Mud Vein(80)

This is her first novel, and probably her last.



I close the book; slide it back into the space it came from. I have no desire to read it again, not even in order with page numbers. I got to know my mother in a discombobulated way. I am her china doll. She mourned me a little, but not enough. I can’t fault her for running—I’ve been running my entire life; bad blood, maybe. Or maybe she taught me, and someone taught her. I don’t know. We can’t blame our parents for everything. I don’t think I care anymore. It’s just the way it is. I walk out of the store. I put her to rest.





Three months after I get home, I drive to the hospital to see Isaac. I don’t know if he wants to see me. He hasn’t tried to contact me since I’ve been back. It hurts after the emotional violence we experienced together, but it’s not like I tried to contact him either. I wonder if he told Daphne everything. Maybe that’s why…

I don’t know what to say. What to feel. Relief because we both survived? Do we talk about what happened? I miss him. Sometimes I wish we could go back, and that’s just sick. I feel as if I have Stockholm Syndrome, but not for a person—for a house in the snow.



I pull into a space and sit in my car for at least an hour, picking at the rubber on the steering wheel. I called ahead, so I know he’s here. I don’t know what it’s going to feel like to see him. I held his body while he was dying. He held mine. We survived something together. How do you stand back and shake someone’s hand in the real world when you were clutched together in a nightmare?

I fling open my car door and it cracks against the side of an already beat up minivan. “Sorry,” I tell it, before stepping away.

The doors to the hospital slide open, and I take a moment to look around. Nothing has changed. It’s still too cold in here; the fountain still sprays a crooked stream into air that smells deeply of antiseptic. Nurses and doctors cross paths, charts clutched against chests or hanging droopy from their hands. It all stayed the same while I was changing. I turn my face toward the parking lot. I want to leave, stay out of this world. No one but Isaac knows what it was like. It makes me feel like the only person on the planet. It makes me angry.

I need to talk to him. He’s the only one. I walk. Then I’m in the elevator, sliding slowly up to his floor. He is probably doing rounds, but I’ll wait in his office. I just need a few minutes. Just a few. I walk quickly once the doors open. His office is just around the corner and past the vending machine.

“Senna?”

I spin. Daphne is standing a few feet away. She is wearing black scrubs and a stethoscope is hanging around her neck. She looks tired and beautiful.

“Hello,” I say.

We stand looking at each other for a minute, before I break the silence. I wasn’t expecting to see her. It was stupid. An oversight. I didn’t come here to make her uncomfortable.

“I came to see—”

“I’ll get him for you,” she says, quickly. I am surprised. I watch as she turns on her heel and trots down the hallway. Maybe he didn’t tell her everything.

He won’t speak to the news stations either. My agent called me days after I got back, wanting to know if I could write a book detailing what happened to me—to us. The truth is I don’t know that I’ll ever write another book. And I’ll never tell about what happened in that house. It’s all mine.

When I see him I hurt. He looks great. Not the skeleton man I kissed goodbye. But there are more lines around his eyes. I hope I put a few there.

“Hello, Senna,” he says.

I want to cry and laugh.

“Hi.”

He motions for his office door. He has to open it with a key. Isaac steps inside first and turns on the light. I cast a quick glance over my shoulder before walking in to see if Daphne is lurking anywhere. Thankfully, she’s not. I can’t bear her burdens on top of the ones I’m already carrying.

We sit. It’s not uncomfortable, but it’s not entirely tea and cookies either. Isaac sits behind his desk, but after a minute he comes and sits in the chair next to me.

“You’re back to work,” I say. “Couldn’t stay away.”

“I tried.” He shakes his head. “I went to Hawaii and saw a shrink.”

I sort of laugh at that one. “Brave.”

“I know,” he smiles. “The entire session was me trying not to tell her things that could get me kidnapped.”

We get serious.

“How are you?” he asks cautiously. I appreciate the way he’s tiptoeing around my feelings, but we are a little too crushed for such gentle sentiments. For the first time, I answer him.

“Shitty.”

The corner of his mouth turns up. Just one corner. It’s his trademark.

“That’s better than being closed off, I guess,” he says.

I feel emotion rush me—the intimacy, the awkwardness. I want to revolt against it, but I don’t. It takes an awful toll on a person to fight down everything they’re feeling. Elgin tried to tell me that once. The bitch.

“I heard about your prognosis…”

“I’m okay with it,” I say quickly. “It just … is.”

He looks like he has a million things to say, and he can’t.

“I wanted to come see you, Senna. I just didn’t know how.”