Mercury (23 page)

I
WOKE THE NEXT MORNING
still fully resolved, and when Merrie told me that the police had phoned to ask if I could come to the station to make a statement, I felt only relief. But as I read the notes for my first patient, I pictured Trina drawing her five ghosts. As I flicked lenses back and forth, I remembered the four of us, one hot afternoon last summer, swimming across Walden Pond, with Marcus acting as our personal lifeguard. When I left the office, I headed not directly to the police station but to Hilary's house. The sight of Jack, I thought, would strengthen my resolve.

“I'm so glad you've come,” Hilary said. “He's having a bad day.” Her hair hung limply around her wan face.

In the living room Jack was sitting on the sofa. With his arm strapped to his chest, he was an oddly misshapen figure. “You find me at a nadir,” he said.

“Is there anything I can do?”

“Unless you're a magician, no. My shoulder is excruciating and will be worse after they operate. The painkillers make me stupid rather than pleasantly stoned. I can't work on my book. And the flashbacks are worse.”

He kept remembering the shot and gradually other details were coming back: the music in the car, the bumpy road, the
stink of horses as we stepped into the barn. And then the hospital. “I remember Hilary,” he said, “sitting beside me, talking, and you. I remember a nurse, wiping my face, murmuring, ‘Le pauvre aveugle.'”

So I was right. Like my patient imprisoned by her stroke, he had known what was happening.

“Donald,” he went on, “I'm scared, not so much of the operation but the anesthesia. What if they put me under, and this time I can't get back? That stupid song keeps running through my head . . . ‘Get back to where you once belonged.'”

I promised to talk to the surgeon and the anesthesiologist, to make sure they used different drugs. “I'll tell them to keep you as close to the surface as possible without pain.”

“Even pain,” Jack said, “is preferable to going too far away.”

I left the house furious, yet relieved. My path was clear. But as I pulled into a parking space at the police station, another long-ago memory seized me. One Christmas in Edinburgh a group of us had gone carol singing round the pubs to raise money for charity. When we paused for a drink, a fellow singer, a history student I scarcely knew, confided that she had just come from visiting hours at the prison. More than twenty years earlier, her mother had driven the getaway car for an IRA bank robbery in which a cashier had died. Although she had not known that guns were involved, had never touched a gun, her mother was in jail for life.

“She could get parole,” the daughter said, “if she snitched on the others.”

“But you wouldn't want her to betray her ideals.”

“Wouldn't I?” She gave a bitter smile. “I've seen her once a month through a bulletproof window since I was five years old. All I want is for her to come home.”

I was still thinking about that smile when Detective O'Donnell appeared. Dressed in a blue suit, perhaps five months pregnant, she led me to a small office. After asking permission to record our conversation, she told me to give my name, address, and phone number, and recount the events of that Saturday night. I described having dinner with my friends Hilary Blake and Jack Brennan. Afterwards Ms. Blake had wanted to visit the horse she was boarding at Windy Hill. My wife managed the stables, and I had a key. I included all the facts until the moment we pulled Jack out of the stall. Then I remembered Trina crying in the night, and fell silent.

“So,” said Detective O'Donnell, “you have no idea who shot Mr. Brennan, or why anyone would want to?”

“No.”

“In your opinion, you or Ms. Blake could equally have been the target?”

“Yes.”

Glancing down at some papers on her desk, she said that unless the gunman struck again, or they found the weapon, she was afraid they weren't going to solve this one. Then she asked after Jack, and I described his fears and flashbacks. She nodded. Two colleagues, she said, had been shot in the last year. Both had made a full recovery, but each had had nightmares for months afterward.

“The shock of another person trying to kill you,” she said, “it's like nothing else.” As she spoke, her hand moved to her belly. She was due, I judged, around the same time as Claudia.

I had not told Viv I planned to go the police, and I did not, that evening, confess my failure. Instead I announced that I was worried about the gun. She could not have thrown it far. What if someone else found it? Used it? Then she would have more
blood on her hands. I was glad to see my phrasing made her wince.

“I'll look tomorrow,” she said. “But please, Don, can't we agree to put this behind us? Marcus and Trina need us, need both of us.” Wisely she did not mention her own needs, only gazed at me beseechingly.

“I can't promise anything,” I said.

T
HE NEXT DAY
I
waited until everyone had left the office, texted Viv—
late home
—and typed “Robert Walter Dougherty” into my computer. If Viv could find a gun online, perhaps I could find Robert. The little icons whirled: three pages of results. It was as if someone had applied a defibrillator to my chest. When I could move again, I got up and checked that both office doors were locked. Back at my desk, I had the sudden awful thought: What if he was dead?

But he was not dead, and he was not in Scotland. All along he had been within reach. Robert W. Dougherty, born Edinburgh, Scotland, 1969, BA Williams College, MFA New York University. He now worked in Washington, DC, restoring pictures; his specialty was gilding. He was married and had two children. There were four photographs of him. At first only his fair skin and long eyelashes were familiar but as I kept looking I began to see, hidden among the pixels, the boy I had known.

I wrote to him that evening, first typing the letter and then copying it out by hand.

            
Dear Robert,

                
I am at last answering your letters, the letters I
couldn't bear to read, still can't, but that I keep with all the ones I did read, in a shoebox. As a child the word sorry had a magical power. All you had to do was say it, and you were forgiven. You could get back to the place you'd been before you'd done whatever you'd done. As an adult, “Sorry” seems a very small thing to say, but I am sorry. I was a coward and didn't answer your letters. I couldn't bear to. My mother's decision to stay in the States was the worst thing that had ever happened to me until my father's death last spring. He had Parkinson's for many years.

                
I did look for you when I came back to Edinburgh to study medicine, but the shop was gone. No one answered your door. I was there for eight years, always on the lookout for you. Now I know we crossed paths mid-Atlantic as you came to Williams. Hard to picture you in that small, neat town, so different from Edinburgh, but you must have enjoyed it; you stayed. I came back here to help take care of my father.

                
I am writing to you now because I find myself in a trying situation—I am speaking what my two children call “Scottish”—and it would mean a great deal to me to have your advice. I'd like to talk to you, even for an hour. Please know that I don't expect you to forgive me.

                
I also have less selfish reasons for wanting to see you. I would like to know how you are, how your life has turned out so far. You have excellent press on the Web. I include all possible ways of reaching me.

                
Yours ever,

                
Donald Stevenson

I addressed the envelope to “Robert W. Dougherty, Personal,” c/o the museum that was listed as his main place of work, and drove to the post office. When I arrived home, there was a note on the kitchen table: “Looked for nearly an hour. Couldn't find it.”

M
Y MOTHER HAS NOT
appeared in these pages for some time, an omission that reflects my behavior. In the days following the accident I avoided her company, and she unwittingly abetted me by canceling her Friday babysitting; Larry's wife was gravely ill. The day after Jack's second operation—he had come round in recovery and stayed awake long past the point of exhaustion—she phoned to ask if we could meet for lunch. “Same place,” she said. “My turn to ask a question.”

In one of our library books Robert and I had read the story of Tristan and Iseult. Iseult's husband, King Mark, suspects her of infidelity, and decides to test her with hot irons. When Iseult learns that the test will be held in a meadow by the river, she sends a message to Tristan; he must be waiting on the bank, disguised as a beggar. On the appointed day she arrives by boat. The beggar is summoned to carry her ashore. King Mark asks his question, and she says, My lord, I swear no man save you, and that beggar, has ever held me in his arms. Then she plucks the irons out of the fire, walks eight paces, drops them, and holds up her hands, pale and unmarked, for all to see.

“But Iseult lied,” I said. “Why didn't the irons burn her?”

“What she says is true,” Robert argued.

My father, when consulted, said we were both right. Iseult had told the truth with intent to deceive, which many people would call lying. But King Mark, he went on, was a bad man, trying to hurt his wife. Desperate measures, like hot irons, require desperate remedies.

As I walked down Main Street that day to meet my mother, I wished I knew how my father would counter Viv's arguments. “Why would you want to hurt your family?” she had said last night. “Hasn't there already been enough hurting?”

At the bar, with its glowing bottles and TV screens, I chose a corner table and ordered a Bloody Mary. I was taking the first sip when my mother appeared. “That looks good,” she said, and kissed my cheek. We each ordered the same sandwich as last time. I told her Jack was awake, talking and eating.

“Wonderful. And how is he doing in other ways?”

I moved my hand from side to side. “Being shot has shaken his worldview.”

“Understandably. Sometimes I try to imagine what it's like being Jack: buying a sandwich, crossing the street, walking into a roomful of strangers. Just the courage it takes to get through a day seems unbelievable. Let me tell you why I wanted to see you. Jean has pneumonia, and Larry has asked the doctors to honor her DNR form. But yesterday she was struggling so hard to breathe. It was horrible. I feel like we're killing her.”

“The pneumonia is killing her,” I said. “It used to be called the old man's friend—and maybe that's no bad thing.”

She leaned back in her seat, arms folded. “Would you say that if this was Edward?”

“No, but that's my problem. You know, once at the nursing home I tried to kill him.”

“What do you mean, ‘tried to kill him'?”

Neither of us paid any attention to the sandwiches our server set before us.

“I took one of his pillows and stood by the bed, trying to get up the courage to hold it over his face.”

“Oh.” She smiled gently. “I thought you meant drugs, or some secret doctor's trick. I can't tell you the number of times I stood in his room, clutching a pillow and wishing I had the guts to use it. He made me promise, over and over, to help him when things got desperate, but I couldn't. I always wanted one more day with him.”

“We're a fine pair,” I said. “So what does Larry think?”

As we began to eat, she said Larry was stalwart in wanting to abide by Jean's wishes, but last night had been too much even for him. Briefly my own dilemmas receded. “Get her doctor to give her morphine,” I said. “She'll look like she's still struggling, but her spirit will be far away. Isn't that what you want?”

“Devoutly. I thought I'd got everything under control, but I keep waking up in a panic. Graham says I'm reliving Edward's death.”

“Graham?”

“My therapist. I needed someone to talk to about Edward, to help me keep my balance. Haven't you ever talked to anyone?”

You, I thought. My father. Jack. “No,” I said.

She smiled again. “You're Edward's son through and through. Speaking of balance, how are you and Viv doing? She left a cryptic message the other day. I phoned back, but she never replied.”

Once again I moved my hand from side to side. “So-so.”

My mother looked at me closely. “For you, that's like saying World War III has broken out. Would you care to elaborate?”

I shook my head and reminded her about Marcus's swim meet. She typed the details into her phone. But as we got up to leave, she said, “What if the doctor won't give her morphine?”

I promised to intervene. “Jean shouldn't have to suffer another minute,” I said. Unlike the rest of us, I thought.

I
POUNCED ON THE MAIL
at home and at the office; I held my breath as I opened my e-mail; between patients, I checked my phone. Nothing, nothing, nothing. Stupidly I had not thought to use express or certified mail but had reverted to my youthful confidence in the postal system, when letter after letter had flown safely across the Atlantic. I was about to write again when at 4:45 on the day after I met my mother, Merrie announced I had a phone call.

“Good afternoon,” I said, “Dr. Stevenson speaking.”

“Good afternoon. Robert Dougherty speaking.”

I must have responded in some way.

“No need to go overboard,” said Robert. “You still sound amazingly Scottish.”

“I was in Edinburgh for nearly eight years as a student.”

“And I have one of those mid-Atlantic accents, neither fish nor fowl. I don't recognize my own voice.”

At first I didn't recognize him either, but sentence by sentence, he sounded more familiar. “Where are you now?” I said.

“Like you, at my place of work. My assistant just left for the day. In a few minutes I have to pick up the hellions, aka Nora and Tom.”

That we each had a boy and a girl pleased me deeply. “If I come to DC,” I said, “can you spare me an hour?”

“Or two. When do you want to come?”

I said as soon as possible, and he said Thursday. He knew the perfect place to meet.

I do not know how long I sat there after I put down the phone, staring at my model eye, the dark pupil staring back.

A
FEW HOURS LATER
my mother summoned me. As I drove to the nursing home, I recalled all the late-night trips to visit my father, fear so high in my throat I could barely breathe. He had talked to me about death, directly, only once. One October afternoon, when I was planting tulip bulbs under his supervision, he announced that he was not afraid of dying.

“I'll miss all of you,” he said. “I'll miss the tulips, but I'm not afraid.”

“Perhaps”—I wedged a bulb into a hole—“you'll change your mind.”

“Probably. The selfish limpet will make one last effort to cling to the rock. I respect the limpet, but it shouldn't be allowed to banish my saner self. I don't want you and Peggy wasting your lives at my bedside. Please remember that.”

Jean, according to my mother, shared his view. Push me out of a window, she had said. Don't waste your drugs and sympathy on me.

At the nursing home the attendant directed me to her room. “Poor dear,” she said. “She's listening to the angels.”

From the top of the stairs, I saw two girls sitting on the floor, halfway down the carpeted corridor. As I approached, their heart-shaped faces turned towards me. A Scrabble board lay between them.

“Sorry,” one of them said. “Are we in the way?”

“Not at all. Are you visiting your grandmother?”

The same girl spoke again. “She's dying, but there's nothing we can do. We've said good-bye and we love you. Our mom said it was okay to play. Before she got sick, Gran loved Scrabble.”

“I'm sure she'd be happy you're playing,” I said.

They turned back to the board. The room I stepped into was identical to my father's, even down to the Matisse collage on the wall. The lamp on the chest of drawers cast a soft light over the bed and the figures around it. Larry and my mother rose to meet me. My mother kissed my cheek.

“Thanks for coming so quickly,” she said. “This is Rosemary, Jean and Larry's daughter.”

An older version of the girls smiled and offered her hand. I said I had just met her daughters; they seemed very composed.

She nodded. “They wanted to come, and I didn't have a sitter. People used to die at home all the time.”

Jean was propped up on several pillows. Her eyes were closed, her mouth open, her breathing stertorous. She wore an elegant white nightdress, the neck and sleeves lined with lace. As I searched for her pulse, she took another faltering, noisy breath.

“Let's hope,” my mother said in a low voice, “she's dreaming of the green fields of her youth.”

“Should we call the doctor?” Larry said. “Is she in pain?”

I said truthfully that I didn't think so. “She's already far, far away. All you can do is keep her company. In practical terms, she's beyond help.”

“We thought so,” said Larry, “but we wanted to be sure. You've released us. Now we'll try to release her.”

He stood up and, moving to the end of the bed, began to
rub Jean's feet. My mother took one of her hands and began to gently stroke it; on the other side of the bed Rosemary did the same. Then she began to sing, her voice clear and sweet:

The water is wide, I cannot get o'er.

And neither have I wings to fly.

Build me a boat that can carry two

And both shall row, my love and I.

When the song ended, I went to the bathroom, rinsed a washcloth in warm water, and came back to wipe Jean's face. Rosemary had begun another song, one I didn't know, when Jean grunted, choked, choked again, and, after a long, shuddering moment, fell silent.

“She's gone,” said Larry. His hands did not stop moving over her feet.

“Finish the song,” said my mother.

Rosemary did. Then she went to fetch her daughters. The three of them came in, hand in hand, the girls' eyes wide. Without being asked, they stepped forward. The smaller girl patted her grandmother's hand. Her sister said, “Thank you for taking care of us when we were little.”

My mother's face was wet with tears, and I put my arm around her. “I'm not crying for Jean,” she said. “It was just so beautiful.”

We were all silent, letting that word hold sway. Then Larry said, speaking to the five of us gathered around the bed, and also to some larger presence, “Thank you. Most of the last few years were the exact opposite of what Jean wanted, but tonight was exactly what she wanted.”

Writing this now, I notice what I failed to at the time: I had
begun to like Larry. No one could take my father's place, but my mother had chosen a man of substance and generosity. As I moved towards my final accounting with Viv, the knowledge that my mother had a worthy companion was a comfort. If my family went aground, she would sail on.