"I can't believe this place," Toni said, handing her credit card to Annabelle. "Look at all this. I've finished a lot of my holiday shopping."
I smiled at her happiness. Retail therapy at its finest.
"Here," I said, setting Thumbkin on the counter. "Don't forget her."
Annabelle rang up the purchases and handed Toni the receipt. "I want to apologize for upsetting you. I hope it didn't turn you off to the town."
"Nonsense," Toni said. "I found you and your store charming. I'll be sure to tell my friends. Maybe drum up some business."
"You are a dear." Annabelle yawned again, her hand covering her mouth. "I think I need more coffee." Her expression brightened. "Wait here, I’ll be right back. I want to do something special for you." She hurried off.
"What was that about?" Toni asked me.
"Beats me. Guess we'll find out."
Annabelle returned carrying a bar of soap wrapped in clear cellophane and tied with a lavender bow. She handed it to Toni. "You've heard about aromatherapy? Well, this is our most fragrant soap. Smells like pine and fertile earth. Hold it up to your nose."
Toni inhaled. "Wow. I've never smelled anything like this in a soap."
She held it to my nose. "That is different," I said.
"Take it," Annabelle said. "Use it. I guarantee it'll help."
"Help with what?" Toni said.
"Everything," Annabelle said excitedly. "It's good for everything."
"Okay," I said, not understanding the woman's excitement. It was only soap. "Thanks, I guess."
Toni gave me a sharp look. "Don't be rude."
"It's okay, dear," Annabelle said. "He's a man, and men don't understand these things. Use the soap. Nighttime is best. It'll help you relax."
Toni dropped the bar into her purse. "I will. Thank you so much."
Annabelle yawned a third time, the widest yet. Her hand came up to cover her mouth, except this time it slid part way into her mouth. Then, to my dismay, she bit down, her teeth pressing into the flesh until I thought she would draw blood.
"Ms. St. Crux?" I said, alarmed by the sudden bizarre behavior.
Annabelle bit down harder. A drop of blood rolled down the back of her hand. She turned her head toward the doll collection, and when she did, her eyes jerked back and forth, as if someone were tugging on them with an invisible string. This eerie tremor continued until she turned back to face us.
Alarm changed to concern. The jerky eye movement was called nystagmus, an involuntary condition most often associated with central nervous system disorders. At her age, it would likely be caused by a stroke or a brain tumor, and she wasn’t showing any evidence of a stroke.
She removed her hand from her mouth, ignoring the smear of blood on her skin. "I'm childless myself," she told Toni. "I understand the pain you're feeling, and I wanted to help you feel better."
"That's not necessary," Toni said warily.
"Yes, you did nothing wrong." I hesitated, unsure of how to proceed without overstepping ethical boundaries. But if I was right and she had a brain tumor, she would need treatment immediately. "I noticed you have a slight eye tremor. It's probably nothing, but you should have it checked out.”
Annabelle St. Crux's eyes jerked again, a lethal waltz played out in windows to her soul, and she suddenly stiffened. Her head bent back, the cords of her neck straining. Fine tremors ran though her like shimmers of oil on a hot skillet.
Fearing a seizure, I rushed around the counter, grabbed her, and eased her to the floor. I removed my jacket and placed it under her head. "Toni, we’re going to need an ambulance."
Toni opened her purse. Annabelle's hand shot out and grabbed my wrist.
"No," she said, her voice little more than a papery whisper. "Please, no doctors."
"You don't understand," I said. "We need to get you to a hospital."
Annabelle's eyes rolled wildly. "I said no god-spilled doctors!"
"This is no time to—"
"You horrid, cock-sucking bitch! We're not yours to do with—!" Annabelle's eyes screwed shut. "You stop this right now."
"Oh, Jesus." I looked at Toni. "We need that ambulance."
Toni's hand dove into her purse. "I'm on it."
"No...,” Annabelle said. “Keep the...run...doctors away."
While Toni made the call, Annabelle's back arched obscenely, her modest chest rising up off the floor like a treat offered to a lover. Her lips peeled back and she made a gut-wrenching sound, somewhere between a frustrated wail and a terrified scream.
Toni kneeled next to me. "Ambulance is on its way."
"Help me turn her on her side," I said, and we maneuvered Annabelle around. "Did they say how long?"
"No more than a few minutes. Is she going to be okay?"
"I hope so."
Annabelle's chaotic mutterings continued. "Water...stop...hate the water...shut up...afraid of it."
I felt my skin prickle in fear. "Stay away from her mouth."
Toni jerked her hands back. "Why?"
"Rabies. People with it hate water. If that's what she has, you don't want to be bitten."
Annabelle spewed more foul language, words worthy of a jaded longshoreman. She bucked hard, and I reluctantly had to grab her head to keep it from smacking on the floor.
"Oh my god," Toni said. "Rabies can do this?"
"I don't know, I think so. Where's the damn ambulance?"
Sirens sounded in the distance. They grew increasingly shrill, until they cut off in front of the store. The front door banged open.
I waved a hand above the counter. “Over here.”
Two paramedics approached, followed by a policeman.
We made room for the paramedics. One held Annabelle, while the other shoved a stick wrapped with thick white tape in between her teeth.
"She was going on about hating water," I said. "She might have hydrophobia."
The policeman, a younger man with coal black hair, grabbed my elbow. "Come with me, please. I could use help. Ma'am, if you don't mind?" He beckoned for Toni to follow.
Outside, the officer opened the ambulance's bay doors. I helped him remove the gurney.
"Wait right here," he said, and returned to the store. Before long, the paramedics emerged with Annabelle St. Crux strapped securely to the gurney, still snarling and swearing.
Her wild eyes locked onto me. "Water is the beginning and the end," she yelled. "Remember that! Remember it!"
The paramedics loaded her into the ambulance and sped off, siren wailing.
The officer walked out of the store. He held out a shopping bag. "This yours?"
"Thank you," Toni said, accepting the bag. "Is she going to be okay?"
"Don't know," the officer said. "That'll be up to the doctors over at St. Mary's. I'm Kent, by the way. Kent Couttis."
"Brad Jordan. This is my wife, Toni."
Officer Couttis pulled out a notepad. "What happened in there?"
While Toni related our experience, I watched Officer Couttis scribble down her words. He couldn't have been more than twenty-five, with eyes the color of new steel and an open face that had not yet lost the softer edges of adolescence. He wore his uniform the way some boys wore their first suit to a formal school dance—stiff and uncomfortable, with his shirt sleeves a little too long and a neck hole that looked like an oversized pipe. He fidgeted a lot and sucked on his lower lip as he wrote.
Toni finished recounting the events of Annabelle St. Crux's seizure. Officer Couttis turned to me. "Can you add anything?"
"I think she might have rabies, or possibly a brain tumor." I described the nystagmus and her aversion of water. "You might want to radio ahead to the hospital."
Officer Couttis snapped his notebook closed. "You a doctor?"
"Ph.D., not MD. But I've had some training, and I interned in a hospital." I heard my own words and almost winced at how lame they sounded. "We were just trying to help."
"I'll let the hospital know of your concerns." He peered c
losely at me. "You sure you don't need an ambulance? You look like ten miles of badly laid asphalt."
I gestured to his notepad. "Do you need anything else from us? It's getting late, and we'd like to start for home."
"I've got your contact information. I'll let you know if I have more questions."
"Certainly." I slipped my hand into Toni's. "Feel free to call."
"Hold on a sec," said Officer Couttis. A blue SUV was racing our way, emergency lights flashing. It pulled to a stop next to us.
I recognized it as the one we had passed earlier, and out climbed the man I had seen readying himself for an afternoon of trout fishing. He had shed the waders and now wore a pair of faded jeans and hiking boots. Instead of a fishing pole, he sported a sidearm in a holster clipped to his belt.
"Whatcha got, Kent?" he asked.
"Ms. St. Crux had an episode of some kind." Officer Couttis gestured to Toni and me. "These folks called for an ambulance, and then stayed with her until it arrived."
"Episode?" the chief said, his white eyebrows climbing. "Like the kind I get?"
Kent Couttis shook his head. "Didn't sound like it."
“All right.” The man turned and stuck out his hand. "Gordon Couttis. Chief of this little burg. Appreciate you helping our Annabelle."
"Couttis?" I said, exchanging handshakes and glancing at the officer, whose face had gone a deep shade of red.
"Kent's my boy," Chief Couttis said. "Fine young man. Me and the missus are proud of him."
"He handled himself well," I said. "I can see why you'd be proud."
"You folks here for the first time?" the chief asked.
Toni held up our bag of goodies. "We came to do a little shopping."
"We appreciate you sharing some of your hard-earned money with us. Every little bit helps."
"Dad?" Officer Couttis said, his voice barely above a whisper.
Gordon Couttis faced his son. The two shared the same steel eyes, though the chief’s were more tarnished. "What?"
"Would you like to hear my report?"
"Are you gonna type it up?"
The younger Couttis nodded, and the elder Couttis gave his son a patient look. "Then I'll read it tomorrow, won't I?"
Kent Couttis’s cheeks grew redder. He slipped the notebook into his pocket. "I'll go check on Ms. St. Crux. Maybe she's well enough to add to the report. Pleasure to meet you, Dr. Jordan. Mrs. Jordan."
Chief Couttis looked at me with surprise. "You a doctor?"
"Psychologist, but I know enough of the medical stuff to get in trouble."
"Me too,” Chief Couttis said. “Been epileptic since I was a boy. You learn a lot when you're around the white coats all the time." He pointed to my face. "Someone did a number on your mug. Did it happen here?"
I touched my cheek. The skin felt warm from the bruising. "Traffic accident near Rock Mills. I'm lucky I walked away with only this."
Chief Couttis grimaced. "Hope they got the other fella. That is, if he lived."
"No dead bodies, Chief. We're all good."
"Do you mind if we go?" Toni asked the chief. "I'd like to get him home. He feels worse than he's letting on."
"Sorry, ma'am. I'm a bit of a talker." Chief Couttis looked me over a last time. "Ice those bruises, son. I hope you feel better."
"I'll call if I have any questions," the younger Couttis said. "Thanks again for staying with Ms. St. Crux."
"Please tell her we wish her well," Toni said. "She seems like a nice lady."
"Will do," he replied.
Toni led me away. She was right. The ibuprofen had worn off, and the pain had returned with a vengeance.
"Poor baby," she said, opening the car door for me. "You must be suffering."
I slid into the seat. Pain shot from my hip to my neck. "Try to avoid any railroad tracks."
While Toni climbed into the car, my eyes drifted to the Star Fall Motel, its sign now lit and flashing. The shooting stars looked like deadly asteroids hurtling toward the earth. God help the world should Bruce Willis die.
Toni pulled into the street. Chief Couttis and his son were standing in front of Lost Desires. I waved as we approached. Officer Couttis waved back. His father, however, leaned close to his son and said something. The younger Couttis, looking startled, pulled out his notepad and pen and started scribbling furiously.
He was staring at our car as he did.
* * *
We arrived at home well after the dinner hour. I put the Raggedy Ann doll on the table near the front door so I wouldn't forget to bring it to work. Next, I swallowed two more painkillers and drew a hot bath. Toni busied herself in the kitchen preparing a meal.
Lying in the tub, with the heat working its magic on my sore muscles, I thought about Annabelle St. Crux. The doctors would run a plethora of tests on her—CT scans, blood work, toxicity and drug screens, metabolic panels. They would check for swelling of the blood vessels in her retinas; a sure indication of a brain tumor. I didn't know a lot about rabies screenings, but I was sure the results would take at least a day to come back, likely longer than the doctors would want to wait. They'd start vaccinations against the disease immediately, without waiting for confirmation. I prayed she would be all right.
Closing my eyes, I sank into the tub until my chin touched the water. Warmth flowed into my limbs. My muscles loosened, the pain in my joints receded. I sighed heavily. I hated to see people suffer. Annabelle St. Crux, with whatever ailed her. Doug Belle, with his father forever gone and his mother seemingly incapable of coping with either her loss or her child's suffering. Frank and his financial straits. Kerry and her pregnancy. And Toni, my beautiful, wonderful, caring wife. Watching her suffer hurt the most. I hadn't made it any better by doubting her. I needed to let the past go.
The heat and the painkillers combined to make me drowsy, and my mind reluctantly wandered back to six years ago. The day Toni almost destroyed our marriage.
I was standing in the kitchen, slicing beef into thin strips to use for fajitas, when she said something I didn't quite understand.
"Say again." The chef's knife zipped back and forth across the meat. "I don't think I heard you right."
"An affair," she said. "I had an affair. With a man. Another teacher."
I stopped what I was doing. My wife, the woman I loved more than anyone, had had an affair? My mind suddenly ceased to function. I fumbled for something to say. What finally came out was pure stupidity.
"Oh, have I met him before?"
The blood drained from Toni's face. "That's it? That's your response?"
I set the knife down. It suddenly felt too comfortable in my hand. "Do I know him?"
“Yes,” she whispered.
"His name?"
"Bryan Hinson."
"Hinson?” I flipped through my mental catalogue of her coworkers until I put a face to the name. “Short. Grayish hair. Teaches what, science?"
"Brad, please—"
"Is it him?"
“Do we have to—”
“Is it him?”
She looked away. It was all the answer I needed.
"Just perfect," I said, and went to the sink to wash my hands. The water was cold. I adjusted the tap until steam rose from the basin. I needed to feel something other than rage and hurt and terrible loss. My wife had had an affair. She had betrayed our vows. She had betrayed me.
"When did it start?" I asked, the skin on my hands turning pink under the hot water.
“It's hard to say.” She turned so her back faced me. You didn't need a degree in psychology to understand what the gesture meant. “We've been talking for months. Mostly between classes, sometimes during lunch.” She hesitated. “Occasionally over drinks after work.”
I grabbed the soap and began vigorously scrubbing. “Go on. I know there has to be more. Did you sleep with him?”
Toni hesitated. “It seems so stupid now.”
Her answer didn't surprise me. Fucking was at the heart of an affair. I swallowed bac
k the words I wanted to spit at her, the rage I wanted to sling in her face, and focused on soaping up my hands. My skin had turned from pink to red.
“Look at what our lives had become,” she said. “I’d leave for school before you were awake. You’d see patients late into the evening. Sometimes you didn’t get home until after I was in bed. We barely saw each other. It wasn't what I thought our marriage would be like. I got...I guess I got lonely.”
Pain, both physical and emotional, brought tears to my eyes. I let them fall into the sink. “So instead of telling me, you ran into someone else's arms. Perfect. I'm a therapist—I listen to problems for a living—yet you couldn't tell the person you claim to love that you were hurting.”
“I wasn't sure how.”
“You open your fucking mouth and tell me.”
She was quiet for a moment. When she finally continued, her voice trembled. “The situation had changed. We were no longer students. We were working, money was tight. My job provided a steady income, but you needed time to build a clientele. I’m not making excuses either. I knew this would be the case going in. But I also saw the stress you were under. The last thing you needed was a whiny, complaining wife.”
I remembered those days—scraping by to make mortgage payments, downscaling meals so we could pay this bill or that. To this day I refused to eat ramen.
“Then there was your dad,” Toni said.
I stopped scrubbing my hands and frowned. “What's he got to do with this?”
“I knew how intensely he felt about his career. He valued success over everything, even your mother. If his intensity had rubbed off on you....” Her voice trailed off.
“You were worried about pushing me over the edge.”
She turned to face me. “Yes.”
Toni had met Doc Vader on many occasions. She had witnessed his rants about my mother's career choice, how his vilification of her had driven a wedge between him and his children, and how that wedge hadn’t stopped his horrible behavior.
And I was his son: Luke to his Anakin. With genetics playing such a strong role in behavior, I understood her concern, not that it excused her behavior.
I turned off the water. Blisters had formed on the backs of my hands. “Why are you telling me this now?”
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