“See, I remember when you went to one of Griffin’s concerts, back before you broke up, and you bopped around the living room humming the tunes and grinning until one-thirty.”
“I was twenty then. I’m forty now.” Older and wiser.
“I repeat. Bullshit. What’s wrong?”
Mothers. Sometimes there was no choice but to give in to their X-ray vision. “We kind of had a fight.”
“Like a little ‘give us some space overnight’ fight? Or an ‘I want to napalm your memory’ fight? Or in between?”
I could legitimately say, “In between,” because while I wasn’t going back and putting my heart into that bear trap ever again, I didn’t want to forget Griffin completely. I just wanted him in the safe friend zone where whatever happened to him was not my circus, not my monkeys, not my heart ripped out bleeding on the floor. “I’m tired. I’m gonna head to bed.”
“Good night, honey.” Mom set her hand on mine so I was sandwiched between her soft palm and Willow’s silky fur. “Hopefully it will all look better in the morning.”
I had my doubts, but all I wanted to do was hide under the covers. Or eat my way through a bag of Oreos and that would just get me guilt and black teeth. “Night, Mom.”
I climbed the stairs to my room, did a skimpy wash, and got into bed. Those comforting covers were too hot, then throwing them off was too cold. Something downstairs was ticking, and I didn’t know what and didn’t want to go look. I tossed and turned, running through the protocol for a ketoacidotic diabetic crisis to keep my brain from going painful places.Fluids, electrolytes, blood gasses, acid-base, insulin, osmolality, CBC…If I just kept moving through the protocol, there was no room for remembering the tears in Griffin’s eyes when I walked out the door.
I didn’t regret standing up for what mattered, couldn’t, but knowing I hurt him made me sick to my stomach, even if he hurt me first.
In the morning, I’d have to go in to work. At some point, unless I hid in my office, I’d run into Griffin in the halls or the lobby. Instead of meeting his warm gaze and holding back a smile I’d… I’d what? Turn and walk away? Pretend we were still friends? Kick his goddamned ass into calling his doctor for a new appointment? Because I’d bet he still wouldn’t do it.
He’d go to LA and he’d sing with his friends. He’d go to Black Rock and scream his lungs out, traumatize his throat, make the damned thing bleed and seed tumor cells into his lungs and for what? To be Griffin Marsh, rock star, and hear the crowd shouting his name? Those creative types were all the same. Give them an audience, fans, and they’d walk away from real life to make that so-special ceramic bowl and send it home like a cat delivering a dead rat. I could imagine Griffin dedicating a song to me, thinking that made up for something.
Nothing makes up for leaving.
Hours passed. I dozed sometimes, but when I did, I dreamed. Not of Griffin but of Alice. Of the days when everything was going bad and her specialists were too busy to return a call and nothing I tried was working. Of the end, when hospice was the only thing I could offer her and it was like cutting off my own arm, each time the doctor let me up her morphine CRI, each time the meds took her closer to that edge where there’d be no pain ever again.
Nightmares, too, of things that never happened. Of bleeding I couldn’t stop, or losing her in the halls of Wellhaven, searching frantically up and down the place for her hospital bed while Zhukov paced behind me, telling me the staff on duty were not allowed to help me. Snatches of dreams I didn’t remember, waking with an overwhelming grief that I couldn’t tell myself was “just a dream.”
Around five a.m. I gave up sleeping as a bad idea and rolled out of bed. I felt stiff and sore and older than my years. My jaw ached like I’d been grinding my teeth and my throat was dry and sore. Mouth-breathing, no doubt. If I’d been screaming, Mom would’ve come to check on me.
Arriving at work at six made the staff I passed in the halls give me curious looks. I waved and didn’t get into any conversations. Safely in my office, I dug into the messages from overnight. Any other day, I’d have silently screamed at the news that our main dialysis unit was busted. That meant figuring out appointments and transport for three residents to the local clinic that backed us up, and calling the service company to rake them over hot coals because their last fix lasted less than a month. This morning, yelling at someone would be highly therapeutic.
By the time I had my to-do list whittled down to a dozen notes, the morning was half done. So far, so good. I hadn’t thought about Griffin once. Well, not enough to distract me. A flash of loss, a moment of wishing things were different, didn’t count.
Kashira knocked on my door, then stuck her head in. “Noreen wanted you to look at a spot on Harvey’s hip. Probably just a little moist skin, but she’d like your opinion.”
“Can do.” I pushed up from my chair and lurched, clutching the desk. My foot tingled with returning circulation. I’d been focusing hard for hours, sitting crooked.Need to remember to get up and stretch more often.
“Are you okay?” Kashira asked. “Frankly, you look like crap.”
“Oh, thanks. You’re so good for my ego.”
“Well, if your ego kept you up all night, you need to have a stern talk with it.” She smiled. “Were you at Griffin’s havingfunafter his show? Is that why there’s bags under your eyes?”
“No!” I snapped. “I just didn’t sleep well.”
Kashira chuckled. “I bet. Sorry I missed the show, but we’ve had enough private concerts here at Wellhaven, I didn’t want to give up an evening with my niece and nephew. How’d it go?”
“Went fine. Raised a bunch of money.”
“Does Griffin look as much like roadkill as you do this morning?”
I frowned at her. “I haven’t seen him. You’re the one he checks in with.”
She eyed me, some of the humor going out of her expression. “He called in this morning, arranged to have the rest of the week off before leaving for his big concert. Said he needed more practice time. He’s put in so many hours, I didn’t see how that would hurt. Didn’t he tell you?”
“Griffin Marsh doesn’t ask me for permission for anything he does.”The opposite, in fact. Bastard doesn’t— didn’t— listen to a word I said.
