DITW 14-13: Odyssey 8 (Patreon)

Sophie took turns with her mother, then wandering to the other side of the waiting area where her father sat with the woman named Quinn, and Meyer would put Sophie up on his knee. Everything going on around here overwhelmed the poor girl, who had no frame of reference for a moment like this one. Two groups of adults sitting not saying anything in an emergency room in a distant city. It had been a mistake to bring Sophie; they could have avoided this hardship. The last thing a child needed was spending somber times in a hospital, the future uncertain.

Everyone here had said Josh was going to be fine, but she hadn’t seen him yet. What if no one had the courage to tell her the truth? What if they’d shielded her from the truth because Sophie was present?

She leaned closer to Hyun. “You can take my car home if you need to. I’ll get a train later.”

“I’m staying with you,” Hyun whispered.

“I’m thinking of what’s best for Sophie.”

Hyun didn’t answer, staring straight ahead and chewing her cheek, brow furrowed with worry.

Kimmy wrung her fingers for a long moment, twisting with anxious worry and fear, before leaning to Hyun again. “I think . . . I think I’m going to go look for Karina.”

Hyun nodded, leaning forward like she would stand. “Do you want me to go with you?”

“No, you stay with Sophie.” Kimmy stood and the other group’s eyes tracked her, and when she looked their way, they looked down. Her stomach sank lower, her heart going down with the ship. Sorrow creased her brow, and looming regret followed her as she walked across the waiting room, headed to the double doors where Karina had disappeared.

  *

It took a long journey down hallways, left and right, through multiple sets of doors, and up escalators, before finding out there was a Tim Horton’s, and then thinking to check there for her friend.

Kimmy stood at the doorway of the huge cafeteria with a Tim Horton’s in it, looking out over all the tables, past mourning or worried visitors and gaggles of scrub-wearing staff. Karina had a good seat for two at the very back by a tall window looking out onto a small park. She picked up a tea from the Tim Hortons and made her way through all the tables to get to the window, standing about a dozen feet away before Karina looked up, sensing her there. Karina said nothing, her face somber, eyes tinged in pink. It hit her again that maybe there were truths no one had told her yet, that maybe everything wasn’t so fine and dandy with young and handsome Josh Waters.

She stepped nearer to the table. She said, “Do you hate me?”

Karina shook her head. “No.”

“Can I sit?”

“Yeah.”

She sat down opposite Karina in the small fixed seat and set down her tea. Karina’s face showed faint lines at the corners of her down-turned mouth. There was a long silence, and Kimmy broke it saying, “Is Josh really okay?”

Karina pursed her lips, looking down at her hand on a ceramic Tim’s mug and her plate with the crumbs of an absent muffin. “Depends what you mean by okay.”

The answer chilled her, and the possibility of a gloomy outcome blossomed in her imagination. Josh altered, brain-injured, or worse: Josh never waking up. “He might not be okay?”

Karina looked up, her pink eyes harder now. “He’s fine, Kimmy. At least that’s what they said. You didn’t talk to the doctor yet?”

Kimmy shook her head. “I was just sitting down there, waiting.”

Karina stilled, eyes lost, staring at Kimmy’s tea mug. “I don’t know how he got down there in the water.”

“What happened?”

Karina’s lost eyes widened, brow raising again. “I found him on the shore. Soaked. It was so freezing. He was . . . blue.” She looked up, eyes wet. “But he was shivering. He was alive, and...” She stopped, lips slimming into a small thin line.

“Why was he in the water? How did he end up there?”

Karina shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“You two were in a bunkie?”

Karina looked annoyed, like maybe Kimmy had meant the question as a curve-ball accusation. She said, “Not like that.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“We were in a hot tub. All of us. Josh was having a good time. A real good time. But then he was like nodding off, and Meyer was like, Josh has to go to bed.”

“He was drunk?”

“We all were. We were all having a good time. It was a great night. Josh . . . We cheered him up.”

Kimmy’s eyes swelled, and she put an elbow on the table, touching her face, hiding it from Karina.

“Steve was bunking with Josh, but Steve was still up and having a good time and I was ready to call it a night, so I took Josh to bed. I stayed with him to make sure he was okay. And then I woke up, and he wasn’t there.”

“And those two girls...?”

“Quinn and Emily? Yeah, they took charge. They knew what to do. We just helped them, get them whatever they needed.”

“But Josh is going to be okay?”

Karina nodded. “Yeah. He was better at the cottage, but Quinn said he was stage four or something like that and she was worried about his heart. They got an ambulance, and the paramedic said it was Josh’s lucky day and they could get him on one of those Ornge choppers.”

Kimmy warmed her hands on the hot cup, letting them off when it scorched, then putting them back on. Quieter, she said, “Why’s no one talking to me?”

Karina sighed, then shrugged. “Why? I don’t know, Kimmy. Because you’re a lawyer and your husband fell into the lake at their cottage and they served him alcohol. And they think you must be a nasty piece of work. I keep telling them you’re not. Or at least you weren’t before.”

Kimmy squirmed. “Why do they think that?”

“They know what you did.” Karina got closer, her face angrier, that soft worry creased with meanness. “They were there to cheer up a guy whose wife cheated on him.”

“They know that? Who told them that?”

“I don’t know who told them. Like, Meyer,” she said, bothered by the question, like it was the least important part of this whole conversation. “Who cares who told them? We all knew why we were there.”

“Josh didn’t tell you any details?”

Karina frowned, studying Kimmy. “Do you want to tell me some details? Why would anyone want to know something like that?”

“He didn’t tell you anything?”

“Josh didn’t tell us anything. The whole point of being up there at the cottage was to cheer Josh up, get his mind off it. The last thing we’re going to do is bring it up.”

It was too much of a relief to take it at face value; too fortuitous that Josh would have a chance to tell all their friends all the things his wife had done to him, and not indulge; not vomit forth all the crimes committed against him. She said, “Get his mind off of what? What did he tell you?”

“He didn’t tell me anything. It was Meyer. Meyer called me and said Josh was in the dumps, that he was in a really bad way, and do I want to go to a party for him. And I asked him why’s he in a bad way—but I think I already knew why.” She looked hard at Kimmy. “Meyer said he thought you two were done, and I hated to ask, but I just had to know, and Meyer told me, yeah, it was Devlin. Just unbelievable, Kimmy. Devlin and that new job, he said. But I knew it didn’t have anything to do with the job. Not at first. You went after Devlin before there was a job.”

Kimmy muttered, “I didn’t go after him.”

“I saw it with my own eyes, Kimmy. Josh never told us what you did. Why? What does it matter? Did you do worse than break his heart?”

She covered her face with both hands, wishing this day had never dawned, that Josh and she could manifest their own reality, that Josh would indulge all her lusts and sate himself from the runoff. “No,” she said. “I just broke his heart.”

Karina nodded, glum and yet satisfied, like Kimmy had been put in her place. “Josh told us he hit Devin with a chair.”

Hands still on her face, Kimmy nodded. “Yes, he did that. He hit Devlin with a chair. I saw it with my own eyes.”

 “Why did he do it? Did he catch you together?”

 “No, that wasn’t it.”

Karina looked away, jaw muscles flexing. “It would have to take a lot for Josh to do something like that.”

The image replayed in her mind of Josh and Devlin, and her holding their penises together and of the sexual taunting; all the work she thought might lure Josh into sexual abandon and yet the result may have pushed Josh over the edge. Or at least to the brink. She said, “Yes, but it wasn’t about me. Everybody has a breaking point. Josh is a good guy. He hit Devlin with the chair for the sake of . . . I don’t know, his family.”

Karina didn’t understand. “What about his family?”

Kimmy sighed, an enervating weight settling on her, a hopeless burden that pushed away all the fencing she’d struggled to set for her garden’s shape. “Not his family. Our family.”

The miscarriage. Karina looked uncomfortable. Kimmy said, “Devlin insulted Josh’s ability to create one.” Now she lay a hand on her stomach. “And that was too far.”

 Karina understood what she meant now. “That is too far. He’s such a piece of shit. I fucking hate that guy and I have no fucking idea what you saw in him.”

“I don’t, either.”

 “Was it Amy? Did Amy put you up to it?”

 The opportunity was obvious; it stood up at the back of the class waving an eager hand for her attention. Karina had just held open the door, and Kimmy could walk right through it. Step through the threshold of forgiveness and into a room where little blame would come her way. Why, yes, it was Amy. I’m Amy’s victim once again. She pursed her lips, then rubbed her brow, and admitted it had nothing to do with Amy. “I did it all on my own. No one made me do it.”

Karina’s lips stayed slim, her head wagging in terse and admonishing jags. “I don’t know why you ever hung out with Amy or any of those people. They’re such jerks. So fucking arrogant.”

“I was just friends with Amy.”

Karina had no more to say, putting her joined hands up by her face and looking out the window, like they were done here. She should leave Amy alone, go back to Hyun and Sophie, see if the doctor was around, but she said, “Do you hate me?”

Karina put her hands down, and her eyes followed. Kimmy could read the exasperated body language, the restrained anger. She said, “I don’t think you deserve Josh. You deserve Devlin.”

“You said he’s a piece of shit.”

“Yeah, I did.”

“That’s what you think of me?”

“You had everything, and it wasn’t enough.”

“I didn’t have everything. I—”

“Come on, Kimmy,” Karina said, looking up to meet Kimmy’s eyes. “What the hell do you want? What would be enough?”

Kimmy bowed her head and thought of the spring, before any of the paths she strode took their wicked turns. She thought of losing her baby and how fucked up that was, and maybe telling Karina how she had biological urges and maybe her body craved seed and thought Josh’s seed had failed her, and those biological urges hijacked her senses and injected her with a maniacal desire that defied all common sense. But it was all mumbo jumbo, and any credit Karina might offer on such a flimsy scheme was long ago cut in half for non-payment.

Karina said, “Hey,” to someone, and Kimmy looked up to see Meyer coming to the table. “What’s up?”

Meyer said, “I’m going to take Quinn and Emily back up north. Emily has to work a shift tonight.” Then to Kimmy, “The doctor was out. He said Josh is going to be down for a while. I’m going to come back through Peterborough. I can take Hyun and my daughter home. I’m going to come back here to the hospital in the morning. . . . I assume you’re going to stay here?” He raised his eyebrows and waited, looking like he wouldn’t be surprised if she said she wasn’t. Did he think she would go to Devlin tonight?

She said, “Yes. Of course I’ll be here.” If this was how they thought of her after she cheated, what would they think if they knew the truth?