Falling in Deep Collection Box Set

by Pauline Creeden

  Walking over, I kneel and my right hand moves toward the half-hidden luster. When my fingers grip it, I know what it is. My necklace. My starfish.

  It must have fallen into my shirt at some point and then slipped off as I’d been standing in the doorway. I should have heard it hit the floor, but I was so distracted. The clasp isn’t even broken and I’m grateful for that, but I am also confused… how did it fall off then? I find that the confusion leaves me swiftly; I am so happy to have my starfish back.

  For some reason, having the necklace again draws me toward the bathroom and the large bathtub. I unlock the condo door for Vera and let my body do what it wants.

  Chapter 24

  Angel in the Water

  I am going to be free.

  The necklace is still gripped in my hand and I am neck-deep in water. I am in the guest bath again, even though Truman is not here to wake up and it is slightly less deep than the giant soaker tub in the master. I thought about bathing there—in the tub that was the original sight of my first ocean experience—but Peggy’s cruel words have tainted the space… and I don’t want to die anymore.

  I have once again shoved one of the bleach-white washcloths into the drainage hole so that the tub fills up to the very edge. And once again it is filled so high that any movement on my part will send wetness sloshing over the side to soak the tile and carpet. Truman would have a fit over this; he loves the pricey flooring, which is the same in both bathrooms. This time I do not think about how I will clean it up immediately, how he will never know.

  Let the expensive travertine get drenched.

  Let the water seep into the grout and undo all of this perfection Truman paid so much money to achieve. The stylized herringbone pattern, the accent wall, the perfectly folded and tucked towels hanging over the warmer.

  Each detail labored over…

  My mind feels fuzzy, my body so relaxed.

  God, the room is so warm.

  The water is so warm.

  I do not want to sink into the water this time. Vera is coming to get me, to move me away from this life, and I am going to start anew. Maybe with Connor. But I am so warm, so comfortable in the water.

  My right hand loosens a bit, letting the silver chain of my starfish necklace slip a bit until the pendant itself lies against the smooth bottom of the tub and the chain stretches upwards, still tethered to my index finger. The phone rings twice shrilly, but then the condo is thrust into stillness again. A singular sound rhythmically punctures the quiet. Every few moments, a drop of water falls from the sink faucet and plinks against the sink surface.

  It has never dripped before. Truman ensures that everything in the condo works efficiently and without flaw. He obsesses over it, sometimes calling a repairman before dawn and after sunset. It is something that I’ve always been irritated by, but also appreciated.

  Plink. Plink. Plink.

  For some reason, the continuous sound begins to make me nervous. I can feel the emotion growing, like a cancer inside of me, until I am desperate to get out of the tub and fiddle with the faucet handles until I can stop the grating noise.

  This bath was supposed to be a soothing goodbye to this condo and this life. Now it is not soothing at all. Now I do not want to put shampoo in my hair and lather; I do not want to soap my body. I need to get the hell out. It isn’t about want anymore. Not even a little bit.

  I try to raise myself out of the water, but it is like the starfish pendant is glued to the tub’s bottom. I reposition so that I am kneeling in the water for better leverage and I start yanking and pulling and cursing, trying to get the damn thing free. Water is splashing everywhere—on the floor, the small portrait over the towel warmer, even as far as the mirror over the sink. “This is ridiculous!” My voice is high-pitched, whining to the world at large. “Come on, you stupid piece of crap!” I no longer hear the water dripping; my full concentration is on the necklace.

  Finally, with a last pull that makes it feel like my internal organs will burst, the starfish is free. I stare at the tarnished metal and remaining pearls. What the hell was that all about? Undoing the clasp, I thread the chain beneath my hair and around my neck. Once it is secure, I again try to raise my body out of the tub.

  The plinking is back. Plink. Plink. Plink.

  As my breasts meet the air in the bathroom, which is many degrees cooler than the water, I am yanked downward violently. The starfish around my neck is floating in the air, angled away from my body, trying to get back into the wetness. I claw at the chain, trying to get my nails on the clasp so I can take my beloved necklace off. It is slippery and I cannot get the lobster closure open. I don’t want to break it.

  I may not have a choice.

  The chain is rubbing against my neck as the starfish continues to yank me, moving from left to right. The thin silver cable is acting like a saw, grating back and forth across my neck abrasively.

  I can’t get it off; I can’t fight it. And I don’t understand what is happening.

  As I am fighting, the tub faucet turns on by itself and the tub begins to refill. So much water has been violently expelled that the bath is barely half full now.

  As the water rises, my beloved necklace does not relent.

  My face is nearly in the water, the starfish is nearly on the bottom of the tub again. Once it is cemented there, I will drown. The water will finish filling the tub and I will drown. “Help! Oh my God. Please help! Someone!” I am so thankful that I’ve left the front door unlocked. Please let a neighbor hear me; please let anyone hear me.

  “Lena?”

  No. Not him!

  “Lena, what’s wrong?” But his voice doesn’t sound panicked. In fact, Truman sounds intoxicated, his words slightly slurred.

  In the middle of the day, when Truman should have been at work, he has been somewhere drinking. Has he been fired? I have been so clueless. Truman has been hiding a heavy weight beneath his cavalier façade; the files on his desk prove that. Losing the money. The failure of it. His Father…

  But should I care? Now, now that I am leaving him and our love is a faded, ruined thing, should I still have compassion for Truman. For Tru—the boy who’d skipped down a high school hall just to make me laugh.

  Compassion.

  For a man who wants you to die? For a man who is watching you die? For a man that left the bruise on your face and heart? Fuck compassion.

  It is just like me to worry about Truman when I am fighting to live.

  “Tru, please, in here!” I scream, putting every ounce of my fear into the words. “Please, hurry!” The water has almost risen far enough. My pendent is flat against the white porcelain bottom.

  He does not rush to my aide. It feels like the seconds ticking by are endless moments, suspended in time—the countdown to whatever is after life. It is too soon; I’ve been wrong for so long, wallowing and accepting a life that does not make me happy. Wanting to die.

  And now it is too late. My choice is made for me. Just like Vera ordering my “usual” at Deacon’s Place, because I have taken too long staring at life’s menu.

  “Tru! God, please!” I am coughing now; I’ve inhaled tub water, trying to shout for Truman again.

  I see him walking through the door, his movements slow, and his expression unreadable. He comes close enough to confirm the slur of his voice matches the smell and whiskey spill on his button-up. “Please, please, please.” I sputter against the wetness. “Please.” I should have used that last please to suck in a final gulp of air, but I hadn’t.

  Flailing like a spastic fish, my face below the waterline, I must look insane. Several times, the damaged part of my face hits the tub wall. I know that it hurts, but it is not important now. It is such a small thing when compared with dying.

  I can’t focus, my mind is screaming, but also caught in reflection—and I wonder if everyone, at the end, is slapped with truth.

  I try to turn my head, try to get my mouth out of the water, and try to fight. But I cannot. Truma
n is fully inside the bathroom now, standing above me, not even a foot away from the tub’s edge.

  The image of him is blurry—the salmon-hued, stained dress shirt, the neat tie, the jacket thrown over his shoulder, which he holds with one finger crooked in the neckline.

  Blinking, I struggle, my mouth opening and closing as I fade from the world. In my mind, I continue to plead with Truman to save me. But I know he will not.

  I am drowning and all he sees is ten million dollars and a chance to rebuild his bank account and reputation. I have stayed with this man since high school. Hindsight isn’t just 20/20; it’s the most awful thing in the entire world. It is so much worse than someone saying you are sane or insane or a daydreamer or even an orphan.

  Images replace coherent thought. And it does not take too long for me to be nothing. In truth. In every way.

  Chapter 25

  Better Late

  ~Vera~

  When I arrive, I know something is terribly wrong.

  Blame floods through me at the sight of the ambulance parked halfway on the sidewalk in front of Lena’s condo building. It is nearly noon. If she is hurt, I will hate myself. I will hate Amy for not getting to the hospital sooner to relieve me.

  The security officer inside the main foyer hesitates to let me go up, but when I say I am Lena’s nurse and she has called me for help, his eyes fill with concern and he lets me pass. That gives me hope—surely if the EMTs are in her condo, this man would know it and say something.

  I take the stairs to Lena’s floor.

  With each step, I am hoping that the EMTs are in some other apartment. I am hoping that an elderly man has had a heart attack and that my Ocean Eyes is fine. When I open the door to her floor, my hope does not fade, it is obliterated—burst into bits by a ticking time bomb. The aftershock lives inside of me.

  My emotions feel like a hurricane—the eye of calm has passed and I am being ruined by the second wave of destruction.

  My shoes feel like lead weights as I walk.

  She has to be all right. She has to be.

  I am at the door now. It is open and the rooms are alive with activity.

  Two officers stand in the kitchen, each nursing a battered part of their bodies. EMTs are hovering near a doorway across from where I stand.

  The man from the café is handcuffed on the floor, his back leaning against the kitchen island. His nose streams blood. He is crying, crying so much that his face is slick under the light of the Edison bulbs and his shirt collar is soaked. It is strange, but under the pale yellow lighting I see a green-gold shimmer where his neck has been wetted by tears. It seems to fade in a blink, though.

  So I put it out of my mind.

  Because looking at him, I know it is worse than Lena just being hurt. She is gone. I have just found this beautiful, special woman shimmering with light and the world has snuffed her out.

  Truman is sitting on the couch to the right; his head is cradled in his hands, covering his face. But I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that his grief is contrived. Lena was not happy with him. I enter the condo now. I can’t just stand in the doorway forever, looking in on the scene that will haunt me.

  “What’s happened? What’s going on?” At the sound of my voice, both Connor and Truman look at me. In Connor’s eyes, I see accusations and confusion. In Truman’s eyes, I see surprise and irritation.

  “She’s gone.” Connor’s words are a sob. “God… god, she’s gone.” He’s saying the words like he cannot believe them, like his mind is trying to come up with alternate realities. “Gone. You were supposed to be here.” It is a murmur on his lips before he turns away from me and closes his eyes to succumb to fresh tears.

  “Are you a family member?” An EMT has approached me. He is tall and domineering.

  “I’m a close friend, Vera Clune. A nurse. Is there anything I can do?”

  “I’m sorry. I’m afraid there’s nothing. We tried everything.”

  “You tried everything.” Now it is my turn to search for alternate realties—ones where I arrived early in the day and Lena is alive. “How did she…?”

  “She drowned. Based on what her fiancé has told us, she must have experienced another seizure.”

  “Another seizure? She had a history?”

  “Just recently, actually. She was released a couple days ago.”

  My gaze darts over to Truman. He looks at me defiantly. He is behind this. I do not know what he gains by lying, but there must be something.

  “Can I see her?”

  The EMT looks at me, unsure.

  “Please, please let me see her.”

  He looks over at Truman, who nods and then reassumes his grief-stricken pose.

  “She’s in the bathroom. We’ve covered her.”

  I nod and then walk into the room he points to. Each footfall feels like torture.

  Her body is on the floor, covered with two crisp white towels. I kneel down, not caring that the floor is wet and my scrubs will get soaked. Lifting away the towel over her face, I see a large bruise across her upper cheek that stretches like a massive continent toward her eyebrow. Her necklace is still around her neck—the starfish one she loves so much.

  A shadow grows over me. I turn my head quickly to find Truman has followed me.

  “What did you do to her?” I want to be deadly. I want to be venomous. I want to be anything that is more dangerous than what I am.

  “I would never hurt her.”

  “How did this happen then!” I point to the ugly bruising on Lena’s face. My finger is shaking violently.

  “She bruised her face during the seizure, apparently. I know it must be hard to see her like this. It’s… I don’t even know what I’ll do without her.” His sentences contradict themselves—he knows it must be hard, but is it hard for him? He doesn’t know what he’ll do without her. His act is slipping.

  “This bruise is nearly a day old.” I won’t let this stand. I can’t.

  “That’s not what the EMT said.”

  “Then he’s lying.”

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  Lovingly, I recover Lena’s heartbreakingly beautiful face and I stand up. “I don’t care how much money you have. You can’t pay me off. And I will find out what really happened to her.”

  “Go ahead and try. I’ve nothing to hide and I didn’t kill her.” There was something about the way he said “I didn’t kill her” that sounded like a half-truth.

  And then he turns around and walks away from me. I do not realize that my nails are digging into my palm until I feel blood wetting my skin.

  Chapter 26

  Better Never

  ~Connor~

  I can’t listen to her. I can’t stay away. Even if she gets mad, I have to go.

  I grab the lightweight leather jacket off of the peg where it hangs, near the stairs that lead to the apartment. “Peter, you’ve got the café. I’ll be back when I can.”

  Pete nods, a serious expression on his face. I rarely call him Peter. When I do, he knows something is wrong.

  My stupid car is so slow; it seems to crawl across the road like a turtle that is none too concerned with its race against the hare. “Damn it, you piece of crap, move!”

  The miles count down. Seven miles until I am there. Six miles until I am there. Five miles. Four miles. Three left. My Jeep sputters and truly begins to crawl. “Fuck!” My palms bang against the steering wheel in frustration. As if deliberately trying to piss me off, the car goes from a crawl to frozen in the middle of the damn street.

  Slate-colored smoke seeps from beneath the hood.

  “Son of a—” I am interrupted by a line of cars forming behind me; their drivers are honking. Throwing open my driver’s side door, I begin to run, not even caring that the honks behind me become more incessant and one man is even screaming at me to get back in my “fucking car and drive, you moron!”

  Three miles. I can run that. I’ve run two miles with Pete on the track, helping him train for e
vents. It’s only a mile more.

  My body is unsure at first, moving forward at a fluctuating pace. Soon, though, I get my stride and my legs begin to pump rhythmically. My hand involuntarily slaps over my chest as I turn a corner. Pain is building. I should have met Pete at the track more often; my body is deceiving—tall and thin, but not in shape at all.

  There is only a mile left.

  I am so close to her. I can feel her in my body, sharp and distinct, ice water in my veins; I have only felt that sensation once before, when I had morphine administered at the hospital for throwing out my back years ago.

  She is like that. Lena is a drug that I can’t live without now.

  And despite what I’ve said to her, there are conditions.

  When I arrive, I nearly tumble over the lip of the sidewalk and into the glass entrance to the condo building. A man in uniform is staring at me, a severe expression on his face. I try to calm myself, slow my breathing. I need him to trust me, to let me in.

  “So sorry about that. I’m training for a marathon and that last mile nearly killed me. For a cardiologist, you’d think I’d be in better shape.”

  When the guard hears that I am a doctor, his expression changes drastically. “Are you here to see someone?”

  “Actually, I’m a new tenant.” I smile, hoping that I look sincere and trustworthy.

  “Oh? We normally get notified of new owners…” The man turns from me and flips through paperwork on a clipboard. “No, don’t see anything here.”

  “Oh, we’ll here’s my key.” I’m suddenly thankful that Deacon owned a Porsche before he died. I have his Porsche keychain, one of the only things that survived the crash. “Do you want to walk me up? I’m on the fifth floor and I don’t want to put you in a bad position if someone thinks you let a stranger in here. One of the reasons I purchased here was for the security. My wife moves in next week with our little girl.”