Chapter 8 #2
“Well first of all, please shut up, because I love you. Second of all, who says he has to be in his right mind? The right one will love you for exactly who you are—including all your dark and twisty bits. Maybe even more so because of them.”
She’s not wrong, I think.
“And you’re not alone,” Bea adds. “You have me.”
“I know I do,” I say, and the words come out hoarse.
I breathe out a sigh and take a long sip of wine.
I follow Bea’s gaze out to the tree line, and the sunset descends below the horizon.
My thoughts flit to Zayn. Unknowingly, Bea had just gestured directly to his childhood home.
Again, Zayn’s handsome face drifts to the forefront of my mind.
My mind indulges an image of him as “the one.” His dimples and bright white teeth shining as he folds me into his arms. I shake my head back and forth, dispelling the image.
I consider telling Bea about him and the stunt he pulled in my office earlier in the week.
But the thought fades away quickly as I imagine all of the questions she would undoubtedly have for me.
Questions I didn’t yet know how to answer.
Like why I couldn’t get the chiseled angle of his jaw, or the way his sea blue eyes sparkled out of my head.
Idly, I wonder when Zayn moved out of the Bronwin Home, and if anyone still lived there anymore.
Only knowing of Zayn, but never really knowing him well, it was hard to imagine where he went in life.
Had he gone to college? Escaped Greenwood the very first chance he’d had?
Had he stayed here in town? If I recalled correctly, his father, Mr. Bronwin, had served in Vietnam.
A war vet. I wonder if Zayn had chosen a similar path.
I remember an old, twisting pathway that led from the house into the woods and through the little clearing there.
The path stretched all the way to the ancient Bonn’s Ruins, and directly to the Bronwin family home.
Though, I’m sure the path must be all grown over by now.
Mr. Bronwin had died some years ago; I remember my father telling me.
And to my knowledge, there had never been a replacement groundskeeper for the property hired.
I make a mental note to look through more of Dad’s records tonight after Bea leaves.
Bea gives a little shiver beside me as the sky begins to darken.
“Let’s head inside,” I suggest.
I follow Bea across the porch and into Pearson House, shivering now myself.
My phone pulses steadily and I dig it out of my back pocket.
Fuck. My therapist. Again. I ignore the call, sending it to voicemail as I lock the French doors behind me.
A minute later, my phone pings with a new voicemail.
Surreptitiously, I raise the cell to my ear to listen to it.
“Hi, Katherine. It’s Dr. Goldman again. Just trying to get ahold of you.
Look, you’ve no showed for our last two sessions, and I’m guessing that means you no longer want to proceed with therapy.
That’s fine, but I do hope you are still taking your medication as prescribed…
” I quickly end the voicemail as Bea whips around to face me.
“More wine?” she asks with a sweet smile.
I force a smile onto my face and nod yes.
I am such a shitty patient. I would terminate treatment with me, too. Jesus Christ.
____________________
An hour later, I watch Bea’s shiny white SUV pull out of the long drive. I wave to her, and she honks her horn once as a farewell.
Once she’s gone, I close and lock the door, heading to the primary bedroom. I am sure there must be record of payment for a groundskeeper around here somewhere. The rosebushes are looking too perfectly manicured to have been left to fend for themselves.
I open up his handwritten ledgers and don’t find any checks issued that I haven’t already pored over. Nothing to any landscaping companies or with the name Bronwin on it at all.
I rotate slowly in dad’s leather desk chair.
It still smells of his cigars and scotch in here.
I remember that Dad had kept a stash of personal items, as well as some family photos in an old legal box in the walk-in closet of the primary bedroom.
I close the door to his office with a gentle snick and pad down the hallway towards his room. My room now.
I flip the light switch to the closet and walk in.
Balancing on tip toe, I reach for one of several large brown legal boxes shoved behind a linen storage bag.
I drag it down, and sneeze from the thin layer of dust that covers the box.
Making myself at home there in the dead center of the closet, I take a seat cross legged.
I exhale slowly and pop open the lid of the box.
Bundy slinks in and gently bonks his velvety head against my elbow.
I scratch his ears and chin, eliciting a deep rumble of purrs. He curls up into himself beside me on the floor, making a perfect black circle, and he doesn’t leave my side.
I spend an hour or so going through album after album.
Pictures of our family, back when we were whole, meet my eyes and I am flooded with memories.
Rachael and I splashing with our feet in the river.
Dad with a cigar in his mouth, and his hands on a fly-fishing rod.
Fourth of July dinner spread out on the old oak dining table, complete with red, white, and blue sprinkled cupcakes that Rae and I had baked together.
Fuck, I miss him.
I allow a few tears to fall as I revisit all of our childhood summers here in Greenwood. My fingernails scrape the bottom of the box, and I think I’ve reached the end of the pictures. But then my fingers graze over what feels like something else.
I pull a large manila envelope out and drop it onto my lap.
More pictures? I think, ripping open the black wax seal on the envelope with my finger.
A tiny paper cut splits the flesh along my pointer finger, and a single drop of blood drips onto the envelope.
The smallest crimson spot. I pop my finger into my mouth and suck until the coppery taste dissipates.
Returning to the envelope, I briefly think of my father’s bronze antique letter opener that is currently sitting on my office desk in town.
A single piece of paper resides within the envelope, folded crisply into thirds.
My brows furrow as I recognize the Washington state crest. Under the crest is a header for Pierce County Public Health.
Listed under that is Dad’s name, identifying information, and the address of Pearson House.
Scanning quickly, my eyes move down the page.
Lachlan Pearson, age sixty-seven… suddenly, words like “evidence,” “screens,” and “lab results” jump out at me.
Then it dawns on me what I’m looking at: This is a toxicology report.
My eyes fly down the page, stumbling over unfamiliar medication names like gemcitabine, nab-paclitaxel, 5-fluorouracil (5-FU), and irinotecan. What were these? They weren’t psychotropics. Moving my index finger down the list of substances, I see morphine.
Fucking morphine? Now that one I know.
Flipping the page over, I look for more on the back, but it’s blank. I frown as I turn the envelope upside down and shake it, checking to see if anything else is there.
A small, ripped piece of paper flutters to the ground. Across the scrap of paper is a name scrawled in black ink: the letters in minute, perfectly formed, tidy caps.
The handwriting isn’t my father’s. His had been a slanting and distinct, looped cursive. Elegant and distinguished, just like him.
Wordlessly, I mouth the name written there. Dr. S. Wagner, MD.
What in the fuck?