Monday - Chapter 9
Warden George Carmichael returns home from work to a reminder of his wife’s former affliction and the deal he made to cure her of it.
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George Carmichael pulled into his driveway a few minutes after five. The rain hadn’t eased a drop since the morning and gathered in murky puddles across the lawn, washing out three thousand dollars worth of landscaping. It was his wife’s passion project, a necessary distraction he found impossible to refuse.
Not that George refused much. He’d given in on the garage Nicole demanded fifteen years ago when he first showed her the house a mile north of the prison. He bought her the most expensive security system they could afford.
As the garage door ratcheted down, the dark sky flickered with lightning that would soon topple trees like twigs. The wind rocked the tall pines with unsettling creaks. If the lone Japanese maple out back stayed up, George would take the rest without a complaint.
Nicole usually waited for him at the table with a book or magazine, her soft smile peeking over the pages as she asked about his day. As George opened the door from the garage into the kitchen, her empty chair spiked dread through his gut.
George dropped his keys on the counter. “Nicole?”
She didn’t answer.
George passed through the hallway and called again from the bottom of the stairs. Silence evolved his dread into full-blown panic. He took the stairs two at a time, freezing as he rounded into the upstairs hall. At the end of it, a door stood open. His door. George wanted to sit on the top step until the empty feeling passed but instead continued forward to his dead son’s bedroom.
At the window, Nicole stood with her back to him, her shoulders slumped as George found her many times before. She used to drift from room to room, never still more than a minute. An aspiring ghost, wasting away to nothing. It took ten years for her to gain the weight back.
Don’t do this to me, George begged whoever listened, fists squeezed until they ached. He dragged his feet over the threshold. The floor creaked, but she didn’t move.
Marcus was seventeen his last morning alive. He’d complained of a headache, but there was a test that day, so Nicole refused to let him miss school. They had a huge fight. She won.
The school nurse called just after ten to let her know. Marcus wrote his name on the exam and fell out of his desk. An ambulance was on its way to take him to the hospital, but the aneurysm killed him before it arrived.
George never blamed Nicole. If she’d given in, Marcus would have died at home. But she couldn’t accept that it wasn’t her fault. Her last words to him were shouted. As penance, she didn’t do more than mumble for the next five years.
Her official diagnosis was severe depression. George drove Nicole to appointments in Durham and Chapel Hill and force-fed her pills, but nothing helped. Then, one day at the prison, the on-site psychiatrist referred him to a local doctor who retired in 2000. He was once considered the best hypnotherapist in the state.
The colors in Marcus’s room were a distraction. Posters on the wall. Books on the shelf. A bright, swirled pattern on the bedspread. George held his breath as he put a hand on Nicole’s shoulder, exhaling relief when she leaned back against him. Together, they stared at the Japanese maple in the center of the backyard.
“What are you doing in here?” George asked.
“If he was alive, he’d be twenty-two and out of college. What do you think he’d be doing? Working or traveling the world before he settles down?”
“I don’t know.”
George kissed Nicole’s neck where it curved to her collarbone. She trembled and pulled away.
In her first hypnosis session with Garrett Richards, Nicole became her old self again. She talked about her guilt and shame, the personal Hell burning inside her. She apologized to George for the pain she caused him but believed it was exactly what she deserved. Sobbing, George retreated to the doctor’s back porch.
After the session, Dr. Richards joined George outside.
She still has far to go, he said. I doubt she’ll remember much of what she said here, but the fact that she said it should give her some relief. That’s all I’m doing here, installing a pressure valve so she can let go of some of those feelings she’s holding inside.
Garrett Richards was the first person who gave George any hope. In the next two sessions, he made progress with Nicole, more than all the other doctors combined, but he died before he finished his work. At the funeral, George saw his last chance at happiness lying in a coffin. It was also the day he met the man’s son.
George left Nicole by the window and slouched down the hall to their bedroom. He traded his suit for a polo and tan slacks, then sat on the bed.
The floorboards announced Nicole’s approach. George forced a smile as she opened the door.
“I didn’t get around to starting dinner,” she said. “Do you want me to make you something?”
“I have a meeting. I’ll eat later.”
Nicole pouted. “You just got home.”
Waving her into the room, George stood and kissed her down-turned lips. “I’d skip it if I could. This shouldn’t take long.”
With a soft smile, Nicole relented. “I guess I understand.”
George slipped his hands around Nicole’s waist and tugged her closer for another kiss. She didn’t appear to remember anything. He wondered what she’d think of him if she did.
Nobody knew what they were dealing with. They saw what Grady did to those prisoners but understood that kind of danger. It was before he ripped out Barker’s eye and forced Doc Jacobi to stab a pen into his own neck. Before anyone met Wolgiss.
He revealed himself to George first, saying the exact words he needed to hear. I can give you everything it took away, but I’ll need something in return.
George didn’t become warden by trusting prisoners, but he was desperate. For two weeks, he agonized over that single growled sentence. Then, one night, he sent the officers away and carried a folding chair to sit in front of Grady’s cell.
He felt like an idiot as the words left his mouth. What’s it going to take to bring her back?
Wolgiss’s smile had oozed wide. Everything I ask.
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Powerful. Evil speaks.