Chapter 5

Annie sat on the sofa while Hollis paced. Ten minutes passed that felt like thirty. The phone rang and he answered. "Hello ... yes..." Hollis listened. He nodded. "I understand ... when?" He listened some more. "Yes, I'll drive up there first thing in the morning." He set down the handset.

"Hollis -- what's wrong? You look like you've seen a ghost!"

"I can't believe it."

"Believe what?" Annie asked. "Is she better?"

Hollis shook his head. "She's dead." He looked at her. "Corinne is dead ... since this evening."

"Dead? How?"

"Suicide."

"How?"

Hollis clenched his jaw and drew in a deep breath. "Apparently she swiped a hypodermic syringe from a tray when a nurse or physician wasn't looking. She used it to inject an air bolus into her vein. At least it was quick."

"Hollis -- I'm sorry."

"See what I meant about a lot of things happening?"

"It's not what I wanted, Hollis. Believe me."

"I believe you." He sighed. "I'll need to drive to the hospital tomorrow ... sign some papers and make some arrangements."

"I'll come with you," Annie replied.

"You have school."

"School's off tomorrow -- it's teacher in-service day."

"Then, you'll need to watch the store."

"I think the store isn't very important right now," she replied.

"I think you're right. Let's go back to bed and see if either of us can get any sleep."

Hollis drove toward the capital. Annie sat beside him, her arms crossed. "I don't know why you want to come," he said.

"I feel I should. I don't know why you wouldn't want me."

He drove ten miles in silence.

"I remember another line from Hamlet, she said, breaking the silence. "I think it applies to us."

"What's that?"

"When troubles come, they come not single spies ... but in battalions."

"We both have seen our share of trouble," he replied.

"How much further?"

"It's about an hour in total ... another forty-five minutes or so."

As the miles passed Annie's eyelids began to droop. She rested against the door and snoozed. Hollis himself was fighting sleep. The car drew near the exit for the capital. He pulled off the highway and stopped for a light.

Annie stirred. "Are we there, yet?" she asked.

"Almost."

He navigated the streets to Clency State, sitting on a hill and surrounded by lawns. Parking the car he escorted Annie inside and to a reception desk. "Hollis George for Doctor Wallis," he said curtly to the receptionist.

"Just a moment." She placed a call. "Have a seat."

Dr Wallis approached him. "Mr George..." He regarded Annie.

"This is Annie Sheffield -- my friend."

"Hello, Ms Sheffield. Mr George, I am deeply sorry about the outcome of this case. We just know so little about this condition."

"I understand," Hollis replied.

"Would you like to see her?" Hollis closed his eyes and nodded. "Follow me."

Wallis led them to an elevator to the basement. They walked through a door labeled Morgue and into a foyer. "Just a moment." He stepped through a door and returned a moment later. "You may come back."

Annie gripped Hollis's arm as they stepped into the mortuary. A large, stainless steel drawer was extended. Wallis folded back a drape and Hollis looked down on Corinne's lifeless face. He placed his hand on her forehead and then withdrew it. Wallis replaced the drape.

"If you'll follow me," the doctor said, "we have some business to conduct."

Hollis piloted his Honda toward home. "That was the first time I've ever seen a dead body," Annie remarked.

"You've never been to a funeral with an open casket?"

"Yes, but in those, the body has been made up to look more life-like."

"That's right. They look more like wax sculptures than corpses."

"This was the first time I've ever seen a real, dead body, close up."

"Me, too. When my boy died, they took him away before I could see him. Thankfully."

"What business did you conduct in there?"

"We made arrangements for Corinne to be cremated. The remains will be shipped home. The doctor wanted permission to remove her brain. They might begin to understand what causes this drug reaction."

"Did you agree to that?" she asked.

"Yes, I did."

"Then, maybe someone can be helped out of this tragedy."

"Maybe."

"Once we get the remains -- what do you plan to do with them?"

"I don't know. We don't have a family plot or crypt."

"What happened to Brian's remains?" she asked.

"I have his ashes. They're in an urn in the safe. I haven't been able to face dealing with them. Maybe now's the time. Maybe we'll make a shrine for them both -- somewhere in the barn."

"Are we having a service?"

"Corinne didn't want a service," he replied. "Often she'd say, if anything happened to her not to bother with a service."

"Service isn't for the dead -- it's for the living," Annie observed.

"True. Of course, most of her friends have fallen by the wayside since she got sick and had the drug reaction. I wouldn't know who to invite."

Hollis turned down the ramp leading to the route to his barn. He pulled into the parking lot of a grocery store. "I have to get something here," he said. "You wait in the car."

"Okay..."

He stepped into the store and headed for the liquor department. Spotting a bottle of Old Overholt rye whiskey he picked it up and carried it to the checkout. The clerk slipped it into a paper bag. He popped his trunk with his keyfob, set the package in and slammed down the lid.

In the driver's seat he pulled back onto the street and parked behind the barn. Annie climbed the stairs with him and used her key to open the door to the apartment. Hollis retrieved the package from the trunk. He set it on the kitchen table and removed the bottle from the bag. From a cabinet he retrieved a shot glass. Opening the bottle he filled the glass.

"Hollis," Annie said, "what are you doing?"

"Leave me alone."

"Hollis ... Tell me what you think you're doing."

"I'm getting drunk, that's what," he replied. "I made a pledge when Corinne went into Clency. I pledged to be sober while she was there; and if she came home I pledged to stay sober. Well -- I upheld my part of that pledge. Now, leave me alone. Go find something to do." He knocked back half the liquor in the glass, swallowed it and grimaced.

Annie grabbed another shot glass. She poured some rye into it and drank it down.

"What the hell are you doing?" Hollis asked. He drained his glass.

"I told you Maude drank too much. I saw what it did to her. She told me to stay away from the stuff and I did. It was do-as-I-say and I did as she said. Remember -- with you it's do-as-I-do. I'm doing as you're doing."

"Annie -- stop this." He poured himself a second shot.

Annie grabbed the bottle and poured some into her glass. "I'll stop when you stop."

"I weigh twice as much as you do. You'll get drunk twice as fast."

"I know. That's why I'm only filling mine half-full."

Hollis drank the second shot in one swallow and Annie followed with hers. She grabbed the bottle, refilled his glass and poured some into hers. "Ready for another round?" she asked, staring into his eyes.

He stared into hers, tears filling his. Hollis capped the bottle. He picked up both glasses and dumped their contents into the sink. Annie took the bottle and set it in a cabinet.

Hollis sat at the table, rested his elbows on it, held his head and wept.

"Oh, Hollie," Annie said. "Don't cry. I hate seeing guys cry."

"I thought girls liked to see guys cry."

"Not this girl." She caressed his back. "You loved her, didn't you?"

"I loved her well enough."

"You miss her?" He sniffed. "It's like you said -- she really went away five years ago."

"It's the guilt," he replied. "I haven't really faced the guilt 'til now. I feel responsible, Annie. I feel responsible for all of it. I authorized the moxifloxacin..."

"Without which she'd be dead," Annie interjected.

"But, maybe Brian would be alive. I lost both of them because of that decision."

"You were working on the best medical advice," she replied. "They said it would cure her. You said it was a rare and unexpected reaction. If she had died of the infection, you'd be blaming yourself for that."

"And I refused to permit ECT. What if that could've made a difference?"

"The judge agreed with you that it was a stab in the dark. You might as well have tried snake oil or voodoo. Hollis -- please don't grieve like this. It wasn't your fault. None of it was your fault."

He nodded. "I know it wasn't my fault. I still feel the guilt. Maybe that's good. Maybe if I ever stop feeling the guilt ... the last of what we had will have died."

"She'll always be part of you, Hollis. All that lives must die -- passing through nature to eternity."

"More Hamlet," he remarked.

"Why don't I make something for dinner?" she asked. "Neither of us got much sleep last night. We're both exhausted. We'll have something to eat and then go to bed."

"Good idea."

Annie stood. "I'm feeling the whiskey," she said. "I feel it in my knees."

"Are you okay?"

"Oh, yeah ... I'm fine." She opened the refrigerator and began surveying its contents.

Hollis lay in his boxers in the sleigh bed. Annie lay on her back beside him. "I'm not in the mood for anything tonight, Hollis," she said. "I hope you're not upset."

"I'm not in the mood, either."

He lay staring into the dim light at the rafters and the underside of the barn's roof.

"Hollis -- are you awake?"

"Yeah..."

"I've made up my mind." Annie sniffled. "Tomorrow I'm gonna call that guy from CPS and ask him to find somewhere else for me to live."

"Why do you want to do that?"

"I don't want to -- I think it's the right thing."

"Why do you think that?"

"Because ... I think it was a mistake getting involved with you this way."

"And, why do you think that?"

She sniffled more. "I keep thinking about our conversation last night. You're happy living with uncertainty. I need commitment."

"Life IS uncertainty," he replied. "We can't know or predict where every molecule in the universe will be at any given time. You'll go blind if you spend your life watching the corners. It's better to take life as it comes and deal with things as they happen."

"Easy for you to say."

"I've lived more life than you have. You're wrong about one thing. Annie -- I am committed to you."

"That's not what you said last night. Please, Hollis -- don't fuck with my head."

He drew in a deep breath. "Annie ... if there has been a silver lining in all the dark clouds since Corinne's illness ... it's been you. What you were fretting about last night ... it's been running through my mind, too ... ever since I realized how deeply in love I am with you."

She rolled to face him.

"I was in love with Corinne. When I married her, I made a vow to stand by her in sickness and in health, 'til death do us part. I took those vows seriously and when I give my word I keep it. It's not a commitment I could break ... no matter how much I loved you."

She grasped his hand and squeezed it. "Why didn't you say that last night?" '