Perfect Strangers

One year later

When the phone call comes, it’s raining outside.

I’m in the hospital bed Chris installed in the living room because the mechanical whirr of my ventilator disturbs his sleep. As I watch through the patio doors, the rain slides down the glass in meandering silver streams, like tears. Twilight is falling, but hasn’t quite engulfed the yard yet: the grass reflects glints of the setting sun. The mulberry trees shimmer and gleam.

It’s a gentle rain. Soft and melancholy, blue and misty, the perfect backdrop against which to die.

At least I hope it will happen tonight. I can’t bear the thought of another day of living.

Another day of living without James.

I was never able to crack the code, you see. Whatever trigger pushed me off the cliff into insanity and my visit to Rockland, I haven’t been able to reproduce it.

With Kelly’s help, I’ve spent twelve months researching the known causes of psychosis, poring over thousands of individuals’ cases in medical journals, reading everything I could find online on the subject.

But all that I discovered agreed with what Edmond told me: psychosis is a slow slide, not an abrupt snap. Almost always, a psychotic episode is preceded by gradual, progressive changes in a person’s thoughts and functioning that can take anywhere from several months to several years.

And in the few cases where psychosis did seem to occur without any outward signs or triggers, the cause remained a mystery.

It’s a terrible thing, living without hope. It’s the worst thing imaginable. A person can survive even the most brutal physical or emotional trauma if they believe—somehow, some way—there will be an end to it. But when there’s no light at the end of the tunnel, when every day is a cold, black, unending road of misery and hope is only a faint memory you once had, the only thing that can help is death.

For people in my position, death is a friend we wait for. The merciful friend whose face we long to see.

I’ve been waiting for quite some time now. I don’t remember if it was after my throat muscles stopped working and the feeding tube was inserted into my stomach or after my lungs stopped working and the breathing tube went into my neck. Either way, I’m waiting for death to come and set me free from this wasted body and release me into the sweet relief of nothingness.

Maria answers the phone somewhere in the house. Her murmuring mingles with the patter of the rain. Then she’s walking toward me with the cordless phone in her hand.

“There’s a call for you,” she says softly, bending over the bed. “Do you want to take it?”

I can’t nod or shake my head because the muscles that control those motions are paralyzed, but I can still blink. Our system is simple: one blink for yes, two for no.

I blink once. What the hell, let’s see who wants me so late in the game.

Maria presses the speaker button on the phone. “I’m here with Olivia now, Ms. Perkins. You’re on speaker. Go ahead.”

Andrea Perkins is the literary agent Kelly found to represent my book. She knew a guy who knew a guy who worked at a literary agency, and she asked him if someone at his company might be interested in taking a look at my story. As it turns out, one of their agents—Andrea—had recently sold the true account of a woman who had an inflammation of the brain so severe her doctors thought she was suffering from schizophrenia and committed her to a psychiatric ward.

The book was an instant bestseller. The acquiring editor at the publishing house Andrea sold it to was in the market for a follow-up hit.

As I was a complete unknown with no publishing cred, I didn’t get an advance. Chris bitched and moaned about that, but I didn’t care. The money never mattered to me.

Having other people meet James did.

I wanted them to love James, too, so he could live on in their memories the way he lives on so vividly in mine. That’s the only way we can ever achieve immortality. Love is what binds us together eternally, the only thing that survives after death…or the end of a psychotic episode.

And if you laugh that I think my love for James is as real as your love for your spouse or partner, just remember where love truly exists—in the mind.

“Hi, Olivia! I hope I’m not calling too late.”

This evening, Ms. Perkins sounds happy. I don’t read anything into her bright tone, because she’s always like that. She has the personality of a terrier: smart, loyal, and easily excitable. I like her a lot.

“I just wanted to share some incredible news with you. You’ll find out formally tomorrow when the lists are published, but…” She squeals in excitement. “Until September is a New York Times bestseller! In its first week out! Isn’t that amazing?”

It is. I wish I could jump up and down and start screaming, but my heart is doing it for me, so that will have to be enough.

Maria exclaims loudly in German. Either she’s happy or she just spotted a stain on the carpet. Sometimes it’s hard to tell.

Andrea says, “I’ll let you go, I just wanted to be the first to share the great news. Fantastic job, Olivia! We’re so proud of you.”

It’s ironic that she’s proud of me for being a head case and inventing a grand love affair, but she’s getting fifteen percent of the proceeds, so I suppose it makes sense.

“We’ll be in touch. Thank you, Maria. Talk to you both soon.”

She clicks off. Maria hits the End button on the portable. Then we stare at each other in amazement as night creeps into the room.

Chris wanders in from the garage. He’s talking on his cell phone, his head bent, his voice low. “Yeah, I know, honey. I love you, too. Just a little longer. No, I told you, I’ll sell the house after she’s—”

Dead.

He doesn’t say it because he just realized Maria and I are within earshot. He freezes in guilt, but the word still hangs there in the air.

He tiptoes down the hall toward the master bedroom, closing the door quietly behind him.

Maria glares in the direction he went. “If you want, Maria will smother him in his sleep with a pillow.” She looks back at me, her eyes blazing hellfire. “He is very puny. It won’t be much trouble at all.”

God, I love this woman.

But I don’t want her getting arrested for homicide, so, very deliberately, I blink twice.

She sighs. “Psh. Anyway, Maria is also very proud of you for your accomplishment.” She pats my arm. “Next you will write a murder mystery about a paralyzed woman who uses mind control to convince her caregiver to bludgeon her worthless philandering husband to death, eh? Yes. This will be another bestseller.”

She turns to leave, but turns back. “Oh—Maria bought something for you today at the nursery. You’re always looking at that poster, so hopefully you’ll like it. It’s in the car.” She heads out the front door, leaving the phone on the kitchen counter.

The poster in question is the one of the lavender fields of Provence that Kelly brought to my room in the psych ward. I took it home with me and made her put it up where I could look at it every day. It’s taped to the wall across from my hospital bed. The long purple rows of lavender glimmer mysteriously in the gathering gloom.

“There exists a field, beyond all notions of right and wrong. I will meet you there.”

I’ve remembered those words so many times. Remembered the tender look in James’s eyes when he spoke them, remembered the sound of his voice, so rich and full of love.

But until this moment, I’ve never thought of the words as a clue.

“There exists a field, beyond all notions of right and wrong. I will meet you there.”

I will meet you there.

I will meet you…there.Published by Nôv'elD/rama.Org.

In the lavender fields of Provence.

I know it’s not a malfunction of my ventilator that’s suddenly making it difficult to breathe.

Maria returns from outside with a large bundle in her arms. She kicks the front door closed with her foot then marches to my bedside with a wide grin on her face. “Tada! A lavender bush. What do you think of that?”

It’s a large plant with a profusion of showy purple buds, their stems long and silvery, the plastic container wrapped in hideous neon green cellophane. The unmistakable scent of lavender envelops me in the most beautiful, sensual cloud.

I close my eyes and let the delicate aroma fill my lungs, my heart bursting with joy because it knows, oh it knows that finally finally finally the waiting is over.

“There exists a field, beyond all notions of right and wrong. I will meet you there.”

I’ve been looking in all the wrong places. I’ve been searching for a trigger, when what I should’ve been trying to find is a much simpler thing.

The only thing that can open a locked door.

A key.

Scent is the key that unlocks our deepest memories. A single whiff of a certain perfume or freshly baked bread or even the type of mold that grew in the basement in our childhood home can transport us through time and space so we return there, to the secret place in our memory, inaccessible except through the magic of smell.

Sweet, dusky, and distinct, the fragrance of the lavender buds overwhelms me.

My nerve endings tingle. My blood rushes hot through my veins.

“There exists a field, beyond all notions of right and wrong. I will meet you there.”

Maria places the bush on the table beside my bed, admires the extravagance of the flowers for a moment, their petals arranged in perfect spirals along the thin bud, then props her hands on her hips.

“Almost as good as edelweiss.” Smiling, she turns to look at me. “Do you like it?”

I blink, once, long and slow.

“Good,” she says, drawing the bedsheets up my thin chest. “Now I will get my dinner, and then I’ll finish reading you that book Kelly left. I love that author, what’s his name? Nicholas Parks. Barks? Yes, he’s a very romantical writer. My favorite is the one where the old lady has Alzheimer’s, the husband reads to her the story of their life, and then they die together on her bed in the old folks’ home. Ah, my heart!”

She clutches her ample bosom, sighs dramatically, then waves a hand at her own silliness. “Too bad these things don’t happen in real life.”

I wish I had a voice, because I’d tell her Oh, but they do, Maria. They absolutely do.

Out in the yard in the glimmering rain, beneath the spreading branches of the mulberry tree, James stands waiting.

He’s smiling. Even through the gentle evening mist, I see how brightly his eyes burn for me. That beautiful, blazing true blue.

Maria bustles off to the kitchen to start her dinner. I hear the hum of the microwave, the gentle drum of the rain on the roof.

My gaze locked with James’s, I rise from the bed.

I walk to the patio doors, slide them open, and step outside. The cement is rough and cool under my bare feet. The fragrant evening air clings to my skin and hair. The edges of my gown drag over the wet grass as I walk, the beads of moisture gathering into a circle of deep blue at the hem, a blue darker than the fabric itself.

I stop an arm’s reach from James and gaze at him in love and wonder. Raindrops crown his dark hair, sprinkle his wide shoulders, slide in leisurely paths down the gorgeous planes of his bare chest.

I say drily, “I should’ve known you wouldn’t be wearing a shirt.”

His beautiful smile deepens. He reaches out and gathers me into the circle of his warm, strong arms. “And I should’ve known you’d be wearing this dress that almost gave me a heart attack the first time I saw you in it, sweetheart.”

Gazing up into his eyes, I wind my arms around the breadth of his shoulders and smile.

The rain tapers off. Overhead, the sun breaks through the clouds. I hear the low drone of worker bees busily gathering nectar and smell the heady scent of the lavender fields rising up from the fertile earth all around.

Behind James, their military-straight rows stretch off into the distance, glowing unearthly purple and blue in the slanting sunlight until swallowed by mist.

He whispers, “I am thee and thou art me and all of one is the other. And feel now. Thou hast no heart but mine.”

Euphoric, I laugh softly. “You need to come up with some original lines, pal. Are your script writers on vacation? You can’t rely on Hemingway forever.”

He chuckles. “Oh, yes I can.” His smile fades, and his blue eyes start to burn. In a voice thick with emotion, he says, “Forever and ever, sweetheart.”

He cradles my head in his hands and kisses me.

I don’t look over to see myself lying frail and motionless in my hospital bed in the living room, staring out into the falling rain. I simply close my eyes and lose myself in my lover’s kiss, whispering the words I know he’s waiting to hear against the smiling curve of his mouth.

“I love you.”

James whispers, “I love you, too. Until the end of time.”

It’s a vow, a solemn promise, and the fulfillment of every dream I dared to dream.

Hand in hand, we turn our backs on the melancholy rain and walk into the waiting warmth of the lavender fields.