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         When Nathalie and I broke up, we said all the usual things:

         “It’s not you, it’s me.”

         “I don’t think this is our time.”

         “I’m still trying to find myself.”

         “I want to focus on my medical career.”

         I would wonder later who really meant those words.  Did she really feel like she wasn’t ready?  Was it truly just a question of bad timing?  What more did I need to know about myself that I didn’t know already?  How much more energy had to be given for the sake of the career?

         I didn’t think I would ever be able to answer those questions for myself and I doubted the same for her.  However, when Nathalie promised me that she would always be there for me, I took her at her word.  I’m sure that this was just a small token, like tossing a bone to a dog, but I did take it, hold it in my heart, cherish it.  Too much had transpired to be dismissive or ungrateful.  I loved her, and I figured I always would. 

         Afterwards, I decided I needed to move.  I relocated to Savannah, in the Deep South.  The years went on, and I eventually met someone new and we got married.  Life got comfortable in Savannah, and I loved the easy pace of life in the South.  Savannah was romantic walks under the large canopy trees with Spanish moss,  southern food in old, historic squares, and laughs at bars near the boardwalk.  In the home I bought with my wife, we spent lots of lazy afternoons on the back porch grilling shrimps and asparagus over an open flame and drinking tea made of ginger.  I liked to watch her tend to her garden while I cooked our mini-feasts.  She’d sing softly to herself while she nurtured her prize roses, and then laugh sheepishly when she caught me watching her. 

         But one night, a driver who’d had one too many drinks and a road made slick and dangerous with copious rain took the life of my wife.  The driver’s truck slammed head first into my wife’s car, which then spun out of control over an embankment and crashed into a tree. 

         The driver would admit that he’d been at a local bar known for its Red Devils, a specialty drink made of beet juice, lemon, and vodka.

         My wife never had a chance.

         On the day of her funeral, before they lowered her into the ground, I scattered rose petals from her beloved garden over her coffin.  I said good-bye and went home, wondering how I would put the pieces of my life back together.







         Weeks after she had been laid to rest, my doorbell chimed.  Clothes dotted every available space, and on the coffee table over flowed with different boxes of takeout:  pizza, Chinese, even barbeque.  The air was stale and funky, and the curtains had kept a silent vigil over the windows since her death.  Unopened mail littered the front hallway, and a few bags of garbage  made a small mountain in the kitchen.  I couldn’t imagine who could possibly be at the door, and I certainly couldn’t fathom who I would allow to enter my home in this state.  Nonetheless, I shuffled to the door, and when I saw the person on the other side, my heart skipped a beat.

         “Nathalie?!”  I had to squint against the sunlight, but there was no mistaking the lovely form that stood in my doorway.  She gave me a soft smile.  “Hi Des,” she said.

         “What are you doing here?”

         She tilted her head.  “I’m here for you, of course.  I heard about what happened.  I’m very sorry.”

         I was so happy to see her I wanted to hug her, but there was a stiffness to her pose and a squareness to her shoulders that made me hesitate.

         “Can I come in?”

         I stepped aside.  “How did you find me after all this time, Nathalie?”

         “I’ve always told you that I’d be here for you when you needed me, Desmond.  Friends find each other in times of need.”

         She was as lovely as I remember, only  a little older:  fine lines appeared at the corner of her eyes when she smiled, and the long hair of her youth had been cut into a shoulder-length, professional bob.  Underneath her partially open white coat, her once flat belly held the tiniest hint of bulge. 

         After I had cleared away clothes from the sofa and removed the trash from the coffee table, we sat.  “I’m glad you’re here,” I told her.

         She nodded.  “Me too.”  She leaned over and covered my hand with her own.  “I know this has been difficult for you, Des.  I wish…things had been different.  Maybe none of this would have happened.”

         Her touch comforted me.  “It’s not like anyone of this was your fault—“

         “I know, but I should have helped you, then.  When we were together. Perhaps none of this would have happened.”

         “None of what?  The accident?  How could you have helped?  It was a drunk who hit her. That’s all.”

         Her eyebrows knitted together. “But you know it wasn’t just any drunk, don’t you, Desmond?  You know that.” Her tone lost some of its softness.  Her words were more clipped, concise.  She had pulled back away from me, and my hand felt cold in the absence of her touch.

         “What are you talking about, Nathalie?”

         “The night of the accident. You know who the driver was.”

She was questioning me, and I didn’t like it.  It reminded me of when we were dating.  Sometimes I would come home late, and she would question me then too.  Where were you? You’ve can’t even stand up!  Have you been driving like that…?

         “It’s the reason why we broke up, Des.  But I could have helped you, I should have helped you.”

         I got up from the sofa and began to pace.  “What are you talking about?  We broke up because you wanted to find yourself or something.”

         Nathalie remained seated.  “I wanted to finish my studies. Get my medical degree.  But I should have been there for you.”

         I shook my head.  Something was bothering me, and in my mind, funny images that I didn’t understand began to appear:  flashing sirens, screeching brakes—

         I shut my eyes to erase the disturbing pictures in my head and then opened them again. “Yea, you wanted to be doctor.  An OB/GYN, right?”

         “No, not an obstetrician, Desmond.  A—“

         She said something else, but I didn’t hear her.  Instead, more pictures popped into my head:  more sirens with their oscillating lights, red and blue, and the body of a girl—

         I rubbed my eyes with my fists.  “Why are you here, Nathalie?”

         “To help you, Des.  To make you see, make you take responsibility.”

         “For what?  I didn’t do—“

         “You did do something, Desmond, but you won’t face it.  It’s why you’re here.  It’s why I’m here.  I want to help you.”

         I stopped pacing and looked at her.  My chest began to tighten, and my breathing came in short stops and starts.  “What do you mean, that’s why I’m here?  Why wouldn’t I be here?  This is my home.”

         She squinted a little at me, as if trying to see me.  It took her forever to speak again.  And then:  “We’ve been over this, Desmond.  This is not your home.  You know that, don’t you, Desmond?  That this isn’t your home?”

         Alternatively, I started to wring my hands together and rub them on my pants leg.  I wanted to ask Nathalie what she meant about this not being my home, but more images assaulted me:  a car wrapped around a tree, the metal kissing the wood in a grotesque, obscene embrace and policemen, barking orders and asking questions, endless questions—

         “Desmond?”

         My head hurt.  With an open palm, I beat my forhead with quick, jerky movements.  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Nathalie!  This is my home!  And my wife is dead!  Why are you bothering me, asking me all these questions—“

         “What was your wife’s name, Des?” Her voice was cut through me as easily as a hot knife through butter.

         “What?  Her name was Rose.”

         Nathalie breathed a heavy sigh, and in her eyes, I was sure I saw pity.  “No Desmond, that was the name of the victim. Rose.  What was your wife’s name?”

         I shut my eyes against her barrage of questions.  What did she mean, what was my wife’s name?  It was…it was—

         “You don’t know, do you?  It’s because you don’t have a wife, Des.  You were never married.”

         “What do you mean, I was never married?  What are you talking about Nathalie?”

         Nathlie sat calmly, and for the first time I noticed that she had a clipboard in her lap where she was writing and making notes.  Her white coat was actually a lab coat; above the lapel was a rectangular name tag that said Dr. Nathalie Salazar, MD.  Psychiatrist.

         Finally, she spoke.  “You don’t know her name because she doesn’t exist.  You imagined her; in fact, you imagined the whole thing because you won’t let yourself see, you won’t let yourself remember.  It’s easier for you to imagine that someone else did this.  Then you don’t have to face the consequences.”

         Something about the simple declaration stopped my erratic movements, and again, in my  mind, an onslaught of images and sounds:  policemen,  ambulances, a tow truck.  I heard screams and cries, and through it all, people were talking to me, saying things like alcohol level three times the legal limit,  the girl was only seventeen, and you have the right to remain silent…

         “No, no, NO!”  I squeezed my eyes shut.  What were these things I was seeing?  A car accident?  My wife’s car accident? But I hadn’t been there…had I?

         “You made all this up, Desmond.  The beautiful wife, the idyllic life, none of it’s true.  You were the one behind the wheel of that truck, and you hit that girl going nearly eighty miles an hour—“

         I covered my ears with my hands and rocked my head back and forth. “Shut up, Nathalie, stop it, you’re lying to me—“

         “I think you made up that story because it’s the life you always wanted but didn’t know how to get.  Maybe it was the life we could have had—“

         My head pounded in my skull.  What she was saying could not be true.  I refused to believe it. My head pounded in my skull.  I went back and forth, covering my head with my arms and banging my fists on the…table?  Where did this table come from?  I didn’t own a table, not like this…and why were the walls here white?  The walls in my home were painted a soft blue—

         “Desmond, you need to calm down—“ 

         I picked up a wooden chair that I didn’t recognize and threw it against the wall, but it bounced off padded walls.  The sudden violence made Nathalie jump up from her chair and move back toward the door.

         “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Nathalie, but I didn’t do this thing!  It was a drunk driver who hit her, it was a drunk who killed Rose—“  I reached for the table, wanting to yank it up and smash it, but it held fast to the floor.                    

         “I didn’t kill that girl…!”

         “Orderly!” Nathalie called out. She had her back to the door, but was pounding on with her hand.  “Orderly!”

         Keys jangled in the lock and then two men dressed in white entered the room while Nathalie exited. 

         “Calm down, Mr. Blankenship, we’re only here to help you,” one of them said to me.  The other approached me cautiously. 

         “Who are you?  What are you doing in my home?”

         “This isn’t your home, you’re in a prison hospital.  You know that,”  said the first man.  He held something in his hand:  a needle.  “We’re going to give you something to calm down.”

         “Oh, no, you WON’T!! “ I yelled, and lunged for him.  But he was too quick, sidestepping me easily.  I banged my head into the wall, and then hit the floor.  Stunned from the blow, I wasn’t prepared when one of the orderlies jumped on to of me, pinning my arms to the floor.

         “Alright now, Mr. Blankenship, it’s going to be alright,” one of them said.  I struggled against the arms that held me down, screaming to be let go, but then there was a tiny prick in my arm, the cool flush of fluid running through my flesh—

         And then there was nothing.





         Dr. Nathalie Salazar stood outside the cell, watching the orderlies sedate Desmond, wincing.  Another nurse stood next to her, taking note of her reaction.

         “This isn’t your fault, you know.”

         Nathalie bit her lip before responding.  “I know.  But he was a good man, once.  But the drinking—“

         “It wasn’t just the drinking.  The late diagnosis of his paranoia and mental illness is also part of it.  You may never get him to realize what he did.  It’s not your fault.”

         “I should have seen it, though!  I’m a pschyatrist, for Pete’s sake!”

         “Yes, you are now.  People make mistakes.  But you’re here now and that’s what matters.” ” 

         Nathalie wiped tears from her cheek.  “It’s terrible, what’s happened to him.”

         The nurse put her arm around her and hugged her.  “Will you back tomorrow?”

         Nathalie nodded.  “Yes, I will.  I failed him once a long time ago, but I won’t fail him again.”