The cage took on a heavy quiet when Dr. Colt finished his rant. He stood up and walked to the front of the room, taking a place next to Livia.
“Let Dr. Cutty’s case be an example for all the fellows in this program. We want you to make progress during your training. And with progress comes respect. But when you rest on your laurels and put up shoddy work under the cover of that respect, you will be called out. Keep it up, and you might lose the respect you’ve worked so hard to earn over the past three months. Every single human body that comes through this place is someone’s wife, brother, son, uncle, sister. Treat them that way. That’s why we hired you, and that’s what you promised us.”
Dr. Colt walked out of the cage and left each of its occupants quiet and uncomfortable as they slowly shuffled papers and headed into the weekend.
*
An hour later, Livia was sweating as she punished the Everlast bag. Randy leaned a shoulder into the leather to steady it as Livia went after it.
“Because you’re in such a nasty mood,” Rand yelled over the pounding. “I won’t mention your crappy form.”
“Good.” Livia grunted as she punched. She danced on her feet. “Tonight’s not about form, just anger.”
She released a combination of punches and kicks for the next twenty minutes until her fists were sore and her shins raw.
“Okay, Doc. That’s all my shoulder’s got in it.”
Livia put her hands on top of her head, breathing heavily. “Thanks, Randy. I’m done anyway.”
“Get it all out?”
Livia grabbed her water bottle. “Probably never get it all out.”
“Wanna tell me about it.”
She sipped from the bottle. “What would that do to my membership fees?”
Randy threw her a towel and waited.
“You have regrets in life, Randy?”
“Too many to list.”
“Name your biggest.”
“Let’s see . . . I’ve got an eighth-grade education ’cause I thought selling drugs on a Baltimore corner was a career path. I’ve got this”—he pulled down the collar of his shirt to reveal a shiny gray scar across his dark black skin—“because somebody shot me. And I gotta wake up each day knowing I’m alive ’cause I killed the guy who wanted me dead.”
Livia stared at him a moment, then slowly nodded her head. “Okay, you trump me.”
Randy laughed. “Impossible. Not with regret.”
“No?”
Randy shook his head. “Nope. Regret, it’s got no size. Mine can’t be bigger than yours. My daddy always said: ‘You either got it, or you don’t.’” He pointed at the bag. “And you’re not gonna get rid of it by punching a bag.”
“Probably true.”
“So what is it? What’s your regret?”
Livia looked at the bag, then back to Randy. “Not answering my phone.”
*
That night Livia Cutty woke in her childhood bedroom under the same ceiling fan that kept her cool during the hot summers of her youth. After her trip to the gym, she decided to get out of Raleigh. With Casey Delevan’s picture in her purse she headed to her parents’ house in Emerson Bay. Her original plan was to ask them about Nicole in the months before she disappeared. To ask if her parents knew anything about the guy Nicole was dating. Livia had planned to show them Casey Delevan’s picture and tell them his body had been pulled from the bay and slapped on her autopsy table. That he was likely dead for more than a year, and if the timing added up he had been killed about the same time Nicole went missing. Livia’s original plan had been to confess her suspicions that the man in the picture was somehow connected to Nicole’s disappearance. She needed her parents’ help to figure out what Nicole was up to in the months before her death because, alone, Livia knew little about Nicole from that summer. The sad truth was that her sister had fallen into the shadowed corners of Livia’s life in the years before she was taken. Nicole’s rebellious attitude had driven Livia away. She blamed her absence from Nicole’s life on her residency and the looming decision to pursue a fellowship or move straight into the workforce. She claimed to have no time for her sister, even when Nicole had asked that summer to stay with Livia for a week.
“I just need to get out of Emerson Bay for a while,” Nicole said.
“And come here? Nic, there’s nothing to do here,” Livia said.
“I don’t care. I’m okay doing nothing. As long as I’m not here.”
“I spend twelve hours a day at the hospital.”
“I don’t care. We can hang out when you get home at night.”
“Nicole, I get home at eleven o’clock. Sometimes later. Then I get up early and start it all over again. It’s what you do in residency. I’m not going to be able to entertain you, or take you out.”
“I don’t care, Liv. I just want to get away from everyone here.”
“I know high school is hard, but you’re done with that now. You’ll be off to school in the fall and you’ll make new friends. Trust me. Coming here will depress you.”
Silence.
“Nic?”
“What?”
“It’s your last summer before college. Enjoy it, okay? Just give up on all the drama. It’s pointless.”
“So I can’t come see you?”
“In three weeks I’ll be home for a long weekend. We’ll talk then.”
Nicole went missing from the beach party a week later. Livia had tucked that conversation into the dark recesses of her mind and covered it with a heavy dustcloth. It was a protective measure: compartmentalizing the times she had failed her sister.
When Livia arrived home Friday night, her parents were thrilled to see her. They were anxious to hear about her first months of fellowship. Livia handled a battery of questions and apologized for how busy she had been, and for being out of touch lately. What she couldn’t tell them was that her forensics fellowship offered very manageable hours and was, in fact, one of the best lifestyle choices in medicine. The truth was that she had never been so busy that she couldn’t return home. But the excuse of a hectic schedule was an easy lie, and her parents never questioned her long absence. Either they were oblivious to the fact that Livia had trouble walking through the door of her childhood home because it reminded her so much of her younger sister, or they knew damn well the trouble she was having and gave her a pass. In this first year since losing Nicole, they all suffered from the same feelings of inadequacy and failure—stuck between needing to do something every minute of the day to prove they hadn’t given up, and allowing themselves to let go so they could move on.