I Wish You Happy: A Novel Page 5

  A fierce loyalty to Kat swells up inside me, bracing my spine. “Maybe it was an accident. It’s all speculation, isn’t it? Until she wakes up and can tell us herself.”

  “Right,” he says, around a mouthful of roast beef. He pauses for a minute, chewing. “This is delicious. I had no idea. Is the cafeteria food always this good?”

  “I don’t eat here.”

  “I see that. You come here to play with the food. Maybe you could make a sculpture out of that.”

  My gaze travels to what I’m holding in my hands. The bread is flattened, mayonnaise oozing out and smearing onto the cellophane. A limp bit of lettuce is turning black around the edges. Another casualty of my life. A dead sandwich.

  It takes me longer than it should to see that he’s teasing. He doesn’t smile, but his eyes have shaded into laughter.

  “Here’s the concern,” he says. “Accidents aren’t always accidents. Say maybe she did really want to die. When she wakes up, what’s she going to do? It’s my job to evaluate the risk.”

  It’s also his job to send people off to a locked psychiatric ward. I’ve seen that happen, and it’s not pretty. Colville doesn’t have its own unit, and transport is done by a sheriff’s deputy. I try to picture Kat in handcuffs, being marched down the hall to a cop car and then locked up somewhere with a bunch of crazy people.

  The idea is ridiculous. She’s not going to be walking anywhere for a long time.

  “Pretty hard to kill yourself in an ICU unit,” I tell him.

  “It’s been done.” He sets down his fork and focuses his attention on me. His hands lie still on the table. His eyes are on mine. Every inch of him—body, mind, and soul—is listening to me. And every inch of me feels like it’s burning. I’ve never been the subject of anybody’s fully focused attention before, at least not like this.

  I gulp water from the bottle to cool the heat.

  “I don’t have anything to tell you. I was driving, and then there was a bicycle under my tires. Maybe the witnesses saw something. There was this one guy—”

  “Mason. Yeah, I talked to him. He claims she pedaled past you on purpose and turned right in front of your car. Definitely on purpose.”

  “He’s biased.”

  “How so?”

  “Tried it once himself and thinks everybody is walking around dreaming up ways to kill themselves. I’m not. I don’t, I mean. Do you?”

  “More people do than you’d like to think.”

  He says it with a dark twist of humor, but I recognize deflection when I see it. Like Bernie. All of the heat flows out of me, leaving me shivering again. I’m so utterly weary of games and deflections and parlor tricks.

  Maybe my sensors are still on overload, because I can’t read him. Gathering up all of my energy, I put my elbows on the table, rest my chin in my hands, and level a gaze on him that is as direct as I can make it. “You. Specifically. Do you walk around thinking about killing yourself?”

  I wait for him to evade, for his intensity to waver, for him to hide behind his own professional creds, like it’s a virtue or something. Counselors are good at using their licenses like armor. Bernie’s not my first go-round.

  He shifts in his chair. His right hand plays what looks like a short piano riff on the table. Here we go. What will it be?

  This isn’t about me.

  My personal experiences are irrelevant.

  His hand stills once more. “Once,” he says. “When I was sixteen. Once was enough.”

  My emotional response is a mixed bag of shock, curiosity, sympathy, sadness, and a small, shining light of joy that he has chosen to be a human being with me. I can’t tell him any of this. Can’t think of a single appropriate response. So we sit there, silent, with the cafeteria noise wafting out through the open doorway, the sun overhead, the soft breeze blowing, and the knowing that he, Cole, the DMHP, has played with death, while crazy, scattered, messed-up Rae has never even thought about it.

  After a long moment, Cole picks up his fork and pushes the food around his plate, not eating.

  “How’s the rat?”

  “What?” I blink, disoriented by the shift.

  “Last time I saw you, you had a baby rat. At work. Did he make it?”

  “Oscar.”

  “That’s right. Oscar. Perfect name for a rat.”

  “I was on my way to bury him when I . . . when Kat . . . when it happened.”

  The transformation on his face is like the shift from harsh daylight to dusk. A softening of all the edges, a gentleness that feels like a cool evening breeze on my hot forehead.

  “Rough day” is all he says, but it feels like maybe he understands. He doesn’t ask if I’m okay. Doesn’t do gushing fake sympathy or treat me like a five-year-old who has just lost a goldfish. This quiet acknowledgment of the difficulty of yesterday soothes something inside me I didn’t even know needed soothing.

  But then he ruins it all.

  “Her name is Katya Manares, by the way. She arrived at the bike hostel up Hotchkiss day before yesterday. There were a couple of other bikers there, who said she was quiet and polite but didn’t really talk to them. Yesterday, she left all of her belongings there—backpack, wallet, and this.”

  He reaches into a briefcase and pulls out a folded square of paper.

  The way my stomach responds to the tone of his voice and that piece of paper, it’s a good thing I never got around to eating.

  My universe narrows down to the paper and his hands. They are nice hands, sun browned, strong without being meaty ham fists. Hands that might play the piano or craft jewelry. There’s a small gold ring on his baby finger and no white line where a wedding ring would be. He holds the paper delicately at the edges, unfolding it one square at a time and smoothing it on the table. Notebook paper. College ruled. He turns it so I can see.

  The words blur in and out of focus, and I realize I’m crying again.

  Cole passes me a napkin, and I blot my eyes and blink the tears away.

  The note is written in blue ink. Cursive. Neat and flowing, totally unlike my own wild scrawl.

  Tom,

  None of this is your fault. I’m so terribly sorry, but I just can’t do it anymore. I can’t try again. I don’t know how to be happy or to make you happy. You’re better off without me.

  Live and be well.

  Love, Kat

  There’s no denial I can make in the face of this kind of evidence. My fingers feel numb as I refold the paper, hiding the words I don’t want to see. Cole says nothing, waiting for me to process. When I slide the note back across the table to him and my eyes finally rise to meet his, I can’t read his expression at all.

  “I wanted it to be an accident,” I whisper.

  “I know. But you can’t wish somebody happy, Rae.”

  I can, I want to tell him. I do. Every day. Not that it works, as far as I can tell. But it’s something, the only response I can make to the heartbreak and suffering floating around in the emotional atmosphere.

  “I haven’t talked to her yet,” he says. “So I don’t know. But in case we need to send her somewhere to keep her safe, I need you to help me make a case. Just write up your impression of what happened that day. Not right now. You can give it to me later. It’s the best thing you can do to help her.”

  Personally, I can’t imagine how being locked up somewhere is going to help any suicidal person feel like life is worth living, but I find myself nodding in agreement.

  Cole pushes back his chair. He hasn’t eaten half of what is on his tray. Maybe talk of suicide kills his appetite, too, even if he does deal in it for a living. I’m busy slamming all of my inner doors on him and feeling manipulated. That honesty thing was just a trick to gain my cooperation.

  But then he pauses in the act of getting to his feet and asks, “So where did you bury him? Oscar?”

  I swallow the golf ball that appears in my gullet and shrug, aiming for a light response. “He was disposed of by a helpful cop. Whatever that mean
s.”

  Tears again. I’m starting to hate them, but they have a will of their own, and what I want has nothing to do with their behavior. I smear at them with the back of my hand, waiting for some sort of condescending platitude to emerge from Cole’s lips.

  “Oh shit,” he says. “That sucks big-time. Hey, maybe a memorial service is in order.”

  Now I think he’s the one that’s crazy. Either that or he’s mocking me.

  “I’ve got this,” he says. “You have plans for Saturday night?”

  Those are date words, and I stare up at him in confusion and suspicion, so many other emotions swirling around inside me that I can’t begin to name them. He doesn’t look like he’s joking.

  “I’ll get some people together, and we’ll commemorate.”

  “Like, in a church?”

  He grins. “I was thinking marshmallows and beer. It will be good. You’ll see. Call me when you’ve got your statement written, and we’ll confirm details.”

  A business card drops on the table in front of me, and he walks away.

  I watch him until he’s gone, and then my eyes drop to the beige rectangle on the table. Just a business card, and not even a personal one. There’s the counseling center logo on the left-hand side. The name: Cole Evans. Even the phone number isn’t really his. If I dial it right now I’ll get an answering machine at best, at worst a cool and efficient front-desk receptionist.

  It’s not like he’s scrawled his phone number on the back of a napkin and tucked it into my hands with a meaningful leer. He’s not asking me out on a date, just being ridiculously understanding about how I feel about losing Oscar. But then, he’s a mental health counselor, and they’re weird that way. Getting back to him about Kat would be the right thing to do. Still, when I get up to toss my mangled sandwich into the trash, I leave the card lying where he left it.

  Chapter Five

  I take a wide detour on my way in to work, following Highway 395 to Kettle Falls and then up toward Marcus. Another turn onto a little-used gravel road takes me to my wishing place.

  Parking the car in a pullout, I skitter down a steep bank, holding on to trees and branches for balance, ending up on a small, gravelly beach.

  Nobody ever comes here, at least not that I’ve ever seen, and I think of this place as mine.

  Amid the gravel here I can always find stones that are small, flat, and perfect for skipping. There’s a touch of magic, to my mind, because no matter how many stones I throw, the next time I come back there are more, and I’m sure they are new and different. I’m too old to believe in a stone fairy replenishing the supply each night, but I still watch for her out of the corners of my eyes, just on the off chance there’s a better reality than the one I’ve been forced to accept.

  Some days, when I have all the time in the world, I’ll take hours selecting the perfect stone for my purpose, but today I don’t have that luxury. A gray oval will do for starters. Nothing fancy required.

  Standing at the edge of the beach with my toes not quite touching the water, I close my eyes and fill my body with the smell of river and trees and sunshine. Only when I feel like I am partly made up of river, stone, and sunlight, do I summon the image of Mason as I last saw him, more than a little drunk, hair disheveled, the pain naked in his eyes. Letting down the barriers a little more, I let my memory of his emotions flow through my own body.

  Shame and failure, a hollowness in my belly.

  Loss, an empty dullness in my chest.

  Anxiety, a clammy dampness in my palms, a tightness when I take a breath.

  I open my eyes on bright sun and sparkling water, superimposing the river world over the image I’ve built of Mason’s pain.

  “I wish you happy,” I whisper, then send my stone skimming out over the water with my wish. It skips one, two, three times before sinking. As the ripples fade, I draw another deep breath, then release Mason from my consciousness.

  Kat’s stone needs to skip far and light, and I take my time, despite the uneasy pressure of work and the probability I’ll show up late. I walk the entire beach, end to end, twice over without success, until I finally see the stone I want, submerged in water at the river’s edge. I close my fingers around it, hefting its weight, checking the balance. It shines in the sunlight, black and lustrous.

  The stone feels right, but when I open myself to my memories of Kat, it’s all too much. Her pain is bigger than I am, and even the perfect stone is inadequate to carry the weight of my wish.

  Keeping my eyes closed, I peel off my shoes and socks and stand on the sun-heated gravel, anchoring myself in the pain of each sharp fragment burning into the soles of my feet. Breathing in the sound of flowing water, the faint kiss of a breeze, I open myself wider, reaching for the essence of what makes up Kat.

  And again, she is too much for me. When I bump up against the image of her eyes as she lay crumpled on the pavement, darkness blots out my web of connection to river and earth and sky, threatens to blot out me.

  Gasping, I open my eyes, reorienting myself to the river world while retaining what I can of Kat. Knowing it won’t be enough, I shout, as if volume will help me, “I wish you happy!” and loose the stone.

  It slips from my fingers in the instant of release, and I know my throw has gone wrong. Still, I hold my breath as it strikes the surface of the sparkling water, waiting, hoping, but my wishing stone sinks like any ordinary rock. The breeze picks up, blowing my hair into my eyes, ruffling the surface of the water and turning it from blue to gray. I glance up at the sky, thinking a cloud must have drifted across the sun, but there is not a cloud to be seen.

  Shivering a little in what is now a brisk wind blowing in straight off the river, I shove my damp, gritty feet back into my shoes and scramble up the bank to my car. When I turn the ignition and the clock comes on, I can see that I’m already late, but still I sit there, getting a handle on what has just happened.

  The last time I missed a throw, Jenny’s dog was sick and maybe about to die. Nothing horrible happened, I remind myself. The dog recovered. Jenny got a kitten for good measure. My wishing game is nothing but a childish superstition, something I do to make myself feel better, and in my head I know this.

  Still, I’m shaken.

  “Not my problem,” I tell myself, out loud. “Not my circus, not my monkeys.”

  Even as I say it, I know these words are a big, fat lie. Kat and I have been tied together from the moment her eyes met mine through the window of my car, the bond deepened during the time I tried to hold her away from death. We are blood sisters now, and there’s no point fighting the inevitable.

  By the time I run down the hall into the office, I’m more than a little late. Corinne has already changed into her civvies, her purse waiting on the desk beside her, ready to roll. Her fingers fly over the screen of her cell phone, texting with an enthusiasm that I’m pretty sure is born of annoyance.

  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” I slide into a chair and give her my best apologetic smile.

  She flies up out of her seat, flings her arms around me, and envelops me in a hug that smooshes my face into pillowy breasts. When I try to breathe, one of the frills of her silky blouse sucks up against my nostrils, blocking airflow.

  I flail with my arms, trying to find purchase somewhere to push her back, my hands sinking into the softness of her belly. She hugs me tighter, and I start to panic and laugh at the same time, picturing suffocation in her sympathetic bosom.

  But she releases me before my air hunger grows dire, and steps back to look at me, keeping her hands on my shoulders. I luxuriate in breathing, welcoming in even the dubious odors of nursing home life, mingled with the perfume-scented sweat emanating from Cor.

  “You’re okay!” she says, as if I’ve been to the moon and back in a damaged spaceship. “You’re never late. I was worried. I’m so sorry I couldn’t work tonight. I’d have done a double again, only I’m watching the grandbabies tonight, and they don’t have another sitter. I
s it true, what happened?”

  She steps back, keeping her hands on my shoulders. “Are you sure you’re all right? You look shell-shocked. Like one of those refugees on TV.”

  “Finger-in-the-Light-Socket Barbie. Thank you so very much.” I feel like that invisible camera is watching me again, feeding footage out to a critical audience.

  Rae, shaken and unsettled, returns to her natural habitat. The struggles of the past twenty-four hours are clear in the bags beneath her eyes, the windblown hair. Is it a trick of the light, or are those nursing scrubs looser than usual? If she grows much thinner, she may fade away altogether.

  Corinne makes a clucking sound with her tongue. “Don’t be silly. You’re beautiful, like always. Just—here, let me fix you.” She proceeds to gather up my hair and smooth it into a braid, talking all the while.

  “I just can’t believe it. So sudden. So unexpected. Don’t you worry, I’ve told the rest of the staff all about everything. You won’t have to do a thing.”

  “I won’t?”

  “Just this once, let us take care of things for you. I’m in charge of food. Tia will handle the service. Does Saturday evening work for you? It’s good for the rest of us. Don is working, but we wouldn’t want him to come anyway, so that’s perfect.”

  Cor unearths a hair tie from her pocket and secures my braid, then straightens my scrub top and removes a smudge from my cheek with her thumb.

  I blink at her. “Wait—what are we talking about, exactly?”

  “The memorial service, honey. You need some closure, and we are all here for you.”

  “But she’s not dead,” I say, as the panic threatens to knock me off my feet. Maybe Kat took a turn for the worse but nobody called. Maybe nobody wanted to tell me. My heart drops like a stone. “Oh my God. Did she die? Did I kill her?”

  It’s Corinne’s turn to stare, her mouth open but no words coming out, a highly unusual state of affairs. “Kill who? Oh, you mean that woman,” she says, as if this thought had never occurred to her. “No, of course not. Or at least I haven’t heard anything. I’m talking about Oscar. We’re all so sad. We had a part in his life; he spent so much time here with us when he was tiny.”