Page 59 of The Girl from Widow Hills
CHAPTER 17
Monday, 5:30 p.m.
HELLO?” I CALLED, STEPPINGinto Dr. Cal’s outer office. His secretary seemed to have left for the day already. Maybe there’d been some wires crossed. Maybe I wasn’t on the final calendar. Maybe the mistake with the appointment was his and not mine.
“Come on in!” Dr. Cal’s smooth voice called from his inner office, door partly ajar once more. “Sit, sit,” he said, with his too-wide smile and too-white teeth. He crossed his ankle over his leg, in that same chair, and I checked his socks. Orange. Pumpkins, maybe? It was still August.
“I know it’s a little early for the season,” he said, shaking his foot, “but fall is always my favorite time of year.”
I had no idea what I was doing here, and he wasn’t giving me any hints. “Um, I wasn’t sure why you needed to see me, and I’m on my way out, have to be somewhere soon . . .”
“Right,” he said, planting both feet firmly on the ground. He grabbed a folder beside him, opened it up, twisted it my way.
He held himself very still. His demeanor was making me nervous.
The form appeared to be a disclaimer, with my name and birth date already filled in. Something about a sleep study, best practice recommendations, a release of liability—
He cleared his throat. “I forgot to have you sign this when you were here, when you opted out of doing a sleep study.”
I tilted my head. Had I? He’d mentioned one, and I’d put it off, saying I didn’t have the time right then—I wouldn’t have said my response was official in any way.
“It’s standard,” he said, handing me a pen.
“Sure,” I said, adding my signature. He’d left the date open, and I hastily scribbled it in. I wasn’t sure why he was calling me in so urgently over this.
He flipped the folder closed, took a slow breath, shoulders relaxing. “Have you been keeping that journal, like we discussed?” he asked.
“Not yet. I’ve had a few rough nights.”
His face darkened, and then I knew for sure he’d heard. “My secretary told me there was an emergency the other night. Are you okay?”
“I’m okay,” I said.
He looked down at my knee, at the way I held my leg out straight to keep the stitches from pulling. I could walk without a limp, but I was being cautious—not wanting to pull anything apart before it had fully healed.
“Is that from . . .” He let the thought trail.
“I tripped,” I said.
He drummed his pointer finger against his knee, the pace increasing. “Were you—did you—was it like you mentioned last time? That you woke up outside?”
“No,” I said firmly. “I tripped because I found a body in the dark.”
His face was impossible to read, no emotion behind it. “That must’ve been terrible,” he finally said, like he was trying on empathy for the first time.
“It was,” I said.
He sat back in his chair, the folder still in his lap. “Olivia, these things we were discussing, it’s hard to determine what the diagnosis is without a sleep study. Whether you could be a danger to yourself or those around you.”
I stared at him blankly until he cracked first, looking down, making some useless note.
The twenty-year anniversary approaching, the panic of being found and put on display for others to pick apart. The night terrors becoming something more . . . Anything I said now would indeed end up in some medical file. If it got to that, a detective asking for the records, subpoenaing them somehow, I wanted there to be a record of this, too.
“Must’ve been extra stress, like you said,” I offered.
He let out a slow sigh, like he was relieved. “Good, good.” He put the folder on his desk, patting it once.
I could’ve laughed. It was the first time I’d found him truly funny.
