Page 131 of Hushed

Chapter forty-five

Bastien

Iwake a little after five with his arm across me, but I might as well be at home. The first snows of the winter have come and gone. Michel is trying to get skates on the children. My mother is complaining about a hydro bill. My father predicts a long winter. Their lives are continuing serenely and I find that surreal.

I knew it was going to be bad. But I still, when I walked through the doors of the Fairhaven Inn, thought that it couldn’t be that bad.

It was worse.

Patrick has to be told. Frankly, I trust Levi’s account of last night more than I trust my own. He ranted for a good solid hour in bed until I finally had to ask him to stop because he was hurting me by making me go through it again.

I keep going back to the harpy comment in my head. The last time Dr. Fletcher and I were in a room together was a panel in Chicago. We were perfectly cordial. She asked after my work. I asked after hers. After the conference, I joined six other panelists, including her, for dinner. I liked her, in the way you like somebody you’ll never have to know.

That’s all gone now. There will never be a situation in which those six people will all agree to sit down with me. This institution has told them what to think of me. And they, trained to both trust and fear the power of the institution over the individual, will do that. It costs them nothing to shun a stranger.

“Good morning,” Levi says, shutting off his alarm before it can ring.

“How did you know I was awake?”

“I always know when you’re awake,” he says, pulling me against his chest. He kisses the back of my neck.

“My radio equipment is arriving this afternoon.”

“Good,” he says in his sleep-graveled voice. “We’ll set up a booth in the spare bedroom when I have time.”

“Parker’s trying to get me on the payroll for services rendered taking over the radio slot.”

“Excellent.” His breath is warm against the back of my neck.

“That sounds very suspiciously like words you would have said.”

“Parker is a military husband, and Lance is in the Comptroller’s office. I’m sure he independently reached for similar wording because he’s been exposed to it through those channels.”

“Uh-huh. So you did not have a conversation with them about it.”

“They were very open to the idea. You have friends, Bastien.” He stretches and makes a deep, contented sound. I listen to him plan out his day. He asks me what I was thinking about for dinner and then makes a mental list of ingredients like the contents of the fridge and cabinets have been inventoried to the gram in front of him.

When he goes to class, I feel bereft.

The radio equipment comes at six. By that time, Levi has returned home and is already taping off bits of the spare bedroom for my home office while I try to install drivers onto my laptop. This leads to a stretch of my life that I wouldn’t wish on an enemy. There are four separate drivers just for the microphone alone, the pop filter is so big that it hits the shirts hanging above me, causing an ungodly clanging noise overhead, the proprietary program refuses the operating system I have, and once I undergo the forty-odd minutes it takes to upgrade the OS, every icon I have ever known has been rearranged on my desktop. By half past seven I have been deposited on the floor of the bedroom closet in a nest of Levi’s boots with a laptop on my knees and a foam cushion to sit on. The indicator is amber. I have sweated through a shirt I put on clean.

Parker had said the closet would do. He was right about it. Hanging clothes eat an echo the way nothing else in a single-wide will. I no longer have a studio. I no longer have a producer, or an office, or a door that locks for professional reasons. I have shirts.

At 7:59 the light goes green. I take a deep breath and will myself into being Dr. Sébastien Saint-Jacques.

Parker Broussard’s voice floods my earpiece. “You ready? We’re running the intro reel right now.” In the other ear, I can hear him saying, simultaneously, the words Talk Back with Saint-Jacques. It’s surreal.

“Yeah.”

“Great. If you need me to take up some slack, clear your throat. Other than that, good luck. And. In five, four…” He stops counting out loud.

“Good evening, Fairhaven, and anywhere else the signal wanders. This is Talk Back with Saint-Jacques,” I say. “You have got me for the next hour, and I’m told that’s a fair trade for this evening. Many of you have been wondering about how I’ve been keeping. Well, I’ve gotten married, so, congratulations to me. And it was either take a honeymoon or be with you. So, here we are. I’m here to help. So, our first caller is Grace. Grace, you’re on the air.”

Grace’s sister has stopped speaking to her over a will. Freddy cannot forgive his father and does not want to. He’s called in mostly to be told that he is permitted to hold his grudge. I have no idea what it’s about, and I don’t press him to unburden himself on the airwaves. Instead, I tell him that his feelings are valid, and that nobody can force you to feel the way you don’t feel. Parker’s voice arrives in my headphones during a sponsor break.

“Got a young guy holding on four. He’s been on hold twenty minutes and he sounds rough. He’s not next, but do you want to take him?”

“Sure. Queue him up after the spot.” I’m pleased with myself for learning the lingo.