Chevy Stevens - Always Watching

“They were asleep in their RV when it happened,” he said. “Apparently, fumes from their propane stove had leaked in. A hunter found them—they’d been dead for several days, and he noticed the smell.”

It was a terrible image, their bodies rotting alone in the woods, but without the smell it might have taken days longer.

“The police want me to tell Heather.” Daniel sounded frantic. “Do we have to?”

“She’s in the best place to find out. Would you like me to tell her?”

“I think I should do it—she’d want to hear it from me.” A long pause. “But what if she tries to hurt herself again?”

It was a very real concern and something that had worried me the instant he told me the news. “We’ll put her under close observation and move her back up to PIC, where we can keep an eye on her until she’s over the worst of it. But we shouldn’t tell her tonight. Let’s wait until tomorrow. Try to get some rest.”

“Okay, thanks.” He sighed into the phone. “I just wish I could take away the pain for her.”

“I know.” I felt the same way. I wished I could take away Heather’s pain, and Daniel’s.

In the morning, we met in the visiting area. He was pale and obviously nervous, constantly rubbing his unshaven jaw or running his hands through his hair, his whole body keyed up. He met my eyes and said, “This is going to be the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”

“Would you like me to be with you when you tell her?”

“Thanks, but I think I should do it alone.”

“I’ll be close by in case you need help.” I held his gaze. “I know you’re scared, but she’ll get through this, okay?”

He took a deep breath and squared his shoulders. “Okay.”

The nurses had already placed Heather in one of the interview rooms, and she thought she was waiting for our morning session. When we walked in, she was reading a book, sitting cross-legged on the chair, her feet tucked under her jeans-clad legs. The book was a course guide for the university. She was making plans for her future—a future we were about to turn upside down.

She looked up with a smile. “Daniel! I didn’t know you were coming in.”

Daniel sat in the chair beside her and held her hands. He tried to smile back at her, but his lips were tight, his eyes sad. She searched my face, then Daniel’s. She said, “What’s wrong?”

I said, “Daniel would like to speak with you. I’ll leave you two alone.”

Just as I sat nearby at the nurses’ station, where I could observe on one of the monitors, Daniel leaned close to Heather. I couldn’t hear anything, but his face was gentle, and I could tell that he was explaining what had happened.

Heather’s body rocked backward, her hands across her mouth, which was opened in a silent scream.

Daniel was still talking, his hand on her shoulder. He was obviously trying to comfort her, but right now Heather wasn’t able to absorb anything. She was just shaking her head back and forth, trying to block him out. Daniel pulled her in for a hug. She pushed him away, then pressed her hands against her ears.

Daniel looked up at the camera in the corner, his face helpless.

I knocked on the door and walked in. Heather turned to me, her expression beseeching. “They’re dead ?”

“I’m very sorry, Heather.”

“Maybe it wasn’t them. Maybe it’s a mistake.”

“The police are positive, or they wouldn’t have notified Daniel,” I said.

She stared at me for a moment as my words sank in, then she started to sob, in loud, choking gasps. She doubled over, clutching her stomach. Daniel rubbed her back while I handed her the Kleenex.

When her sobs had finally eased, and she was sitting back up, I said, “I know you’re hurting right now, and this must be very overwhelming, but we’re going to support you through this. You’re not alone.” I explained that her parents would want her to focus on her treatment and reassured her again that she would have help through this difficult time. Then I left them alone for a while and got the nurse to give Heather some Ativan. When I came back, Heather was still sitting beside Daniel and holding his hand, the occasional shiver vibrating her body. She looked like a storm had swept through her: tear tracks down her face, hair half pulled out of its ponytail, the expression in her eyes dark and empty.

I said, “How can I help you, Heather?”

She looked up at me. “It’s too late. They were right. If you leave the commune, everything falls apart.” Her voice was so sure and calm, almost prophetic. The hair on the back of my neck stood up. This wasn’t good. She sounded like she was giving up. Something I didn’t want to see happen.

Echoing my thoughts, Daniel said, “It’s not too late. You’re going to keep getting better, and we’re going to have a wonderful life together.” He bit out the last words, not angry, but desperate to convince her, to cement her in this world.

I said, “I understand that it feels like things are stacked against you right now, but you can get through this. It will just take some time—”

“It doesn’t matter anymore.” Her voice was flat, resigned. “The baby, my parents. They all died after I left.” She rubbed at her arms.

Did she think she was being punished? I said, “You haven’t done anything wrong, Heather. What happened to your parents isn’t your fault.”

She just kept shaking her head and repeating, “They were right.”

I waited for a moment. Beside her, Daniel was also silent, his body rigid and his face concerned, but she didn’t say anything else. I was still worried, but it was obvious she wasn’t going to share anything further, so I moved on. “Your parents’ death was a terrible tragedy, but you will get through this. We’re going to put you in another room, okay? It’s closer to the nurses’ station.” I’d wanted to put her back up in PIC, but all the beds were taken. Each floor had a seclusion room, though, so she’d still be on camera and closely monitored. “If you have any thoughts about hurting yourself, I want you to tell somebody.”

She nodded, but her expression was bleak, her chest heaving with the occasional sob. Daniel sat with her until the Ativan started to work, and I finished my rounds. By the time Daniel left, and the nurses moved her into the seclusion room, she was calmer, though still shell-shocked, her face pale and her eyes vacant. While I made my notes on the charts, the nurses kept a close eye on her, and I peeked in again before I left for Mental Health. She was curled into a tight ball, sleeping. The next day, the nurses told me she’d slept fitfully for most of the day, waking up crying and wanting to talk, which meant she was at least processing her emotions. But she’d become upset and agitated when Daniel arrived later, sobbing that he was going to die next, so the nurses had given her another dose of Ativan.

When I met Heather in the interview room the next morning, I said, “You had a bad blow yesterday. How can I help you? Is there anything you need?”

Her voice hollow, she said, “I still can’t believe they’re dead. I hadn’t talked to them for months. The last time…” She caught her breath, started to cry. “The last time I spoke to my dad, he was mad at me for getting married when they were away. I hung up on him. I didn’t even say good-bye.”

She began to sob again, big, painful gasps that shook her whole body. It was hard to watch without crying myself, especially when I remembered Lisa and Paul. Toward the end of his life, Paul had shrunk to a shadow of himself. It had been awful seeing him like that, and Lisa and I usually left the hospital in tears. The day Paul died, Lisa hadn’t wanted to come up to the hospital. I’d let her go to a friend’s, thinking it would be good for her to have a break. Paul took a turn for the worse and died in my arms. When I told Lisa, she screamed, “I never got to say good-bye!”