Chapter Nineteen
David stood outside the door of Evelyn’s apartment and for a moment debated using his old key.
He still had it. It sat inside his pocket, hanging beside the keys for his house, and to his flatbed truck, and to the dock where he kept his small boat locked up for the occasional fishing excursion.
He supposed that after two years, there was no need to be carrying it around all the time.
Most likely, Evelyn had changed the locks.
He rang the doorbell instead.
“You made it,” Evelyn said, opening the door.
She did not look well. She was wearing a robe over mismatched pajamas, which she had paired with a migraine relief hat—a compression device made of felt and ice that went over the entire head and eyes to relieve migraines.
In one hand, she held a half-eaten orange.
In the other was a bottle of ice water. On her feet were two lambskin slippers with hard soles.
“I made it,” David said, and then held up the tiny bag of medical items he had collected from CBS7-T studios on his way there. “And I brought supplies.”
Evelyn waved him inside, and he crossed the threshold. It was like walking into a time capsule. David had been gone for two years, but very little had changed.
The old green couch they had inherited from his parents after their wedding still sat pushed up against the wall in the living room.
Across from the couch was the small dining room table they had purchased together at Habitat for Humanity when they were a young couple, just starting out.
The only thing strange about the whole setup was that the vase his sister had once purchased for them as an engagement present was now sitting on the floor.
But otherwise, it felt like coming home.
Almost.
He put his items on the end table and took his coat off, hanging it up in the front closet by the door.
Picking up the vase, he placed it back on the end table where it belonged.
Then his eyes landed on Evelyn. She was sitting on the couch, the lights in the living room dimmed, her head in her hands.
“You have a migraine?” he asked.
She pulled the migraine hat up so that only one eye was visible. “What do you think?”
“Right.”
She always got moody when she was in pain.
Still, he moved through the motions, his marriage muscle memory assessing the situation, her health. He checked the refrigerator for food and water—and was not surprised to find it nearly empty. His eyes landed on the small bar, where a half-drunk martini sat waiting.
“Have you been drinking?” he asked curiously.
“I might have had one.”
“One?”
“Fine!” she snapped back at him. “Two. But I’m not drunk—”
He put his hands up to stop her. “It’s not an accusation, okay? I’m just trying to ascertain the situation.”
It seemed to do the trick. She relaxed, folding back into her hands.
“This is the worst thing that could ever happen to me, David,” she said, shaking her head. “On the heels of the biggest production of my life, with Jared Sparks about to arrive to set . . . I get the flu.”
David grabbed his bag and kneeled in front of her. “We don’t know that yet, okay?”
“I know it,” she said, growing more agitated.
He went to pull out his rapid influenza A/B test. “Let’s make sure.”
He washed his hands. Tilting her head back, gently, at seventy degrees, he inserted the swab into one nostril, rotating it several times against her nasal cavity, before repeating the step in the other nostril. Finally, her fluids collected, he ran the test.
“How long will it take?” she said, just as he set the timer on his phone.
“Fifteen minutes.”
“You can’t . . . make it go any faster?”
“Unfortunately, no.”
She did not seem pleased. “Well, what are we supposed to do while we wait?”
David considered the question. “You were saying something about hallucinations?”
“Ghosts,” she corrected him.
“Ghosts?” he repeated, growing concerned.
“I thought I saw . . .” She shook her head, looking away from him. “It’s nothing.”
In truth, David didn’t think that Evelyn had the flu.
She wasn’t coughing. She wasn’t clammy. Her temperature was slightly elevated, but that could have been for a number of reasons, including exhaustion.
But since her run-in with the piano, Evelyn had displayed a worrying progression of symptoms. It wasn’t just headaches, but dizzy spells and fainting.
Now her incoherent rambling on the phone was suggesting that she was experiencing delusions.
If he were dealing with anybody but Evelyn, he would demand they go to the hospital.
Instead, he did his best to be gentle in his approach, understand her concerns, take into account what she had riding on the line.
One could lead a horse to water, after all .
. . but no one could make a stubborn-ass mule like Evelyn drink.
“Evelyn—”
“I’m fine, David. Really. It’s just this project, you know? It’s just—” Her eyes met his directly. “Everything.”
He assumed that by “everything” she also meant him.
“Evelyn,” he said firmly, redirecting the conversation on to less controversial matters. “I need you to tell me the truth. I need you to tell me if you’re experiencing something . . . beyond the pale of normal. I can’t help you if you don’t open up to me.”
Her gaze latched on to his from beneath the migraine relief cap.
He could see she was debating it, hesitating.
Until finally, she simply brushed all his concern as a medical professional away.
“It’s nothing. I had a weird dream, and I got confused.
Isn’t it normal to have . . . weird dreams when you’re sick? ”
She had a point. Still, he couldn’t help but get the feeling she was deflecting.
“Well,” he said, rising from his spot. “Since you seem to be absolutely positive that you have the flu, then you’d better get into bed.”
“I’m not ready to go to bed.”
“It’s past midnight.”
“But I have work to do!” she said, fighting him on it. “I spent all night reblocking the choreography, which meant I never got a chance to triple-check that all the contract stipulations for Jared were fulfilled. Just let me send one more email to—”
David cut her off again. “You need to sleep. You’re exhausted. You’ve been working nonstop, and if you’re not sick already . . . you’re going to be.”
“But . . . but I have a migraine.” She was looking for excuses. “I can never just go to sleep with a migraine.”
“Then take your migraine medication.”
He went to her pocketbook to get it.
“I can’t,” she said, waving away his offer. “I need to ration.”
“Ration?” He scoffed and put her medicine away.
“See, the thing is . . . I only have four pills left, and I need them in case I get sick the day of production.”
David had heard enough. “Why is it so hard for you to stop!”
Evelyn fell silent. The truth spoken. A charged quiet filled the room, because he still cared about her. He was there, in their house, because he still cared about her.
“Fine!” she said, rising from the couch like a petulant child, her migraine hat sliding off and onto the floor. “Fine! You win! I’ll get into bed . . . But only because I’m already dying of the flu, and my life is officially over, so thank you very much for doing absolutely nothing, David!”
He couldn’t help but laugh through his annoyance.
Evelyn stormed off to the bedroom. David picked up her migraine hat, now fully slushy from having melted, and followed her down the hall.
Like the living room, the master bedroom had remained unchanged.
The king-size bed they’d once shared still took up the bulk of the place.
The comforter was still the purple-and-gray plaid print they had decided on together .
. . though, not surprising, she had removed their wedding photo from the nightstand.
He found it in the drawer while she was brushing her teeth.
Evelyn returned. David lifted the cover and nodded to the spot where she had always slept. Begrudgingly, huffing like a temperamental child the entire time, she crawled into bed. David couldn’t help but notice that she was still wearing her shoes. He went to grab a foot.
“What are you doing?” she asked, sitting back up.
“I’m taking off your slippers.”
“Why?” She glared at him as if he were some sort of shoe-stealing pervert.
“Because,” he said, still holding one foot, “most people sleep in beds without their slippers on. Unless you’re planning to go somewhere in the middle of the night?
I don’t want you to have to spend a whole extra ten seconds putting your shoes on when you could have just as easily spent those ten seconds devoted to work. ”
“Oh,” she said, falling back onto her mattress. “Aren’t we a know-it-all?”
“You are really something else, you know that?”
“Ah, yes . . . but last I checked, you married me.”
“Married and divorced you.”
He couldn’t help but point it out.
She sat up in bed halfway and deadpanned her response. “Ouch.”
“You know what?” he said, tossing one slipper on the floor but leaving the other on her foot. “You can take off your shoes yourself.”
“Thank you!”
He was losing his patience. “I’m not the enemy here, Evelyn.”
“Ha!” She laughed at his words. “You will always be the enemy.”
“Seriously?” David spun back at her. “Why are you being like this? I’m here, aren’t I? You called me, and I came over . . . so cut me some slack, okay?”
“You’re here now, David.” Evelyn spat out the words, fast and furious. “You’re here now.”
The words lingered in the air like an accusation.
“Say it then . . .” he said, meeting her eyes directly. “Say her name. Tell me how I failed you both.”
He waited for her to lob another attack—to say something, anything—but she couldn’t do it.
She could never do it. Evelyn—his battle ram, his axe—she dulled when anything hard struck her.
He didn’t know where to step next, and so he simply sat down on her bed.
On the edge, as far down as possible, until he felt a lump. “What the—”