to put her on seventy-two hour hold.”

  Ross was all too familiar with the practice. Seventy-two hour hold was a stall tactic to hold combatant or incompetent patients until a more permanent commitment could be approved. “Why? What happened?”

  “That isn’t important.”

  “It absolutely is. How do you expect me to talk to you if you won’t answer a straightforward question?”

  “If you’ll tell me what the two of you talked about—”

  “No, Guy. Either you tell me what happened or I’m hanging up.” Ross didn’t plan on breaking Lila’s confidence regardless of what Guy told him, but he was genuinely concerned. “Why are you holding a patient at a volunteer admission facility?”

  “After you left, Lila asked to leave, as well. Our release policy allows time for a final interview, which I feel is reasonable given her length of stay.”

  “And convenient because you never got an answer out of her as to why she tried to kill herself.”

  “I don’t think it’s safe for her to be released,” Guy said. “You said yourself she’s suicidal.”

  “And I took it back. After she and I talked, I told you Lila’s not suicidal as much as she doesn’t know how to start over. How can you hold her if she was voluntarily admitted?”

  “Lila’s circumstances were different. She needed additional safeguards.”

  “What kind of safeguards? Against what?”

  “Against harming herself. She was so distraught that the only thing to do was to suggest a Mental Health Agent to help her with her decision making.”

  “You mean to make her decisions for her?”

  “If needs be and she couldn’t make them for herself, yes.”

  “And Lakeside set this up?”

  “I don’t like your tone, Ross.”

  “Then prove me wrong. Prove you’re not the slimeball I think you are right now.” There was no hiding Ross’s disgust. “What kind of paperwork was filed?”

  “I—uh—”

  “I assume there are legal issues here, Guy, or you wouldn’t be taking so long to get to your point. Did Lila sign a power of attorney granting someone control over her?”

  “She did.”

  “And now that she wants out of Lakeside you’ve posited that she can’t be trusted to manage her own affairs, right? That’s how you’ve kept her on hold?”

  “You’re making it sound like I’ve done something wrong here. I only want what’s best for Lila, to make sure she isn’t let go of until she’s fully benefited from her therapy.”

  “Which you don’t think has happened?”

  “She’s not ready, Ross. After that stunt at the lake, you have to see that.”

  “You’re playing the metal health crisis card, aren’t you?” If Guy claimed Lila was in a state of crisis, the Mental Health Agent would be the one to make decisions about her care, including her release from Lakeside. “Who holds the power of attorney, Guy?”

  “Ross, please. I know she talked to you that night at the diner. I need to know what she said.”

  “Not until you tell me who holds the power of attorney? Who, besides you, wants to stop Lila from leaving Lakeside?”

  Silence held the line.

  “It’s Ruth Wheeler, isn’t it?”

  “It’s important that Lila stays here until she’s better.”

  “I don’t believe for one minute you’re concerned about what’s best for Lila. I have to go. I told you before and I’ll say it again, if you want to know what Lila told me, you need to ask her. Take care, Guy.”

  “Ross, wait.”

  Ross hung up the phone and muttered, “Good luck.”

  “What’s wrong? What happened?” Mattie said.

  Without him, Lila had no advocate.

  “I’m sorry, Mattie. I really am, but I have to go back to New York.”

  “Why? What happened? Who was that?”

  “That was Dr. Oliver from Lakeside. Remember the patient I went there to treat?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I think she’s in trouble.”

  CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR

  Ross booked two seats on a direct New York-bound plane for first thing the following morning. He was sick of the back and forth, of living out of a suitcase, but he couldn’t live with himself if something terrible happened to Lila. Ross verified that Mattie was fit to travel and after gathering a suitcase of her things from her apartment, the two of them boarded a five AM flight. Other than Mattie moving a tad more slowly than Ross was used to, she seemed fine, and had insisted on going back with him.

  For that, he was grateful.

  His leaving so soon after their reunion seemed a kiss of death otherwise.

  He rented a car out of Albany and made the two and a half hour drive north to Lake Placid, securing a luxury suite that was Peak View’s polar opposite.

  Mattie went immediately into the soaking tub.

  Ross tried to work out a plan that didn’t involve strong-arming the one person at Lakeside that had been an ally.

  Several unanswered calls to Mark’s cell phone had him certain there was no other way.

  He would have to be creative if he was going to get to Lila, and he couldn’t do it alone.

  “Knock, knock.” Camille entered the two-floor luxury loft decorated in modern Adirondack. She wore dark wash jeans and a royal purple sweater, looking every bit as polished as Ross had become accustomed to.

  “Camille, come in,” he said, though she took the unlocked door as the open invitation he meant it to be.

  She crossed the room and pulled Ross into a warm embrace. “I didn’t expect to see you so soon.”

  “That makes two of us,” he said. “Thanks for coming.”

  “How was your flight?”

  “Long.”

  Mattie came out of the bathroom we
aring the hotel-issued white robe and her hair in a high ponytail. “That tub is heaven.”

  “Feeling better?” Ross said.

  “Much.”

  “I can’t believe you travelled so soon. How is everything?” Camille said, a little too emphatically. “Is there anything I can do for you?”

  “I’m good,” Mattie said. “Thank you for asking.” She hadn’t warmed up to Camille completely, but Ross could see she was trying.

  He poured himself an afternoon cup of coffee, his schedule off from the hurried morning commute and said, “Anyone else want a cup?”

  “I’ll take one.” Mattie settled into a hunter green chaise lounge, facing a wall of windows and a breathtaking mountain view. She leaned to the side, resting her head on her hand.

  Ross hadn’t slept more than a couple hours the previous night, hence Mattie couldn’t sleep, either. The two of them laid in bed and talked until the sun came up, which would have been romantic, if they hadn’t been plotting.

  Much like Lila had needed to unburden herself, to have her actions validated by someone who understood, Ross needed Mattie to understand what he was into and why he was so insistent on seeing Lila’s case through. After hearing the whole story, Mattie, too, had taken Lila’s side. She offered to do what she could to help, formulating a plan with him to get Lila released from Lakeside.

  Camille, they decided, if Mark wouldn’t call back, would be their best solution.

  “You know, I thought my acting days were over with you, Ross.” Camille took a bottle of water from the refrigerator and flopped down on the couch.

  “And they would’ve been, if Mattie had your expertise.”

  “There’s no way I could do it,” Mattie said.

  “What it am I doing?” Camille asked.

  “I’ve been trying to get in touch with someone at Lakeside. An orderly named Mark is ducking my calls.”

  “Does this have to do with that patient again?”

  Mattie turned to Ross. “I thought you said no one knew about Lila?”

  “No one does know,” Camille said. “Your sweetie, here, has told me enough to keep me in various roles to serve some mysterious greater end. Now, I guess I’m playing courier?” She arched one eyebrow.