The Girl From Home: A Thriller (3 page)

Seeing it all laid out, Jonathan reflects on his walk-in closet back in the city, stacked with thousand-dollar Berluti shoes and six-thousand-dollar suits. He shakes away the thought of what he's left behind and places his meager belongings into a single drawer of the dresser that still shows the outlines of the New York Mets stickers he had once plastered all over it.

When his clothes are put away, Jonathan explores the house as if it's uncharted terrain, and not the place he called home until he left for college. The living room with its L-shaped sectional—the one item of furniture not from his father's store, which, of course, made it his mother's favorite—the den with its dark-brown-and-rust-color theme; the downstairs playroom that his sister, Amy, claimed as her bedroom after Jonathan left for college, which at least had a decor that was more 1980s than the rest of the house, with a purple polka-dot color scheme inspired by the cover of Prince's
1999
album.

The kitchen is new, meaning that it dates from the Clinton administration. It was the big expenditure his parents made after Amy graduated and his parents were no longer burdened with tuition payments. It was still done on the cheap, but at least it's white, and not the avocado green Jonathan remembers from growing up.

Jonathan decides that if ever a moment called for some alcohol, by God this was it. His parents were never drinkers, but for as long as Jonathan could remember, his father kept the same bottle of scotch in the cabinet under the kitchen sink. It was purchased on the day Jonathan was born, with his father intending to open it on his son's eighteenth birthday.

Jonathan searches under the sink for the bottle. He finds it in the back, wedged against the pipe. Pulling it out, he examines the label. It's a blend, and a crappy one at that. A brand Jonathan had never seen in an advertisement or a liquor store or on a restaurant menu, and Jonathan can't help but shake his head in disappointment. Even when William Caine was trying to go all out, he was subpar. It only further fuels the mystery in Jonathan's mind of how it could possibly be that he had fifty percent of that man's DNA running through him.

For an occasion nearly two decades in the making, when the seal on the scotch was first broken, it occurred without any pomp. Jonathan was on his way to go out and celebrate with his friends when his father asked him to stay for just a minute longer and handed him a glass filled with a centimeter of amber liquid.

“I can't believe you're giving your just-turned-eighteen-years-old son alcohol right before he gets in a car,” Jonathan's mother had said.

“It'll be just a sip, Linda. And, besides, I doubt he's going to like it much . . . To my son on his eighteenth birthday,” William Caine had said, clinking his own glass with Jonathan's. “You're going to want to sip it very slowly. Just take a small swallow in your mouth, and then let it roll down your throat.”

Jonathan followed his father's instructions. Even so, it tasted like smoke at first, and then morphed into fire as he swallowed.

The entire event lasted no more than ten minutes. His father mentioned making the scotch drink an annual birthday ritual, but the following years saw Jonathan spending his birthdays at college. He and his father never shared another glass.

The bottle appears just as full as it was twenty-five years ago. After pouring a generous amount, Jonathan takes a sip. As he had expected, it's barely drinkable. Jonathan hasn't had anything but top-shelf scotch since . . . maybe since the day he turned eighteen.

He takes the glass outside. Even in the bright sunlight, there's a sharp chill in the air. As cold as it is now, Jonathan knows it's going to get much worse before it gets better.

Much like his own life, come to think of it.

*  *  *

An hour later Jonathan pulls his Bentley into the Lakeview Wellness Facility parking lot. He hasn't yet seen any lake that might be viewed, although he leaves open the possibility that there's some body of water somewhere, so maybe every part of the name isn't a total lie.

Jonathan has no illusions that the
wellness
part couldn't be further from the truth. He's certain that no one ever gets well at Lakeview. Like the old Roach Motel commercials—people check in, but they don't check out.

An odd anxiety takes hold the moment Jonathan enters the facility. He fears that his father has just died, or will expire in the next few minutes—before he makes it to his old man's room. Less than a hundred yards away from his destination, Jonathan begins to jog through the halls, full of dread that he's too late.

When he reaches his father's room, his fear appears to be realized. William Caine lies there motionless.

Jonathan can feel his heart thumping as he approaches. His father does not stir, even as Jonathan reaches out to grasp the man's thick, hairy fingers.

They are warm to the touch. Then his father slightly moves his hand but still doesn't open his eyes. Nevertheless, it's enough proof for Jonathan that his father's alive.

Jonathan walks out of the room to the nurses' station. It's manned by three women, all wearing white nurse's uniforms. One is African American, and the other two appear to be Hispanic. Each is at least fifty pounds overweight.

“I'm Jonathan Caine,” he says to none of them in particular. Then he points at the room he just exited. “That's my father, William Caine. How's he doing?”

“Oh, hi,” says the African American nurse. “Yeah, you look like him.”

Jonathan's heard for years that he resembles his father, and he always took it as a compliment. His mother had never made any secret that looks were the reason she had married William Caine. Sometimes she'd say it as the worst type of insult, as in,
Do you think I would have married him if I'd known what he was really like? But what did I know? I was twenty-two and he was the best-looking man I'd ever laid eyes on.
Those looks included chiseled cheekbones, a long, straight nose, a strong, dimpled chin, and piercing blue eyes, all of which Jonathan inherited.

“So how's he doing?” Jonathan asks again.

The nurse shrugs. “The same. He was awake earlier today. Talking a little bit.”

“Do you think he's asleep for the night, or could he wake up?”

“No way of knowing.”

Jonathan checks his watch. It's five o'clock, and the reunion starts at eight. He needs no more than an hour's lead time to get ready, which means he might as well spend the next two hours watching television beside his father, rather than doing so by himself in his father's house.

He goes back into his father's hospital room and settles into the red vinyl recliner under the window. Finding the remote on the night table, Jonathan clicks on the wall-mounted television and surfs the channels until arriving at the Michigan–Ohio State football game, and decides that's as good as anything else to pass the time.

*  *  *

Jonathan's mother died nine months ago. Cancer. Diagnosed in June and dead by March. She had been complaining about something being wrong with her husband's mind for at least two years before she got sick, although truth be told, she had been complaining about her husband's mental state for as long as Jonathan could remember.

The last time Jonathan saw his father was at his mother's funeral. During the drive home, he finally saw what his mother had been talking about.

“Johnny,” his father said.

Jonathan let slide his father's use of his childhood nickname, which he hadn't answered to since high school. Like everyone else, his father had long referred to him as Jonathan, so the reversion to Johnny was just another sign of his old man's decline.

“I have something I need to ask you.”

“Sure,” Jonathan said.

“I don't know if you'll know the answer, but I know you're very smart, so I thought I'd ask.”

“Okay.”

“Did you hear that person who talked at the funeral and kept saying how your mother was an angel?”

That person was her brother, Alan. Jonathan's father had known him for more than fifty years.

“Yeah. Uncle Alan. Right.”

“Well, is it true?”

“Is what true, Dad?”

“Is your mother an angel?”

Of all the descriptions of Linda Caine,
angelic
was not one that Jonathan would apply. Beautiful. Overbearing. Ill-tempered. Those fit. Angelic, less so.

“She loved you very much,” Jonathan said.

His father violently shook his head. “No. I'm not asking about
me
. I'm asking about
her
. Is she an angel? Is she?!”

Jonathan found his father's anger even more disconcerting than the absurdity of the question. For all of William Caine's faults, losing his temper wasn't one of them. Jonathan could scarcely recall the man being forceful about anything in his life, yet now he was demanding to know whether his dead wife was an angel with the urgency that suggested innocent lives were hanging in the balance.

“Do you mean like in heaven?” Jonathan asked. “With wings and a halo?”

“Yes,” his father said with utmost seriousness.

Jonathan sighed deeply. He truly didn't know what type of response was appropriate in such a situation, but figured that you responded to people with dementia the same way you did a child.

“The thing is, Dad, that angels exist only in heaven, so no one knows if Mom is an angel or not, because if she's an angel, it's in heaven.”

His father nodded, seemingly satisfied with this answer. “That's what I thought,” he said. “I knew that guy was lying, because he couldn't know if Linda was an angel. Nobody can.”

Jonathan isn't certain whether any actual diagnosis has been made of his father's condition. His younger sister, Amy, has told him that the doctors have bandied about different medical-sounding things, which she often mentioned in connection with some celebrity who suffered from the malady. Parkinson's, like with Michael J. Fox, was ruled out, but Parkinson's syndrome, like with Muhammad Ali, was a leading candidate when the symptoms were physical only, most noticeably that his left leg dragged when he walked. When his father's mind began to falter, Alzheimer's became the new diagnosis, with Ronald Reagan getting top billing, but Amy's Internet research recently led her to conclude he might have Lewy body. Jonathan had never heard of that one, but Amy said Robin Williams had it, and she described the disease as like Alzheimer's, only with hallucinations, pointing out that their father was often talking about having different imaginary friends.

*  *  *

For the next hour, Jonathan watches football as William Caine snores beside him. Just as Jonathan's ready to call it a day, after Michigan stops Ohio State at the two, his father shows signs of coming to life. First there's a gargling noise, followed by a loud hack, and then his eyes slowly open.

“Hiya, Dad,” Jonathan says. “How are you?”

His father blinks.

“It's Jonathan.”

“I know,” his father croaks.

“Here, have some water.”

Jonathan takes the pitcher on the bedside table and fills the Styrofoam cup sitting beside it. For a moment he thinks he'll have to hold it to his father's lips, but then his father takes the cup out of Jonathan's hands.

His grasp is less than steady, but he nonetheless manages to take a sip without spilling it. The cup's return trip to the table has a rockier landing, but it touches down without falling over.

“Why are you here?” his father asks.

It's more than a fair question. When his mother was alive, Jonathan's parental contact—which even then amounted to little more than monthly phone calls—was confined to his mother, with his father listening on the other extension, but not saying much besides hello and good-bye.

Since his mother's funeral, Jonathan had been even more distant, such that the most accurate description of his paternal relationship would be that they were just shy of being estranged. He hadn't visited, and they'd spoken only a handful of times over the phone, and those conversations followed a nearly identical script:

Jonathan: How are you doing, Dad?

Dad: Still here. How's everything with you?

Jonathan: Good.

Dad: Any plans to come see your old man?

Jonathan: Sorry, but work's crazed now. Maybe next month.

Dad: Okay. 'Bye now.

The first response that pops into Jonathan's head to his father's query as to why he's visiting now, after all this time, is sarcastic—
Nice to see you, too, Dad.
The second one is a lie—
Because I missed you.
He goes with the bronze-medal answer.

“I'll be visiting a lot more from now on, Dad. I'm going to stay at the house for a little while.”

“Your mother will be happy about that.”

Jonathan searches his father's face for some tell that he meant the comment facetiously, but he looks serious as a heart attack.

“Mom's dead. Don't you remember?”

Jonathan's father offers only a shrug. If he had forgotten, the news of his wife's passing appears not to be all that distressing.

“Tonight is my twenty-fifth high-school reunion,” Jonathan says to change the subject to something grounded in reality.

“That's nice.”

“I hope so. Remember Brian Shuster? I'm not sure if he'll be there, but I'm hoping he will be.”

Jonathan had read somewhere that people with dementia have an easier time recalling distant memories. Perhaps his father remembered Brian, who had been Jonathan's inseparable best friend throughout the 1980s, more clearly than the fact his own wife had died this past March.

Jonathan's reference to Brian Shuster, however, is met with a blank stare. He might as well be speaking Chinese.