Marcia Talley - The Last Refuge

I’m not sure what woke me. It could have been the cool October wind that was making the bed curtains dance around me as it whistled through the open windows. It might have been my bladder, in eminent danger of bursting from all the liquid I’d been force-fed over the past several hours. I needed to use the chamber pot in the worst way, but the thought of leaving the warmth of my bed effectively paralyzed me.

A fire still flickered in the grate – somebody must be tending it – but the chair that French had occupied was deserted. Our novel – Tom Jones – lay open on the table next to the chair, a strap of fringed-leather marking the place where she’d left off.

The book could wait, but my bladder couldn’t. Gritting my teeth and thanking my lucky stars that I didn’t have to rush outside to use the privy, I slid out of bed and found the chamber pot, wincing as I pulled up my shift and sat down on the ice cold porcelain.

As relief washed over me, I heard the long case clock in the downstairs hall strike the quarter hour. But the quarter of what hour? I’d lost complete track of time.

When I finished, I stood up, wobbly. My head swam. My legs felt like cooked spaghetti and I grabbed for a bed post.

I looked to the windows for a clue to the hour, but it was still dark outside. Then I remembered Amy’s iPhone.

It was probably less than eight feet from my bed to the dresser, but the distance seemed to stretch out forever before me. I released the curtain and shuffled to the straight-backed chair, clung there for a moment, head pounding, then moved on. At the dresser, I rested, breathing hard, as exhausted as if I’d just run a marathon. Even the Chinese vase felt like lead, but I managed to scoot it toward me across the dresser top, tilt it toward me and stick my hand inside.

But the vase was empty.

Amy’s iPhone had gone.

‘Amy’s been sight-reading from a collection of songs somebody put together in 1779. I guess they got tired of ye olde songs like “The Twins of Latona” because they’re up there right now singing songs from Stephen Foster. I’m OK with “I dream of Jeannie with the light brown hair,” but when they get to “All de darkeys am a-weeping, Massa’s in de cold, cold ground…” Well, I’m here to tell you that not everyone feels the same way about Ole Massa.’

Karen Gibbs, cook

‘You shouldn’t have tried to get out of bed, you know.’ Someone was swabbing my hands and arms with warm water. A cool compress lay over my eyes. ‘There’s a bell on the table. Next time, madam, you use it.’

‘I’m sorry, French, but I had to pee.’

‘It’s not French, it’s Amy.’

I whipped off the compress, instantly alert. ‘Amy! My God, I’ve been so worried!’

Amy dipped the flannel in water, calmly wrung it out. ‘I can see that. But you needn’t have made yourself sick over it.’

‘Where…? How…?’

‘All in good time. You need to rest now.’ She concentrated on my hands, working the cloth between each of my fingers. ‘I’m sorry I wasn’t here when you needed me, Hannah.’

‘How long have I been out of it? I’ve lost all track of time.’

‘Just two days.’

‘ Two? ’

‘Uh huh. French told me they sent for the doctor. You’re such a troublemaker.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘You should be. If you hadn’t been such a damn fool, your fever might have broken earlier.’

‘I had to pee,’ I explained again. I didn’t mention her missing iPhone.

‘The doctor came to see you again last night,’ Amy said. ‘Your blood sample was normal, he said. Best guess, you’ve got a bad case of flu. Wait a minute, I wrote it down.’ She reached into her pocket for a slip of paper, squinted as if trying to decipher the handwriting. ‘CDC H3N3,’ she read. ‘Ah, the Center for Disease Control says you had the H3N2 virus that’s making the rounds.’

‘The doctor came again?’ I had no recollection of that. I remembered dreams, weird and disjointed. Amy. Alex. Paul and the Phantom of the Opera duking it out.

‘You don’t remember?’

‘I had a long discussion with René Descartes about the existence of God and the immortality of the soul.’ I raised the arm she had just washed and pointed. ‘He sat right there at the foot of the bed and explained it all to me. What’s more amazing, is that I understood every word.’

‘Ah, that explains the French.’ Amy said, dropping the flannel back into the basin. ‘ Je pense donc je suis . How’s your head?’

‘Better.’ Amy looked skeptical, so I said, ‘Really.’

‘I’m going to fetch you some broth. Are you up for that?’

‘Only if you promise to sit down next to the bed and tell me what’s been going on.’

‘First you eat.’

When Amy returned a few minutes later holding a tray, I asked, worried, ‘Is Derek in the room? Chad?’

‘No,’ Amy said. ‘Everyone’s off to see a production of The Beggar’s Opera in the Annapolis Summer Garden Theatre building down by the docks.’ She fluffed up my pillows and propped me up against them. She handed me a cup of yellow liquid with specks of green floating on top.

I took a cautious sip, ‘Bleah! It’s cold!’

‘It’s supposed to be cold. Pretend it’s vichyssoise.’

‘That’s a stretch.’ I took another sip and swallowed. ‘But I think it’s going to stay down.’

‘Good.’ Amy scooted the straight back chair closer to my bed and sat down on it. ‘So, where to start?’

‘At the beginning,’ I said. ‘At St Anne’s. In the restroom.’

‘I never even got to the restroom,’ Amy told me. ‘When I entered the vestibule, Drew was already there, waiting, thumbing through the brochures on the tract rack. He saw me, literally scooped me up, and the next thing I know, we’re in the back seat of a cab speeding out of town on Rowe Boulevard, heading straight for the airport.’

‘Where was he taking you?’

‘To the Four Points Sheraton at first, and then South America. Argentina, to be exact, in Flores, which is a yuppyfied barrio in the heart of Buenos Aires, or so I gather. You can get lost among thirteen million people, he says. Drew had it all laid on. False passports. A private plane. A suitcase of clothes for me, all bought for cash at Macy’s.’ She blushed. ‘He even remembered my size.’

‘So how come you aren’t in Argentina?’

Amy gave me a look.

Oh, I got it. First things first. The hotel. Sex.

‘But thank God for that,’ Amy continued, ‘because it gave me time to negotiate.’

‘Successfully, apparently.’

She nodded. ‘But it wasn’t easy.’

‘So, what future is there in it for you, Amy? Some sort of Do-it-Yourself Witness Protection Program?’

‘You could say that. In a few months, the Navy will declare Drew officially dead. I’m to collect the $100,000 survivor benefit and cash in his $450,000 life insurance policy. Then I join him. He’s arranged passports, as I said. New identities. He had training as an accountant, so he even got somebody to dummy up a convincing work history for him. Low-level jobs at large corporations where nobody will ever bother to check.’ She smiled grimly. ‘I was once a teacher. Ditto on my new résumé.

‘Drew is fluent in five languages, but I don’t even speak Spanish, so what kind of work can I do in Argentina? “You can learn,” he said. Ha! Honestly, Hannah, I married the man for better or for worse, and this is definitely for worse. He probably wants to keep me at home, barefoot and pregnant.

‘He looked different,’ she rattled on. ‘Sunburned, bleached, brittle, so… hard.’