I walked up the front walk of my small apartment building and pulled out my keys. Stepping into the lobby, I headed for the mailbox and went to open it.
"I've already brought your mail in," Lydia said, stepping in behind me.
I turned to look at her. She was dangling a set of keys between her thumb and forefinger. I noted the smallish one, which resembled the mailbox key I held in my hand at that very moment.
"Oh," I said. "Right. Trusting, aren't I?"
"Who else is going to look after you?"
I caught a hint of melancholy in her expression as she turned towards the stairs. I hefted my duffel bag onto my shoulder again and followed her.
When I unlocked the front door, I caught a whiff of something unfamiliar. I stopped just inside the threshold and sniffed a few times, frowning slightly.
"It's called Mister Clean, you ponce," Lydia said, barely hiding the chuckle that lay in wait to spring upon me.
"You cleaned my place?"
She stepped past me, whacking me on the arm as she did so. "It's not like I didn't have anything better to do. But the place was in a sorry state, if you don't mind my saying. I thought it might be nice for you to come home to a bit of order, is all."
I moved to the bedroom to deposit my duffel bag. I entered the room cautiously, looking carefully around lest some vengeful fragment of my downtrodden and suicidal self leap upon and begin the process of strangulation. I placed the bag on the carefully made bed and let out a long breath. The last time I had been here, I was slowly sinking into a deep unconsciousness that, at the time, I hoped would be a permanent one.
That hadn't happened.
Fortunately, the room did not look exactly as it had looked then. Lydia had changed the bedclothes, opened the windows, and put an air freshener on my dresser. It was a bit cool in the room, but I didn't mind. The atmosphere had been cleansed. I wondered if she'd burned incense. I sniffed again. All I could smell was the air freshener.
"I tossed out those little glass bowls I found in the dishrack," Lydia called from the kitchen. "I assumed those were the ones you'd put the pills in."
I shook my head. I couldn't believe the care Lydia was taking with all this.
"And that drinking glass, too. The one with the orange swirls on it. There were five of them, and I tossed them all. Cheap things. You need new ones anyway."
I kicked my sneakers off and padded back into the kitchen. "Just make yourself at home, why don't you?"
She put her hands on her hips. "Now don't start with that."
I nodded. "Right. Just don't let me find extra pay-per-view items on my cable bill. I know how you love that girl-on-girl porn."
She stepped up to me and slapped me hard across the face. That made the second time in a week.
"Ow! What the hell was that for?"
"That was for being an obnoxious, sarcastic, uncaring, self-absorbed, pain in the arse. And you've had it coming for four days now. I saved it until you got out of the hospital."
I gave my head a vigorous shake and let out a breath between pursed lips. "I'm glad you didn't save it up any longer. I'd be in the next room with whiplash."
"And deserving every twinge of it."
"Well then why the hell did you—"
"Shut up."
She put her hand on the back of my neck and pulled me to er. Her lips were soft and warm, and I immediately felt myself falling into her. I wrapped my arms around her waist, and she wrapped hers around my shoulders. We stayed like that for about thirty seconds or so, and then she pulled away slightly, resting her forehead on mine.
"I liked that a lot better than the slap," I said.
"Me too," she replied. Her whisper was slightly husky.
I took her by the hand and led her into the bedroom.
"What are you doing?" she asked.
"What do you think?" I said, reaching for the buttons of her blouse.
She grabbed my hand and pushed it away. "So that's it, then, is it? A little kiss, and everything's back to the way it was? Is that it?"
"It wasn't so little," I said, smiling my best devlish smile.
"You're a piece of work, Jack Richmond. You know that? A real piece of work. You think you can just waltz back into my life after everything you've done to me, and I'll just lay down, open my legs and let you have go?"
I swallowed and cleared my throat. "You make it sound so seedy."
She shoved me back and walked out of the room. "That's rich, Jack. That's just bloody rich."
I followed her. "I think you mean Buddy Rich. You know, the drummer…?"
She spun on her heel and stomped back to me. "I know damn well who Buddy Rich is, you slimy bastard. And I don't appreciate you slipping in your stupid, deflecting comments when I'm trying to talk to you seriously."
"You weren't talking. You were yelling."
"And bloody well entitled I am. It's always the same thing with you, every time. You don't take anything seriously. You think we can just have a nice little romp now and then, and it doesn't mean anything. You had a girlfriend, Jack. You were with her for nine bloody months. I'm amazed she put up with you that long. But you still wanted me around, didn't you? You knew I'd always be there for you, just like damned puppy. Or a fucking doormat. That's what I've been to you, Jack. All this time. A bloody doormat. What does that say about me? What kind of a person does that make me?"
I stood there, letting her barrage of grief and anger pummel me. Every word was like a punch to some vital organ. Every breath out of her mouth was like a burst from a flame-thrower. When she stopped, she stood rigid, her arms at her sides, her fists clenched. Her eyes were red, and they burned into me like hot pokers. A tear ran down the right side of her nose.
"Lydia…" I began.
"Don't," she said. The syllable was sharp and short, like a homemade shank. I wobbled a bit at the forcefulness of it. "I don't want to hear you're excuses or your bad puns. I can't take this anymore, Jack. I just can't."
"Then why did you clean my apartment, and why did you kiss me just now?"
She wiped the tear from her face and looked at the refrigerator. "I don't know. I quite honestly don't know." She crossed her arms and took a step towards the sink. "I think I just felt that you needed me. Something like that. You were in trouble, and I was here, and you needed someone to look after things." She turned back around to face me. The tear she'd wiped had been replaced by a dozen or so of its siblings. "I just wanted to help you, Jack. I wanted to be the one you'd come home to. I was afraid of losing you."
She snorted and turned away again. "You selfish bastard. You probably don't even care."
I stepped back and leaned against the stove. A small shudder ran through me as I recalled the image of the pill-filled bowls and the rum-filled glass sitting atop it. I put my hands on the front edge of the appliance and looked at Lydia's back. She was trembling slightly.
"Fine." I said. "You can sleep on the couch, then."
She stiffened. I winced at that, figuring that my tone of voice had gone into the red "sarcastic" zone again. She relaxed again, though, and turned around, wiping the tears from her face again.
"What did you say?" she asked quietly.
"I said you can sleep on the couch."
She blinked and leaned back against the sink. "That's your idea of a white flag, is it?"
"Well, I'm not sending you home. Not when you're like this."
Her expression softened a bit at that. "Really."
"Yeah. Really."
She crossed her arms and looked at the floor. "Well, that's a bit better. I'm still skeptical, of course, because you might just be trying to placate me. But it's a start."
I tried my best to refrain from rolling my eyes, flinging my clenched hands into the air, and proclaiming that it was not I who should have been admitted to the psych ward.
"Go get yourself cleaned up," I said. "I'm exhausted."
I went back into the bedroom, opened the duffel bag, and began putting things away. I had to work hard to focus on each individual task, because parts of my brain wanted to wander all over the place: to the image of the pills and rum on the stove, to the blurry image of the Emergency Room as I regained consciousness, to the wobbly walks to the toilet, to the strange woman in the long coat who no one else saw, and back to Lydia, who was causing me as much confusion and frustration as I was sure I'd caused her many times over the years.
I put the last of the clothes into my closet and picked up my electric razor. I took a deep breath, satisfied that I had at least accomplished something, and turned to head for the bathroom.
As I passed the bedroom window, something caught my eye. I stopped and took a look outside. Everything seemed normal. The parking lot was still intact, the chain link fence around the edge of the property still stood there. The cobblestone walk was still—
I blinked. There was a cobblestone walk running through the parking lot to the back door of the building. I had never noticed a cobblestone walk there before. As a matter of fact, I was positive that there had never been a cobblestone walk at the back of the building. It was certainly charming, but it was quite impractical.
It wasn't just the fact that the walk was there that bothered me. It was also the fact that, for a moment, I'd be ready to accept it as normal.
It wasn't.
"Lydia," I called. "Come here a sec."
"I'm not coming into your bedroom, Jack."
"Oh, for Christ's sake. I'm not going to—" I steadied my voice and my breathing. "I just want you to look at something out in the parking lot."
"What?" she asked. Her voice was much closer now. I turned around to see her standing in the doorway.
"Down there," I said pointing to the window.
She moved closer. "What?"
I turned to look back down at the parking lot. The asphalt was now a solid surface, unbroken by any lines of any sort. The cobblestone path was nowhere to be seen.
My shoulders dropped. "Never mind," I said.
"Well, you wanted me to see something."
I turned my head towards her. "It's gone now."
She frowned. "What's wrong, Jack?"
I sat down on the bed. "I think I imagined something again."
She sat down beside me. "Did you see that woman again?"
I shook my head. "No. I saw a cobblestone path running through the middle of the parking lot."
Her eyebrows shot up. "A cobblestone path? Well, that's kind of charming, really. If you're going to have hallucinations, you might as well have charming ones."
I closed my eyes. This was not what I wanted to hear right now. I was beginning to doubt my own sanity, and the thought of possible brain damage was never far from the front of my mind since my awakening in Emergency.
"They shouldn't have released me," I murmured.
"What?"
I looked at her. "I'm obviously going crazy. This is not normal, for me to be seeing things and people that aren't really there, or are there one minute and gone the next. I've damaged myself, and I may never be the same again."
"I think you're being overly dramatic."
I stood. "Oh, you do, do you? Well, you're not the one having the hallucinations, are you? You're sitting there in judgment, telling me to calm down, telling me to behave myself, telling me how to talk, how to think, how to blow my nose… Well, I'm sick of it."
Lydia allowed herself to fall back onto the bed. "Now you're getting paranoid."
"Paranoid? I'm scared to death here. I might be losing it. And you're telling me I'm being dramatic and paranoid?"
She let out a long-suffering breath and got up from the bed. "Jack. I'm going home. You obviously need some time to yourself. I don't think I can be any help to you at all right now. So just relax for a while, will you? Watch some TV. Read a book. Have an early supper, and go to bed. You need a good night's sleep."
"Well, thank you, Nurse Nancy, for your penetrating diagnosis." I glared at her.
She closed her eyes for a moment, shaking her head slightly. Then she turned and walked out.
A moment later I heard the front door slam shut.
I sat down on the bed again and put my head in my hands.
What the hell was happening to me?
