Rock Bottom

The Uber smelled like vanilla air freshener and defeat. The defeat was more her than the Uber. Zoe Cavazza sat in the back seat, her hands tightening on her lap, watching the city lights bleed life into the car. All those people were probably going on with their lives like nothing had happened. Like her life was not falling apart. Like her life was not over. The driver had been talking, something about the traffic, or about his wife, something she would probably not remember. She nodded when it seemed appropriate, or at least when she thought it was. She made sounds that could have been agreement or grief. She was not sure anymore.

Her phone buzzed in her purse. Again. The same relentless vibration that had followed her out of the hospital, through the lobby, past the gift shop with its wilting flowers, and into the stale air of this car. She did not need to look. She knew who it was. Who else could it be?

Amber. Her sister had called seventeen times in the past hour. Seventeen times, and Zoe had answered none of them. She could not. How do you form words when you can barely form a thought? She knew what Amber wanted to ask. She also knew the truth would break her. She did not know whether not picking up was a mercy to Amber or to herself. But she knew Amber would make plans and schedules and spreadsheets because that was what Amber did when she was scared. She organized the chaos into neat little boxes. Something she could manage. She would be restless, scour the ends of the world for answers and solutions. It was why she was calm about most things. She would probably wrestle death if it did not fit in her plans. But this was not the kind of chaos you could organize. This was the kind that swallowed you whole.

Zoe reached into her purse and silenced the phone. That was a compromise, she told herself. A small mercy. Amber would keep calling, and Zoe would not have to hear it. Everyone wins, right?

The phone buzzed one last time, then fell silent. Zoe stared at the screen. A text message glowed up at her face.

“Zoe, please call me!! How did it go?”

‘Like the past five times’. She thought of replying, but then texts started to flood her screen, the latest one being

“ARE YOU OKAY???”.

She could not bring herself to answer that. She locked the screen and shoved the phone back into her purse. She could not think about Amber right now. She could not think about anything except the words Dr. Owen had said.

“I am sorry, Zoe. There is nothing more we can do.”

Dr. Owen Weston. She had known him for six years. They had worked side by side in the oncology ward. They had shared coffee in the break room, traded patient notes, and complained about hospital politics together. She had attended his daughter’s christening. He had brought her soup when she had the flu two winters ago. He was more than a friend. He had watched her fight for her patients and had now been forced to deliver the news that there was no fight left.

The worst part was that he had tried to make it easier. He had told a joke. “What did the doctor say at the goat couple?” he asked. Without waiting for her reply, he said, “Your kid will be goated.” That was probably the worst joke of the century. Owen was always like that, always using humor to soften the blow, always trying to make the unbearable feel doable. His eyes were wet behind his glasses, and his voice cracked when he said her name. She had seen him deliver bad news a hundred times. She had never seen him cry. He was crying for her. And somehow that made it worse, because if Owen was crying, then it was really over. There was no hope left.

“Stop horsing around or else you’ll get a foal.” She had replied and saw him smile. They both laughed like they just discovered the haha in their system. He almost used her prescription as tissue to wipe his tears. They laughed about it until he finally handed it to her. Then her face went numb. She looked at the prescriptions that carried all the drugs she had once prescribed to dying patients. She was basically going to live on drugs and hospital appointments. All of a sudden it all felt heavy, like an elephant was playing jumping jacks on her chest. She could not breathe, she needed air. She rushed out without even looking back, broken and confused.

Six visits. Six visits to that sterile room with the plastic chairs and the bad coffee and the fluorescent lights that hummed like dying insects. Six visits, and each one had taken away a spark inside her until there was nothing left but this, a dying flame, pretending to still be alive.

She had done medicine in college and was now a doctor at the same hospital. How ironic. Her dream was to save lives, or at least try. She had spent years holding the hands of dying patients, telling them it was going to be okay, watching the light leave their eyes. She had thought she understood death. She had thought she was prepared for it. But suffering is common to humanity but unique to humans. She was the second born. That was her identity for so long: the second one, the one who came after, the one who learned to be smaller so her sister could be bigger. Their parents had died when she was nineteen. Amber was twenty-three. A car accident had claimed their lives.

The funeral was a blur of black and murmured condolences and people who said things like “they are in a better place” as if that made anything better. It was like someone just tells you your parent had a better place to be. Then they go on to add that that place is not with you. That was when she knew she wanted to be a doctor. She always thought if it were her, she would have done a little more, tried a little harder. That was the fuel of her dream, but as she sat on that hospital seat, she now understood that the doctors probably did their best. Doctors do not save lives, they merely evade death temporarily.

Amber fell apart, not dramatically, not in a way anyone could see, but in a way Zoe noticed because she knew her sister better than anyone. Amber buried herself in work. Amber stopped laughing. Amber became the kind of person who needed to control everything because if she did not, the world might fall apart again. And Zoe? Zoe became the strong one. The one who held things together. The one who said it would be okay even when she did not believe it.

But she could not say it now. She could not say it because it was not true. It was not going to be okay, not ever.

The Uber pulled to a stop. Zoe looked up, blinking. The driver was waiting, his hand extended for payment. She fumbled for her jacket pocket, handed him a crumpled bill. She climbed out and started walking. Three minutes had passed before she realized she was in the wrong estate. She stood on an unfamiliar street, the houses dark and silent around her, and felt the first real surge of panic since Owen’s office. Where was she? How did she get here? She must have given the driver the wrong address. Or maybe he misheard her. Or maybe she had mumbled something unintelligible, and he had just driven wherever his GPS told him. She could not remember. She could not remember anything.

She reached for her phone. Her hand hit the empty pocket where her phone should have been. The other pocket. Nada. She looked down at her hands; they were holding nothing. She had left her purse in the car. The car that was probably a million miles away, carrying her phone, her wallet, her keys, her entire life. God, even her prescriptions were all there. No, no, no! This was not happening. Her head was spiraling with thoughts while her eyes dampened with tears. Her heart started to beat fast, and suddenly the world was spinning. The last thing she felt was her whole body going down.

She woke up to the calls of a child. A small boy. A grey bicycle, probably his, was lying scattered on the curb, its front wheel spinning. Her head was still throbbing, but she could still make out the words ‘Are you okay?’ There was panic written all over the boy’s face. Her hand found the back of her head as she struggled to lift her body. She was still dizzy, but that was probably the best moment she had had. When her mind could not pinpoint what exactly she was worried about. Then it all came back to her: her diagnosis, her purse, her fainting. How long had she been out for?

“What time is it?” That was the first question that spilled out of her mouth. The sky was pitch black, and only the crescent moon illuminated the sky. “Where am I?” She followed up before the boy had the chance to answer

The boy looked up at her in confusion. “Are you lost?” he asked.

His voice was higher than she expected. Younger. She realized with a jolt that he was probably younger than some of the patients she had treated at the hospital. Children. She had always hated treating children. They looked at you with such trust, such faith that you could fix them. And here she was, broken beyond repair.

“Yes,” she said. “I think I am.”

It was surprisingly easy to admit that to a child. She did not have to pretend with him. He was not going to judge her. He was not going to give her advice she did not want. He was just a boy on a bicycle, and she was just a woman who was lost.

“I don’t have a watch,” he said. “I can take you to my house. My dad can help.”

He did not ask for her name. He did not ask why she was out here alone. He just offered, as if helping strangers was the most natural thing in the world.

“Okay,” she said. “Okay.” As much as she felt at ease with this child, an adult was better suited to help her. “What is your name?” She asked him. “My name is Mattie. Can I guess your name?” She looked at him with a confused smile. “Okay, go on.” The boy looked up at her, then sideways, his hand on his lower lip, and finally said, “ummm, Zoe.” She laughed almost out of instinct as she watched Mattie’s expectant face. “Yeah, I am Zoe. How did you know?” The boy smiled ear to ear. “It’s a secret”, he said as he started walking. She followed him. The bicycle was too small for him to ride at walking speed, so he dismounted and walked alongside her. They moved through the quiet streets, the night air cool against her skin.

“Do you walk around at night a lot?” she asked.

“Sometimes,” he said. “When I cannot sleep.”

“Are you ever scared?”

He considered the question. “Sometimes I am,” he said. “But sometimes I am not. That is why I cannot trust fear.”

The words hit her like a physical blow. She stopped walking. Mattie turned, his small face tilted up toward her, his eyes unblinking.

“Where did you learn that?” she asked. “Who told you that?”

“No one told me,” he said. “I just figured it out.”

She stared at him. He was so young. So small. And yet he had learned something she had spent her entire life trying to understand.

They walked for a little while longer. He told her about his dreams; he wanted to be a pilot, or maybe a chef, or maybe both. He could cook on planes after they took off. He told her about his favorite foods and the games he played with his friends and the cat that followed him to school sometimes. He was surprisingly funny. He made her laugh, a real laugh, the first one she had managed since probably weeks now.

“Here,” he said finally, stopping in front of a small house. “This is it.”

The house was modest but warm, with a light glowing in the window. There was a small garden in the front, overgrown but not abandoned. A bicycle lay on its side in the grass, Mattie’s, probably, or maybe his father’s.

“This is your house?” she asked.

He nodded. “My dad will help you. I just have to grab one last thing from the shop. I will be right back.”

He climbed onto his bicycle and pedaled away before she could protest. She watched him disappear around the corner, a small figure against the dark road, and felt a strange ache in her chest.

She walked up to the door and knocked.

The door swung open. A man stood there, tall and tired-looking, with dark circles under his eyes and a smile that was trying hard to be welcoming. He was probably around her age, late twenties, maybe early thirties. His shirt was slightly rumpled. His hair was a mess. He looked like a man who had been cooking, or maybe just standing in the kitchen, waiting for something to happen.

“Is that curry rice I smell?” she asked.

The man blinked. “Excuse me?”

“I am sorry,” she said quickly. “That was rude. I am lost. I am stranded. I have no phone, no money, no way to contact anyone. A boy brought me here. He said this was his house. His name is Mattie.”

The man’s confusion deepened. He looked past her, as if expecting the boy to appear. “Mattie?”

“Oh.” She felt her stomach drop. “He said, I thought”

“He is my nephew,” the man said quickly. “He lives next door. He is always bringing people here.” He shook his head, but there was a hint of fondness in his voice. “I am sorry. I am Gryffin. Gryffin Scott. And yes, that is curry rice you smell. It is a family recipe.”

He opened the door wider, stepping aside. “You had better come in.”

She hesitated. This was dangerous. She was a woman alone in the middle of nowhere, about to enter the house of a complete stranger. But what did danger matter anymore? She was already dying. She had nothing left to lose.

She stepped inside.

The house was warm. It smelled like spices and something sweet. There were books everywhere on the shelves, on the coffee table, stacked on the floor. A guitar leaned against the wall in the corner. Everything looked lived-in, real, untouched by the kind of polished emptiness that filled her own apartment.

“I am Zoe,” she said. “Zoe Cavazza.”

Gryffin smiled. It was a tired smile, but it was genuine. “Nice to meet you, Zoe Cavazza. Have a seat. I will get you something to eat.”