My Soul to Keep (30 page)

He nodded and looked down at his hands again.

“Do you want to talk about it?” I asked tentatively.

“About what?”

“Um … about the fact that you tried to kill yourself. Want to tell me about it?”

“Not really.”

“John, you’re depressed. I mean, severely depressed. I think it might help to talk.”

He met my eyes again. “What difference does it make? I’ll still be here.”

“I know. But—”

“Do you know what happened to my mice?”

“Your mice? You mean the ones in your lab?”

He nodded.

“I think they caught them all.” An easy lie. I didn’t want to upset him. “They gave them back to the guy you bought them from.”

“And my research?”

“I assume it’s just like you left it. Boxed up somewhere. I don’t think they’ve reassigned your office or anything. I haven’t been down there.”

He scratched his head and stared into space.

“Is it bad in here?” I asked tentatively. John could barely survive the rigors of normal life, he was so socially handicapped. I couldn’t imagine what jail had done to him.

He nodded. A tear slid down his face.

“Do you have a good lawyer?”

He shrugged. “I don’t see her much.”

“Tell me her name, and I’ll give her a call for you, okay?”

He looked up at me. “You will?”

“Sure. I’d be happy to. And anyone else you want me to call. Just give me a list.”

He told me his lawyer’s name. I dug a notebook out of my bag and wrote it down.

“Have they set a trial date?” I asked.

“Dunno.”

“They don’t tell you much, do they?”

“Nuh-uh.”

I tapped my fingers on the table and looked around the room. I’d just about run out of niceties. What do you chat about with a person who’s in jail awaiting trial and who has recently tried to kill himself? Appropriate topics eluded me.

“Listen, John. While I’m here …”

He glanced up.

“… I wanted to ask you about your blog.”

“What blog?”

“The blog you have online.” What other kind of blog was there?

He looked at me blankly. “I don’t have a blog.”

“I think the address is DoctorBehindBars. I saw it, John. You don’t have to lie.”

He pounded his fist on the table, startling me backward and bringing the guard another step into the room, his hand on his weapon.

“I’m not lying!” John shouted.

My eyes widened at the sudden burst of temper. I’d seen that rage once before. It was easy to forget about, obscured as it was behind his slow, lumbering demeanor.

“But, John, I saw the blog.” I held my hand out to indicate I expected him to hold his temper. “It has pictures of you. Pictures of SMU. Details of your career.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“John, you’re lying.”

The fist hit the table again.

“One more time, and you’re back in isolation,” the guard said quietly.

I looked up at the guard and shook my head. “It’s okay.”

“I’m not lying,” John said quietly.

“I talked to Molly Larken, John.”

“Who’s that?”

“Molly Larken. The student you mentioned in your blog.”

“I never heard of her.”

My eyes narrowed.

“Red hair? Looks a lot like me?”

He met my eyes again. How many times in one conversation? Surely a record.

“I never heard of her.”

“In the blog, you called her your muse.”

His face twisted in anger. “Does that sound like something I would say?”

I stopped and thought about it. Bless my soul, it didn’t.

“I don’t have a computer,” he said.

“Someone from outside the prison would have to be maintaining it.”

“I don’t know anyone.”

“And you don’t know Molly Larken?”

He looked up again. “I don’t know any students.”

Now, that had to be true. John had never bothered to learn his students’ names. Even in his labs, when he might have had only a few students for an entire semester, he just didn’t care enough about them to bother.

“What else does it say?” he mumbled.

“That you’re innocent.”

He glanced at the guard. “Maybe I am.”

“John, I was there when—”

The fist slammed on the table again. More blood began to show on his wrist.

“That’s it,” the guard said. He took out the cuffs.

“Could you just give us another minute?” I asked. “I think I can handle it.”

He looked at John, then back at me. He stepped back and pointed at John. “You watch it.”

I took a deep breath. “Will you take some medication if I can get your doctor to prescribe it?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“What’s the point?”

“John, you can’t live like this. Do you see yourself? You’re falling apart.”

“What’s the point?”

“Look, I know it seems hopeless.”

“You don’t know what it’s like,” he said quietly.

I sat back in my chair. “I don’t, do I?”

He shook his head.

I stood up. “I’m going to talk to him anyway. I wish you’d consider taking something. I think it would help. You deserve to feel better than this.”

“You don’t know what I deserve,” he said, his teeth clenched. The hatred in his voice stunned me.

His blue eyes were watery. “Don’t come back.”

I took a step backward, the power of his anger pushing me toward the wall.

I held up my hands. “Okay. If that’s what you want, I won’t come back.”

“Good.”

He hung his head while the guard cuffed him and led him to the door.

“Bye, John. Take care of yourself. I’ll talk to the doctor for you.” I held up my notebook. “And your lawyer. ASAP.”

John glared at me again.

I took a step away from him.

He turned his back to me and shuffled out of the room without looking back.

B
Y THE TIME
I got back to my house, Liz and Christine were parked in front, waiting for me. I greeted them with a ridiculous level of enthusiasm. I was so glad to see Christine back out in the world again.

“How ya feeling, Punkin?” I asked, leaning down to her eye level.

She shrugged unenthusiastically. “Pretty good.”

“You ready to see Eeyore?”

Her face broke into a wide smile. “Did he miss me?”

“He missed you tons. Let’s go see what he has to say.”

I could tell something was wrong as soon as I unlocked the door. The house just felt lifeless to me.

As we stepped inside, Liz cocked her head. “What’s that sound?”

“I don’t hear anything.”

“It’s in the kitchen.”

As we walked down the hall, I heard it too. A high, steady beep.

I turned around. “It’s the carbon monoxide alarm. Get Christine out of the house.”

Liz turned and hustled her back out to the front yard. I ran around the house throwing open doors and windows, pulled the monitor out of the socket, grabbed some batteries, and went out to the yard.

“Sometimes it goes off because the batteries are dead,” I said to Liz. “If it goes off again after I change them, we’ll know it’s real.”

“What do we do then?”

I shrugged. “Call 911?”

“But what about Eeyore and Melissa?” Christine whined.

I handed Liz the batteries and the carbon monoxide unit. “I’ll go get them. I bet they can’t wait to see you.”

I opened the bedroom windows first, then walked over to the rabbit
hutches, expecting the usual nose-twitch, ear-flap greeting. Both rabbits were lying on their sides, mouths open, ears flat. They weren’t breathing.

I grabbed them up and ran to the front yard.

“Call 911,” I said to Liz.

She sized up my cargo. “For the rabbits?”

“No, for the house. Tell them our rabbits died. It’s a real leak.”

“No!” Christine shrieked, grabbing for Eeyore. “Save them!”

She pried him out of my hands and knelt, laying him gently on the grass, then took Melissa and laid her carefully beside him.

She stood up and stared at me. “Save them,” she said again.

“I don’t know how,” I said. “Punkin, it’s too late.”

“You saved me. Mommy told me.”

“But you’re a little girl. They’re rabbits. It’s not the same.”

“Miss Dylan, you have to save them!” she shrieked. Tears began to puddle in her eyes.

“Punkin, I don’t know how to resuscitate a rabbit. They didn’t teach us that in CPR.”

“Pleeeease, Miss Dylan? Pleeeease?” She was jumping up and down, tears streaming down her cheeks, nearing hysterics.

I looked helplessly at Liz, who was talking on her cell phone to the 911 operator.

“Okay.” I knelt beside the bunnies and grabbed Christine’s hands. “Here’s what you do.” I showed her how to compress their chests gently. “Not too hard. They have tiny little ribs. Like chicken bones. Just do it real soft. I’ll be right back.”

I took a gulp of air, held my breath, and dashed into the kitchen, yanking open a drawer and grabbing some soda straws. Back in the yard, I knelt next to the rabbits. I did Eeyore first, tipping his head back, slipping the straw into his throat, closing my hand around his mouth and nose. I leaned over and blew gently. Liz hung up the phone, grabbed the other straw, and started in on Melissa. I talked her through inserting the straw. She got the straw in and began blowing air gently into Melissa’s little bunny lungs.

“On my count,” I said. “Christine, stop pressing for a second.” Liz and I blew into the straws. “Okay—now press down.” I counted for her. “Liz, two more breaths.”

We went through three cycles of compressions and breaths.

Eeyore started to kick. I looked at Liz, my eyes wide.

I gave him two more breaths, then pulled the straw out. Eeyore’s ears pricked up, and he struggled to his feet.

“Is Melissa’s chest rising when you breathe?” I asked Liz.

She nodded. “Her nose is getting pink.”

They went through another full cycle before Melissa started to twitch. A few seconds later, she righted herself and balled up, ears back, fur puffed out, breathing heavily.

Christine began clapping wildly and hopping around the yard like a bunny.

We could hear the fire engine’s siren wailing in the distance.

Liz looked at me. “Unbelievable.”

“Ridiculous,” I said. “I felt absolutely ridiculous. And look at them. I can’t believe it worked.”

“I’m glad you weren’t sleeping when this happened,” she said.

I swallowed. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

“There wouldn’t have been anyone here to stick a straw down your throat.”

We stared at each other, letting the thought sink in. “Do you think this could have caused Christine’s first attack?” she asked.

I shrugged. “Let’s ask the firemen.”

The fire engine screamed to a halt in front of my house. My neighbors were pushing back curtains and stepping into their yards.

Firemen began jumping off the truck.

“Resident?” one said to me.

I looked up into a pair of liquid blue eyes.

“Me,” I said, raising my hand like a schoolgirl. “I live here.”

“Name?”

“Dylan Foster.”

I held out my hand. He winked and shook his head, holding up his hand, which was sheathed in an enormous yellow glove.

Liz and I stayed in the yard with Christine and the bunnies as the firemen streamed into my house.

“Okay, so he’s cute,” Liz said, watching my face.

“So
cute! Who knew disaster was a great way to meet men? I should have had a carbon monoxide leak years ago.”

“No!” Christine said. “He’s not your boyfriend, Miss Dylan. Mr. David is.”

“I’m not sure Mr. David wants to be my boyfriend,” I said.

“Did you make him the snickerdoodles yet?”

“Not yet, Punkin.”

The cute fireman came out and pulled off his glove. “You’ve got a leak. We had to turn the gas off.”

“Oh. What do I do now? Who fixes that?”

“I have a number you can call.”

He hopped into the cab of the truck and came back with a business card. “TXU Gas comes twenty-four hours a day for emergencies.”

“Is this an emergency?”

“Yes ma’am.”

“Lucky me.”

“Congratulations,” he said.

“Thanks.”

“They should be out tonight to fix it. Sometimes they get backed up.” He pointed at the bunnies. “Dispatch said the rabbits died.”

“She brought them back to life,” Christine said. “We saved them.”

He tipped his fireman hat. “Good work. How’d you do the breathing?”

“Soda straw.”

He nodded. “Good thinking. You must have caught them right after they went under. They wouldn’t have lasted long.”

We asked him about the leak, whether it could have caused Christine’s problem.

“I doubt it. If it was that bad, it should have gotten everyone in the room. Carbon monoxide is an equal-opportunity killer. It loves everybody.”

“Mr. David loves Miss Dylan,” Christine said in a sing-songy voice.

“Christine! Hush!” Liz said. She grabbed Christine by the hand and pulled her away.

“He’s her boyfriend!” Christine shouted as her mother dragged her across the yard.

The fireman looked at me and shrugged. “Bad luck for me.”

I smiled, embarrassed.