A Five-Minute Life Read online

  Of all the foster homes I’d been bounced around since birth, I’d been in her care, if you could call it that, from the time I was ten until I turned eighteen. At twenty-four, her taunting voice still wouldn’t leave me the fuck alone. I didn’t stutter through every sentence anymore, but it still lurked under my tongue and came out to play when I was pissed off. Or nervous.

  Like job-interview-nervous.

  When I was twelve, doctors labeled my stutter a psychological disfluency: a reaction to a traumatic event, rather than physiological issues in my brain.

  “A reaction?” Doris had said with a sneer in the doctor’s office. “You saying he can’t talk right, but it’s all in his head? Pfft. He’s a big dummy, is all. This just proves it.”

  The doctor stiffened. “Has there been a traumatic incident recently?”

  “Of course not,” Doris snapped, while I wanted to scream across my tied-up tongue that yes, something had happened. Just the week before Grandpa Jack died.

  Technically, Doris’ father wasn’t my real grandfather, but he was nicer than anyone had ever been to me as I was kicked around the South Carolina foster system. He took me to Lake Murray to fish. He bought me ice cream and snuck hard candies into my hand after dinner.

  “Don’t tell your mother,” he always said.

  Mother. Doris took in foster kids for the money, not out of kindness. She sure as shit wasn’t any kind of mother. How a man like Jack had a daughter like Doris, I’d never know. He was kind. He ruffled my hair instead of pinching me and he never called me stupid. When he died, he took with him the only sliver of happiness I’d had in my twelve miserable years.

  Standing next to Doris at the funeral home, staring down into his casket, I started to cry. Doris dragged me into a side room, her fingers digging like claws into my skin. She gave me a rough shake.

  “You don’t cry about him, you hear me? He wasn’t your family.”

  “He… he was Grandpa J-Jack,” I said, my sobs breaking the words apart.

  “Not your grandpa.” Doris’ dark eyes bored into mine as if she were putting some kind of goddamn spell on me. “You don’t talk about him like he’s yours ever again. He was my father. My kin. You ain’t my kin. You’re nothing but a check in the mail every month, so stop crying.”

  I did.

  I sucked it all in, pressed it all down. Everything I’d wanted to say to Grandpa Jack got stuck somewhere behind my teeth. The grief crowded my brain and stiffened my jaw, settling into a stutter that promised years of torment from school bullies and worse abuse from the woman who was supposed to take care of me.

  Doris never took me for speech therapy or treatment of any kind. It wasn’t until seventh grade that I got any help. My teacher, Mrs. Marren, felt sorry for me and looked up some stuff on stuttering. She wasn’t a specialist, but she found some breathing techniques that helped me get through a sentence.

  Inhale the thought, exhale the words. Nice and easy, James.

  Inhale. Exhale.

  Try singing. Sometimes music can help get the words out.

  I inhaled out of the South Carolina memories and exhaled into present-day Boones Hill, Virginia. All my hopes set on a crappy little house and a job interview.

  I put my helmet back on, gunned my bike and hit the road. In fifteen minutes, I was in Southern Hills, just outside Roanoke. To the southwest, the Blue Ridge Mountains slumbered under a clear blue summer sky. I followed a winding, two-lane path up the rolling hills, surrounded by vibrant green ferns and tall trees. An antique-looking sign in old wood and ornate calligraphy came up on my left.

  “Blue Ridge Sanitarium, est. 1891”

  A newer sign with brighter paint was stuck into the soil below.

  “Specializing in long-term brain injury treatment, memory care, and rehabilitation.”

  “Whackos and head cases,” the rental guy had said. I gave him a mental middle finger. We were all whackos and head cases to a certain degree. Some were just better at hiding it. For some of us, hiding it was our life’s mission.

  I headed up the path until I came to a tall stone wall that stretched far on either side and disappeared in the woods. The wall was broken by a wide metal gate with a guard in a small outpost. I rolled up.

  “Jim Whelan,” I said. “Got a job interview.”

  A man in a light gray uniform with a security badge ironed on the front checked his clipboard.

  “Whelan… Yep. You’ll see Alonzo Waters. Ground floor. They’ll tell you where at reception. Visitor parking on the left.”

  “Thanks.”

  The gate retracted with a lot of metal scraping on metal and I rode up the paved road. In another hundred yards, I arrived at the Blue Ridge Sanitarium.

  The tall house looked like a plantation manor, which was probably what it had been until 1891. A solid, three-story mansion in red brick with white trim, fronted by four white pillars.

  I veered toward the empty visitor lot and parked the Harley. The grounds were quiet but for insects buzzing in the humidity. No one was strolling the paths or sitting on any of the stone benches that lined them.

  At the black-painted front door, a speaker box looked out of place on the old wood. I pressed the red button.

  A woman’s voice came through. “Can I help you?”

  “Jim Whelan, here to see Mr. Waters.”

  The door buzzed and clicked. I turned the knob and pushed into the sanitarium’s cool confines. Hardwood floors led to the reception area. The scent of cleaning products hung over the that of the old wood. An air-conditioning unit shared wall space with an oil painting of a bowl of fruit. The sanitarium seemed caught between being a plantation house and a healthcare facility. Maybe that was the point—to give the patients a sense of being at a home, rather than in a hospital.

  A middle-aged woman with a dark ponytail waved me over. She wore the same security uniform as the guy out in the booth. Her nametag said Jules and her eyes grazed me up and down unapologetically.

  “Well, hello handsome. Who are you here to see?”

  “Alonzo Waters.”

  Her eyes widened. “You’re here for the orderly position?”

  I nodded.

  “Huh. If you say so. You don’t look like an orderly to me. Hot doctor from one of them TV shows, maybe.”

  I didn’t return her smile but waited until she was done being obnoxious, arms crossed, my boots planted to the floor.

  “Strong, silent type,” Jules said with a small laugh, her gaze still roving. “Well, I sincerely hope you get the job. You’re a sight for sore eyes. Plus, we’re short a few orderlies since the last two moved out of town.”

  Good. If the sanitarium was short-handed, they’d be eager to hire and start me as soon as possible.

  “No chitchat?” Jules heaved a dramatic sigh. “Okay, okay. Alonzo will be in the dining hall now, straight back through the double doors. Can’t miss it.”

  “Thanks,” I said and strode where she pointed.

  “Ah, he speaks! Good luck, handsome.”

  I felt Jules’ gaze follow me and shrugged it off.

  The dining hall had white floors and walls, with tall windows letting in the June sunlight. A dozen square tables, each set for four. A man with a visible dent in his head the size of a coaster sat with a nurse at one table by the window, slowly eating soup. He gave me a hard, sharp look as I came in.

  I looked him in the eye and gave him a respectful nod. His eyebrows shot up, then he pursed his lips with a grunt and went back to his soup.

  A plump lady in a white chef’s coat stood behind a small case of pastries and salads. Coffee brewed behind her in tall silver canisters. She was talking to an older black man, who looked to be in his sixties, his hair gone gray. He wore a white, short-sleeved shirt tucked into white trousers. Black belt, black boots. A huge ring of keys jingled on his waist.

  I drew closer and the lunch lady jerked her chin at me. “Can I help you?”

  The man turned around. “You must be Jim Wh
elan,” he said.

  I nodded and offered my hand.

  “Alonzo Waters,” he said, sizing me up. “Want to be an orderly, do you?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Got a résumé?”

  I pulled two pieces of paper folded into fours from my jacket pocket. “Yes, sir.”

  “Sir,” Alonzo said with a chuckle. “You hear that, Margery?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Don’t let it go to your head.”

  “Come on, let’s sit and talk.” Alonzo led me to an empty table for four and sat across from me. “Coffee?”

  “No, thanks.”

  “Trying to cut down, myself.” Alonzo perused my résumé. “Twenty-four years old. Graduated from Webster High, South Carolina. Straight to work at the Richmond Rehab Clinic for… six years?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Why’d you quit? Or did you get fired?”

  “It shut down.” I cleared my throat and indicated my résumé. “There’s a letter of recommendation on the back, there.”

  “Oh yes, here it is.” Alonzo leaned back and read the letter from my former supervisor. “Wow. Says here you were an ‘exemplary employee’ and that he wishes he’d had ten just like you.” He folded his hands on his stomach and looked at me. “Not bad, not bad. RRC was for drug addicts. How’d that go for you?”

  “Good.”

  “Care to elaborate?”

  Don’t fuck this up. Just talk.

  “I showed up on time,” I said. “Never missed a day.”

  I let out a breath. No stutter on a sentence that had three of my worst consonants. D, n, m, s, and f were my nemeses, but d was the King Dick of them all. My stuttering over Doris’ name drove her batshit crazy, so she’d smack me on the back of my head. “Spit it out, you big d-d-dummy.”

  “What about patient interaction?”

  “Not much,” I said. “I did my job.”

  “You ever deal with brain injury cases?”

  I shook my head.

  “I worked in all kinds of facilities, myself,” he said. “Drug rehab too. And I can tell you these brain injuries are a whole different ball of wax. Drug addicts, for one thing, are still themselves. That ain’t always the case here. We have twenty-seven residents at Blue Ridge and some of them ain’t all there anymore.” He tapped his forehead. “You have to learn their case histories. How to talk to them properly. The slightest wrong words could set them off or confuse them. Can you handle that?”

  “I think so.”

  I hardly had to speak at all at RRC, which was why I liked the job. But the idea of participating in the patients’ care at Blue Ridge tried to reawaken a distant dream of mine—to help kids like me with speech impairments. Kids who felt stupid and frustrated every damn minute of their life. It was a dream born of my stutter but that died with it too.

  Who wanted their stuttering kid to be treated by a stuttering therapist?

  No one, that’s who, you big dummy, Doris offered.

  “Contrary to local rumor,” Alonzo was saying, “this isn’t a psychiatric hospital. None of the residents—residents, not patients—are here for emotional issues. They’re all here because of injury. Accidents, mostly. But everyone here is suffering from permanent brain damage. Our job is to help them adjust to their new reality.”

  “Okay.”

  Alonzo leaned back in his chair, folded his hands over his stomach. “Why do you want to work here, son?”

  A thousand professional-sounding, bullshit answers rose to my mouth and tangled up.

  I inhaled slowly and exhaled the truth.

  “I want to help.”

  Alonzo studied me through narrowed eyes, then glanced down at my résumé. “You settled in pretty deep at RRC. Made yourself at home, did you?”

  Made myself a home.

  “Why not go to college? You want to clean up after sick people for the rest of your life?”

  I shrugged.

  He pursed his lips. “Don’t say much do you?”

  “Not much.”

  “Lucky you, workers standing around yapping is one of my biggest gripes.” He extended his hand. “All kidding aside, this letter of rec makes it clear I’d be an idiot not to take you. Jim Whelan, you’re hired.”

  I eased a sigh of relief and shook his hand. “Thank you, sir.”

  “Only call me sir in front of Margery,” he said with a wink. “Otherwise just Alonzo. I’m friendly, but I run a tight ship. This place has rules on top of rules to keep the residents safe and comfortable. Breaking them is a one-way ticket out the door. You got that?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “All right then.” Alonzo rose to his feet, and I did the same. “Let’s go sign some paperwork, then you be here Monday morning. Seven a.m. sharp. That work for you?”

  I nodded. “I lined up a place in Boones Mill. I’ll get moved in this weekend.”

  “Good,” Alonzo said. “I’ll be needing you to cover breakfast, lunch, exercise, and afternoon recreation. You’ll be trained on the duties as you go. We lost two fellas at the same time, so I’m going to need you to think on your feet.”

  “I’ll do my best.”

  I signed the paperwork then we said our goodbyes.

  “Monday, seven a.m.,” Alonzo said. “Sharp.”

  I headed back toward the foyer. Jules had left the front desk, but the room wasn’t empty.

  A young woman with wavy blond hair stood by the wall, studying the oil painting next to the AC unit. She was shorter than my six feet by a good five inches. Slender. Dressed in shapeless khaki pants, a plain beige shirt, and loafers.

  She looked around as my booted steps echoed around the foyer. Large blue eyes in a heart-shaped face watched me approach. A full-lipped smile lit up her delicate features and my goddamn pulse quickened.

  “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” she asked, nodding her head at the painting. “The way the light falls over the curve of the apple. How it gives the grapes that shine.”

  I moved to stand beside her. “Looks like fruit to me.”

  She laughed. “It is fruit. It’s the essence of the fruit. A gorgeous rendering of something so simple. The light revealing the life within.”

  “You sound like you know what you’re talking about.”

  “I like to think so. I’m an artist. A painter.” Her crystal-blue eyes, fringed with dark lashes, rose to meet mine. “You’re the first person I’ve seen. What’s your name?”

  “Jim. Jim Whelan.”

  “Thea Hughes. Pleased to meet you.” She took my hand and gave it one strong, hearty pump up and down. “You have kind eyes, Jim Whelan.”

  You’re fucking stunning, Thea Hughes.

  She gestured at the painting. “But not a fan?”

  I shrugged.

  “What’s your poison, artistically speaking?”

  “Music,” I said. “I like… music.”

  Christ, I sounded like a moron. Me like music. But Thea’s exquisite face lit up even brighter now.

  “Oh hell, I love music.” She laughed. “Painting is my jam, but music is life. Do you play?”

  “I have a guitar…” I said, and the rest died. I wasn’t about to tell her I sometimes sang too. Fuck no.

  “I love the guitar,” Thea said. “What’s your fave?”

  I rubbed the back of my neck, shrugged. “I don’t know. Rock music, mostly. Guns N’ Roses. Foo Fighters. Pearl Jam.”

  Thea cocked her head. “Funny, I don’t know those.”

  “You’ve never heard of Guns N’ Roses?”

  She frowned. “I don’t know, actually… Should I have?” Then she slugged me in the arm playfully. “Don’t music-shame me, James. I’m a techno-and-dance gal. Behold… my sweet, sweet Chicken Neck dance moves.”

  She thrust her head forward on her neck, over and over, and a laugh burst out of me. I wouldn’t have been surprised if a cloud of dust and moths had puffed out too. I envied how easily she inhabited her own skin. No self-consciousness.

 
She is who she is.

  “Jim?”

  I blinked.

  “You’re staring.”

  How can I not?

  “Can’t blame you, though,” she said and then clapped her hand over her eyes. “Oh my God, that sounded like so egomaniac… ish. Egomaniacal? Is that a word?” She laughed. “I meant that I make a spectacle of myself. Or so my sister is always saying.”

  “You dance like no one’s watching, even when people are watching,” I said.

  “I hope that’s not a subtle jab at my mad dance skills.”

  “Never,” I said. I’d never had a conversation go this easily for me. I talked as easily as she danced. No hesitation. “What do you paint?” I asked. “Fruit bowls?”

  She gave me a sly, playful look. “What do you think I paint?”

  I shrugged, jammed my hands in my pockets. “If I had to guess… I’d say big stuff. The Grand Canyon, maybe. I’d guess you use lots of colors, too.”

  “Big and colorful, eh?” She laced her fingers behind her back. “And what makes you say that?”

  “I don’t know. Something about you.”

  That sounded like a bad line, but the truth would have been too much. That in only a handful of minutes in her presence I felt the magnitude of her.

  “Well, you have me pegged pretty close,” she said. “I mostly paint scenes of Egypt. Pyramids, Cleopatra, the Nile. It’s my thing.”

  I nodded. “Had a feeling.”

  “Did you?” Our eyes met and her smile turned private. Just for me. “I have a feeling about you too, Jim Whelan.”

  My heart did a slow roll. “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. Outside, you’re built like a brick wall with a movie star face and a badass black leather jacket. Inside? Deep as the Grand Canyon.” Her eyebrows raised inquisitively. “Am I close?”

  I shrugged. “I… I don’t know…”

  “You shrug a lot too,” she said. “Don’t do that. Your thoughts aren’t inconsequential.”

  Our eyes met again and the “brick wall” I’d built to keep myself safe felt useless against her. Inconsequential. I had to see her again, even if that meant she’d hear the stutter.

  I had a feeling Thea Hughes wouldn’t care if she did.

  “So, are you visiting someone here?” I asked.

  Thea’s smile froze. “Here?”