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

But it hadn’t been like that. Her parents, stiff and reluctant; Ben and Jodie plus many of their colleagues from the college. He hadn’t invited any of his family. They had never met Devon or Clair. He had arranged for the chorale singers along with their small but talented chamber orchestra to perform. The day had been just like the day Devon disappeared and it almost seemed like a holographic image, except for the fact that Devon wasn’t there. Robin egg blue sky, not even a breath of wind. Adam had invited Devon’s classmates but only a few attended, more out of their parent’s curiosity than caring, he surmised. After a short ceremony, balloons were let loose over Mingus Park, Devon’s favorite playground, and floated over tree-tops, rooftops, and away. Clair refused to come to the park. She had joined in later for drinks at their house, ignoring Adam and spiriting Ben and Jodie away into the study. Their parents had sat like rejected manikins on the couch, itching to leave.

He couldn’t stand being in the house alone. Empty, it felt hollowed out, desolate. Before, coming home was like walking into a minefield, uncertainty guiding each step, each word and action. That last day had felt different, almost like their early days. But that had been just too near perfect, he mused. Like a vine pushing against a wall, there must be tension in a life, in a love, to make it grow. Too little, stagnation, too much, turbulence. Fire or ice. They had not been able to hold a middle ground.

Their house was so far from anywhere. Another thing they had argued about.

‘This is a good twenty miles from town,’ he had complained, when she had driven him out to see it, when Devon’s diagnosis of autism was first confirmed.

‘Yes, but look at the space. He can have animals, a playhouse, fish in the creek. All the things a boy’s world should include. We can let him run free, without worrying about cars, weirdos or other town issues. It will be safe here, and quiet. You know how noise makes him anxious. And look, you can convert that old barn into your acting studio. You’ve always wanted to do that, right?’

And as usual, Clair had gotten her way.

He felt untethered. So many times, he had felt the pull of this, this freedom. He needed to be with people, near noise, laughter, life. There was a bar, the Halfway Bar and Grill, a few miles further upriver. Mostly fishermen, hunters, in season or out. It was a crossroads. Turn left, you went further into the back country. A long, winding mountain path to the end of the road. Turn right, you circled back into town, taking the high road around the mountain. It was halfway to getting lost or halfway to being found. Tonight, he wanted to be found.

Chapter 11

Clair

Clair walked into the cold hall, wrapped in a warm kimono, the heat lying close to her skin, bringing goose pimples to the surface of her arms. She shivered. The attendant, or technician, she wasn’t sure what to call this kind woman, ushered her into the screening room. Large metal objects hung from the ceiling. Women’s magazines about “House Beautiful” and “Coastal Living” placed strategically on love seats aligned along the wall. Imagining herself sitting there, calmly reading about the perfect dinner party made her cringe.

‘Hi, I’m Megan,’ the tall woman, wearing a white lab coat, standing next to one of the behemoth machines said, a broad smile lighting up her face, as though they were gathering for that perfect dinner party. ‘Come on in. Stand right here. This is our new imaging radiography and it is so much nicer than the other one we had. Are you doing OK? Can I get you anything? This won’t take long.’

She stood in the center of this white, startling room, trying hard to get her bearings. Her keeper, or guard from the psych unit, Linda, stood next to her, trying to be innocuous but not succeeding. How many patients come for a mammogram, from the locked psychiatric unit, with a guard? Clair thought not too many. So, here she was. If she had just kept quiet about that pain in her breast this wouldn’t even be happening. She’d just go on like nothing was wrong. But she had flinched on the beach with Jet. And damn that Jet, she had noticed and insisted on the doctor checking and now she was here. It had all happened so quickly; she was still stunned. She turned as the woman named Megan began to remove the kimono from her right side.

‘If you could just step close to this plate,’ she said, gently guiding her towards the mammography unit. Clair stepped up, allowed Megan to situate her breast on the flat surface, reach her arm up overhead, and flatten the breast between the two plates. She followed her instructions to the letter. It was comforting to be so controlled. So maintained.

‘I’m sorry, this might pinch,’ Megan warned. ‘OK, we’re almost there, let me take a look. OK, that’s good, hold your breath, hold, and OK, now breathe.’

Clair stepped back from the vice grips, covered herself with the sleeve of the kimono. She stood still in the room, not moving as Linda read the magazine and Megan changed films.

‘OK, let’s do the other side. I didn’t ask but is this a routine mammogram or is there a problem? You were placed on the add-on schedule without much background.’

‘Ah, I am having some pain over here,’ pointing to her left side.

‘OK, let’s see what it looks like,’ Megan said as she gently guided Clair back to the imaging machine.

‘Like before,’ she said as she pulled the kimono off the left side, bearing the left breast that made her gasp before she knew how to stop. The redness was evident even from her angle.

‘Oh, well, yes,