“It’s not crazy at all. I’m really glad you made it, though.” He lifts her hand to brush a kiss across her knuckles.
“I am too. The funny thing about this whole disaster is that for the first time in a long time, I’m not ready to go anymore.” She gestures to her ribs. “Perfect timing, right?”
“It could heal on its own, like you said. Might be pretty miserable while it does, but it’s possible.”
It’s bearable for now, so long as she doesn’t move, and the blood seems to have dried up in her throat, so at least there’s that. She can do this, she thinks, squeezing his hand when a wave of pain crests her nerves and twitches her muscles. She can white knuckle this until she heals or until it kills her.
Theo watches her through the long, golden afternoon as the light thins and snow whispers against the roof. He times his breaths with hers, maybe subconsciously, she isn’t sure. Whenshe coughs, he holds a cool cloth to her forehead, proving to be a more tender caregiver than she thinks she deserves.
When the night comes and the building creaks under the wind, he does not sleep. She knows, because she can’t either. He keeps watch with a hand on her shoulder or her arm, ready to steady her when coughing wracks her body, keeping a continuous point of contact as if he can hold her together somehow. For now, he respects her choice not to take the pain medication, and he keeps vigil instead, but with every passing hour, it becomes clearer that she may not have the willpower to stick to her own plan.
* * *
Nora can’t do this. Thought she could. Assumed the pain would even out eventually, but it’s only getting worse. By now, every inhale may as well be the sharp edge of a dagger digging into her lungs.
Theo is puttering around the kennels, feeding and watering the animals with the penguin waddling along behind him. Nora might smile at how damn cute that is if she wasn’t ready to knock herself out with a blunt object. She hasn’t even made it until morning before the whisper of relief starts to call for her like an old friend.Just one pill, it says. Just one. You only need to take the edge off, and then you’ll be fine.
The voice is treacherous because it sneaks in the spaces between breaths, a small, plausible solution presented in a matter-of-fact tone. She recognizes the cadence of it all too well.
She watches Theo dispose of the body she left in the other room, dragging it past the door in the hall and out to the back. Then he focuses on more mundane things, perhaps as a distraction, and the sight of him doing ordinary tasks, likefilling bowls, tying a knot on a feed bag, and wiping down the countertops, suddenly seems crazy. She would laugh if it didn’t hurt so bad. Here they are, trapped in the middle of nowhere, in an arctic storm, while the rest of the world disintegrates, and he’s doing housework.
How easily she begins to believe that voice offering relief scares her. Before she knows what she’s doing, she’s calling for Theo with a desperate edge to her words, propping herself up to try and fail at getting comfortable.
He comes to her like someone approaching an injured animal, quiet and careful, as if any startled movement could snap whatever composure she’s cobbled together. The way he pauses before he speaks, the tenderness in every motion, betrays how terrified he is. How could she put him through this? He looks at her like a man who steadies his heartbeat against the rhythm of hers, and she repays that devotion by forcing him to watch her suffer.
Nora’s resistance has nothing to do with him, of course, but her brain enjoys twisting around the facts until they’re muddled. It’s always been so much easier to have empathy for someone else than it is to have it for herself.
The oxycodone in the bag won’t touch his headaches, but it’ll relax her muscles enough to soothe the burn of her broken ribs. It’ll offer relief that she would crawl through broken glass to find, and so she forces herself to say what tastes bitter on her tongue the moment it crosses her lips. “I thought I was strong enough, but I’m not. Just one pill. I can’t breathe. I can’t sleep. I’m gonna lose my mind.”
For a beat, she can read the potential replies run like lightning across his face. What to say, what to offer, how to grant her request without spooking her further. He answers not with logic but with a steadiness that has softened into a promise.
“You are strong enough,” he tells her. “This isn’t the same as relapsing.”
Then he’s gone, fetching her that coveted little pill at record speed that he slips into her waiting hand. She won’t be alone this time. She isn’t chasing a high to erase her grief. No one is forcing her to use. Quickly, she swallows the pill, a brief panic flickering in her eyes when she fully grasps what she’s done. “Can you fit on here with me? Please?”
His hands tremble the tiniest bit as he nods before tucking the blanket around her, smoothing her hair from her face and adjusting the pillow behind her head.
She would crawl right under his shirt and burrow in against him, if she could. She’s so desperate for comfort that somehow they make the small cot big enough for two. It helps that she has to lie on her side, allowing her to curl up against him and rest her head on his shoulder, her fingers twisting in the fabric of his shirt. Chills run through her body hard enough to shake the whole bed and both of them in it, but she is secure in his arms, gentle as they may be, and has no fear of falling.
She can feel his inhales and exhales and tries to mimic the length of them, failing more often than not.
“It’ll kick in soon,” he whispers. “Hey, guess what? I found the penguin’s crate with her name tag on it. Lucky. She’s a girl. She lost her flipper to a leopard seal.”
His attempt at levity is a welcome thing meant to guide her away from panic. She laughs once, a small sound that scrapes against her ribs.
“I’d make fun of how unoriginal…” she hisses on an inhale. “…that name is, but she has to be the luckiest penguin in Alaska.
As if on cue, the penguin in question creeps closer, jumping onto the cot to try and cuddle close.
The birds’ presence is a tiny, clumsy warmth pressed against her calf. The animal’s insistence on getting so close makes the edges of her fear blur for a moment into something tolerable.
“Is she hurting you?” he asks.
“No. It’s fine. She’s scared, too. So many changes. I bet she misses her people.”
“The paperwork called her the unofficial mascot of the center. Not releasable. I suspect she spent a lot of nights sleeping in bed with her caregivers.”
The penguin is quiet and gentle, tucking herself in at the bend of Nora’s knees with her chin propped up over her thigh.
