Lena sat down on the toilet, considering this. For just a brief moment, she wondered whether or not she was still drunk. Certainly, she would not be contemplating such an act if she were sober. Would she?
Lena looked around the bathroom, which had never been her favorite room in the house. The tiles were orange with white grout, a popular color scheme when the house had been built in the seventies, but now was tacky. She had tried to compensate for the color by adding other colors: a dark-blue bathmat by the tub, a dark-green cover for the box of Kleenex on the back of the toilet. The towels tied the colors together, but not in a pleasing way. Nothing had helped the room. It seemed appropriate, then, that she would die here.
Lena opened the bottles and spread the pills out on the vanity. The Darvocet were large, but the Flexeril were more like little breath mints. Moving them around with her index finger, she alternated the big pills with the little pills, then moved them all back into their own separate piles. She sipped some of the water as she did this, and realized that to some degree she was playing.
"Okay," Lena said. "This one is for Sibby." She opened her mouth and popped in one of the Darvocets.
"To Hank," she said, chasing it with a Flexeril. Then, because they were small, she popped two more Flexeril, followed by two Darvocet. She did not swallow yet, though. Lena wanted to take them all at the same time, and there was one more person she felt the need to recognize.
Her mouth was so full that when she said his name, the sound was muffled.
"These are for you," she mumbled, scooping the remaining Flexeril into the palm of her hand. "These are for you, you fucking bastard."
She shoved the handful into her mouth, tilting back her head. She stopped midtilt, staring at Hank in the doorway. They were both quiet, their eyes locked on to each other's. He stood there with his arms crossed, his lips a firm line.
"Do it," he finally said.
Lena sat there on the toilet, holding the pills in her mouth. Some of them had started to break down, and she could taste an acrid, powdery paste forming at the back of her mouth.
"I won't call an ambulance, if that's what you're thinking." He gave a tight shrug. "Go ahead and do it if that's what you want to do."
Lena felt her tongue going numb.
"You scared?" Hank asked. "Too scared to pull the trigger, too scared to swallow the pills?"
Her eyes watered from the taste in her mouth, but she still did not swallow. Lena felt frozen. How long had he been watching her? Was this some kind of test she had failed?
"Go on!" Hank yelled, his voice so loud that it echoed against the tiles.
Lena 's mouth opened, and she started to spit out the pills into her hand but Hank stopped her. He crossed the small bathroom in two steps and clamped his hands around her head, one over her mouth, the other behind her so that she could not pull away. Lena dug her nails into his flesh, trying to pull his hand from her mouth, but he was too strong for her. She fell forward off the toilet, onto her knees, but he moved down with her, keeping her head locked between his hands.
"Swallow them," Hank ordered, his voice gravelly and low. "That's what you want to do, swallow them!"
She started to shake her head back and forth, trying to tell him no, that she did not want to do this, that she could not do this. Some of the pills started to slide down her throat, and she constricted the muscles in her neck to stop them. Her heart was beating so hard that she thought it might explode.
"No?" Hank demanded. "No?"
Lena kept shaking her head, digging at his hand to release her. He finally let go, and she fell back against the tub, her head popping against the edge.
Hank threw open the toilet lid and half grabbed, half dragged her toward it. He pushed her head down into the bowl and she finally opened her mouth, gagging, spitting the pills out. Retching sounds echoed back at her until her mouth was empty. She used her fingers to clean around her gums and then used her nails, scraping at her tongue to get the taste out.
Hank stood, and when she looked up at him she could tell that he was pissed as hell.
"You bastard," she hissed, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.
His foot moved, and she thought he was going to kick her. Lena curled, anticipating the blow, but it did not come.
"Get cleaned up," Hank ordered. With an open palm, he swept the remaining pills off the basin and onto the floor. "Clean up this shit."
Lena moved to do as she was told, walking on her hands and knees, collecting the Darvocet.
Hank leaned against the wall, his arms crossed over his chest. His voice was softer now, and she looked up at him, surprised to see that there were tears in his eyes. "If you ever do that again…" he began, then looked away. He put his hand over his mouth as if to fight back the words. "You're all I got, baby."
Lena was crying now, too. She said, "I know, Hank."
"Don't…" he began.
Lena asked, "Don't what?"
He slid down the wall, sitting on the floor with his hands to his side. He stared at her openly, his eyes searching hers for something. "Don't leave me," he whispered, his words hanging in the air above them like a dark cloud.
The distance between them was only a few feet, but to Lena it felt like an endless chasm. She could reach out to him. She could thank him. She could promise him that she would never try this again.
She could have done any or all of those things, but what Lena ended up doing was picking up the pills off the floor one by one and throwing them into the toilet.
Tuesday
Chapter Ten
"Hold on, Sam," Sara coaxed, struggling to hold a wriggling two year old in her lap so that she could l isten to his chest.
"Be still for Dr. Linton, Sammy," his mother said in a singsong voice.
"Sara?" Elliott Felteau, who worked at the clinic for Sara, poked his head into the room. She had hired Elliott right out of his residency to help her out, but so far Sara had spent most of her time holding his hand. It was a trade-off, because an older doctor would have insisted on some kind of partnership, and Sara was not about to relinquish her control. She had worked too hard to get to where she was to start listening to someone else's opinions.
"Sorry," Elliott apologized to the mother, then said to Sara, "Did you tell Tara Collins that Pat could play football this weekend? She needs a medical release before the school will let him back on the team."
Sara stood, taking Sam with her. His legs wrapped around Sara's waist, and she scooted him up on her hip as she lowered her voice, asking Elliott, "Why is this question coming from you?"
"She called and asked for me," he told her. "Said she didn't want to bug you."
Sara tried to unclench Sam's fist as he tugged her hair. "No, he can't play this weekend," she whispered. "I told her that on Friday."
"It's just an exhibition game."
"He has a concussion," Sara countered, the tone of her voice a warning to Elliot.
"Hmm," Elliott said, backing out of the room. "I guess she thought I'd be an easier target."
Sara took a deep, calming breath, then turned back around. "Sorry about that," she said, sitting down in the chair. Thankfully, Sam had stopped fidgeting, and she was able to listen to his chest.
"Pat Collins is their star quarterback," the mother said. "'You're not going to let him play?"
Sara avoided the question. "His lungs seem clear," she told the woman. "Make sure he finishes his antibiotics, though."