The Cabin Read online

  The Cabin

  Jasinda Wilder

  Contents

  Part I

  1. NDA

  2. ICU

  3. Magic; Lies

  4. Reunion; Observations

  5. Whisky & Women

  6. Whispers & Wine

  7. The Truth Will Out

  8. i love you, for the millionth time

  Part II

  9. 72 hours

  10. 7 days

  11. 14 days

  12. 18 days

  13. 21 days

  14. day unknown

  15. day unknown

  16. 30 days

  17. 33 days

  18. 90 days

  19. 120 days

  20. 210 days

  Part III

  21. Letters From The Dead, Part One

  22. Letters From the Dead, Part Two

  23. Resurrection

  24. Stars

  25. Coffee & Home Cooking

  26. Watercolors & John Denver

  27. One Little Thing At A Time

  28. Lie Just A Little Longer

  29. Kintsugi Heart

  30. Heart Work

  31. Too Right, Too Soon

  32. Learn me, Find You

  33. A Song Of Us

  The Art To Living

  A Note From Jasinda & Jack

  Also by Jasinda Wilder

  Part I

  An Icarus Love

  NDA

  “All right, Mr. Bell. You’re all set here, I think.”

  The nurse is that peculiar, unique brand of brusque efficiency and Zen-like kindness you only find in an oncology department. She fiddles with the IV line puncturing my left arm, the off-white, veiny medical tape securing it to my forearm. Her eyes are brown, the exact shade of a chocolate Labrador’s fur. She is warm, and caring, but lurking beneath that veneer of caregiver kindness is the detached iciness of someone whose job it is to watch people die.

  “It will take a couple hours for this to drip through, and then we have to monitor you for—”

  “I know,” I interrupt. I open the lid of my laptop. “I’ve been through this a few times.”

  She smiles. “Of course, Mr. Bell. If you need anything, just press the call button.”

  I hesitate a few seconds and then say, “There is something.” Then I glance at the curtain which is not quite pulled shut.

  She catches my meaning and brings the two ends of the curtain together, the metal rings rasping with a rattling ring. “What can I do for you, Mr. Bell?”

  I reach into my messenger bag, sitting on the floor next to this monstrosity of a chair—a freakish, Frankensteinian thing, not quite a lounger and not quite a clinical, medical device, but something in between. It’s made from a rubbery plastic or vinyl material that squeaks at every slight movement, and is too hard and too upright to be truly comfortable, but when you kick back in it and lift the footrest, it forces you into a near-horizontal recline in an unnatural defiance of gravity.

  The chair is distracting, and I hate the chair almost as much as I hate the ward, the IV, and the whole damned morbid circus.

  In my bag is a thin manila folder. On the label I’ve written three letters in neat block handwriting, in black Sharpie: NDA. I withdraw a single sheet of paper, on which are two and a half paragraphs, single-spaced. It’s in tight, clear legalese, drawn up by my attorney, printed on formal, intimidating letterhead. I hand it to the nurse whose nametag, clipped to her pale green sleeve, announces her as Tiffany Snell, R.N, O.C.N.

  “This is an NDA, a nondisclosure agreement.”

  She allows a frown, briefly. “Okay?”

  I keep my voice low, not whispering, but pitched for her ears only. “I’m here alone, as I’m sure you’ve noticed.”

  “Yes. Which is why your observation period has to be so long.”

  “I know.”

  I reach into my bag and pull out a pen—it’s a nice pen, hefty, metal, with a satisfying clicker, and on the side is my name: Adrian Bell, and my logo, a coat of arms with my monogram. It’s recognizable to most people, that logo; you see it on the title page of my books, on my website, and expensively animated as a production company logo during the title sequences when you watch movies made from my books. I hand her the pen, tap the NDA with it.

  “This says you will not disclose to anyone that I was here at all, let alone why. I’m paying for this with cash, so there’s no insurance paperwork trail.”

  She frowns again as she reads. “Why is it a secret, may I ask?”

  “I have my reasons,” I say. “Whatever else must be done in the process of this infusion, I would like you to do, including observation and my eventual discharge. All right? This means that just one person has to sign this little item.” I tap the NDA again.

  “And if I don’t sign it?” It’s not meant belligerently, just…a simple question.

  I smile. “Tiffany—Miss Snell. Do I really need to spell this out? You know who I am. I don’t want this getting out. That’s all. I’m protecting my privacy.”

  She breathes out gently—it’s not a sigh, more of a thoughtful breath. “What about your wife? Why isn’t she here?”

  It takes all I have to not wince at the question. “I’m going to have to decline to answer that, Miss Snell. Can you please just sign? It just means you don’t tell anyone I was here. If coworkers ask, you simply say you can’t talk about it. Don’t make a big deal about it, just that—I can’t talk about it. That’s all.” I pause, smile again. “Would it help you to know I’m a yearly donor to this facility?”

  She rolls a shoulder. “Not really. I’m just a nurse.” Another of those thoughtful out-breaths. “Mr. Bell, I’ll sign your NDA. But I have to register my thoughts with you. Hiding this is not fair.” Her warm brown eyes momentarily reveal the sadness she normally keeps hidden. “I’ve seen your file, obviously. What you’re dealing with, it’s…it’s not…”

  “It doesn’t have a stellar survival rate,” I finish. “I know.”

  “Hiding it from your wife, Mr. Bell—”

  “Adrian.”

  “It’s really, really not fair of you, Adrian. You’re not doing her any favors. I obviously don’t know a thing about your marriage, but if she loves you—”

  I let out a shaky breath, cut her off. “She does, Tiffany. More than I deserve. More than…More than is, perhaps, healthy.”

  “So why—”

  “I have my reasons,” I say again. Now I do not smile. I frown in a way that says this conversation has to be over. “It’s not fair of me, I know. Believe me, I know. But it’s not fair that I have this. That I’m here. It’s not fair that I’m paying as much for this treatment as I am. What in your life can you list as unfair, Tiffany? A lot, I’m sure. Fair is a myth. Fair does not exist.”

  She gazes at me evenly, steadily and then takes the pen from me. Signs the NDA in a nurse’s hasty scrawl. Dates it. Hands me the pen.

  “Keep it.”

  She lets a small smile cross her lips. “I’ve read all your books, you know. I enjoy them. They make me feel like I can believe in love again.” She gestures with the pen. “Thank you.”

  “If you happen to have a copy with you, I’ll sign it for you.”

  She bites a lip. “I do, actually.”

  “Bring it when you come to check on me.”

  She nods, hooks the pen by the clip at an angle in the V of her scrub top. Smiles at me again, and leaves.

  You catch more flies with honey than vinegar, my mother used to tell me.

  I enter the passcode on my laptop; there’s Wi-Fi here, so I could check email, but I don’t. In fact, I turn Wi-Fi off, so I won’t be distracted by the siren song of email, pull my wireless earbuds from my bag, and turn on Rostropovich via my phone.
r />   I open my manuscript. Close my eyes, take a deep breath, hold it, and let it out slowly. Repeat four times. Pushing away, mentally, the fog of the chemo, the pinch of the IV, the continual beeping of IV machines indicating a bag is finished, the occasional static PA announcements, the squeak of sensible sneakers, and the murmur of quiet conversations.

  Push it all away. Find my flow.

  It’s there, under the surface. It’s always there; it’s always been there. Like Louis L’Amour said, I could sit in the middle of Sunset Boulevard with a typewriter on my knees, and once I’m in the flow, I wouldn’t notice a thing but the words on the page.

  With this story I’m working on now, though, it’s harder, and it takes more effort to sink down into it, more mental gymnastics to get into the flow. I need to find the right balance, tap into the necessary emotions, while still remaining the objective storyteller.

  This one is personal. More than all the other books I’ve written over my career, this one…this one requires more of me.

  And I have to get it right.

  I’m writing it for an audience of one. Well, two. But really, just one. Her.

  My love. My Nadia.

  ICU

  “Let’s push epinephrine…what’s his blood pressure?”

  “Eighty over fifty and dropping.”

  “Medications?”

  “Paramedics say the family didn’t speak English, and he has no file on record anywhere we could find, so medications unknown.” I check the chart again, but there’s nothing there that can help us.

  The patient is a male, forties—Luis Hermano—admitted to the ER earlier in the week for a heart attack, from which he was recovering in the ICU where I work…and is now suffering an unexpected anaphylactic shock. Non-English speaker, uninsured, no medical history available…unconscious and unresponsive.

  The attending physician, Dr. Wilson, and two other nurses—Lydia and Sally—are in the room, and we go through the process of keeping the patient alive. He stabilizes somewhat, and now we just have to figure what caused it—we go through medications used during surgery, during recovery, try to determine if he could be on any medication that would cause the anaphylaxis…and by the time that’s done Dr. Wilson is being paged to another room, and my watch is going off because it’s time to check on Mr. Renfro in 213, who’s supposed to be up and walking every hour or two, and then Mrs. Lasseter in 215 will need another dose of painkillers to keep her comfortable…and by the time I’ve made my rounds and administered medication and turned patients and checked vitals and crossed items off my checklists, I’m supposed to have been off duty for an hour and I still have another hour’s worth of wrap-up to do and I’ve been on since six this morning, never ate dinner because of Mr. Hermano going anaphylactic and then the John Doe with the coma in 219 woke up screaming while I was with Renfro…

  Finally I clock out, shrug into my hoodie, shoulder my purse, wave goodbye to Dr. Wilson and Sally and the others, and head for the elevator. I’m waiting for the elevator when I hear Dr. Wilson’s shoes behind me.

  “Nadia.”

  The elevator arrives, but I hear the news in Dr. Wilson’s voice before I even turn around. I don’t want to turn around. I just don’t. But I do. Wilson’s face is tight, hard, pinched.

  “Mr. Hermano?”

  He nods, and I wonder if his goatee is whiter right now than it was this morning. “He coded while you were with Mrs. Lasseter.”

  “You didn’t page me?”

  “There wasn’t time. I don’t think the stent took. I dunno. He was gone by the time I got there myself. I just thought you should know.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Good work today, Nadia.” He hesitates.

  “What?” I ask.

  “You worked a double today.”

  “Yeah.”

  “And yesterday.”

  “Yeah.”

  “And you’re on the schedule for another one tomorrow.”

  “Adrian is out of town.” I shrug. “I’d rather be working than at home alone.”

  “I get that, I do. But…I need you on your A-game. You’re my best nurse, and if you burn out, I’m screwed. Who’s gonna take your place? Lydia? Sally?”

  We both know neither Lydia nor Sally are cut out for the ICU, not long term anyway. They’re both great nurses, but Lydia belongs somewhere like the L&D floor, and Sally is just too sweet and innocent for this work. The ICU is brutal. You have to care, and deeply, but you also have to keep a certain part of yourself walled off from it all. You have to be able to leave it all here when you clock out. Sally takes it home with her, I can tell.

  “I’m not going to burn out. I promise.”

  He just sighs. “Still. I’m going to have Lacey get the second half of your shift tomorrow covered. I’m not going to have my best nurse work three doubles in a row when we’re not short-staffed.”

  “Alan—”

  “No.” His pager, hanging inside the hip pocket of his scrub bottoms, buzzes, and he tilts it to check. “You work the morning shift, and then you go home and you have a glass of wine with lunch and you…I don’t know. Go for a walk. Binge Netflix. Whatever. Just take a few hours to breathe, Nadia. See you Thursday. I have to go.”

  I hate time off.

  I get antsy. Bored. Especially when Adrian is traveling.

  I’ve worked crazy hours since I was a teenager, working full time after school and a second job on the weekends, so I could save up for my first car. Then I worked full time and went to nursing school, and then once I was a registered nurse I was working at least sixty hours a week supporting Adrian as he got his writing career off the ground. And now it’s just…habit. A lifestyle.

  I call the elevator again and get on. The ride down to the parking garage is short, and the walk to my car long. It’s after midnight, and my eyes burn. I’m the kind of tired that leaves streaks at the edges of your vision, where time seems slow, syrupy and then way too fast, where it seems to take ten minutes to get into my A5, set my purse on the passenger seat, start the engine, and buckle up—and then I blink and I’m halfway home with zero memory of the drive. Then I’m waiting at a red light for an eternity, sitting at an empty intersection where the shops are closed and dark and the streets damp after a brief rain shower, making the traffic lights glint off the blacktop in a smear of red and green.

  The radio is off. After so much manic movement and chaos, I relish the silence of my car’s warm interior, the smell of the leather, the faint lavender scent of the dried bunch hanging from my rearview mirror.

  Then I’m home, pulling up the long, steep driveway. I stop at the top, waiting for the garage door to open. Home is a two-story red brick Colonial, white Ionic columns framing the wide white French-style front door, white shutters. Box shrubs trimmed in precise squared-off rectangles under the windows on each side, with a profusion of bright, colorful perennials in front of them and lining the ruler-straight, brick-paved walkway to the front porch. A pair of double-width garage doors, white wood with an X of black wrought-iron straps across each. Faux gaslight lampposts stand at the corners of the property, far corner, on either side of the walkway, and on either side of the driveway, flickering their welcome.

  McMansion it may be, and very much alike all the rest on our street, but it’s home and I love it. It’s the first and only house Adrian and I bought together and, as far as I’m concerned, the last. Every day, I pull up the driveway, stop here waiting for the garage door to trundle slowly upward, and I stare at my home, and I appreciate it.

  I slide my car into its space, shut off the motor, and push open my door. Stand beside my little red convertible and stare at the empty space next to mine where Adrian’s car belongs. Beyond it, occupying a storage bay, is a collection of mountain bikes, kayaks, stand-up paddleboards, bike pumps and spare tires and paddles and a shelf at the back littered with the detritus of life.

  It has been a long time since Adrian and I used any of those things over there.

&nbsp
; Years, in fact.

  I close the door of my car, listen to the engine tick and pop as it cools. I finally summon the motivation to go inside; just as the garage door light flicks off automatically, bathing the garage in darkness. The house is silent, dark. I flick on the kitchen light, a small pool of incandescent yellow, limning the marble counters and stainless-steel appliances with sepia light.

  Green numerals on the oven: 12:47.

  I’m hungry. But food seems to require too much energy to prepare, even ripping open a protein bar or popping some popcorn in the microwave, or reheating leftovers. It’s all too hard. I toss my purse on the island, fish my phone out of it, shuck my hoodie and leave it on the island with my purse—I’m going back to work in less than six hours anyway. No point in putting them away. I trudge upstairs. My footsteps scuff loudly on the carpet, and when I touch the doorknob to open my bedroom door, I’m shocked by a burst of static electricity, bright blue-white in the darkness of the hall. Sometimes, if I remember, I leave the TV on in our bedroom, just for the semblance of welcome.

  I neglected to make the bed this morning. Only one side is mussed, slept in. Adrian has been on a research trip to the East Coast for the past week. Even though I’m dead on my feet, I force myself to bypass the bed. I have to shower, and scrub the day away. I strip out of my scrubs and drape them on the seaman’s chest at the foot of our bed, for tomorrow. Toss my sports bra, underwear, and socks in the hamper. Turn the shower on and let it run to scalding and brush my teeth and scrape a brush through my hair.