Time

by Livian Grey

office only large enough to accommodate one doctor and their patient for the duration. This isn’t always where Dr Rubens lives, she’s given this temporarily for the course of her rotation. Nothing in this room belongs to her.

  In the space between their last encounters, he’s forgotten most of her facial features. Auburn hair and a pasty complexion are the extents of his memories of her. She enters, her heels making her a lot taller than she is. Does she have a complex about her height? he ponders. Is she the type to be easily intimidated? Is she married? He can’t see a ring. Does she have children?

  He can’t ask any of these questions. She’s supposed to be a figment, a nonperson. Her role in this is to help him make sense of himself. According to the textbooks she’s had to study to get where she is now, she essentially has no identity.

  ‘I’m sorry I’ve not been able to see you sooner, Jeffrey,’ she says as she takes a seat. She means this. Apologies are seldom given by her kind. ‘How are you finding the new meds?’

  ‘I feel better than I did last week.’

  ‘Good. I see you’ve been going to the group sessions. I know that’s not your thing, but it proves you’re invested in your recovery.’

  ‘It kills the time,’ he tells her plainly.

  She goes over the notes the nurses have made, their observations in various scrawls for her perusal. ‘Well, I don’t see why we can’t continue this in an outpatient setting.’

  She is granting his wish: discharge. He could leave today. But Carolyn is still being held prisoner and he can’t leave without knowing if she’ll be alright. He needs a resolution.

  So he scrambles for an excuse.

  ‘I think I just need a couple more days. Just to be on the safe side. So I don’t end up back here.’

  The doctor is dubious, of course. He knows she’s on orders from her superiors to clear some beds; others are waiting their turn. Treat and street, wasn’t that the term? The revolving door policy that he’s now jamming up with his reluctance: Move along, sir. You’ve had your time.

  Rubens goes back to her notes. ‘I’ll give you two more nights.’

  ‘That’s fine.’

  They carry on their previous conversation, however he’s disinterested in bringing up the past. It’s been five years since he lost Kara and their unborn child, killed by a drunk driver when he was working late one night. His drinking binges make him no better than the guy who ran her down crossing the street. The best he has done is walk himself to a hospital rather than get behind a wheel.

  ‘I can’t stress enough how important it is you go to your meetings, Jeffrey,’ the good doctor tells him. ‘You need that understanding and support right now.’

  ‘If they left out the Jesus crap, I’d be fine with it.’

  She smiles at this, allowing herself a chuckle. ‘I know. You’ll be hard-pressed to find a group that won’t at least try to shove some higher-power nonsense down your throat, but do you think you can put that misgiving aside?’

  ‘I’ll try.’

  ‘I’ll see you on Wednesday. You’ll need to be ready to go by 10 a.m. and I’ll make sure your meds are all organised.’

  He agrees to this arrangement, certain he can tolerate two more nights for the sake of Carolyn. His escort arrives, leading him back to the ward and signing him in, all while making forced conversation regarding his appointment.

  He gets stuck on a thought of Kara, and he tries not to indulge in it. Pushing it down is harder when he’s restless. And he can’t think of her in the daylight, she invades his nightmares too much to have her there when he’s awake as well.

  The sweet pain her memory often brings has him retreating to his room, shutting the door and curling up on his bed. He’s lucky he doesn’t have to share a room. He doesn’t want to talk anymore; he didn’t want to discuss it, not today. Not with the other worries invading his mind. He needs a drink now, and he didn’t need one this morning. And now two more days hardly seem appropriate.

  His remedy is to return his focus to Carolyn, as if making her situation better will stop his agony. Jeffrey sees why he’s drawn to her now: she’s Kara to him in so many ways, bright as she is biting. This is lamentable, it shouldn’t be entertained.

  Carolyn sleeps throughout the day and misses art and lunch. She likes art therapy, though he can’t stand it. The pretentious teacher drives him up the wall with her controlling nature. Meanwhile, this woman has no understanding of the abstract at all, yet calls herself a painter.

  Around three in the afternoon, Carolyn shuffles into the rec room, free of the chrysalis of her bedcovers, now more a cabbage moth than a beautiful butterfly. It breaks his heart to see her dull eyes. She settles herself in the armchair by the TV, her head resting on her fist, and he knows she’s lost to him. Offering her a smoke won’t shift her. He goes out alone in the hope she’ll follow, waits a respectable amount of time, then gives up.

  He sees she’s vanished, most likely to her room, a place he can’t invade without reprimand. She’s at one end of a corridor, his room is in another corridor, their neutral territory in between. He sequesters himself in his room with the book he’s borrowed, well aware he’ll not be finished by the time he has to go. He’s always been a slow reader.

  He finds her later, wide awake at nine, just after she’s taken her night meds. She doesn’t tell him to leave her alone when he sits across from her. She has her books open, and the agitation from that morning has disappeared.

  ‘I hate it when I lose a day,’ she says. She won’t shift her focus from the page, she’s pushing herself. She doesn’t know what’s good for her, but he’s not about to say so. She isn’t adhering to the rules of her recovery. ‘I thought you’d be gone by now,’ she adds.

  ‘I wasn’t ready.’

  ‘Did your doctor decide that?’

  ‘No, I did. I just need a couple more days.’

  Carolyn looks at him, serious before she smiles. ‘You hate it here.’

  ‘It’s not that bad,’ he lies.

  ‘Can I bum a smoke? I won’t get another pack until tomorrow.’

  The yard is open until ten, so they have twenty minutes before they’ll be called back in. She wants to learn how to roll a cigarette, and he tries his best to teach her. Her fingers are nearly as useless as his, hence the occupational therapy they’re required to attend. But he feels his methods are more beneficial. This still teaches finesse and patience, and craftsmanship. The process of threading needles is redundant to him. She’d rather paint than sew. The women with their knitting needles get told off for leaving them around the rec room.

  Each to their own.

  Carolyn talks like she hasn’t had a bad day. She won’t mention the incident from that morning, and Jeffrey knows she’s embarrassed about it. There’s an unspoken agreement between them not to bring this shit up. Friendships he cultivated in the past, when he was happy, a different being entirely, weren’t as respectful. Kara was the only other one who’d known when to back off.

  ‘My parents are coming tomorrow afternoon to see my doctor,’ Carolyn says. ‘I have to sit there and listen to them talk about me like I’m nonexistent.’

  ‘That must be…’

  ‘Infuriating? Yes. It is.’

  Carolyn is too independent to have these people controlling her life, and here he finds the crux of her anger. He still has the autonomy to make simple life decisions. His own independence is vital and she has had hers stolen, this non-consensual confinement all arranged while she was unconscious, post-stomach pump, in an unfamiliar bed.

  ‘It took me two days to realise where I was, they drugged me up so much. Now I know I’ve been tricked and can’t leave, it’s hard not to get pissed off. Then they give me more pills when I’m legitimately angry. It’s not fair. Whatever case I make for release, it’s all met with these condescending remarks like “you’re not ready, you need more time.” Like I’m a child and I can’t think for myself.’

  ‘They need to know you won’t
do this again.’ He’d rather not play devil’s advocate. He’s on her side, not theirs.

  ‘I won’t. I just want my life back. I feel like I’m trying to earn it back now. Earn back what’s rightfully mine… It’s not fair.’

  She makes this statement without the whine of a six-year-old forbidden something, without the foot stamping and the tantrum designed to get her way. It’s just her truth. It’s not fair.

  They’re called in from the cold, and she bids him goodnight. Alone in his room, he packs, seeing his misjudgements. He can’t stay and help her. Whatever fool’s errand he’s on, he now discards it. He can do something small to make her day better, but the next day is another matter. Her road is longer than his, and he has no energy to walk it with her. He has to go home.

  Resigned to his decision, Jeffrey keeps his distance the following day, again watching from afar as she interacts with her parents. They’ve just spoken to her doctor and she’s not happy with the decisions made for her. Her arms are folded and her head is down. She refuses any affection from them. The mother looks worried, disappointed. Dismayed. The father seems as concerned. Her perception of these people is flawed by their actions. She walks away, and Jeffrey knows she wants to flip them off. She’s off to her room again, to sleep. To pretend she’s somewhere else.

  Lost causes were never his forte.

  Kara was as fiercely her own person. She was going to be a working mother, and he was going to care