Chapter Two
The alarm went off at 6AM and despite no recollection of doing so, I appeared to have fallen asleep. Within seconds I had the offensive device in hand and was prepared to chuck it across the room, when I remembered after the last alarm destruction, it was my phone and I couldn’t afford a new one. Instead of throwing it, I deactivated the alarm and sat up. While I made decent money as a doctor, it was nothing compared to what it had cost to get there and iPhones didn’t grow on trees, despite having an apple.
Technically, I’m an optometrist, but still a doctor with all the debt and bragging rights. I turned to get Fawkes out of bed so we can get our morning stroll in before work. As usual, he had wrapped himself in the covers like a burrito and was audibly mumbling. I felt like Cinderella and said in my best imitation, “Get up, you say, time to start another day.”
Fawkes didn’t budge.
“If you aren’t out of bed by the time I’m dressed we won’t go to the park,” I said. A chorus of grumbles came from the burrito. “Five minutes,” I warned. Grabbing my leggings, sports bra and shirt I went into the bathroom. I walked back out of the bathroom when I remembered the coffee pot was set to brew automatically. I went 2 feet to the left and entered my kitchen to start the day properly. Mug in hand, I went back to the bathroom.
True to my word, I was back next to the bed five minutes later. I had dressed in dog walking clothing, put on shoes and was working on my second cup of coffee, which I’d put in a travel mug. Fawkes had his eyes open, but they were slits and his white chin fur was exposed as he refused to look at me.
“Now or never, Monster,” I warned, grabbing his leash off the shelf. Grudgingly, with a lot of exaggerated stretching and yawning, he got off the bed and sidled up to my side. Drama queen defined in four legs and amber eyes. I clipped the leash on and we walked out the front door.
We lived within walking distance of two parks, the closest being Jonas Larkspur and that was our usual haunt in the mornings. If I got up early and we were ready to run, we’d hustle to the Howe Community Park and take in the trees. Fawkes looked a little stiff this morning and I was going on maybe two hours of sleep, so we went to Jonas.
It was an easy walk, down Howe and over on Northrop. Fawkes took in the smells while I steadily sipped on my coffee and avoided making eye contact with those I passed. It was much easier in sunglasses, which after the second person muttered something about a rude millennial, I realized I’d forgotten. After a quick scan, I crossed the street to avoid a group of power walking seniors. Their jogging suits in primary colors and floral prints were usually a cheerful sight, but the loss in their gaze was often too much for me. The senior living facility was up Fulton and I saw them out most every morning, keeping healthy to stave off the inevitable death but it came for their rank nonetheless. The determination in their eyes this morning said another had fallen.
“Well that’s just morbid, isn’t it Fawkes?” I muttered. “Most of those seniors will probably outlive me.”
Fawkes didn’t reply. Head down he just kept moving in the direction of the park. For some reason he always held his bowels until we reached the park. I often suspected he did this to make sure we didn’t turn around and skip it as soon as he went. My dog was well aware of my propensity toward laziness and it made me proud he knew my limits.
We moved a little quicker.
The park loop was quick and after a couple throws of his beloved orange Chuck-It ball, Fawkes was done with both the game and the park. I stuffed the ball back in my pocket and we headed home to get ready for the day: him napping on the bed and me working. It was a pretty sweet trade off, except that I had to go to work and Fawkes likes to drool on my pillow.
At home, he hopped back up on the bed while I hustled around doing the shower, make up, maintaining appropriate levels of caffeine, thing. I sat down on my bed to tug on my buttery faux leather boots and realized I was missing pants.
“Huh, did I have pants and lose them or did I just forget them?” I asked Fawkes. He raised an eyebrow at me, then the other, before just closing his eyes and putting his head down on his paw. “Must not have had them,” I said to myself, then reached over to the dresser for a comfortable pair of black slacks. Once those were on, I grabbed the boots again and checked the mirror.
I had remembered my bra, shirt, pants and boots. A check inside the pants verified I was still wearing undies and a check in my boots confirmed I had also remembered socks.
Today was going good so far.
I grabbed my cross body bag and checked the contents. It had keys, wallet, lip gloss, lipstick, lip balm, sunglasses, sunscreen, planner, and allergy medicine. I was pretty impressed I’d found everything and gotten it back in there after dumping the bag off the table last night. I had a middle of the night sudden and irrational need to crochet a hat, which then led to crocheting coasters, a scarf and sock-style ear warmers for Fawkes that he refused to wear. I stuffed the scarf in my bag to give to my supervisor and headed out the door after a kiss on my old dog’s head.
Arden-Arcade is a tree lined, predominately white, suburb of Sacramento. The area still bore the city name, but it couldn’t be farther from a bustling metropolitan area or state capitol. The streets were tree-lined, the park abundant, and the general feel of home permeated. It was also a convenient place to live and work without a car. I hadn’t been able to get mine repaired after the minor incident where I rear-ended a semi.
So minor might be an understatement. The car was totaled and I decided it would be cheaper to not have a car than pay the new premium that came with another at-fault accident. I was trying to avoid hitting something small, maybe a dog, who was running towards my car. Apparently, the motor vehicle masters think you should hit animals and avoid other cars. I say save the critters.
Which is why I no longer drive.
The five-block walk to the Fulton Ave Target was pleasant before 8AM and I often found myself regretting when the walk was over and I had to reorient myself to reality. Today I had been fantasizing they’d build a Dutch Bros with a walk up window along my route so I could get coffee and Fawkes could have all the pup cups his tummy could handle. We’d both be so fat, well more than I already was. At least, one could infer I was fat according to rude shouts from passing bicycles shouting I “move my fat ass”. It might be worth it to have Dutch Bros every day or it might mean I had to walk in the street with the rest of the wide loads. Alas, I saw no construction and found myself at the front door to the store before I’d worked myself into a good pout over it. My pants were safe from needing to be exchanged for a size up.
Target Optical had not been my first choice when I graduated from Optometry School. I’m not sure I really had a first choice, it was more a matter of using what I paid for. I love Target and the employee discount is epic, but there is something to be said for working where you play. I often find myself leaving with more in purchases than I’d made in an hour of work and I don’t know how to control myself. Granted, most of the purchases were coffee and dog toys, but I’m not sure the fact that I would buy them anyway counted for much. Fulton Ave had been the only Target store hiring in a tolerably cooler area when I graduated from the Western University of Health Sciences. Despite the community’s lack of diversity, I jumped at the chance to live somewhere that wasn’t a desert. It had the added benefit of reasonably priced housing walking distance from things you might need.
Sacramento also had the added benefit of being close enough for my dad to visit while being far enough away that I wasn’t “the sheriff’s kid”. My dad had gotten the promotion a few years after the dog fighting ring had been broken up. I may have helped his career by visiting him at work and using my special brand of interrogation on some in custody people. It was never anything major, mostly domestic violence and robbery cases, but it meant a lot to both of us when we could stop a death from happening. Seeing the clear anger and intent in the eyes of perpetrators helped vindicate the need to use my gift. I only helped with one victim, a little girl who’d been molested and I wasn’t going to do that again.
The number one reason I don’t work in law enforcement: I can’t take on that kind of pain from others. Nope, I was done helping fight crime. My last contribution to society in that regard was in college. I could see the intention of drunken frat boys leading inebriated women up to their rooms, and the primal destructive entitlement in their eyes. I pretended to be more than one mostly unconscious woman’s roommate ushering her out and away from the danger zone. After a while I was denied entry into parties so I collected wigs. The truth is that I could have pulled on a hoodie and baseball cap, but wigs were more fun. I could take on a character, be someone else and save my classmates from some emotional scarring.
My undergraduate Cal State Bakersfield campus bragged about the drop in violent crimes the years I was there, but we all knew it wasn’t because of their policies. It was my sheer force of will that kept so many women and men from getting damaged in that regard. Frat boys were the easiest to read, but some other characters still left me uncertain if I’d done the right thing. It was impossible not to regret letting someone walk away only to learn they’d hurt someone else. One victim saved doesn’t save them all, but I’m also only one person. My sense of responsibility is often greater than my physical limitations.
The mornings after I relived the fire were always the most frustrating. I’d spend hours reliving and re-evaluating everyone I’d lost. Everyone that I hadn’t saved, hadn’t even known, that I couldn’t help, would drift in and out of my mind. It was a sea of faces in a never ending line.
“Stop, your job is vision. You can’t help people see when you’re seeing things,” I muttered to myself. I was in the process of re-stocking exam rooms and sanitizing equipment. I rounded a corner and ran headlong into Wendy.
“Girl, you keep muttering to yourself and your lab coat is getting replaced with a different white coat. One with buckles.”
“I could use a few more hugs in my life, might as well be from me,” I said in a sing-song voice as I danced over to her. “Unless you got any extra for me?”
Her presence was always welcome and distracting. She pulled me out of my reverie better than any task could and the genuine acceptance she gave was calming.
Wendy pulled me in for a hug and whispered in my ear, “You aren’t sleeping again.”
“Oh, you know… projects,” I said with a shrug.
We’d made it to the main waiting area and just outside the doors were the first patients of the day, luckily. I made a dash for the door before she could mention the circles under my eyes that matched the hollowness in my stomach, and between not sleeping and not having breakfast, I was definitely a mess. The over-priced concealer and coffee as food strategy had done me no good and I let the patients in, following behind them to the check in counter.
“Please have a seat. We’ll be with you in a moment,” Wendy told them, booting up the desktop.
“I made you a scarf!” I proclaimed excitedly, pulling the yarn out of my purse and handing the gemstone red scarf to her. I had seen it peeking out of my bag and seized the subject change like a lifeline.
“How do you want to divide the patients today?” I added, looking over at the schedule. We rarely got appointments for either of us specifically, so every day we played choose your own adventure with the list.
“First of all, thank you. It’s as beautiful as the last 5 you made me when you went off the deep end for not sleeping. I still don’t wear scarves, honey. Second, I have that backlog of paperwork and order filling, not to mention the phone calls. All the patients are yours today, baby doll. There’s only about a dozen.”
Crap.
“Can I do the paperwork and orders? Please? You know how I feel about the public and my handwriting exercises are really helping!” I begged, looking into her chocolate brown eyes. The memories she flashed to had me laughing along with her. We both knew that not only was my penmanship still atrocious, my customer service skills were equally shoddy. It was simply a matter of who would be easier to convince to stop yelling at me on any given day. Customers seemed more forgiving of awkward optometrists than vendors were of having to fill prescriptions a second time.
“No way, girl! The last time you filled out the paperwork for orders, Mr. Robinson got pink cat eye glasses with rhinestones.”
“Who makes the black manly frames one letter different from the pink rhinestone ones? Besides, I still think they would have looked amazing on him if he’d bothered to try them on,” I said defensively.
“Honey, he is a former Navy Seal working as a contract security agent. He has more guns than your daddy and we both know that is saying something. I swear I saw his balls get sucked into his pelvis when you pulled the frames out in front of his coworker,” she said, laughing so hard at the memory she had to grip the counter that held the appointment computer.
“Whatever! He was being a giant man baby. If he can’t wear pink, he doesn’t need balls!” I said, the last word coming out a little louder than I intended for emphasis. Sadly, the two patients in the waiting area heard and both turned to stare at me. The man and woman couple both looked more amused than offended, a minor relief.
“I was telling Dr. Williams here that the beach balls were recently marked down to clearance and on an end cap near toys,” I sputtered quickly, stepping on her foot to keep the laughter in check.
Dr. Wendy Williams was a 6-foot, 5-inches African American woman who was solidly built and had the most gorgeous chocolate brown eyes I had ever seen. Usually filled with kindness, it was hard to see her as Walter, who she had been before the transition. Walter had been grouchy and frustrating. He was before my time, but the eyes of everyone I’d met had shown him as tightly wound as a spool of thread about to snap. No one had wanted to work with Walter. Wendy was a delight and the most amazing woman to work for. No one questioned that. She had a no nonsense approach to customers and store management alike that was easy to defend and easier to agree with. It was Wendy alone who sealed the deal on giving Sacramento a try.
She also gave the best hugs, but right now she was busying herself not looking at me.
“Do you both have appointments today?” I asked with a wide smile and enough false sweetness to give me a toothache.
“No,” the man answered. “Just Julia here. Get up, woman.”
He rose, taking her arm and thrusting her forward. She half rose and stumbled on the purse she’d placed at her feet, falling forward and colliding with a freestanding display of glasses. The display shook and a few pairs fell to the floor. She fumbled trying to not step on them and lost her balance, holding a hand out to the man for help. He shoved it away.
“Pick them up you blind, blundering mess of a woman,” he snarled through clenched teeth. “This is why you need new glasses, walking into walls and displays.” The smile was actually a sneer and the dig had landed based on the stiffness in Julia’s spine.
“There’s no need for that,” I said, stepping between the man and wife and taking the hand he’d shoved away. Instinctively, I blocked Julia from her husband’s view with my 225 lbs. and 5-foot 10-inch body. Hot on my heels, I found Wendy standing by my side in defense of the woman. We stood shoulder to shoulder effectively hiding Julia from the man’s malicious gaze.
“Maybe you should walk around the store while Julia has her appointment, sugar,” Wendy said with a casual tone that belied the hatred underpinning her body language.
“She’s clumsy. Always walking into things. Isn’t my fault,” he muttered as he sauntered out of the store. He was wearing baggy jeans and a green button down with the sleeves pushed up to reveal some prison style tattoos. As he’d almost exited the roll up gate into the store, he turned over his shoulder to glare menacingly at Julia and made unflinching eye contact with me instead.
Anger, self-loathing and delight filled my mind as it had filled his eyes. He enjoyed her pain and found her perceived inadequacies unacceptable. Flashes of violence blocked my vision and I stumbled blindly, hearing the crunch of a lens frame beneath my boots. As I crashed to the floor, I saw her body lying crumpled and bloody near a suitcase. She’d been trying to leave, and a two-inch cut along the side of her head lined up with the stone coffee table. He’d pushed her and she’d fallen onto the table, her chest no longer rising and falling.
“Stay seated, sugar,” Wendy said. I’d fallen to my knees, clutching the broken pair of frames, and breathing shallow and ragged. I inhaled deeply to steady myself but couldn’t seem to get enough air. I had fallen into a vacuum without any air.
“I’m fine,” I whispered, as she pressed my water bottle into my hand. When she walked away to grab it from behind the counter was a complete mystery and I accepted that I may have lost a few moments of time.
“You will be after you take a sip,” Wendy persisted. I did as I was told. “Dr. Ampersand just needs a moment. Let me get you checked in.”
“I can pay for the frames. It’s my fault that they were on the floor,” she said shakily, hand trembling toward her purse.
“Never mind that, honey,” she took her hand and patted it kindly. “Target will claims-out the frames like they did the last time Dr. Ampersand broke something.”
“It wasn’t my fault!” I said, standing to defend myself on shaky knees. “Who thought it was a good idea to put the display model in the doorway?”
“It’s a 15-foot doorway, dear. Everyone else managed to walk around and through the door just fine. Only you need 15 complete feet of clearance to make it through a door. Even then, you still walk into the door frame. I’d question your glasses prescription if I hadn’t filled it myself.”
I opened my mouth. Then closed it again. Raised my arm to start again and saw the newly forming outline of a bruise. I had an unfortunate habit of walking into things that left my arms, legs and chest permanently bruised. While I was juvenile enough to deny everything, I was too tired to be confronted with examples that confirmed her statements.
“I have excessive gravity,” I muttered, but no one was paying attention.
“Last name?” Wendy asked Julia, standing in front of the computer.
“Stillwell,” she replied, seeming more at ease and showing the barest trace of a smile at the humiliation I had not managed to keep off my face. “Do you get hit by parked cars, too?”
“Only the malicious ones,” I said, grabbing her file and escorting her back to the testing area where we check eye pressure and peripheral vision.
“I don’t think cars can be malicious,” she laughed. It was such a beautiful sound but it was definitely rusty. My embarrassment gave way to sadness that the world could be deprived of that sound by a man the world certainly didn’t need.
You can’t decide who lives and who dies, I chided myself, but I’m not sure I meant it, or believed it.
“Have you seen Christine? Everything can be malicious,” I added. It was matter of fact, but dripping with meaning.
“Fred isn’t…” she trailed off on a shrug and I knew that defending him had become second nature. She was realizing there was nothing to defend, but the habit was hard to break. “He’s having a rough year. Since the wedding three years ago, he’s lost his job and the Dodgers beat the Giants last season.”
“None of that makes it OK to hurt you.” I kept my voice soft. I wanted to reach out to touch her arm, offer some sort of comfort or reassurance, but she made square eye contact with me and the fear hit like a punch to the gut. I stumbled back from the force and sat heavily on the stool. For the second time that morning, I saw her form lying lifeless near a suitcase in a small apartment. She already knew he would kill her eventually and my breath caught in my throat.
Why the hell is breathing so hard? Shouldn’t it happen on its own? I thought.
“Why don’t you have a seat and we’ll see about keeping your eyes top notch,” I babbled, mentally slapping myself for top notch. Who the heck says top notch? We transitioned to the left from machine to machine before we walked wordlessly into the exam room. She had closed off from me as I examined her eyes, so we went over her medical history and past injuries.
“None,” she said flatly when I’d ask about concussions or other skull related trauma. She was obviously lying, but this wasn’t an interrogation or a surgical procedure. I had no reason to challenge her on her own medical history, but holding my tongue was not a skill I possessed so I popped a stick of gum in when I opened my mouth. I chewed slowly and steadily as I tookher in, under the pretense of writing in her chart and prepping the instruments.
Julia had fragile platinum blonde hair, a quarter inch of roots showing the color wasn’t natural, but not far off her ash blonde. Her frame was wilted, like she’d lost more weight than was healthy recently and her posture was suffering for the loss. Light bruising was visible on the back of her neck, almost the exact shape of fingers but possibly explained away by massaging. More bruises peeked out from the hem of her shirtsleeve when she reached down to place her phone in her purse. Again, nothing more egregious than the ones on my arms from walking into things. Her eyes, hooded and sunken like a prisoner who has lost hope, seemed to have the least life of anyone I’d met who was still breathing.
No, I wasn’t going to be able to let this go.
I spat my gum into the trashcan and tugged the eyeglass machine to the front of her face.
“Have you called the police?” Gently, using my wounded animal voice.
“No,” she said. Her eyes darted to the exam chart and the door before landing back on me. “He said… that he was sorry. I burned the food and he was hungry but he’s sorry. The police came by before. They made a report but he played it well. I don’t want to lose our cat.”
“Your cat?”
“We have a cat, grey, his name is Smokey. He is my pet from when I was a teenager. When my parents died two years ago he came to live with us. Fred was mad that the money went into a trust. He was… hoping for it? Maybe to stop working but then he stopped working anyway. It’s… Smokey is all I have and he’s too old to move around.” Her voice had gone from concerned to worry to resolve in the course of her statement and I knew she would stay strong for her cat. I also knew with the California Justice System as it was, even if he was arrested, he’d be out on bail and could have her and her cat 6 feet under before his first hearing.
“Oh,” I stated softly. Not sure what to say or do. “If he was taken in, you could get away though. There are shelters that accept pets…”
Julia was shaking her head at me. She wasn’t going to relocate her cat or herself. The sheer terror and helplessness rolling off of her in waves caught in my throat and held my voice prisoner. So I nodded and conducted the exam, noting that her vision was essentially the same but she had a developing astigmatism and may want to update her prescription glasses to improve her peripheral vision.
We walked out to the waiting area and I showed her a selection of frames that looked similar to her old ones when Fred walked in.
“What’s wrong with your old glasses? We can’t spend more money on your clumsiness.”
I smoothly stepped between them, again, and said, “The glasses are covered by her insurance so there is no reason for her not to see properly. Good vision never hurt anyone. Seeing what is right in front of them so they can avoid it,” I added, knowing I wasn’t being smart or careful. It’s not your life the voice reminded me.
“Let’s head to the register and get these sent out. They should be ready in two weeks,” I added with a smile to Julia. After typing in the information and verifying the phone number and address, I had her frames in a tray with her new prescription and was closing out of her information when I hesitated. I hit minimize instead of closing it.
“See you in two weeks,” I said, a smile not meeting my eyes as they slid to Fred. The monster was smirking and I had a terrible feeling that two weeks would be too late. Julia was going to need help and soon.
“Thank you,” she smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes either. “I’m off to work. See you in two weeks.”
She shook my hand, and then turned to Fred and rose on tip toes to give him a light kiss, her left hand on his right shoulder, the wedding band glinting in the store’s light. Without a word, she walked out of the Optical door and into the parking lot.
Fred stared at me, long and hard.
“You’re meddling, doctor. It’s not a good idea to meddle in other people’s lives,” he sneered and the jagged points of his canines reflected the yellow fluorescent lights with a sickly hue. “You worry about you, yeah?”
He turned and exited back through the store, reusable shopping bag swinging from his hand as he whistled softly to himself. I could just make it out before an overhead page sounded.
It was Taps.
I pressed the paper feed button on the receipt dispenser and tore off the small slip. Restoring the window with Julia’s information, I copied the address and the home phone number just to be safe. Wordlessly, I folded it and slipped it into my right front pocket. Then I closed out of the window and turned to greet whoever had come up behind me.
Wendy stood there, looking after Fred and then meeting my gaze before glancing down to my pocket.
“Use a knife,” she said, gesturing to the housewares department situated in front of the optical center. “They are less traceable than a gun.” Then she turned on her heel and walked away.
I heard Caleb in my mind then: Don’t let the monsters destroy who you are. “I won’t,” my voice trembled, but I turned to greet my next patient with the weight of the address in my pocket.