Sweet Dreams, Irene

“Right here, I’m right here. Shhh.”

“One more of them.”

“No, he’s dead. His truck went over a cliff.”

“No, one more.”

“Shhh. Go to sleep. They’re all dead. No one’s going to hurt you. You’re safe now.”

“No,” I said, but it didn’t seem important after all, so I let myself float down into darkness.

WHEN I CAME AROUND again, I saw white lights rolling over my head. Frank was holding my left hand, moving alongside me. I gradually realized I was on a gurney, being wheeled around in a hospital. The painkiller was wearing off.

The doctors were happy I could talk to them as clearly as I could. They had already taken X-rays, and were anxious about not letting the shoulder remain dislocated. They loaded me up with morphine and yanked the shoulder back into place. I howled like a banshee. The embarrassment of that didn’t last long; I passed out.

I came awake feeling panicked. It took me a moment to realize I was in a hospital room. Frank was watching me anxiously. I was very grateful to see him there, because being in another strange, small room was frightening the hell out of me.

“How do you feel?” he said.

“Scared,” I answered, before I realized Jack was there too.

He came up beside the bed and said quietly, “Do you want me to leave?”

“No, Jack. I want to leave.”

Frank took my left hand in his and I held on to it tightly while I looked myself over. I had an IV in my left arm. The bottom half of my right leg was in a cast. My right arm was in a sling, and I had a strange cast on it. The cast started below my elbow and covered my thumb. It covered my hand under my fingers, but the fingers were exposed. The hand was elevated.

“The shoulder and thumb were dislocated,” Frank explained. “The thumb fractured as well.”

The room didn’t have a window. The panic wasn’t subsiding. “Get me out of here,” I said.

“They want to keep you overnight,” Jack said.

“I want to go home,” I said to Frank. “Please don’t make me stay here. Take me to your house. I’ll go to a doctor in Las Piernas.”

That caused a fight with the doctor who was on duty that night. He gave me two choices: see a psychologist or be sedated. I refused both. He tried to talk Frank into keeping me there, but Frank stuck up for me.

Finally, we found a doctor who was sympathetic to my point of view, or at least understanding of my desire to avoid confined spaces. He even helped me to move out into the hallway, where I felt a little less anxious. Jack went to get a prescription for painkillers filled while Frank helped me into a robe he had bought for me while I was in surgery. I apologized to the nurses for being difficult. I wondered if I was going crazy.

Just before we left, the doctor who had helped us gave me a sedative, saying it would make the long ride home easier on me. I fell asleep before Frank had finished signing all of the paperwork for my release.

WE WERE BACK in Jack’s car. I looked up hazily and saw Frank’s face, looking down.

“Are we going home?” I asked.

“Yes. We’re going home.”

I woke up a couple of times on the way, vaguely aware of feeling troubled, but Frank would try to calm me and soon I would fall back to sleep. I heard Jack and Frank talking easily to one another, their voices like a lullaby to me.

We pulled up in front of Frank’s house, and Jack helped him once again. The lights were on in the house, and I became aware of voices – Pete and Rachel, Cody yowling. I couldn’t make out anything anyone was saying, except Cody.

Frank took me into the bedroom, and with Rachel’s help took the robe off and got me into bed. Rachel left the room. Cody, somehow always sensing when he needs to be gentle, found a place near my left hand to lie down and purr at me, giving me little kisses on my knuckles. It roused me enough to look up at Frank as he kissed me softly on the top of my head. He stayed until I fell asleep.

He came in again not too much later. I became aware that he had turned on the light and was calling my name and holding me. I was busy screaming. The nightmares had begun.

29

WHEN I WOKE UP enough to realize that Devon had not reached up and pulled out the shard and started stabbing me with it, that it was a dream, I felt like there wasn’t enough air in the room. I was going to suffocate at any moment. I was sweating. Frank was looking worried. “I’ve got to go outside,” I told him.

It must have seemed an odd request, but he gave into it without question, as he did many other odd requests that would follow over the next few weeks. He put on a light jacket and then gently lifted me up out of bed. He helped me to stand and to put on my robe. He picked me up again, and carried me out to the backyard. He eased me down into a chair on the deck, then sat next to me.

“Is this okay?”

I nodded. The night was cool, and I took in great gulps of air, which smelled wonderfully of the ocean. I could just make out the sound of the waves hitting the shore.

“Better?”

“Yes, much better. I guess after being locked up in that room-” I couldn’t finish.

He took my hand. We sat there like that for a while.

“I suppose I should tell you what happened,” I said.

“When you’re ready.”

I shook my head. “I don’t know if I’ll ever be ready.” I looked over at him, trying to put myself in his place. Would he ever be ready to hear it?

Tentatively, I began telling him the story of my three days in the mountains. By the time I finished, he was sitting, head in hands. I knew he was upset, but still, when he spoke, the anger in his voice took me aback.

“Why the hell did you go out to that field that night?”

“I’ve asked myself that question many times, Frank.” I swallowed hard, feeling the regret rise within me like a river.

He got up and paced again, shoving his hands in his pockets, then restlessly taking them out again. “I just don’t understand it. You’re smart. But I swear to God, Irene, sometimes you do something so…” He faltered, having finally looked over at my face.

“Stupid,” I finished quietly.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. It doesn’t do any good.”

“You’re right. O’Co

“For Christsakes. That’s not what I was trying to say.”

I didn’t reply.

“It’s not your fault, Irene.” He stared down at his feet. “I should never have left you that night. I knew you were in danger, and I left you. I’m the idiot, and you’ve had to pay for it. If I had stayed with you-”

“That doesn’t do any good, either. Maybe if you had come with me they would have killed you.”

He was silent.

I thought of all the worry and self-recriminations my disappearance must have caused him, and at a time when he had plenty of other problems to contend with. I thought of how he had blamed himself for Mrs. Fremont’s death, for his father’s death. I had, quite obviously, put him through hell.

“Do you think,” I asked, my throat tightening, “that you could possibly come to forgive me?”

“Oh God, Irene. That’s crazy. Nothing to forgive. What happened is not your fault. None of it is your fault.”

I couldn’t speak. He came over to me then and said quietly, “Let me hold you.”

I laid my head on his shoulder. We sat like that for a long time.

“Want to try to go back to sleep?” he asked, seeing me grow drowsy.

I nodded. “Let me try to walk.”

It was slow going, and I was frustrated, but he simply said, “Be patient.”

“Frank?” I said, as we reached the bedroom.

“Hmm.”

“I haven’t seen myself yet.”

I saw his jaw tense, but he quietly walked over to the closet door. I knew there was a full-length mirror on the other side of that door.