Torn at the Shoulder

He hesitated at the door to her room, took a breath and slid inside.

Her eyes blinked open. Tired, drugged out. They jelled into focus.

“You’re still wearing it,” she said.

“Yes,” he answered, trying to smile.

“For me?”

“Of course.”

“I never apologized.” He shrugged and she continued. “And you’ve never fixed the tear.”

“No. It reminds me.”

“I’ve never thought about it. Since….”

The silence settled and her eyes closed. He studied her face. The slope of her forehead, her full lips, her cheek bones and her jawline. Her nose where she said it had broken in a playground when she was seven. And he compared it to the face he remembered, the one he’d been remembering, the one he had sketched so many times before to keep the memory of her alive.

“Are you still here?” she breathed, her eyes hooded.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“I had to come and see you. After I read about –”

 “Okay. You’ve seen me.” She sighed; shook her head. Her words came out slowly. “Now you can go.”

“That’s it?” he said. “I’m dismissed?” He shook his head; began to pace the small room. “No, ‘How’ve you been? What’ve you been up to?’ What’s next? Are you going to throw me out? Are we going to do that again?”

She gathered her strength and said, “You need to go.”

“No,” he said, leaning against her bed. “I let you push me out once before and now look what’s happened.” He brushed at a strand of her hair that had fallen over her eyes.

“Don’t!” She jerked her head away from him.

“Sorry. But you can’t –”

“I don’t want you here. I don’t want me here. I don’t –”

“I know it’s not ideal here. This hospital doesn’t have the best reputation for bedside manner.”

“No,” she protested.

“Maybe I can arrange to get you a private nurse. Would that –?”

“That’s not what I’m saying. I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to be anywhere. That was the plan. But I failed. And now I can’t do anything about it.” She pulled her hands up as far as the restraints allowed. “Not like this!”

“They don’t want you to –”

“Why not?!” And then softer, dissolving into tears, “Why not? Why not?”

He had no answer. Two years ago, he would have known what to say. He knew her then. He understood her then – what she needed, what she felt. Two years ago, she was happy. Then he came home one day and found her sitting at the kitchen table in the dark. He flicked on the light and was about to say something flippant when he realized that she hadn’t reacted to the light coming on. She sat staring into space.

“What is it?” he asked. “What’s wrong?”

“He’s dead. Billy. One of his… someone. She had my number. She told me they killed him.”

Billy was her brother. She hadn’t seen him in years. Hadn’t heard from him. Never mentioned him until that day. Life drained from her eyes that day. She was just going through the motions. Eating, sleeping. She didn’t leave the apartment. He thought it was her way of grieving and he left her to it. Whenever he asked if there was something he could do, she shook her head, ‘No’.

It was only when he was gone, when she was alone, that she came to life. Or came to a sort of life. He didn’t know about the websites she scoured, searching for information about Billy. He didn’t know about the people she discovered who’d known Billy over the past years. He didn’t know what they said about why he’d been killed. He didn’t know what obsessed her for the two months after she got the call..

“A new pub opened up just by the subway station. What say we go and check it out?” he asked one evening when he got home from work.

“That’s what you want to do? Go to a pub? Don’t you know what’s going on in the world? People are dying!” She slammed the lid down on her laptop and got up from the table. She advanced on him. “They’re killing them! The world is erupting, and you want to go drinking?”

She pushed him and he stumbled back, the sleeve of his coat catching on a coat hook. It tore as he stood back up.

“What are you talking about? Who’s killing who?”

“God, you’re so dumb! You don’t know anything. The revolution is here!” She pushed him again.

“You are talking crazy,” he said. “Revolution? Where? Honestly, you’ve been moping around for the last couple of months. I can’t get a word out of you. And now you’re talking about…. I thought it would be good for you to get out, see some people, do something fun.”

“Fun! That’s all you can think about. Well go have your fun!” She pushed him to the door. “Some of us have more important things to do.”

“Suit yourself, then. I’m going. You can stop pushing me out. I’ll be at the new pub. When you calm down, you can join me.”

He slammed out the door, grumbling to himself all the way to the pub. He ordered a shot and a beer and then another beer. Every time the door opened, he looked up. Every time, he was disappointed. After his third beer he went home, hoping the toxic atmosphere in the apartment would have diffused and they could talk about what was troubling her. But she wasn’t there. She was gone along with her laptop, a small bag and a few of her clothes.

She never came back for the rest of her things.

He got on with his life, or part of it anyway. He worked hard and as much as he could, because while he was working, he didn’t think about her. Every evening when he got home, he held his breath, listening, hoping that he would hear her moving around the apartment. He futilely checked internet sites for some mention of her; he called the local hospitals to see if she’d been admitted and when none had any record of her he expanded his search regionally. He had a cop friend run her name to see if she’d been picked up for anything. And when he realized that her passport was missing, he called in a favor and had Interpol check. But for him, she had disappeared, vanished.

Then, long after he had given up hope of ever finding her, he saw her name in the newspaper. Page five. And he flew across the country to see her. To find out why.

He brought a chair up beside her bed and waited for the tears to stop, for her to calm.

“Can you tell me why?” he asked.

“You don’t know? You still don’t know?” She sighed in exasperation.

He waited for her to continue.

“They’re killing all of us.”

“Us?”

“Anyone who stands up to them. That’s what Billy did. That’s why…. I couldn’t be complicit. I couldn’t let it go. We have to fight them!”

“Who’s ‘them’?” he asked, trying to not let my exasperation show.

She looked at him like he was an idiot and then turned her head away. She would not suffer fools.

“Silence is complicity when you’re dealing with reality,” he said, “with actual evil, not when you’re following the ranting tweets of a delusional megalomaniac.”

She did not respond.

“You’re better than this,” he tried. “You’re smarter. You can think for yourself. You can live in the real world.”

His exhortations were fruitless. After a long uncomfortable silence, he left the room.

They were waiting for him outside, men in suits who, when he got to the hospital and asked for her, had flashed credentials too quickly for him to have read.

“Well?” the man in the navy suit with the thin black tie asked.

“She’s convinced there’s some conspiracy raging. And now she probably thinks I’m a part of it.”

“We need to know who put her up to it. Why don’t you go back in and –”

“No. First, I’m not your toady. I’m not here for that. I came because… because I never got over her. I told you that. I had to see her, to see if there was something, anything of who she was, who she’d been, still there. But she’s been so brainwashed by all that online crap, it’s like… I don’t even recognize her.”

“You said, ‘first’. Is there more?”

“She was wearing a suicide vest. That the bomb didn’t go off was dumb luck. Dozens of people would have been killed, including her. She’s prepared to die for this so-called cause of hers, so is she going to give anyone up? Not a chance.”

“Alright,” the man said, resigned. “You can go, but don’t leave town. We’ll need to debrief you and see if there’s anything else you can remember that will help us.”

He went back to the motel, confused. He’d come to see her out of compassion, but they had co-opted him into becoming her interrogator. And now he was being forced to stay. Did they suspect him of something? He began to think that maybe there was some kernel of truth behind her wild beliefs.