Bailey
Helen and Robert’s house has always been bright and homey. It smells like roses as I step inside, breathing deeply. Helen’s wallpapered formal living room glistens–spotless and freshly dusted. The kitchen is on the other side of the foyer, as well as a dining room and small washroom.
The layout is similar to the old Gregory house. All of the old houses were built like this–every room contained, connected by archways and built around a grand foyer with a sweeping staircase.
But comparatively, Helen and Robert’s house is much smaller and cozier, as is their heavily wooded property.
Helen pours glasses of sweet tea. “He’s upstairs in bed,” she sighs, sipping from her glass. “He’s still coming off the drugs. I was told he’d be woozy for a day or two.”
“Is he on any pain medication?”
“He has a nerve blocker in his chest right now. Robert doesn’t do well on the heavy duty pain killers they prescribed. They make him sick to his stomach.”
“He might be al lright with something over the counter if we can keep him comfortable.”
Helen smiles at me a bit wistfully. “It’s his ego that’s in the most pain, I think. He won’t really tell me the details of what happened. I didn’t even know he was going fishing that evening.”
I follow her into the dining room where we sit down across from one another. I go through his discharge paperwork from the hospital and chat lightly with Helen over the chilled glasses of tea, making notes of his best course of care.
“The nerve blocker will run out of medicine in a few days, so until then, I’ll just be doing after care.” I glance down at the extra notes from the surgeon I had Helen request. Had I not been able to take this job, Robert would have spent another week or more in the hospital before being moved to a rehab facility.
The break is… far worse than Helen made it sound. I don't think Tylenol is going to cut it.
I notice the prescription for some next level pain meds and sigh. I need to keep this somewhere I can find it. I have a feeling Robert is going to need it.
His left leg is all screws and metal now.
Helen looks exhausted, too. Dark circles line her eyes as she balances her head on her hand and slumps her shoulders.
“Long first night home?” I ask, and she nods, stifling a yawn.
“He’s uncomfortable. My sister is going to drive down from New Orleans for the next few weekends to help, but I didn’t get a wink of sleep last night.”
I lean back in my chair and cross my arms under my chest. “Let’s set him up in the guest room for now. He’s going to be bedridden for a while, Helen. He can’t use his leg at all, and he doesn’t start physical therapy for another three weeks. He won’t be up and moving until then, and I’m going to have to…” I taper off. Something feels strange about this. This is a major break, a violent one, at that. How the hell was he able to do this by falling out of an airboat? “You need sleep, and I have a feeling Robert is going to be most active at night for a while. That’s going to be when he’s the most uncomfortable. I don’t know why, but that’s just the way it is.” I wave my hand in dismissal. Human bodies are weird.
“You don’t have to work nights, honey,” she says, but I shake my head.
“Helen, you weigh a little over a hundred pounds, I’m guessing. If he needs to go to the bathroom, how are you going to pick him up, get him in a wheelchair, pick him up again so he can–”
She huffs a breath. “You’re right.”
“He’ll be using a bedpan for a while anyway. Wouldn’t you rather have your own space during that time?”
She grimaces. “I understand. I just hate having you on such a strange schedule.”
“Don’t worry about me. Tanner has that big job next door and sleeps at the firehouse four nights a week anyway. He wasn’t happy about me being home alone in the house when the power went out the other night. I think he’ll feel better about me being here, with you guys, while he’s on shift.”
She smiles softly. “Tanner sounds like a nice man.”
“He’s the best,” I agree. He really is. Kind, brave, and gentle. He’s everything I imagined a partner should be. And, he loves me. Like really, really just adores me and worships the ground I walk on. Growing up, I had a few boyfriends. I had one that liked to rough me up a little just to see me squirm. I hated that, but I stayed because I was young and naive.
I swore off dating for a long time after that.
Falling into Tanner’s arm was serendipitous, to say the least. My life changed the day I met him.
I miss him, suddenly, but I’ll see him tomorrow morning, I’m sure.
Upstairs, a low groan alerts us that Robert is awake.
Helen stands, but I motion for her to stop. “Seriously, Helen. Go get some sleep. I’ll get Robert comfortable again and go up to New Orleans to pick up his medications in case he changes his mind and some supplies. I’ll get the guest room set up later, and we’ll move him over there tonight so you can get a full night's rest.”
“I’ll whip something up for dinner in a few hours,” she says, yawning. “I think I’ll take a cat nap in the sunroom for a while.”
“I’ll wake you up if I need anything.”
That seems to make her feel better about her decision to leave me in charge and treat me like the help I am instead of a guest.
I pad up the stairs to the master suite and find Robert groaning in bed. Shutting the door behind me with a smile stretched across my lips, I say, “Goodmorning, sunshine.”
“Oh, Christ,” he grunts. “What are you doing here?
“Are you not happy to see me?”
Robert rolls his eyes and tries to get into a seated position. I rush to him, ignoring his attempts to wave me away.
“I’m your nurse for the foreseeable future, Robert. Let me do my job.”
“I’m sure Helen and I can’t afford you, Bailey.”
I wink at him. “I cut your wife a deal.”
Another roll of his eyes, but he seems more comfortable sitting up. His gaze, however, is a bit hazy still. He’s coming down from a ton of medication. It might be a few more days until he’s fully lucid, and that’s when the real work will start.
“Can I get you anything?”
“A gun.”
“Why?” I laugh, but Robert isn’t amused.
“So I can shoot myself in the head for putting my wife through this.”
I nod, feeling sorry for the man. Robert is like Tanner, in my opinion. He dotes on Helen. She is the brightest light in his life, and the idea of her having to take care of him is weighing him down significantly.
I sit on the edge of bed. “Look, Robert. I sent Helen to take a nap. I’m going to be helping out as much as I can, all right? Don’t feel bad about what happened. Helen is strong and just worried about making sure you’re comfortable.” I reach over and clutch his hand, giving it a little squeeze. “I’ll take care of her too, I promise.”
He looks toward the window. In the distance, over the treetops, I can just see the faint outline of the massive house being built on the Gregory property.
He’s looking right at it, a far off look in his eyes.
I feel uneasy as I release his hands. He’s cold and clammy, another side effect of coming off enough pain meds to take down a horse. I walk to the closet and pull out a few quilts Helen made and start laying them over his lap.
“Robert,” I say after several minutes of uneasy silence, “how did this happen?”
He swallows. Shirtless, I can see the nerve blocker sticking to his chest, a little tube poking out under the tape keeping it in place. It’s feeding slow release painkillers into his system as we speak.
“A boat.”
“No, that wasn’t it,” I whisper, and he turns to look at me.
His eyes are milky in the sunlight–bloodshot and hazy.
“Don’t tell Helen.”
“I won’t,” I promise. I’m not sure why I want to know so badly, but his leg is crushed, not just broken. He’ll be walking with a limp for the rest of his life. I’m honestly shocked, based on the doctor’s notes about the surgery, that they didn’t amputate his leg instead.
Helen doesn’t understand the medical lingo and codes, but I do.
This was a terrible, horrific accident, and Robert is lucky to be alive.
“I walked over to the Gregory property a few nights ago,” he admits. “I took the trail through the marsh. I like to go out there to fish. You can get to the river, you know, if you go far enough. But I ended up on the Gregory side, close to the cemetery. I keep looking at the new house being built through this window and thought I might as well try to get a closer look.”
My stomach hollows out as his voice drops. Fear punctuates every syllable before he can brush it away as he continues, “It started raining real hard. I couldn’t get a view, so I walked up onto the cemetery plot and I… it gets real hazy after that. I think I might have fallen in a grave.”
“What?” I choke out. That’s impossible. No one has been buried there for decades. There wouldn't be an open, freshly dug grave there right now. Not that I know of.
He nods but then shakes his head after a moment. “I woke up miles away, soaking wet. I got pulled out of the water by some fishermen who thought I was dead already, and they got me to the hospital.”
I watch him as he looks back toward the window.
“I’ve always gotten a bad feeling about that place. I don’t know how you worked there for so long.”
I swallow hard. “It’s not so bad.”
“Have you spoken to Layla in a while?”
“We talk every week on the phone,” I tell him, trying to find a smile to give him, but a ripple of gooseflesh makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up.
“You should check on her,” he says quietly before closing his eyes. He falls asleep almost instantly.
Now, I’m really feeling strange. Layla has never spoken to me about how the fire happened. Neither of us have any idea where Vera is. She hasn’t been seen or heard from in a year.
Why would Robert want me to check on her all of the sudden?
I ease him onto his back and spend the next hour checking out his wound, cleaning around the screws jutting from his swollen, bruised skin. I go downstairs and check on Helen, who is fast asleep on the couch in the sunroom. I make another batch of sweet tea for her to wake up to, setting the pitcher in the sunny kitchen window to steep.
Then I get back in my car and drive to New Orleans, and once I cross out of Hahnville, that feeling of creeping, insatiable unease finally lifts.
But Robert’s words are imprinted in my mind.
What exactly happened at the Gregory property?
And why was I left in the dark about it?