Microsoft word winterb.., p.10
Microsoft Word - Winterborn_final-ADRoland, page 10
hand. She flinched and moaned softly. Her brow wrinkled.
“Tam?”
Her soft, warm hand flexed in his. For a moment his heart soared, exhilarated. She’s trying to hold my hand.
He crashed hard when she summoned enough strength to yank her hand away and turn her face
toward the window. “No,” she said. Her voice was rough and throaty, pulpy from tubes and stress.
“No, Sean.”
“Tam, baby.” She had every reason to hate him. Every reason to throw it all away. “Tamsyn.”
Tears rolled down her cheeks, glinting red in the dying sunlight shining through the cracks in the
vertical blinds. The sight sat uneasily on Sean's already-tortured stomach. He touched her cheek,
wiped the tears away, and smoothed back her bleach-and-dye-fried hair. Sweaty blue strands stuck to
his fingers. Stupid anime hair. He wanted to cry.
“Go. Away.” It sounded like it hurt to talk.
“No.”
“I hate you.”
She couldn't have hurt him worse if she stabbed him in the heart. Knowing he deserved it hurt
just as bad.
“It's going to be okay, Tams.” Grin and bear it, fight through it. “You're sick right now, and I know
you're not thinking clearly.”
“Go.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“Make me.”
She looked at him, her eyes blazing and red-rimmed, full of shiny tears. “You're not a hero.”
Whispering more than a word was hard work, painful work. The strain on her voice cut through him.
“Should have just left me.”
“No matter what horrible thing I did to you, I always came back. And I came back this time. You
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know I'll always come back.”
“'Cuz I'm all you have. It don't make it right.” She coughed, a horrible hoarse sound. “Plan B.”
A hand on his shoulder startled him. “What?”
“Let her rest, Mr. Hallert. The doctor needs to speak to you.”
Sean leaned down and kissed Tam's salty wet cheek. He put everything in it when he whispered, “I
love you more than life itself, no matter what stupid crap I do.” These hallway talks never went well.
The veiled threats, the fake support. “You can hate me all you want to, but right now, I'm the only one
between you and another six months in a rehab program. You know how these talks with doctors go.”
The talk went the same way it always did. Suicide attempt. Seventy-two-hour psych hold. Sean
checked on Tam one more time, then armed with a handful of chemical and substance abuse
pamphlets and brochures for rehab centers, headed to the school to get Kevin.
****
“Where's Kevin?” Tam stared down at the plate in front of her, head aching, hands shaking.
“His grandparents.”
“Really.”
“Yeah. I figured it would be best if he stayed there for the weekend. You and I have to talk.”
Tam laughed, a cold, bitter sound. She hadn't had so much as a Tylenol in two weeks. She’d spent
a full week in the hospital, being poked and prodded both physically and mentally. They sent her
home with a prescription, of all things, for antidepressants and a monthly appointment with a
psychiatrist. The bottle of pills sat on the bathroom counter. She flushed one every day, because Sean
checked the bottle, but not to see if she was actually taking them. She forced herself to smile when he
made a joke and laughed when expected to. She acted mad when he did the things that used to bother
her. She let him touch her, let him give her flowers and slow-dance her to seductive music.
When the day was done and his sweat dried on her skin while he snored away, she was
just...there.
But she really just didn't care. Nothing remained. She was done. She washed her hands of the
whole affair. Sean put his all into this new 'let's pretend nothing ever happened' game, but she refused to waste her time on it anymore.
Not that there were more important matters or anything.
“Hey, how's that chicken?”
He'd cooked supper. She dutifully took a bite and called on all her acting skills. Mustering up a
smile, she said, “It's great, honey. Very good.”
Bits of whatever herbs and spices he'd used on the chicken stuck to her tongue and wedged in her
teeth like splinters. She took a long swallow of her iced tea to wash the grainy debris out of her mouth.
Didn't help.
It's not really there. Hallucinations plagued her again. All in her head. Sensations, sounds, things seen from the corner of her eye, kept her on edge.
She forked down more of the food, until her plate was clean, and Sean had moved from across the
round table to the seat next to hers. “I have something to tell you. I'm not sure how you're going to
take it.”
“There's probably not anything you could tell that's worse than something you've already told me.
Unless you're about to tell me you've given me an STD or something.”
He heaved a sigh and rolled his eyes. “Can it. I'm serious. I quit my job last week.”
“Oh. Great. Yeah...that's just great news.” Tam nodded. She honestly had no clue what reaction
he expected from her. She paused, frowned. “Um. Why?”
“You.”
“You got fired, didn't you?”
“No, Tamsyn! I turned in my resignation. I did a lot of thinking the week you were in the hospital.
And...I think it’s the right thing to do.”
Right alongside not paying the light bill, the car payments, the credit card bills, buying
groceries... “Yeah, of course. Not having a job is really, really just the right thing to do. I'm with you Winterborn/ Roland
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one hundred percent.”
Did he expect her to smile now or save it for later, when he told her he was going to marry two
other women and have thirty-something kids and live off the land?
He took her hands. “The guy that owns the Estate asked me to consider a caretaker position a
while back. I know the place and I'll be home. With you.”
“You hate the Estate, Sean. You freak out if me or Kevin even look in that general direction.”
He closed his eyes and swallowed hard. The expression of distaste and something like terror
crossed his face lightning fast, but Tam saw it. It sparked something deep in her dead heart. “Why are
you doing this?”
“For you, baby. I've screwed up so much over the last eleven, twelve years. It's hard to even
remember a time when you weren't messed up on some drug because of the crap I left you alone to
deal with. You were right. I've dumped all my problems on you and expected you to handle them, but
I've never been there for you when you need me.”
“Now you've decided that I need you?”
He gave her his death stare. “Should I just stop talking to you?”
She chewed on her lower lip, feigning thoughtfulness. “Might not be a bad idea.”
He muttered something under his breath and shoved away from the table. He stomped upstairs,
making as much noise as possible, slamming doors and tromping around. Tam gathered the supper
dishes and took them to the sink. She squirted in some dish soap and ran the water.
Mounds of white foam swelled up. Tam stuck her hands into the hot water and felt around for the
sponge. Her fingers touched the smooth edges of stoneware plates, the tines of the forks, the serrated
edges of the knives.
Ropey strands of raw meat, smooth and gooey, laced through her fingers. “Ew, gross!” She held
her hands up and stared down into the soapy water. What the heck was floating around in there? It
felt like raw chicken. There hadn't been anything in the sink, and she hadn't left anything on the
plates. She pushed aside the mountain of foamy bubbles.
Trails of olive oil from the chicken and butter from the vegetables dotted the surface of the water.
The plates shifted, and something metallic scraped the side of the sink.
Her hands weren't in the water. Nothing touched the plates.
The water sloshed gently. Underneath the foam, something splashed.
“Sean!” His name burst involuntarily from her lips. The surface rippled like something had come
to the surface for air. “Sean, come here!”
He thundered down the frail, narrow steps that started behind the pantry and ended up in a
closet at the end of the hall upstairs. They rarely used them, since several of the risers were rotten
through.
Sean shouldered his way out of the broken pantry door. “What?”
“There's something in the water.”
“What water?”
“The dishwater!”
He gave her a withering glare and went to the sink. “Okay. Dishes, forks, cups, a knife...and soap.
What am I looking for?”
“Something was moving in the water.”
He rolled his eyes and started to say something else. He stopped himself short. “I get it. You're
hallucinating again. Tam, there's nothing in the water. Look, I'll drain it for you.”
Tam held her breath when he stuck his hand into the sudsy water. A second later she heard the
noisy slurp of the drain and the dishes clacking together. “Look, nothing but dishes.”
She peered around his shoulder. He refilled the sink, this time not adding quite so much soap.
“I'll even dry.”
Tam bit her bottom lip as she dipped her fingers into the water. Gingerly, she inched the rest of
her hands in. The only movement in the water came from her hands.
Sean nudged her shoulder. “It's just water. You know it's just all in your head.”
Every swish of the current she caused as she moved the dishes around made her jump. Sean took
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the clean plates and cups from her and rinsed them, dried them. His tense, defensive stature
softened.
“Look, we're all done. Pull the plug and let's go to bed.”
Tam reached into the water once more. A sharp pain bit deeply into the soft part of her palm. She
squealed, her heart racing, and jumped back. Water sloshed out of the sink, soaking the floor. Tam hit
the wet patch and ended up flat on her behind.
“Tam, what's your problem?”
Words froze in her mouth, heavy on her tongue. Her hand burned and stung. Warm blood ran
down her wrist. Sean knelt in front of her and pried her hand away from her other one. She fought
him, holding the hand tight to her ribs.
“There's something in the sink!”
Sean rose up on his knees and looked into the sink again. “Nothing, Tamsyn.” He started to turn
back to her and then abruptly turned back to the sink. “What the—?”
Something small, black and sinuous flew out of the sink and hit him in the face. Tamsyn shrieked
and scuttled backwards. Sean's shouts of pain and terror echoed through the house. He fought hard,
slamming himself against the counters, rolling across the floor into the chair legs as he tried to claw
the thing off his face.
Helpless, paralyzed, Tamsyn could only scream while the worm devoured her husband's face.
****
Sharp, stinging pain consumed one side of Tam's face. She yelped and jerked away from—
Sean. He had the most horrified expression she had ever seen on his strong, handsome face. His
shirt dripped soapy dishwater, water that diluted the bright crimson streak down the front.
“You hit me,” she stammered.
“I'm sorry. You were...you went a little nuts there for a second.” He held his hand out to her. She
took it and he hauled her to her feet. “Look, you cut yourself on that knife.”
He managed to pry her hand off her injured one. A deep gash ran the length of the side of her
palm. With the pressure gone, blood sluiced out of the wound and flowed down her arm. “That needs
stitches.”
“I don't want to go back to the hospital. They red-flagged me.”
“You can't walk around with a gushing cut, Tamsyn.”
“You have that first aid kit. Just bandage it up.” The world was still hazy. Tam stopped Sean from
walking away. She held her injured hand against her chest and used her good hand to tilt his face one
way then the other. “I saw it bite you...”
“I'm...fine. You, on the other hand, literally, need some help. Look at that cut, Tam. You can't just
leave that open like that.”
“Put some of those butterfly stitches on it. Sean, please don't make me go to the hospital. They'll
think I tried to hurt myself or something.”
“You have to go. You're bleeding like a stuck pig. I'll be with you, and I'll make sure nobody thinks
you did this to yourself. Okay?”
“Sean!”
“Stop whining. Let's go.”
Three miserable hours later, Sean helped her change into pajamas. A thick wad of bandages
formed a virtual mitten around her left hand. It hurt like a demon had chomped down on her hand,
but she'd refused anything more than local anesthetic. It had worn off a long time ago, practically
before they had gotten halfway home.
“That hospital's a lot nicer than the one here.” She buried her face in the pillow.
Sean groaned and stretched out next to her. “Yeah. You need anything?”
“I'm fine, Sean.” What he'd told her earlier that night echoed through her thoughts. “Sean?”
“What?” The lights hadn't been out ten minutes, and he already sounded drowsy.
“Did you really quit your job?”
He turned over. In the pale moonlight shining in the odd windows over the bed (perfect for
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shining on the bed, she realized in a distracted sort of way) he looked old, weary. The shadows dug
deep lines in his strong, angular face. When she first met him, she thought he looked too stern. Too
hard. It took six months or more of prodding him into opening up to her to get that bitter look out of
his eyes. Off his face.
“Yeah. I told you I did.”
“But why? Really?”
He was quiet for a moment. “You know, as often as we do this...thing. The silences and
everything, we never talk about divorce. We always come back to each other. Every time we do it's different between us. We get farther and farther apart.” He reached out and touched her cheek. It sent
a thrill through her. His gaze was glued to hers. For the first time in a while, she felt like the only thing in his world. Like it used to be.
“You said you're the only thing I have, and you're right.” Sean propped himself up on one elbow
and leaned close to kiss her temple, her hair, the top of her ear. “You're all I've ever had and it's taken this long for me to understand just a little bit of what that means.”
“Why so long?”
His lips were on her throat and she couldn't catch her breath. His warm breath caressed her
collarbone, the curve of her shoulder, and his hands cupped the curves of her ribcage.
“I don't know, Tamsyn. Forgive me, baby.” He stopped what he was doing and rested his head on
her chest. “I'm a screw up.”
“I knew that when I met you.” She was joking, but she was serious, too. Always, broken things,
unwanted things found her. “I wanted to fill up that big empty spot you wore like some sort of badge.”
Sean maneuvered until she was cuddled against his chest, nestled in the crook of his arm. “I say it
so much and I mean it every time I say it, but we're going to make 'us' right.”
Tam slid her fingers through his thin chest hair. “We've never been right, baby. I think we need
the dysfunction.”
“You're an artist. I expect you to be dysfunctional.” He poked her arm. She jabbed him back. “I'm
serious, though. We're scraping rock bottom.”
“I know. I don't know how to fix it. I've tried so many times and when I get myself straight and
you're sliding again.”
“Not anymore. We're both too old to treat this like some sick high school relationship. Tomorrow,
we should look for somebody to talk to.”
“What like a shrink? I don't want to go back to those quacks, Sean. I can't. They're just going to
make us talk in circles and act all stupid. They'll give is some retarded self-help books.”
“We have to get help.”
He stretched, yawning, and put his hands behind his head. His shift in position caused Tam's
head to drop right into his hairy armpit. She groaned and sat up. “Gross.”
“You're one to talk. When's the last time you shaved your pits?”
She took a chug of water from the plastic bottle on the nightstand. “Okay, back to what you were
saying.”
“It's time,” was all he said, shrugging.
“What, for me to shave?”
“Don't be smart. For us to fix this. For real. No more relapses.”
She nodded, laying down again and plucking a few of his chest hairs. He yelped and smacked his
hand over the sore spot. “Why did you do that? Want me to do that to you?”
“Making sure you were awake.”
He grumbled something rude that got interrupted by a big yawn. “Whatever. Think about it. I
have to go talk to the guy who owns the Estate after lunch, and if you want, you can go with me. Now
