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CHAPTER ONE
Now
Friday
Five Days Remaining
I burst out of Like Home Long-Term Care and suck in a breath of cold, damp air. I taste the tang of metal. The burnt edges of engine oil. And day-old rain. And yet all of that still miraculously manages to be better than the flavor that comes along with the facility itself.
Bleach and sadness.
That’s what I breathe in every time I come here. A stinging flavor that coats the back of my throat. Covered with a hint of fake citrus, of course. As though the scent might hide something.
I exhale, long and slow. You’re forty-three years old, Bev. No need to turn everything into a Big Deal.
But it’s damn near impossible. And this is a Big Deal, isn’t it? With or without me.
I breathe in and out a bit more and glance over my shoulder at the building I just exited. The place isn’t that bad. Really, it isn’t bad at all, considering its purpose. It’s cozy. Lit up warmly in the dark. A nice place with nice staff, and it costs a mint.
Besides which, you can’t really taste sadness, can you?
I give my head the smallest shake. Even if I could taste an emotion, sorrow isn’t the one I need. Anger is more apropos. White-hot. A living, writhing thing. Able to be channeled into something productive. So why can’t I grab hold of that right now rather than being overtaken by this stupid ache in my chest? God knows anger has been a dominant feeling for as long as I can remember. Why not today? But thinking about being angry, wishing it and wanting it, does nothing to help. If anything, it only makes things worse.
I’m just so goddamn tired.
Tears, which shouldn’t be unexpected but manage to feel that way anyway, prick at my eyes, and I cast a look around to make sure I’m alone before quickly dashing away the embarrassing burn. If one of the aforementioned nice staff members were to see me crying, they’d likely try to pull me back inside for a cup of hot tea and a chat, followed by an offer to meet with one of their equally nice counselors. The idea is more than I can stand at the moment.
Better get moving, then, Parent.
“Right.”
I inhale yet again, wish that I hadn’t because now I can taste my own tears, then swallow and duck my head against the cold as I force myself to trudge on.
Under the best of circumstances, I hate this time of year here on the West Coast. Rainy. Cold without bringing the novelty of snow. Christmas just a little too far away to provide a potential glimmer of happiness. Not to mention the limited visibility for basically twelve hours of every day. It’s barely eight in the evening, but it’s smack dab in the middle of December, and the sky is as dark as midnight. It’s probably been that way since five o’clock, honestly. That’s just the way it is here this time of year. So, is it any wonder that sorrow overrules anger at the moment? The weather is a vampire, sucking the life out of me.
Thankfully, my car, a bright yellow Prius that gets mistaken for a taxi at least ten times a day, is easy to spot, even in the dreariness. My little ray of mechanical sunshine. Bought in a manic moment of trying to distance myself from the years of dark sedans necessitated by my previous job. The effort failed, of course. There was no distance to be had. The Prius is just a stark reminder of everything that was, then wasn’t, and continues not to be. But for once, spotting it makes me move a little faster. I’m eager to get home. Eager to leave this all behind for a while, even though a terrible guilt tugs at me for acknowledging it.
Some days are harder than others, and I cling to that because it must mean that some days are easier than others, too.
“Just not today,” I say under my breath as I reach my car. “Or any day that I can remember right now.”
I shift my oversized bag from my shoulder to the yellow hood and fumble for the keys. My hand finds my phone first, and by habit, I yank it out. No missed calls. No missed texts. Not surprising. I’ve cut myself off from most everyone. Even so—also by habit—I scroll to the most recent thread of messages between my son and me.
The last thing I’d typed was, Be home late. Love you.
Tyson hadn’t answered the note. Not a surprise. But if I have any questions about why, or if I deign to forget and think my parenting skills have ever been great, all I have to do is scroll up a bit more. My three messages before that last one are all similar.
Home late tonight.
Won’t be there until well after dinner. Ordered you some pizza.
Home late. See you in the morning. Love you, bud.
I have to slide my thumb for what feels like a day before I finally spot a response from him.
God, Mom. U don’t need to tell me every damn time, okay? I know where u r, and I’m 18 years old, FFS.
Despite his claim of adulthood, it was a snarky, full-on teen text. I’d shaken my head when I’d received it, and I do the same again now. I’d sent nothing in reply to the obnoxiousness. Not because I didn’t care, but because before I’d even thought about what to say—likely yet another reminder of how important my job was—I’d remembered another interaction. One where I’d pointed out that my job meant fewer murderers on the loose. A mistake, apparently. Tyson had told me everyone has their priorities. His tone brooked no doubt; he didn’t see himself as important in my eyes. I’d tried to argue. He’d walked out.
He doesn’t mean it, his dad—my ex-husband, both then and now—had claimed when I’d brought it up at our weekly hand-off of parental duties.
Right, I’d snapped back. Does he say that about your job?
Landon, who’s a surgeon and who still works just as wild a schedule as I did back then, said nothing. It told me all I needed to know.
It’s all ironically moot now. I gave it up. As of eighteen months ago, I’m not a cop anymore. Yes, I’d failed at that, too, despite my alleged poor choices in what to prioritize. But to be honest, things aren’t much different. I spend as much time here at the care home as I ever did on the job.
Residual guilt washes over me, and I tap the screen to call Tyson’s phone. Five rings. Voicemail.
“You know what to do, bro.”
The standard beep. And more guilt. I have to work to shove it aside. Guilt doesn’t do any more good than sadness does. They’re equally futile emotions.
I squeeze the phone once, then drop it back into my purse—the side pouch this time so as not to inadvertently grab it a second time and go through this same thing again—and stick my hand in once more. My dig is more vicious now. A dog on the desperate hunt for a bone. I need to get out of here. I need those damn keys.
My fingers brush everything except the metal ring I’m in search of. A hairbrush. A mirror. A hundred loose receipts and a crushed granola bar. The smartwatch I thought I’d lost last month and spent about three hundred bucks replacing. It actually doesn’t surprise me much, though, because whatever could go wrong today has gone wrong. With work. With my cranky neighbor and his crankier wife. With the preceding few hours.
Those hours. Jesus.
They’d been some of the worst in my life, and that’s really saying something.
It hits me all over again, and I pause in my search once more, suddenly needing to catch my breath.
Faces fill my mind in the same way the various objects in my purse had filled my hand.
Ingrid Merrit, a nurse with near-black hair and perpetually sad brown eyes. The two primary care physicians, Dr. Lee and Dr. Farber. The latter is a model-pretty woman a decade my junior, and the former is a man who has to be close to eighty yet is sharper than anyone else in the room. To be honest, I don’t care much for any of them. But they don’t hold a candle to the fourth person who’d been there with the rest of us. Rhys O’Hare. The patient advocate. Lord help me, but I hate that man. I hate the crow’s feet around his eyes and his buzz cut and the way the left side of his mouth droops even when he’s smiling one of his insincere smiles. I hate the way he wears cheerfully printed neckties every day. I hate him more than I’ve ever hated anyone, and I used to investigate murders for a living. Honestly, even though it seems like it should be impossible, I hate him more than I hate Ernie Silcox.
It’s been a year and a half, Ms. Parent, Rhys’s too-deep voice says in my head now, and all options have been exhausted. You’re here as a courtesy and as a courtesy only. If you don’t get on board, we’re going to have to ask you not to come anymore, which I’m sure isn’t what you want. But this is what’s happening, like it or not.
As if there’s a choice between liking and not liking the situation. As if such mild words apply. Even if they did, how could I possibly like what was about to happen?
By this time next Wednesday, a mere five days away, the paperwork will be complete, the metaphorical ball on an unstoppable roll. Then, the life-sustaining plugs will be pulled, and the last eighteen months of begging and pleading and doing my own version of advocacy will be worth nothing. Worse, if I continue my efforts, they’ll ban me until it’s over. And in five months? It’ll be forgotten. Another patient will take his place. They don’t see it that way, though. They argue it will be a mercy. They argue that the multitude of tubes and ventilation aren’t a life at all, and they argue it will be a relief for everyone. But there’s no relief in it for me. Pulling the plug means taking secrets to the grave, and it’s more than I can stand.
I’ve unconsciously closed my eyes, and I forcefully peel them open.
No more of that today. Please.
I stick my hand back into my purse and dig around yet again, and this time, I do find the elusive key ring. But a tug reveals that the ring is stuck to something at the bottom of my bag. I mean, why wouldn’t it be? I have to give it a hard yank, which ends up being a little too hard, and the whole set comes free and goes flying, then jangles to the ground a couple of feet away.
“Shit,” I mutter. “Really? Now?”
Tears threaten again. A fact that makes me want to scream. I can’t stand the feeling that my emotions are in control of me. That nothing is working and might never work again. But what good will it do to start hollering? Not a lick. And the longer I stand here feeling sorry for myself, the longer it’ll take me to get home, where I can at least try to put this particular shitty day behind me before starting up another shitty day again tomorrow. One where my battle means nothing.
There has to be something I missed. Some loophole that I haven’t yet seen.
But I’d be lying to myself if I said I believe that. As Rhys so helpfully pointed out, I’ve exhausted every angle. Dragged up every precedent. Lost my job and my friends and any semblance of a life. And for what? To be told it’s earned me a courtesy?
I bite back a bitter laugh, then wonder why the hell I’m still out here.
Home. I need to go home.
Staving off the urge to sink to the ground in defeat, I step over to the spot where my keys had landed and bend down to snag them. Except the moment my fingers close on the cool metal, a male voice—a young one—speaks up, stilling me right where I am.
End of Excerpt
