Every Waking Moment (21 page)

She didn’t know and she had grown not to care. Charlie was Charlie and that was all there was to it. Take him or leave him. A lump of hardened clay. Every attempt to change him and make him the man she wanted left her frustrated and cold. Distanced. And this was as good as it was going to get.

Though she had to admit he was good to have around when you needed the recycle bin stacked perfectly or the satellite TV programmed, and his coffee did taste better than hers because he had a knack of measuring to the very grain, it seemed. But it is hard to see the good in a person when all you can see is what isn’t there.

Miriam checked her e-mail and found the link Charlie had sent without any accompanying message. Just the link. Why send more? Why send an encouraging note saying he was looking forward to their new life together?
I love you more now than ever.
Or just
I like you, sort of.
Was that so much to ask?

The link was from a reputable news organization and not from the far right or left. The long story described a community baffled by strange reactions in teenagers and some adults
who had developed eye conditions, problems with anger, and even suicidal tendencies. Students at a small high school were being accused by some of manufacturing their symptoms
 
—head jerks, hand movements, intense anger issues, and behavioral abnormalities. Tourette’s syndrome without the profanity. The story was alarming and Miriam couldn’t imagine what the parents had been through with their sick children, but it wasn’t until she watched the accompanying video that something clicked.

A ninth grader’s face filled the screen. As the boy spoke, his head jerked to the right and his eyes twitched. “I don’t have any control over the way my eyes are moving, and it’s scary, you know?”

The report switched to the boy’s mother, in tears, chin quavering. “Ryan was a straight-A student. Tops in his class. He was a finalist in the state forensics competition last year, oral interpretation.”

“The family moved here one year ago,” the reporter said gravely. “And Ryan’s grades and health plunged as a result.”

“He’s not making this up,” the mother said. “Something is wrong here.”

The reporter was shown walking on a pastoral hillside near the sprawling complex of Phutura Pharmaceuticals. “In the class action lawsuit against the pharmaceutical giant, the plaintiffs contend that Phutura allowed toxic chemicals to seep into the groundwater near the school, affecting anyone who drank the water. Parents say they have the medical proof they need to convince a jury that Phutura caused their children’s problems. But the company says that’s simply not true.”

Ezra Hollingsworth, vice president of Phutura, sat in a
leather chair behind a gleaming cherry desk with a look on his face that, to Miriam, exuded smarm.

“I find it more than ironic that people in this community have lived here for decades
 
—they’ve breathed the air, they drank the water, they raised crops
 
—and suddenly there are mysterious problems. I truly sympathize with the parents of these children, and it’s human nature to want to blame. But we followed every FDA and EPA guideline to the letter. As a company, we’re simply not at fault.”

A panel of parents sat in front of a dark background, hands folded, mostly looking down. Solemn-faced. “Our children are the most vulnerable,” one mother said. “If we can’t protect them, who can we protect?”

Miriam read the report again, then looked at the still picture of one of the young girls. Such suffering in the world to so many innocent people. If they won the lawsuit, if the company was forced to pay them for damages, what difference would it make? Their lives were shattered.

And Treha . . . her symptoms were frighteningly similar to those young people’s, but could there be a connection? Would Davidson be able to explain it all?

THE LIGHT WAS FADING
in the west and an orange glow hit the walls of the Howards’ house as the car bearing the four travelers pulled to a stop. Treha got out and walked toward the front door, followed by Devin and Jonah carrying equipment, and a stiff-legged Calvin Davidson, who still carried a gun, though at a slightly different angle.

Devin had finally convinced the man that he would never get the gun past the front desk at the hospital and that seeing Crenshaw would simply endanger him more. He’d suggested they go to Miriam’s home, where Treha was staying. Davidson agreed, but when Jonah further suggested they call Miriam from a pay phone at a Dairy Queen near Picacho Peak and ask her to open the garage so the car could disappear inside and not be seen by a drone, Davidson said to keep driving.

Throughout the drive Davidson had continued his sometimes-lucid, sometimes-rambling assessment of the world. He had canceled his Dish Network because “they” were watching him through the television. There were terrorists plotting an assault on the water systems of the United States and a corresponding electromagnetic pulse that would take them off the grid simultaneously. Infrared cameras looked through walls.
Cameras in the sewage system came up through the pipes to look in people’s bathrooms, and no one cared. Why terrorists would look in Davidson’s bathroom Treha couldn’t decipher, but his fears seemed less rooted in these conspiracies than in another more pressing menace.

Treha rang the doorbell and Miriam answered, looking happy to see them but confused when she saw Davidson. And even more confused when she saw his gun.

“Please come in,” Miriam said to the group. “Mr. Davidson, it’s a pleasure to meet you.”

Charlie was in the kitchen, hands in his pockets, sizing things up as he leaned against the silverware drawer, a puzzled look on his face.

Davidson glanced Miriam’s way. “I wish the circumstances were different. Have you heard anything more about Jim’s condition?”

“Dr. Crenshaw is still in ICU. There’s been no change.”

“And there will be none,” Davidson said. “They won’t allow it. In a few hours or a few days his heart will stop and the problem will be over. But they will still have to deal with me.”

“What are you talking about?” Miriam said. “And why are you holding that gun? You have no enemies here.”

The woman spoke in a way that was reassuring and inviting. Treha could tell her years of experience at Desert Gardens had trained her well for such a confrontation.

Davidson looked at Miriam, then glanced at Charlie. “Do you have Wi-Fi going in here?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I can feel it. Unplug it. Quickly. Don’t just turn it off; unplug it from the outlet. They have ways of monitoring you can’t begin to imagine.”

Charlie went to a cabinet in the kitchen to show Davidson the wireless router and unplugged it. Miriam offered to make them something to eat, but Davidson waved her off. “We’re not hungry.”

“I’m starving,” Jonah said. “I’ll take anything. A piece of bread. Moldy cheese.”

“I have no idea how much time we have, but we can eat later. Set up your camera. We need to get started.”

“I’ll make you something while you prepare,” Miriam said, putting a hand on Jonah’s shoulder. “What’s the urgency, Mr. Davidson?” she said as she opened the refrigerator.

“The urgency is I won’t be here much longer. And the truth, what Jim was talking about in that letter, what we’ve covered for so long, needs to be told.” He turned to Treha. “
She
needs to be told.”

“Why me?”

“Because you’re part of this. More than you know.”

Jonah fitted the old man with a microphone, running it behind him and up through his shirt so the black cord wouldn’t be visible. The wireless microphone was still clipped on Treha’s scrubs. Miriam placed a sandwich near Jonah while he focused the camera, and as soon as it was running, he wolfed it.

“We’re rolling,” Jonah said through the sandwich.

“All right, where should I begin?” Davidson said.

Something took over that Treha couldn’t explain. An inner sense, a knowing that she needed to ease the man into the truth.

“Tell me about your health. Are you sick?” she said.

“Do I look ill?”

“What about medication? Have you been prescribed anything?”

“Is there anyone my age who isn’t on medication? That’s part of the problem.”

He sounded agitated, scattered. She tried to bring him to himself. “Tell me about your childhood. When were you born?”

He pursed his lips and looked at the floor. “I was born in 1932. My mother had complications after birth. The doctor was not skilled or perhaps was not as interested in a poor woman. Two months later she died.”

He said it matter-of-factly, as if he were reciting the names of the presidents or the capitals of all fifty states.

“I was passed around in the community, a small town in northern Ohio, to whatever nursing mother was available. It wasn’t such a bad deal getting all that attention from so many women. But as a child there was a void. A missing piece.”

“Your mother.”

“Yes, and my father, too. He took my mother’s death very hard. He retreated. From life. He worked hard but wasn’t home much.” Telling this seemed to calm him a little, relax his muscles.

“What did your father do?”

“He worked at a mill. He tried farming, but the weather would take out a crop and you were left with nothing. There was work in the mines to the south, but he knew that would kill him. The mill was dangerous but you didn’t have to climb into the earth for a paycheck every two weeks.”

“Did he blame you?”

“For what?”

“Your mother’s death.”

He waved a hand. “No, I don’t think so. It must have occurred to him that I was the reason he no longer had a wife, but I don’t think he held back his love for me because of that.”

“Do you know anything about your mother?” Treha said.

“I don’t remember anything, if that’s what you’re asking. But I know she was beautiful from the picture I have. I know the perfume my father bought her, even though he could barely afford to feed us. She would sing songs from her childhood as she worked around the house. And she loved flowers. Lilies and dandelions and anything with color. She came alive when her children brought her flowers. Clover or weeds, even. Everything about her embodied life and love. And she was a very smart woman, even though she had little education.”

“How do you know about her if you were an infant when she died?”

“Sister told me. She had the most vivid memories. The other children had foggy recollections. They would get things mixed up, attribute some saying to my mother when it was actually an aunt or a teacher who said it. That’s the way children are, I suppose.”

“Is your sister the one who took care of you?”

“Yes. Well, all of my siblings did. There were four who were born before me. Two boys, two girls.” He looked at Treha as if he wanted to hold something back, to construct some kind of dam here in the story or turn away, but he kept opening. “My brothers and sisters also grew up without a mother, you see, and they had to fill in the missing pieces for each other. No child should have to do this, but it was all we knew.”

“Tell me about this sister of yours. The one who cared for you.”

The old man smiled and lines formed on his face, making him look like a kindly lion. “She was the oldest. She was ten when I was born, when Mother died, and she stayed home with me; she stopped going to school. I don’t know if this was something my father asked her to do or made her do. Part of me thinks she did it of her own accord and he allowed it.”

“What did you do all day, when the children were at school?”

“I suppose we played little games. But the thing I remember the most is her reading to me. I was reading before I ever set foot in the schoolhouse. It was her example, her finger following the words on the page from left to right, that accomplished that. She told me much later that one day she didn’t put her finger on the page. She wanted to see what I would do. And I put my finger there and followed the words. She said it was then that she knew I was special. Even though I grew up without a mother, I felt special to someone. We grew quite close.”

Treha watched the man’s eyes twinkle and she followed the light.

“What was her name?”

“Evelyn. But I couldn’t say the word as a child. I said ‘Eleven’ and everyone would laugh. So I called her Sister.” His eyes darted as if searching for his childhood in the recesses of the mind. “It’s funny what you remember when you talk of these things. I can still smell the aroma of the meals Sister cooked for us. And see the way she . . .”

“The way she what?” Treha said.

“How she looked out the window every day. There was a longing in her. For something out there, something on the horizon she couldn’t see.” The twinkle was gone and in its place was wetness at the memory. “She died several years ago. She was the first of us to go. The first to part after my father died. And now I am the only one left.”

He leaned forward. “You asked if my father held me responsible for my mother’s death.” He shook his head. “But I felt responsible for Sister not going to school. For never having the life she could have had.”

“She didn’t go back to school?” Treha said.

“By the time I was in first grade, she was a young woman. When I went to school, she began working, first cleaning houses for the women in town and babysitting their children. And then she went to work at the mill. She and my father would go off together each morning, very early, before the sun came up.” He sat back. “I don’t like to think of those days. It was a difficult time for the family, but the struggle and the hardship make you strong. You know? You don’t realize it at the time, but the pain propels you. Too many people today think that life is supposed to be easy. We look for the easiest route to get from one place to another with the machines they place in the cars and the Internet telling you which roads to take.” He waved a hand again. “I guess it’s all good for us and helpful. But there is something you miss about struggle and hardship by having everything laid out for you on a piece of paper or on a talking box telling you every turn.”

He looked up from his diatribe, like a turtle realizing his head is out of the shell. “I suppose I’m sounding like a cranky old man now.”

Treha pulled him back to the past. “You did well in school?”

“Yes. And I credit Sister. She read books to me. She explained everything she knew about science and how plants grow and the wonders of the world. I asked her so many things. She said once that my spine was formed in the shape of a question mark.”

The two sat in silence, Davidson folding his wrinkled hands and staring at them and Treha sitting ramrod straight.

“Where did your education take you?” she said.

“To the university. I studied chemistry and wanted to find some cure
 
—like Jonas Salk did. In school I was given an internship with a small company which was called Stonegate at the time. Eventually it became Phutura Pharmaceuticals.”

“Is this how you met Dr. Crenshaw?”

Davidson glanced at the camera. Then a dip of the head. “Yes. I met him through Phutura. He was part of some drug trials we conducted. I like to think we helped many people over the years, even though there were regrets.”

“Did Dr. Crenshaw contact you recently?”

The man looked as if he had been punched in the gut. “I know he wrote me a letter that never reached me.”

“Did he call you? Send another letter? Some other communication?”

Davidson shook his head. “No.”

“What did you do together?” she said.

He moved his mouth to swallow and struggled for a moment. He seemed stuck, somehow.

Miriam spoke. “Mr. Davidson, would you like something to drink? Water? Coffee? Or something to eat?”

“Yes, coffee, please. Thank you. And maybe if I stand and stretch a little to get my blood and old bones moving again.”