THE GHOST IN THE BED

I am unaware of my surroundings, of the weather, of the people and dangerously unaware of the traffic as a blast of a bus air horn finally snaps me to.  I wave thanks, ignoring his angry gesture and continue my journey of self-loathing.

What the hell was I thinking of?

Obviously you weren't thinking, Lockhart.  If you were thinking you'd have set the alarm to get Kim upstairs.  If you were really thinking you'd have locked your bloody door.  If you'd been thinking at all you'd have locked it four weeks ago when this started.

What the hell was I thinking of?

I find myself at an El station.  I'm not sure which one.  It has the vague familiarity of the other side, one I pass on the way to work and look out the train window at the people waiting to get on, waiting to meet someone, waiting to steel themselves to throw themselves in front of the next train because this just wasn't the one.

What the hell am I thinking?

When it was bad, when I had made the decision to stop drinking but the reality of it became too much, I'd come to the El station and sit on the bench.  When it was really bad I'd try to figure out the perfect time to do it.  Too soon and the train might stop in time.  Too late and it would already be braking and going too slow.  Too many people and someone would stop me.  Too few and they'd have to deal with it without the buffer of a crowd.  The crowd now is post rush hour, families heading downtown.

What is Kerry thinking?

Shock but not surprise in her expression.    Kim was right.  Kerry would forgive Kim.  Hell, she'd probably pre-forgiven her as soon as the possibility occurred to her.  And I didn't doubt that it had occurred to her.  Kerry is good at seeing the possibilities, especially the bad ones.

I wonder if she'll forgive me.

I wonder if I'll forgive me.

Yes.  No.  Damn.

I find myself patting down my jacket looking for a forgotten cigarette but all I come up with is a half dead lighter.  I play with that a little until I nearly set my hand on fire and I notice that mothers are pushing their children away from the strange lady on the bench.

Now I’m scaring children.

I stick the lighter back into my jacket.  The train arrives and I get it, heading downtown toward the hospital.  It's a rare day of no classes and no work and I'm going to a fucking hospital where probably everyone I absolutely do not want to see is likely to be.  The train pulls in and I grab a seat in the front car.

What is Kim thinking?

Pretty obvious.  She's not.

What was I thinking?

That I could handle it.

Handle what?

Being in love with my best friend?  Or being half in love with my best friend’s wife?

Oh fuck, I think, burying my face into my hands and closing my eyes and it still being too bright behind my eyes.

Ladies and gentlemen, we present Abigail Lockhart, giving new meaning to the phrase bi-polar.

The train has already stopped and the passengers have started to load when I realize that I’m at the hospital station.  I slip against the flow of people and through the doors earning several dark looks that I ignore.  As I exit the station I find my hands again searching through my jacket.  It’s technically a man’s jacket so I’m always rediscovering small pockets in it.  And in the bottom of one, the one Carter told me was for the opera tickets the one time I wore his tux jacket, I hit pay dirt.  One terribly stale bent and crushed cigarette.

We’ll wonder about why leather jackets have pockets for opera tickets later.

I manage to get the cigarette to my mouth and my lighter lit and am just about to take the first drag since…

Fuck, since I moved in to their house.  Into the basement anyway.  Kerry hadn’t said anything, just looked at the cigarette in my hand when she opened the door.  Kim hadn’t said anything.  They didn’t have to.  I’m going to be a damn baby doctor.  I knew what they did to me and I knew what they do to kids and I’d made some mumbly remark about enjoying a last one and stamped it out.

I pause long enough to notice a homeless man making eyes at the cigarette.  I sigh and hand them over.  I’ve already fallen off the wagon on one vice.  I’m not about to fall off two.  Or three.

I push the automatic doors open with more force than necessary and look around the ER.  There’s a crowd in chairs and all the exam areas seem to be in use.  A quiet day, no yelling or shooting or screaming.  I spot a flash of red and duck into the lounge before she can see me.  I hope.

I pour myself a cup of cold coffee and try to relax but it’s fairly futile because I hear the door open and close behind me and the slight tap of hard rubber on tile and then the sharp click of the lock.  I’m glad it’s day old coffee because it’s sloshing over my wrist.

I turn and she’s impossibly close and I realize that my entire body is trembling, not just my hands.  I take a step back, banging up against the table and causing a small rumble as mugs clatter against each other.  But she stops and looks at me closely.

I wish I could read her expression.

“I…”  The trembling has obviously spread to my mouth.  She reaches out with her free hand and captures my wrist as if taking my pulse.  A slight pressure and I find myself moving and sitting on the couch with her perched on the rickety coffee table.  “I…”

“It’s all right,” she says firmly.

“Kerry,…”

“Nothing has changed.”

I stare at her and wonder if she’s been helping herself to the sample box in the drug lock up.  Something like that must have shown in my expression because she smiles slightly.

“Nothing has changed, Abby.”

“I didn’t mean for any…”

This time she interrupts me by placing her fingers across my lips.  I dutifully shut the hell up.

“Are you okay?” she asks.  I nod.

“Is she okay?” she asks and I helplessly shake my head and shrug.  She removes her fingers.

“I got angry and left.  I don’t know how she is.”

Kerry nods, face thoughtful.  I’ve seen the look in the trauma room.  Calculating.  Planning.  Visualizing a treatment or procedure versus a different one to see which outcome she likes the look of.

“I’ll leave,” I hear myself say and we both know I don’t mean the lounge.  I bow my head.

“No.”  It’s said sharply and firmly and reflexively, without thought or planning.  “You will…” she sighs and shakes her head.  “Please stay.  I can’t make you but please stay.”

“Why?”

“Kim doesn’t handle loss well,” Kerry says patiently with the understatement of the fucking century.  “She needs you to keep pushing her past this because I can’t.”

If I stay I might lose all three of us.  I wonder what she’d think of that little truism.  That if I stay there’s a really good chance I’m going to hurt someone I love.  And then I can’t avoid her gaze any longer because she’s cupping my face in her hands.

“And I know that you’re never intentionally hurt her,” she continues.  “I know that whatever did or didn’t happen last night or any other night wasn’t intended to hurt anyone.  How can *I* deny *her* comfort?  Or oblivion?  Even if she doesn’t seek it from me?”

“This is the weirdest fucking conversation I have ever had,” I tell Kerry solemnly. 

“Very likely,” she replies, just as solemn and then she smiles.

“I’m not the best person for this.”

“Maybe.  But you’re the only person.  You going to hang around?”

I close my eyes, enjoying the warmth of her touch and when I open them I see that the warmth is in her eyes too.

“As long as I can, Kerry.”

She nods, hands slowly leaving my face and I resist the urge to duck down to maintain the contact.  She stands and moves to the door, pausing with her hand on the lock.  She’s stooped over her crutch, letting it bear more of her weight than usual and I see how tired she is.  Weary.

“At the house, this morning.  You didn’t see me.”

“What?”

“I got paged in early.  I left through the back door so that I wouldn’t wake Kim on the couch.”

Oh God.

“You didn’t see me,” she repeats and I nod.

“Go back to bed, Abby, you look like hell.”

She unlocks the door and from somewhere draws on some strength that I can only imagine.  Her body straightens and the piece of metal in her hand changes from a support to a mere balance.

“Thank you,” she says and then she’s gone.

I stand and begin the trip home.  It’s an exact reverse of the trip downtown with me in a black fog and children being steered to seats far away from me.

Wonderful.

I let myself in the basement entrance, not making any effort to be quiet.

She’s still in my bed, sprawled out on her side with the covers around her waist and her t-shirt up around her ribs.  There’s a small pile of clothes beside the bed that she’s stripped off while I was out.  I can see her left hand from here, the ringless fingers clenching the bottom sheet in her sleep.

Kerry wears a wedding band.  Plain reddish gold, simple and elegant and easy to clean the blood off Kim had informed me.  That was the main criteria for her, a ring that Kerry wouldn’t have an excuse not to wear.

She moans in her sleep, hands moving to her stomach as if to protect something that’s no longer there.  It’s a dream I’ve seen a dozen times.  It wakes me in the wee hours and I hold her until she wakes and then she goes upstairs to the couch or their bed.  Last night was the first night she hadn’t dreamed it with me.

I kick off my boots and let my jacket slide to the floor, watching her.  She whispers Kerry’s name, hands tightening into her flesh.  I shuck off my jeans and crawl onto the bed.

“No,” she hisses in her sleep and I know that soon the fingernails will cause enough pain that she’ll awaken.  I slide my fingers into hers and slowly ease them up.  She whimpers Kerry’s name again.

“She loves you,” I tell her, stretched out beside her.  I have her hands over her head.

“It hurts.”

I don’t honestly know if she’s awake or asleep.  If she thinks that I’m a phantom or real or if I’m Kerry or me or some other nameless ghost.  I hold her hands in one of mine and trace her jaw with the other.

“I know it hurts,” I whisper.

“Make it stop,” she whimpers, like a child.

“I can’t.  It has to go away on it’s own.”

“Make it stop.  Please, make it stop.”

Jaw.  Neck.  Collar bone.  Slope of her breast.  Dip of her waist.  Line of her hip.

“Abs, please," and I know she's awake.

"Like I did last night?"

Her eyes open and find mine.  "Oh."

"You really don't remember?"  I can feel her pulse race where I'm holding her wrists so I keep my tone light.

"No.  I was --"

"Drunk?  Three sheets to the wind?  Blotto."

"Really stupid."

"Gotta agree with you there, Stretch.  And it's a shame because I was really good."

She smiles in spite of herself.  "And me?"

"Adequate."

"Ah," she says.  "I was way out of line this morning."

"I must say that 'did anything happen' is pretty much the worse thing you can say to someone the next morning."

"I'm sorry."

"Its okay.  I've been there.  Done that.  I was pretty stupid last night.  I didn't let myself see how far gone you were."

"And now?"

We're already damned.  And forgiven.  I shake my head trying to clear the confusion.

“I remember you made it stop,” she says as my resolve, again, fails.

My hand slides into her, no resistance as she arches up to meet me.  I pull back and adjust my hand so that when she arches up again I fill her.  One of us moans and then the other and then I’m loosing track of which one of us is which. 

My head drops to her shoulder as I concentrate on me and on her and on this and again comes the realization of why I never allowed myself to do this while sober because it's more addictive than any alcohol.

I force myself upright, pinning her near leg under mine and slowing everything down.

“Open your eyes,” I tell her.  They flutter and eventually open.  They looked glazed and vacant.

“Look at me,” I tell her and gradually the blue becomes clearer and brighter and I see them focus on my face.  I shift again, covering her more and feel my own legs separate and grip her.  She's stronger than me, especially in the lower body, but I have leverage and determination on my side.

“You’re alive, Kimmy.  It’s time to start living again,” I say.  She nods, trying to press her body upwards against my hand and leg.  But I move with her, denying her.

“Please?” she whispers.

“Does this make the pain go away?” I ask, thrusting into her.  She bucks upwards, trying to free herself but I have maniacal strength and won’t let her go.  “Did it last night?”

“Yes.”

Oblivion and comfort.  “Close your eyes,” I whisper and they flutter closed.  “Remember the best time.  The first time.  This is that time.  The time you felt most alive.”

I don’t know if she understands.  I don’t even know if I do.  But as I relax my grip on her body and arms she doesn’t take advantage of it.  Instead she buries her hands in my hair and pulls my head down to her shoulder.

"Kerry," she says.  Of course it was Kerry.  "Our second morning together.  We didn't have to run off to work.  And the awkwardness was gone.  And she was like a kitten."  I smile and then laugh softly at the description.

"Not a term normally associated," Kim laughs.  "But it was like that.  All fumbly and intent.  Not exactly sure what she was doing but determined to do it.  I felt like a counter top."

And suddenly I had a mental picture of a pumpkin orange kitten, coiled to leap to the top of a counter.  Impossible except the kitten doesn’t know it and therefore, of course, manages to scramble to the top.

"And," I prompt.

"It was dichotomy.  Knowledge and innocence, fear and fearlessness."  She pulls my head up, kissing my forehead and cheeks and finally my lips, feather soft and then turning into little nips across my neck.  “Hard and soft, slow and frantic.”  The tempo shifts as she seems to fall into my kiss and her memory and she murmurs a name against my mouth.

Not my name.

"Love you," I hiss and then the tempo gets impossibly fast and her head falls back, eyes staring past my shoulder at the ghost in the bed with us before refocusing on me.  I duck down, lips finding her pulse and feeling it quicken.  "Love you," I repeat and, when she comes, not even the fact that she called out another's name diminishes my smugness.

"Abby?" she asks after I've dragged the cover over us.

"Yeah, Kim?"

"I was doing it for Kerry.  To prove I loved her.  But then it was gone and I wanted it for me too.  And it was too late."

"She doesn't need proof, Kim."

"If I wanted the baby more, do you think it wouldn't have happened?"

It's like ice water.

"No," I say firmly.  "You can want it more than anything and it can still die.  And you can hate it with a fiery passion and it thrives."

She nods.

"It just happened, Kim.  And it’s no one’s fault and it’s not cosmic punishment.  It just happens."

She nods, then shrugs and I know she wants to agree but can’t.

"You have to believe that."

"Do you think that’s why I can’t look at or touch her, can’t accept that she’s grieving?”

“I don’t know, Kim.  Only you can.“

“I think I could handle loosing my child.  I don’t think I could live having killed hers.”

“It was an accident.  It just happened.”

They come then, the tears.  Spring tears, my grandmother use to call them.  Not the brutal summer storms that have been the norm until now but quiet tears.  We shift until I'm lying on my back, cradling her as she cries.

She's gone when I wake.

The room is neat.  Her clothes and my boots are gone and my jacket is on the chair back.  I pull a set of scrubs from a drawer and pull them on before heading over to my desk.  I pull out the pry bar and, trying to do the least amount of damage, I get out my bottle of rye.

The house is dark and I don't bother to turn on any lights until I get to the kitchen.  I pop the seal and get a highball glass from the cupboard.  I pause and then twist the cap the rest of the way off.

It makes a pleasant sound as it pours down the drain.

I put the glass away, rinse the bottle and set it in the recycle box before retracing my steps.

"Hey."

"Kerry?"  I ask.  She's sitting in the dark, on the couch as if watching television.  She pats the couch beside her and I sit.  Further than she indicated but much closer than I want right now.

"She's asleep upstairs.  She said…"

I wait.

"She said you two talked.  And that she understood a bit better what was happening in her head."

There is an unspoken 'and' hovering in the air between us.

"She loves you," I say, trying to fill the quiet.

"I know," Kerry says, and I hear the amusement in her voice and realize that there was never a doubt about that in Kerry’s mind.  "She's seeing someone tomorrow.  She set up the appointment.  And she said she needs to talk to me after the session."

I nod.  Trying very hard to think of something to say that won't be a bald blurting of truths.  I can feel the energy draining from my body as I begin to slouch against the couch back as I realize what she’s saying.

"Can I ask you a personal question, Abby?"

I'm thankful for the dark on the assumption that there is a look of stark terror on my face.  "Sure," I finally manage.

"When was the last time you slept?"

“Really slept?”  I sag a bit more and give an honest answer in relief.  “Last July I think.  Same as you.”

“Sed quis sanesco ipsos sanator?” she says, giving me the slight nudge I need to fall onto the throw pillow and curl up on the couch.

“Hmmm?”

“Nothing, lay here and sleep.”

The softness of an afghan and a gentle touch through my hair are the last things I remember.

The End

Next story in the Thing-verse: The Nighlight in the Birdhouse

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