The Shamshine Blind by Paz Pardo

Author:Paz Pardo
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Atria Books
Published: 2023-02-14T00:00:00+00:00

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The week limped along its sorry way, lousy as a visit from a relative on Ginger Curiousity. To heal the level of Blue knock I’d taken required the kind of work I was worst at. Journaling my dreams, poking at my feelings, letting the detritus that could elude the pigment’s repression float back into the light. The process brought up plenty of stuff I preferred to leave buried. Regret that I hadn’t seen the signs with Walter. My useless anger at Mom. Chagrin about the times I’d been too impulsive, like charging in to tell the Chief that Meekins was a Knight of Liberty. And all of this, I knew, was just my mind trying to shunt my attention away from whatever had gone down on Bepler.

I had to come at the memories obliquely. Aiming at them head-on sent me down a rabbit hole or spiked me with a migraine. Sometimes I could expand from the fragments I already had access to—Doug spouting Magenta Anonymous talking points about feelings, Mom making my phone ring in the early morning, the dusty smell of the department’s filing room. More often than not, it felt like trying to find lost keys in a field of quicksand.

I could read between the lines in Trumbull’s instructions: the dose I’d taken had been a doozy. Chances were whatever had gone down at Bepler would be lost to me forever. Doug’s retelling of the events had included grounds for firing several times over. The fact that the Chief hadn’t shown up with my pink slip in hand made me wonder what details the narrative was missing. But given Trumbull’s diagnosis, it was pretty clear I’d never recover enough to piece together exactly what had happened. I still acted like I might, crossing my fingers that sticking to her plan would minimize future psychological repercussions.

With my Sunshine drip for a cane, I’d clomp down the hall every morning to visit Tommy, trying to find words to apologize for what I’d done to him. Mostly I just watched him breathe. Trumbull or Howie the nurse sat with us while I was in there, observing the lack of progress in their two newest patients. During one of my awkward soliloquies, I let slip that my cadet was involved with Pimsley. That got him crying. In the hall after, Trumbull said it was a good sign. Showed that he was starting to process. “Was it a fling with Pimsley or were they more serious?” she asked.

For some reason that question made me think about the texture of a wool peacoat on my palm and eucalyptus trees swaying in the wind. The sound of Tommy sobbing. Then I was mad. Trumbull wasn’t a gossip. I’d told her more than I would have under normal circumstances. The two men could do their thing in a freezer for all I cared. Wearing matching gray pinstripe suits while toasting with art deco champagne flutes. I wasn’t going to tell the doctor anything else.

The dull throb of a headache was starting at the base of my neck.

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