Gone for Good (8 page)

I woke up between the familiar sheets of Dan's bed. My head felt foggy from the beer and the sleep. I rolled over and found the other side of the small bed empty. The clock read eight thirty.

‘Dan?'

He came in the door dressed for school, which meant he was wearing a flannel shirt and ratty jeans. But he'd showered, and when he lay down next to me I could smell the shaving cream and soap. He wasn't as dirty as he looked.

‘I have to go in a few minutes,' he said. He put his arm around me and pulled me close. I drank it in. ‘What are you doing today?'

I yawned. ‘I think I need to get my life in order a little bit,' I said. ‘I'm trying to get back to normal. I've been neglecting school the last few days. I don't want to get miles behind.'

‘I understand that,' he said. ‘Do you need help with anything?'

‘No, thanks. My nose is just above the water. I can keep it there.'

‘You can always withdraw for the semester, or take an emergency leave. Everybody would understand, and they'd hold your funding for you.'

I shook my head. ‘I don't think that's necessary,' I said.

Dan
must have heard a hint of irritation in my voice because he said, ‘You don't like that I said that, do you?'

‘This is why I don't like spending time with you,' I said.

‘Ouch.'

‘I'm sorry. I just mean … you know me too well.'

‘Well,' Dan said, ‘we can't have any of that, can we?'

‘One day at a time,' I said. ‘Okay?'

‘Sure. And your brother and the stuff we talked about last night?'

‘I'll see him later. And I'll check in with Paul. You know, if my mom wants me to help take care of my brother, I need to stay in school and get a job. I can't help him out if I'm working at McDonald's.'

‘Then I'll get off your case.' He kissed the top of my head and stood up. ‘I have to go. But we can talk later, if you want.'

‘Sure,' I said. ‘And, Dan? Thanks. It was good talking to you.'

‘I'm glad you came by,' he said. ‘And don't worry.'

He didn't explain, so I asked, ‘Worry about what? My family?'

‘About me,' he said, smiling. ‘I won't assume that this means anything. You know, you staying here and sleeping with me.'

My face flushed. ‘Dan.'

‘Hey,' he said. ‘I'm glad you came by because I really needed to get laid.'

I had just enough time to go back to my apartment – which seemed smaller and darker than the last time I was there – shower, dress, and grab my things before going to
campus. I felt like I'd already missed too many classes. Anyone who has ever been in graduate school would understand what I was experiencing: sheer panic. I assumed the academic world had passed me by, that all the best resources had been given out to my peers, that all the great ideas and themes had been written about, that I was hopelessly behind and would never catch up. Indeed, as I drove the ten minutes from my apartment to campus, I convinced myself that my future did indeed lie in a McDonald's restaurant somewhere, that I would spend the rest of my life wearing a hairnet and dishing up salty fries.

But the reality wasn't that bad.

Everyone had heard the news by then, and everyone understood. My fellow grad students offered their condolences, and I even found a bouquet of flowers sitting on my desk and a card signed by almost everyone I knew, including Dan. My professors were sympathetic and encouraged me to take my time getting my personal life in order and catching up. Even the biggest hard-asses among them expressed sympathy, and I realized a fundamental truth about humanity: we all have mothers, and no one wishes ill on anyone's mother.

Even the students in the introductory section of American History One I taught had heard the news and sheepishly nodded their sympathy to me when I walked into the classroom. I had prepared nothing to teach. Nothing at all. If someone had put me on the spot and asked me to name the first president of the United States I would have been stuck for an answer. But I soldiered through. I reached into the professor bag of tricks, put them in small groups, and let them discuss the day's reading assignment, which
was something I hadn't even read yet. It worked, and I made it through my first day back.

When I walked out of that classroom, I felt spent. It was late in the afternoon, nearing four o'clock, and I hadn't checked in with Paul all day for an update on Ronnie's condition. I looked at my phone as I walked through the hordes of students, and the only thing that brought me a measure of relief from guilt was the fact that Paul hadn't called. I would have felt worse if he had contacted me, if he had needed me, and I had missed it.

‘Hey, Dr Hampton.'

I stopped. The voice sounded familiar but I couldn't locate its source in the crowd. I had almost started walking away, thinking that maybe I had been hearing things, when the voice called again.

‘Over here, Dr H.'

And then I knew the source.

I turned, and as the crowd thinned and parted, I saw my summoner. Neal Nelson. He stood over six feet tall and soaking wet couldn't have weighed more than 130 pounds. He wore a scraggly beard, one that would have looked more at home on the face of a fifteen-year-old than on a college student. And he wore a thick green army jacket even though the temperature remained warm and comfortable. I walked over to him.

‘Hello, Neal.'

‘Dr H. Good to see you.'

‘I've told you before you shouldn't call me “doctor,” ' I said. ‘I'm a graduate student, not a professor. I don't have my PhD yet. I don't even have a master's degree.'

‘Bah,'
he said, waving his hand in front of his face. ‘What's that word people use? Semitics?'

‘Semantics.'

‘That's it,' he said. ‘You're my favourite professor.'

‘You've only been in my class for a month, and you've only showed up half the time.'

‘And you're not a dick about it,' he said. ‘That's what I like about you, Teach. I'm sorry I wasn't there today. Something came up, but at least I'm here in the hallway now that class is letting out.'

He smiled down at me, one side of his mouth curling up. His eyes were blue, and he knew how to squint them in just the right way that I couldn't be mad at him. He wasn't that much younger than me, probably just five years or so, and I made certain to leave enough space – both physical and emotional – between us.

‘Well,' I said ‘maybe you'll make it to class again this semester.'

As I was turning away, he said, ‘I'm real sorry about your mom. It's a shitty thing.'

I turned back. ‘How did you hear about that?' I asked. ‘Did you actually come to class when they announced it?'

‘I read the paper,' he said. ‘People need to know what goes on in the world, so I follow the news.' He took a step closer and lowered his voice. ‘I also saw that it was foul play.' He shook his head, his face sincere. ‘I don't know what I can say about that. It's brutal. I'm sorry, you know? Your mother and everything. Shit.'

‘Thanks, Neal.'

‘I had an uncle once who met with that kind of trouble.'
He shook his head again. ‘It rips your guts out, Teach. Totally out.'

On that point, he was onto something – I hadn't heard it put better.

‘You're right,' I said. ‘It does.'

‘If there's anything I can help you with, just let me know. My old man, he knows things.'

‘Things?'

‘He likes to help people,' he said. ‘And so do I.'

‘Thanks, Neal. But if you want to help someone, help yourself. Come to class more often.'

I ran into Dan as I was packing my things and getting ready to leave for the day. I hadn't seen him since he'd left his apartment that morning, and I suspected he'd been trying to give me a certain amount of space while we both did our work. But he found me just before I left and asked if everything had gone okay on my first day back.

I heaved a theatrical sigh. ‘Well, I didn't break down crying. And I convinced a roomful of students that I possessed some degree of competence. I'd call all that a success.'

‘Great.'

I knew he wanted to ask me where I was going and what I was doing. But he didn't. He gave me all the space he thought I wanted.

‘Have a good night, then,' he said, and walked away.

He did exactly what I wanted, and I hated it.

I arrived at Dover Community after five o'clock and signed in at the nurses' station.

On my way through the hallways, I passed shuffling patients, their eyes either glazed by drugs or open wide as though they had just woken up and seen the truth about something. Maybe it was the truth about where they really were, or maybe it was some larger truth about the world we all careened through. Whatever it was, they didn't like it, and their unease figuratively knocked me back a couple of steps.

When I turned into the last hallway, the one where Ronnie was, I heard a woman's voice screaming over and over, ‘Help me! Help me! Help me!'

I can't,
I wanted to yell back.
I can't even help my own brother.

And I froze in the hallway, just twenty feet from the door to Ronnie's room. My feet felt like concrete, my legs like lead. I couldn't move. I knew it could be bad, seeing Ronnie in there. I lost track of how long I stood there like that, locked in place like a child afraid of entering a dark basement. The spell broke when a nurse came out of Ronnie's room. She was about my age and slim, her legs pumping with controlled efficiency. She was carrying a packet of papers, and when she saw me, she lifted her glasses up to the top of her head, resting them on her thick hair.

‘Elizabeth?'
she said.

I didn't process that she had said my name. I couldn't imagine how she could have known my name. I figured I looked like a lot of visitors to that ward. Awkward, uncertain. Scared. Probably happened every day.

‘Elizabeth Hampton?' she said.

I looked more closely at her face. I did know her, but her name didn't come to me right away.

‘It's me,' she said. ‘Janie Rader. Well, I go by Jane now. From Dover East.'

It came back. Janie Rader. We went to high school together and hung around occasionally. During junior year we spent a lot of time together, sipping beer in Janie's basement, listening to loud music, trying on clothes, and pretending to be more sophisticated than we really were. We hadn't stayed in touch since then.

‘Oh, Janie. It's you. I'm sorry.'

‘It's okay,' she said, smiling. ‘How are you doing?'

‘I'm fine,' I said. ‘I'm here to see my brother.'

‘I know,' she said. She leaned forward and placed her hand on my upper arm. ‘I heard about all of that. I'm sorry. And your mom … I thought of calling you when I heard the news. I didn't even know you were living back in Dover.'

‘I just moved back. For graduate school.'

‘I remember your mom from when we were … when we hung out together in high school. She was always so nice to me when I would come over to your house.'

‘Yeah,' I said. ‘I guess we didn't spend as much time at my house as we did at yours. How's Ronnie?'

‘Oh,
Ronnie,' she said, nodding. ‘He's doing better now. He's calmed down.'

‘Did he have a rough night?' I asked. ‘I was worried he would be anxious after he came here.'

‘Last night was fine,' she said. ‘We gave him something to help him sleep. No, today was the rough day.'

‘Why's that?' I asked.

She seemed to be choosing her words carefully. Janie had always been easygoing and reluctant to say anything bad about anybody. ‘I know you're his closest relative, right? There's just you and Ronnie?'

‘Yes.'

She paused another moment, then said, ‘You may want to tell the rest of the members of your family to show some more restraint when they come to visit him.'

‘What do you mean, “restraint”?'

A phone buzzed somewhere on her body. She pulled it out of her pocket, flipped her glasses down, and studied the screen. ‘Sorry.' She silenced the phone and dropped it into her pocket before looking back at me. ‘I'm sure you know that Ronnie is in a precarious emotional state right now,' she said.

‘I know. When Mom was …'

Was murdered. Murdered.
But I couldn't. I just couldn't bring myself to say that out loud. It seemed too … ugly. Too real.

‘I know,' she said. ‘And we're trying to keep him calm so the doctors can do their work. But one of your relatives came by today and got him pretty agitated. If that happens, then they have to medicate more, and it makes it more difficult for the doctors to examine him.'

‘Are
you talking about my uncle?' I asked. ‘He wouldn't agitate Ronnie. It would be just the opposite.'

‘No, I've seen your uncle here. Paul, right? No, not him.'

‘Then who? Are you sure we're talking about Ronnie? No one else would visit him –'

‘I know it's Ronnie,' Janie said. ‘I've been here all day, working a double shift. I know.'

‘So what happened?' I asked.

My legs no longer felt so heavy. They felt lighter, but not in a good way. I leaned back against the wall of the hallway. The lights overhead seemed too bright, too piercing. And the cries from the helpless patient started again.

‘Help me! Help me! Help me!'

Janie ignored it. ‘Someone came by to see your brother today,' she said. ‘A woman. At first, everything was fine. They seemed to be visiting. Then, I don't know, things took a turn. Whatever she said to your brother got him stirred up. He became emotional, almost hysterical. When I went in there, the woman was crying a little too, and she left before I could find out what happened. She just apologized and bolted.'

‘Did she hurt Ronnie?' I asked.

‘No, he's fine. It wasn't anything like that. I got the feeling she was asking him things, talking to him about family stuff. Maybe she was talking about your mother. I'm not sure, but whatever it was, it didn't work for him right now. So maybe just spread the word among the relatives to keep everything light when they come here. Just talk about happy stuff, mundane stuff. And bring him flowers or something to add some cheer –'

‘We
don't have any other relatives,' I said, my voice flat and distracted.

‘What's that?'

‘We don't have any other relatives.' I looked into Janie's eyes. Hers were pale blue, the sclera tinted a little red. Tired. But also sympathetic. I welcomed the warmth I saw there, the familiarity and the comfort. It was good to see her. ‘It's just Ronnie and me and my uncle. That's it. Everybody else is dead.'

She didn't know what to say to that. She reached out and placed her hand gently on my arm again. ‘I'm sorry,' she said. ‘I don't know if this woman was a relative or not. I just assumed, and that's my mistake. I know your family's been through a lot.'

‘Thanks.'

‘Whoever it was, relative or friend, just try to, you know, keep it a little on the cheery side for now. This isn't easy for your brother.' She nodded towards the door to Ronnie's room. ‘He's asleep now, but you can go on in.'

I didn't move. ‘This woman,' I asked, ‘what did she look like?'

The phone buzzed again, and this time Janie didn't even bother to look at it. ‘She was about fifty, maybe a little older. Thin. Dark hair.' She shrugged. ‘I really didn't pay too much attention since I was tending to your brother. Maybe she's a friend of the family?'

‘Maybe,' I said.

‘I do have to go now, Elizabeth,' she said. ‘Duty calls. But you're welcome to stay.' She waited a moment. ‘It was good to see you again.'

‘Yeah,'
I said. ‘It was. Thanks for being so understanding.'

‘It's part of the job,' she said. ‘And we're old friends, right?'

‘Right. Of course.'

I started to move on, but Janie said, ‘You know, if you ever need someone to talk to about all of this, I'm around. We can meet for coffee or something.'

‘Yeah,' I said. ‘Maybe we should.'

‘I'm sure you're busy, of course.'

‘Thanks, Janie.'

She walked off, the brisk motion of her legs making the fabric of her pants swish together.

I tried to picture the woman she described in my mind, but it was pointless. I had no idea who Janie was talking about.

I finally did move forward. I travelled the rest of the way down the hall to the closed door of Ronnie's room. I paused again, but immediately thought of what Mom would have wanted. And I knew she'd want me in that room, visiting Ronnie.

I pushed the door open and said, ‘Knock, knock.'

The curtains were drawn, and only a small light burned by the side of Ronnie's bed. As I came into the room, my feet lightly shuffling over the linoleum floor, Ronnie didn't move. He lay on his side, his back to the door. I stopped near the bed and studied him. For a long moment he lay so still I worried there was something wrong with him, and I waited, my anxiety rising along with my heartbeat, until I saw the slightest movement in his body. It rose and
fell, ever so slowly, as Ronnie breathed. He must have been deeply asleep thanks to whatever medication they had given him.

I felt the relief, let it ease through me.

Don't be silly,
I told myself.
He's fine. He's doped up, but he's fine.

I moved around to the far side of the bed, the side Ronnie faced. A functional wood-framed chair, its leather back a sickly orange colour, sat in the corner. I pulled it out, closer to Ronnie's bed, and sat down. Ronnie didn't move while I did these things. Air whistled through his nose, and a thin ribbon of drool hung from his lower lip. I looked at his bedside table. I pulled a tissue from the box and gently wiped the drool away. When I did, Ronnie stirred a little. He turned his head a couple of inches and scrunched his facial features into a mask of irritation.

I threw the tissue in the trash and said, ‘Ronnie? It's me. Elizabeth.'

He moaned and didn't open his eyes.

I leaned back in my chair, thinking of giving up, of just leaving him alone. But Janie's story had me thinking.

Who had come to talk to Ronnie? Was it someone who worked with him? Someone from speech therapy? But then why would he get so upset?

I leaned forward again, lowering my face closer to Ronnie's. His eyes were still closed. ‘Ronnie? Can you hear me? Can you talk to me for just a minute?'

He moaned again, but this time his eyes opened a little. ‘Mmph,' he said.

‘Good,' I said. ‘Can you tell me who came to see you today? Did someone come into your room and talk to you today?'

His
eyelids fluttered. He looked like a drunk losing the battle against unconsciousness.

‘Ronnie?' I said.

‘Mmph.'

‘Shit,' I said.

‘Paul.'

‘What?' I asked.

‘Paul,' he said.

‘Paul?' I said. ‘Paul was here?'

‘Mmph.'

‘Okay, I figured Paul came by. Did someone else come by? A woman? The nurse said a woman came by to talk to you. Do you remember that?'

‘Mmph.'

‘Ronnie, stay with me. Who was this woman who came to see you?'

A long pause. Then he said, ‘Elizabeth.'

‘Yes?'

‘Elizabeth.'

‘I'm here.'

He didn't say anything else, so I said, ‘Who came to see you today, Ronnie? Please?'

‘Elizabeth.'

‘I'm here, Ronnie. I'm right here. I wasn't here earlier. I was at school. But I came as soon as I could to see you.'

He seemed to be gone then. His eyes closed and his breathing returned to the rhythm of a sleeper. I let out a long sigh. I reached out and pushed the hair out of his face. I didn't know whether it brought him any comfort or not, but I wanted to do it. He looked so small and defenceless. I tried not to think of him as a child and to never
treat him as such, but seeing him there looking so vulnerable just made me want to protect him. And I was the younger sister, the baby. But he needed it much more than I did, at least in that moment.

‘Mmm,' he said.

I leaned closer. ‘What, Ronnie?'

‘Mom,' he said.

I thought that's what he'd just said, but I wasn't sure.

‘What about Mom?' I asked.

He took a long time to answer, but he finally said, ‘Mom … here …'

A shiver shot up my back with such force I raised my chin, tilting my head and retracting it into my shoulders. When it passed, and my jangling nerves lost some of their electric charge, I said to Ronnie, ‘Mom wasn't here.'

He didn't say anything.

‘Did you have a dream about Mom?' I asked. ‘Is that why you got upset today?'

‘Mom,' he said. ‘Here.'

‘Ronnie, no. Mom's gone. Remember? You found her. She's gone.'

But he didn't say anything else. Whatever had allowed him to come out of the drug-induced sleep closed him in its grip again – if he had even been truly awake in the first place. Maybe everything he said had been sleep-talk and nonsense.

But it wouldn't easily be forgotten.

I leaned back in the chair again. Not easily shaken off or forgotten at all.