After Hours (25 page)

His back straightened with the jolt of a cocked rifle, and even seated he looked eight
feet tall. “If I wanted you to know I’d have fucking told you.”

“I . . . I’m sorry. I just wanted to understand. I was curious, after we talked.”

“Well, congratulations. Hope you enjoyed that little bedtime story.” He wasn’t just
annoyed—he was pissed. And a pissed-off Kelly Robak was a terrifying creature to stare
in the face.

I didn’t know what to say, but I suspected if I cried he’d probably get even more
annoyed, so I bit my tongue and focused on the pain until the emotional surge subsided.

“I’m sorry,” I said again, at a loss for anything better.

“I’m sure you are.” He took a deep breath, nostrils flaring, but he seemed to calm.

We were quiet a long moment. I fiddled with the tea bag’s string. “It must have made
it hard. When you were working at the prison.”

His eyes narrowed. “I cried myself to sleep every night.”

Threatened by the cruelty in his tone, I felt my hackles rise. “Wow. Glib, much?”

“What do you want me to say? Want me to lay down on a couch and weep about what shit
luck I had in the daddy lottery?”

“No. I just . . . I dunno. I just know now, and I wanted you to know I knew. In case
you wanted to talk about it or anything.”

“Not gonna happen.”

“Maybe
I
want to talk about it.”

“I’m even less qualified to wear a white coat than you are, sweetheart. Got no interest
in being your therapist. ’Specially if this session’s gonna be about me getting my
shit beat out in utero.”

I sighed, stymied by how callous he was being, how thoroughly he was rejecting my
attempts to empathize. He could hoist that wall up quick as any resident I’d met on
the ward.

“At least it wasn’t on purpose,” I offered. “I mean, at least he didn’t know.” Beating
up your girlfriend was heinous, but even the sort of asshole who’d do that would’ve
suffered, to find out he could’ve made her miscarry his baby. “It’s a pretty dismal
silver lining, but—”

“He fucking knew,” Kelly said.

The blood drained from my head and fingers, leaving me cold. My hands fled the counter
of their own accord, hiding in my lap.

“You really thought that was some accident? Fucking kicked in the stomach?”

“That article—”

“That wasn’t your plain old everyday beating,” Kelly said, wearing an ugly, joyless
smirk. “How fucking naive are you? That was just a DIY abortion that didn’t take.”

My numb face flushed hot, stinging like frostbite. “Jesus, Kel.”

I mustered the balls to touch his arm, but he yanked it back. He wanted no part of
this bonding session, and I felt hollow and scared, wishing to God I hadn’t brought
it up.

“Don’t you pet me like some stray.” The stool squeaked as he shoved to standing, wobbled
twice and settled.

I’d frozen, unsure how to be around this version of Kelly. I’d never seen him upset
before. I hadn’t known him capable of this kind of emotion, or known he nursed any
wound raw enough to trigger so harsh a recoil. It struck me with a rattling blow that
I didn’t know what he was capable of, full stop. I didn’t want to find out. I wanted
to go home, and he wanted the same.

“I’ll get your keys.” Cold as ice.

I nodded stiffly and he disappeared down the hallway. He returned in seconds, tossing
my keys on the counter where they slid to a stop beside my untouched tea. I gathered
them and hopped to the floor, grabbed my bag. He followed me to the front door, leaning
in the frame, backlit by the kitchen lights. I stalled on the top step, feeling like
there ought to be some kind of farewell. Something official to punctuate the end of
this experiment in delusion.

At least we were even. He’d meddled in my life, threatening Marco. I’d meddled in
his, snooping into the most personal shadows of his past, places I should’ve waited
to be invited into. We were done, for sure, but at least I could tell myself we were
parting as equals. We’d fucked up equally bad.

The only difference was, I’d forgiven him.

“Guess this is over, then.” His voice sounded stark in the night air.

“We were never a thing, Kelly.”

His brows drew together, more annoyed than hurt. “I always figured we must have been
something, if we fucked all those times. But I get it. Loud and clear.”

I felt myself receding, pulling away out of shame. Of course he was right. But I hadn’t
let myself count whatever we’d been, because I’d never had the security of knowing
he was mine, alone, for keeps. Worse than that, I’d denigrated the sex for the same
reason. Written off the most formative intimate experiences I’d ever had as some sordid
fling just because it wasn’t going to lead to boyfriend-girlfriendhood or some stupid
nonsense?

Or because deep down, I wouldn’t admit I could care for someone like Kelly, because
of who he was . . . or who I’d thought he was, at first. My sister’s type. My mother’s
type. Not mine, not levelheaded, practical me, the one who made the
good
decisions.

What
good decisions?
I had to wonder. Baiting Marco? Violating Kelly’s privacy? Continually thinking my
sister’s issues were mine to fix?

God, I could be such a deluded bitch.

I took a deep breath and ordered my shoulders to unbunch. “Okay, yes. We were something.
And it was fun.”

“A day at the water park is
fun
,” Kelly said, still visibly pissed.

“It was really nice, okay? It was great, and it was the best sex I’ve ever had.” And
in brief moments, it had been the closest I’d felt to a man, and the most safe, the
most . . . cherished, in a way, despite the fact that he’d ostensibly been degrading
me, at least to start.

But brief moments of true intimacy weren’t bricks enough to build any kind of lasting
foundation. Not one strong enough to weather this current shitstorm.

“I didn’t think you’d care this much,” I told him. “I thought it was all a game to
you.”

“You’re good at making assumptions about people,” Kelly said. “You might want to quit
that if you decide to become a shrink.” And with that, he shut the door on me.

I stared at the brass number.

“Bye, Kelly.”

When I reached my car, I glanced back at his house. There he was, silhouetted in the
living room window, watching. Well, he could just keep on watching, maybe regretting
how he’d handled that conversation as my taillights turned the corner, never to brighten
this block again.

But I was wrong. The second my engine started, he disappeared. He’d only been waiting
to make sure I wasn’t carjacked or something, a taste of that hyper-protectiveness
that drove me to simultaneous sighs of exasperation and swoon. I shook my head, disgusted
that I’d jumped to the most self-flattering and unlikely diagnosis.

So, no. I probably wouldn’t make that great a shrink.

Chapter Fifteen

The worst thing about my non-breakup with Kelly was working with him the next day.

And not because he glared at me or ignored me or undermined my duties. It was because
he treated me exactly how he always did.

Cool and professional. No sign I’d hurt him. No sign he cared what had happened. No
sign that we’d ever been anything to each other besides colleagues, and that transformed
my dread and embarrassment to pure regret. It was a splinter in my heart, a sharp,
ragged pain that pierced me anew with every beat.

These past couple of weeks, I’d scaled Kelly’s massive wall and peeked at what lay
beyond. But I’d made myself too comfortable, and he’d tossed me back out, stacked
his defenses thicker and taller and coiled it with a halo of concertina wire. Offering
nothing but a cold gray shadow, long as a Starling shift.

At lunch I sat with Lee Paleckas, and my mood wasn’t lost on him. I’d been short with
everyone all morning—not testy, but curt and monosyllabic.

“What’s up your ass?”

I looked up from my macaroni and cheese and offered a sardonic smile.

“PMS?” Lee asked, no trace of sexual mischief in his tone.

“Can’t I just have an off day?”

“I guess. Seems unfair, though, how if one us inmates has one, we get jabbed in the
ass and sent to bed early.”

I rolled my eyes. “If we sedated people just for being grumpy, you’d be in a perpetual
coma, Lee.”

He laughed at that—one of the rare, high wheezing sounds I’d begun collecting like
merit badges. Getting Lee to laugh put a gold star on my day. Though today I’d need
more than that to feel much aside from miserable.

Steering the topic off of me, I told him, “It’s perceptive of you to notice my mood.
Are you good at that—picking up on how people are feeling?”

He shrugged. “I guess.”

“That takes a lot of empathy.” A quality not in line with Lee’s pre-Larkhaven diagnoses.
It boded well for his psychotic episodes being attributable to substance abuse, not
his own natural chemistry. I hoped I’d find a chance to share this interaction with
Dr. Morris, and ask if he’d noted the same thing. “And a lot of clarity. Have you
noticed yourself feeling any different, since Dr. Morris changed your meds?”

He nodded, grudgingly at first, then with some enthusiasm. “I have, yeah. I feel kind
of . . . awake, for the first time in a while. A long while. Like when you first open
the windows in the spring, and air everything out.” He blushed, like he didn’t know
where those words had come from.

“How about your voices?”

“I haven’t heard any in days.”

“That’s great!”

“Tell me about it. Feels like I finally got a volume button.”

“Amazing what the right medication can do, huh?”

“Yeah . . . Just sucks they couldn’t have put me on whatever they did, like fifteen
years ago.”

“Well, you’re on a better path now. Focus on that. Everyone wishes they could change
something about what’s happened to them, or because of them . . .” With a bolt of
awareness, I sensed exactly where Kelly’s body was in the room, in relation to mine.
“But it just doesn’t work that way.”

* * *

My mood tripped and tumbled back downhill after lunch, the highlight of my shift being
a chance to share my encouraging conversation with Lee during evening hand-off. Dr.
Morris was working, and he nodded thoughtfully as I spoke and scribbled a note, which
made me feel important and proud. But as I changed out of my scrubs and headed for
home, the sadness descended once more.

My phone vibrated when I was halfway across campus. Hope spiked for a breath then
died just as quickly. Amber.

“Hi,” I said, no clue what greeting to expect in return.

She sounded bored, a vast improvement over our last conversation. “Hey. I’m just calling
to let you know you don’t have to watch Jack on Monday.”

My heart sank. “Oh. Okay.”

Amber sighed, and when she next spoke, her voice was softer. “Not because of what
happened.”

“No?”

“Nah. Your boyfriend’s an asshole, but that’s not your fault, that he did that.”

“He’s not my boyfriend.”

Amber snorted. “Sure.”

I opened my mouth to say that even if he sort of had been, he sure wasn’t now . . .
but it hurt too much to think about, let alone explain. “How come you don’t need a
sitter?”
You didn’t get fired again, did you?

“Jack’s had the flu for a couple days. I don’t want anybody else catching it, and
work said it was fine to take the next few shifts off.”

“Oh, that’s too bad. You know I’d risk a bug to hang out with him, right?”

“Course I do, Auntie Er’n. But it’s a nasty one, nothing you want your patients catching—trust
me. This one’s too gross. He’s like a snot dispenser.”

“Okay then. Let me know if you need me to grab anything for him.”

“Thanks.”

“Sure . . . Hey, Amber?”

“Yeah?”

“How’s Marco been? Since everything went down. Is he being nice to you?”

“I haven’t seen him in a few days. Before that, he was super-pissed off for a while,
then just sort of . . . blah. Maybe he’s got the same flu. Who knows?”

Licking his wounds, more like, if I knew that man at all.

“But he’s been just the same as always, with me and Jack.”

“I was worried maybe . . . you know.”

“I know he can be a hothead—he’s a passionate guy.”

I rolled my eyes,
so
not finding that synonym in my own mental thesaurus entry for
grown-ass spoiled brat.

“But he’s not gonna punish us for what happened with what’s-his-name.”

“He better not.” I thought about telling her not to worry, no chance what’s-his-name
would be coming around with me again . . . But it stung too much. Some other time.

Amber’s voice drifted from the receiver a moment. “It’s not medicine, honey—it’s a
smoothie. No. That was jelly in the spoon. Now drink.”

I smiled at my sister’s bald-faced lies. “I’ll let you go. Give him a telephone kiss
from me.”

“That’s probably safest, with this cough.” I listened to a distant
mwah
smooch sound and the muffled noise as she pressed her phone to Jack’s cheek. “Talk
to you soon.”

“You, too. Love you both.”

“Love you.”

And just like that, we were good again. I pocketed my cell and resumed my walk, feeling
a bit lighter.

Amber’s temper arrived and retreated in the same fashion—frequent but fleeting downpours.
Kelly’s had manifested with no warning, a bolt out of an otherwise clear sky, drawn
by what must have been a rare and perfect lightning rod, waved around idiotically
by me. Even when he’d messed Marco up, he’d been calm. He’d been in control, his actions
conscious choices. What I’d brought out in him was something else entirely—the type
of knee-jerk emotional reflex I’d assumed he was immune to.

Assumed. That’s what I’d done, exactly as he’d called it.

But what could I do? I could apologize again, after he’d cooled off for a day or two.
Drop the forty bucks and the twelve-pack off on his stoop as a peace offering. But
I didn’t get the sense that he’d want those things. I knew something about him now,
something intensely awful, something he’d never even spoken to his mother about. Something
he didn’t
want
to talk about, a fact so obvious in hindsight, I blushed at my own selfish, selective
blindness.

I locked my door when I got to my room, knowing I wouldn’t be roused by a knock. No
tall, uninvited visitor bearing stolen flowers or sexual advances. Not tonight and
probably not ever again.

* * *

I moped through my weekend, trying not to think too hard about Kelly. On Monday morning
I told myself for the fiftieth time in my life that I might like jogging, if I gave
it another try, and so I laced my sneakers and discovered for the fiftieth time what
a miserable hobby it was. Now I had shin splints to match my heartache.

I holed up in my room and researched BSN programs. I browsed apartment listings. I’d
been ending my shifts with dull twinges in my lower back, so I bit the bullet and
checked out a brand of shoe Jenny had recommended. Some of them were nearly cute,
and I ordered a pair of red orthopedic clogs, embracing the inevitable.

Nothing I had in the communal kitchen was appetizing in any way, so I let my restless
taste buds trick me into thinking I’d find the solution at the grocery store. The
solution would probably take the shape of an entire bag of Fritos or a tub of sorbet.
So be it. I climbed into my car by the last glow of dusk and hit the road.

The store was quiet, just me and a few other shoppers and the softly echoing Top Forty
hits droning from the speakers. I piled junk in my basket, my mopey inner child plotting
to alternately pickle and sugar-glaze our sadness. Canned ravioli, Junior Mints, frozen
egg rolls, butterscotch pudding. I was debating which was healthier, puffy Cheetos
or crunchy ones, when my phone buzzed at my hip.

Setting my basket down, I checked the screen. Amber. I hit Talk, scanning the nutrition
facts on a sack of kettle chips. “Hey, sister.”

“Oh my God. Erin.” There was panic in her voice—quavering dread that I caught in a
heartbeat.

“What’s wrong?”

Gaspy little breaths answered me, and behind that muted siren wails.

The bag fell from my hand. “Amber? What’s going on?” I could already feel Marco’s
thick neck between my strangling hands, but—

“It’s Jack. We’re in an ambulance. We have to go to the ER at the children’s hospital
in Darren.”

I abandoned my basket, feet dragging me toward the front of the store. “Why? His flu?”
A million terrifying thoughts visited me in the half second it took her to reply—
pneumonia, infection, hundred-and-six-degree fever.

“They don’t know what’s wrong. He’s burning up, and . . .”

Her words were swallowed by frantic sobs, and I began to march, fishing my keys from
my purse. “I’m leaving now. I’ll see you there.”

“Oh Erin. Tell me he’s gonna be okay.”

And I gave her the only answer I was willing to hear, myself. “He’s going to be fine.”

We hung up and I jogged for the exit, swearing when the automatic doors parted too
slowly. I shoved between them and out into the cool night air.

I was in my car and already a mile down the road when I realized I had no idea where
the children’s hospital was, only the main one affiliated with Larkhaven. Lamenting
my ancient phone, I pulled onto the shoulder and cued up a contact I’d really been
hoping to not need a favor from ever again. I stared at the passing traffic, grinding
my teeth and counting the rings. One. Two.

“C’mon, Kelly, answer.” Three. “
Please
answer.”

After the fourth tone, a cold, “Yeah.”

“Kelly. Hi.”

“Hi.”

“Can you tell me how to get to the children’s hospital in Darren? I can’t get online
and—”

“What’s going on?”

Don’t
, I begged myself, but the second I started speaking, the tears were stinging my eyes.
“My nephew’s being taken there. They don’t know what’s wrong.”

“You know the major road that runs past my neighborhood? You take that like you’re
coming to visit me, but keep going, about a mile and a half, and it’ll be on the left.
You’ll see signs.”

“Thank you.”

“Was it him?” Kelly asked.
Was it that piece of shit that landed the kid in the fucking ER?

“No. Thank you, Kelly.” And I hung up. Any more talking and I’d be crying too hard
to drive.

I sped, sixty-five in a forty-five the entire way, but karma was on my side. I ditched
my car in the lot and jogged through the sliding doors to the reception area, shin
splints screaming.

I hurried to the desk.

“Yes?” asked the bony older woman on duty.

“My sister Amber and her three-year-old—an ambulance was bringing them here.”

“Yes, the boy was checked in about ten minutes ago.”

“I need to see them.”

“This blue corridor,” she said, pointing. “Down all the way to the end, take a right,
then a left after the elevators. Pediatric emergency department.”

She probably didn’t even catch my muttered thank-you; I was already halfway down the
hall.

I heard Amber before I saw her. She was in the pediatric ER’s lounge, demanding information
from a woman in scrubs in a high, broken voice, answered by a hushed tone and gentle
hand on her arm. I skidded to a halt beside her, my sneakers squeaking on the linoleum.

“What’s happening?”

Amber squeezed her eyes shut, mouthing a soundless, “They don’t know,” and dissolving
into sobs. I steered her to a chair and went back to the nurse.

“I’m her sister. What’s wrong with my nephew?”

“The doctors don’t know yet. But he’s got a very high fever, so they’re working hard
to treat that, first and foremost.”

“We can’t be with him?”

The nurse shook her head, frowning apologetically. “Not until we know what’s going
on.”

“I’m an LPN,” I said, desperate for any extra clues.
Throw me a fucking bone here, lady.

She lowered her voice. “Your nephew is ill-appearing.”

My blood turned to ice at the term. A child could arrive at the hospital with the
nastiest flu their parent had ever seen, and still get labeled
well-appearing
. “What?”

“We’ve got too many staff in with your nephew to allow family at the moment. What
we really need is for your sister to stay calm, and stay close. We’ll need her on
hand as we work to get to the bottom of this.”

My brain knew full well this was completely reasonable, but an angry sigh shuddered
from my throat. I rubbed my face, willing myself to be calm. I was the rational one.
The one who kept it together. I was a fucking
nurse.
Amber was a mother, but I was
hers
, and I had to be strong now, when she couldn’t be.

I took a seat beside her. She was doubled over, head on her knees, arms wrapped around
her shins. Exactly the position she’d always adopted on the front stoop of our apartment
building when she “ran away,” following a fight with our mom. Just folded herself
into a wretched ball and waited for someone to take pity. One day I’d come home after
school and found her just that way, with her stuffed turtle and a family-sized bag
of pretzels.
For nutrition,
she’d explained.
For when I go and live in the woods and never come home
again, ever
.