A Broken Hallelujah
Part Five
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"Maybe a little right. Oh God," she said, and started to laugh. Claire was puzzled. "It's just that I used to listen to how perfect you were, how beautiful, how sexy, yada yada, and I'd remind myself one should never speak ill of the dead and keep my silence. And now, when I think of all those oh so clever responses I thought but never uttered, I could have said them." She sobered. "Never mind, you had to be there. It's not that funny, I know." She touched Claire's head. "For what it's worth, I'm glad you're here. One way or another, it's going to heal a man I care deeply for, and you, too. It's one of those 'only on a soap opera' things, coming back from the dead, I guess it has me a little frazzled after all."
"It's OK. I deserve a lot of what's coming to me."
Jamie put her coat on and then looked down at Claire. "In that case, stop beating yourself up over it, let others do it. Just be…whatever to Jack. I'll probably see you again before too long, but," and she reached into her purse for her card holder, "you can call me anytime, if you need something, if you're lonely or scared, whatever."
Claire took the card and glanced at it. "Even if Avenging Abbie descends on me?"
"Especially if that happens. Get some rest. I'm going to go back to the hospital, spend some time with Jack. I'll tell him I put you to bed and you need to stay there. See you later." She left the apartment, and Claire stared at the door, bewildered by the afternoon, but quietly warmed by the kindness of the woman who'd replaced her in the office and become Jack's good friend.
VII
Jack was on the mend, he was being released the next day. He was anxious and grouchy, still in pain, and worried about what it would be like to be alone with Claire again. She visited daily, stayed for extended periods when he was moved from ICU, but she never spoke of the way people reacted to her, of the things between them, of much of anything except general topics.
He'd had time to think, too much time. Every time he saw her, he was startled, struck with that feeling of seeing a ghost, and he wondered if he'd ever get used to the idea that she lived. All that pain, mourning, guilt, it was all for nothing, but he could not stay angry for long. As if intuitively, she'd walk into his room just as his anger bubbled over and he'd be struck - my God, there she is, so beautiful, so close but so distant - and the anger drained away.
There were other visitors. They came, with cheerful smiles and flowers, but every one of them wanted to know one thing - what was he going to do about Claire? How did he feel about Claire? They freely shared their feelings - rotten, horrible thing to do, send her packing, who wants a brain-damaged woman, she's not to be trusted - and he would go silent. He discussed her with no one except Jamie and Adam, and then not in much depth. He didn't know what to think until they'd had time to talk.
His three-week stay in the hospital left him weak, unsteady. Adam wanted to arrange a home care nurse, but Jack refused. He needed time alone with Claire. Adam shrugged, the sooner this was resolved the sooner he'd get his main prosecutor back.
And then it was time. Claire arrived early, in jeans and a white crewneck sweater, using her cane. Jack's sharp eyes took in her awkward steps, noted how gingerly she sat in the visitor's chair, saw the nervousness in her eyes. He wasn't feeling any too confident himself. His doctor came in, with release papers and final instructions, then a male nurse came in with a wheelchair to take him down to the car. Adam had arranged that, the car service and a man to help Jack up to his apartment; Claire hadn't driven in years, couldn't.
Claire took the papers. Jack eased down in the wheelchair, his jeans loose after weeks of lousy food, a white Ralph Lauren oxford shirt equally loose over his trunk. Silent, afraid, they went down via the elevator, through the lobby and hospital doors, and to the black limo waiting right in front. The nurse helped Jack into the car, and then Claire slipped in beside him. The driver pulled away from the curb and into traffic.
And still there was silence. Tension. The limo pulled up in front of Jack's building, and the attendant got out, opening the back door. Claire exited and waited nervously on the sidewalk, looking around, as Jack struggled to get out of the car. The man walked with them, took them into the apartment, and then, job completed, accepted his tip and left them alone in the living room.
Claire had cleaned all night, too nervous to sleep. It aggravated her old injuries, but she held off on her medicine until she could bear the pain no longer. It roared back now, as she sat with Jack on the couch, which she'd vacuumed and sprayed, the tension between them growing. Unable to sit, Claire rose, hobbled into the kitchen, and came back with a pair of Diet Cokes. She gave Jack his, then opened hers and downed three oxycodone tabs.
Jack, looking gaunt and vulnerable, faced her. She turned slightly, to face him, eyes locked on each other. Then Jack cleared his throat and sipped his drink, leaned back to dig into his jeans for the bottle of pain pills Dr. Matthews prescribed. Inexperienced, he fumbled with the lid and Claire leaned forward. She quickly had the top off, eyebrows raised. "Two," he mumbled. She tipped two Percocets into his hand. He swallowed them one at a time, washing them down with his drink. Claire capped the bottle and put it on the coffee table.
Then Jack grabbed her free hand and held it. "Talk to me," he said.
She leaned her head against the back of the couch, holding hands and meeting his deceptively steady gaze. "Do you remember how much we were fighting? How we'd seemed to have lost that part of ourselves that loved each other more than we loved a point of view?" He nodded. "Do you remember that last morning, driving in to work, after that horrible thing we witnessed?" Again, he nodded. She sipped her drink, her mouth was dry as sand. "I felt so far away from you, that the distance between us would keep growing, and…" she stopped, unable to keep looking at him.
"And you were pregnant but hadn't told me," he finished for her. The baby was part of the carnage of that night, he'd learned at the hospital what she'd known for a couple of weeks.
"Right. I was the poster girl for angst. I ran in the park, some idiot hit on me." She rubbed her thumb against his. "I went to see Mac, seeking some kind of guidance, and he ridiculed me in his own special way. I wandered around for a while, and ended up in front of the two seven. So I went to Anita, I needed her kind of her mothering. We talked for hours, and when I finally left to pick you up, I felt a little better about things. Not much, but the despair was gone. And so were you." She squeezed his hand, gently, placing no blame on him for the things that came next. "Lennie was blitzed. I'd never seen him drunk, it was kind of scary, not in any crazy way, just that if seeing Mickey Scott die could send him right after you into the bottle, then the world was definitely spinning off its axis. I finally got him to leave, I think we talked about his daughter. I don't remember much once we were in the car, but I do remember bright lights and turning my head, then pain, incredible pain, and then nothing."
"I was passed out across the bed, still in my clothes," he said. "I did manage to remove my tie and my shoes. And then my phone rang. And kept ringing. It was Adam, telling me life had changed, probably forever."
She nodded. "I have no idea how long I was comatose before I began to hear muted conversations at my bedside. My mother and the doctors, mostly. I think I remember hearing your voice once."
"I visited, but after a few days, your mother made it clear I wasn't welcome. She blamed me."
Claire nodded. "She did. Anyway, at some point I seemed to drift in a dream world, where I examined my life. I heard doctors tell my mother if I survived, I would be brain damaged, possibly partially paralyzed, that while they'd do all they could, perhaps it would be better if I just slipped away. And that planted the idea. My dream life, as I think of it, showed me in a wheelchair, unable to work, to do more than basic tasks for myself. You were present, always present, feeling guilty as hell and smothering me with it. I would never be able to make you understand it wasn't your fault. As far as I was concerned, Claire Kincaid was dead, I was just in a holding area until I passed over. I didn't, but the idea grew. Just let me die, release you from a burden you didn't want and couldn't handle. Jack, we would have ended up hating each other, trust me on that one."
He rubbed his eyes, blinked hard, and focused on her again. "Maybe," he said.
"I don't know when I was moved, I still hadn't come out of it yet. I still drifted in that world, though, and I made up my mind to survive, to be able to take care of myself, that I would not be the object of pity. Claire was dead, the Claire I'd been, it was the best, the only way to survive. When I came out of the coma, I told my mother and Mac to announce that I died of my injuries. You have to understand, I could barely speak a coherent sentence, but I made that clear. Mother wigged out, but my doctors told her that she should go along with whatever I wanted - they'd missed the part where I said announce my death - and decided Mother was a little nuts and imagining things out of stress and worry. Go along with her, they said, we still don't know the extent of the damage, but it doesn't look good. Don't upset her, it could make things worse. Do whatever she wants. So she did." She gulped more soda. "And thus began a year of recovery, of hard work. I had to learn so much again, like walking, talking. Even sitting up was a huge effort. Slowly my brain healed as much as it was going to. I could walk, talk, work at some menial job, take care of myself." She spoke not of the humiliations of being helpless, of being handled by nurses who assumed because she was brain damaged she couldn't hear. "Lennie would visit, he was sworn to secrecy, I knew he would keep my secret, out of guilt if nothing else." Her smile was grim. "He happened to be visiting the day my mother quietly announced my death. I'll give him this, he's one poised son of a bitch under shock and pressure. He's sitting by my bed when his cell phone rings and Rey Curtis tells him I've died. He just said My God, I'm so sorry, and hung up."
"Son a bitch is right," Jack muttered.
"Jack." Her eyes widened with sadness. "He was like my dad, I knew he would handle the difficulties associated with relearning to be a person…"
"And I wouldn't."
"You would have tried, God knows you would have tried, but the guilt and frustration, the plain unpleasantness of a lot of it, would have been too much in the end. You would have viewed me as a burden, come to hate me in the end for saddling you with my broken carcass for the rest of your life. Because God knows, you wouldn't have walked out, no matter what. And I couldn't live with that weight, Jack. I really believed I would never see you again, that I was freeing you to get on with life, that you would get over me soon enough, and I you."
"You have no idea how wrong you were," he said.
"Yes, I do. Lennie told me. When he saw how much that distressed me, he stopped referring to you. I saw him once or twice a year," she said, anticipating his next question. "However, I didn't know that you were still a little messed up all these years later. I am so sorry, I hope you know that, believe that. If I'd been able to think, I would have realized what my decision meant for you, for other people. As it was, I struggled with my own problems, overcame obstacles I was told I never would, and built a new life. It's not an exciting one by any stretch, but I can't really handle excitement." She shrugged. "My brain starts misfiring and my sentences come out sounding like Chinese. So I manage a small hotel in a tiny resort town in Vermont, live in an efficiency apartment above the office, read a lot. Work crossword puzzles. Try not to think about my life here."
"But you came back."
"Lennie told me you probably wouldn't survive your wounds. That shattered any illusions I had about moving past you, getting over you and the life I once had. Maybe I should have stayed in Vermont, at least you wouldn't be feeling like this."
He interlaced his fingers with hers. "I'm glad you didn't. I never stopped loving you. I had a hard time getting back into life, but I managed. But you were always there, in my heart and mind. And I keep thinking I'm going to wake up and this will be some hallucination, you'll still be dead, and I'll feel all those emotions again." With some effort, he moved to close the space between them, easing his arm around her. "I would dream of holding you again," he whispered, "and when I woke, felt so empty."
"So what do we do? Try to be friends? Can you forgive me for what I did?"
He kissed her forehead. "I can forgive you anything, Claire, I swear it." He rested his forehead against hers. "I guess friendship is the best place to start. We were best friends first, all those years ago."
"I know. I know how to be friends." She smiled. "I don't know how to be a lover anymore."
"Don't worry about that. We loved each other once, it'll come back."
"Like riding a bike?" she teased.
"Yeah." He rubbed their noses together. "We need time to get used to each other again."
"Should I move out?"
"Only if you want to."
Someone knocked, loudly, on the door. "Shit," Jack said, "who the hell is that?"
"I can guess," Claire said, bitterly, struggling to get up and stop that pounding on the door. "I'll bet you twenty bucks it's Abbie Carmichael."
"God, I hope not," he said, his voice cracking. She glanced at him, hand on the doorknob, and he chugged his drink.
"Stop!" Claire screamed, and the pounding stopped. Looking at Jack for confirmation, she opened the door when he nodded. Abbie pushed in, blew past Claire, and went right to Jack. She knelt on the floor beside him. Claire closed the door and limped back to her place on the couch, leaning against Jack again.
Abbie ignored her. She put her hand lightly on Jack's knee, staring into his eyes. "How are you?" she asked, unable to hide her emotions.
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