Twisted (16 page)

“Starved.”

I make us some grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup. We pretty much eat in silence, but at least he eats. When he's done he announces he's going to take a shower.

I stay in the kitchen, put some water in the microwave for hot chocolate. As I tear open a packet of mix, I hear a strange scraping sound coming from outside. Peeking out the window, I see Glady in a housecoat and winter boots, dragging a giant metal garbage can up the driveway. I zip up my hoodie and run out the door. “Glady! Stop! Let me do that.” I grab the handle from her and haul it the rest of the way to the curb.

“Thanks, honey,” she says, rubbing her back. “Aidan usually does it for me, but” — she frowns — “he must have forgotten. He always puts it out early in the day, before he goes to work.”

“Well …” I guess I should tell her. It's not a secret or anything. “You see, Aidan didn't go to work. His dad passed away.”

“Oh!” Her hand slaps against her chest. “How awful. Is he okay?”

I steer her around to her door to get her in out of the cold. “Yeah, he'll be fine.”

“Poor boy. And you too. Are you okay?”

“Yes, thank you.” I help her up the stairs, back to the warmth of her kitchen.

She's still tsk-tsking, as she holds a kettle under the tap.

“Look, Glady,” I say. “I know Aidan does little jobs for you and all that, but he's sort of got a lot on his mind right now, so I'll do those things, okay?”

“What a sweet girl. There's not much, only a bit of shovelling and salting, the garbage, maybe a hard-to-reach light bulb now and then.”

“Sure, no problem.” I go to leave, then I remember. “Oh, and Aidan tried to put on the lock, but the gate's frozen in place. He has to wait for the snow to melt some.”

She takes a tea bag out of a tin. “What gate, honey?”

“The gate in the backyard. The one that bangs in the wind.”

She gives me a blank look.

“You asked Aidan to put on a lock?” I gently remind her. “So the noise wouldn't bother you?”

“Sweetie,” she says as she puts the tin of tea bags back in the cupboard, “I may be getting a little old and forgetful, but I never asked Aidan to put up any lock on any gate.”

I get a prickly feeling all over my scalp. “Are you sure?”

“Yes.” She nods. “I'm sure. My late husband, Murray, God rest his soul, who constructed that gate, fancied himself a bit of a handyman and overbuilt everything. It would have to be some bloody goddamn strong wind to flap
that
gate around.”

“Maybe Aidan misunderstood or something …” My voice trails off.

“That's probably all it is.” She pats me comfortingly on the shoulder.

Outside, I lean against Glady's porch rail and stare up at the night sky. What the hell? She never asked him to put on a lock?

The stars aren't spelling out any answers for me, so I look down, down at the gate in question. Snow drifts halfway up its sides. No answers there either.

I trudge down the back stairs and up the side driveway, my heart thumping loudly in my ears the whole way. By the time I get to the kitchen, I feel nauseous. The microwave is beeping that my water is ready. As if in a trance, I press “clear,” and sit down at the table. There's a faint humming inside my head, and it feels like something's pressing on my chest.

My eye catches a corner of the lock package sticking out over the edge of the top of the fridge. I think back to Liam and what he said at the coffee shop.

“His behaviour is already erratic. Who knows how the death of his father is going to affect him? Without medication, his behaviour could become even
more
erratic … I get that you're scared, worried …”

“I'm not scared. Or worried.”

I think for a minute, go over, pull one of the deadbolts out of the plastic, and shove it in my back pocket.

Out in the hall the bathroom door is closed. Aidan must still be in the shower. I duck into my room, briefly study the door frame, and then head for the basement. I'm just reaching for the basement doorknob when from right behind me I hear Aidan ask, “What are you doing?”

It makes me jump. “Uh, I, uh … I'm putting in a wash,” I answer, hoping he didn't hear my voice crack.

“Where's your laundry?”

I look down at my empty arms. “Right. I know, I was … um, checking first to see if there was detergent. I thought it was almost empty last time.”

“No. There's a full bottle.”

“Oh. Good.” I glance at him over my shoulder. “Anything you want me to throw in?”

“No, thanks.”

“You look tired, Aidan. You should try and have another nap or something.”

“I can't. I've slept half the day away already.”

“At least go lie down then — in the living room.”
At the other end of the house
. “Watch
TV
, take your mind off things.”

He twists up his face like he's thinking it over. “Okay.” He starts off down the hall then stops. “You're not going out again, are you?”

Again?

“It's just, well, I don't want to be alone right now,” he adds.

My mouth is dry, and I have to swallow. “No. I'm not going anywhere.”

I wait for him to walk back to the living room, wait till I hear the creak of the sofa.

In the basement, I quietly rummage through the tool box until I find the right screwdriver. Back up in the hall, I stop and listen. Nothing but the muffled drone of the
TV
.

I carefully shut my bedroom door, cringing as it squeaks. I have to use all my weight to get it to close tight. As I stand on my desk chair fighting with the screwdriver, sweat drips down the side of my face. A drill is out of the question — too loud. My hands are killing me. The harder I try to keep quiet, the more noise I seem to make. Finally, after switching hands back and forth a thousand times, I twist the last twist.

“There.” I wipe my forehead on the sleeve of my shirt and slide the deadbolt across. “Bingley can't get in. No one can.”

CHAPTER 28

S
taring into the mirror, I tilt my head from side to side. The face staring back at me looks like it's a hundred years old. I put on some frosty white eyeshadow to brighten up the dark smudges around my eyes then add a couple of coats of mascara. I stand back, survey my work. “Better,” I whisper. “But not much.”

All night I kept dreaming that someone was trying to open my door. I don't know why I would dream that, because no one can. Not anymore.

The kitchen counter is littered with a new crop of empty beer bottles. There's no sign of Aidan. Probably sleeping it off. I shove the empties into the cardboard box on the back porch, turn on the dishwasher, and finish tidying up. Zapped of all energy, my movements are slow. How am I supposed to help Aidan — fix him? It all sounded so simple when I laid it out for Liam. Just have a little chat and everything will be peachy. What the hell was I thinking? God, we've got so much to talk about, so many issues, unanswered questions, it'll take days.

Gotta start sometime, I guess. Taking a deep breath, I knock lightly on Aidan's bedroom door.

There's no answer. I crack open the door and peer in. He's not there.

I check the hall table for a note or something. Nothing. I can see that the car isn't in the driveway. He didn't go to work, did he? It's too soon. Isn't it?

I GRAB MY COAT
and head out to work. As I walk, I picture my brain. It's kind of pinkish, and all the little areas between the blood vessels are bulging out, like bubbles, because there's just too much shit in there. Can your brain burst like your appendix?

Even through the coffee shop window, I can see the frown on Liam's face. He's sitting at our table again. His hair falls across his eyes as he checks his watch. And for just a second I feel nothing else but a fluttering in my chest.

He looks up as I open the door. His expression immediately clears and breaks into a smile. I don't know how, but I manage to smile back.

“Hey,” I say, draping my coat across the back of a chair.

“Hey. I was starting to worry you'd changed your mind.”

“No. Just couldn't get my act together.”

He takes in my bedraggled, sleepless appearance. “Is everything okay?”

I laugh as I sit down. I laugh because if I don't, I might cry. I laugh because I can't tell him. I can't tell him about the locks, about what Glady said. I don't even know
why
I can't. Is it because I don't want to be wrong? “Yup.”

He squints at me like he's trying to see inside my head.

“You call this lunch?” I point at the plate of muffins and oat cakes on the table, trying to distract him. “Fess up. These are day olds, aren't they?”

“It's not like they're mouldy or anything.”

I spread out a napkin, pick a muffin, and break it into pieces.

“So how's Aidan?” he asks. “How's he doing?”

“He's okay, I guess. I mean, it's not exactly an ideal time for him, right?”

“And how are
you
doing?”

“I'm fine. Just fine.”

He can tell I'm not. It's written all over his face. “So have you given any more thought to your intervention idea? You know I'll help you if that's what you want to do.”

I meticulously pick up every single stray crumb off the table, squish- ing down on them with my finger, then dropping them onto my napkin. “Well, I did kind of think of something.” I don't tell him it literally came to me three seconds ago when I saw one of his medical textbooks, written by a Doctor so-and-so. It was the word
Doctor
.

“Shoot.”

“What if I go to Aidan's doctor, tell him I don't think he's taking his pills, tell him what's been going on, how worried I am. Can I do something like that?”

Liam shakes his head. “His doctor isn't going to discuss anything like that with you. Aidan's the one who needs to do that.”

“But I'm his sister. I'm family.”

He shakes his head again. “Doesn't matter.”

“But if I tell him everything, then he can go ahead and do something, make Aidan do something. He doesn't have to actually discuss anything with
me
.”

“Yeah … I dunno. Do you even know who his doctor is?”

“No. Can't I just go to the hospital and ask?”

“They're not going to give you that information.”

I sigh with frustration. “Why do they have to make it so hard?”

“You could just ask Aidan,” Liam offers. “Tell
him
how worried you are.”

“He's not going to tell me. He doesn't want to talk to me about any of this.” I gnaw on a fingernail, try to think. Where do I go from here?

“I'm not saying the whole doctor thing is the
worst
idea. Just don't expect him to tell you anything.” Liam looks like he's thinking too. “I don't suppose there would there be a pill bottle lying around the house or something that would have the doctor's name on it?”

“I haven't seen anything. Trust me, I've looked. Plus if he's decided to stop taking his pills, he's probably not going to hold on to the bottle.”

“Anyone else you could ask? Does he have any friends?”

I lean back in my chair. “Aidan's never mentioned any friends. He doesn't seem to hang out with anyone. No one comes to the house, no one calls …” I sit up straight. “Except Marla. But she's kind of … indisposed.”

“Who's Marla?”

“Aidan's ex-girlfriend. She would know who his doctor is. They, um … sort of met in the … mental hospital.” I wince a bit. Is that what I'm supposed call it?

Liam doesn't correct me. “So he's actually been in a hospital before. In a treatment program. Why didn't you tell me?”

“Well, it's not exactly something that's easy to work into conversation.”

He gives me a look. “Uh, it's not like we haven't discussed Aidan and his problems before. If he was in a treatment program, then he obviously suffers from
something
, and those kinds of
somethings
don't just go away.”

“He said there was nothing wrong, and it was all made-up gar- bage anyway. He only ended up there because Vince and the doctor from home plotted against him.” Hearing my words, it sounds like I'm trying to convince myself more than anything. “They wouldn't let him out of the hospital if there was still something wrong with him.”

“Lyssa. I'm going to say this one more time, and I want you to listen. If Aidan's not taking his medication, all bets are off.”

I don't say anything.

He's getting frustrated. “You're in over your head.”

I'm so exhausted, I know I'm going to cry any second. I close my eyes, press my fingers into my sockets, just in case.

He keeps quiet for a minute, then: “I'm going home to P.E.I. next week when exams are over. My sister's visiting from Winnipeg with her kids. I'm taking them their Christmas presents. Why don't you come with me?”

It's so off topic I have to review in my head what he just said. “I can't. I've got too many shifts.”

“Exams will be over. I'm sure you could find someone to cover for you.”

“It's not a good time. I can't leave —”

“It is a good time, Lyssa,” he interrupts. “I think you should step back from all this, take a breather.”

I shake my head. “You only want to get me away from Aidan, to talk me into doing things your way.”

“You mean the
right
way?”

I set my jaw. “I'm not ready to give up yet. I want to try it
my
way first.”

I hear him blast out a mouthful of air. “I think you should con- sider coming to P.E.I.”

Without answering, I stand and slip on my coat. “I've got a few things to do before my shift. I'll see you later.”

He stares at the table, tapping his pencil against a binder.

No hug this time.

I KNOW EXACTLY WHAT
I'm going to do. I'm going to Jodi and Marla's. If Marla's still in the hospital, and I assume she is since I haven't heard otherwise from Jodi, then Jodi can tell me how I go about visiting her. Marla could hold the key. She probably has tons of insight into what makes Aidan tick.

In no time at all I'm standing in front of their bright red door. I knock and wait. There are no sounds from inside on the stairs. I knock again. Still no sounds.
Damn it!

I jump off the stoop, out onto the sidewalk, and look up at their window. I'm about to turn toward the street when, for some reason, I take one last look. Those heavy velvet curtains. They move.

Should I try again? Knock louder? Something tells me not to bother.

Puzzled, and a little pissy, I walk back to Spring Garden Road. There's a wooden planter in front of some fancy ladies' clothing store. I sweep off the snow and sit, but I keep one eye on the door, expecting some snooty clerk to come out and bust me any second.

I lean my body forward and stare down at my boots. Pivoting my feet at the heel and making fan shapes in the slush, I think about Aidan and how it didn't occur to me that he doesn't seem to have any friends — not until I talked to Liam. He didn't have any friends back home, either. No best bud, no one he went biking with, hung out with, got into trouble with. Only me.

A noisy group of girls pour out of a doorway across the street. As I watch them laughing, hooking arms as they climb over the chunky snowbank, I realize it's where Aidan works. I recognize the name. I wonder if he's there. I should go see, and if he is, we could make plans to meet up later. We need to talk,
have
to talk. I dread it, though. The talking. I think I'm afraid of what he'll tell me, or what will happen after the talking. Maybe I'm the one who needs to be in treatment.

I cross at the crosswalk and make my way up the narrow stairs to the bar.

The lunch rush must be just finishing. There are only a couple of tables occupied, but loads that need to be bussed. A half dozen people sit on stools at one end of the bar watching a
TV
; a young guy wear- ing a black golf shirt and black apron is polishing glasses at the other end.

“Excuse me,” I say.

He turns. “Hey. What can I do for you?”

“I'm looking for Aidan. He wouldn't happen to be here, would he?”

“Aidan Mackenzie?”

“Yeah.”

“No.” He slides the stem of one wine glass after another along an overhead rack. “I haven't seen Aidan in a while.”

“Oh. I thought maybe he decided to come into work.”

His forehead wrinkles into a frown. “Here?”

I mirror his look. “Um, yeah.”

He stops what he's doing with the wine glasses. “Are you a friend of his or something?”

“Sister.”

“Uh, well, Aidan doesn't work here anymore.”

“
What
?”

“Sorry.” He shrugs.

I slump onto the nearest stool. “Was he … fired?” I whisper the last word.

“No. He quit.”

His answer takes me by surprise. “He
quit
?”

“Yeah.” He nods. “Said he was moving.”

“
Moving
?”

“That's what he said.” He goes back to sliding glasses onto the rack.

None of this makes any sense. “When? When did this happen? Today?” It has to have been today, because he told me just the
other
day that he'd called in sick to work.

The guy takes in my confused look and kind of cringes. “'Bout a week ago.”