A/N: ANGST ALERT. Beta-ed by the inimitable syntheticaesthetic.
TW [see profile for key]: (h), referenced (i), (m), (q), (u), (v), (z), referenced (ab), (ac), (ao), (as), (aw)
(Please note: I've changed the way I do trigger warnings. If you think you might be at risk, please check out the list of codes on my profile and take note of any relevant ones-the codes will not change. I don't recommend looking up the codes for individual chapters because of possible spoilers.)
Chapter 7
Somebody Moves
Then somebody moves,
and everything you thought you had will go to shit.
"Broadripple Is Burning," Margot and the Nuclear So & Sos
My death waits like a bible truth
at the funeral of my youth.
"My Death," Jacques Brel via David Bowie
Nemesis, in the form of Massachusetts driving culture, strikes in April of 1995. Only it's not Sarah it strikes.
It happens on a Saturday.
Sarah is an early riser, and ten o'clock that morning finds her sitting at the kitchen table, flicking through the day's mail. She almost misses the letter, wedged as it is between a Land's End catalog and a jury summons addressed to the previous tenant, but as she tosses the stack of mail onto the table, something slips out of the pile and flutters to the floor.
She bends over to pick it up, and freezes. She recognizes that logo, the small circle inscribed with an American flag. The return address confirms it.
God. Shit. She hadn't expected this. Which is to say, she's been expecting it for months in a general way, but she hadn't expected it today. She isn't prepared for this.
Her fingers are stiff and fumbling; it takes her three tries to pick up the envelope. She rips it open, tugs out the letter inside—just a single sheet, which surely can't mean anything good—unfolds it, and begins to read.
Two hours later, she's kneeling in the bathtub, scrubbing industriously at the grout while her Discman blares in her ears:
'We've got to hold on to what we've got. It doesn't make a difference if we make it or not.'
Something red flashes at the edge of her vision. Looking up, she sees Alisse leaning against the doorframe in a pair of tatty red pajamas. She tugs the headphones from her ears.
"Hey."
"You know the entire apartment smells like bleach and cigarette smoke?" Alisse asks conversationally.
"Oh. Uh, sorry. Just doing a bit of spring cleaning."
Alisse's gaze flicks pointedly from Sarah to the over-filled ashtray perched rather precariously on the tank of the toilet.
"Uh huh. So whatever… this is wouldn't have anything to do with the letter I found on the kitchen table?" Alisse brandishes a familiar looking white sheet.
Sarah's stomach sinks.
"'Dear Sarah,'" Alisse reads. "'Congratulations! It is with great pleasure that we invite you to begin training for Peace Corps service—'"
"Yeah," Sarah interrupts. "I hadn't gotten a chance to tell you yet. Isn't it great?"
"See, I would've thought so," Alisse says, refolding the paper.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, the traditional way of reacting to great news is not by doing your best impression of a chain-smoking Cinderella."
"Well," Sarah says, cracking a smile, "maybe not in your culture…"
Alisse just looks at her. "What's going on, Sarah?"
"Nothing!" Sarah picks up her scouring pad and resumes scrubbing. "I'm just cleaning, like I said, and I wanted a smoke. Sorry if the smell bugs you, or whatever."
Alisse pinches the bridge of her nose. "Okay." She walks over to the toilet and picks up the ashtray. "Here's how this is going to go. You tell me why you're being a freak about this, and I don't dump cigarette butts all over your sparkly clean shower."
Sarah puts down the scouring pad and gets to her feet. "Don't even think about it."
Alisse raises the ashtray. "Try me."
They glare at each other for a moment.
"Oh, give me that," Sarah says crossly, stepping out of the tub and plucking the ashtray from Alisse's hand. She dumps the contents into the trash, and rinses the ashtray out in the sink for good measure.
"And I'm not being a freak, I just—"
She takes a few paces, stops, and runs her hand through her hair. Her shoulders slump. Carefully she lowers herself to the floor, leaning back against the bathtub.
"I just thought it'd feel… different," she says, quietly.
Alisse takes a seat on the toilet. "Different how?"
"I don't know. Just different." She tilts her head back to stare at the ceiling. "I mean, I've been planning this for months and imagining what everything's going to be like and thinking about how I'm going to tell my dad and now it's actually happened and I just…"
She trails off, unable—and unwilling—to put words to the apprehension inside her, the sudden and unlooked for doubt, and beneath it all, the sad, echoing feeling of hollowness—of emptiness.
Alisse finishes the sentence for her. "…thought it would feel different."
"Right."
"I see." There's a sort of resigned amusement in Alisse's voice, underlain with something rather less pleasant, something like satisfaction. "You thought there'd be like, a clap of thunder, or a burning bush and a booming voice saying, 'Congratulations, Sarah Williams, you are on the path to your marvelous destiny!'"
"Of course not!"
Sarah stops and thinks for a moment.
"Well, maybe," she admits.
Is a little certainty really so much to ask for?
Alisse shakes her head. "You know I love you, but right now, honestly, fuck you."
"Excuse me?"
"You're smart, you're talented, you've got determination, you've got a family that loves you—a family with resources—and now you want… what? A divine fucking mandate?"
Sarah gapes at her. "I—"
"Well, I hate to break it to you, but the world doesn't work like that."
"I know it—"
"There aren't any right choices, there's just choices. You'd know that if you ever bothered to pull your head out of your own ass for more than ten minutes at a time."
"You—"
"You've had this ridiculous savior complex for as long as I've known you," Alisse says. "And as soon as you graduate, what does your dad do but come along and drop the perfect world-saving career-path right into your lap—"
"I just don't know if law is really—"
"And you decided you wanted to go your own way, to get your feet on the ground and your hands in the dirt and I respect that. But you don't get to throw away a perfect plan for a perfect life and then complain that the real world is scary or uncertain or complicated."
Sarah stares at her friend, flabbergasted. Part of her sort of wants to apologize, and another, much more vocal part of her wants to tell Alisse to go fuck herself, but mostly she's just wondering where this is comingfrom.
Alisse sighs and hunches her shoulders.
"Look, so you'll go off into the world and do great things and be the big fucking hero like you've always wanted. And maybe this thing you've been wanting for months will be the first step on your incredible journey, and the scales will fall from your eyes and your path will be clear and all that bullshit. And maybe it won't and you'll have to figure out something else. But either way, you'll know. So stop freaking out and just…just do it. Just move." She looks away. "Not everyone can."
…and there it is.
As Alisse falls silent, Sarah is suddenly conscious of a gulf between the two of them—a gulf that has nothing to do with differences in musical tastes or sexual orientation or semi-repressed supernatural secrets and everything to do with the fact that Alisse is working almost thirty hours a week to put herself through community college, while Sarah graduated debt free—everything to do with Thanksgiving with her father and Toby and Irene, and Christmas at her Nana's, and even New Year's with her mother and Jeremy, because as unsatisfactory a parent as Linda is in many ways, she's never once forgotten to call on her daughter's birthday.
Alisse and her mother haven't spoken in three years.
What's more, Sarah realizes with a flush of shame, Alisse is right. Sarah knows she is, and yet here she is, 23 years old and still expecting her life to work like a goddamn fairy tale. Which—she fights down the familiar surge of pain, and the more-familiar frustration that follows it—which it isn't. (At least, not anymore. She made that choice years ago. She grits her teeth against the tug of memory. Don't think about it. Don't think about it.)
It's time and past time for her to put away her childish things—time and past time to stop dreaming and live.
She takes a breath.
"Okay," she says.
Alisse turns to look at her, something raw and vulnerable lurking behind her eyes. "Okay?"
"Okay," Sarah repeats, more firmly. "You're right. It's what I've wanted and…and it'll be what it'll be and I just need to get over myself and get moving." She takes another breath. "Any minute now."
Alisse laughs, a little shakily. "Hey, baby steps, you know? Tell you what: let's go out tonight and celebrate properly. We'll bring Ernie—you can even invite that girlfriend of his."
In spite of herself, Sarah's lips twitch. "Generous of you."
"Isn't it?" Alisse stands up, stretching. "Anyway, I've got class soon, so I need to grab my clothes and you need to fuck off so I can shower. But we'll meet up later?"
"Sure," Sarah says, getting to her feet as well. Then, feeling something more is expected of her: "Monty's at eight?"
Alisse bites her lip. "I was hoping I could talk someone into getting dinner with me."
"This the girl in your chem class?"
"Farhiya? Yeah. I'm pretty sure she's straight, but…" Alisse shrugs. "Nothing ventured, you know? Call Ernie and tell him eight, and I'll be there when I can. Probably nine—nine-thirty at the latest."
"Sure thing."
"In the meantime…" Alisse hesitates. "Try not to do that broody thing you do. This is objectively good news."
"Right," Sarah says. "Sure. You go to class, and I'll… practice being excited. Not broody."
She widens her eyes and raises her eyebrows, pulling her lips back in a manic grin.
"See?" she asks, pointing at her face. "Excited!"
Alisse shakes her head, a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. "Fucking pathetic," she sighs, patting Sarah on the shoulder on her way out.
"Sorry I'm late," Sarah says, sliding into the corner booth at half-past eight. Ernie and Nina are already there, and judging by the number of empty cups on the table, already on their second drinks. "I couldn't find my keys, and then there was some sort of accident on Mass Ave. Everything was backed up for blocks."
"I thought I heard sirens," Ernie remarks. "What happened?"
"Not a clue."
"Boston drivers," says Nina disgustedly.
"Oh, and New York drivers are so much better?" Ernie asks, nudging her in the ribs.
"New Yorkers," Nina corrects, flipping a long strand of cherry red hair over her shoulder, "don't drive."
Ernie rolls his eyes at Sarah, but he's smiling.
"We already drank your and Alisse's drinks," he tells her. "Sorry."
"That's fine, I'll grab something from the bar."
"Don't be ridiculous," Nina tells her. "This is your night! Ernie?"
"Just something for me, for now," Sarah says. "Alisse probably won't be here for at least another half hour."
"Gotcha," says Ernie, heading off for the bar.
"Where is Alice anyway?" Nina asks, lips pursing slightly.
Sarah sighs. "It's Alisse. Like when you don't want to buy a car, you get a lea— You know what? I'm not going to get into this now."
Nina and Alisse are engaged in a war of personalities. At this stage, it's mostly a war of attrition—the two avoid direct conflict in favor of laying waste to everything surrounding them, most notably Sarah's sanity. She's tried confronting Alisse over it.
"She's crunchy," Alisse had sniffed. "Hippy drippy. You know," and refused to explain further, as if crunchiness were a self-evident ground for open warfare.
To be fair, to Alisse, it probably is.
Not, Sarah reflects, that crunchy is exactly the right word. Nina bears the general appearance of a punk-rocker who was accidentally transported to the Summer of Love—waist-length red hair, lip-piercing, and all. She's currently wearing a baggy tie-die t-shirt over ripped fishnets and a denim mini-skirt. It is, Sarah supposes, a look.
But it's not just Nina's fashion sense that offends Alisse. It's the pack of battered tarot cards she carries in her shoulder bag, the open and uncritical way she relates the story of a friend of a friend who'd "felt a presence" in a Cape May B&B.
"They're nothing to be scared of, you know, ghosts," she'd said kindly, mistaking Alisse's expression of open-mouthed disgust. "Just lost spirits, trapped between the worlds. Sad, really."
Alisse, who is as serious about her atheism as only someone raised by a deeply religious, authoritarian parent could be, tends to take that kind of thing personally.
"And when I asked her what the evidence was," she'd fumed, "she quoted fucking Shakespeare at me. 'There are more things in heaven and earth, Alice.' Miss Fancy-Pants grad student. Fuck her and her patronizing New Age bullshit."
"Sorry," Nina says now, not looking it. "Let's talk about you. The Peace Corps, that's incredible! I always figured you for the sort to change the world."
"Oh, well." Sarah turns up the corners of her lips in something approximating a smile. "I don't know about 'changing the world.' I don't even know where I'm going yet, or what I'll be doing when I get there."
"Well, whatever it is," Nina says with breezy confidence, "I'm sure you'll be amazing at it."
"Um," says Sarah, "thanks."
"Although," Nina adds, a terrible gleam of interest entering her eyes, "with a big transition like that, you're probably feeling pretty nervous…" She trails off invitingly.
Sarah tries not to wince. Whatever it is that Nina studies—she's surprisingly hard to pin down on the topic—it apparently involves a lot of Freudian theory. She likes Nina—patronizing New Age bullshit and all—but it had been hard enough subjecting herself to Alisse's blunt, take-no-prisoners style of moral support. Being psychoanalyzed by an over-eager grad student in the middle of a crowded bar sounds like a scene from Sarah's own personal hell.
"Yeah, uh, maybe." She glances over Nina's shoulder. "Oh look," she says, with thinly disguised relief. "Here comes Ernie with the drinks!"
An hour and a half later, Sarah is nursing her drink in the corner while Nina and Ernie engage in a heated debate about some French philosopher Sarah has never heard of. At least, she thinks it's a debate. She hasn't ruled out the possibility that this is just how they flirt.
She glances up to see them looking at her expectantly.
"Sorry, what?"
Ernie shoots Nina a wry glance. "Sorry, you must be bored out of your mind."
"No, it's really interesting," Sarah lies.
Nina leans forward. "We were just wondering where Twiggy—"
"Come on," says Ernie, "don't call her that."
"Fine. Where Alisse has got to."
Sarah trails a finger around the rim of her glass. "I think she's on an… impromptu… date... thing?"
"A date!" Ernie's face clears.
"She said she'd be here an hour ago, though."
"Must be going really well then!"
"Yeah," Sarah says, "maybe."
He looks at her keenly. "You know it's probably nothing, right? Like, there are a million reasons she could be late, and almost none of them involve her lying dead in a ditch."
"I know," says Sarah, and she does know, only…
"Sarah," Nina says in sudden horror. "Are you still on your first drink?"
"I…yes?"
She shoves herself decisively to her feet. "Well, we'd better do something to fix that."
"I don't know…"
"We're supposed to be celebrating," Nina says emphatically. "One drink isn't celebrating. One drink is barely breakfast."
"There's no time to lose," Ernie adds. "Alisse could walk through the door any minute, and if she finds out you've been worrying about her rather than getting drunk, well…" He shakes his head, looking grave. "I wouldn't want to be in your shoes, Williams."
This is pretty a fair point, but one with an obvious rebuttal.
"And if she finds out you've been droning on about philosophy instead of getting me drunk, you will be."
Ernie clutches his chest. "Touché! Well, only one thing to do. We'll just have to get you wasted as quickly as possible, Nina and I will shut up about Foucault, and Alisse need never know a thing."
"No more Foucault?" Sarah feels a smile begin to spread across her face. "You've got yourself a deal."
…and a few hours after that, Sarah staggers into the darkened hall of her apartment.
"Hello?" she calls.
The light is off in the kitchen, the living room, and the bathroom. Sarah bangs on Alisse's bedroom door.
"Hey. Hey! Alisse!"
No response.
"All right, you asked for it!" Sarah says, flinging an arm over her eyes. "Make yourself decent: I'm coming in!"
Fumblingly, she opens the door.
The room is empty.
Sarah blows out a noisy breath and stumbles back to her own bedroom.
Apparently, Alisse's crush hadn't been straight after all.
Sarah flops onto her bed, feeling strangely desolate.
It's not that she's jealous, exactly. She wants Alisse to be happy. Therefore, if this girl makes Alisse happy, that's what she wants. Simple logic. And really, what better time for Alisse to find someone then when Sarah is about to head off to god-knows-where to do god-knows-what for the next two years?
Only…
She's seen the way Ernie looks at Nina sometimes, like she's the only person in the room. She pictures Alisse wearing that same expression, gazing at some faceless girl with her eyes tender and bright and once again, Sarah feels a gulf, a yawning distance stretching between them.
She knows how it's supposed to feel. She's seen the movies, read the books, heard the gushing from her friends. That sense of infatuation, of being so caught up in another person that you begin to lose yourself in them, begin to feel like another person entirely, clumsy and foolish and giddy and light. And sometimes—in the rarest, best of cases—you find someone who makes you more of yourself, a better, fuller you.
She wonders how it must feel, to burn that brightly for someone.
She's had glimpses of it, that fullness, that super-saturation, that more-than-self. There are a few people in the world who have made her feel…something like that. Toby. Irene, once or twice. Ernie, sometimes. Alisse, more often than anyone.
(And there had been others too, hadn't there, another world and half a lifetime away—
No.
Not now, not even drunk as she is. Some things should stay buried.)
And she's had crushes, or at least, she thinks she has—what else to call that intrigue, that slight but steady pull of attraction and curiosity? But none of the men she's ever been with—dates, hook-ups, the occasional one-night-stand, even a few short-lived boyfriends—have ever made her feel more or less…Sarah than she does already. Which is fine, surely. Surely she should already be enough.
And yet…
Funny how alcohol can take you from anxious, to cheerful, to maudlin, just like that.
She blinks twice, sniffs, and presses her face more firmly into the pillow.
She doesn't remember falling asleep.
It isn't until morning, when she hauls herself out of bed at the crack of dawn to get a much needed glass of water, that she spots it: the blinking red light of the answering machine.
She takes a swig, sets down her glass, shuffles over to the answering machine, and presses play.
"You've reached the home of Sarah Williams—"
The sound of her own voice, as always, disconcerts her, slightly higher than she expects and overlaid with the faint, grating distortion of low-quality sound recording.
"—and Alisse Rochefort—" Alisse's voice chimes in.
Impatiently, Sarah presses the skip button.
There's a click, then a robotic voice recites: "You have one new message."
Another click, and then another voice, female and professional to the point of tonelessness: "I'm calling on behalf of Massachusetts General Hospital. A Miss Annalisse Rocheford was admitted to our emergency medical unit at 8:37 this evening…"
"…no longer in immediate danger," the doctor says, "but her condition remains extremely serious. We've relocated her to the ICU for the time being."
"How long…" until she wakes up? Sarah thinks. She tries to finish the question, but her lips won't cooperate.
"I'm afraid there's no way of knowing at this point. We hope to have a clearer prognosis soon. In the meantime, be assured that she is receiving every possible care."
She nods, limply. "You'll be wanting her next of kin."
"You said you were family?"
"Her roommate—" Sarah cuts herself off midsentence, and swallows. "Yeah," she says, "I'm her family."
The doctor gives her a sharp look. "Any other living relatives?"
"There's her mother," Sarah says. "But they're estranged."
"Nevertheless, we'll need a full name and contact details."
"I can call home and find out. Is there a phone I can use?"
"There's a payphone in the hallway."
Sarah nods. Then, biting her lip, she asks abruptly, "Was he drunk?"
The doctor glances up from her clipboard. "Who?"
"The guy who hit her. The police … they said he just veered onto the sidewalk—from out of nowhere, they said. He must've been— He was, wasn't he?"
The doctor purses her lips. "I'm not authorized to share that information."
"They got him, though. Right?"
"The driver in question has been identified by the police and taken in for treatment, yes."
Sarah nods once, sharply.
"Good."
Out in the hallway, Sarah slots her quarters into the payphone and dials home. Irene picks up on the third ring.
Sarah begins to speak. The words are brief, clinical—a doctor's words, not her own. "Severe cranial trauma," she says, and "deep coma," and "prognosis uncertain."
She had thought nothing in the world could hurt so much as the sight of Alisse, face livid with bruises, stark against the white linen of the hospital bed as she lay there like some ghastly sci-fi Sleeping Beauty, surrounded by blinking lights and inscrutable machinery. But hearing Irene's hissing intake of breath and that awful, weighty sympathy enter her voice—
In fifth grade, Sarah did a book report on the Salem witch trials. It was there that she first heard of Giles Corey, who was accused of witchcraft and refused to enter a plea. They'd laid him flat beneath a wooden board and piled boulders on his chest and stomach. It had taken him two days to die; his last words had been a plea for "more weight," so the stones might kill him faster.
Now, for the very first time, she thinks she might have some inkling of how he must have felt as he lay gasping under all that weight, wanting nothing but to break and break until there was nothing left of him to feel.
But she can't break. Not now. Not when there's still something—anything left for her to do.
"I'm coping," she says into the receiver. "No. No, it's fine. Please don't come. Look, I'll call you later, but I really need that number…"
She scrawls Mrs. Rochefort's contact information on a crumpled napkin fished out from the depths of her jacket pocket.
"Okay, thanks. I'd better go give this to the doctor now. I'll keep you posted."
"Just know that you have all our love," Irene says at the other end of the line. "Your father's, Toby's… and mine."
A sudden lump rises in Sarah's throat. It's the first time Irene has ever said it, in so many words. She knows what she should say, but—
"Thanks," she says instead, and hangs up the phone.
She stands there for a moment, eyes closed, willing the world to change around her, to be anything other than it is. But it hadn't worked when she was fourteen, and it doesn't work now.
Finally, she opens her eyes again, puts a few more coins into the machine, and dials Ernie's number.
Ernie arrives a few hours later. Sarah is sitting in a chair by Alisse's bed.
"Hey," he says, softly.
"Hey," she says, not meeting his eyes. "I'll just—just leave you to…"
She trails off with a grimace, rises, and, still avoiding his gaze, leaves the room.
She's sitting in the waiting room when he emerges twenty minutes later, bent and pale and exhausted. He catches sight of her, and gives her the barest ghost of a smile which flickers and dies as he gets a better look at her face.
"Jesus, Williams, you look like death—"
He breaks off, stricken, and somehow Sarah can't resist rubbing it in.
"I'm not the one who looks like death."
The shaft goes awry. Ernie is looking at her with an awful sympathy that borders on pity. Sarah shrinks in on herself, feeling petty and mean and vile and painfully unheroic.
"You're not the only one, sure." He sits down next to her. "I mean, I know Alisse was the leader of your terrible twosome, but do you have to follow everywhere she goes?"
He holds her gaze for a moment, and Sarah feels her face crumple.
"Aw, Jeez." Ernie's arm comes awkwardly around her shoulders and drags her face into his chest. She snuffles into the flannel of his shirt. After a moment, his hand comes down and gently strokes her head. She starts to pull away.
"What's the matter, am I not a good enough handkerchief for you?"
Sarah makes an inarticulate sound.
"Come on, you've already ruined this shirt. Might as well finish the job."
"Won't Nina mind?" Sarah manages, voice muffled.
She can feel the rumble of his laughter. "Nah, she likes you. God knows why. She's teaching, but she'll be by later."
Another few moments of silence, then his belly grumbles loudly.
He laughs again, self-consciously. "Came as soon as I got your message. Guess I forgot lunch. What about you?"
A pause.
"Williams?" He grasps her by the shoulders and gently pries her away from his chest, looking into her face. "When's the last time you ate?"
She stares at him blankly.
"Right. Let's get some lunch then."
Sarah shakes her head. "You go. I can't— I have to—"
"What are you going to do for her that an entire hospital full of doctors and nurses can't manage?"
She sets her jaw.
"All right, let me rephrase. What are you going to do for that an entire hospital full of doctors and nurses can't manage when you're passed out in a hospital bed of your own due to malnutrition?"
She opens her mouth to an embarrassing lack of rebuttals.
He shakes his head. "You're no match for me like this, Williams. Let's get you fed so you can argue with me properly, okay?"
In the cafeteria, it's Ernie who loads up her tray and Ernie who pays for both their lunches and Ernie who bullies, badgers, and cajoles her into eating. When she's swallowed enough to satisfy him, he walks her back to the ICU and leaves her there to sit and pace, pace and sit until the long shadows stretch across the ward and the nurses come to send her home.
Three days later, Sarah walks into Alisse's hospital room to find it already occupied. This in itself isn't a surprise—the nurse had told her that Alisse already had a visitor. Sarah had expected Ernie, or maybe one of Alisse's classmates. What she hadn't expected—what she should've known to expect—is a middle-aged woman in a shapeless green sweater and a pair of sensible brown loafers.
The woman turns towards the door, and Sarah experiences a brief moment of double vision. The visitor looks like an Alisse who has been left in the sun too long, all tanned, leathery-looking skin and brittle grey hair. It's easy to see where Alisse got her slender build from, the stubbornness in her chin and the curl in her hair. Not the brightness in her eyes, though, or the incandescence of her smile. Not the things that matter.
But Alisse's light is dimmed now, her eyes closed, her smile given place to the blank, expressionless mask worn only by the sleeping or the dead. In this moment, the resemblance between mother and daughter has never been stronger.
"Sarah," Mrs. Rochefort says, inclining her head.
Sarah says nothing. Looking closely, she can see the marks of strain, the pouches under the eyes, the grey curls limp and matted to the head. Tendrils of anger begin to unfurl inside her. How easily the doctors and the nurses must've been taken in, led astray by these small signs. How dare she come here, wearing that thin veneer of pain, playing the part of a grieving mother as if she had any right to the role—to the feeling.
Imposter.
Words are bubbling up inside her. She can almost taste them, sharp and bitter on her tongue. Liar. Bigot. How dare you come here, you traitor, you fake. You have no right—
Except that that isn't true. Legally speaking, Alisse's mother has every right. It's Sarah who has none.
Her fingers clench.
She should leave, that's what she should do. Turn around and walk away, rather than stand here choking on her rage and her helplessness as the pressure of accusations and recriminations builds in her throat. But what if Mrs. Rochefort found the snub insulting enough to ban her from visiting? Sarah tries to think back to high school, to remember if she'd shown signs of that sort of vindictiveness. But surely a woman who would disown her only daughter for being gay is capable of anything?
It's Mrs. Rochefort who breaks the silence.
"I was just going for dinner," she says, standing. "I should be out for about two hours. Please excuse me."
With that, she sweeps past Sarah and is gone.
Sarah looks at the clock on the wall. 4:37 pm.
For some reason, that's what breaks her. After everything, to be beholden to Alisse's mother—to be the recipient of her kindness—of her graciousness. Unbearable. Unbearable.
Even worse is the knowledge that it's Sarah's own fault that Mrs. Rochefort is even in a position to be gracious. If she hadn't been so damn eager to help—if she'd only thought for a moment—the doctors need never have known that Alisse had any living relatives, and Mrs. Rochefort wouldn't be here right now, taking control of her daughter's life just as if the past three years—years of poverty, of struggle, of freedom—hadn't happened.
She sinks into a chair by the bedside, cradling her head in her hands.
"I'm sorry," she tells Alisse as the tears begin to flow. "Christ. Christ. I'm so fucking sorry."
It's Ernie who hears first. Sarah is at work when she gets the call.
"There's been some news. It's not urgent, exactly, but you should get over here as soon as you can. It's…it's bad, Sarah," he says, voice cracking slightly. "It's really, really bad."
"On my way," she says, and hangs up the phone.
Grabbing her coat and bag, she stops by the receptionist's desk.
"I need to go. Family emergency. Tell Stephen, will you?"
The receptionist blinks at her. "Mr. McCormick should be out of his meeting in ten minutes. Couldn't you—"
Whatever she reads in Sarah's face stops her short.
"Go ahead," she says. "I'll tell him."
Ernie meets her in the lobby. He grabs her by the elbow and tows her to the side.
"What's happened?" Sarah's voice is low, urgent.
"I saw, um… I saw Mrs. Rochefort. On my way to visit Alisse. She said…" He swallows. "She told me I should make my goodbyes."
And just like that, Sarah is drowning. Her vision swims in and out of focus, chest heaving with each laboring breath.
She hears Ernie's voice, distant and hollow, as though from a long way away. "There's been some kind of … complication. She—Alisse has a week. Maybe less. She said I should tell you."
Sarah struggles to focus through the rushing in her ears. "A complication?" Her mind—her mind is too slow, water-logged. She has to think. "What do you mean, a complication?"
"I don't know, that's all she said. I think—hang on, where are you going?"
"You should really speak to Dr. Ruiz," the nurse says, glancing skittishly down the hallway. "She's in a conference at the moment, but—"
"Please." Sarah's voice is low and husky. "I need to know." To her horror, she feels tears begin to prickle at her eyes. Angrily, she raises a hand and dashes them away. "Please," she says again.
The nurse glances around again, and sighs.
"Miss Rochefort has developed a post-traumatic intracerebral hematoma. A blood vessel has ruptured in her brain and the accumulated blood has begun to put pressure—"
"I know what an intracerebral hematoma is," Sarah snaps. She takes a deep, unsteady breath, trying to regulate her tone. "What's the prognosis?"
"Without treatment? Fatal, likely within the week."
A week. Sarah presses a trembling hand to her temple. This is nothing she didn't know already, she reminds herself, fighting off an encroaching swell of dizziness.
"And the treatment options?"
"An emergency craniotomy might relieve the pressure, but I'm afraid due to Miss Rochefort's prior injuries and the location of the hematoma, surgical intervention is extremely risky."
Sarah takes a deep breath and lowers her hand. So there is a treatment.
"How risky?"
The nurse looks uncomfortable. "I'm not— You should really talk to the surgeon about—"
"Please. Just your estimate, if you can't give me anything else."
"Miss Rochefort has a one in four chance of surviving without severe and irreversible brain damage."
One in four.
Sarah shuts her eyes.
"And what about with—with damage?"
"One in three. I'm afraid at this stage any further trauma is likely to prove fatal. If you should choose to proceed—"
"If? What do you mean, if?"
A horrible suspicion begins to creep into Sarah's mind. It had sounded so final, what Ernie told her. So hopeless. So definite.
But no. It couldn't be true. Surely no parent could—
But the nurse is speaking again.
"Given the risks involved, families do sometimes elect to avoid the surgery." She frowns. "It was my understanding that in Miss Rochefort's case—"
"Trina? What's going on here?"
A middle-aged nurse rounds the corner behind them, her voice sharp, eyes bright with suspicion.
Trina relaxes in evident relief. "This young woman had a few questions about her sister's condition. Do you know if Dr. Ruiz—"
"Who's her sister?" the older woman interrupts.
"Annalisse Rochefort, in Room 220."
The older woman's eyes narrow.
"Annalisse Rochefort doesn't have a—"
Sarah doesn't wait to hear the rest.
Two minutes later she's yanking open the door to Alisse's hospital room.
Mrs. Rochefort is sitting in a chair by the bed. She looks up sharply as Sarah enters. Then her face relaxes in recognition, her shoulders slumping slightly.
"Sarah."
The older nurse comes hurrying in behind Sarah.
"What do you think you're doing, barging in like that? Come with me at once, before I call security to escort you out!" She turns to Mrs. Rochefort. "Ma'am, I'm so sorry for the intrusion."
Mrs. Rochefort shakes her head. "No, no, it's all right. Sarah's a …friend of the family."
"Ma'am, hospital protocol—"
"She's here at my request," Mrs. Rochefort says, firmly. Then, more softly. "Please. There's not much time left."
The nurse glances from Sarah to Mrs. Rochefort, lips tight. Then she shoots Sarah a warning glare and walks out.
"Please," Mrs. Rochefort says, indicating the free chair on the other side of the bed. "Have a seat."
Sarah remains standing.
They stay like that for a long moment. There are so many things Sarah wants to say—needs to say, but she doesn't know how to begin. This isn't how she'd imagined things. She'd swept in here on a tide of righteous anger, but Mrs. Rochefort isn't playing along. Again.
Mrs. Rochefort speaks first.
"You've been a good friend to my Annalisse." She sighs. "I remember when we first moved to Robbinsville. It was so hard on her, with her father gone…" She shakes her head. "But she was so happy to find a friend. I was happy too." One of the corners of her mouth twitches upwards in a wry half-smile. "She was so wild, you see, even then. Wayward and unruly. And you were so good, so quiet and polite. I'd hoped you might be a good influence on her." She sighs again. "But it was always the other way around with you two, wasn't it? Were you ever—"
She stops, and Sarah knows she'd been about to ask if they were lovers.
"I don't suppose it matters now," Mrs. Rochefort says, as if to herself.
She looks at Sarah, standing there with her jaw jutted forward, practically vibrating with all the words yet to be spoken, and folds her hands in her lap. "Well. Say what you've come to say."
"The surgery," she says, and practically has to bite her tongue to stop everything else from spilling out, all of the arguments and recriminations and threats and pleas.
Mrs. Rochefort shuts her eyes briefly. "Ah, yes. I suppose you asked one of the nurses?"
"She said—she said it was the only way, but from what Ernie told me… About saying goodbyes. It sounded so final…" She trails off.
Mrs. Rochefort says nothing.
"Tell me I'm wrong. Tell me it's not what I think."
Mrs. Rochefort bows her head. "I have prayed for guidance. One in three survival rate—did the nurse tell you that?"
Sarah nods jerkily.
"I thought she might have. One in three… No. Better for her to pass here, peacefully in her bed, than to die on the operating table, surrounded by strangers, cut open and bloody like a—a pagan sacrifice."
"That doesn't make sense," Sarah bursts out. "One in three—that means she might live. It might save her life."
"Annalisse is in God's hands."
"She's in your hands," Sarah snarls. "Her fucking life is in your hands, and you're choosing to let her die."
Mrs. Rochefort closes her eyes, absorbing the blow.
"Have you told the doctors yet?" Sarah asks hoarsely.
"I'm afraid I don't see how that's your concern," Mrs. Rochefort said, a hint of coolness entering her voice.
"Have you?"
"I've made up my mind. I won't change it, and you'll only distress us both if you try."
"How can you— How can you say that? Your daughter's life is on the line and you won't even consider trying to save her?"
Mrs. Rochefort looks down at her clasped hands. "I don't expect you to understand." She gets to her feet. "Now if you'll excuse me, I need to speak with Dr. Ruiz. I'll leave you alone to say your goodbyes."
She makes for the door but Sarah steps in front of her, blocking her path.
"She was never what you wanted," Sarah says, her chest heaving. She can feel the rage burning inside her, and she doesn't understand why it feels so dirty—surely fire should be clean. "You're probably happy to get rid of her."
Mrs. Rochefort draws herself up tight. "She is my daughter." The corners of her mouth are pinched, but her eyes are as bright as Sarah had ever seen them. "I pray you're never given a trial such as this."
"Sure," Sarah spits. "Pray. So much easier than actually trying to fix things. And then when it gets too hard, you can opt out with a clean conscience. What does it matter if your daughter is dead? At least you prayed first."
Mrs. Rochefort stands stock still, her mouth working.
"The Lord forgive you, Sarah Williams," she says finally.
Then she's leaving, and Alisse is still lying there so pale and unresponsive, and the clock is ticking on the wall and Sarah is running out of time again. She would do anything for more time. For more time she had once smashed her way out of a crystal ballroom—shattered her own dreams, and now—
It's so easy, so terribly, appallingly easy. That's what she remembers, later. How it took so much less than a conscious effort to make the decision—how it was like relaxing a muscle she'd held clenched inside her for years without ever noticing it. All she has to do is let go and the words spill out of her, and for one, awful moment, all she feels is the sweetness of release.
"Mrs. Rochefort!"
Alisse's mother turns around one last time, and there's nothing on her face but a heavy, bone-deep weariness. Sarah can see she's tired of fighting. It's easier to hate her for that than for anything else.
"I wish the goblins would come and take you away, right now."
For a moment, Mrs. Rochefort just stares at her through pale, protuberant eyes—and Sarah notices for the first time how worn they look, how red the rims are and how dark the shadows beneath the lower lids.
Then—she must have blinked. Because Mrs. Rochefort is gone and at her back there's the terrible, uncanny feeling of presence, and a voice whose purr makes her stomach churn, raises the hairs on the back of her neck, and sets her nerves to sparking with fear and shameful, sickening excitement.
"I thought you'd never ask."
A/N: Fuckin' Massholes. Ya'll East Coasters know what I'm talking about.
Earlier drafts had Sarah as a far more innocent victim—wishing away a stalker who was in the process of attacking Alisse, or something equally morally uncompromising—but then it was like, why would I do that when I could have her carpet bomb her own moral high ground? NOBODY HAS CLEAN HANDS IN THIS STORY FOLKS.
FYI, crainiotomies are actually extremely safe as far as brain surgery goes (according to the internet, anyway). Just in case you need one someday, and all you remember is "I read somewhere they're unsafe." WELL THEY'RE NOT IT WAS A FICTION LIE GET THE SURGERY THAT'S THE MORAL OF THIS FUCKING CHAPTER.
Soundtrack:
"Five Years," by David Bowie.
"Civilian," by Wye Oak.
"I Need My Girl," by The National.
"Something Must Break," by Joy Division.
(You should also feel free to listen to some Bon Jovi if you want. Go ahead, I'm giving you permission. No shame: everybody loves a bit of Bon Jovi. Especially Sarah. It's the hair—she's just got a thing for that oh-so-shaggy, oh-so-shaggable rock star mop. If blond mullets were more in fashion among the young men of the 90s, our story might be a different one, but they weren't and it isn't and I think we're all the better for it.)
All my thanks and appreciation to kellyn1604, SarahlouiseDodge, Honoria Granger, Sazzle76, FelineGrace, kittyspike08536, Ebony-Dove, xoBrandyxo123, Avenging Neko, Nanenna, TheGris, ACorf, lizlizard12, GalaxyTrash,and Guest for reviewing! Such motivation, really! Ya'll are just the best.
Next chapter ("Bring Me My Devil") ends Part 1 and it's another whopper. In the meantime, I'm kind of dying to know what you think, especially about the end of the chapter. Didja love it? Didja hate it?