Heartsick

CHAPTER 49

Archie wakes up completely disoriented. He is still in the basement. He is still in the bed. But everything is different. The bed has been moved against the wall. The stench of rotten meat is gone. He looks for the corpse. It has vanished; the cement floor is washed clean. His bandages are fresh. The sheets have been changed. He has been bathed. The room smells like ammonia. He searches the fractured images in his mind for some recent memory.

“You’ve been asleep for two days.” Gretchen appears from behind him. She is wearing a fresh change of clothes, black pants and a gray cashmere sweater, and her blond hair is clean and brushed smooth into a shiny ponytail.

Archie blinks at her, his head still muddy. “I don’t understand,” he manages to say, his voice weak.

“You died,” Gretchen explains. “But I brought you back. Ten milligrams of lidocaine. I wasn’t sure it would work.” She shoots him a twinkling grin. “You must have a healthy heart.”

He lets this sink in. “Why?”

“Because we’re not done yet.”

“I’m done,” he says with as much authority as he can muster.

Gretchen gives him an admonishing look. “You don’t get to choose, though, do you? I get to make all the decisions. I get to be the one in charge. All you have to do is go along.” She leans in close, her face inches away from his, her warm hand on his cheek. “It’s the easiest thing in the world,” she says soothingly. “You’ve worked so hard for so long. Always on call. All that responsibility. Everyone always looking to you for answers.” He can feel her breath against his mouth, tickling his lips. He doesn’t look at her. It’s too hard. He looks through her. “They all think you’re dead now, darling. It’s been a long time. I don’t keep anyone alive this long. Henry knows that. I would think you would be pleased. No one needs you anymore.” She smiles and kisses him on the forehead. “Enjoy it.”

He feels that kiss even as she peels back the bandage covering the surgical incision that stretches from his xiphoid process to his navel. Even as he catches a glimpse of the black sutures that hold his flesh together. She looks pleased. “The swelling’s gone down as well as the redness,” she comments.

He stares unblinking at the ceiling. There is no escaping. It is all a sick joke. She could keep him alive down there for years. He is at her mercy.

But he has to know. “What are you going to do with me?”

“Keep you.”

“For how long?” he asks.

Gretchen leans over him again, this time eye-to-eye, so he can’t help but look at her, her blue eyes wide, one eyebrow slightly arched, skin glowing. She smiles and is radiant. “Until you like it,” she says.

He closes his eyes. “I’d like to sleep.”

When he wakes up, she has the X-Acto knife out again and she is cutting into his chest. It hurts, but he doesn’t care. It’s a minor nuisance, a mosquito bite. But it reminds him that he is alive.

“Do you want me to stop?” she asks, not looking up.

“No,” he says. “I’m hoping you’ll nick an artery.” His voice is frail, his throat still aflame with pain.

She puts her palm on his cheek and leans in close to his ear, as if they are about to share a secret. “What about your children? Don’t you want to live for them?”

Ben’s and Sara’s sweet faces flash before him and he wipes the image clean from his mind, until there is nothing. He turns his head toward the wall. “I don’t have any children.”

“How long has it been?” he asks her. His slide in and out of consciousness has allowed time to slip away altogether. How long have they been there? Weeks? Months now? He has no idea. He has been spitting up blood again. He knows that it worries her. Her exquisite face has become taut and she is always there, always at his side. It is the one thing he can count on. He wants to stop spitting up the blood, to please her, but he can’t help himself.

She is seated beside him. She puts a piece of blond hair behind her ear and presses her fingers against his wrist to take his pulse. She’s been doing this a lot, and he realizes that it is because he is dying. He knows that she will touch his wrist for fifteen seconds, and it is the only thing he looks forward to. There is something about her touch that consoles him absolutely. He savors those fifteen seconds, memorizing the feel of her skin against his so that he can imagine her fingers there when she lifts her hand.

“Untie me,” he says. He has to take several breaths to get enough oxygen to speak, and even then his voice is a faint rasp.

She doesn’t even think about it. She reaches down and unfastens the leather bindings that trap one wrist, and then undoes the other. He’s too weak to raise his arms even a few inches, but she lifts his hand to her mouth and kisses his palm. He feels the warm tears on her face before he sees them. She is crying. And it breaks his heart. The tears rise in his own eyes even as hers cool on his hand.

“It’s all right,” he says, comforting her.

He smiles. Because he believes it. Everything is all right. He is right where he is supposed to be. She is so beautiful and he is so tired. And it is almost over.