Sleepless Nights (30 page)

“We’ll take things from here.” Tom was cool; under his unwavering gaze hers eventually dropped, and a few moments later we heard her heavy footsteps on the stairs.

“Kent. Kent—are you all right?” I tried again hesitantly, peering into Kent’s face, then pulling back in spite of myself. The stench of alcohol on his breath was almost overpowering.

“Uh—yeah, fine—fine. Just had a little—uh—party last night.” Kent’s voice was creaky, as if he hadn’t used it in years; he licked his dry, peeling lips with a hint of a grayish tongue. “Nothing—to worry about. Now then—uh. Medical examiner’s report—on the table. Faxed yesterday. Time for you two to make yourselves useful. Take it. Then—leave me alone.”

He lifted a shaking hand to the side of his head and covered his eyes. “Don’t want to—” He licked his lips again, and coughed hard. “Go on, I said! Make yourselves useful. I’ve got my own things to do—uh, business letters and such. You get out of here.”

Tom, I realized, was holding a copy of the medical examiner’s report, which he had pried from the lips of the ancient fax machine. He scanned it, then folded it up and put it in his pocket. “All right Kent, if that’s what you want. Let’s go, Q,” he said, placing the remnants of the bottle of water within Kent’s reach.

I looked at my husband, then at the figure on the chair. “We
can’t
just leave him here, Tom, he’s in a terrible state, he might—choke on his own vomit or something…” I hissed, aghast.

Tom shook his head. “Ms. Lilly will keep an eye out, even if it’s just because she wants to come up and crow over him.”

“But-”

“Unless you want to pick him up, take him home, and hose him off.”

“Well—no.”

“Right. I don’t think that’s what he wants either.”

“Ya
still here?”
Kent asked blearily, blinking up at us with rheumy eyes. “Why do I have to do everything ’round here? Can’t a man get
some time to himself, attend to his own affairs? You two—seriously—it’s time! Time for you to act like a couple grown-ups for a change.
Jesus…”

He was still grumbling as I followed my husband doubtfully out of the building and into the sunlight. “Behold the skeleton,” Tom said, as we got into the car.

51

Jeanie

W
hen I arrived home from Quiet Lanes, Q met me with a letter. It had taken over three weeks to find me; Ann Dougins received it at college and forwarded it onto the flat, where Una would normally have used it to snort lines, but I suppose she was feeling guilty about kicking me out on the street (and possibly about allowing Dukey, whoever—or whatever—he may be, to sleep in my bed). So she actually bothered to send it on, complete with a big “Love Una” and a lipstick smackeroo on the back.

I hastily logged onto the Web site and read the information about the Supporting the Third Age Initiative, hardly able to believe my eyes—
“in our modern times of economic hardship, extra support for those struggling on diminished pensions is crucial.”
But more surprising even than the thought of increased government funding for old people was the thought that Professor Mordaunt “enthusiastically suggested” me for the position. He
did? Why?
It couldn’t have been my stellar B- performance, after all, so clearly something else possessed the man to put forward my name—unless, of course, he still had me mixed up with Cindy or Amy, or someone else entirely from the course.

And then I thought about it as I worked my way ruminatively through a bran muffin, and I realized with a sensation of shock that even if Professor Mordaunt suggested me in a drunken haze after cavorting with his secretary one night, I actually wanted this job—
really, truly. And not just because it would pay the bills (although let’s face it, that was recommendation enough). I loved working with older people; I loved Quiet Lanes. It was something I could actually build a life around. Everyone else on my course in London enjoyed helping children—because there was hope for their future, I suppose, and because children (even the ones who’ve set their parents’ beds on fire with a blowtorch) look sweet and vulnerable, little round faces covered in goo. Me, I liked the stories older people told; I loved hearing about Sue-Ellen’s husbands and Teddy’s lost wife and Ken’s raids over northern France in 1944. I liked the peaceful order, the familiar routine, the cheery hum of conversation. No one was going to put their fingers in the electric socket or grow up to murder their sister at Quiet Lanes, it was all rather more predictable. Serve tea, lift people, clean hands, water plants, talk. I was no Florence Nightingale. But I loved it.

So I punched in my application details with a fervent sense of purpose. I can help the older people of Southwark, I thought; I can help them get something out of life in the community, and—well, there was nothing about improving the standard of nursing care in the job description, but I could spend the next five years of my life banging my head against the system trying to improve things, couldn’t I?

Only then I got to the bit where you press “send,” and I couldn’t; it wouldn’t accept the application because I was three days past the deadline. “Please e-mail us by clicking
here
to learn about future job opportunities in the London Borough of Southwark,” invited a cheery pop-up. “Thank you for your interest in the London Borough of Southwark.” I stared at the screen, feeling my newfound sense of purpose and inspiration ebbing away. A near miss. Good try, but not this time. No, not yet; no, not here.

I clicked
here,
and up popped a small box for my e-mail address and a second, larger rectangular message box. “Please tell us your field of work, so that we may send you details of suitable positions
as they become available.” And then, because my school motto (patience and humility) was obviously a nonsense, I punched in a message explaining that I wanted
one
job in particular, the one whose deadline had passed, and suggesting they should consider my application in spite of its lateness. Professor Mordaunt of Kingsbury College recommended me for this position, I went on, confidently. And I
am
amply qualified for the job. Of course it wouldn’t let me attach a CV, so instead I typed in everything I could possibly think of that might persuade them of my suitability—every placement, every bit of work experience, every piece of course work on “issues facing our ageing community,” and my volunteer work at Quiet Lanes (“a first step toward a comparative study of geriatric care in the States and in south London in a time of deepening recession”). I really want this job, I said at the end. I want to make caring for older people the focus of my career.

I pressed “send,” and held my breath. Everything went blank. There was a pause, in which I stared at the large screen of white and wondered why I forgot to
save
my epistle of self-confidence before sending it off into the vortex. And then: “Thank you for contacting us, your message has been received”—a rush of relief!

I literally ran downstairs to tell Q all about it—the job, Professor Mordaunt’s recommendation, my application. When I’d finished, she nodded approvingly. “I’ll admit I thought it was weird when you said you were going to work at Quiet Lanes,” she said. “Frankly I got the impression Paul maybe maneuvered you into it. I couldn’t think why. But I was obviously wrong,” she continued. “I hadn’t realized you were so committed.”

“Didn’t you?” I said. “Really? How strange!”

“Phone Alison and tell her all about it,” she prompted, “she’ll be really pleased. We were talking about you just this morning, actually. She was saying she wondered if you’d really considered all the options in social work. She even said perhaps you needed an interview with a career counselor. I mean, I know she can be a bit offi
cious, and to the best of my knowledge she’s never sat down with a career counselor in her life, I didn’t know she even knew they existed, but I still thought it was a really good point. I told her I could arrange something down in New Haven for you, and she—” Honestly, I liked it better when they didn’t talk to each other.

52

Q

T
om was onto his second memory stick, and he had the look of a man possessed. Every time we wanted to eat a meal, we had to wade through tumbling piles of files on the dining-room table. And books began arriving in the mail all week from Amazon, with titles like
Running Your Own Private Practice, Practical Law,
and
So You Think You Can Cut It in the Real World?

It was early fall; we were moving into our second season in Connecticut, thanks to Paul’s generosity (“No, no, you’re doing me a favor; old houses don’t like to stay empty.”). And now at last there seemed to be a rhythm to our lives, a regular beat of gentle expectation as the leaves began to flicker with color and the nights turned cool. The sea in the mornings was like cold glass against my skin.

The woman who sold fish from her white van to locals on Mondays knew my name, and I knew hers. I knew when fresh lobsters
arrived at The Lobster Pot. The general store had begun to stock my preferred brand of diapers in Samuel’s size and extra portions of dried sweetened pineapple—Tom’s favorite afternoon snack—in the “serve yourself” bins (new deliveries arrived on Wednesdays). I’d finally persuaded the
New York Times
to deliver to our mailbox. I’d weeded out the leggy yellow flowers from the arugula in the garden, so we had fresh salad each night for dinner. Tomatoes were ripening in pots along the deck.

Every morning I collected cicadas in cupped hands from the floor of the bathroom and dropped them gently out the window. I knew to avoid bustling wild turkeys on the road by day and soft-footed deer at nights. We watched flaming cardinals in the trees at lunchtime, while at night a raccoon snuffed at the back door and possums hesitantly vacuumed up the crumbs of our meal upon the deck. I knew to stay clear when the skunk made his leisurely evening shuffle past the front door as the moon came up. I heard the creak of wood board floors contracting with the fresh cold air in the dead of night, and I was not afraid.

Every afternoon, when Samuel took his nap, Tom and I made ourselves cups of coffee, which we brought onto the deck, and then we talked. It was a precious time of peace and quiet. The day after Kent’s collapse, we called Luna Lilly to check up on the old man again (“Oh,
he’s
all right, can you hear him?” she asked scornfully, holding the telephone up so we could listen to his high-pitched rendition of “The Star-spangled Banner”), then we discussed Emmie’s case. Tom smoothed out the medical examiner’s report that we’d collected from Kent’s office, and we pored over it together on the round wicker table.

According to the document, filed at the State Medical Examiner’s Office, Angela Vaughan was pronounced dead by Dr. Philip Reid at 9:07 a.m. on May 1, 2001. There were no signs of violence in the home, and the child’s body was not covered by blankets or any other obvious suffocation hazards. She was lying on her side in her
crib, and appeared to have been dead for three to four hours when the doctor arrived on the scene.

Dr. Philip Reid, the document claimed, had seen the child once in the two weeks prior to death, on April 19, at which time the child had been suffering from a slight cold but had seemed, in all other respects, healthy. The mother reported that nothing unusual had taken place since the doctor’s visit, although she now recalled that the child’s cold had appeared to worsen, rather than improve. “Mother was intending to take the child to see Dr. Reid on Wednesday morning (May 2) if child not better,” the notes remarked.

The report was filed by Lieutenant Anthony E. Driscoll, his signature a careful flourish along the bottom. Unless we could find a chink in his story, a gap in the narrative, it was going to be hard to prove Emmie’s account of the facts.

“We need to talk to him,” Tom said, standing up, “to Driscoll, as soon as possible. I’ll call to make the appointment for Monday.”

“What if Kent’s not sober by then?”

“We’ll go by ourselves.”

“By
ourselves
?” I returned disbelievingly. “Are you serious? Why on earth would Driscoll talk to us? He’s never met us before.”

“He’s bound to have heard we’re working for Kent. Everyone around here has.”

“Well—okay. But like Kent said, he’s the only one who understands how the local system works. I think he’d want to be involved at an important meeting with the local cop.”

“I’ve been thinking about that, Q.” Tom propped his arms on the deck railing. A pair of blue jays was screeching in the branches of a reddening maple on the far edge of the garden; we watched the bright flashes of blue darting in and out of the fire-tipped leaves. “I think he’s stage-managed this whole thing to get us to take over—oh, not consciously. But he set us up all the same. He couldn’t bring himself to hand the firm over to us sober, so he’s done it drunk, forcing our hand into the bargain. He knew perfectly well we were
coming, you know—didn’t it strike you as strange he tumbled off the wagon hours before we arrived? He can’t handle the firm anymore, not in these times. He wants to retire on whatever savings he has left and catch sea bass. I think he got us the medical examiner’s report yesterday afternoon, and decided he was done.”