Page 34 of Splintered
Evan wasgone.
He sat in the kitchen and poured a glass of wine, draining it all in one go. He tried to pour another. His hands shook too hard, and wine spilled across the counter.
It looked like blood.
He tried to clean it, mop it up and push the wine into the sink. Cabernet stained his hands, deep purple and burgundy patches that bloomed across his skin. That looked like blood, like Evan’s blood, soaking and spreading across his hands.
All at once he collapsed, falling to his knees on the kitchen floor as his sobs broke over him in waves. Wine and dried blood crawled up his arms, stained his t-shirt, his boxers. His face. He was covered in blood, covered in wine that dripped from the counter. Questions flew at his mind,howsandwhysandwhatslike bullets. He had no answers, none at all. He’d been living in darkness and uncertainty, on the edge of terror for days.
Something slipped between one exhale and the next as he closed his eyes. He plunged into the abyss that had grown inside of himself, falling from the darkness into something colder. Something that froze his bones, slithered into the base of his mind.
Tears poured down his face, mixing with the wine and blood on his shirt. Around him, the house creaked as the amber chandelier over the stairs hummed. He tried to grab the floor, tried to dig his fingernails into the boards. Tried to hold on to something.
He almost heard a whisper in between his sobs. Was he going mad like Evan?You’re home. You’re here.
Just the house. Just his home, just his subconscious mind comforting him. No matter what happened, he always had his home. He breathed out slowly and pitched sideways, lying on the floor.
You’re always going to be here.
* * *
His tears randry on the kitchen floor as he lay in a heap like the dead, and as the sun broke through the windows, he managed to drag himself to his feet and climb the stairs back to their bedroom. He heard the floorboards groan, the chandelier pulse and buzz. Heard his ragged breaths rasp in and out of his clenched throat.
He almost couldn’t go into the bedroom. The paramedics had left behind all the detritus of their work. Bloody bandages and gauze, stripped IV lines, plastic wrappings and torn paper. And in the center of it all, their bed lay like an open coffin, a hollow where Evan lay surrounded by all the blood he’d lost.
And then the trail to the bathroom. The lights there were still on, droning over the remnants of their brawl, the white tiles left sticky and smeared with crimson. The cabinets. The mirrors covered in ruby spatter.
He blanked his mind as he cleaned, as he scrubbed the love of his life’s blood off the floor and the walls and the furniture. As he stripped the sheets and carted them to the trash. Everything into the trash, from the sheets to the comforter to the pillows. Even the mattress was blood stained. He’d get rid of that, too.
He moved into his old bedroom, the room he’d grown up in, with its blue paint and wooden airplanes hanging from the ceiling. They hadn’t remodeled this room yet, waiting for some future baby they’d dreamed of together. Now, the past cocooned him, surrounded him. His house seemed to wrap around him tighter, the creaks, the groan of the wind whistling through the boards and snaking around the windows like music he knew by heart.Home,his mind whispered.You’re home.
The phone rang forty minutes into his shower in the hall bathroom. He stood in the steam, the scalding water hot enough to turn his skin a furious red as he scrubbed Evan away.
He let it ring.
Later, he listened to his voicemail, letting the water drip from him as he stood under the amber light at the top of the stairs. The chandelier pulsed, and the sound from the phone warbled, the speakers distorting Dr. Kao’s voice. “Hello Ben. I’m walking into St. Ignatius now. I’m going to spend the day with Evan and get to the bottom of what’s going on. I have another round of tests I want to run today. No matter what is happening, we’re going to get answers for you both. And we’re going to work on making Evan better. I’ll call you later after I know more. Please call me anytime. Take care, Ben.”
He turned off his phone.
Time slipped away from Ben as the day wore on. He moved from room to room like a lost ghost, a forgotten prayer that had wandered afield. He haunted his own home, shadowing each room as he watched memories of his and Evan’s life play before him. Their love making in front of the fire. Evan’s seizure and that arch of his back, that violent, vivid C shape. Cooking together and feeding bites of dinner to each other in between kisses. Evan’s back to him, biting words thrown over his shoulder. Strained silence and eggs left behind on a lonely morning.
He pulled empty boxes from the garage as the sun began to set. Walked back up the stairs under the amber glow, carrying boxes and tape. The house groaned like a ship lost at sea.
Velasquez was right. Evan needed more help than he could give.
Evan needed to be somewhere else.
He started in their bedroom, at their dresser. Evan had his half: five drawers, and on top, his valet and his watch case. Over the dresser, they’d hung a mirror for Evan to tie his ties on every day. Ben used to watch him, stand behind him and wrap his arms around Evan’s trim waist as he’d fixed his collar, buttoned his cuffs.
He couldn’t look in the mirror now. Couldn’t see what was left. The reflection of nothingness.
Ben packed Evan’s things with care, wrapping his watch case in t-shirts from Evan’s drawer, carefully arranging his valet on a layer of workout shorts. Evan had a collection of sunglasses, and he laid them in between rows of boxers and undershirts. Slowly, the dresser emptied.
He pulled out Evan’s sock drawer last. Black business socks mixed with white ankle socks, his gym socks. He pulled them out in scoops, letting them tumble over the side and into the box below. Armfuls of socks, three years’ worth of life tumbling away.
His hand hit something solid.
The drawer was nearly empty, only three pairs of socks left. A pair of old Christmas socks and two navy business pairs Evan never wore.
