The Anesthesia Game Read online

  “A ‘situation’? Where? What is it?” This is insane. One thing after another. What the hell has happened to Hannah’s life?!

  “I would just, I don’t know…rather tell you in person? I’ll be fine, is what they say. I believe them. So should you.”

  “Believe who about what?” Hannah grabs the bottle. “Don’t be so obtuse, Mits.”

  “I have my way of dealing with things,” Mitsy says.

  “Like all that yoga and mystic woo woo? You’re too soft with all that stuff. That’s probably what got you sick in the first place. You’re so damn soft. You need to toughen-up; get pissed off. Go mental. Pick up a car and throw it at somebody.”

  “It’s not like that,” Mitsy says softly. “It’s okay. It’s a spiritual world, Hannah, whether you know it or not. Whether you believe it or not doesn’t change what it is.”

  “Spoken like a real charlatan.” Hannah shakes her head. “Eegadz.”

  “Pandora is not a charlatan,” Mitsy says. “She’s the real thing. You could benefit from her. She’s the reason I’m not crazy.”

  “Right,” Hannah snorts. “Whatever.” Just the name!

  “So you’ll come?”

  Hannah sighs, defeated, running her fingers through her hair, trying not to pull it out of her head. “Maybe. I don’t know. I’ll try. I’ve got some things to work out first.” She hesitates. “I can’t promise anything.” In other words—no! “And anyway,” she says, “What about the hubby? I’d just be in the way.”

  “Aaron will be in and out of town. He’s got a new project in Austin a couple of days a week, but…” Total mental traffic jam shuts down the verbal highway.

  “But what?” Hannah pushes.

  “But I don’t know,” Mitsy finally says in her generally depressive manner. “I can only deal with so much at once. And in fairness to Aaron, it’s a bit much for him to take care of both me and Sydney, not to mention the job and the traveling.” She pauses. “If you don’t come, we’ll hire someone anyway. I’d rather hire you.”

  “Money isn’t the point,” Hannah repeats emphatically. Although in a way it is. Not Mitsy’s money, of course—how much is Hannah really worth as a caretaker, anyway? It’s the award money she’s worried about. Could she actually write a prize-winning novel in the middle of all that chaos? It was a long shot she’d have to think about, because after all, there are bills to pay. Not to mention an entire estate to manage. How can she go, really? She absolutely cannot. “Okay, Mits, I’ll get back to you soon, how’s that?”

  “You’ll think about it then?”

  “Yeah, sure, why not? I’ll think about it.”

  Hannah ends the call, grabs handfuls of her hair and pulls it out straight from both sides. “Aaaaaaaa!” That conversation was insane! What does Mitsy expect from her, anyway? Hannah has a life, for God’s sake. No way she’d ever survive that insanity. No effing way.

  All at once, shadows descend, and the night sky envelopes the farm, the house, and Hannah like shrink wrap. It’s suffocating. She snaps on a few lights, but still…a familiar kind of slow tension crawls up her nerves and accumulates. Threatens. How will she keep it at bay tonight? She grabs the TV remote and plops back down, absently flipping through fifty-plus channels before landing on QVC. A few minutes in and she’s trading a potential full-on nervous breakdown for an amazing flameless rosette candle complete with timer that would certainly be helpful on lonely, dark winter evenings like this. If only she had one now.

  She trots into the kitchen for her purse and credit cards and grabs a bag of pretzels to go with the popcorn. If you put them in your mouth at the same time, it’s a veritable explosion of flavor—popzels or pretzcorn. She’s surprised none of the food giants have caught on to this. Her ideas are platinum. If she could unscrew her head she could lease her brain and make a fortune while she sleeps.

  Back on the couch, she wraps herself in the velour throw with her food bags, and orders the candle. At $65 it’s such a bargain that the instant she hangs up she regrets ordering only one. After all, they’re flameless. You don’t even need matches. She calls back and orders two more.

  The next display of QVC panic-busting merchandise is jewelry, not that she intends to order any. But wait, look—a magnificent 14k gold medallion of that new pope everybody likes. Francis. Very interesting heirloom-like piece at a reasonable price. And maybe lucky, too, since he’s obviously a popular man. She could use some good luck, who couldn’t? She dials 1-888-… etc., numbers she could recite in her sleep. She orders the medallion before she loses interest. You have to stay on top of these items or they’re gone. Only a QVC novice loses a good piece. You can’t get all overconfident and wait. And look here—a set of insulated polka-dot travel mugs. Save her a ton of money on Styrofoam and paper. Prevent her and every other environmentally-responsible buyer from destroying the earth with refuse. 1-888-…ordered. But that’s it; no more. She’s done.

  Satisfied that her evening is now worth something—$735.55 to be exact—she relaxes back into the couch and searches for any of the Housewife franchises, polishes off the popzels, and washes them down with estate reserve. She’s lucky she knows how to deal with issues like a sick sister and sicker niece without completely bottoming out. It isn’t easy to clear a conversation with Mitsy from your head. It takes a QVC village and a winery, at least. That entire conversation was like…what?! Like the horrible tedious job Hannah had at the hospital that whole week one summer. What was it again? Oh yeah, medical transcription. A conversation with Mitsy is like twelve hours of transcribing people’s colonoscopies while you’re in the middle of the worst hangover ever. When will it end?! She tips the bottle back. She might as well earn the hangover.

  The next day the sun rises above the horse barn in the lower paddock, burns through the picture window, and singes the fog at the edges of Hannah’s brain. Her mouth is a latrine. Her eyes are stuck together with sleep and eyelash glue, and her lower back aches. Where is she? She reaches up and pulls one sticky eyelid apart, then the other, only to find herself staring into the intoxicating crème de cocoa eyes of her ex-husband, Jonah.

  Shit!

  She hikes herself up on her elbows. “What are you doing here?” she mumbles. Oh God, how her head pounds.

  “Good afternoon,” he says drily.

  When she doesn’t respond, he says, “Party of one?” as he dangles two empty bottles of wine over her. He shakes his pious head. “Is this what it’s come to?”

  She winces from the dagger in her right temple. Ooooph. “I had a little party last night,” she says to no one, to the couch, trailing off as she collapses back to sleep for a minute or a week. But not long enough, apparently, to change the station, because Jonah reappears when she opens her eyes. His substantial 6’4 frame is perched on the edge of the couch. He nudges her awake.

  “Here,” he says not unkindly, toting a glass of water, two aspirin, and a giant mug of steaming coffee.

  She swallows the aspirin, hands him the glass and takes the mug. Two sips of coffee later, she comes to her senses. “I’ll be right back,” she mutters, shifting and pushing her way upright. Everything aches! She lays the mug on the floor. Two credit cards fall off her lap as she rises, and she kicks them under the couch.

  Staggering carefully across the room to her right, she balances her gait against walls and furniture, dodging the love seat and the antique jelly cabinet on her way to the front stairs. “Don’t leave,” she says under her breath. “I’ll just be a minute.”

  After an arduous walk up the front stairs, she arrives in the master bath, steadying herself against the sink. Easy does it. She splashes cold water on her face and neck, pulls off the bent lashes, and brushes her teeth vigorously. Gargles. She tames her expertly highlighted auburn hair with a wide-tooth comb, swipes her armpits with deodorant, and wanders back to the bedroom closet. Flipping desperately through a poorly organized, department store-size inventory, she settles on a sexy, sheer, ruby silk sweater with a sparkly
hexagram for Love stitched on the front. Not that Jonah will know what the hexagram means, but subliminally maybe he’ll get the message. Two days later he’s hers!

  She pinches her pale cheeks, and checks the full-length closet mirror. OMG the eyes! Her signature crystal green pools are now surrounded by wild tributaries of blood red. Back to the bathroom, she squirts Visine in both eyes, blinks, and blots the tears. You can do it! she tells herself as she ambles downstairs, carefully balancing her head on her shoulders. Nothing is automatic. Everything is a carefully constructed illusion. But she won’t let on. This was not a one-woman party as far as anyone is concerned. It was a frat house blowout, and too bad he missed it.

  She rounds the corner to the living room, and there’s Jonah, all Paul Bunyan of him stretched out on the recliner with a Starbucks mug of Ethiopian dark blend, his favorite. At least she had that on hand. Or maybe not. Maybe he brought it with him.

  “Well, that’s better,” he says neutrally.

  Or maybe not neutrally? Maybe approvingly? Maybe it’s her hangover that’s neutralizing him; Hannah can’t tell. After all, why is he here in the first place?

  “Seriously,” she says, “I’m glad you’re here.”

  “This is how you get to sleep now?” he says. “Pinot noir and pretzels?”

  “And popcorn?” she says impishly. She stares at his beautiful square-jawed face, his eyes—gorgeous nuggets of milk chocolate framed by those thick eyebrows raised in familiar disapproval.

  “I had a houseful over last night,” she says casually. “It was fun! You should have come.”

  He regards her with interest. “And what did they eat, all those hungry people? There’s no sign of food anywhere and the only garbage is in the refrigerator. You should clean it out.”

  This would piss Hannah off if she weren’t so desperate for his company. “Think what you want,” she says.

  He sips his coffee thoughtfully. “The payments stop this week, Hannah. I just don’t want any grief from you about that. I can see you have bills.” He points his chin in the direction of the dining room. “Lots of them.”

  She lifts her mug from the floor and drinks.

  “What happened to the end tables?” he says. “And the coffee table?”

  “What?” She frowns, trying to think this through carefully, but the taste of her foot is already choking her. “I thought…” She shakes her head. “Didn’t you…? Never mind.”

  “You thought what?”

  “Nothing.”

  “So you don’t know where the tables are, is that it? Good God, Hannah, are you blacking out!”

  “No. No, I’m not.” She flashes a grin, which takes quantum energy. Keep it light—believable. “I gave them to Brice. The painter? Remember him? I just thought…I don’t know. That the new ones would be here by now.”

  Jonah sighs. “You have to get your act together, kid,” he says. “You’ve alienated half the town. You’re impossible to live with…”

  “What?” she says. “I’m impossible…?”

  He nods sadly, his arms sweeping to include the universe of all purchased items. “All the excess. The new furniture, the Audi, the clothes, the vintage alcohol. Come on, Hannah, you can’t not know.”

  She turns away. She wants him here, but she doesn’t. Same ole same ole. He can be such a bitchy old matron.

  “No one else will be this honest with you,” he says, but she still won’t look. “And I’m actually worried about you. You have no direction in your life and nothing at all that interests you except shopping, wine, and who knows what other substances. And I got a notice…” he pulls an envelope from the front pocket of his denim shirt. “From the bank.”

  “What? What notice? For me? Why you?”

  “I’m still on the mortgage, remember? They wouldn’t give you one on your own.”

  Hannah purses her lips in a full-on pout. “That’s impossible,” she says weakly. “How can they send you a notice without sending one to me? I’m primary. I’m the one who inherited this farm, damn it. I was born here, remember?!”

  He pushes the recliner upright and leans forward. “You did get a notice,” he says. “Three of them.” He nods toward the dining room with defeat. “Look,” he says, “I want to help out.”

  “You do?” she says pleadingly.

  He nods. “I do. I want to buy the farm from you.”

  What?! “What?” she says stunned.

  “Let’s face it, you can’t do this,” he says matter-of-factly. “You can’t live here. It costs too bloody much, and instead of living on old goat cheese, you could be eating 4-course meals in D.C. Let me buy you out. I’ll be generous. You can go get a co-op or condo and live well. You just have to…I don’t know, go to rehab or something, so you don’t do it all over again.”

  When she doesn’t respond, he shakes his head, sighing. “Think about it.”

  She breathes deeply, willing herself up from the ashes. “I can afford this place,” she says. “My parents left me a lot of money.”

  “You’ve spent it all.”

  So calm. How does he stay so calm? His righteous aloof calmness has always pissed her off. “It might surprise you to know that I’m writing a book. A memoir, in fact. So it would behoove you to show some consideration since you’ll probably be at least a chapter.”

  “A lot of people write books, and…”

  “And nothing!”

  “Exactly,” he says. “And nothing. A lot of incredibly talented people write books that amount to nothing. It’s a lotto.”

  “Well, I’m not one of them.” She points emphatically to her chest. “I…will be writing an award-winning book. I’ve won awards before, and I’ll win them again.” She marinates in rage which, reflected in his silence, looks a lot like asinine stupidity. She is an ass.

  “I’ve known you a long time,” he says quietly. “And there’s no growing up for you. No maturing. Face it, you’re not going to finish a book and you’re not going to pay these bills. I love you, but…”

  Her heart jumps. “You do?” See? The hexagram works!

  He nods. “I do, but there’s no living with you.”

  “Fuck you!” she says, fighting tears.

  “See there you go, Hannah. You can’t listen to anything. The truth is you’re a narcissist who can’t put anybody else first in your life. A narcissist with no direction at all.” He walks to the hall, his giant frame filling the doorjamb. “I gotta go.”

  “I’m not a narcissist,” she says, sniveling. “In fact, if you must know, I’m going to Connecticut to take care of Sydney for a month while Mitsy gets treatment for whatever. She wouldn’t tell me, but it’s something deadly.” She narrows her eyes. “Would a narcissist up and leave to nurse her sick sister and niece for a month? No. She would not. A narcissist would not go near all that godawful sickness.”

  “That’s good,” he says, slipping deftly into his leather bomber jacket. “Let me know how it goes. If you want, I’ll check on the place while you’re away.”

  “That would be great,” she says quietly.

  As he’s leaving, she says, “People change, Jonah. They do.”

  He turns. “We’ll see,” he says. “Just make sure you take care of Sydney and Mitsy and not the other way around.”

  Sydney

  Adjusting her eyes to the dimming light, Sydney reclines on the surgical bed in the sparse clinic procedure room waiting her turn. She likes being alone in here without her mother to freak her out. Just Syd in the dark with her thoughts. She draws the thin blanket to her chin and gazes blankly at the ABC wall trim and childish cartoon art designed to cheer up the little kids. If it cheers them up or not, Syd wouldn’t know, but it has the opposite effect on her. The fact that she’s stuck staring at Dora the Explorer and the Powerpuff Girls when she should be hanging with her best friend, Zelda Rodriguez, not to mention Z’s new tattooed neighbor, Dane, makes her feel like a loser. Not that Dane knows who she is; he doesn’t. But he should.
/>   How it came to this—spending half her life in a clinic—no one seems to know. A fail of the cosmic variety is all she can conclude. A fail so epic it bypassed not only her overly vigilant parents, but also apparently, God himself. Or at least the God she used to believe in. Not that it matters, because God in the slacker department leaves Syd with only herself to rely on, which is scary, but in a way, a relief. After all, she’s not likely to let herself down. She’s going to be there for herself; it’s unavoidable. So as she watches the winter sun set between the massive mirrored buildings of the hospital extension casting geometric copper glow-lights on the ceiling, the walls, and on top of Dora the Explorer’s head like a halo, she concentrates on a game of her own invention—The Anesthesia Game. The game that keeps her alive.

  In spite of its name, the trick is not in the forgetting; it’s in the remembering. It’s in the asking and the telling, or more accurately, the retelling. To play the game properly you need a decent team of nurses and anesthesiologists, no downers or overly efficient professional types, especially if you play the game as often as Syd does. To be swept into the anesthesia abyss as routinely as that, is to lose too much of a short life. She’s only fifteen. She shouldn’t have to play anesthesia games at all, never mind this often, but whatever. She tries not to waste time feeling sorry for herself. She already knows life isn’t fair. Get over it. If you’re going to survive, you have to turn it into a game you have a chance of winning, a game that makes up for lost time. A game that teaches you how to be awake even when you’re not.

  The rules are simple. Just before the anesthesia is administered, the nurse or doctor asks you about a place anywhere on earth, and you answer it. If you don’t know the answer, they can tell you, no problem. It’s not cheating. But not knowing the answer right off can make it harder. Your job is to lock it in the airtight safe of your brain and remember it when you wake up. For Syd this involves taking the slim thread of that answer and spinning it into a giant quilt of a tale while she’s unconscious. Not a dream exactly, because it has more form than that, more weight. But more like a movie you can walk through and everything you touch turns real.