The Wave by Kristen Crusoe (ebook reader online txt) 📗

brain. The music cocooned her, lifting her up and tossing her into space. Crystals scattered, infinitesimal sparkles cascading all around her. Voices chanting ancient hymns drew her deeper and deeper, and then, a sudden jolt.

‘Give her point five ketamine. Get her intubated, she’s crashing!’

* * *

Time, misshapen, passed. Days, weeks, minutes, she didn’t know. Transferred to the intensive care unit, Clair Mercer shunted between sedation and wakeful agitation until sleep, so deep it felt like dying again, consumed her. Soft voices, shoes sliding on linoleum floors, smells of bleach, alcohol, and plastic filled the space around her.

‘Clair, good morning. My name is Elaine. I’m your nurse today. You’re in the intensive care unit. You’ve been here for two days, on a ventilator. That’s the tube you feel in your throat. You were in an accident, in the water. You’re much better now. Clair, please, open your eyes. We’re going to remove the tube this morning.’

Clair recognized the voice, felt a warm hand on her arm. She gagged, coughed, feeling the tube in her throat being removed, soft hands moving her gently from side to side, a warm cloth wiping her face, arms, hands. Surrendering to the light filtering in through the curtains across the room, she could almost imagine she was home, in her own bed, except for the beep, beep, beeping of the monitors tracking her every heartbeat and breath. She could see through the glass door at the end of her bed. Bodies moving quickly, the squeaking of rubber-soled shoes mixing with light laughter and early morning conversation.

A sudden swish, the curtain pulled across a metal rod, and a figure emerged from the shadow. A woman, short, sturdy, with a stethoscope draped around her neck walked up to Clair’s bedside, took her hand at the wrist, feeling her pulse. Watching the monitor as she did, she quickly glanced down at Clair.

‘Ah, good morning. I see you’re awake. I’m Dr Hawk. How are you feeling? Any pain, shortness of breath?’

Looking up at the doctor’s smiling face, Clair felt comforted. But it didn’t last. Awakening brought remembering. Waves of grief, loss, and terror washed over her. Did I really kill my husband? Do they know? Am I going to jail? A moan, cry, animal-like in its intensity escaped her throat. Curling into her side, drawing her knees up, holding her face in her hands, she cried, ‘No, no, this can’t be, please don’t let it be.’ Over and over, this litany of sorrow rocked her back and forth in the bed.

Another woman stepped quietly into the room. Tall, slender, with white blonde hair, she sat in a chair beside Clair’s bed. Nodding at the doctor, she said, ‘I’ll sit with her now.’

‘Hello Clair, my name is Dr. Juliette Taylor, but please, call me Jet. I’m a psychologist and I will be working with you. Once you’re able to leave the ICU, we’ll transfer you to our psychiatric unit, where you will be safe. How does that sound?’

Looking away, her eyes searching for an escape outside the window, Clair saw an airplane soaring past towards the small airport near the sea.

‘Do I have a choice?’ she asked, watching the plane disappear into the marine layer, as it circled for a landing.

‘Clair, you are on a Hospital Hold, which means that we can keep you for treatment, for up to five business days. This sounds harsh, I know, but it is so that we can perform an evaluation, to determine if you continue to be a danger to yourself, or anyone else. So, no, you don’t have a choice about coming to the psychiatric unit, but you do have a choice in how you engage with us there, to help yourself get better.’

Jet stood, looked at Dr. Hawk.

‘Thank you, Jet. She’s medically cleared so she can go anytime,’ Dr Hawk said, walking back out into the busy ICU. ‘What a terrible tragedy.’

***

Clair sat frozen in place, feeling like her body hovered a few feet away. If she glanced out of the corner of her eye, she thought she might catch a glimpse of herself, unraveling like a spool of yarn across the blue-carpeted floor. She looked up at the face of the woman sitting across the narrow rectangular room, lined with chairs in fabrics made to sustain hard wear and tear from humans under immense stress. They were close. Clair shifted in her seat, turning her body away. She wrapped her arms around herself, then folded her hands into her lap.

‘I don’t know where to begin,’ she said, chewing the inside of her cheek.

‘Start from the beginning,’ Jet said, a half-smile on her face.

‘But which beginning?’ Clair asked.

Gazing out of the window at the bright spring morning, a testament to the futility of her rage, her fury, she felt a burning in her core like an ember deep inside, searing her heart. She wanted wind, lashing rain, deluge, and flood. Thunder, lightning. Anything other than this quiet room, with its pale, ivory walls and this woman who radiated such kindness and compassion. How had she gotten here, to this place? This was not supposed to happen. She was supposed to be dead, washed out to sea. And him, he was supposed to be dead too – a long, painful dying that would remind him of what he had done. Over and over with each rasping breath. She was not supposed to live, to be locked up, being helped when she knew she was helpless.

Still she sat, eyes vacant, staring at a marine painting on the wall over Jet’s head. A scene that was meant to bring a sense of joy, peace. For Clair, it brought only horror. She sank deeper into silence. Sounds of the psychiatric unit broke into the stillness. Breakfast was being carted away. The paper plates and plastic utensils, Thermoses of coffee, still caffeinated at this time of day, and other detritus of mealtime for twenty or more patients, all struggling to fit into a normal routine. First breakfast,