THE DOOR AT THE BOTTOM OF THE STAIRS

She was sleeping, or pretending to sleep, her arm lying stretched out on the bed between us from where it had fallen after I had freed myself from her embrace.  Most nights that was enough.  But tonight the bed, the room itself was too small.

I grabbed a robe and quietly left, fully intending to go to the living room and doze the rest of the night away alone.  Totally unsurprised to find myself at the bottom of the basement steps, watching Abby through the open door of her bedroom.

Gradually she became aware of me, silently putting away the six-inch med text that was propped up on her lap and meeting my gaze over her knees.  We stared for what seemed like hours, neither willing to be the first to break the silence but finally the quiet became too loud even for me.

"I want..." but I couldn't decide what I wanted.

"Oblivion or comfort?" she asked.

It was like having ice water thrown in my face and I physically recoiled at the memory of those words.  Words that Kerry had used the first time we'd discussed what she had called the worst day of her life.  Until Romano's kangaroo court made it the second worst.  Now, I suppose it was relegated to third.

Her seeking oblivion and choosing me instead of a bottle had pushed our relationship a bit too far, a bit too fast.  I'd given up wishing I'd withheld everything but the comfort and just talked to her that night.  But if wishes were horses...

"Because," Abby continued, "if its oblivion there's a bottle of rye in the top left drawer of the desk. And there's a mini pry bar in the next drawer down."

I'm sure she was talking English.  "Why not just use the key?"

"I threw it away.  If I want it I need to break the desk and live with the sight of that."

"And the stuff you took?”

"Flushed them with the pain killers and sleeping pills."

"Oh."

"Oblivion or comfort?" she repeated when the silence began to stretch again.

"I want oblivion."

"Ah.  No help here then."  She was being terribly unsympathetic but I supposed I'd used up my quota weeks ago.  I could feel my body shifting, stance changing subtly and her eyes narrowed suddenly.  "Don't," she said harshly.

"Don't what?" I asked, confused.

"Maggie use to do that.  It was like turning one of those three stage bulbs from dim to bright.  Guys never had a chance because when she was up..." she trails off and shakes the memory.  "So don't try it with me because it won't work."

"Because when she was up... what," I ask, the inner shrink making an appearance for the first time in nearly three months.

"She could make you feel just as high, just as good.  Before she got so up that she was crazy." She grins suddenly.  "Fuck, Kim, if you're trying to seduce me it is counter productive to keep my mother in the conversation.”

"I'm trying to seduce you?"

She snorts, more bewilderment than laughter.  "You're in my bedroom in the middle of the night in a barely concealing robe with your hair all tousled and bedroom eyes seeking oblivion.  Do the math, Stretch."

"I want..." I try again.  I don't bother to deny it because we both know that she's right.

"I can't offer oblivion," she warns again, flipping the corner of the covers down.  Like a puppet I nod and crawl into the bed, cuddling up close to her and feeling her return the embrace.

"Why do you come to me when you need to cry?" she asks and I become aware of the wetness under my cheek where tears have soaked through the flannel of her top.  I shrug.  "Why not Kerry?"

"I need to be strong for Kerry," I explain.

"And that's working so well," she mutters.  "Good thing I have two shoulders, one for you and one for her."

"She umm," I begin, not sure if I have the right any more to ask.

"Not as often as you but, yeah, sometimes.  It would save me some laundry if you'd just bawl on each other, you know."

"She's always been so stoic," I say.  "I mean, she was crying at the hospital a bit."

"They must have pumped you with the good stuff or you're blocking.  She didn't stop crying the entire time.  Luka nearly sedated her."

"Oh."

"You two are the most pig headed, obstinate, stubborn and stupidest people I've ever met."

I feel myself stiffen slightly but relax when I realize her tone and body tension don't match the words.  "Yeah, well, two of a kind.  Like two peas from the same pod."

"You must be depressed to bring Wagner operas into the talk, Kim.  Do you want my opinion based on four years of friendship and two psych rotations?"

"No."

"Good.  Kerry thinks that she needs to be strong, not show how all this is affecting her because she thinks you need her to do that.  That you need her to be this anchor."

"And me, Frauline Freud?"

"You're a mess.  Part of you is feeling the same, thinking that you need to be her anchor.  But part of you is denying that she needs that anchor.  Part of you wants to hurt more than her, to have this all affect you more.  Have it be more devastating to you alone."

I jerk away from her, ice water in my veins and voice.  "I lost my child."

She is unaffected by my outburst.  "Idiot.  It wasn't yours alone."

"What?"

"You know that I consider you to be one of my dearest and closest friends, right?"

"Yeah," I allow.  She smacks me on the side of the head, right above the ear, hard enough to sting.

"Kerry isn't grieving because a friend lost a child.  She’s grieving because she lost her child too, you moron."

"Oh."

"Oh," she parrots me mockingly.  "The shrink finally gets it.  You've been so caught up in your own grief, holding it close to you like a miser, that you've denied Kerry the same right.  Was all that a sham, the two of you starting a family or did you just want her extra income to raise the kid?  When people asked, when she asked," and I knew she meant the child, "what were you going to say?  That you were her mother and Kerry just, just--  Damn it, Stretch."

I know she's trying to goad me into some realization.  "Of course not, Kerry would have been her mother too."

"That doesn't start at birth.  Parenthood starts when you realize that you’re responsible for a life."

I feel a smile tweek.  "I, um, never thought of it like that."

"Obviously.  Otherwise you'd be in your own bed."

"I can't."

She sighed.  "It’s like a wound, Kim.  If the flesh doesn't line up and the stitches aren't put in fast it scars."

"Nice analogy, you can take the girl our of the ER but you can't take the ER out of the girl."

“Weren't you listening?” she asked, exasperation beginning to colour her tone.

“I was listening,” I assured her.

"Did any of it sink in?"

"Actually, my brain believes everything you were saying."

She sighed softly.  "And your heart?"

I smiled, feeling my body shut down.  "Tomorrow maybe.  Can I stay?"

"Does Kerry know you're here?"

"Maybe, maybe not.  I don't think she'd be surprised."

"Would she be surprised to know we were just talking," Abby asked, voice growing dimmer as sleep began to claim me.

"Maybe.  I think I burned out Kerry's surprise circuits a long time ago."

“Wish I could say the same," I hear before I fall asleep.

The End

Next story in the Thing-verse: The Face in the Mirror

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