Every Waking Moment (20 page)

DEVIN’S FIRM CONVICTION
, his overriding principle, was that telling the story led to life. Following the next step, the next chapter, the next memory propelled them forward.

He was beginning to question that principle.

Treha sat in the front with him, and Jonah got in behind them with the equipment, sweating profusely.

“I think we dodged a bullet
 
—no pun intended,” Jonah said. “This is the kind of guy who shows up at a government office one day and opens fire and his neighbors can’t believe it and everybody’s looking for why. There’s no why to crazy. It’s just crazy. We could have been part of a big headline. ‘Three Killed in Deadly Rampage.’”

“Tell me what you know about Phutura,” Treha said. No emotion. Not paying attention to anything but the drum of her fingers and the movement of her eyes.

“Please don’t tell me you’re going to try to make sense of what he told you,” Jonah said. “He’s crazy.”

“Phutura is a big pharmaceutical company,” Devin said. “Big as in billions of dollars every year.”

“Go; just drive away from here before he finds his stash of grenades and lobs one toward us,” Jonah said. “I’m applying at
Target tomorrow. You don’t pay me enough to risk my life. In fact, you don’t pay me at all.”

Devin looked at Treha. “He really thinks there’s someone listening to him, doesn’t he?”

She nodded.

“Can we go now?” Jonah said.

Devin started the car. “Did you get through to him? Can you tell?”

“I don’t know if he has dementia or disease. There’s definitely paranoia. But there’s something different. . . .”

“Devin, she’s not a doctor; she’s a janitor. No offense, Treha.”

“His fear is very deep. I can sense that.”

“I don’t understand,” Devin said.

“I don’t understand why we’re not moving,” Jonah said.

“You think he’s actually being watched?” Devin said.

“We’re here, aren’t we?” Treha said.

“Yeah, but
you’re
the reason we’re here. I don’t have a hidden agenda or a black helicopter.”

“He told me I was in grave danger.” She looked down at a crack in the leather seats. “What if he’s right?”

“Great, now we’ve got two of them,” Jonah said. “Buckle her up and keep her away from sharp objects.”

“Treha, the guy probably thinks the president is reading his e-mail. Or the attorney general. Every time the air conditioner kicks on, it’s another government plot to poison him with refrigerant. I’m surprised he lets the postal service get that close to his house. Surely you ran into this at Desert Gardens. Come on, you’re scaring me.”

She stared out the windshield, her jaw set. Devin’s phone buzzed and he answered it.

A pause. “Mr. Hillis, I need to speak with you.”

Devin plugged his Bluetooth in and held his other ear. “It’s good to hear from you, Mr. Davidson.”

“Hang up!” Jonah said.

“A question for you. Where did you get her?”

“Treha?”

“Yes.”

“At the retirement home. We sort of found each other.”

“Do you have any idea where she is from? Where she grew up?”

“No, but she’s right here. I can ask.”

The man paused and made a noise
 
—perhaps rubbed his face. Devin couldn’t tell. “Why me? Why do you . . . ? Are you working for those monitoring me?”

Devin took a breath. “No, sir. My partner and I are working on a documentary that features Dr. Crenshaw and others from Desert Gardens.”

“And you came to me because . . . ?”

“We’re focusing on Treha now. Telling her story and looking for answers about her life. We think you might have information.”

A long pause. “I don’t see how that could be possible.”

“Mr. Davidson, if you could give us fifteen minutes
 
—just ten, even
 
—I think we could get some answers.”

The line went dead. Devin stared at the phone.

Then Jonah screamed like a girl. “There he is! I told you we should have left!”

Calvin Davidson opened the door behind Devin and almost fell into the seat, his pistol out. “Drive away, now,” he said, his eyes dancing. “They’ll be here any minute.”

Devin glanced at Treha. Jonah was pressed up against the other door, acting like he wanted to jump out.

“This is much more serious than you realize,” Davidson said gravely. His color was off and he was breathing heavily.

“You’d better buckle up,” Devin said. The man’s hands were trembling. “Jonah, help him buckle up.”

“Why me?”

“I can do it myself,” Davidson said.

He fumbled with the seat belt, and Devin thought Jonah had plenty of opportunities to take the gun from him, but was glad he didn’t. A misfire could be disastrous.

“I apologize for my rude behavior, but there are some things you don’t understand.”

“Maybe you could fill us in,” Devin said.

“Or maybe you’ll just fill us with lead,” Jonah said, wiping his face.

“I don’t want to harm you. I want to protect you. And myself. It’s just that I get befuddled in the head.” He waved a hand. “I’ll answer your questions, but not here, not where they can hear me.”

“Have you taken your medication?” Jonah said.

Davidson threw back his head and laughed. “Now that is funny. If I’m treating you kindly, like a human being is supposed to, I must be on medication.”

Devin looked in the rearview at Jonah, trying to tell him with his eyes to shut up, to humor the old man. Not to tick him off. They started driving through the affluence of Scottsdale with this man who seemed like he hadn’t been out of his house in years.

“Do you have a phone?” Davidson said to Jonah.

“You want to call your therapist? Be my guest.” Jonah reached in his pocket gingerly and handed the phone to the man. Davidson rolled down the window and, before Jonah could protest, tossed the phone out.

“Hey!” Jonah sat forward, his mouth agape, looking first at
Davidson, then at Devin. “You just . . . That was my iPhone! Stop the car, Devin!”

“Don’t stop the car,” Davidson said. “Keep going.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me!” Jonah said. “Do you know how much that costs? All of my contacts are on there!”

“You can buy a new phone. You can’t buy a new life.”

“If we’re in that much danger, we should get to a police station,” Devin said.

“No, not the police,” Davidson said. “They may be part of it.”

Jonah was still openmouthed, looking behind them. “The conspiracy theories are flying as fast as the phones. You owe me a new iPhone, man!”

“They can trace you with your phone,” Davidson said. “If you want to stay alive, listen to me. Do what I tell you.”

“Stop the car, Devin,” Jonah said. “This is crazy. Let me out. I’m not staying in here with . . . He’ll throw the camera out next.”

Davidson shifted in his seat and Jonah grabbed the camera bag. “Don’t you dare! You don’t touch this.”

Davidson shook his head. “You’re incorrigible. You don’t see what’s coming.”

“Who are we dealing with?” Devin said. “Who’s listening to you?”

Davidson looked back. “The company. Whoever they’ve hired. They want me silenced.”

“What company? Phutura? What do you know that’s so important to them?”

“Keep driving. You don’t need to know this. It will only put you in more danger.” He lifted a hand toward the front. “I need your phone as well, Mr. Hillis.”

“No way. Don’t let him have it,” Jonah said. “He’ll chuck it into the cheap seats.”

Davidson still had his hand out, waiting. “Do you have a phone?” he said to Treha.

She shook her head.

“Look, just take out the battery,” Devin said. “There’s no way for them to track us.”

“That’s not true. . . . They can still track you.” Davidson looked confused.

“Not if your phone isn’t communicating with the towers,” Jonah said. He held out a hand and Devin gave him the phone. Jonah powered it down and removed the battery. “Why didn’t you tell him that before he threw mine out the window?”

“We’ll get you a new phone,” Devin said.

“Great. You know, if they had geriatric Olympics, you could get the gold in the iPhone toss. You actually put some backspin on it.”

Davidson’s face was stern, his teeth clenched. “They will find me.”

“Who?” Devin said. “Tell me who we’re running from.”

“Young man, are not the years I have lived enough reason to respect me? Do you see the lines in this face? I’ve paid the price for your respect.”

They came to a red light at a large intersection.

“We need to go somewhere they won’t expect. Somewhere far from here.”

“How about the Apple Store?”

“Jonah, please.” Devin gave him a frustrated glance.

“Take me to Tucson. I want to see Dr. Crenshaw,” Davidson said.

“And when we get there, what are we going to do?” Jonah said.

Devin drove under the interstate and Davidson gave him a
tired look. “When we get to safety, after I’ve seen him, you can set up your camera and record my testimony.”

“Testimony?” Devin said.

“You mean like a religious conversion story?” Jonah said.

“I’m not talking about religion. I made promises years ago, when I was younger. Things I would not reveal. And if I testify about those things, it will cost them millions. Billions, even.”

“And this has something to do with Dr. Crenshaw?” Treha said.

“It has everything to do with him.”

“He is comatose,” Treha said. “He can’t speak with you.”

“If you want answers to your questions, take me there.”

Streams from Desert Gardens

scene 23

Shot of home in Plainfield, AZ.

Cut to family room, where Corrine and Kelsey Wells sit on a couch.

Tight shot on family portrait behind them.

Tight shot of Kelsey’s eyes and her nystagmus. Return to shot of Corrine and Kelsey.

Tight shot of Corrine holding Kelsey’s hand. Then back to full two-shot of them.

Cut to home videos of Kelsey playing volleyball, with most of image grayed to highlight #12. Slow motion of Kelsey spiking the ball and high-fiving teammates.

Linger on video of match point in district finals and girls celebrating on the court. Tight shot of Kelsey smiling.

Two-shot of Kelsey and Corrine watching the video, Corrine wiping away tears.

Tight shot on Corrine brushing hair from Kelsey’s face and pulling her closer to kiss her forehead.

MIRIAM STARED
at the computer screen. She’d never been very good at searching for things. Not like Charlie. Her search felt like a logjam on a swollen river. There was so much information swirling but so many barriers to get to Treha’s past.

She had dialed the number on the card for Family Support Services and spoken with a disinterested desk worker. She asked for Kara Robbins and was met with a pause.

“I’m following up on a case and trying to track down information. Is Kara in today?”

“Hold, please.”

Music on hold. Words she couldn’t understand set to music that would never speak to her. She was growing more and more like her mother, the songs from the past blocking anything new.

“This is Marie; can I help you?”

Miriam asked for Kara, explaining briefly and guardedly about an old case.

“I’m afraid you’re about ten years too late. Kara left some time ago. Is there anything I can help you with?”

“Did she move to another job?”

“She started a family. She’s a full-time mom now. What’s this about?”

“I found her business card at a friend’s house. We’re looking into her past and I thought Kara might help.”

“Who’s your friend?”

“Her name is Treha Langsam.”

A pause. “No, doesn’t ring a bell. How long ago would this have been?”

“It could have been fifteen, sixteen years ago.”

“That was before my time, and honestly, even if I knew, we aren’t at liberty to talk about confidential matters. I’m afraid I can’t help you.”

Before Miriam could formulate the next salvo, the phone had clicked and she sat in silence. She hit the search engine button and typed the name in again, but she came up empty.

Charlie wandered past the room, heading toward the kitchen, but paused, peering over her shoulder. “What you looking for?”

An innocent question, but she felt it was an intrusion. She didn’t pry into his online habits or searches. Maybe she should. Who knew what he was looking at all day back there.

“It’s about Treha. I’m looking for someone who knew her when she was young.”

“Why don’t you type the name into Facebook?” he said.

She hadn’t thought of that.

“Type her in and see what you get.”

He continued to the kitchen and Miriam typed in the name, coming up with people from Belvedere, Ohio; Kalamazoo, Michigan; St. Louis, Missouri; and more. She studied them all but none looked like they were old enough to have children. She clicked on
See More
and several others popped up
 
—one from Arizona. Kara Robbins Praytor lived in Clarion, Arizona, originally from Scranton, Pennsylvania. Studied at Penn State. Degree in criminology. Previous employer was listed as “social
work.” Her photo showed an African American with a pleasant face, big smile, and two children who hugged her neck so tightly it looked like they would leave a mark.

Miriam clicked Kara’s name but found her personal information blocked, although there was a link to a blog. It had a creative title and looked artistic, with a series of impressionistic photographs on the header. Miriam scrolled through the posts
 
—a haphazard mix of observations about current events or adventures in potty training. The woman wrote unashamedly from a Christian perspective. Her words weren’t heavy-handed but winsome, and there was something about the way she seemed to genuinely live out what she believed that drew Miriam. There were no political diatribes, no mean-spirited slams against other faiths or groups of people. This woman simply wanted to honor God with everything she did.

Partway down the impressive list of past topics, the title “Shoelaces” piqued her interest. She clicked on the entry.

It’s hard not to focus on what I’ve given up to be a mom. I have less free time, less disposable income, less conversation with adults, and at the end of the day I’m exhausted and feel I haven’t done anything
meaningful. It’s easy to believe I haven’t changed someone’s life, just diapers.

Still, I don’t miss the commute or the office politics
 
—with apologies to former coworkers
 
—or the temptations of those glazed donuts every Friday morning. What I miss about my old job is encapsulated in one face that walks in on me at the strangest moments. I will call her Julie because I’m not allowed to give her real name. She was almost five at the time. She came to me in tattered shoes, with a stare that compares to Superman’s laser vision. She was a poster child for abandonment, for everything wrong with the world.

That is not why I think of her today, nor why I think she comes to me in my dreams. Her shifting eyes haunt me.

I was privileged to take her to the shoe store. We were going to pick out a pair of sneakers. I measured her feet, showed her the styles available in her size on shelves above her line of sight. I pulled thick white socks over her feet and watched her glide along the shelves. She gravitated to a certain pair
 
—pink with white flowers, as I recall
 
—and then she would wander to sandals or tap shoes or the dainty sneakers with Velcro and try them on. Each time she would return the shoes to the box and walk back to the pink sneakers. She looked up at me as we stood there, staring long and deep into my eyes, as if there were an ocean of pain and hurt inside. She drew me in like a magnet, like a tide pulling at the beach, and I couldn’t help kneeling beside her and putting a finger to her temple and tapping lightly.

“What’s going on inside there?” I said. “What are you thinking?”

She spoke in a whisper too light and airy to discern, but I could read the lips and hear her heart.

“Do you have a mother?”

“Yes, I do,” I said.

“What’s it like?” she said.

Children will ask the height of the sky or what God is like and they don’t really expect an answer. They know somewhere deep inside that there are questions that can’t fully be answered. They simply want you to hear them, to care.

Julie wasn’t looking for a single answer to the mother question but for a life full of things she had never experienced. So I told her. I told her everything. It came pouring out
 
—the way my mother used to wake me in the morning before school, the smell of the kitchen with heavy bacon fat that sizzled in the skillet, the peppermint candy she ate just before church, and how she would pull me up on her lap in my grandmother’s rocking chair and read to me. She had been breastfed in that chair, and so had I, and years later my sons would be as well.

Julie listened, not dutifully or waiting to speak again, but drinking in my words until my well ran dry. People walked around us
 
—climbed over us is more like it
 
—for twenty minutes there on the floor of the shoe store, and each time I finished, she asked another question.

I think about her in my unguarded moments. I see her in my children, in some discovery they make. Like learning to tie shoelaces.

It was getting dark and time to leave, so I had Julie try on the pink shoes. The laces were in place but not tied and I could tell by the way she looked at them that she didn’t know how. I told her about the bunny ears and recited the poem my mother had taught me, the sad rabbit whose ears were too long and needed to be tied in a bow. She stared at the laces, then at me, processing the information. I told her to try. Instead, she stood, walked the length of the aisle, and came back.

“Do you want me to tie them?” I said.

She shook her head.

“You could trip and fall if you don’t. You don’t want to let them flop around.”

“It feels better this way,” she said.

“You don’t have to be scared of not knowing how to tie them. Do you want me to teach you?”

She shook her head and sat, taking the shoes off and putting them in the box.

“Then what is it? Why don’t you want them? Why do you keep coming back to them?”

“If I tie them, the job is over. There’s nothing left to do.”

I still don’t know exactly what she meant by that. At first I thought she meant that she’d get more attention from people with untied laces
 
—that grown-ups like me would tie them for her and maybe tell her a story or two about their lives. But now I don’t think that’s what she meant. I think there was more behind her words.

We like to think of life as a series of knots we tie and move along. We do what we’re told, follow the rules, and soon we’re secure in the rhythm of life. We
don’t question. We don’t even think of the questions. And when the laces flop, we feel insecure about the lack of pressure against the sides of our souls. Support allows us to relax and inhabit life. But this child philosopher was showing me something I couldn’t see, something I couldn’t begin to understand. That there was more than simply feeling okay about myself or okay about walking ahead. Or walking away.

Every time I tie my child’s shoes, every time I tie my own, I think of this. I think of Julie and the way she walked out of the store that night with shoelaces flopping, holding my hand and looking down at them like she had freed the bunny. If I close my eyes and wait, I see her walking today, grown-up, that piercing stare and those questioning eyes.

Somewhere she is walking and I hope she feels freedom. Sometimes when we’re at the park or walking on the track at school, I’ll untie my shoes in her honor. It feels like the least I can do.

Miriam sat back. She hadn’t taken a breath. Could “Julie” be Treha? She had to be. The shifting eyes and flopping shoelaces were a perfect match.

She typed Kara’s last name and town into a phone directory and a James L. Praytor came up. Her heart beat a little faster, then fell when she saw the number was unlisted.

She pulled up the blog again and looked for an e-mail address, a way to contact Kara, but there was only a section for comments.

Don’t give too much away or appear to be a stalker. Don’t gush about the blog either.

Miriam typed her e-mail address and phone number, clicked the Send button, and immediately felt she had done something wrong, hadn’t given enough information. Then again, maybe she had sounded too desperate. She could have said she was Julie’s real mother but she didn’t want to lie or manipulate.

Now she would wait. An hour, a day, a year. Who knew how long before the woman responded? It was out of Miriam’s control, just like life. Day after day of waiting and hoping and trying not to feel but feeling all the same. Putting a fishing line in the water and sitting and watching for life to give a nibble. She had settled for this. Life’s nibbles.

“You come up with anything?” Charlie said, stopping as he passed the room again. He had a ham sandwich in his hand and a paper towel for a napkin underneath. Crumbs fell like raindrops and Miriam tried not to look down.

“Actually, yes. I think your suggestion about Facebook helped.”

He nodded and chewed, pointing with the sandwich at the screen and beginning a sentence that he stopped when she looked away. She hated watching him eat. The sounds, the slurping of the soup, the smacking lips. She couldn’t stand the noise, the sight of the bread stuck to his teeth. There were so many things she couldn’t stand. And she felt bad about it, but you can’t train revulsion; it simply comes when it will.

Charlie ran his tongue across his teeth. “I meant to tell you,
I saw a news report about some kids. Strange stuff happening. I think you’ll be interested.”

Charlie was a news junkie, particularly of the death-and-mayhem variety. It didn’t matter if it was a bus crash in Spain or a tsunami on some remote island in the Pacific, Charlie had to tell her about every missing person or missing limb he came across at some of the most inopportune times. Like during meals.

“They have this rapid eye movement,” Charlie said, moving his hand back and forth in front of his face. “Brain stuff. Kind of like the girl . . . What was her name again?”

“Treha?” she said.

“Yeah. Like her. There’s a bunch of people involved in a lawsuit against a company they say is responsible. Phutura Pharmaceuticals.”

Phutura,
Miriam thought.
They’re cropping up everywhere.

“I owned some of their stock when it was four dollars. Should have held on to it. You should watch the video.”

She asked him where he’d seen the report and he said he would e-mail the link. She usually wasn’t interested in the things he found online. Cartoons of Maxine. Jokes about old age and bad marriages and mothers-in-law. YouTube videos of military tributes and air shows and memorials of 9/11. Ceremonies during a storm at the tomb of the unknown soldier. Plus the passed-around threads of the aged, the cute and heartwarming stories of life with wrinkles and grandchildren along with the political jabs at the president or Congress or both. Charlie’s favorites were the stories of things in the “good old days.” When gasoline was a few pennies a gallon and you didn’t have to get a home equity loan just to go to the grocery store. He would stare at pictures of childhood artifacts, memories that sparked
some kind of feeling for him, and marvel at how much things had changed. How much the world had gone crazy.

Charlie seemed content to go with the flow, move from one day to the next, seeing what life might toss their way and whiling away hours behind the computer or fiddling with the drip-sprinkler system and adjusting the timer for the precise setting that would make everything green that was supposed to be green. It was his inner engineer always trying to surface. But why couldn’t he treat their marriage that way? Why couldn’t he narrow down on their relationship like he did the garage door opener or the PCV valve he was always changing in the car when the Check Engine light went on?