Fracture (23 page)

     It’s different here. My nerves are still primed, ready for the next explosion, and when it doesn’t come, they start fraying. Sleeping it off is the quickest way to fix it.

     “I hate it here,” I whisper. “It’s
quiet
. I can’t think.” The lucid moments are few and far between, but what I remember about them is that damn sandbag sitting on my chest. No matter which way I turn, it won’t fall off.

     His thumb stills, his gaze intent on mine, the gleam in his eyes something I never would have expected from him — desperation. “You scared me. Second time you’ve done that. Your panic attack on the street,” he continues as my brows draw together in confusion. “That was the first time, and once is enough. This time? I can’t leave you, and I’ll have to. I’m due on assignment as soon as my cast’s off.”

     I bat his hand away. Leaving. I knew he’d be leaving me at some point. I didn’t need it thrown in my face quite so soon. “So go. I’ll get up. I’ll eat. Shower. Do normal stuff. You don’t have to worry. Just…let me sleep a while longer.”

     He doesn’t say anything for the longest time, his hand drifting to my shoulder, working its way under the blankets to my hand. Lacing his fingers through mine, he rests our joined hands on my hip. “I can’t do that. You’re getting up.”

* * *

     Being awake is as awful as I’d imagined.

     I’m cold. The numbness hasn’t dissipated, even though he built up the fire and the rest of the house is pleasantly warm. I miss the bed, how it cradled my body, the sheets and blankets a fort that kept out reality. Half the water I drank came up, along with the toast. There’s another plate of it in front of me, and Declan expects me to eat it, despite my roiling stomach.

     I push it away and huddle deeper into my sweater. It’s one of his, the sleeves dangling far past my fingertips, the hem falling almost to my knees. The wool smells like him.

     “Do you even know what you’re doing?” I ask.

     “I know you need fluids and calories. Your other option is the hospital.” He nudges the water glass. “Drink.”

     He keeps me awake for hours, forcing me to swallow most of two full glasses. Surprisingly, they stay down, and the half a piece of toast I manage to eat stays with it. When I scoot my chair away from the table, he follows, grumbling as he scoops up the crutches.

     The couch cushion gives easily under my butt. Two years of squirming around to avoid the spots where the springs poked up — over. Over in a matter of hours and a plane ride. I pull the sleeves over my hands and curl into the corner. “Why crutches?”

     He leans them against the couch. “Had to check in with the clinic when I got back. Doctor didn’t think me leg was healing properly and told me to stay off it as much as possible.” He slaps the crutches with a glare. “Fuckin’ things.”

     I shrink back. “How long until you get it off for good?”

     “He’ll recheck in two weeks.”

     There’s a book sitting on the table, half–buried under mail and newspapers. “You still get the paper delivered?”

     “Neighbor’s kid needed a job.”

     I frown. “So?”

     He shrugs. “He went around selling subscriptions. Have to pay to read the bloody thing online anyway, might as well get something else out of it.”

     The confusion clears. Such a Declan thing to do, a kind gesture almost lost in a sea of casually cruel ones. Under the weight of the invisible sandbag, my heart softens and gives, and I shut my burning eyes.

     Papers rustle, and he hisses quietly as the cushions squish and jiggle. I open my eyes to see him with the book in his hands, paging through it. It’s
Middlemarch
. I’d thought we’d left it in Sarajevo.

     “I can’t remember exactly where we were.” He glances at me, a question on his face.

     “I thought I’d left that behind.” The book itself doesn’t look familiar. The copy I had was battered, notes crowding the margins. I stole it from the university book shop a few months after Ryan was killed, during one of the respites in the fighting around the old campus.

     He holds it up so I can see the cover. “You did. We weren’t finished, though, and I figured you’d want to know how it ends.”

     I already know. Dorothea marries Ladislaw. I shut my eyes and rest my head on the back of the couch. “Featherstone had just died.”

     “No falling asleep on me.”

     I keep my eyes shut. I’m awake, for all the good it’s doing me. “I won’t.”

     The room’s silent except for the sound of the fire crackling. Month after month of stillness shattered by a gun, or a shout, and now all I hear is quiet. 

     “It caught us by surprise, you know?” I say softly. “We heard about the problems in Ukraine, the gossip spreading through Russia. If there were any hints of instability in Bosnia, though, it didn’t make it to the States. Ryan never would have allowed me to come with him if he thought there might be problems.”

     “But he’d go himself?”

     I open my eyes to see Declan slouched into the opposite corner, his broken leg propped on the coffee table,
Middlemarch
abandoned in his lap. “He could be damn stubborn when he wanted.” He’d been practically giddy when he’d found out he’d be allowed to go.

     I pick at the wool pilling on the sleeves. “The first firefight was over by the old Olympic stadium. Quick and dirty, only lasted a few minutes. Two dead. It didn’t occur to me until after Ryan was dead that was the real start of the war. A debate over Communism and its place in government turned violent.”

     It slams into me. Image after memory. Those times I’d been out sneaking around and missed the rebels gathered in the alleys. The building that had blown up a block over as I picked through the meager offerings at the food drop, causing the floor to rumble violently under my feet. Pretending not to see the foot sticking out of the rubble.

     Ryan’s desk sliding into the flat below. The blood on Danilo’s face the night the club was bombed. My chest constricts and my vision greys, nerves on high alert as I wait for the next blast. The longer it takes, the tighter my chest gets, and no matter how hard I fight I can’t draw any air in.

     “Shit. Nora? Nora. Breathe.” He pushes me around and shoves my head between my legs. “In and out. In and out. That’s it.
Breathe
.”

     
Breathe
. Fear skitters under my skin. I reach up and grasp his hand, pulling it down, clasping it between both of mine. I’m safe. I’m in Galway. I got out. The grey recedes, my lungs relax, and I gasp in air.

     Declan frees his hand and rubs my back, long, soft strokes that calm me further. I straighten and groan as my head spins. “Okay?” he asks.

     I nod, sucking in another breath. “Yeah.” He resettles himself in his corner and when he lifts his arm, there’s a new hesitancy to the familiar move. But it’s that bridge I need between the war and now, something to ground me, and I scoot next to him, laying my head on his chest.

     The heat of him seeps through the wool, warming me and thawing some of the numbness. “You sure you’ll be all right alone, Nora? I won’t be around much now that we’re home. The equipment I have here isn’t as sophisticated as what they’ve got at the agency. I’ve got some long hours in the editing suite ahead.”

     I nod, rubbing my cheek along the worn cotton of his shirt. “I’m okay.”

     We both know I’m not.

     He lied.

     Declan’s been around more than he led me to believe he would be over the last few days. He’s trying to be unobtrusive about it, but he’s hanging around and the worry is starting to make him peevish. This morning he practically shoved me out of bed.

     For the last three days, he’s made sure I’ve kept busy, drinking plenty of water and tea, eating, and we’ve finished
Middlemarch
and moved on to his choice,
Catch-22.

     I’ve thoroughly explored his house. It’s as austere as the living room. The appliances in the kitchen are out of date. The cabinets stick when you try to open them. His bedroom contains a bed, an armoire, two small tables, and a chest of drawers. The second room is smaller and littered with photos and cables and various pieces of equipment and baggage. A gorgeous picture of the Mountains of Mourne graces one wall, and the table holding his laptop and printer is buried under old newspapers and mail. Every wall is white, most have small cracks, and the only room in the house that looks like it’s been updated sometime in the last twenty years is the bathroom. He doesn’t say anything about the marathon showers I take. I can’t get enough of the seemingly endless hot water supply and steady pressure, pounding a drumbeat on my shoulders.

     Today he wants me to go outside.

     “Look, I need to go into the city. Meet with the editor, work. I can’t drive meself. I don’t want to have to call for a car anymore. You’ll have to do it for me.” He gestures needlessly at his cast.

     “I don’t have my driver’s license. And everything’s on the wrong side.” Plus leaving the house isn’t high on my list of things to do. Nothing is, really, other than sitting on the couch cocooned in a blanket and taking my turn reading when he hands me the book.

     The numbness and the weight lift at opposite times mostly, leaving me burdened with one and not the other. Hiding the inexplicable tears is downright impossible at times, though it’s kind of funny having Declan stare at me, terrified. I can almost seeing him wringing his hands.

     Hence the pissed–off–ishness. Like now.

     “Get up. Get dressed. You’ll figure it out,” he growls, and, lifting his crutches, swings out of the living room, muttering under his breath. I pull the blanket tighter around me and scrunch myself further into the corner of the couch. If I’m small enough to fade into the background, he’ll leave me alone.

     “Get your bloody arse off the couch and get fucking dressed!”

     Uncoiling slowly, I push to my feet and wait for the wave of dizziness to recede. It does so a lot quicker than it did the day before. I shuffle out of the room, blanket trailing behind me. I exchange my baggy sweats and Declan’s sweater for jeans and one of my sweaters, though I’d rather wear one of his. I like how it enfolds me. I manage to tie my shoes without falling over.

     Declan swings out of the second room, his study or whatever it is, and scowls as his laptop bag swings forward. “Fucking crutches.” He adjusts the strap and leads the way out of the house, digging into his pocket for his keys as I shiver next to him on the front stoop. He passes them to me and I drag my feet all the way to the car. I’m having trouble breathing again. It happens on occasion, when the sandbag on my chest becomes an anvil, shuddering every so often like a hammer’s hitting it.

     By the time we reach the car, my hands are shaking. I don’t want to do this. I don’t want to take this step forward. He takes the keys from me, unlocks the door, and hobbles around the hood of the car to the passenger side. He glares at me across the roof. “Get in.”

     I get in and automatically adjust the seat and the mirrors. I can’t do this. Too strange. Driving his car requires more concentration than I’m able to put forth. Key in the ignition, hands on the steering wheel, and I stare blindly out the windshield.

     “Nora. Turn the car on.”

     I turn the car on.

     “Put it in reverse.”

     I put it in reverse.

     And on and on, grinding the gears and making him wince. He’s impatient, voice gruff with it, though he’s careful not to raise it. Twenty minutes later, I pull into a small parking lot in front of a run–down building. “Come on.”

     I’m a puppy. A puppy who’s been kicked and punched yet still follows along, hoping for that one stroke of affection that makes it all worthwhile. My tail’s between my legs as I stumble after him, head down as he fumbles with the door.

     It’s an office of some sort, most of it dark and empty. Desks, chairs, other work–related detritus clutter the rooms, but for the most part, no one’s in. We pass through one door, walk down a short hallway and into a small, windowless room full of computer equipment.

     “Sit.”

     I find a chair, remove the stack of photo paper from it, and sit. He sets his crutches aside and pulls out his laptop. After booting up, he hooks it into one of the larger monitors in front of him. 

     “What is this place?” I ask.

     “Editing suite.” He shoots me a quick glance. “Everything gets cleaned up here. Photo printer’s in the corner, though most times they’re JPEGs sent to the editor.”

     “Do you ever work with film?”

     He grunts, hits a few keys. “On occasion. Mostly if I’m shooting for myself. There’s a dark room around the corner.” Thumbnail images pop up on the screen in front of us, and he scrolls quickly, pictures blurring into indistinguishable blobs. “Here.”

     My face fills the screen. It’s one of the photos he showed me before, one of fear and determination. He substitutes it for another. This time I’m laughing. He clicks through a few more, every single one of them of me.

     The last one he brings up is me staring out a window. It’s black and white, my face at the forefront. It’s not quite blurry, but not quite in focus, either. Like I’m only mostly there.

     “Do you know what I saw when I looked at this picture?” He doesn’t wait for my answer, simply turns and catches my chin between his thumb and forefinger. “All of them, really. That’s a woman who lived a nightmare for two years and didn’t break down. I see them and I see you now, and I can’t figure out how they’re the same person.”

     Tears sting my eyes. Stopping them is impossible. They come with great, gulping sobs, to the point where I almost hyperventilate. I hunch in my chair, face in my hands, the loud snuffles and aching grunts the only sounds. He doesn’t touch me, hold me, comfort me. The only time he comes anywhere near me anymore is in bed, his body curving around mine in a move so automatic I think it’s a habit for him rather than a choice. And the one time, the
one time
I want comfort, he stares at me in horror. Maybe disgust.