"William... Yeah, something like that. I don't know if you went into detail. I pretty much took you at your word."
"You still can. Ask Malloy. He was there. He saw me do it."
"Maybe I will." He looked down at the floor. "They also say you've been using cocaine. A lot of cocaine."
"Was using.
Was
. I'm through with it. You can test me. No booze. No coke. Nothing."
His eyes met mine again. "Pearson was told you jumped out a second-story window."
"Huh?"
"You got high, screamed something about wanting to end it, then hopped right out the window before anyone could stop you. You slammed into the ground on your right side."
"My—"
"Can you pull up your shirt?"
"Nels, this is insane."
His gaze settled on my right side.
"I must have pissed Kathy off even more than I knew. I'm being set up."
"You feel—"
"Jesus Christ, Nels!" I could feel my pulse behind my eyes.
He took a step closer to the door.
I calmed myself down to the extent that I could. "If you want to play analyst, it doesn't mean you have to start every other goddamn sentence with ‘You feel.’ Mix it up a little bit. Try a few other lines, like ‘I think I hear you saying,’ or ‘I understand.’" I took a few deep breaths. "Look, I'll make this easy for you. To review: I'm not paranoid. I don't hear voices or see visions or smell burning flesh or feel spiders crawling all over my balls. I'm not homicidal or suicidal. This is Lynn. Stonehill Hospital. It's Thursday. Morning. Bill Clinton is president of the United States. And you're as much of an asshole as you've always been."
"So indulge me. I've got to do a physical exam anyhow. Lift up your shirt."
"Fine." I pulled my jean shirt out of my pants.
Nels winced.
I looked down. A mottled blue, black and yellow bruise ran over the three or four ribs that had broken my fall when I bounced off Trevor Lucas’ Ferrari. "Lucas did that," I said. "With his car."
"He's in jail."
"I know. I helped put him there. Before he went, we had a scuffle."
"OK. Listen. Why don't we—"
"There you go again with that let's-not-rattle-the-crazy-person tone of voice. I'm telling you Kathy's paying me back for... Well, I'm not exactly sure what she's paying me back for. But she definitely heard about my ribs from Lucas."
"Losing Kathy means a great deal to you."
There are few things more dangerous than misguided empathy. "Nels," I said, trying to control myself. "You should really stick to sore throats. You're wrong to think I'm pining away. Do you know where I just came from?"
"No."
"Good. At least everybody's not dialing up my Lo-Jack number."
"Your..."
"Forget it."
He looked even more concerned.
"I was at a beautiful woman's apartment. She's a dancer at the Lynx Club. Perfect ass. Long legs. Gigantic heart. I didn't think of Kathy for one second last night while we were making love. I was too goddamn happy. So believe me, I'm not descending into a psychotic depression. I've never felt better in my life." Before I had finished the last sentence, I knew it might make him worry I was euphoric — as in manic.
"Yeah, well... Let's get your physical exam done and that urine and blood tox screen you suggested and wait for Pearson. I can't release you without a psychiatrist approving the discharge, even if I wanted to."
"He's coming? Here?" I was embarrassed to see him with things going so wrong — especially since he had predicted they would.
"The Impaired Physicians’ Program requires an on-site eval. Pearson does his own."
"So why am I torturing myself talking to you?" I closed my eyes. When does he get here?"
"Soon."
My body was examined, and my urine and blood were collected. I tried to sleep on the gurney, but couldn't. Elijah brought me Coffee Cake Juniors and a few
People
magazines. I read a long article about celebrity breakups, like Julia Roberts and Lyle Lovett. An even older issue had a photo of a note from Michael Jackson to the rest of the world in which he asks for understanding from the public because he's been
bleeding a long time
— an obvious reference to Christ. Wouldn't that be something; God coming back as a black pop singer addicted to plastic surgery who likes to hang around with naked kids. And here I was, locked up as a crazy, while the Gloved One taped a special for HBO. Go figure.
Friday, 10:37
A.M.
I watched through the observation window as Ted Pearson checked in at the nurses’ station. He hadn't changed in the months since I'd seen him. His silver hair was neatly groomed, and he was, as always, elegantly attired in charcoal slacks, a white-and-gray pinstriped shirt and red bow tie. His deep blue eyes were unblinking as they took in his surroundings. He signed something, flipped through a few sheets of paper on the countertop and headed toward my door. After he'd been let in the room, he bowed almost imperceptibly to Elijah. Then the door closed again.
He looked at the ceiling, around at the walls, nodded to himself, then took a seat on the stainless steel stool. He folded his hands and stared at me. "Well..." he said finally.
I felt myself relax, an effect I remembered Pearson having had on me each time we had met. My shoulders dropped, and my hands folded on one another, like his.
He reached up to adjust a hearing aid in his left ear. That was new. "Occupational hazard," he said. "Ears aren't made to listen to as many stories as we do."
"You’ve been at it a lot longer than I have."
"Forty years. Give or take." He finished tuning his ear. "I don't think I ever told you I worked in this hospital for a short time during the sixties. Back then they called it the Lynn Lying Inn."
"Still plenty of lying going on."
He winked and turned to look out the observation window. "The ER must be four, five times the size it was."
I wasn't in the mood for a walk down memory lane. "You signed my Section 12," I said calmly.
He turned back to me and pursed his lips. "More than that. I issued it."
"Why?"
"Judge Stahl passed along serious concerns a few people in your life shared with him. Then I talked directly with those individuals."
"Then let me clear a few things up. I'm not suicidal. The story about me jumping out a window is ludicrous. And I'm off the drugs. Kathy and my mother apparently misled to you."
"Perhaps," he allowed. His eyes locked on mine. "What seemed clear to me is that neither of them has any idea why you might be suffering. I'm sure you'll agree that represents remarkable data." He was silent several seconds. "They want you to survive. They need to have you in their lives, in some very particular way. But they show precisely zero interest in your having a full life yourself."
I took a deep breath and let it out. "How does that add up to me getting picked up?"
"I wasn't sure whether you had any interest in living, either."
"I do."
"I'm encouraged to hear you say so," he nodded. He fiddled with one of his cufflinks, a gold square with an inlaid lapis spiral. "How did you mean to go about it? Cocaine? Freud found it lacking."
"I stopped two days ago. I'm—"
"At the very beginning," he smiled. "At best." Several more seconds passed. His expression grew solemn. "I'm going to do something I don't think I've ever done, Frank."
I was more than a little worried by that. "What? What are you going to do?"
"Breach a patient's confidentiality."
I waited, unsure where he was headed.
"I treated your father in this very place. More than once."
"My father? You saw him?"
"Yes. I did. But more important for our purposes, I see him in you."
I stayed silent.
"He would stumble in, ranting about throwing himself over the tracks at Salem Station. Always drunk. Always the same story."
"My grandfather worked as an engineer for the old Boston and Maine Railroad. Out of Salem Station."
"Ah. Your dad never said a word about that. I wish that he had."
"He wouldn’t have opened up. Not even to you. Not to anyone. He never did."
"What a difficult man for you to love."
My throat felt too tight to respond.
"You were with him the night he actually visited those tracks, Frank."
"What? When? I don't remember anything like that."
"You were eight years old. I'm not surprised your mind would put the memory in deep storage."
"What happened?"
"Your father was drunk. Again. He found an isolated platform, hopped over the edge, then lay down between the rails." He paused. "Now that you tell me your grandfather worked for the railroad, I guess your father laid his body on that track partly as a symbol. He'd probably been through hell with the man." He shook his head. "But if it hadn't been the tracks, it would have been somewhere else. Because he wanted to sleep. Forever. His pain had worn him out." He squinted at the floor and nodded to himself, then looked back at me. "And at eight years old, already hating him as you must have, you loved him enough to do a remarkable thing."
I pictured my father passed out on the tracks, but couldn't keep the image focused in my mind longer than a few seconds.
"You climbed down over the edge of that platform and tried to drag him back up. You ripped his shirt trying. You stumbled, skinned your knees and sliced your thumb wide open on a piece of broken glass."
I looked at my left thumb. I'd had a jagged scar from the first knuckle to the heel of my hand my whole life. I'd never known why, or thought to ask.
"And when you couldn’t move him, you screamed for help. A janitor working the night shift found the two of you and carried you out of there. Then the police brought you both to this emergency room."
"And you were here?"
"I was. And now we're here again."
My skin turned to gooseflesh.
"I'll tell you the same thing I told your father that night," he said softly. "I can't keep you from destroying yourself. No one can. Ultimately, that choice will always be yours." He stood up and extended his hand.
I took it. It felt soft and warm, and I could have held it a long time. "What happens now?" I asked.
"Good question." He paused. "I'd still be honored to help you answer it."
I watched as Pearson walked over to Nels and conferred with him. People kept crossing in front of them, and my eyes had filled up, so I couldn’t get a sense of how the conversation was going. Then the two men shook hands, and Pearson walked out.
A minute later Nels came into my room. "Let me ask you again. No chance of doing yourself in?"
"No."
"As in zero percent possibility."
"Zero."
"Fair enough."
"That's it? I can go?"
"You're a free man. According to Pearson, there's no way we can hold you. Your urine and blood are clean, and you say you're safe. So that's that." He reached into his lab coat and pulled out a card. "He said to give you this."
I took the card. It had Ted Pearson's name engraved in simple black letters, with his phone number underneath it. I turned the card over. On the back he had written a quotation from the poet Rilke:
Everything terrible is something that needs our love
.
I slipped the card in my pocket.
"Still angry?" Nels asked.
"A little less every day," I said.
* * *
I walked out to the waiting room and spotted Elijah sweet-talking the receptionist, a pretty blonde named Jackie. She and I had kept up a harmless flirtation over the years. I started over to them.
"If this don't give me hope we will all be liberated one sweet day," Elijah bellowed.
"Hello, Frank," Jackie said.
"Jax," I nodded.
"Can't seem to stay out of trouble, huh?" She tilted her head slightly.
Elijah looked at her, then at me. "Maybe I should take over the desk and let you two find a call room."
Jackie chuckled.
I laid a hand on Elijah's beefy shoulder. "Thanks for the help in there. I appreciate it."
"No problem."
"One thing, though."
"Fire away."
I reached into my pocket, took out my penknife and clicked it open. "You didn't search me before you locked me up. It didn't matter this time, but the next guy might leave you minus an eye. Or some other piece of vital equipment." I glanced at the bulge in his pants. "A little teaching point for your trouble."
"Thanks. I think."
I playfully poked his arm with the knife. "Teaching
point
. Get it?"
He squinted at me. "You sure you didn't escape?"
"I know I did."
We shook hands.
"Where you headed?" he asked.
"Upstairs. Ob-Gyn."
He chuckled. "And you're tellin’ me to watch
my
back."
* * *
Kathy wasn't in her office. Kris, her secretary, told me she'd arrived late and had rushed to the delivery suite. I took the department's private elevator up two floors to the doctors’ lounge. It was empty, but Kathy's black leather bag was in front of her locker. I pushed through the double doors into the amphitheater over the delivery room. The lights were off, so I used the seats along the center aisle to guide me to the angled wall of glass up front.
The obstetrical team was working on what looked like a difficult case. Usually, the anesthesiologist would be slouched in his chair, barely awake, but he was on his feet, checking gauges. The scrub nurse feverishly arranged surgical instruments on a tray next to the patient. Kathy had been standing between the patient's legs, but now moved to the woman's side.
I looked down at the patient's naked groin, then at Kathy as she doused the woman's abdomen with Betadine. The ruby liquid spread out and ran between the woman's thighs. As a psychotherapist, I had always felt at home coaxing the healing process, waiting out the truth about a patient's life for months or years. The goals of treatment were subjective ones. Recovery could be a matter of opinion. Kathy's work was definitive —
delivering
new life, when it needed to happen, in whatever way it needed to happen. Was that why she felt comfortable invading my life as dramatically as she had?