Addiction (8 page)

Authors: G. H. Ephron

BOOK: Addiction

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I held the phone away from my ear. Where was the caring administrator calling to find out if I was all right? To inquire how Channing's daughter was doing? His number-one concern was predictable: how to spin the news so it wouldn't diminish the institute's reputation.

“Such a shame this had to happen on the hospital grounds,” he said.

“I'm sure Channing's daughter and husband share your dismay.”

“I don't mean to sound callous. Wherever it happens, it's a terrible tragedy, of course.”

“Of course.”

“No one will miss Dr. Temple's â¦ insights â¦ more than I will.”

Like hell he would. Channing's so-called insights were a perennial pain in Destler's butt. She saw managed care as a Dante-esque hell, where administrators stood above, taking pleasure in tormenting the rest of us. Civil disobedience was the only response. She was known to lose paperwork, even misplace the occasional patient, just so she wouldn't have to discharge him or her when the need for care didn't conveniently stop when the insurance coverage ran out.

“Just wondering, you were there, weren't you?” he said.

“I found her.”

“You spoke to the police.”

“Of course.”

“And did you get the impression that it was â¦”

“That it was what?”

He cleared his throat. “Suicide?”

From Destler's point of view, suicide was a better verdict than accident. No liability. No messy lawsuits. Far better than murder and all the endless speculation and nasty publicity that would accompany that.

“Beats me,” I said, and hung up.

THAT NIGHT I had a restless sleep. At five I was awake, fumbling with the coffeemaker. I must have dozed off sitting at my kitchen table, because I was jolted awake by the sound of Channing's voice, urging me to “Run, run, run, run â¦ .” Turned out to be the sound of the last of the water, steaming onto the spent grounds.

Run. That's what Channing always did when she needed clarity. When we met, she was a fitness nut, and I could have been a Charles Atlas “before” ad. But by the time we graduated college, I was running with her every dawn, and I could almost keep up and remain conversational.

After that, I kept running, every winter, whenever I couldn't get out on the river. And then, after Kate died, it became a compulsion. For an hour each day, my body was occupied.

I threw on some sweats, strapped on my portable CD player and let myself out. I was locking my door when my mother opened hers and peered out at me. My mother lives in the other half of the two-family side-by-side that Kate and I bought just after we were married. My parents moved in after my father got sick. He died about a year later.

My mother had on a pink quilted bathrobe, her white hair
wrapped in a gauzy scarf. She looked tired and concerned. I knew it wasn't just the early hour. We were both often up before the birds. “I saw the paper,” she said. “Wasn't that doctor your friend?”

“I found her,” I said. My mother gasped. “Her daughter was there, too.”

“Daughter?”

“Seventeen years old.”

My mother squeezed her eyes shut. “Such things shouldn't happen.” Then she eyed me. “You're doing for that little girl?”

“I'm doing for her.”

“Good,” my mother said, and disappeared into her side of the house.

I jogged to the river. Soon I was running along Mem. Drive, watching one sneakered foot and then the other hit the pavement, a Richard Thompson CD playing in my ears. The river was slate gray, not a ripple on it. Nothing more than a shadowy outline suggested that the Hancock Tower was on the Boston side of the river. Mist coated my face.

I was barely a mile into my run, and already I felt steam rising off my body, stifling inside the heavy sweatshirt. Perspiration was dripping into my eyes. I wiped my arm across my forehead. Physical discomfort can be very reassuring, pinning you securely in the moment.

That's what I wanted. The physical present and nothing else. I tried to get there, to sync my strides to the beat of the music, to feel each foot hit the ground and the shock wave rise up my shin and then ripple from knee to hip. I pulled off my sweatshirt and tied it around my waist, yearning for even five minutes when all I could think about was my body and the effort it took to keep going. I could hear Channing's patient voice: “Talk to me. That way I'll know you're breathing.”

But instead of anchoring me in the present, I found myself replaying the phone call I'd gotten last night from Drew. First, he'd asked about Olivia. His speech was slurred, one word slopping up
against the next. He'd probably been drinking. I told him she was stable but still sedated.

He asked if I knew when Channing's body might be released, so they could make plans for cremation and a memorial service. I had no idea, but I offered to call and find out what I could. The logistics of death are a wonderful thingâthey provide a rhythm, a driving force for getting you through those first few horrendous days. They move the body and the brain forward when the spirit wants to roll over and surrender.

“How did she look?” Drew had asked. “Her face. Did she look frightened?”

I didn't want to turn my mind back, to remember, but I closed my eyes and tried. “No,” I could honestly say, “she seemed peaceful. At rest, even.”

Drew gave an exhausted sigh. “Thank God for that at least.”

I asked Drew if he'd eaten any dinner. He dismissed the question. The worst part, he said, was being alone. Even the housekeeper, overcome with grief, had gone home to her own family. “I'll be all right,” Drew said. “I made up the bed in Channing's study. She's here, you know. Her books. Her papers. Her smell.” I could picture him, curled up like a little kid in a blanket on the sofa bed. “It's my fault,” he said, and noisily blew his nose. “I've been having an affair.” He added quickly, “It meant nothing.”

That was the problem with suicide. Everyone wanted to take credit. Shoulder the guilt. Daphne blamed herself for not paying attention. Olivia had said it was all her fault. Now Drew was doing the same. Survivors engage in an endless game of If-Only-I'd.

“You should see your doctor,” I said. “Don't be stoic. Let him prescribe something to get you through the worst of this.”

“I called. He can't see me until day after tomorrow.”

“Take it easy on the booze,” I said. “You're depressed. Alcohol only makes you more so.”

“It's all I have,” he said.

Many psychiatrists have a bathroom cabinet full of samples
dropped off by generous pharmaceutical salespeople. But Channing wouldn't. It was a side of medicine that infuriated her, another example of the incestuous relationship drug companies and physicians shared.

Then I rememberedâDaphne said Channing was taking Ativan. I described what the pills looked like. “I'm not a physician,” I said. “I can't tell you to take them. But I can tell you that one or two twenty-five-milligram tablets will probably help, and the side effects are minimal, but don't take one now. Wait until the morning, when you've slept it off.”

This morning, I couldn't get Drew off my mind. I'd always thought he and Channing had had a good marriage. Perhaps no fireworks, but a solid partnership. Then I recalled the young, dark-haired woman in the pastel suit at Channing's party. Surely Channing hadn't known. She might not have been able to stop the affair, but she'd never have tolerated the woman's presence at her own birthday party.

By now, I was approaching the MIT Boathouse. My body felt like a mess of ill-fitting parts, the muscles dragging the bones, the joints complaining. I pulled the headphones down around my neck. My warm breath filled the hollow in my chest. Even without the music, Richard Thompson's words kept ringing in my ears. “The ghost of you walks right through my head â¦ .”

I approached the Harvard Bridge and pushed past the ache in my legs, finally feeling the endorphins kicking in and starting to blow the pain away. I put the headphones back on and cranked up the volume, trying to fill my head with sound so my mind could empty. I crossed the bridge, building momentum, and effortlessly whipped around the downward spiral onto the Boston side.

When I'd asked Drew if Channing had been depressed by the
JAMA
article, he'd scoffed. “Depressed, bullshit! Pissed. Energized. She was planning to fight back. I told her she was tilting at windmills. She didn't care. She was going to go after the drug companies and anyone else who challenged her, and she was relishing the fight.” That didn't sound suicidal to me.

When I got to work, I checked in with Gloria. “I can't tell,” she said, when I asked her how Olivia was doing. “In shock. Or else she's shutting us out.”

“Did she eat anything?”

“Not much.”

I went to Olivia's room. The door was ajar. I knocked. “Hello?” I said. Then louder, “Olivia?”

No answer. I pushed the door open and put my head in. “Good morning.”

A small suitcase sat on a table, open but not unpacked. The bathroom door was ajar. Olivia was nowhere to be seen.

I checked the common area. Matthew Farrell was sitting at the ebony grand piano, picking out a wooden-sounding version of “The Entertainer.” Mr. Fleegle sat in a chair, tapping his toe and nodding to what little rhythm there was. The television in the far corner delivered its weather report to an otherwise empty room.

I returned to the nurses' station and announced, “She's not there.”

Gloria gave me a pitying look. “Looked real hard, didn't you. She's there. I just checked on her a minute ago.”

“Then she's invisible.”

“Did you check the closet?”

“Of course. The closet. Now why didn't I think of that?”

“She's been in there since, well, since I got here.”

I returned to Olivia's room. In the corner was a tall, narrow wardrobe. I tapped on the door and slowly pulled it open. Olivia was jammed inside, crouched down, hugging her knees to her chest. Her face was turned away from me.

I squatted beside her. Her forearm was bandaged. Her body was taut, every muscle straining to hold herself in a tight ball. Crumpled tissues were piled on the floor.

“Olivia,” I said gently.

She didn't respond.

“I see your father brought you some clothes. Do you want help unpacking?”

Still nothing.

I knew ordering her out of the wardrobe would only cause her to shrink further into herself. I thought for a moment. “Does it work?” I asked.

Her head gave a little jerk.

“Does it work?” I repeated.

Slowly she lifted her head and turned her face to me. Her eyes were rimmed with red. Her skin looked white against the black hair. She looked at me as if I had two heads, but gave a dull shrug.

“Can I try it?” I asked.

A tiny smile tugged at the corner of her lips.

Encouraged, I continued, “I don't think there's room for both of us in there. Why don't you get out and let me have a go at it.”

She was watching me, evaluating. Finally, she put out a tentative foot and then emerged from the wardrobe. She stood aside, arms crossed.

I wedged myself into the closet and, by flexing my knees, I could just get my head in. I felt like a size-fourteen foot in a size-nine sneaker.

“Does it work better with the door shut?” I croaked.

She nodded.

“Well, go ahead then. Let's give it a try.”

She had to push hard against the door to get it to shut. I stood there, inhaling the dust of crumbling fiberboard, feeling the walls close around me, bands of light sliding in through the louvers in the door. Good thing I've never had a problem with tight quarters. Still, I was relieved when she pulled the door open and peered in at me.

“Thanks,” I said, and extricated myself, being careful to unsnag my belt loop from the door latch. “I guess not much bad can happen in there.”

Olivia went over to the bed and sat up against a pile of pillows.
She glanced around the room, from the gray window shade that spanned a large barred window to the small nondescript chest of drawers, to the heavyweight door with its curved aluminum handle. “Mom and I were going to go shopping,” she said.

“Do you want to talk about what happened yesterday?”

“She promised me. We were going to Beadworks in the Square.”

“Olivia, I can hold the police off for a couple of days. At least until you're back to some equilibrium. But there's a detective who's going to want to talk to you. It's not going to take him too long to figure out that your fingerprints are on the gun.”

“You think I killed my mother?” The words floated in the air, emotionless.

“No, I don't,” I said slowly.

Olivia twisted one of the rings on her thumb. She pulled it off, chewed on it, and put it back on. “We were going to get the cobalt beads, and the turquoise â¦ .” she murmured.

“It would help if I knew what happened,” I persisted.

A tear squeezed out of Olivia's eye. “I don't know what happened,” she said. “I was supposed to meet her in her office. I was late. I'm always late. She hates that about me.” A tear appeared at the corner of the other eye.

“Did you hear the gunshot?” I asked.

Olivia looked away. Then she squinted up at me. “No, I didn't. When I got there, she was â¦” She stopped, unable to form the next word.

“And where was the gun?”

“In her hand.”

“Why did you take it?”

Olivia stared at her own hands. “We were going to go to the bead store,” she whimpered. She turned away from me and curled up into a ball. “I want all different colors,” she said in a monotone, “and I don't want to talk to cops. No cops.” Olivia started humming under her breath.

“Olivia, I'd like to call Dr. Smythe-Gooding.”

Olivia hummed louder and curled tighter.

“I need your permission to talk to Dr. Smythe-Gooding,” I said, my voice clear and intense.

She mumbled something.

“What was that? I can't hear you.”

She rolled back to face me, wide-eyed with anxiety. “No,” the word exploded. “She's a sick bitch.”