Caged (7 page)

“I…” he breathed, unable to say what he so wanted to.

Answering him with a smile and a nod, his own smile broke through as tears rolled down his face, the gentle wind concentrating on each drop of emotion and giving him encouragement that this world, sometimes, was quite beautiful.

And then the strangest thing happened.

He laughed.

He fucking laughed. The sound of it hit me with the power of a sledgehammer. It was so raw, so deep and so full of happiness that my knees wobbled and I had to cling onto the handle of the wheelchair.

And then I sobbed. For him. With him.

His transfer went smoothly; Anderson behaving impeccably. He had given me his word and he hadn’t let me down.

His room at Seven Oaks was a far cry from the plain, drab room at the hospital. The bed was softer, the pillows plumper. The walls were painted a soft green, the shade almost identical to Anderson’s eyes. A couple of canvas prints decorated the large, high walls. A TV and DVD player were situated high on a shelf, out of reach but controllable by remote, and a small sofa sat underneath. Double doors led onto a communal outside area, and the bathroom housed both a bath and a shower. We prided ourselves on the facilities we offered, believing the more comfortable the patient the more relaxed a manner we created. Looking at the bewilderment on Anderson’s face I couldn’t help but take his hand in mine again.

He looked down on me, his towering six foot four height no longer scaring me like it once had. “Thank you.”

Shaking my head, I directed him to the doors and pushed them open, leading him onto a paved area where he slowly lowered himself into a chair.

Some other residents were mulling around the vast landscaped grounds. Apprehension crossed Anderson’s face when he spotted the others.

“It’s okay. No one will bother you, not until you’re ready to mix. That choice is yours entirely.”

He nodded, relaxing a little as I took the chair beside him.

Leaning back, I regarded him. “Can I ask you a question, Anderson?”

Nervousness made him tense but he nodded.

“I need to know how much you want.”

He shook his head in puzzlement and I leaned forward, resting my elbows on my knees.

“I’m so proud of the progress you’ve made already. Not fourteen days ago you were repressed, scared, violent, angry and fearful, yet you’ve taken everything I’ve thrown at you and you’ve handled it. And that takes strength. Strength I know you have in abundance.”

He listened, his gaze softening with every word.

“Your acceptance has astounded me. Yes, we’ve had some lows, but many more highs. Highs I hope will continue every day.”

He smiled then, timidly, but it was definitely a smile. Another one that broke my heart with its devastating sadness. He opened his mouth to speak, then closed it.

“It’s okay,” I urged. “Tell me.”

Wetting his lips, he pondered how to voice his question. But then he asked it and for the longest moment I couldn’t breathe. “Your low makes me sad today.”

He blinked when he saw the shock on my face and cowered a little. “I’m sorry,” he rushed out.

Shit.

Clearing my throat and making myself snap out of my shock, I nodded. “You’re very intuitive, Anderson.”

“In..tuitive?”

“Very good at reading me, my emotions.”

He thought about my words then frowned. “I had to be… in...tuitive. It helped me understand… what …” he chewed on his lips for a moment, trying to once again figure out how to say something. I gave him my patience. “…I needed to do.”

I nodded in understanding. “Reading the people you lived with helped you to understand how to react?”

“Yes.”

“I get that. It’s kind of like an animal’s instincts. Whether something is friend or foe. Good or bad.”

He sighed, his eyes lifting to the large tree overlooking his room. “There was no good. But many bads.”

My heart clenched.

“But your sad makes me sad.”

“I’m okay.” I smiled.

He shook his head a little. “No. You are hurting today. I see it in your eyes. In your smile.”

The only thing I could do was nod. He was no fool and that pleased me. However, I wasn’t sure I liked the way he saw me. Even Ben had never seen that far inside me. Or so I had thought until last night.

A shiver rocked me and I shuddered. “You ever want to talk about those bads then I’m here, Anderson. I will listen and I’ll never judge you.”

For the first time acceptance lit his eyes and he nodded. “Soon, Kloe.”

Giving him a grin, I stood up. “Come on. I ordered us popcorn and ice-cream.”

His eyes widened.

“You, my friend, are going to experience television and all its magical glory.”

And while the darkness crept in outside as Anderson and I laid on his bed laughing at stupid TV shows, there was a light that slowly crept in. In our hearts. In our souls. And the very parts of us that united us in more ways than one that night.

And before my eyes closed beside him, his soft snores lulling my body into a tranquillity I had never felt before, there was a niggling voice in the back of my head. A voice that wouldn’t shut up. A voice that warned me. A voice I didn’t listen to.

And I should have. I really should have.

“T
AMSIN CAME WHEN
I
WAS
a boy.”

It was a rainy day; each drop that hit the window of Anderson’s room soothing to the heartache in the air around us, its rhythm bringing with it a delicate respite to the weight in the silence.

Anderson had been at Seven Oaks for just nine days when he started to open up to me. I’d expected his story to be tragic but it turned out to be so much more than that. So much more.

“Was she a puppy?” I asked from where I sat on the sofa, my feet tucked underneath me. He sat in the chair by the window, staring out at the rain as if he felt its sorrow. He traced each rivulet on the window with his finger, each chase along the glass bringing with it a memory he voiced, and each drop of water a crack in his armour.

“Mary and Hank’s dog. It had puppies. It was a nasty dog, always biting and snapping at me. It didn’t like me very much. But I didn’t care for it either. It would steal the food they threw down – if I didn’t get to it first.”

I’d hired an expert speech therapist and even after such a short amount of time I was amazed with her results. Anderson’s words were more pronounced, his conversational skills much more fluent. She told me she’d never met someone so eager to learn, to persevere like Anderson. He was greedy for information and help, thankfully.

“The dog lived in the basement with you?”

He nodded. “In the day it went up, outside. But at night it came down with me. I remember its smell. In one way I could smell the air it brought back with it, but it also stank like the shit corner.”

I grimaced, presuming the ‘shit corner’ was Anderson’s toilet area.

“Tamsin was poorly. So tiny. I rubbed at her with my shirt, whispering into her ear to take a breath. And she did.” His smile was blinding, a rare happy memory. One of few, I supposed. “She took that breath and wriggled in my hand. It was funny. The bitch, for the first time, didn’t snap at me. Her eyes were large, like she was frightened when I put Tamsin to her teat.”

“I would imagine she was,” I offered. “I think we all are when we have a child.”

Anderson put his thumb to his lips, chewing rapidly on a tiny piece of skin to the edge of his nail as a frown creased his brow.

“After a few weeks, Mary and Hank took the bitch up and I never saw her again. Or the pups. But they couldn’t sell Tamsin. She was still so small and frail. Her ribs stuck through her chest and her legs were like skinny little twigs.” His eyes moved to find me, the darkening room making him squint to focus on my face. “She was like me.”

I smiled at that. The connection he made with a runt giving me hope that he hadn’t been so alone during all those twenty-one years. That even a dog could be a friend. Dave was very much my friend, and I knew how animals could connect with us more than we realised, their instincts to our feelings making them the most loyal creatures anyone could have in their lives.

“So,” he continued, looking back to the window, “she came to live with me.”

“In the basement?”

Nodding, he smiled. “I fed her bits of what they gave me. It wasn’t much but she grew. She loved bread soaked in milk.”

I smiled with him. “Dave adores bread and milk too.”

“And cheese.” He laughed. “She’d always knock it out of my hand. It was her favourite.”

“Cheese is a delicacy to dogs.”

“Delicacy?”

“Uhh, luxury, very yummy. Like chocolate for us.”

“For you.” Anderson laughed after referring to one of our previous movie nights. I’d brought in chocolate but it had been too rich for him, so of course I had to take it off his hands.

“Yes.” I laughed. “You got me.”

His eyes lit up when I laughed, a twinkle reflected back at me as a grin tugged his smile higher.

We were quiet for a moment, and not wanting to risk losing direction, I asked quietly, “What happened to Tamsin?”

Grief dimmed his sparkling eyes. “She loved me.” He swallowed heavily, lowering his eyes as if he was in physical pain. “Hank… he would…”

“It’s okay Anderson. It’s okay.”

I moved from the sofa and sat on the floor by his feet. The horror and shame that poured from his eyes made my stomach twist. Resting my hand on his knee, he focussed on it. “I’m here to help you, Anderson. Please trust me. Whatever you tell me will stay with me only. I won’t judge you. All I will do is listen to you. But I need you to trust me.”

Keeping his gaze on my hand, he slowly placed his own hand over mine. I turned mine over and his fingers threaded through mine. Sweat coated his palm and his hold was shaky.

“Hank, he would… do things that… that hurt me.”

I nodded, praying to God that I could keep my emotions in check. “To your heart, or your body?”

“Both.”

“Okay. And how did you feel about that?” It was always a stupid question. Anyone in their right mind would know how it would fucking feel. But it was a question that opened up so many possibilities, and hopefully gained an insight to the mind-set of the patient, as cold as that sounded.

He shrugged. Still he kept his eyes on our joined hands, refusing to look me in the eye. He was quiet for a long time, thinking, musing. His gaze became unfocussed as he retreated inside his mind. “After a while I didn’t feel anything.”

Bile coated my throat. He’d endured so many tortures for so long that he’d become immune to them. Much like when you get so used to your own perfume that after so long you can’t smell it any longer. It wasn’t either nice or nasty. It just was.

“Pain made me feel, Kloe.”

I lifted my eyes to his. It became difficult to breathe under the intensity of his stare. Anger swirled beneath his green irises, but when his chest heaved with deep breaths, I knew there was more I was seeing in those deep pools of need and lust.

“I don’t understand.”

A small curve of his lips confounded me. His eyes hooded over and he licked his lips. “All I had were the walls, Kloe. Huge stones. That was all my eyes saw. For so long. Darkness and the cold, and the drip of some fucking cracked pipe somewhere in the room. Chains were all I felt. The cold press of steel against my skin the only touch I felt. And after so long, that same touch of metal, that constant drip, drip, drip and that forever smell of damp and mould, I couldn’t feel them anymore. I couldn’t smell it anymore. It all became life. Like breathing, you don’t feel it, you don’t notice that you’re doing it, but it’s still there, that constant inhale, exhale. Everything inside me was dead.”

He tipped his head sideways, his eyes narrowing on me. “Numbness is so much worse than pain. Numbness is nothing. You can’t feel nothing. You can’t grab hold of nothing. But you can
become
nothing. It grows inside you until you’re a big hole of nothing along with it. You just become a tiny insign…insignif…”

“Insignificance,” I finished quietly.

He nodded and focussed his shimmering eyes on me. “There was nothing but me. And sometimes Tamsin. And then came the pain. The pain they gave to me. It was like a gift; it made my heart beat. It made me catch a breath again. It made my body come to life. It gave me something to focus on. It made me feel, Kloe.”

My mouth was so dry that I struggled to speak. “And that’s okay, Anderson. Humans have an amazing ability to adapt, to seek comfort in the very worst…”

“You don’t see, do you?”

His temper surprised me and I reared back a little.

“This… this
me
,” he pointed to himself, stabbing his finger into his chest. “This
me
is grieving. This
me
is hating that I can no longer feel again.”

I bit onto my tongue to stop the vomit from tearing for freedom.

“I miss them!” he cried as if suddenly he needed me to understand.

But I did understand, all too well.

“The only thing that makes me feel is… is you.” He winced at his honesty, looking away from me as if shamed by his words. “You make my heart happy when you smile. You make me sad when you are sad. But that… that isn’t real, Kloe. Those are your emotions, not mine.”