Page 52 of Whispers of My Skin

The doctor tilts his head and furrows his eyebrows, which isn’t very reassuring.

“Mrs. Sadger suffered some bruises and a slight concussion, so we’re currently waiting for the results of the scans the neurologist ordered, although I don’t think there should be anything too serious there,” he explains, then hesitates, which I don’t like at all. I sense a ‘but’ coming.

“Okay, so that means she’s going to be okay, right?”

“Unfortunately, we also noticed some other issues with your wife’s health that require further investigation.”

“What kind of issues?”

“Just some unusual results from the routine tests we carried out, but I’m afraid I can’t really give you any more details since it’s hard to know exactly what we’re dealing with at this stage,” he says. “Do you know if your wife has any pre-existing illnesses?”

“Yes, she does,” her mother interrupts before I can answer. “My daughter’s been ill for a few months now. It’s something to do with her liver, but no one has really been able to give us an exact diagnosis.”

“Why wasn’t I informed of this before? Who’s her current physician? What drug regime has she been prescribed? What treatments has she undergone?” The doctor immediately snaps his attention to Monique to fire off his questions. “We’ll need her medical records sent over as soon as possible for us to proceed with the correct protocol for her condition.”

“I… I’m not sure… that is… I can’t really remember. Maybe she has some papers at the house somewhere….?” Monique answers vaguely. How the fuck can she be so clueless when her daughter’s life is at stake?

“Then as a matter of urgency, may I suggest that someone goes to the house to fetch Mrs. Sadger’s records, along with any current medication.” I think the doctor is struggling with Monique’s careless ineptitude almost as much as I am.

“I’ll go, and I promise to get back to you as soon as possible,” I assure him. “But can I see my wife first? Please, just for a few minutes?’

Damn it, I need to see Tara for myself, surely they won’t deny me that?

“Not yet, I’m afraid, Mr. Sadger. As I explained, we’re still running some tests on your wife, and now with this latest information, I’ll need to order more tests. At least that means you have time to go home and get her medical history.”

Reluctantly I accept this is the best course of action for now, and as I don’t have my truck, I gratefully accept Fermin’s offer of his car, after first getting his assurance that if there is any change in Tara’s condition, he’ll let me know straight away. I totally ignore Monique, who’s been completely useless this whole time, more interested in vindictively blaming me for her daughter’s riding accident than showing any real concern for her welfare.

I head straight back the ranch driving Fermin’s ridiculously tiny sports car that I can barely squeeze my large frame into. It’s a flashy car meant for impressing the girls, but totally impractical. Give me my roomy truck any day of the week. Can’t deny his wheels run along pretty well though, which is good since I’m desperate to get to the ranch as fast as I can. It hits me then how much I’ve already come to love Redlands, in part because of how much it means to Tara, but also because it’s brought us together again. She’s fought so hard to keep it going, and I’m not going to let her down. Neither am I going to give up on her, because after hearing Monique’s vague input, I can’t believe every possible avenue has been exhausted yet looking for a cure.

The first thing I do when I arrive is head to Tara’s room to search through all the drawers, rifling through all her clothes, underwear, makeup—Christ there’s one hell of a lot of crap to go through.

I find nothing of interest in the dresser, or the bedside tables, so next I head to the bathroom and search through the drawers under the sink. In a colorfully decorated floral bag, I finally discover several small prescription bottles labeled with her name, plus a box containing some multivitamin capsules.

“Shit.” One of the bottles slips out of my hand and smashes on the bathroom floor.

I carefully gather up the broken shards of glass, but as I throw them in the trash can, something catches my eye. The label has peeled away from the broken glass beneath to reveal something else. Although difficult to read, I make out the faded letters. Cyanamide.

This can’t be right. A deep sense of foreboding floods through me. I need to figure out what’s going on here, so I retrieve my phone from my pocket, open up the Internet search engine and with shaky fingers, type in Cyanamideon the small flat screen.

Medication used in the treatment of chronic alcoholism.

Why the fuck would Tara be taking this? And what’s even stranger, why was it disguised as a multivitamin?

My gut instinct tells me that something here is really, really wrong.

I quickly scan through the rest of the pages, finding basically the same information with every result that I pull up.

I put in another search, and an article from Spain appears, which is several years old.

I keep reading until I have to lean against the wall so I don’t fall to the floor.

Everything I read makes me realize that the price I had to pay for having Tara back in my life was her life.

Fuck.

My phone rings and Fermin’s name appears on the screen.

“Are you on your way back yet?” he asks breathlessly.

“No, I’m still at the ranch. I found Tara’s medications, but I can’t find any medical records.”

“Leave it,” he says, “You need to get back here right now. Oscar’s just arrived, and he’s insisting that Tara be transferred to another hospital immediately, even though the doctors strongly advise against it. Something’s not right, Joel, I just know it, and you’re the only one who can prevent this happening.”

Before he can say anything more, I rush out of the house, and jump into Fermins’s sports car, ready to floor it in order to get back to the hospital before Oscar and Monique steal my wife away.

It seems just when I thought things couldn’t get any fucking worse, they fucking do.

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