Chapter 7

"Mark?"

"Go ... away."

"Mark, wake up! Dr. Payton's and Officer McConnell aren't here. It's just me, Debbie."

"Get ... the fuck ... away from me."

"Mark ... can you hear your heart monitor?"

"So what?"

"Can you hear how fast it's going?"

I kept my eyes tightly closed, but I grudgingly tried to tune in to it. The beeps were so close together the monitor sounded more like a siren than a string of discreet sounds.

"They gave you a sedative and it slowed down for a while before it shot up again. So they gave you another kind of sedative, and the same thing's happening. They're going to come back and give you some more drugs pretty soon."

"So ... what!?"

"Please try to calm down, Mark. I saw you do it before. I'm worried they're going to keep trying things that won't work until you heart is damaged or your brain is ... Please, Mark?"

I felt her hand land gently on my shoulder. I nearly lashed out her, and I'm sure she felt the violent contraction. But my hands remained by my sides, and I realized my wrists were tied to the rails of my bed.

"So what?" I said again. She only rubbed my shoulder by way of an answer. I slowly opened my eyes. She was hovering over me, her face anxious, eyes locked on mine.

"You knew, didn't you?" I said accusingly. "You knew, and you didn't tell me."

She averted her eyes for a moment. "We didn't know until Officer McConnell came to see you, Mark. He knew what happened a year ago. So when I told him you wanted his help to contact your sister, he knew ... and then we knew ... something was seriously wrong."

"She's ... she's dead, isn't she?" I asked miserably.

Her eyes sad, she nodded. "I'm so sorry, Mark."

She looked at the heart monitor again, and I could see her heave a sigh of relief. The siren was steadily becoming slower, sounding again like an annoying flow of discrete beeps.

"Thank God," she breathed. I was surprised at the apparent depth of her feelings.

"Debbie ... why didn't you tell me?"

"We told the doctors here, and they arranged to have Dr. Payton come see you. She told us not to confront you with news of your sister's..." She looked like she was searching for the right words to say. She pursed her lips and shook her head.

"Doctor Payton was worried you couldn't stand the shock. She wanted to wait at least another day, so you'd be physically stronger.

"And she wanted to learn as much as she could about your situation before telling you. She said if we just told you straight out, it was almost certain we'd never know for sure how this had happened to you. Which meant ... you might never fully recover."

We both looked up as Dr. Payton came through the door.

"Hi," she said with a smile, heading for the bedside chair opposite Debbie.

I looked at her guardedly. Her ability to steer my mind wherever she wanted it to go made me instinctively distrust her.

"How are you feeling, Mark?"

I stared back at her defiantly, my teeth tightly clenched. The doctor looked a question at Debbie.

"His heart rate was off the charts, two separate times," she reported. "You can see the medications they gave him on his chart. They only brought it down for a half hour or so before it spiked up again. Then it started going up for a third time, but he woke up and it dropped back down on its own."

Dr. Payton smiled softly. "All by itself, eh?" She looked at me with a raised eyebrow. "I'm sure it was just a coincidence that you calmed down when you woke up and saw Nurse Debbie watching over you."

My defensive barriers cracked - just a little. "Maybe," I conceded. Debbie tried to look impassive, but I might have seen a smile in her eyes.

"Bless your heart," Dr. Payton said to Debbie, as she settled into her chair, bringing out her notebook to scan again. She seemed to be gathering herself before jumping back into my screwed up head. She nodded to herself before looking up into my wary eyes.

"Mark, I suspect you may resent me for what I've put you through today. If I were in your shoes I'd feel the same way, and I truly am sorry for that. But please believe me; if I knew of another way that would've been better or easier on you, I would have used it.

"We couldn't just tell you what had happened, Mark. We had to help you see it in your own mind." She paused and shook her head.

"Anytime a loved one commits suicide, the people that loved them the most pay the highest price. You would be less than human if you didn't regret not stopping your mom. But you had no way of knowing what she would do as she was leaving. You know that now, don't you?"

I averted my eyes, looking out the window at the clouds. "I have nightmares ... where Mom stands at the door, and begs me to not let her leave." I looked back to Dr. Payton. "And ... before she left ... she put my name as co-signer on all of her bank accounts before she died. She didn't put Sharon's name on them; just mine.

"She ... she expected me to take care of Sharon. And ... I killed her instead."

"Mark, you did nothing of the sort," Dr. Payton said flatly. "There could have been any number of harmless reasons for your mother to put you on those accounts." She appeared to take a moment to compose herself. Then...