Fire & Water (33 page)

“Where, Ryan? Where did you find his—his
shotters
?”

“In that black cabinet in his studio. Don’t get mad. Daddy told me not to tell you because you’d get mad that I touched his shotter and that he should have locked it up better.”

Snatching her little hands into mine, I searched for any signs of needle pricks. It was irrational—she’d been in school for months—but panic had taken over my actions. “Ryan, did you stick yourself with Daddy’s needle?” My voice was ragged and sharp-edged. My head pounded both from a hangover and from the adrenaline coursing through me. “Ryan, did you stick yourself anywhere?”

Tears pooled in her eyes. “No, Mommy.”

I closed my eyes and pressed my palm to the top of my head, which felt as though it might just blow off any second.
What more? How else can Jake screw up our lives?
“Listen carefully. Did you touch the needles at all? Did you cut yourself or—”

“No. I promise. I only opened the bag and saw them. Then I asked Daddy about them. Don’t be mad at me.”

I scooped Ryan into my arms and clutched her to my chest. “I’m not mad at you.”

“You’re squishing me, Mommy.”

I released the clenching grip and rocked her. “I don’t want you to ever touch medicine that you find again. If you find anything, don’t worry Daddy about it. You come to me. I know how to handle medicine, okay?”

I lay down again beside Ryan and wrapped my body around hers. We rested there among the shadowy woodland creatures. I missed the Jake who made the magical night-light for his baby girl. I missed the Jake who touched me and made the rest of the world disappear—who could rearrange pebbles on a beach and create art. I missed my friend.

Ryan finally said, “Mommy, I think I’m going to be late for school.”

* * *

After I dropped Ryan off at school, I drove to Sea Cliff. I foraged through Jake’s studio like a dog digging for bones. I thought I’d been through everything looking for bills, but under stacks of paint, tools, and layers of canvas, I unearthed a leather satchel. I opened a bag and revealed a lighter, a strip of rubber tubing, a collection of syringes, wads of foil, clumpy white powder in a sandwich bag, and a bent spoon scorched on the bottom.

How long had he been using, what?
Heroin? Speed?
Could he have exposed me through our lovemaking to whatever bacterial or viral nightmare these needles might have introduced to his body? And what about Ryan? What if she had handled these needles and was too scared to confess the truth?

I’d been in med school when the AIDS epidemic had exploded. Over the course of my career, my needle handling had become fanatical. I’d worked with infected children; I’d attended the funeral of a Stanford surgeon who’d been infected during surgery.

I jumped from where I was sitting and grabbed one of Jake’s wooden mallets from his worktable. I wanted to smash it all—the syringes, the lighter—then pound the spoon until it was a jagged wad. My whole life had been about repairing things, preserving health, mending that which was broken or diseased. But I wanted to destroy something.

Like the blue of a sky after a storm, clarity came to me, stopping me mid-motion. Jake hadn’t done any of these things to hurt me or Ryan. Just as my life had been about reparation, his was about creation. He lived for the quick gasp of breath that occurred when someone saw one of the pieces he’d created. In that gasp he felt alive and his life had meaning.

Illicit drugs had been part of how he’d kept the lion hibernating. How he’d coped with his immense sensitivities. Though he was credited with enormous creativity, Jake actually lacked the kind of imagination it took to live daily life with its compromises and mediocrity. When he could not create, his only option was to destroy—mostly himself.

I set the mallet on the worktable. With the precision I used when handling surgical instruments, I placed the items back into the satchel, zipped it shut, and returned it to its dark hiding spot.

* * *

On my drives to Napa to see Jake, I took in the once spring-green hills of wine country. They had baked all summer and dried to tawny blonde in the rainless days of August. Layer after layer of hills lounged like a pride of lions in repose. I braved the feline guardians each day to enter Jake’s lair, never quite knowing what I would meet there.

For the first weeks he was a lamb, remorseful, tearful, and filled with apology. Then he began to pace like a caged cat. We sat together on the plastic cafeteria chairs, our dinner trays touching. Jake swirled mashed potatoes with his fork, the tension in his shoulders making him appear ready to pounce.

“What are you telling Ryan?” he eventually asked.

“The truth—limited. That you’re taking a break. Resting, trying to get stronger. Trying to find medicine that helps. Once we figure out exactly what we’re going to do, Dr. Malmstrom can help us figure out how to talk to Ryan.”

Jeanine Malmstrom was the psychiatrist on staff at Serenity Glen. She’d insisted on my participation in some of Jake’s sessions. Though it felt like rubbing my skin with sandpaper, I’d participated, stoically, in each session—if only to comply with the medical advice.

Jake rammed his tray into mine. Apple juice and decaf coffee sloshed the sides of their plastic cups. “No shrink can teach us how to talk to Ryan. Do you hear yourself? Fuck!”

“Dr. Malmstrom says you’re doing much better.”

“Exactly what is
better
, Kat?
Better
than what, exactly?” His words were bullets.

I scanned the room to see all eyes fixed on us. “Jake, stop it.”

“Stop what? Stop expressing what I feel? That’s all they have me do all goddamn day. The truth? I feel nothing. Nothing! They’ve got me so medicated I can’t get a morning hard-on. Is that what you want, Kat? Maybe I could be like a neutered house pet. One of your dad’s fat cats, maybe. Or better yet a goldfish. A goldfish doesn’t get overstimulated. And if it does, well
Whoooosh.
You can just give it the old flusheroo.”

“Lower your voice.”

“As soon as I form a creative thought, it disappears like, like, like vapor.” Jake’s hands were frantic birds above his head. “I’m not even who I am anymore!”

“Calm down,” I whispered, looking around at the dining hall full of onlookers. “Why don’t you take part in the art therapy program here? Dr. Malmstrom says that using your talents could be a vehicle to helping you to feel better.”

“Gluing Popsicle sticks together? Jesus! You said my art was what got me into this shit hole.”

“Not your art. Your
obsession
.” Venom sharpened my words.

“If it’s not obsession, it’s not art. Maybe you want watercolors of barns or baskets of lemons. Macaroni necklaces.”

“I don’t deserve to be the whipping boy for your bad mood today.”

“Don’t you? I think you
do
deserve it. It’s your fault I’m in this place.”

I folded my paper napkin, set it on my tray, and stood up. “I’ll see you on a day when you can be civilized.”

Jake stood, knocking his plastic chair over with a clang. “You don’t get to just leave,” he ranted. “You don’t get to just walk out when you don’t like what I’m saying.”

A broad-shouldered man with “Serenity Glen” embroidered on his blue polo shirt stepped toward us. “Everything okay here?”

“Fine,” Jake shouted. “Just a little marital communication. You’re all about
communication
in this place, right?”

“Why don’t we take this into a private room, Jake?” the attendant said calmly.

My face burned in the gaze of other patients and their visitors.

“We have no secrets in here, do we, folks?” Jake pointed his finger at a mousy woman hiding behind her stringy hair. “We hear everything in group, don’t we, Marcia?” She peered up from under her hair curtain. “We know all about Marcia here giving blow jobs for coke. Nick here, he thinks he’s Jesus when he’s off his meds, and Grayson over there is pretty sure they poison the oatmeal. You might just be right there, Grayson. I had some suspicious lumps in my bowl last week and I haven’t taken a shit in four days.”

The orderly took Jake by the elbow. “Let’s get you back to your room.”

Jake jerked his arm away and stepped back. “The first complete thought I’ve expressed since I got in here and now they want to SHUT ME UP!”

“Jake, people are staring.”

“That’s all you care about. What people think,” he said, his arms flung wide. “What do you care what a bunch of nut-jobs and drug addicts think, Kat? You put me in this funhouse. This is what you get.”

Fury rose from my gut and I clenched my jaw to stop its escape. I spoke in measured, flattened tones. “You’re here because of
your
choices, Jake. Not mine. You went off your medication. You put yourself into a heroin-induced stupor. You cut yourself to ribbons.”

He stared at me, his eyes feral and probing, finding my fear. “
My
choice was to die. You’re the one who pulled me back into this nightmare.” He turned to the group. “Shall we give the heroic Dr. Murphy a round of applause?”

One tremulous man stopped rocking himself and clapped.

I fled the room with Jake ranting behind me.

* * *

“You must be psychic. I was going to call you today.” Mary K pulled off her surgical gloves and mask and stepped out from behind the body she was examining—a Latino man of about forty, riddled with gunshot wounds. Mary K wore her sleek hair pulled back and tucked into a blue paper cap. “What brings you down to the meat market?”

Jake had been at Serenity Glen for two weeks. Pride and shame took turns in preventing me from confiding in Mary K about the full details.

“What’s Ryan up to?”

“She’s at the Aquarium with my dad.”

“Nice. How’s Bloom?”

“Still in treatment. Looks like your patient had a pretty bad day,” I said, nodding to the corpse.

Mary K’s glare let me know she recognized my avoidance of her question. “Yeah, Mr. Aguilar here has seen better days. Most people would think that the holes in his head and body were the cause of death. Take a look.”

As I stepped forward I heard a jingling sound coming from Mary K’s small adjoining office. On a large dog bed stood black fur ball of a puppy that seemed more mop than dog. His tail wagged and he let out a single yip. Mary K snapped her fingers and the pup sat down, awaiting his next command.

“And who’s this?” I asked, approaching the dog. His tail wagged faster as I scratched behind his ears.

“Murphy, meet our newest junior medical examiner, Welby. As in Marcus Welby, MD. But he doesn’t stand on ceremony. Welby will do.”

“What’s his breed?” I asked.

“Welby here is a three-month-old BBM,” Mary K said with a smile. “That’s a basic black mutt. Picked him up at a shelter.”

“I thought Andra was against getting a dog until you got a place with a yard.”

“Yeah, well… What’s missing, Dr. Murphy?” Mary K said, jutting her jaw toward the corpse.

I patted the pup and looked up. Mary K was quizzing me, just as she had all through med school. “No blood.”

“Yup. They shot him up after he croaked. I’ll likely find a belly full of pills.”

“Why would someone try to make a suicide look like a murder? Isn’t it usually the other way around?”

“Insurance is null for suicide, not murder. People really should consult a medical examiner before they try this shit.” She tossed her gloves into a wastebasket and reached into her pocket. Pulling out a dog treat, she bent down on one knee and scratched the puppy on his head. She stood. “I’m glad you stopped by. How about you buy Welby and me some lunch? The yogurt in the fridge with the lab specimens isn’t calling my name right now.”

At the deli down the street, Mary K ordered a plate of meatballs, a salad, and a club sandwich for Irene. The deli owner threw in a beef bone for Welby.

We sat at our usual outdoor table and the homeless woman began circling with her shopping cart. Welby, tethered to Mary K’s chair under the table, gnawed happily on his bone.

“Hey, Irene,” Mary K shouted. “I’m setting your sandwich on this next table, but to get it you have to say hello to me and my friend here.” She turned toward me. “Irene and I are working on greetings and salutations.” She turned back to the frightened woman. “Murphy here sprang for the grub, so a thank-you would be in order. That’s a few words in exchange for a triple-decker sandwich
with
bacon.”

The dirt-crusted woman muttered her disgust.

“That’s the deal. Six words. Hello Mary K. Hello Murphy. Thank you. Then lunch is yours. If you squeeze in a nice-to-meetcha, there’s a lemon bar in it for you as a bonus.”

We began eating. Irene paced.

“Come on,” I said. “I don’t want her go hungry just because she can’t say a few words.”

“She will not miss out on bacon. Trust me, Murphy. She can do this. She talks with me now and then. Bums my cigs. Real conversations on her good days. Used to be a legal secretary before she lost her marbles. Has an adult son and a sister who try to take her home, but she ends up back here talking to the cast of thousands in her head. I talked to a social worker at the shelter. If she learns to have remotely normal exchanges with people and takes her meds they could place her in a group home.”