Chapter 9: Have You Gone Mad?

“Ah, Mrs Sanderson, there you are!”

Edna looked up from her chair.

“Yes…here I am…where did you think I was?”

“Oh nowhere in particular, I was just in here looking for you earlier and you weren’t here. I just assumed you went to get some fresh air. Listen, I have…”

“But I have been sitting here the whole day…” she interrupted.

Dr Jacobs recalled earlier that she had come to this room and Edna wasn’t where she claimed to be. “Must be early signs of Alzheimer’s.” she thought to herself.

“Must have missed you Edna. I brought you some figures that I gathered on the cost to stay at the hospital.”

She walked over and handed a few papers to Edna.

Edna flipped through them quickly.

“Thank you Doctor.”

“You’re welcome.”

Satisfied, Dr Jacobs excused herself and left the room.

The nurse came in to check on Bill. She examined a few things and nodded in approval.

“How is he?”

“He’s still in stable condition Mrs. Sanderson.”

“Well that’s good.”

“Yes, the conditions are perfect for him to come out of the coma, we’re just waiting on him now, his body is ready.”

Edna looked worried.

The nurse put her hand on Edna’s arm. “Don’t worry Mrs Sanderson, I’m sure he’ll be fine.”

Edna wasn’t convinced but nodded in agreement anyway.

———

“What do you have for me Sheriff?”

Sheriff Ryan stopping typing and looked up from his computer. A man was standing there, he immediately recognized him as the Psychiatrist they had requested, although he couldn’t recall his name.

“I’m sorry, I seem to have forgotten your name.”

The man extended his hand to shake.

“It’s Dr Shourisha, but you can call me Tim.”

“Ahh, right…Tim. Sorry I’ve never been good with names which is kind of awkward since it’s part of my job.”

“It’s okay Sheriff. So what are we dealing with?”

“Well, I’m not really sure. Strange things have been happening lately. Two days ago, Fred made a phone call to 911 indicating his wife Tiffany had disappeared into thin air. I went out there to investigate and immediately I suspected foul play. I had him arrested until we figured out what happened to Tiffany.”

He paused to see if Dr Shourisha was still listening.

“Go on.”

“Well…yesterday, Tiffany shows up demanding her husband be released.”

“So Fred didn’t have anything to do with Tiffany’s disappearance then?” asked Dr Shourisha.

“Apparently not.”

He hesitated before continuing.

“But it gets stranger. Tiffany doesn’t realize she’s been gone for a day. When I questioned her about it, she said Bill Sanderson kidnapped her and brought her to an island, but she doesn’t know how she got to the island.”

“Did you arrest Bill Sanderson then sheriff?”

“This is where it gets really weird. Bill Sanderson has been in a coma for the past several days. There is no way he could have done anything, he hasn’t left St Mary’s.”

Dr Shourisha put began to twist the end of his mustache.

“Okay so let me get this straight.”

Sheriff Ryan waited for him to proceed.

“Fred said Tiffany had gone missing. Tiffany was missing for a day but says Bill Sanderson kidnapped her and took her to an island. She doesn’t know how she got there but Bill has been in a coma during that time frame and couldn’t have done it?”

The Sheriff nodded.

“And they stand by this story?”

Sheriff Ryan grinned, “That’s why you’re here Tim…I’m not dealing with them anymore, I have enough work to do already.”
Sheriff Ryan pointed to a cell in the back corner of the jail.

“They are all yours.”

“Thank you Sheriff I’ll see what I can find out.”

He headed in the direction of the cell to examine his newest patients.

———

“Well, maybe the third time is a charm, but I’m not quite sure what my next woman should be like.” Bill thought to himself. “Obviously, I should avoid ex’s because they just try to kill me, I wonder if there’s anyone else that I should avoid.”

Bill sat silently thinking to himself, then it hit him.

He closed his eyes and began to think. When he opened his eyes he was staring at the back of a very beautiful woman.

That dark curly hair. That slender perfectly curved figure.

She turned and looked in his direction.

Those beautiful brown eyes. He felt warm on the inside and at completely at ease with this woman. If someone told him his house was on fire he wouldn’t have cared because his heart was on fire now.

Recognizing him, she walked over to him.

“Hi Bill.”

“Hi Valerie…”

He extended his arms and waved them in all directions.

“Do you like what I’ve done with the place?”

She looked around.

“It’s beautiful Bill, but…where are we?”

“We are on an Island Valerie.”

He smiled at her.

“You always said you wanted to go on a vacation — well…here it is…ta da!”

He stood up, jumped in the air, and waved his arms like a magician.

She giggled and looked around. “Bill is this a dream?”

“Maybe, but who’s dream is it Valerie? Mine or yours?”

“It must be mine, we’re on an island all alone, and you’re paying attention to me.”

“Very funny, Valerie.”

Bill hesitated, “Valerie can I ask you something?”

“Sure Bill go ahead…”

“On a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being the lowest and 10 being the best possible, where do you want our relationship to be at?”

“Is this a trick question Bill?”

“No, just answer it honestly.”

She shrugged, “Well, I’d like it to be a 10, but I think that’s obvious.”

“Okay, and where would you say we are right now? Take a minute and think about it. Answer honestly, I promise I won’t be mad.”

She took a minute to think before answering, “We’re probably at a 4 or 5 Bill.”

He sighed. Not quite what he was hoping for.

“Hey, you said be honest Bill, I thought we were having an open discussion.”

“We are, I just didn’t realize you thought it was that bad, I mean…I knew it was getting bad but I didn’t think we we’re that low.”

“Well where did you think we were on that same scale Bill?”

He thought for a minute, “Well, I guess I would say we we’re at a 6 or 7.”

“But we fight all the time Bill.”

“Yes we do, but when we aren’t fighting I still feel the same way I always felt about you. I’m in love with you! It would be a shame if our relationship was suffering because of stupid fights.”

“Things that don’t matter to you are actually really important to me Bill.”

Bill frowned.

“I think you gave me some insight into that with your rating but what could we do to get our relationship closer to a 10?”

“Are you asking me a serious question Bill or are you just messing around with me?”

Bill held up his hand and put up his index and middle finger together, “Boy scouts honor Valerie.”

“Give me a few minutes to think about it please.”

Without even glancing at Bill to see if he would wait she walked away from Bill, sat down in the sand, and looked away as if in deep thought.

Bill didn’t really know what to do so he just sat down where he was and waited.

———

“Fred…”

“Fred….wake up.”

Fred stirred and made a funny noise.

“Fred wake up dammit!”

Fred sat up fast, and hit his head off the top bunk bed. He groaned in pain, laid back down, and rubbed his eyes.

“What is it Tiffany?”

He rubbed his head where it hit the bunk.

“What can be so god damn important that you had to wake me up?”

“I think the psychiatrist is here for our evaluation, I overhead him talking to the Sheriff.”

He opened his eyes and looked at her waiting for her to get to the point. She didn’t say anything.

“And??”

“What do you mean and? If we don’t’ get our shit together we’re going to be stuck in a psychiatric ward for awhile.”

“What do you propose Tiffany?”

He sat up to face her.

“Do you realize what has happened?”

She didn’t say anything.

“Well let me start from the beginning then. You disappeared randomly at dinner and then came back a day later. But you didn’t just come home, you came flying into the Sheriff’s office telling everyone that someone who’s in a coma kidnapped you. You claimed that he took you to an island somewhere but you don’t know how you got there.”

She still didn’t say anything. Fred sighed.

“They don’t believe anything we are saying and quite frankly, I have no idea what the hell is going on either. In the last day I’ve been tasered, thrown into this cell, and I don’t even know if the kids are okay. So if you got some bright idea, I’d like to hear it.”

She thought it over before answering.

“Okay, look, I don’t know what the hell is happening either, but right now we need to work together so we can get out of here. If we’re in here, we’ll never be able to figure this out.”

She continued, “So what I suggest we do is act like none of this ever happened and that we don’t know why we are here.”

“So what do we say then?”

“You tell them that at the dinner table you must have fallen asleep. When you woke up I was gone. I will tell them that I wasn’t feeling good and went for a walk. I stayed at a friends house and couldn’t call you because my cell phone had died. When I got back the next day, my kids and you were missing. I found out that you were being held in a cell here so I came down here to demand your release. The whole thing about being kidnapped and Bill, I won’t even mention.”

“Okay, that sounds like a plan Tiffany, I’ll just say I must have fallen asleep and didn’t realize it and panicked.”

“Shhh…here he comes.”

“Tiffany? Fred?”

A man dressed approached the cells.

“Hi, I’m Dr. Shourisha and I’m a psychiatrist. Do either of you two know why I am here?”

Fred shook his head slowly indicating that he didn’t and Tiffany said, “No I have no idea why you’d be here Dr.”

Dr. Shourisha looked at both of them skeptically, “So you’re telling me, that you really don’t know why you’re here?”

They both nodded at him.

“It says here on this report that Tiffany disappeared because she was kidnapped by a guy in a coma and taken to an Island…does that sound familiar?”

They both shook their head.

“Okay, let’s start from the beginning then, tell me what happened.”

Fred and Tiffany went into the story they had planned out earlier. When they had finished Dr Shourisha looked at them and said, “Could you hold on a minute please?”

Without waiting for a reply he stood up and went to find the Sheriff.

“Sheriff Ryan, I don’t know what type of game you think this is, but I have better stuff to do with my time. There’s nothing wrong with either of them, I recommend you release them immediately.”

Dr Shourisha turned and walked out of the Sheriffs building before the Sheriff could say a word.

Sheriff Ryan was confused. He looked over at his deputy.

“Well you heard him, let them out and send them home. We did what we we’re supposed to do, they aren’t our problem anymore.”

The deputy walked backed to the holding cell where Tiffany and Fred were.

“Okay you two, you’re free to go. I’m going to open the cell, you can pick your stuff up at the front desk.”

He opened the cell and let them out.

Tiffany and Fred looked at each other barely able to contain their smiles. Tiffany winked at Bill. Their plan had worked.

They stood up and walked out of the cell to the front desk.

———

“Okay Bill, I thought about it. There are a few things that you could do that would help tremendously.”

Bill waited for her to continue.

“The first thing that really bothers me is you spend all day at work and I don’t get to see you most of the day. When you come home, I make you dinner, you watch some TV, and then go to sleep without ever asking me how my day was. It’s like I don’t exist.”

“Ok.”

“The next thing that bothers me is that we are too comfortable with each other. Sometimes I feel like I’m just living with a roommate rather than a soulmate, and I don’t like it.”

“Ok.”

“You used to try so hard when we met. You’d buy me flowers, take me on dates, and do special things for me. Once I became your girlfriend all that went away. I’m not saying you need to do all of that again, but I’d really like to feel special to you from time to time.”

“Alright.”

“There are other things that bother me some, like you not cleaning up after yourself or putting things away. Also, I don’t like how you don’t help out around the house. The first three things I named are very important to me. If you fixed any of those three things, I think our relationship would be better.”

“What are some things I could do for you that would make this relationship better?” she added after realizing that Bill probably had some issues of his own.

Bill turned and walked off into the bushes without saying a word.

“Bill? Where are you going?”

He returned with his hands behind his back.

“What do you have behind your back Bill?”

He pulled his right hand out from behind his back and gave Valerie a yellow hibiscus that he had just picked. It was a massive flower, one of the biggest she had seen, spanning at least half a foot in length.

“Bill..it’s…”

Bill interrupted her, “Valerie, it’s my turn to talk, so just listen. The problems you have are problems specific to our lives at home, but what if I took you away from home, perhaps to an island…”

He spread his arms out wide while turning in a complete circle.

“We are not at home Valerie. We are on an island.”

Valerie looked around and realized she had completely forgotten where she was.

He continued, “You see, here on this island, it is just me and you. There is no one else here, just the two of us, and we can do whatever we’d like. Where shall we start?”