Descended, page 15
The next time Indigo woke up, he knew he was in a hospital. The smell of antiseptic that assaulted his nostrils and the gentle bleeping of unseen machines were a dead giveaway. At least there was no pain. In fact, he felt nothing. Nothing at all. He had not felt nothing in a very long time. It was blissful to not feel.
His eyelids fluttered, slowly parted, revealing his surroundings. Cracked ceiling, water-damaged cornices, peeling paint. An IV in his right arm, pumping God only knew what into his vein. The source of the blissful nothingness, he assumed.
His left arm was encased in a heavy cast from wrist to shoulder, his right leg bore a matching one, thigh to toe. His chest was bandaged – who knew what was underneath all that? There was no pain to give any indication.
“Pain is the body’s messenger,” Scarlett had always lectured him. “Its job is to tell you when something isn’t right inside. Every time you silence it with medication, you’re shutting down the means of leading yourself to the source.” He smiled drowsily, clumsily, affectionately, at the memory.
“You think you’re so smart,” he murmured to his pain, “but I’ve found a way to shut you up now. You’re not the boss of me anymore.” Indigo’s eyelids drooped so he could barely focus. This is good shit. He smiled, leaning his head back on his pillow and closing his eyes.
“Hello?” a voice rang out.
Indigo’s eyes snapped open. He frowned pensively. He glanced dopily around, but all he could see was a scuffed wall and a closed door to his right, and a thin blue curtain that hung from a rail to the left of his bed. His stomach dropped in fear. Were the voices back?
“Yo! Hello?” the voice came again. “Hey, man, you awake over there?” American, with a hint of inflection he couldn’t place. He’d never heard this voice before.
“What?” Indigo demanded. “What do you want from me?” He was still groggy but could feel himself getting sharper.
Silence.
Then heavy breathing that made him realise this disembodied voice actually had a body. “Wow. I was just tryin’ to say hey and officially welcome you to room fourteen,” came the hurt reply. “You been outta it for days.”
“Who are you?” Indigo asked, slowly turning his head back and forth to shake off the fog.
“I’m your roommate, man. The name’s Luis Martinez.” Pause, then, “Soooo, I’m assuming the reason you’re pissed is cos you’ve just awakened to the stark realisation you still here?” Luis spoke quickly and Indigo struggled to keep pace.
“Still here?” Indigo asked softly.
“Yeah, here. Alive. Look, if that’s what it is, I totally get it. I felt the same way when I woke up. This here’s a pretty small psych hospital, man,” Luis responded. “You and me, room fourteen, we the kamikaze patients.”
“Kamikaze?” Indigo repeated.
“The nurses talk, man, and I got nothin’ to do all day but listen. You and me, we the same. We both failed to leave this shitty life on our own terms.”
“Oh,” was all Indigo could manage.
“So I gotta know, because it’s the mystery of the whole hospital. You came in with no wallet, no ID, there’s no missing persons reports out on you. Everyone wants to know who you are. I see you got a accent, man, you from England or somethin’?”
“Australia,” Indigo replied drowsily. There were no missing persons reports out on him. Had his father not realised he hadn’t come home? Not the doorman? No one? Indigo gritted his teeth bitterly. He vaguely recalled his father being in the Bahamas, but he didn’t know when that was or how long ago.
“How long have I been here, Luis?”
“Here?” Luis replied. “You been here, like, ten days. But you was brought in by ambulance from somewhere south of here where you had some operations and shit, so I hear. I dunno how long you was in that hospital for.”
“What’s the date?” Indigo asked quickly, his panic beginning to override the drugs.
“Dude! It’s nearly Christmas,” Luis laughed. “Feliz Navidad, it’s December nineteenth.”
Almost a month. He’d been gone almost a month and no one had even bothered to report him missing.
“Where are we?” he whispered.
“Oh, we in upstate New York, but way up north,” Luis answered. “Almost in Canada. This is where you go when no one wants to know about what you did,” he said darkly. He then added, “But it’s a good place. Staff are real nice. Food’s okay.”
“Where are you from?” Indigo asked, needing to anchor to something certain.
“My daddy’s from Puerto Rico,” Luis replied. “And my maamaan’s from Afghanistan. But now they live in Jersey. Apparently, me tryin’ to take myself out is the most shamefully humiliatin’ thing that’s ever happened to them.” He paused for a moment. “They didn’t want their friends or the rest of the family to know. So once I was well enough to travel, they sent me up here. They told everyone I followed some chica down to Florida. My maamaan comes to visit me once a month,” he added, “to continue her interrogation and castigation.”
“Your father?” Indigo asked.
“He ain’t ever come once.” Indigo could hear the pain in Luis’s voice. Paternal rejection. It was a hurt Indigo knew only too well.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Indigo said, meaning it.
“So what’s your name, man?” Luis asked, changing the subject. “Everyone’s been takin’ bets on who you are and where you from. Don’t think anyone guessed Australia though,” he mused. “You a long way from home.”
“My name’s Indigo. Indigo Wolfe.”
“Really? That your real name, man? Cos it sounds like some made up shit.”
“Nah, yeah, it’s my name alright,” Indigo replied, almost smiling. The faceless, body-less Luis on the other side of the curtain was a pretty likeable kind of guy.
“How old are you?”
“Seventeen,” Indigo replied.
“I’m eighteen,” Luis told him. “My birthday was a couple of weeks back.” He paused, then asked, “If you Australian, what’re you doin’ here in New York?”
“Um, my father’s American. I was living at my mum’s place in Sydney, but things changed custody-wise and I had to go live in Manhattan with him.”
“And you hate the bastard, right?” Luis probed.
“How did you know?”
“Just a feelin’,” Luis said, sounding somehow amused and sorry at the same time.
Footsteps approached, briskly clipping. The scuffed white door eased open and a head poked in. She was probably in her forties, rather plain, with a large forehead and a broad mouth edged in terracotta lipstick. Her hair, brown with bold yellow streaks, was caught back in a butterfly clip. She was wearing a nurse’s uniform, crisp blue, neatly ironed.
“Our mystery man’s awake!” she cried, her smile brightening her whole face. “Welcome back!”
She fussed around him, checking his pulse and IV. “I’m Jenny,” she said brightly. “Can you tell me your name, tater tot?”
“His name’s Indigo Wolfe and he’s from Australia!” Luis called from the other side of the curtain.
“Hey, pickle, shush over there with your big ears,” she scolded good-naturedly. “Now,” she continued, “Indigo Wolfe from Australia?” She placed her hand on his forehead and peered into his eyes, hers full of concern.
“Yes,” Indigo whispered. Her presence was comforting.
“How are you feeling, Indigo?” she asked.
“Numb,” he replied honestly.
She laughed a tinkling laugh. “I’m going to get your doctor in to see you in a minute. He’ll be able to adjust your medication now you’re awake.” She regarded him admiringly. “My, my, look at you. Your eyes are open, all that swelling’s gone down. You need a good shave, but you’re quite the looker, aren’t you?”
“Hey!” Luis called out. “I heard that.”
“You’re still my number one guy, Luis, my darling. No one is as handsome as you,” she smiled, winking at Indigo. “How old are you, honey?”
“Seventeen,” Indigo croaked.
“Seventeen?” she cried, the blood draining from her face. “You’re a minor?”
“We’re almost the same age,” Luis declared.
“We just assumed…” she trailed off, worry gathering in her eyes.
“What?” Indigo prompted.
“We just assumed you were in your early twenties. When you arrived here, your face was so swollen, we couldn’t even tell what you looked like, so we couldn’t put out a description of you. All we could give the authorities was your hair and eye colour and approximate age, which we said was twenty-three. I’m afraid we’ve been looking for your family in all the wrong places. Oh dear,” she said, putting her hands to her cheeks.
Indigo tried to shrug but realised he couldn’t move his shoulders. He winced.
“Careful now, honey,” Nurse Jenny tsked, “you’ve got a broken collarbone, amongst other things, so you need to take it easy.”
“I may never shrug again,” Indigo murmured, then, “What else is wrong with me?” He suddenly had a terrible thought. He looked towards the end of the bed, concentrating hard. Both his big toes wiggled. Relief flooded through him.
Jenny saw and smiled gently at him. “You’re all good in that department,” she reassured him, placing a hand on his shoulder. He noticed her eyes flit momentarily in Luis’s direction before coming back to rest on him. “So your leg was broken in three places, your arm in two, you had six broken ribs, a broken collarbone, both cheekbones were fractured and you had a deep laceration to your forehead.”
Indigo instinctively raised his hand to the bandage across the left side of his head.
“But don’t worry,” Jenny continued brightly, “I’m told you were very lucky that an excellent plastic surgeon was on call the night they brought you in. You will have a scar, but it won’t be large.” She leant forward and added with a mischievous grin, “And don’t worry about that, anyway. Chicks dig scars.”
Indigo tried to shrug again before remembering he couldn’t. This would take some getting used to.
Jenny picked up his chart and scribbled a few notes on it. “I still can’t believe how lucky you were,” she commented as she clipped her pen back to her top pocket. “Someone was really watching over you that night, tater tot. One of your ribs did puncture your right lung, but they managed to fix that in surgery. Your spleen was ruptured but you still have it.” She looked up and smiled at him. “So no permanent damage.” Her smile faded a bit. “Well, no permanent physical damage.”
“Why am I here?” Indigo glowered. “Luis has already told me what this place is.”
She perched on the edge of his bed and peered into his face. “Look, honey,” she began, taking his hand in hers, “you were brought into the ER of a hospital south of here in a dreadful state, from what I’m told.”
“By who?”
“Doesn’t say,” she replied, flipping through his chart, “but there’s a note here saying whoever it was took care of all your bills and continues to do so, so a very good Samaritan, I’d say. The doctors down there stabilised you, patched you up, and kept you there for a couple of weeks. But once all your scans came back clear, it was decided there was nothing else they could do for you, and, well, I suppose it was decided that you were better off someplace like this, where we’d be able to help fix the parts of you that still needed fixing.”
His cheeks flamed. They thought he was crazy. He hadn’t given a thought to what might happen to him if his bridge jump didn’t succeed. The enormity of it suddenly began to sink in. He’d tried to kill himself. And failed. People were going to find out. He’d given them his real name. They were going to call his father.
“There’s no need to be embarrassed, honey,” Jenny reassured him, gently smoothing his hair off his forehead. “We all need a little bit of help from time to time.”
“Please don’t call my father,” Indigo suddenly burst out, gripping her hand tightly in his, panic rising in his chest. Why hadn’t he lied about who he was? Fucking drugs. He could have given them a fake name, put his age up, they would have just let him walk out of there and he could have just slipped back into the world as someone else, someone new. “Please,” he begged, eyes desperate, “you can’t, you can’t,” his breathing suddenly ragged, suddenly out of control, suddenly out of his grasp. He began to pant, his chest palpitating with a frenzy. He couldn’t get any air.
“I-I can’t breathe,” he gasped, his hands rising to his throat. “I can’t breathe.” He was dying. Maybe he would get his wish after all.
Jenny jumped up and rushed out of the room, returning with a paper bag in hand. She pushed a button and the bed raised him to a seated position. She placed the opening of the paper bag over his nose and mouth.
“Indigo,” she said, her voice calm and soothing, “you’re just having a panic attack. Breathe into this for me, tater tot. Come on, you can do it.”
Indigo looked at her wildly, but did as he was told. In, out, in, out, the bag deflating and inflating, rapidly at first and then slowing as his hysteria subsided.
Jenny sat with him silently, his hand in hers, her presence a lifeline. Eventually, he gathered himself enough to be able to speak again. “Thank you,” he whispered.
“Sure,” she said, her wide mouth turning up in that sunny smile again. “Now if you’re feeling okay, I’m going to have to go tell the doctor you’re awake.”
Indigo’s grasp on her hand intensified, her touch his anchor. “It’s okay,” she told him, placing a palm on his cheek, “I promise I’ll come right back.”
manhattan, new york
wilson
When Wilson Wolfe learned his son was in the hospital and had been for the better part of a month, he was annoyed. Quite frankly, he’d thought the boy had found his passport and simply run off back to Sydney and had told his staff as much. He was still angry about his Ferrari, which had been found burnt out near the Canadian border, but not enough to press the police to investigate how it had gotten there. The last thing he wanted was any more media attention right now and he had plenty more cars.
The truth was, once the press furore was over and they’d moved on to another story, he hadn’t needed the boy around anymore, anyway. Having Indigo leave had given Wilson one less thing to worry about, had given him back his peace and quiet. The kid was out of control, rude, obnoxious, ungrateful, coming home at all hours completely inebriated, waking up the whole house, often with hangers-on in tow. And now the spoilt brat had gone and made a feeble attempt to kill himself, clearly nothing more than a means of attention seeking.
Wilson was, however, pleased to discover Indigo was in a facility that had grounds large enough to accommodate the landing of a helicopter. He knew his image wouldn’t recover if the media found out he hadn’t been to see his son, who had been pulled back from the brink of death. It wasn’t great that Indigo was in the nuthouse, but Wilson had an excellent PR team, and he knew they’d be able to spin it to make him look good, at least. And the more he thought about it, the more delighted he grew with the situation. All those journos that had torn him to shreds, attacked his parenting, made him out to be the villain. Surely they would see Wilson as the victim in all this, the victim of an ungracious, overindulged, unbalanced child who made a complete farce of trying to take his own life when he didn’t get his own way.
So Wilson Wolfe instructed his team to leak Indigo’s circumstances to the press.
harbord, new south wales
cordelia
Cordelia awoke with a start. It was a hot, sticky night and her hair was damp against her neck. Her boxer shorts and singlet stuck to her skin. She sat up and reached for a scrunchie, pulling her hair up into a knot on top of her head. She slipped out of bed and moved to the door, compelled to go downstairs but not knowing what was driving her. They were flying out to New York in a few days and she had to step around the empty suitcases her mum had pointedly left in the hall.
She found her dad in the rumpus room reading the paper, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation on the TV on mute. Robbie was sprawled out, asleep beside him. “Hey, Daddy,” she murmured, kissing the top of his head and sitting down beside him.
“Can’t sleep, darling?” he asked, folding the top of his paper down to smile fondly at her.
She shook her head. “It’s so hot,” she said, leaning back into the couch and hooking an arm behind her head. “I wish we had air conditioning.”
“Maybe next year,” he said, patting her knee. “How about we go get you a fan for your room tomorrow?”
She nodded, smiling vaguely. “How was work?”
“Oh, pretty manic,” he said with a wry smile. “A few car accidents and a couple of stomach pumpings. It’s that time of year.”
“I don’t know how… ” she stopped dead as an image on the television caught her eye. “Oh my God, turn it up!” she cried. Her dad fumbled for the remote and hit the volume button so they could hear the newsbreak. They both watched the segment in shock, Cordelia’s hands covering her mouth in horror.
As it finished, she promptly burst into tears. Her dad moved to draw her into a fierce embrace, rocking her back and forth.
“In what sick world is this entertainment news?” he growled, as Cordelia sobbed harder. “Because his parents are famous, they splash this across the TV?”
“I knew it,” she wept, “I knew I should have g-gone sooner, I knew it but I ig-ignored it.” She gripped a fistful of his shirt as her whole body wracked and shook. “He was all alone… a-all alone, he had n-n-no one.” Imagining how he must have felt, how desperate, how hopeless, she felt as if her heart had been cleaved in two.
