Mr. Nobody(28)

And as if the thought were a wish, the whole house plunges into darkness.



* * *



—

It’s just the fuse box, I tell myself. Houses aren’t haunted, people are.

The edges of the room are no longer visible; armchairs, bookcases, and cushions have been swallowed up into the darkness. The kitchen is nothing more than a black void beyond the archway. Only the firelight remains, carving deep shadows into the space.

My pulse is racing high and fast in my chest. Jesus. There is only darkness all around me.

These things happen all the time in the countryside, I tell myself. These things happen all the time in remote cottages deep in the woods.

It takes my eyes a fraction of a second to adjust to the light of the fire.

I hear a noise outside, low and animalistic, a creature, a fox perhaps. I look to the patio doors, suddenly keenly aware of all the life outside this cottage. I realize that up until this moment I’ve been lit up like a Christmas tree in here, exposed for all to see. But in the dark glass I see only myself. My own ghostly face looking back at me, reflected, flickering in firelight. I quiet my breath and listen again for noises outside; I listen so hard the room buzzes with silence and the popping fire.

    It’s just a power failure. Grow up, Em.

I’d better find a flashlight and the fuse box and hope it’s just that. If it’s not, then it looks like I’ll be heading to bed. I know from experience that you can’t do anything useful after dark during a power outage.

I find a flashlight under the sink in the kitchen and head for the basement.

My mind creeps back to Holt again, to our old house. The staircase downstairs into the dark, the glow of a light from the study, the sound of dripping. I shake the memory away, shuddering.

It’s colder in the basement, the air damper. Shadows leap and dance at the corners of my vision. I remember the thick pooling of dark arterial blood, from long ago, the sound of breath rasping behind me.

Stop it, Em. Stop it.

I throw the switch on the electric panel and the house leaps back to life. The darkness vanishes and I’m standing in a basement laundry room. No spiderwebs and rot here, just appliances and laundry detergent.

I guess I overloaded the circuit turning on all those lights. Lesson learned.





13


THE MAN


DAY 1—MR. GARRETT

Rhoda watches as the situation unfolds.

There was nothing out of the ordinary about him at first, just another patient sleeping three beds down from Rhoda and her patient. He woke and shuffled awkwardly up to sitting, under the covers, his bleary eyes taking in the ward around him, perplexed.

A young nurse along the ward noticed him waking too; her eyes flicked out toward the corridor, apprehensive, before she made her way over to the waking man.

Rhoda watches as the young nurse places a gentle hand on her patient. He frowns. “Where is she?” Rhoda hears him ask the nurse, his eyes scanning the beds around them. “Where’s Claire?”

Rhoda doesn’t hear the young nurse’s reply but she recognizes the expression on her face as she quietly speaks to the older man.

Rhoda knows that bereavement notice needs to take place in a private consultation suite, with a doctor or with a member of the bereavement care team. You can’t give it on the ward. The young nurse will be asking her patient to wait for the doctor to arrive.

    “I don’t need the doctor.” His voice is tight and hoarse, a trill of panic running through it. “I just need to know where my daughter is.”

Rhoda remembers his details from the Triage board last night. A car accident. A drunk-driving collision. The drunk driver had walked away with only bruises, but this man and his teenage daughter had sustained severe injuries. Rhoda’s eyes float up to the name on the whiteboard above his bed. Mike Garrett.

Although she can’t hear the nurse’s words, it’s clear to Rhoda from the nurse’s body language that the daughter didn’t make it. Rhoda feels a deep ache in her chest. The worst news to give, the worst news to get.

“I don’t need a doctor to tell me where she is, you can tell me. For God’s sake, just look on your system or something. You can tell me that, can’t you?” A few more eyes swivel onto the scene. “I want to know where my daughter is! Do you understand? I DON’T CARE IF THE DOCTOR’S ON HIS WAY!”

Hearing a raised voice, the duty nurse pops her head around the ward doorway and quickly makes sense of the scene. She makes a decision and calmly heads over to join the young nurse at the red-faced Mr. Garrett’s bedside.

“Can I help, Mr. Garrett?” she asks, her tone kind, delicate.

“Yes, I want to know where my daughter is.”

The duty nurse takes a breath and looks down, and when she looks up at him again his breath catches in his throat. Finally, he sees in front of him what Rhoda sees, two impotent nurses trying not to tell him that his daughter died from her injuries.

“Oh God. Oh God.” He tries to choke back the sobs, wild eyes unseeing. “She’s gone, isn’t she? My God.”

The duty nurse gives the younger nurse a look and starts to curtain off the bed. “I’m sorry, Mr. Garrett. I’m so sorry. If you can just wait until the doctor gets here, we can—”

But Mr. Garrett is already pulling back his sheets. He staggers up out of bed onto unsteady feet.