The Lost

Chapter Twenty-Four

I meet Dr. Barrett in the hospital cafeteria at noon. I’m surprised to see him, though I suppose doctors have to eat, too. In line for the pasta Alfredo, I ask, “Isn’t there a doctors-only cafeteria where you don’t have to mix with us riffraff?”

“Yes, there is,” he says. “But this one has cupcakes.” He points to a red velvet cupcake with a mass of ivory frosting, and for an instant, I can’t breathe. Claire would have loved it.

I try to keep my voice light and normal. “Can’t argue with cupcakes.”

“Indeed,” he says gravely.

We reach the cashier, and I pay with my mom’s credit card. I sign her name and hope that Dr. Barrett doesn’t notice, or doesn’t mind. My purse was lost in the crash. The credit card company has issued me a new card, but it’s being mailed to my apartment and I haven’t been home yet. Happily, home does still exist. Mom said she arranged for automatic payment of rent through the end of the year. And in thanks, I steal her credit card. Okay, I asked her first, but still I feel a twinge of guilt. Trapped in a hospital bed and Mom still finds ways to take care of me. I wonder if there will ever be a point when I’m not so damned needy and selfish, when I can be the one taking care of someone else. You’d think this would be my opportunity, but the credit card belies that.

“Wait,” he says. He snags a second red velvet cupcake, and he pays. Once past the cashier, he drops the second cupcake on my tray. “You can’t pass up the only good thing about being in the hospital.”

“It’s good that I can stay with my mom,” I say. “Thanks for arranging that.” After my first visit, he’d added a formal note to Mom’s chart that I didn’t have to leave when visitor hours ended. Mom no longer had to plead with each shift’s nurse. “I should have bought you a cupcake in thanks.”

“Next time.” He points, one hand holding his tray, to a table by the window. “Join me?”

“Sure.” I feel my heart beat a little faster, though I don’t know why. He’s already delivered all the bad news about Mom that there could possibly be... I shouldn’t tempt fate by thinking like that. I sit across from him.

There’s a fake daisy in a pink vase in the center of the table, as well as a condiment carrier with an array of ketchup, soy sauce, jelly, and syrup. I can’t imagine what meal would require all of those, but I eye the packets of jelly for a second. Claire loved strawberry... No, Claire’s not real. She was never real. The doctors had made that abundantly clear. I don’t know how I keep forgetting, or why I can’t get her out of my mind.

Dr. Barrett picks up a bit of rope tied into a noose that was tucked behind the ketchup. “Cute, gallows humor. Different people cope in different ways.” He tosses it onto the next table, and I think of Tiffany. I am about to reach for the noose, but then Dr. Barrett says, “Nurses tell me you haven’t left the hospital yet. Are you getting enough sleep?”

He’s been checking up on me? I don’t know how I feel about that. Flattered? Comforted? Unsettled? “You know I’m not your patient, right? I’m fine.”

“Sometimes this is hard, and a night’s sleep at home can help.” He eats his pasta, swirling the noodles expertly on his fork.

“Mom sleeps better when I’m here.”

“You have to look out for yourself, too.”

I don’t want to explain how I don’t want to go home, don’t want to see the life I built, don’t want to resume it. I haven’t called in to work. I don’t know if they even know I’m out of the coma. I don’t know if I still have a job. There’s probably some policy about not firing people in comas, kind of like maternity leave minus the cute baby photos. I try to deflect the conversation. “How do you look out for yourself? All of this...so much loss. It must be hard sometimes.” I think of Peter and all the people he’s lost.

Not real. Dr. Barrett is real. I force myself to focus on him.

“Sometimes, not always.” He makes a face. “I have bad days. When I fail.”

“Perfectionist?”

He nods. “And control freak. Bad combination.” He leans forward as if about to tell me a secret. “I alphabetize nearly everything.”

“Must be nice. Bet you never lose anything.”

“Not if I can help it.”

I think of the junk piles in Lost, the treasure troves of everything that people failed to alphabetize and control and put in its perfect place. I feel as though I should say something profound, like “sometimes you need to lose in order to find” or “there’s beauty in being lost.” But I don’t. Instead I take a bite of the cupcake. It’s sweet and rich and pretty much perfect.

He’s grinning at me. “Good, right?”

Mouth full, I nod.

He reaches over with a napkin and wipes my upper lip. “Bit of frosting.” For an instant, I freeze. His proximity, the warmth of his eyes... I think of Peter. Not real. Not real! But this man is. And he’s kind and smart. I want to seize him as if he’s an anchor in a storm, but I barely know him. “How did my mom help you? You said that when...” I trail off, not certain how to broach the topic of his father.

His smile fades, and for an instant, pain crosses his face.

I wish I hadn’t asked. “I’m sorry. If you don’t want to talk about it...”

“No, it’s okay.” The smile is back. He really has the nicest smile I’ve ever seen. I notice that others in the cafeteria, women in particular, are sneaking looks in our direction—at him admiringly and at me curiously. I realize I must be sitting with the catch of the hospital, and I don’t understand why he is being so overly kind to me. With Peter, his motivations were clear... Not real, I tell myself yet again. Dr. Barrett is talking, and I tell myself to listen. “My father’s death was unexpected. Seemed healthy. Went to the gym daily. No trace of heart problems. But he went out for a jog one day and collapsed. The paramedics were unable to revive him. Your mother helped me with the aftermath. My father was a...he would have said ‘collector,’ but he was a hoarder. I wanted to pitch it all immediately. She helped me sort through it. Came daily for about two months.”

How did I not know this? I was at work. She was partially retired.

“She talked about you all the time.” He smiles at me in a lopsided way that reminds me so strongly of Peter that my heart does a flip-flop inside my rib cage. “I know several of your embarrassing childhood stories, and you don’t know even one of mine. It’s distinctly unfair. But that’s why the cupcake. I feel like I already know you.” He falls silent, and he’s looking intensely into my eyes, seriously, as if he’s seeing straight to the core of me. I feel as though the world has sucked in to a bubble around us. All other sound fades. I am acutely aware of everything about him, from the way his scrubs hang on his shoulders, to the curve of his cheekbones, to the breath in his throat, to his grip on his coffee cup, but all I think is Peter, Peter, Peter. He runs his fingers through his hair nervously. He is real; Peter is not. “I apologize if all of this comes off as creepy. It’s just...I’ve been wanting to meet you for a long time.”

“I think...I’m flattered?”

“Good.” He seems relieved. He leans back in his chair, tipping it a few inches backward. “Let me take you to dinner tonight. Someplace not here. Give you a break. Tell you a few of my embarrassing childhood stories.”

I should say yes. Mom would want me to say yes. It would be healthy. Help me forget about Peter and ground me in reality. But I shake my head. “My mom needs me right now. Probably shouldn’t even be here now.”

If he’s disappointed, he hides it well. He nods understandingly. “I have lousy timing, don’t I? You need a friend right now, not some guy stalking you in an awkward fashion.” He stands up. “I’ve never been very good with women.”

I half laugh. “I find that difficult to believe.”

He shrugs. “I don’t have time for building relationships. I’m married to this hospital. Which is why you’re ideal. I already know you.”

“Yeah, that does border on a little creepy.”

“Ask your mother for my embarrassing stories. She knows them.” He winks at me, and then he picks up my tray, as well as his own, and heads for the trash can.

“Thanks for the cupcake,” I call after him. I then look over at the table next to us. I pick up the small noose and wind it around my fingers as if it’s a talisman.

I take it with me as I go to visit my mother.

I slip into Mom’s hospital room quietly. She’s asleep. She looks so fragile when she sleeps, as if at any moment, she could be blown apart like dried leaves in autumn. I sink into the chair by the window and look out at the palm trees.

I twist the noose around my fingers and then untwist it. Twist. Untwist. Twist. Untwist. I think about Dr. Barrett. About Peter. About Mom. About Claire. Real. Not real. Real. Not real.

“Did you have a nice lunch?” Mom’s voice is soft and wavers. I scoot the chair closer so she doesn’t have to raise her voice.

“Dr. Barrett joined me.”

She starts to nod and then she coughs. The coughs shudder through her entire body, and I drop the little noose and reach for her. She holds up her hand to stop me. “Fine. I’m fine. William’s a nice boy, isn’t he?”

“He said you helped him sort through his father’s things.”

“I did.” A ghost of a smile drifts across her face. “His father and I were close once.”

“Close close?”

She tries to cackle, but again she’s caught in a cough. She smiles weakly at me. “You were a teenager. I didn’t want to tell you until I was certain it would last. You were looking so fiercely for a father figure. I didn’t want to disappoint you if the relationship fell apart. And it did fall apart. My fault, mostly. I kept comparing him to my memories of your father. At any rate, there was no reason to tell you. But we remained friends.”

“You’re certain it was when I was a teenager? I’m not going to discover that his father is my father, and my life is suddenly a British soap opera.”

“I swear you can date him without any fear of creating three-headed children or violating any laws.” Her eyes gleam. This is the most alert I’ve seen her. “Did he ask you out?”

I shouldn’t admit it. But I don’t want to lie to her. “Dinner. I said no.”

“Why?” she screeches. I didn’t know she could still get that kind of volume out of her lungs. I’m impressed. And pleased. She levels a finger at me. “You are to go out to dinner with him tonight. Someplace nice. Order wine. Pinot noir. You’ll like it. Then you are to have him go back with you to the apartment since you’re obviously too scared to go by yourself. Water my plants. Take in whatever fast-food ads have accumulated outside the door. Let air in. And then you can come back. If you choose to sleep with him, just don’t do it in my bed.”

“Mom!”

Mom presses the nurse call button. A few minutes later, the nurse appears. Mom smiles at her. “Would you please page Dr. Barrett? Tell him it isn’t an emergency, but when he has a free moment, I’d like to speak with him.”

“Sure thing.” The nurse checks her IVs, makes sure Mom is comfortable, and waggles her finger over the dinner tray. “You need to eat.” Mom obediently opens the soup and spoons some into her mouth. Her hand shakes, and drops spill on her hospital gown, but a tiny mouthful of broth makes it past her lips. She closes the lid when the nurse leaves.

“I’ll go if you eat everything on that tray,” I say.

She pulls the tray closer.

“And breakfast tomorrow, too,” I quickly add.

“Done,” she says with satisfaction.

“Well played, Mom. Well played.” Leaning over, I pick up the noose. It’s just a ratty piece of string. I should toss it in the trash.

She gestures at me with the fork. “What do you have there?” She points to the noose.

“Just a thing I found.” Firmly, I put it down. I pick up the pad of paper and pencil that I’d gotten from the nurses’ station. As she eats, I doodle, using the menu as support for the paper. I draw the motel as I remember it with the desiccated saguaro by the sign, and I draw the diner with all the tacky kitsch in the windows. I then sketch in the rest of the street, the post office with the eagle, the darkened alleys. When I finish, I tape it to the wall.

On a fresh piece of paper, I start to draw Victoria, the harsh lines of her jaw and the severity of her hair. I sketch in her waitress uniform. Taking another sheet, I begin on Tiffany.

Mom finishes every bite of her food.