The Anesthesia Game Read online

  THE ANESTHESIA GAME

  Copyright © 2015 Rea Nolan Martin

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without prior written permission from the copyright owner.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Cover & Interior Layout Design: VMC Art & Design, LLC

  ISBN: 978-0-9910322-2-8 (Paperback Edition) Library of Congress Control Number: 2015909160

  For Zach,

  who played the Game and won

  Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:

  The Soul that rises with us, our life’s Star,

  Hath had elsewhere its setting.

  And cometh from afar…

  — William Wordsworth

  Table of Contents

  Hannah

  Sydney

  Pandora

  Hannah

  Sydney

  Pandora

  Hannah

  Sydney

  Mitsy

  Pandora

  Mitsy

  Hannah

  Sydney

  Pandora

  Mitsy

  Hannah

  Pandora

  Sydney

  Mitsy

  Hannah

  Sydney

  Pandora

  Hannah

  Mitsy

  Sydney

  Pandora

  Hannah

  Sydney

  Pandora

  Sydney

  Mitsy

  Sydney

  Pandora

  Sydney

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Hannah

  Hannah Chandler awakens with a start from the same weird dream. Her head jerks forward, striking the bottle of estate reserve pinot noir clutched loosely in her left hand. Slightly stunned by the impact, she stares into the neck of the open bottle for a few seconds before upending it and polishing off the last mouthful. How she loves a good pinot.

  Pushing herself up to a sitting position, she tries to shake the dream—the giant birds, the chaos, the raging fire and an unidentifiable spectral character, probably from the shopping channel, warning her about…whatever. She really doesn’t know what the message is, if there even is one, since every time she has this dream she wakes up before the creep with the wagging finger can finish. “Don’t come looking…” is as far as it gets. Looking for what, though, Hannah wonders. Trouble? She doesn’t have to look for that. It’s the default location on her GPS.

  The realization of her deteriorating life burrows into her head like a nest of snakes. She curls her long, slim body on the elegant sunshine-yellow couch, her head buried in perfectly manicured hands, still clutching the bottle. She has squeezed into many a tight financial spot, she knows, but this one is so cramped she can’t tell her head from her poppy-red toenails. She must be a contortionist to have crammed in this far, but not really, since she doesn’t know how to get out. A contortionist would know. “Face it,” she tells herself, “you’re broke.”

  Her words echo into the neck of the empty bottle and back out through a decade of indiscreet spending, maybe more. Just looking at her or her impressive rural estate, nobody would ever believe it, but there it is—the bald truth. Where it all went she doesn’t know. Or she might know, but in the end, what difference does it make? It’s gone. No amount of petty ass, line-item analysis of this gold bracelet or that organic wrinkle cream will bring it back.

  She doesn’t have much to show for it either. It’s not as if she’s hoarding rooms of museum-grade furniture or gilded, hand-painted tiles surrounding gold-leaf sinks. She hasn’t been greedy or delinquent. That isn’t what happened. She just lost track of her divorce settlement because she always thought she and Jonah would get back together. Even though she was the one who sent him packing, but still. Why didn’t he come crawling back?

  She shifts positions, placing the bottle on the floor and facing the empty fireplace at the end of the room. One arm braces the back of the couch that rests against the grand picture window to her left. A swooping raptor catches her attention and she turns. Turkey vulture maybe or red tail, hard to tell in the dusky gray sky. She’s only seen an eagle here once. Whatever it is snags a tiny creature in its claws and takes off. Hannah follows its flight path above the rolling fields, twirling her stylish, chin-length mop of auburn hair nervously around both index fingers. What must it feel like to be snatched like that? Just plucked out of your life for a snack. Good God!

  The raptor disappears, but Hannah keeps staring. She stares and shivers because it’s chilly outside and a little bit inside. The chilliest January she can remember. She’d light a fire if she weren’t so lazy. Or not so much lazy, really, as mentally exhausted from all the stress. She could use a valet right now—somebody to fetch a sweater and light a fire. Shake a martini. She used to call that a husband, but not anymore. Husbands are too much trouble and they tend not to come back when you kick them out.

  She leans down, retrieving another bottle—her spare—from the floor and sips. She should really buy a new coffee table or end table or something to put things on. Or a tray table for God’s sake, anything. Did Jonah really have to take the tables?! Why the tables?! As soon as she gets her bills paid she’ll buy some new ones. She sips again and replaces the bottle on the floor.

  This is all so dreary and tedious, but she can’t ignore it. She’s not a coward. Or is she? Maybe she is. She drags her body back to a hunched sitting position, draping both arms across the back of the couch and staring out. Frost covers the languid fields and the barn roof in the lower paddock, not to mention her entire future. She could lose everything. After all, who’s going to save her now? Nobody. She’s commando. The only way it ends well this time is if e-Harmony hooks her up with a Saudi prince or she manages to write a prize-winning novel. Huh. She straightens up.

  The novel has merit.

  Not any novel. To be worth her while it would have to net at least $1,000,000 and a Pulitzer or a Nobel, or any of the other elite literary prizes du jour. Who cares which one, as long as it pays the bills and endows her with enough celebrity to launch a reality show? It’s not the first time she’s thought about it, but maybe the time is finally right. Nobody in her pedestrian book group can figure out how these prize committees pick winners, but Hannah might have an idea. She’s read the books, and there’s a random kind of cryptic formula to them. You can’t just empty a barrel of ordinary words onto piles of paper and expect to win. It has to be something inventive, but completely true. And bizarre, nearly incomprehensible, but again, true. But dangerously close to not being true. Something like what’s become of Hannah’s entire life, not that she would ever write about that. Although.

  Not that she’s completed a story in a long time, or rather, constructed one from beginning to end; she hasn’t. Just snippets. Since she was twelve years old she’s been scribbling these genius snippets on receipts and sticky notes, whatever’s available, and burying them anywhere—drawers, closets, file cabinets, book flaps and magazine margins. Heirloom seeds just waiting to germinate into prize-winning classics. She’s been doing this her entire life; it isn’t new. It’s who
she is.

  Snippet #1 from this morning: “Her social networks were the last to die.”

  Snippet #2: “She supports the earth with the middle finger of her right hand, twirling it to show off at parties.”

  Right?

  Her gift is 100% authentic; she’s not delusional. It all came down twenty-six years ago in Loudoun County High School when she was paid $50 by the Daughters of the Confederacy for an autobiographical essay she’d composed beginning to end in a single twenty-minute sitting. She made it all up, of course—a frenetic and unfaithful assortment of childhood stories she’d pieced together about Irish forebears and how they’d settled in the wild hills of Shenandoah County. How they fought against alcoholic black bears for the rock gut whisky leaking from the volatile stills hidden in the wooded piedmont. How the bears were as soused as her fake uncles. How her whole family wouldn’t even be here now if the bears hadn’t been beaten into area rugs and lap blankets that still grace the bedrooms of her ancestral cabin.

  Original!

  Not that any of this childish reminiscence will put money in Hannah’s pocket. Money she needs to pay the stack of bills currently fanned out like a raven’s wing on the dining room table. Money she now imagines arriving dressed in a black-tie literary prize with enough celebrity to keep the hang dogs from feeling sorry for her and her niece, Sydney. Not that Sydney lives with Hannah; she doesn’t. But she should. She lives in Connecticut with her mother, Mitsy, Hannah’s big dull sister. Not to be unkind.

  To be clear, Sydney lives in Connecticut with Mitsy and her super-fly rock-steady reliable dad, Aaron, when she isn’t in the hospital ICU or clinic following endless treatments for some kind of disorder no one will identify. Not that Hannah wants to know the exact name of the disease; she doesn’t. She’s not very medical. Besides, it’s all too painful to think about since Sydney is more like Hannah than Hannah. And even though Hannah didn’t want kids, if she’d had one, it would have been Syd. Not that Hannah sees her niece that much, she doesn’t, but she would if they lived closer. Or if the girl’s mother wasn’t such a nutcase. Again, not to be unkind. But.

  Hannah cocks her head, listening. Is that her cell? The ringtone is muffled. It could be her cell phone or a SETI signal from space, it’s that remote. Maybe she’s hearing things. But no; there it goes again. She searches her pockets, the cushions, but no-can-find. Hanging upside down, she flips the couch skirt to see if it fell underneath, but no. While she’s down there, she tips the bottle and sips more wine. Or guzzles, really. Guzzle-sips to be accurate. There should be a combo word for people who prefer to drink out of bottles. ‘Gips’ or ‘suzzles’, maybe. Not that Hannah gips or suzzles every day, just when there’s no one to clink with. She supposes she could just fill two glasses and clink on her own, but in the end that seems a bit pretentious, not to mention dishonest. You can’t get much more honest than suzzling straight out of a bottle.

  She hears the faint ring tone again, and from the sound of it, it’s in the kitchen, so the hell with it. The last thing she needs right now is to get up. It’s probably one of her creditors anyway—Bloomingdale’s or Neiman’s or wherever she bought the Donatella gown for Syd’s Make-a-Wish hospital gala. Those stores are all about you when they think you have money, but get in over your head for a split-second and you’re a whack-a-mole at a fold-up carnival. Or maybe it’s her sister, Mitsy.

  Quite frankly, Mitsy is more than Hannah can deal with right now, anyway. She’s needy, true, but so is Hannah. She has to get her own house in order first, or farm, really, before the bloodthirsty mortgage hounds catch the fox. The fox is Hannah, of course. Foxy, yes, but not just in the sexy way, as she’s oft been told, even though she’s well into her thirties. Okay, early forties. She’s outsmarted her creditors so far, and she’s not giving up now. Why should she? She has a prize-winning novel in her that will blow their illiterate minds. They’ll beg her to wear their designer gowns at the award ceremony in Stockholm. And God knows Hannah can rock a sheer, snug designer gown—the more cut-outs the better. She’ll pay her goddamn bills, all right, and it won’t be with scratch-off cards.

  She stretches back out on the couch, leaning over for the bottle. She lifts; sips; replaces; lifts; sips; replaces. And repeat. One more time—it’s a long way down. What she needs is a compelling opening line. Something like: “By the time you read this, I will be dead.” A line nobody can put down, walk away from, or ignore. She sits up and adjusts the vintage denim jeans on her long slim legs, absently pulling at one of the holes until it shreds straight across at the knee. It’s a fabulous tear, actually. She couldn’t do it again if she tried. Once in a lifetime tear. If she knew where her cell phone was, she’d snap a knee selfie and post it everywhere. No one would believe it. On ebay alone it would fetch thousands.

  Chilled, she reaches behind her for the homespun turquoise velour blanket she picked-up at the Whistle Stop last week, and wraps it around her shoulders. So luxurious! Expensive, true, but after all, it’s important to support local craftsmen or they’ll move to Charleston or Savannah. It happens all the time. Another sip of wine and she’s back to the window, mesmerized by what looks like a huge barn owl on the gazebo roof. Nose to window, she squints. Can’t make it out. Daylight is disappearing—what time is it?

  Used to be Hannah gazed out this window at 35 miles of undulating hills across highways and high-wires all the way to the Godfrey estate. Miles of undulating hills dotted with brick-red barns, prize-winning cattle, glossy thoroughbred horses, and perfectly stacked bales of hay. Not anymore—thank you, unscrupulous politicians and voracious developers. Now her eyes rest on treeless miles of bland colonials decked-out in acrylic siding in a hundred shades of taupe, not to mention the ubiquitous fake-stone facing. What’s next, Tupperware houses? Little transparent, oxygen-deprived houses where people’s moldy little lives are on full display? Plant some trees, people!

  Thinking of the devaluation of her own farm—her only remaining investment, Hannah fantasizes about actually killing herself and leaving the brilliant first line of her prize-winning story as a suicide note for Jonah, who probably wouldn’t even finish it. “By the time you find this…” and already he’s bored. As if he’d ever given a shit about anything she wrote or said or thought. And still…she loves him. Oh God, she thinks, dropping her head, where’s the gun?

  She collapses her torso dramatically backwards on the foam pillows, rolls to her side and dips down for the bottle. Suzzles thoughtfully. Back to her prize-winning story. The old reviews still tickle her: “Genius!” the reviewer had written in the Loudon Times-Mirror. “This writer will go far!” Well, she could have lived up to their remarks if she’d wanted to. If she hadn’t acquired two self-righteous (ex) husbands and a sprawling farm. Not that they farmed anything but hay. Not that she’d actually had anything to do with the hay. But just the stress of looking out the window at all that work, season after season. And anyway, at this point she needs a hell of a lot more than a $50 award from the Daughters of the Confederacy to pay that stack of bills. God, she’s hungry. She hauls her ass off the couch, shuffling across the mahogany-stained floor on stocking feet for a fat pile of empty calories.

  Standing in the middle of her barn-beamed kitchen a la rustica, she surveys the near-empty fridge: a yellowed log of dried-up goat cheese, a loose spray of shriveled mint, four bottles of chardonnay, and a cell phone. A cell phone! No sooner does she stuff the phone into her back pocket but it rings again. Shit. Thinking positively though, maybe it’s Dr. Kevorkian. She slams the fridge door shut with her hip. Mitsy’s number flashes on the screen. Well, fine; she’ll answer it. Not exactly an upper, but Mitsy needs her. When someone needs you, you answer once in a while.

  “Hey,” Hannah says.

  “Hi, Hannah.” Flatline.

  “Hold for a sec?” says Hannah. She lays the phone on the counter, opens the drawer and rummages for snacks. Popcorn will have to do. She trots the bag back to the living room where she can despair in com
fort. She drops anchor on the couch, suzzles from the pinot bottle on the floor and tosses a few kernels into her mouth. Crunch.

  “Okay, I’m back,” she says, chomping. She waits. Nothing. No one. She swallows. “Mits?”

  Mitsy sighs, but that’s the only sign of life.

  Nothing about these phone calls is easy, which is why Hannah limits them. She has a limit. She pushes through the utter stagnation. “Everything okay, Mits?”

  “Sure. Well, you know. As much as can be expected.”

  Hannah burrows into the corner of the couch. What can she really say about any of this? Mitsy doesn’t realize how difficult it is to talk to her these days. You need a crow bar to open every sentence. “I told you I’d help out if you needed me,” Hannah offers noncommittally. She might as well offer; Mitsy will never take her up on it anyway. Everyone thinks Hannah’s unreliable.

  “That’s kind of why I’m calling,” Mitsy says.

  “What?” Hannah coughs up a kernel.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, just…dinner,” Hannah says.

  “I wondered if you could come up and help out for a couple of weeks,” says Mitsy.

  “Weeks?” Hannah croaks. She runs her greasy fingers through her hair.

  “I’ll pay you, Hannah. I know you can’t just up and leave everything without pay.”

  “That’s not the point.”

  “To me it is. Sydney would rather have you up here helping out than a stranger, and I uh, well. I…have a few new challenges of my own.”

  “What challenges?”

  “Sorry to tell you this way, but.”

  “You haven’t told me anything.” Hannah puts her whole hand in the new knee tear and expands it. “Out with it.”

  “They ran some tests,” Mitsy says. “I have a…situation. Autoimmune. It’s manageable, I guess, but I have to get it under control first. A couple of weeks or so and I’ll be back on Sydney’s schedule. No sweat, I swear. Just need you for the gap.” She heaves a sigh. “I need you, Hannah.”