Page 2 of The Only One Left

Which it had.

I looked down at the knife, still clenched in my hand and now clean as a whistle. I knew I could use it again. One last slice. One final stab.

I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Instead, I tossed the knife over the railing and watched it disappear into the crashing waves far below.

As my sister continued to scream, I left the terrace and went to the garage to fetch some rope.

That’s my memory--and what I was dreaming about when Iwoke you. I got so scared because it felt like it was happening all over again.

But that’s not what you’re most curious about, is it?

You want to know if I’m as evil as everyone says I am.

The answer is no.

And yes.

ONE

The office is on Main Street, tucked between a beauty parlor and a storefront that, in hindsight, feels prophetic. When I was here for my initial job interview, it was a travel agency, with posters in the window suggesting freedom, escape, sunny skies. On my last visit, when I was told I was being suspended, it was vacant and dark. Now, six months later, it’s an aerobics studio, and I have no idea what that might portend.

Inside the office, Mr. Gurlain waits for me behind a desk at the far end of a space clearly meant for retail. Free of shelves, cash registers, and product displays, the place is too vast and empty for an office staffed by only one person. The sound of the door closing behind me echoes through the empty space, unnaturally loud.

“Kit, hello,” Mr. Gurlain says, sounding far friendlier than he did during my last visit. “So good to see you again.”

“Likewise,” I lie. I’ve never felt comfortable around Mr. Gurlain. Thin, tall, and just a bit hawkish, he could very well pass for a funeral home director. Fitting, seeing how that’s usually the next stop for most of those in the agency’s care.

Gurlain Home Health Aides specializes in long-term, live-in care—one of the only agencies in Maine to do so. The office walls bear postersof smiling nurses, even though, like me, most of the agency’s staff can’t legally claim the title of one.

“You’re a caregiver now,” Mr. Gurlain had told me during that fateful first visit. “You don’t nurse. Youcare.”

The current roster of caregivers is listed on a bulletin board behind Mr. Gurlain’s desk, showing who’s available and who’s currently with a patient. My name was once among them, always unavailable, always taking care of someone. I’d been proud of that. Whenever I was asked what I did for a living, I summoned my best Mr. Gurlain impression and replied, “I’m a caregiver.” It sounded noble. Worthy of admiration. People looked at me with more respect after I said it, making me think I’d at last found a purpose. Bright but no one’s idea of a good student, I’d eked my way through high school and, after graduation, struggled with what to do with my life.

“You’re good with people,” my mother said after I’d been fired from an office typing pool. “Maybe nursing is something you could do.”

But being a nurse required more schooling.

So I became the next best thing.

Until I did the wrong thing.

Now I’m here, feeling anxious, prickly, and tired. So very tired.

“How are you, Kit?” Mr. Gurlain says. “Relaxed and refreshed, I hope. There’s nothing better for the spirit than enjoying some time off.”

I honestly have no idea how to respond. Do I feel relaxed after being suspended without pay six months ago? Is it refreshing being forced to sleep in my childhood bedroom and tiptoe around my silent, seething father, whose disappointment colors our every interaction? Did I enjoy being investigated by the agency, the state’s Department of Health and Human Services, the police? The answer to all of it is no.

Rather than admit any of that to Mr. Gurlain, I simply say, “Yes.”

“Wonderful,” he replies. “Now all that unpleasantness is behind us, and it’s time for a fresh start.”

I bristle. Unpleasantness. As if it was all just a slightmisunderstanding. The truth is that I’d spent twelve years with the agency. I took pride in my work. I was good at what I did. Icared. Yet the moment something went wrong, Mr. Gurlain instantly treated me like a criminal. Even though I’ve been cleared of any wrongdoing and allowed to work again, the whole ordeal has left me furious and bitter. Especially toward Mr. Gurlain.

It wasn’t my plan to return to the agency. But my search for new employment has been a total bust. I’ve filled out dozens of applications for jobs I didn’t want but was crushed anyway when I never got called in for an interview. Stocking shelves at a supermarket. Manning the cash register at a drugstore. Flipping burgers at that new McDonald’s with the playground out by the highway. Right now, Gurlain Home Health Aides is my only option. And even though I hate Mr. Gurlain, I hate being unemployed more.

“You have a new assignment for me?” I say, trying to make this as quick as possible.

“I do,” Mr. Gurlain says. “The patient suffered a series of strokes many years ago and requires constant care. She had a full-time nurse—a private one—who departed quite suddenly.”

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