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

as Adam fell to the floor, taking the sterile instrument tray down with him. That led to other stories of partners, spouses, and friends. One woman told how after her double mastectomy, Tommy, her former professional baseball-playing husband and devoted lover of her double D breast cups, had taken her to Walmart, personally selecting an assortment of Nerf balls for her to wear inside her bra.

‘Everything from a double D to a G,’ she said, bringing laughter again to the group. Clair realized she had laughed today more than she had in months, maybe years. Her stomach ached from laughing. Maybe she could do this, she thought. If these people can, then so can I.

Clair still wasn’t allowed to drive, so she waited outside for Adam to pick her up. They had set the time for 4.15 p.m. It was now only 3.30. On Friday afternoon. Was it possible it had been less than one week since she had been released from the hospital? Looking across the parking lot, through the large bay window, at the four-story tower, which housed the psychiatric department, she wondered for a moment what Jet was doing. Taking her phone out of her tote, she scrolled through her contacts until she came across Jet. She considered how their relationship had begun morphing from client/therapist to friends. Jet had cautioned her about this, saying it was unwise for these relationships to go beyond professional. Clair had reasoned with her, saying she understood but that theirs was different. Clair wasn’t a normal crazy person and Jet wasn’t a normal therapist. So, in her world view, they could and should be friends. At the time Jet hadn’t argued back on the issue. Clair tapped the number. A green light glowed on the screen.

‘Dr Taylor,’ said a soft, husky voice.

‘Jet, it’s Clair.’

‘Oh, hey, how are you doing? Your name didn’t come up on my screen. I thought you were a normal client,’ she said, mimicking Clair’s own words back to her.

‘I’m good, really. I’m just across the lot, at the cancer center. Do you have time for a coffee or tea?’

‘Yeah, I think so. Hang on, let me double check. OK, yes, I can. Meet you downstairs in the café in ten?’

‘Great, see you then.’

Clair felt buffeted, lifted and lighter. It would be good to talk with Jet, get her perspective on things. Pulling her coat close to her, she walked, head high, and feet planted across the tarmac, large raindrops beginning to fall. She lifted her face up to the sky, catching one on her tongue.

‘So, what’s new?’ Jet asked Clair as she slipped into the chair at a table by the large, plate glass window overlooking a rose garden. Only a few fragments of blossoms remained, and those were surrendering to the late fall rains, their tender petals drifting like confetti to the browning grass below. Normally, such a sight would have filled Clair with melancholy, dread for the coming winter. But today, she found a comfort in the cycle of fall, winter, spring, and the knowledge that if she could just keep showing up for her treatments, she might live through this. And then what? Don’t wonder, she told herself. Just stay here, with this now.

‘First support group, with Naomi. Do you know her?’ Clair asked.

‘Naomi, yes, she’s great. A bit cheerful but maybe that’s what her job calls for. What did you think?’

‘It was OK. I sort of enjoyed it. There was a young girl and a man. I was surprised.’

‘Yeah, cancer doesn’t discriminate. Like mental illness, Clair, it can happen to anyone. So, how’s it going at home, with Adam? Are you two talking?’

Clair got a look on her face, eyes crinkling at the corners, mouth turned up in an almost smile.

‘What is that look?’ Jet asked.

‘Um, yeah, we are talking and a bit more than that,’ Clair said, smiling fully now.

‘Oh my God, Clair, is that OK?’

‘It is, I think, I mean, it just happened, but we were, we both, well, it happened. You can’t fake that, right?’

Jet laughed. ‘No, at least the man can’t. Clair, I’m touched. I was worried and now, I feel so much better about you two being there, so far away from town, from me, alone.’

‘You mean from the psych unit, don’t you?’ Clair asked, but with a smile. ‘Jet, I’m not insane anymore, remember. I’ve been released from commitment. I’m normal.’

‘Ha, we could argue that for days, months, and many have – the differences between legal insanity and just pure crazy. But, no, that’s not what I meant, Clair. I mean, being there, without Devon. Going back through all of that. How’s that going?’

Clair picked up her cup of tea, holding it with both hands. Took a small sip. Looked back out the window, at the wind, now stronger, blowing cat paws across the puddles in the parking lot to the side of the rose garden.

‘I’m not, dealing with it, not yet. I know I need to go in his room, clean it out. Open that space. But I can’t.’

She took a long breath, set her cup down, looked at Jet.

‘After I first went home, you know, that very first time. After Devon disappeared, I would go into his room, lay on his bed. Smell him. Just wrap myself in his blanket, hold his pillow to my face. Breathe him in. The sunlight was fierce that summer. Each day, shining right into his room, onto his rows of toy cars, arranged in a perfect circle, each one exactly equidistant from the next. Before, when I would go in to clean and accidently dislodge one of the cars, he would quietly, without anger or emotion, place it carefully back in place. So, even after, I would walk so carefully around those cars. That was what did it for me, that last day when I lost it. Adam had moved all the cars, packed them up in a box, set them in a corner of his room. I knew