I've always loved the sea. The taste of salt, thick on my tongue as my father and I would guide our skiff through the boundful waves. The warmth of the sun on my freckled face was as necessary as air. My father always teased me about the "paint splatters" that were laid across my nose, cheeks, and tips of my ears. But I know he loved them - they were my mother's. I was her mini-me, as she said. Those were some of the best days I had, with him on the water. The only care we obtained was when Mother would ring the bell on shore, signalling us home for supper. We'd spend hours navigating the water with poles in our hands, baiting the fish in the cool, deep water below. I would shiver as the mist hit my skin, cooled by the raging wind.
I shivered now, but not because of the cool water.
Fluorescent bulbs buzzed above me, an annoying hiss that reminded me too much of the warning of a salt marsh snake, whom my father had taught me all about. Without thinking, I pulled my legs to my chest, wrapping pale arms around my knobby knees. Prickly hairs poked at my chin: I had forgotten to shave.
A soft knock sounded on the door in front of me, and I pulled my hospital gown tighter around my middle, my knuckles white. I shuffled on my seat, the white paper underneath me crinkling as I said in a soft voice, "Come in."
The door creaked open, revealing a short, middle-aged man with one of the worst receding hairlines I had even seen. The coat he wore was a bright white, nearly blinding under the blueish lights. And I hated it. I hated how clean the coat was. I sat there while he was crisp, every part of him unshelved. Clean, while I was dirty. Dirty, filthy for some many reasons...
"Kasey Gibbons?" he said in a voice that screamed, "You can trust me!", but ignored it. He was the type of man that my father warned me about - a man that had two lives. Most doctors did. But I knew him anyway - Michael Sherry, or as many of the people of Dauphin Island called him, Doctor Shelly, for all the Shelly sisters he'd slept with. They never called that to his face, of course. It was a small town.
"Kasey?"
I realized I hadn't said anything, so I shook myself. "Yes?" My voice was hoarse, the salt left over from all the water I had swallowed making it hard to breath. I tasted it now, the salt mixed with a tang of copper. Suddenly my stomach clenched.
"My nurses say that you're in good health. Your mother is on her way here, you can go home with her." His eyes were sad, lids lowered, telling me everything I needed to know.
But I couldn't help but ask anyway. "How's Daddy?"
Doctor Sherry's face fell, uncertainty in his eyes. He didn't know what to say - his mouth forming vallows that weren't coming out. And though I knew already, having it confirmed was like swallowing rocks. And they were sinking - I was sinking. Further, deeper into myself.
Just as he had.
I looked down at my pale hands, almost blue in the light. I shivered again as I caught a glimpse of the brown that covered my hands. It was once red, when it was wet.
Standing on shaking legs, I asked the doctor if there was a place to wash my hands. He nodded and told me where the bathroom was and said that I could change back into my clothes, if I wished. But I wouldn't. They were covered in the same substance as my hands. Glancing at the heap of soiled clothes on one of the two chairs in the room, I felt my heart quake, as if it too, shuddered at the memory still so, so very fresh. The blood on my hands was brown, but the blood on my white tank top was nearly glowing in this small room.
With a lump in my throat, I turned, careful not to get the handle dirty as I opened the door.
Once in the bathroom, I almost couldn't contain my emotions. How was I going to tell my mother? Hell, she probably already knew. What would she think of me? It was my fault, we all knew it. If only I could let him go.
