Forever Sheltered Read online

  But I wouldn’t lie. “He showed back up today.”

  She sat up instantly. “What? Really?”

  “Yep. Right back with the old favor he wanted the first time. Help with a kid patient.”

  “You said you’d do it, right?” Corabelle’s eyes were lighting up like a neon sign.

  “Well, not right away…”

  “What?” Corabelle scooted forward on the sofa, her hands clasped together. “Why not?”

  “The doctor is a jerk!” I said, although admittedly only when he first came in. Still, I didn’t want to encourage her.

  “Oh.” She sat back again. “Then screw him.”

  Now I felt like defending him. “It wasn’t that bad. He just has this gruff exterior. It’s probably hard, all these dying patients.”

  Corabelle watched me carefully, as if trying to figure out which parts were true, my disdain or my understanding. “So, there was something good about the doctor,” she said.

  I wasn’t up for being questioned. I didn’t know how I felt myself.

  Chapter 5: Tina

  “Tina! You’re here!” Cynthia’s eyes lit up from her position on the bed when I walked into her room the next morning.

  I had an hour at the start of each day when I was expected to write reports on patients who might need additional mental health referrals. That took no time at all, so I usually wandered the hospital a bit.

  “I brought you your picture,” I said, holding out the image she had drawn of her mother singing.

  “Thank you!” Cynthia struggled to push herself to sitting. She seemed weaker than yesterday, even though her smile was huge.

  A woman seated near the bed peered at me over green glasses. “So, you’re the famous Tina?”

  “Are you Aunt Angela?” I asked. “I am so sorry I didn’t let the nurses know Cynthia had escaped to my room. She was singing the cutest song.”

  The woman waved my words away. “I knew where she went. It would have been fine if that bossy nurse hadn’t wanted a urine sample just then.”

  I relaxed a little. If the family didn’t make a fuss, then it would probably be okay. When no one came for me yesterday after the incident, I wondered if I had managed to escape trouble.

  “Are you Cynthia’s mom’s sister?” I asked.

  Angela’s expression froze for a second, and I worried I had been too nosy.

  “I’m more of a distant aunt,” Angela said.

  I didn’t know what to make of that. “I loved that song her mother wrote. Such a sad tale of love!” I hoped this might prompt some details about how the lyrics related to the family.

  Angela looked behind me, her hands so tight on the arms of the chair that her knuckles were turning white.

  The voice that came from the door was like an icy blast. “Do you have any more personal questions that are completely out of line for your relationship with my patient?”

  I whipped around. Dr. Darion stood in the door, glowering like a gargoyle.

  “I—I was just asking about a song Cynthia performed for me yesterday.”

  His eyes narrowed. I wondered what I possibly saw in him before, because now he was clearly the biggest jerk in the universe.

  He snatched my arm and dragged me from the room.

  I tried to wrench free as he moved us down the hall. “What is going ON with you?” I asked.

  “Hush,” he said.

  We turned down a narrow corridor, and he buzzed us through a door with his ID. I had never been in this part of the hospital and tried to figure out where we were. The back side of ICU, maybe.

  He shouldered open a door marked Surgical Suite B. The room was dim and empty. Boxes were stacked along one wall, and it had an unused smell to it, stuffy and antiseptic. A pair of gurneys were pushed together next to a line of cabinets.

  “What is this about?” I asked, jerking my arm out of his grasp.

  “Why were you in Cynthia’s room asking questions?”

  “Why are you dragging me through the hospital like a lunatic?”

  We were only inches apart, me defiantly on my toes to try to eliminate the advantage of his height.

  “You have no business questioning my patients or their family.”

  “She’s my patient too.”

  “You don’t have patients. You are not practicing anything but how to draw a goddamn picture.”

  Oh, I wanted to punch him. My hand curled into a fist. My voice came out bitter and hard. “It was just a friendly conversation,” I said. “Cynthia snuck away to the art room and got in trouble.”

  I was so close I could feel his breath on my face.

  When he didn’t comment on that, I said, “I wanted to make sure she was okay.” I poked his shirt front with each word. “Like. You. Asked.”

  Darion exhaled like a tire leaking air. “When did that happen?”

  “About an hour after you came to see me yesterday.”

  He ran his hands through his hair. His anger seemed to be evaporating. “The nurse kept her from going to art class.”

  I plopped back down on my heels. “Really? A nurse? Which one was authorized to cancel her therapy?” I had been told that only doctors could override the schedule except in an emergency.

  This got him. His mouth opened. Then closed. “Actually it was her aunt Angela.”

  I crossed my arms. “Really?”

  Something was wrong here. The woman in her room seemed fine with the girl sneaking off to see me. But not go to class?

  His Adam’s apple bobbed up, then down, like he had swallowed something nasty. “I’m sorry I dragged you down here,” he said.

  I shoved at his chest. “Sorry? You just embarrassed the hell out of me! No telling how many people saw that. And I’m already in trouble for not reporting your precious patient after she came to see me!”

  I pushed him again. I was really in a fury. “Are you TRYING to get me fired?”

  He backed up against the wall. “I’ll talk to the head nurse. Take responsibility.” He seemed a little panicked. I had no idea why.

  “You better!”

  His hands went back to my arms, gentler this time. “I’m sorry. I’ll make sure nothing happens to you.”

  The contact between us sparked, like a match being lit. I forgot why I was mad. He was so freaking close. He wore cologne, just a hint of it. He smelled like heaven. My heart sped up. Crap.

  I tried to think how to get out of this. I needed to just walk away. We were alone in a dark room.

  Shoot. I could already tell my body was getting ahead of my head. It was calculating distance. Seeing how far I could push this man. How close I could get.

  Remembering how long it had been since my last tryst with anybody.

  I would have to do the one-and-done with Dr. Darion after all.

  I leaned in, just to see what he would do.

  Chapter 6: Darion

  Bloody hell, this girl was trouble.

  Tina’s eyes flashed at me like cannon fire just seconds ago, but now everything had changed. She was breathing differently, little huffs like her respiration was speeding up. Maybe she thought I was a threat.

  Or not.

  I knew all the reasons for accelerated respiration.

  Her arms were slender but strong. The pale blue sweater cushioned my grip. I should let her go, and I knew it. But I couldn’t make my hands move. They wanted to stay where they were.

  I didn’t have time for any kind of affair. And if it blew up, Cynthia would suffer. Obviously this art teacher was nosy, and her curiosity had been engaged. She didn’t have any of the training she ought to have about professional distance, how to manage your feelings about patients and keep them separate from your life.

  But I’d involved her. I’d asked her to care. Stupid. I should have known better. Tina wasn’t equipped for this. She was going to start watching. And she might figure things out. And then everything I had built to create a safe place for Cynthia would be for nothing.

  And
yet, here she was. I’d dragged her into this space with my own hands.

  Hands that refused to let her go.

  I recognized exactly when she made some new decision, one that I knew better than to allow. She leaned in, up on her toes again. She didn’t come quite all the way. I was, after all, the one holding on to her.

  I could smell her. Shampoo. Lotion. Just a hint of flowers, jasmine maybe.

  Before I realized what I was doing, I had closed the gap.

  Her lips were like a soft landing. As soon as I felt it, I wanted more. I wanted it all. My arms went around her and dragged her lithe body flush against mine.

  I kissed her harder, probing, insisting she open for me. Her passion flared, and our mouths moved with a mission of their own.

  I felt out of control in an instant. I craved everything about her. I wanted it all at once.

  My hands cupped her head, loosening the pigtails. Her hair was sleek and fine, cool beneath my fingers. Her head was delicate, and her neck long and slender. Every part of her ignited another fire in me, until I had no choice but to draw her even closer.

  I reached down for her thighs and lifted her to straddle my waist. If she missed my desire for her before, she definitely felt it now.

  She was so tiny, so light, it was easy to keep her in place. I ground against her. I chided myself even as I did it. But still it wasn’t enough.

  The gurney was only two steps away, so I crossed the distance and sat her on it. Now I could use my hands on the rest of her.

  I encircled her waist, our mouths still working over each other. I lifted the bottom edge of her sweater, and my fingers brushed her hot skin. God, I couldn’t take it anymore. I wanted her here, in the damn hospital, where anybody could find us.

  She lurched against me, and I felt completely out of control. She wanted this too. But hell, I didn’t know anything about her. She could have a boyfriend. A big nasty boyfriend.

  My hand slid up her ribs, and I realized she was a hippie to the core when my thumb brushed a naked nipple. How did I not notice that? Her little gasp against my mouth sent me into a frenzy of why and how. Condom? Not on me. Was she on the Pill? Hell, she could have any number of —

  Both her breasts were in my palms now, and any other thought got lost. Her fingers were in my hair, and every stroke of my hands on her body made her jolt against me.

  I lowered my arm and started feeling around for the bottom of her skirt. Hell, if she wasn’t wearing a bra, maybe there would be no barriers below either. My pulse hammered in my throat. This was the craziest damn thing I’d done in my life.

  I found her knee.

  Then the surgery room door swung wide, blasting the room with light.

  Damn.

  Chapter 7: Tina

  What the hell was I about to do with this doctor?

  The light blinding my eyes told me in no uncertain terms — get out of there.

  I pushed at Darion and jumped from the gurney. My first class was probably about to start, and here we’d been discovered by a custodian.

  Hopefully he had some discretion.

  I whipped past the tiny man in blue coveralls and a ball cap, praying he didn’t know me.

  The halls were a blur as I dashed back to my own wing. Only when I got into my empty room did my breathing slow down.

  What just happened?

  I had no time to think about it as an orderly wheeled in one of my adult patients. I smoothed down my hair, tightened my ponytails, then realized they were a mess, so I pulled them out and tucked the elastic bands into my skirt pocket.

  The man in the wheelchair was Albert. He had declined quickly in the weeks he had been coming to art therapy, but this was the first time he wasn’t walking. Still, I was happy to see him. He would take my mind off the doctor and our torrid moment in the unused surgical suite.

  Albert’s gnarled hands grasped at the arms of the chair. I knew he did this to hide the shaking. He had Parkinson’s, although that wasn’t why he was hospitalized. He and I had something in common, long scars on our wrists. His were still fairly fresh, red and raw, although no longer bandaged.

  Mine might have been old, but when I first saw Albert’s a couple weeks ago, they throbbed in recognition like the wounds had opened up yesterday.

  “Hello, Albert,” I said. “I see you’ve got your own set of wheels now.”

  The bright yellow FALL RISK bracelet stood out from the cuff of Albert’s faded flannel shirt. I glanced up at the orderly and nodded as an acknowledgement that I had seen it. Calling attention to it would make Albert feel worse. The whole reason for his attempted suicide a couple months ago was his inability to paint anymore. The lack of mobility had to be another blow.

  Albert grunted. His pale eyes went immediately to one of his paintings on the wall, a castle in blues and grays that I had framed. It was his first breakthrough work since his arrival at the hospital. He made it during my first week on the job.

  The image was bleak, blustery from a storm on one side of the castle and roiling with black spirits on the other. But on the day he painted it, I spotted an unlit hurricane lamp in one of the windows.

  And I asked him to light it.

  So now the image had one bright spot of color, the warm red glow of a single window. Albert looked for it each time he came. Probably to remind himself that even where he was, and the dark, dark places he’d been to get here, he still had something to look forward to, something to do.

  I sat opposite him at the table. “What are you up for today, Albert? Watercolors? Crosshatch? Markers?” I liked to get an idea of how much he was shaking that day before I chose something. But his grip on the armrests was unrelenting.

  “I might just pound some clay today, milady,” he said, and managed a small smile.

  His face was kind and gentle, surrounded by a thick mop of gray curls. He always reminded me of that painter Bob Ross on the PBS show, the one who showed you how to make “happy trees” on canvas. He had the same calm demeanor, and on a good day the joy about his art was palpable.

  Albert really must have fallen hard to attempt suicide when his talent was so visceral. Even with the struggle to control his movements, he was easily the best artist I’d ever met or studied under, even in college.

  I pulled the container of clay from the shelves. If I were unable to do the one thing I loved, if some disease took that away, I’m not sure I would do any better. One thing I told the students who attended my suicide talks is that once you choose death as your destination, it never goes away. Every upset, every disappointment, every setback has the same way out. You don’t even have to search for it to know it’s still out there, waiting for you to stumble one more time.

  In that, suicide wasn’t that much different from alcoholism or drug addiction. You could go to rehab or therapy. You could get it out of your mind for a while. And life could go well for months or years or decades.

  But the moment it didn’t, in that instant when your depression or your struggle or your exhaustion hit that critical point, it all rushed back. And your mind went straight to the place you thought you’d twelve-stepped or group-sessioned out of existence. The needle. The bottle. The knife.

  “Where’s Clementine?” I asked. Normally Albert arrived with a sullen woman who complained the entire hour about having to be there.

  Albert lifted his arms, wiggling his fingers through the air. “She flew the cuckoo’s nest.”

  “Really? She went home?”

  He nodded. “But the beds never stay empty in the loony bin.”

  I set a lump of clay in front of him. “I’m always surprised more people on your wing don’t end up here.”

  He swung his narrow arm and brought his fist down on the clay with a hearty thwack. “It’s a pretty wild bunch.” He waggled his eyebrows at me. “We’re crazy, you know.”

  “We’re all crazy,” I said.

  Albert continued to mash at the clay, making it more malleable.

  I wasn’t allo
wed on the psychiatric ward. I had six patients from there, or I used to. I guess I was down to five.

  Two were Albert and Clementine. The other four were girls closer to my age, also there in the aftermath of suicide attempts.

  The majority of people who came through my door were cancer patients from the specialized clinic housed inside the hospital. Thinking of this, though, turned my mind back to Dr. Darion, so I took out a ball of clay of my own and began to shape it alongside Albert.

  We had not gotten a chance to talk alone since my arrival at St. Anthony’s. He’d always come with Clementine, whose cantankerousness required my full attention.

  Albert pinched off a section of clay and rolled it into a fat tube.

  “So, what did you do on the outside?” I asked him.

  “A little of this, a little of that,” he said. Despite the shake in his hands, he skillfully molded the clay into the rough shape of a fish. “I don’t guess you have a modeling stick?”

  “There is a set here somewhere.” I dropped my lump of clay and headed back to the cabinets. I spotted the shaping tools a week ago. I didn’t think I would have cause to use them. They were sharp and fine, expert tools rather than something I would hand a child or a psychiatric patient. I wasn’t sure why they were even here.

  Albert clearly had experience in several areas of art. I would wheedle information out of him. Anything to avoid thinking about the doctor.

  I dug around until I found the tray of chisels and taper tools.

  Albert poked through them and extracted a long-handled hook. For a moment, I worried I’d done the wrong thing, imagining him dragging the sharp point into his wrist again. But maybe I was the only one who thought of those things. He laid the handle expertly between his fingers and began picking at the body of the fish, giving it texture and shape.

  I gave up on my own lump of clay and watched him work. The curve of the clay became clear as a woman’s shape appeared in the upper half. When Albert’s fingers fused the fins to the body, I saw it. A mermaid.

  “You are amazing,” I said to him. Once again, he’d found a way to work so fast that the shake in his hands was minimized. It’s something we had been practicing. If he could move quickly enough, he could stay ahead of the trembling, incorporate it even. If he slowed down, then the tremors took over, ruining the work.