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My eyelids are heavy, but I force them open. It takes several tries before I’m able to get a grip on what I’m seeing. Everything is a blur. My fist is tightly wrapped around a white sheet. I flex my toes. Overhead, bright lights whiz by. A woman leans down. She has the face of an angel. “You’re going into surgery. You’re going to be just fine.”
She can’t obviously know that I am going to be just fine, I think. But I like it that she lies. How terrible it would be for anything else to be the final words I hear.
I don’t know if I will be fine. But at this point, I have nothing left in me with which to care.
I drift off and dream of my dad. I think of what he said to me the day I came home from my waitressing shift to find a crib up in the spare bedroom. I told him I didn’t intend to live in his house forever. That I was sorry. I had never meant to add more to his plate. I told him I knew I’d messed up. He looked me straight in the eye and he said, “It’s not about the falling down, Charlotte. It’s about the staying down. And I know you. You won’t stay down for long. ”
I wake up in recovery. I don’t feel pain. I don’t feel anything. “It went well,” a steady voice says. I can’t see the face that belongs to the voice that speaks to me, but I can smell her perfume. Something delicate. She stands at the head of my bed, pressing buttons on a monitor. “We were able to stop the bleeding.”
She doesn’t offer any further information, and I don’t ask. I watch as she moves purposefully around the room, checking and rechecking her work. Eventually she pushes something through my IV line, and before I know it, I once again drift off into oblivion.
The next time I open my eyes, there are police officers standing at my bedside. I close my eyes and pretend to be too tired and too traumatized to talk. I’m heavily drugged, and I’m afraid of what I might say.
Michael stands next to me. So does the FBI. My husband’s face looks serious, if not sympathetic. On instinct I start to cry. He places his hand on mine. It’s large and cold and very familiar. Full, chest-heaving, snot-bubbling sobs spill out of me. Eventually, the men offer to leave and give us privacy, and the nurse asks if I’d like something to help calm me. “You don’t have to tell them anything you don’t want to, Charlotte,” Michael says when we’re finally alone. “You know that.”
He’s right. I do know that.
I’m aware that I cannot tell them everything. But I can tell them a lot.
“I’m sorry,?
?? he tells me, spooning ice chips into my mouth. He doesn’t elaborate on what he’s apologizing for, and I do my best to look like I don’t know.
“You have nothing to be sorry for,” I reply, surprised at how easily the lie slips off my tongue. “You told me I needed to cut back on work. I should have listened. Now—”
“This isn’t your fault.” He places the cup of ice on the table and smooths the matted hair away from my face. His lies, too, flow effortlessly. His expression, his demeanor, is the same as it ever was. As long as we’ve lived together, as long as I’ve known him, nearly two decades now, I thought I could tell when he was being dishonest. But here in this hospital bed, in God knows where, I can see that this isn’t true.
My life hangs precariously in his hands. I know. I watched JC Warren’s footage. Which is why I do my best to pretend.
He leans down and kisses my face. “We don’t have to do that thing where we pretend anymore, darling.”
“What do you mean?”
“I know you’ve been through a lot.”
I look away toward the window. It’s dark out.
“I’m just so glad you got out of that house.”
I think of the cabin. Of the abundance of evidence contained inside. Who knew what JC Warren had hidden there? He knew an awful lot about my life. Or at least he pretended to.
As though he is reading my thoughts, Michael walks over to the door, and then back toward the bed. “They thought you were inside. They thought you were gone. I thought I lost you.”
“I was inside.”
Michael cocks his head. “Do you remember anything about what happened before you were found?”
I feign ignorance. “Not really.”
“The fire, Charlotte. It was bad.”
“The fire.”
His face remains neutral. “The girls have been so worried. They wanted to come, but I took the first flight out. I didn’t know what condition I’d find you in. They wouldn’t tell me anything.”
“And now? Are they okay? Do they know I’m fine?”
“They’re with my mom.”
