False Memory Part 8

Funny, how one good cookie could calm the mind and even elevate a troubled soul.

After a while, she was able to concentrate on the book. The writing was good. The plot was entertaining. The characters were colorful. She enjoyed it.

The second waiting room was a fine place to read. Hushed. No windows. No annoying background music. No distractions.

In the story, there was a doctor who loved haiku, a concise form of j.a.panese poetry. Tall, handsome, blessed with a mellifluous voice, he recited a haiku while he stood at a huge window, watching a storm: .

"Pine wind blowing hard, quick rain, torn windpaper talking to itself." "Pine wind blowing hard, quick rain, torn windpaper talking to itself."

Martie thought the poem was lovely. And those succinct lines perfectly conveyed the mood of this January rain as it swept along the coast, beyond the window. Lovely-both the view of the storm and the words.

Yet the haiku also disturbed her. It was haunting. An ominous intent lurked beneath the beautiful images. A sudden disquiet came over her, a sense that nothing was what it seemed to be.

What's happening to me?

She felt disoriented. She was standing, though she had no memory of having risen from her chair. And for G.o.d's sake, what was she doing here here?

"What's happening to me?" she asked aloud this time.

Then she closed her eyes, because she must relax. She must relax. Relax. Have faith.

Gradually she recovered her composure.

She decided to pa.s.s the time with a book. Books were good therapy. You could lose yourself in a book, forget your troubles, your fear.

This particular book was especially good escape reading. A real thriller. The writing was good. The plot was entertaining. The characters were colorful. She enjoyed it.

10.

The one available room at New Life was on the second floor, with a view of the well-landscaped grounds. Queen palms and ferns thrashed in the wind, and beds of blood-red cyclamens throbbed.

Rain clicked against the window so hard that it sounded like sleet, though Dusty could see no beads of ice sliding down the gla.s.s.

His clothes only slightly damp now, Skeet sat in a blue tweed armchair. He paged desultorily through an ancient issue of Time. Time.

This was a private rather than semiprivate room. A single bed with yellow-and-green-checked spread. One blond, wood-grain Formica nightstand, a small matching dresser. Off-white walls, burnt-orange drapes, bile-green carpet. When they went to h.e.l.l, sinful interior designers were a.s.signed to quarters like this for eternity.

The attached bath featured a shower stall as cramped as a phone booth. A red label-TEMPERED GLa.s.s-was fixed to a corner of the mirror above the sink: If broken, it would not produce the sharp shards required to slash one's wrists.

Although the room was humble, it was costly, because the care given by the staff at New Life was of a far higher quality than their furniture. Skeet's health insurance didn't include I-was-stupid-and-self-destructive-and-now-I-need-to-have-a-full-brain-flush coverage, so Dusty had already written a check for four weeks of room and board, and he had signed a commitment to pay for the services of therapists, physicians, counselors, and nurses as needed.

As this was Skeet's third course of rehabilitation-and his second at New Life-Dusty was beginning to think that to have any hope of success, what he needed were not psychologists, physicians, and therapists-but a wizard, a warlock, a witch, and a wis.h.i.+ng well.

Skeet was likely to be at New Life for a minimum of three weeks. Perhaps six. Because of his suicide attempt, a series of nurses would be with him around the clock for at least three days.

Even with painting contracts lined up and with Martie's deal to design a new Lord of the Rings Lord of the Rings game, they were not going to be able to afford a long Hawaiian vacation this year. Instead, they could put a few tiki lanterns in the backyard, wear aloha s.h.i.+rts, crank up a Don Ho CD, and have a canned-ham luau. That would be fun, too. Any time spent with Martie was fun, whether the backdrop was Waimea Bay or the painted board fence at the end of their flower garden. game, they were not going to be able to afford a long Hawaiian vacation this year. Instead, they could put a few tiki lanterns in the backyard, wear aloha s.h.i.+rts, crank up a Don Ho CD, and have a canned-ham luau. That would be fun, too. Any time spent with Martie was fun, whether the backdrop was Waimea Bay or the painted board fence at the end of their flower garden.

As Dusty sat on the edge of the bed, Skeet dropped the issue of Time Time that he'd been reading. "This magazine sucks since they stopped running nudes." When Dusty didn't respond, Skeet said, "Hey, that was just a joke, bro, not the drugs talking. I'm not particularly high anymore." that he'd been reading. "This magazine sucks since they stopped running nudes." When Dusty didn't respond, Skeet said, "Hey, that was just a joke, bro, not the drugs talking. I'm not particularly high anymore."

"You were funnier when you were."

"Yeah. But after the flight goes down, it's hard to be funny in the wreckage." His voice wobbled like a spinning top losing momentum.

The rataplan of rain on the roof was usually soothing. Now it was depressing, a chilling reminder of all the dreams and drug-soaked years washed down the drain.

Skeet pressed pale, wrinkled fingertips to his eyelids. "Saw my eyes in the bathroom mirror. Like someone hocked wads of phlegm in a couple dirty ashtrays. Man, that's how they feel, too."

"Anything particular you'd like besides your gear? Some new magazines, books, a radio?"

"Nah. For a few days, I'll be sleeping a lot." He stared at his fingertips, as if he thought part of his eye might have stuck to them. "I appreciate this, Dusty. I'm not worth it, but I do appreciate it. And I'll pay you back somehow."

"Forget it."

"No. I want to." He slowly melted down into the chair, as though he were a wax candle in the shape of a man. "It's important to me. Maybe I'll win the lottery or something big. You know? It could happen."

"It could," Dusty agreed, because although he didn't believe in the lottery, he did believe in miracles.

The first-s.h.i.+ft nurse arrived, a young Asian American named Tom Wong, whose air of relaxed competence and boyish smile gave Dusty confidence that he was putting his brother in good hands.

The name on the patient-ID sheet was Holden Caulfield Jr., but when Tom read it aloud, Skeet was roused from his lethargy. "Skeet!" "Skeet!" he said ferociously, sitting up straighter in his chair, clenching his fists. "That's my name. Skeet and nothing but Skeet. Don't you ever call me Holden. Don't you he said ferociously, sitting up straighter in his chair, clenching his fists. "That's my name. Skeet and nothing but Skeet. Don't you ever call me Holden. Don't you ever. ever. How can I be Holden How can I be Holden junior junior when my phony s.h.i.+t of a father isn't even Holden when my phony s.h.i.+t of a father isn't even Holden senior senior? Who I should be is Sam Farner Jr. Don't you call me that, either! You call me anything but Skeet, then I'll strip naked, set my hair on fire, and throw myself through that freaking window. Okay? You understand? Is that what you want, me taking a flaming-naked suicide leap into that pretty little garden of yours?"

Smiling, shaking his head, Tom Wong said, "Not on my s.h.i.+ft, Skeet. The flaming hair would be an amazing sight, but I sure don't want to see you naked."

Dusty smiled with relief. Tom had struck the perfect note.

Slumping in the armchair again, Skeet said, "You're all right, Mr. Wong."

"Please call me Tom."

Skeet shook his head. "I'm a bad case of arrested development, stuck in early adolescence, more screwed-up-twisted-up-tangled-up than a couple earthworms makin' babies. What I need here aren't a bunch of new friends, Mr. Wong. What I need here, you see, are some authority figures, people who can show me the way, 'cause I really can't go on like this and I really do want to find the way, I really do. Okay?"

"Okay," said Tom Wong.

"I'll be back with your clothes and stuff," Dusty said.

When Skeet tried to get to his feet, he didn't have sufficient strength to push himself up from the chair.

Dusty bent down and kissed him on the cheek. "Love you, bro."

"Truth is," Skeet said, "I'll never pay you back."

"Sure you will. The lottery, remember?"

"I'm not lucky."

"Then I'll buy the ticket for you," Dusty said.

"Hey, would you? You're lucky. Always were. h.e.l.l, you found Martie. You walk around in luck up to your ears."

"You have some pay coming. I'll buy you two tickets a week."

"That would be cool." Skeet closed his eyes. His voice settled into a murmur. "That would be...cool." He was asleep.

"Poor kid," Tom Wong said.

Dusty nodded.

From Skeet's room, Dusty went directly to the second-floor care station, where he spoke to the head nurse, Colleen O'Brien: a stout, freckled woman with white hair and kind eyes, who could have played the mother superior in every convent in every Catholic-themed movie ever produced. She claimed to be aware of the treatment limitation special to Skeet's case, but Dusty went through it with her anyway.

"No drugs. No tranquilizers, no sedatives. No antidepressants. He's been on one d.a.m.n drug or another since he was five, sometimes two or three at once. He had a learning disability, and they called it a behavior disorder, and his old man had him on a series of drugs for that. When one drug had side effects, then there were drugs to counter the side effects, and when those those produced side effects, there were more drugs to counter the new side effects. He grew up in a chemical stew, and I produced side effects, there were more drugs to counter the new side effects. He grew up in a chemical stew, and I know know that's what screwed him up. He's so used to popping a pill or taking an injection that he can't figure how to live straight and clean." that's what screwed him up. He's so used to popping a pill or taking an injection that he can't figure how to live straight and clean."

"Dr. Donklin agrees," she said, producing Skeet's file. "He's got a zero-medication advisory in place."

"Skeet's metabolism is so out of whack, his nervous system so shot, you can't always be sure what reaction he'll have even to some usually harmless patent medicine."

"He won't even get Tylenol."

Listening to himself, Dusty could hear that in his concern for Skeet, he was babbling. "He nearly killed himself once with caffeine tablets, they were such a habit. Developed caffeine psychosis, had some amazingly weird hallucinations, went into convulsions. Now he's incredibly sensitized to it, allergic. You give him coffee, a c.o.ke, he could go into anaphylactic shock."

"Son," she said, "that's here in the file, too. Believe me, we're going to take good care of him." To Dusty's surprise, Colleen O'Brien made the sign of the cross and then winked at him. "No harm is going to come to your little brother on my watch."

If she had had been a mother superior in a movie, you would have had full confidence that she was speaking both for herself and for G.o.d. been a mother superior in a movie, you would have had full confidence that she was speaking both for herself and for G.o.d.

"Thank you, Mrs. O'Brien," he said softly. "Thank you very, very much."

Outside again, in his van, he did not at once switch on the engine. He was trembling too badly to drive.

The shakes were in part a delayed reaction to the fall off the Sorensons' roof. Anger shook him, too. Anger at poor screwed-up Skeet and the endless burden he imposed. And the anger made Dusty tremble with shame, because he loved Skeet, as well, and felt responsible for him, but was powerless to help him. Being powerless was the worst of it.

He folded his arms across the steering wheel, put his forehead on his arms, and did something that he had rarely permitted himself to do in his twenty-nine years. He cried.

11.

After the session with Dr. Ahriman, Susan Jagger appeared to be restored to her former self, the woman she had been prior to the agoraphobia. As she slipped into her raincoat, she declared that she was famished. With considerable humor and flair, she rated the three Chinese restaurants that Martie suggested for takeout. "I don't have a problem with MSG or too many hot red peppers in the Szechuan beef, but I'm afraid I must rule out choice number three based on the possibility of getting an unwanted c.o.c.kroach garnish." Nothing in her face or in her manner marked her as a woman in the nearly paralytic grip of a severe phobia.

As Martie opened the door to the fourteenth-floor corridor, Susan said, "You forgot your book."

The paperback was on the small table beside the chair in which Martie had been sitting. She crossed the room, but she hesitated before picking up the book.

"What's wrong?" Susan asked.

"Huh? Oh, nothing. Seem to have lost my bookmark." Martie slipped the paperback into her raincoat pocket.

All the way along the corridor, Susan remained in good spirits, but as the elevator descended, her demeanor began to change. When they reached the lobby, she was whey-faced, and a tremor in her voice quickly curdled the note of good humor into sour anxiety. She hunched her shoulders, hung her head, and bent forward as though she could already feel the cold, wet lash of the storm outside.

Susan exited the elevator on her own, but four or five steps into the lobby, she had to grip Martie's arm for support. As they approached the lobby doors, her fear reduced her nearly to paralysis and to abject humiliation.

The return trip to the car was grueling. By the time they reached the Saturn, Martie's right shoulder and that entire side of her neck ached, because Susan had clutched so tenaciously and had clung so helplessly to her arm.

Susan huddled in the pa.s.senger's seat, hugging herself, rocking as if racked by stomach pain, head bent to avoid a glimpse of the wide world beyond the windows. "I felt so good upstairs," she said miserably, "with Dr. Ahriman, through the whole session, so good. I felt normal normal. I was sure I would be better coming out, at least a little better, but I'm worse than when I went in."

"You're not worse, honey," Martie said, starting the engine. "Believe me, you were a pain in the a.s.s on the way in, too."

"Well, I feel feel worse. I feel like something's coming down on top of us, out of the sky, and I'm going to be crushed by it." worse. I feel like something's coming down on top of us, out of the sky, and I'm going to be crushed by it."

"It's just the rain," Martie said, because the rain drumming on the car was cacophonous.

"Not the rain. Something worse. Some tremendous weight. Just hanging over us. Oh, G.o.d, I hate hate this." this."

"We'll get a bottle of Tsingtao into you."

"That's not going to help."

"Two bottles."

"I need a keg."

"Two kegs. We'll get sloppy together."

Without raising her head, Susan said, "You're a good friend, Martie."

"Let's see if you still think so when we're both committed to some alcohol-rehab hospital."

12.

From New Life, in the grip of something close to grief, Dusty went home to change out of his damp work clothes into dry civvies. At the connecting door between the garage and the kitchen, Valet greeted him with doggy enthusiasm, tail wagging so hard that his whole b.u.t.t swayed. The very sight of the retriever began to bring Dusty out of his internal darkness.

He squatted and gave the dog a nose-to-nose greeting, gently scratching behind the velvety ears, slowly down the crest of the neck to the withers, under the chin, along the dewlaps, and into the thick winter fur on the chest.