In the medicine cabinet he found a bottle of Percocets. He swallowed two of them and got his car keys. His fingers needed tending.
* * *
Late that afternoon, Jenny gave her phone number to Kim’s ICU nurse and asked her to call immediately should Kim’s condition change. Then she rode the elevator to the main lobby. Beneath the cement portico outside she climbed into a waiting cab and gave the driver her home address.
She’d been awake for the past forty-two hours. She was sore and exhausted, but she couldn’t even begin to think about sleeping. She was suspended in a most unforgiving limbo of guilt, fear and apprehension.
But through it all, one thing was crystal clear. Her life with Jack was over. She was going to go home, pack a few things, get her cat and her car and move out.
JENNY’S CAB PULLED INTO THE driveway at dusk. Jack’s car wasn’t there and the relief Jenny felt bordered on joy. She paid the driver and hurried inside.
Peach met her at the door. The poor thing was starved and almost tripped her trying to tell her its dishes were empty.
“You’ll have to wait a bit,” Jenny said, scooping the animal into her arms. “We’re going for a little ride.”
She carried the cat to the pantry, dug out its plastic traveling cage and tucked the big tabby inside. Peach hated the cage—being stuck inside usually meant an unpleasant trip to the vet—and she’d almost squeezed out before Jenny got the door latched.
“It’s only for a little while,” she said, thinking,
God, my voice sounds so dead in here. Has it always sounded like this?
And why was her heart
pounding
?
It was the house, Jenny realized. It seemed alien to her now, the atmosphere too thin, and Jenny felt a rising urgency, a sense that she had to get out as quickly as possible.
Breathing hard, she set the cage by the garage exit and ran upstairs to the bedroom. There was a small black suitcase in the walk-in closet and she crammed it full of slacks and blouses, panties and bras. Pantyhose she could buy. What else?
Something to drink. She was parched.
She lugged the suitcase downstairs, set it next to Peach’s cage and went to the kitchen. The green “message” light was flashing on the answering machine and Jenny hit PLAY, thinking it must be about Kim, fearing the worst.
But it was Richard, his voice hesitant as he groped for words.
“Jen, hi, it’s Richard. I suppose I shouldn’t be calling you at home, but I ran into your aunt Bunnie today—she remembered me from high school—and she told me about your daughter. I went to the hospital, but they were only allowing family in to visit. I just wanted to tell you, if you need anything, if you need a friend...please, don’t hesitate to call.”
He left his cell number and Jenny jotted it down. Then she was dialing it, dialing it urgently. She held her breath...
Voice mail.
Jenny hung up and got a can of ginger ale out of the fridge. She went back to the garage exit, picked up the cage—and realized the cat wasn’t in it. The cage door was unlatched and Peach was gone.
How...?
“Peach? Come on, pet. Don’t play games with me now.” She set the can of soda on top of the cage and headed down the hall, mentally ticking off the cat’s favorite hiding places. “Come on, baby, please.”
Jenny turned the corner into the living room and found her cat. Lid-eyed and contentedly purring, Peach lay curled in Jack’s lap in the La-Z-Boy recliner, pressing her luxuriously furred head into his caressing palm.
“Going somewhere?” Jack said.
* * *
Nina stood behind the twins at their father’s open coffin, one hand resting on each of their slender chests. They looked like miniature men in their matching black suits and bow ties, but their faces were very much those of lost little boys. Even here, with their daddy stretched out before them in the absolute stillness of death, it hadn’t yet registered in their young minds that they would never see him alive again, never again ride on his shoulders or splash him in the pool or take turns using his belly as a trampoline. Nina could hardly believe it herself.
The turn-out for the wake surprised her, considering what Will had been accused of. Most of her family members were here, and all of his, and dozens of Will’s colleagues and friends. But she missed Jenny. At first she was deeply hurt that her trusted friend hadn’t shown up. Surely Jack had told her about Will’s death? But then Paul had taken her aside and told her about Kim. It shook her that Jack hadn’t mentioned it.
So much misery
, Nina thought, hugging Jeffrey closer as the first tears of understanding slid down his cheeks.
So much grief
. She hoped Jenny was faring okay. Maybe she’d make it to the funeral in the morning.
* * *
Jenny was startled at first, then shaking with anger. “Jack, where have you been?” He was wearing a black cotton
gi
, smiling at her.
“I think we should talk,” he said, stroking the cat. He pointed to the couch. “Why don’t you sit.”
“It’s too late for talk. Our daughter’s in a coma, for God’s sake, and you don’t even have the decency to show up?”
“She’s not our daughter,” Jack said. “She’s the diseased afterbirth of a whore. Why try to pretend differently?”
“How
dare
you talk about her like that. She was no more responsible for her birth than you were for yours. And I love her, Jack, even if you don’t.”
Jack smiled. “Sit.” He indicated the couch with an open palm. “We’ll talk.”
“I’ve got nothing to say to you.”
Jack’s gaze shifted to the cat. He resumed his petting.
“I want to leave now,” Jenny said, hating the pleading waver in her voice. “Give me the cat, please.”
Jack’s hand closed gently around Peach’s neck. The cat raised it’s chin appreciatively.
Jack said, “Did you know the neck of a cat is exquisitely fragile?” His grip tightened and Peach stopped purring. Her haunches tensed and her ears came down. Her pink tongue flickered out.
Jack raised his cobra like eyes to Jenny’s. “One quick twist—”
“Jack, don’t.”
He went back to petting the cat, but Peach had lost interest. She huddled in his lap, waiting for a chance to escape.
“Sit,” Jack said. “We’ll talk.”
As in a dream, Jenny walked over to the couch. It dawned on her as she sat that Jack was now between her and the nearest exit.
She said, “Let the cat go. Please.”
Jack obliged and Peach darted away.
In the few strained moments of silence that followed, Jenny realized the central air-conditioning was off—
That’s why my voice sounded so dead in here
—and it struck her how terribly hot the house was. The heat was explosive. It stunned her that she hadn’t noticed it before now. Her clothes were tacky with sweat.
“What did you want to talk about?” she said, hoping to get this over with quickly.
Jack shrugged. “I thought we’d just sit a while.”
Jenny made a huffing sound and started to rise. Jack’s gaze froze her as effectively as a loaded gun.
“Sit,” he said. “There’s plenty of time.” He smiled and Jenny’s sweat turned clammy. “All the time in the world.”
“Jack, you’re scaring me.”
“Just...sit.”
* * *
The house cooled a little after the sun went down, but the air remained close and unpleasant. Jenny sat stiffly on the couch, waiting for something to happen. She was famished, her head ached and her bladder was full, but she couldn’t bring herself to complain. She’d never seen Jack like this and it frightened her.
“I can kill a man with a single blow,” he’d told her one night years ago, after too much wine. “Any man. Most people don’t understand what that means. Think about it, Jen.” She’d written it off that night as drunken bluster. But she was thinking about it now. It was all she could think about.
It was the baby, of course. He blamed her for its death.
But it was you that pushed me
, Jenny thought bitterly.
That was your fault
. But Jack would never see it that way. One thing he’d never had any problem with was revising the facts to suit himself.
“Jack,” she said now, testing the water. “I’m hungry and I have to pee. Whatever this is, it isn’t getting us anywhere.” She stood and took a step away from the couch. “I’m going to the bathroom.”
There was a flash of motion and Jack’s open hand stung her face, the impact sending her reeling backward onto the couch. Jenny sat down hard, one hand flying to her cheek, her injured eye filling with water.
Jack took the three short steps back to the recliner and resumed his relaxed posture.
“I said sit.”
“Jesus, Jack, if you don’t let me go to the bathroom I’m going to wet myself.”
“Then wet yourself.”
No way
, Jenny thought.
I’ll let my bladder burst before I give you the satisfaction.
* * *
Jenny wasn’t wearing a watch, and without that concrete frame of reference—it was dark outside, that was all she knew—time became a blur. She was frightened—in Jack’s current state of mind she had no idea what he was capable of—physically and emotionally exhausted, and despair kept flaring up like a bird with enormous black wings.
But gradually, a single maddening sensation overrode all of it: The need to urinate. It had built over the past few hours from a normal physiological urge into a screaming critical
need
, and if he didn’t let her go—right this minute—she was going to wet herself. And she didn’t think she could bear the disgrace. Not on top of all that had already happened.
She hunched forward and pressed her knees together, trying to seal off her bladder.
She’d peed her pants once in the fourth grade, when Miss Berringer made her stand at the front of the class until she remembered the name of the capital city of Alberta. The old spinster had continued teaching the others, then abruptly whirled around, slapped her hands together and said, “Well, Missy, have you got it yet?” And that slapping sound startled her, it made her lose control, and hot urine went streaming down her legs and everyone laughed, they laughed and the urine flowed and the shame burned in Jenny’s face like dry fire.
“Son of a bitch,” she said now, urine scalding her genitals and seated buttocks. It just came and came. “I hope you like the smell.”
In the dark, Jack smiled.
* * *
When she was a little girl and fear or sickness intruded on her otherwise contented existence, Jenny had a secret place in her mind she retreated to, a shady forest glen. Here she would curl up on a bed of fragrant clover, in a cubbyhole formed by the unearthed roots of a great willow...and she would sleep. There was refuge in sleep, even now, with her grownup bottom soaked in urine and her broken heart languishing in her chest. Sleep brought dreams, and in dreams you could have your babies back, as many as you wanted—
The light was hot against her face. Jenny opened her eyes to watery slits, bringing a hand up to shield her retinas from the needling glare.
It was a lamp. A lamp in her face.
“Jack, stop that, please...”
The light was withdrawn. “I don’t want you dozing off,” he said. He replaced the lamp on the end table. Until now the house had been steeped in darkness. “I want your full attention.” He made a slow circuit of the room, turning on all the lights, then returned to his chair.
Jenny hung her head. She was utterly spent. She hadn’t slept a wink since Kim’s—
suicide
She still couldn’t believe it, could scarcely allow herself to consider it. If she hadn’t been so pitifully self-absorbed, she might have picked up on Kim’s darkening mood. Maybe....
But it was too late for maybes.
The phone rang and Jenny lurched to her feet. “Jack, I’ve got to get that. It might be the hospital.”
There was an extension in the room, on the side table next to Jack’s right hand. On the second ring he reached out and picked up the receiver.
Thank God
, Jenny thought.
Thank—
He lifted it an inch out of its cradle, then let it drop with a mocking clatter.
You fucker.
“Why don’t you get it over with?” Jenny said, her fury making her bold.
“And what might that be, my beloved?”
“Whatever you mean to do to me. Beat me up? Kill me? Is that what you have in mind? Kill me like you did our son—”
The lamp flew across the room and exploded in the open hearth. Jack’s voice was a panther hiss. “Don’t you
dare
breathe a word about my son.” He leaned back in the recliner. “I haven’t decided yet,” he said.
“What haven’t you decided?”
“What I’m going to do with you.”
Jenny chose not to press him further.
* * *
Wearing a plain black funeral dress, Nina sat on the edge of the bed she and Will had shared and watched Peter Chartrand on TV, fielding the questions of a group of reporters. The administrator stood at the Med Center’s main entrance, braving the drizzle on this gray Saturday morning. The man was positively jubilant.
“What we’ve seen here is a kind of harsh justice,” Chartrand said. “Doctor Armstrong was a dangerously unbalanced man whose own wife was forced to take him down. This hospital, this community, owes that woman a debt of thanks.”
A reporter said, “What are your plans now?”
“As we speak a team of technicians is stripping down every anesthetic machine and operating suite, discarding every syringe and drug vial and meticulously restocking. They’ll be working around the clock to ensure the total safety of our operating rooms.”
“How long before you expect to be up and running again?”
“We hope to be fully operational by Monday morning.”
Nina’s mother poked her head into the room. “Honey, it’s time.”
Nina shut off the TV and mustered a smile. “Okay, Mom. I’ll be right along.”
She listened to her mother’s receding footfalls, a brisk staccato of low heels on hardwood, a sound that had so often made her cower as a child. Now, strangely, the sound comforted her. Her mother had waded into this mess and taken control, not with the ranting meanness Nina remembered, but with quiet compassion, making the funeral arrangements, tending to the boys, dealing with the endless harassment of the media. It was amazing. Even a week ago Nina would have sworn the possibility of any kind of reconciliation between her and her mother was less than zero. Already good was coming from bad.