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23
EIGHT MONTHS LATER.
The hospice is deserted. A dirty, derelict building where bodies are kept alive by machines and medicines. Still smells like piss.
I sneak into his room, the cap lowered over my face. Not that it matters. I’ve become unrecognisable. By the time I close the distance from the door to his bed, the guilt has eaten me like vultures ravish a corpse. I push it aside.
He’s lying on the bed. His face has sunken in since the last time I saw him. It’s because most of his food comes through a fucking tube. The room is dark and dreary, like the clouds outside have somehow congregated inside his room. I step closer to the bed, and he flinches. He knows I’m here.
“Hi, Derek.” I sit in the chair next to the bed. It’s too soft and I sink into it. He tilts his head to the right and opens his eyes. He barely reacts.
I sigh, looking at the man I crippled. He’s stayed just the way I left him – broken and alone.
“I… um…” I stammer, the words lodging in my throat. Talking to him here would be an admission, but I’ve done so much wrong I need to do this. Maybe part of my conscience can still survive.
“I’m sorry.” I blurt it out, and his eyes open a fraction more. I scrub both hands over my face as I search for the right words. “I didn't realise what you were doing. I should have listened.”
There’s a muted rasp as he opens his mouth, and I think he wants to speak. I push forward from my seat, searching his face. His lips twist and a broken cackle breaches his dry lips. It’s sharp and hoarse. I search his face as I straighten up and move away from him.
The cackle grows, trickling out of him in a maddening cascade that turns into a hysterical ugly howl. It’s harsh and throaty, and he begins to choke on his laughter. His body shakes on the bed like he might be having a fit, and still his contorted face twists as the cracked laughter falls from him and fills the room.
I back away. His body folds in on itself and he coughs like a dying man, spurting and moaning, but still he laughs, his mad eyes glued to my face.
I retreat from the room, the laughter following me like a dark shadow all the way to the elevator.
* * *
Ilurk outside the house, the one that used to be mine. I’m across the street, hidden in the shadows. If I breach my restraining order, they will throw me back in jail. Anger flickers inside me as I think about it all. I watch Annie as she drives up to the house. She’s smiling as she lets the girls out of the car. They are all talking animatedly, laughing, having fun, as if I was never a part of their lives, as if I wasn’t viciously sliced out and thrown away like a rotten piece of meat.
Annie opens the back door and pulls out the baby carrier. My son is asleep, totally unaware of my existence. The girls rush their mother and new sibling, cooing and reaching out. My fists clench, my dirty nails digging into my palm. I don’t even know his name. She didn’t even let me know when she went into labour. All I got was a text and a blurry picture two days later. The rage slices my insides, threatening to burst, and I clench my jaw forcing it down.
I want to hold my son. To smell the top of his head and make him empty promises about how good life is going to be for him. But I can’t. She won’t let me near him. She won’t let me near any of them. Of course, I could fight, drag it out, make her pay, but she seems so goddamn happy. They all do. I’ve broken enough things. Somewhere inside of me, a longing flares – a desire to go back, to change it to how it used to be, to get my life back. But it’s as futile as my rage.
The girls walk inside and lights come on in various rooms. In my mind’s eye I see Annie going into the kitchen to start preparing tea while the girls run to the lounge or their rooms to play. She’ll feed the baby and they will have turns holding him. They giggle and laugh and ask when Daddy is coming home. I let out a ragged sigh.
The ache in my chest returns, like a heavy stone has been placed on it and it gets heavier each day. Heavier to carry, heavier to breathe. When I asked to see the girls, Annie insisted the visitations be monitored, like I’m some kind of feral dog that would hurt our babies. She never talks to me, not directly, just through her lawyers. The last time I approached her for a conversation she had me arrested for breaching the restraining order she put out on me. She put the kids under its protection too. I can’t go near my babies. My heart tips.
I stay a little longer, knowing that once that door closes nothing more will happen and there will be no more glimpses, just dreams.
I pull out the brown paper bag holding my bottle of whiskey and take a slow swig. The liquid burns everything inside. I want it to erase everything. By the time I finish the bottle it will.
I walk around aimlessly. The streets are quiet. Most people are gathered inside, huddled together, keeping away from the vicious cold. I make my way to the tube station. There’s warmth down there but also a cacophony of sound and lights and humanity. It makes me feel like I’m home for a while; the noise, the laughter. Of course, no one sees me. I’ve become invisible, no longer in my uniform but my week-old clothes needing a wash, the stubbled unshaven jaw and the gaunt, drawn eyes. I’m tired.
Some days I sleep at the halfway house. Everyone keeps to themselves. Everyone has a past they want to forget. Everyone is trying to rebuild something they’ve lost. My only reprieve is that the departments agreed to keep my arrest and consequent deal out of the media. It was still a shit show; someone got wind of it all and they were out for my blood. Dirty cop, dirty allegations. The system is always under so much scrutiny, being looked at by the outside through a magnifying glass, but they swept it all under the carpet. They didn’t want Izzy’s case affected. My name was still attached to too much paperwork. We were forever entwined in each other’s lives. In the end, it didn’t even matter. Not even when the charges were dropped, when she pulled back. By then my name was tainted, my reputation in tatters, my life unrecognisable. The city paid me out, but Annie wants to take that too. I take another sip of my whiskey and get on the tube.
It smells like urine and desperation, or maybe I’m just smelling myself. It rattles beneath me as we rush through tunnels and stations.
Light.
Dark.
Light.
Dark.
There’s a young couple a few seats ahead. The way she looks at him is the way Annie used to look at me; with desire and delight. The way he looks at her is the same way I looked at Amy; lust and ferocity. He runs his hands along her long legs, and she lets him. She giggles, he kisses her neck. I look away.
I get off at the next station.
