Chapter 5
Clair
She knew right away, noticing a hunger unlike any she had ever felt, gnawing at her insides. Her breasts tingled, nipples dimpled and erect. Then the morning nausea, which only strong black coffee seemed to help. They hadn’t seen each other since the party. Since their night of sex. Not up close. She had seen him across campus, as usual, surrounded by a cluster of students. He had called, left messages. Written her poems sent to her college email. He was taken, he had said. Is it possible to fall in love after only a few hours? She was his Sylvia. His altar. Would she meet him for a drink? Dinner? They must go see the new play at the Theater on the Bay. She hadn’t responded yet. She wasn’t sure how she felt.
The proof was sitting there, on the vanity counter. The urine test kit. No guessing with Xs or Os. Just the word ‘pregnant’ in bold black letters.
It couldn’t be, she thought. Forty-one-year-old single women do not get pregnant after just one time. That is for teenagers. But there it was, staring her in the face. She stood up, walked into her bedroom. She looked around. Her world, so carefully arranged, so dear to her after the chaos that had been her life growing up. Nothing here was uncertain, unpredictable. Except for this speck of life growing inside her.
Clair sat on the side of her bed, the rich blue duvet yielding to her weight. She rubbed her hand against its silk. Sighing, she dialed a number into her phone. She hadn’t talked to her brother Ben in weeks, maybe longer. It was really his wife, Jodie, she wanted to talk to. They were on service in Yemen. She wasn’t sure what time it was there, but she called anyway. A moment of hesitancy hit her. Her problem, although huge to her, was small when she thought about the people whose lives Ben and Jodie were helping. She almost didn’t call, but then, she wanted to talk with them anyway. It had been too long. And she did need Jodie’s advice. Ben, although understanding and kind, could sometimes revert to behaving like their father, and be judgmental. He would retract once it was pointed out to him, but often, that was his learned response. One she didn’t want to encounter right now.
The call went to voicemail. Jodie was probably in the birthing tent. A short, generic message letting Jodie know she was OK and they would talk later. She sat there for a few more moments, until hunger pulled her downstairs. A toasted bagel, scrambled egg, coffee, then a race to the toilet. Shakily getting dressed, a plastic baggy of dry crackers tucked into her tote bag, she left for class. She placed the phone in her jacket pocket on vibrate so she wouldn’t miss Jodie’s call. The seminar was with her graduate advisees, and they wouldn’t object to her stepping out. They might even enjoy it, she thought.
She had just launched them into a discussion on the meaning of infinity from a mathematical perspective when she felt the vibration against her hip. She heard it buzzing, humming like an annoying insect and she couldn’t make it stop. She felt a hand, gently rocking her shoulder.
‘Clair, wake up. You’re dreaming.’
Jet’s voice was out of place here in her classroom. Who? What? Her mind cast about for focus. Then slowly, like a diver following air bubbles to the surface, she rose to awareness. Lamenting inwardly, not wanting to lose that fragile connection to the first, pristine knowledge of Devon beginning to grow inside her, she turned away from Jet’s voice, burying her head deeper in the cushions. She lay there for what seemed like hours. Her back hurt. Her hip hurt where her weight pressed into the carpeted floor. She was thirsty and had to pee. Sensing Jet beside her, she slowly turned onto her back, staring up at the white ceiling. A string of overhead fluorescent lights, turned off, crossed the space, reminding her of her classroom, of the students, of the call. Of her dream. Of the beginning and the end, and now, of this. She rolled onto her side, pushing herself up into a cross-legged sitting position, elbows on her thighs, head in her hands.
‘That seemed like a powerful dream, Clair, I hated waking you, but you were beginning to shake. Are you OK? Can we talk about it?’ Jet asked.
‘I was dreaming of the day I had proof of my pregnancy,’ Clair said, looking forward. ‘I was waiting for a call back from Jodie, my sister-in-law. I had been teaching and turned my phone to vibrate. When the call came, I couldn’t get it to answer. You woke me up. Now I’m back. And it’s gone again. That’s all I can remember.’
Jet sat down opposite her, also in crossed-legged position. She tucked a flat cushion under her bottom, settling in. ‘I didn’t know you had a sister-in-law. I didn’t know you had a brother,’ she said. ‘Where are they?’
‘Yeah, they’re in Yemen now,’ Clair explained. ‘Working as doctors in one of the refugee camps. I love them, especially Jodie, my sister. More like a sister than an in-law. Ben, well, he has a lot of our father in him and it does come out under stress. Jodie helps him. That’s why he joined the mission, to get away from home and be as different from Dad as he could be.’
‘Tell me more about that, Clair. You’ve never talked about your family, your upbringing.’
‘Why?’ Clair asked. ‘What has that got to do with this?’ she waved her hands around the room, as though her current universe existed only of this room, herself, sitting on this carpet, wearing the blue scrubs. And this woman, her confessor.
‘Everything has to do with everything,’ Jet said. ‘We won’t know until we know.’
Clair laughed. ‘That reminds me of the lesson I handed my class on that day – the day I was dreaming about. Infinity. OK, I’ll talk. But I need to get up first, use the bathroom, get a drink. Is that OK?’
‘Sure. You can use the bathroom here, in my office. I’ll get you a water.’
Returning, Clair re-settled on a chair, her tolerance for proximity spent. A bottle of water sat on the table at her side.
‘Where to begin?’ she wondered out loud. ‘I know, start from the beginning.’
Jet smiled at her, nodding.
‘Not much to tell really. It is a common variety of the American narrative we call family life. Too much money, leisure, expectations. Our father was cold, indifferent, and completely lost at home. An eminent neurosurgeon, at ease with a scalpel in his hand, speaking medical lingo, he mostly showed up for family dinners, endured them with disdain, and then escaped to his home office. Mother was the social one, always one big event after another. If she was home, she was either drunk, high, or well on her way. Our father had hoped Ben would follow him into neurosurgery. Didn’t expect anything from me. Ben left home as soon as he graduated from high school. Moved across the country. Became a surgeon yes, but not neuro. He was four years older than me, which left me alone in that house of horrors through high school. I left too – in my mind. I became lost in numbers. The beauty of equations. Math. Something that made sense and wouldn’t leave me, let me down. Something I was good at. Like Ben, as soon as I could, I left.’
Clair reached for her water, taking a sip, cocking her head slightly to the left. ‘Are you sure you want to hear this? It isn’t very interesting,’ she said, frowning.
‘Yes, I do,’ Jet replied. ‘It’s important for me to understand more about you, and the choices you have made. It helps me help you.’
‘OK, well, for me, college was a balm. A place where I existed and excelled. Ben met Jodie. They married. She found out about me and dragged him here, where I was in college, at Christmas to meet me on campus. We had the best time, hiking in the forests along the coast. Eating clam chowder at Moe’s. Hunkering down into our tent, eyes burning from the campfire smoke. Jodie and I bonded. Her strong black female persona captured me like it had Ben, and we became a little family. She said she became a birth doctor to help women experience the miracle of childbirth without trauma. I knew she would be the one to help me work through my own questions. And she did.’
‘And, do they know you’re here? Do they know what happened?’ Jet asked.
‘God no!’ Clair shuddered. ‘They’re deep inside the danger
zone in Yemen still. I don’t want them to know. I don’t want them to have any more fear or worry in their lives.’
‘But what if you had died, Clair? How would they have felt? Wouldn’t that have caused them pain, grief?’ Jet asked, with kindness in her voice.
Clair’s face fell, her eyes tearing up. ‘Yes, but at the time, you know, I wasn’t thinking about anyone else. I was just wanting my own pain to end.’
‘And now, Clair, how do you feel about being alive?’ Jet asked quietly.
‘I don’t know,’ Clair said. ‘At this very moment, sitting here with you, maybe I can be alive.’
‘OK, then, I’ll take that for now,’ Jet said, smiling. ‘Let’s go see what’s for dinner.’
‘Jet, what’s going to happen? You know, with Detective Santiago?’
‘Oh, he’ll be back. He’s not finished with us.’
Chapter 6
Adam
A tapping on the door, half shut against curious gazes and noise from the busy medical unit, brought Adam out of his reverie. He had been looking out the window of his third-floor room, over tree tops, towards the sea. Heavy clouds moved in from the north, signaling a cooling off of what had been a late summer heatwave. The night had been long, noisy, his intravenous drip pump alarming at what seemed like minute to minute intervals. Codes were called through the long hours of the night. His patient safety assistant, a young man with long braids flowing down his back, explained their names to him. Code Blue was for sudden death from heart or respiratory failure; Code Silver meant a patient or visitor had turned violent; Code Amber was for a child abduction, usually from the maternity ward. He wondered about those people for whom the codes had been called? Did they make it? Looking towards the door, he saw Claudia hesitating at the opening, holding a small bag and coffee from the hospital café.
‘Come in,’ Adam called to her, easing himself up in the bed. He felt foolish sitting there in the thin, faded hospital gown.
He smoothed his hair down as best he could, grimacing as he caught a hint of his breath, stale and tasting of old, undigested food. Rubbing his eyes, his face, feeling the stubble, he did his best to find a smile, as the old Adam might have done. He didn’t feel like that man anymore. Humbled, brought down by a love or hate so strong it almost killed him, felt almost like a re-birthing. To what, he wasn’t sure.
‘Thought you might like a cup of real coffee, and a bagel,’ she said, walking over and setting the containers on the over-bed tray. ‘How are you feeling?’
‘Like shit. And I probably smell as good too so keep your distance,’ he said, half-jokingly, but also not wanting her there.
She had probably saved his life. Thinking back to that afternoon, how if Claudia hadn’t dropped by to talk about the upcoming production of their senior class play, Emma, he would not be here now. The front door had been left wide open. Claudia had walked in, through the living room, and into the kitchen, finding him, calling 911, saving his life.
‘Claudia, thank you for what you did. I really don’t know what to say.’
‘Nothing to say, Adam. What in God’s name was Clair thinking?’
‘I don’t know. I’m going to visit her, talk to her. Try and find out. I think she just snapped. We had been getting better, after, you know, Devon, and then, this.’ He looked down at his body as though it were a wrecked car.
‘Adam, be careful. She’s crazy. She might try to hurt you again.’
‘I don’t think so. And anyway, I talked to the therapist, a Dr Taylor. She said it might be good for me to see Clair, let her see I’m alive, and OK. The staff on the psych unit will be sure I’m safe. They monitor everything on camera. And will stand by.’
Claudia stood quickly, the metal chair scraping against the linoleum.
‘And why would you care, Adam, after what she did? I’m the one who saved you,’ Claudia said, leaning forward, hands resting on the bedside table.
‘Because she’s my wife, Claudia. And I have to find out why she wanted me dead.’
A nurse bustled in, smiling and fresh faced. Claudia stepped aside.
‘Good morning, I’m Amanda, your nurse today. How are you feeling, Mr Gage? Ready to get this needle out and go home?’ she asked, reaching for his left hand, removing the dressing over the insertion site.
‘Really, I’m being discharged?’ he asked, his face lighting up.
‘Yep, we have your marching orders. It will take me a while to go through and get everything ready. You’ll have a few prescriptions to take home. But you should be out of here in an hour or so.’
‘Is it OK if I leave my room, go down to the psychiatric unit? My wife is there. I want to visit her.’
‘Let me give them a call, make sure it’s OK. I’ll be right back, let you know.’
* * *
Adam stood in front of the door, his hand frozen in mid-air. A sign, Caution! Elopement Risk High taped to the outside of the small glass window insert. He wondered if it was meant for Clair. A metal intercom instructed visitors to press the button. He did. A woman, identifying herself as Sandra, unit secretary, asked for his name and the name of the patient he was visiting. He felt naked and vulnerable standing there, wearing the same clothes he had been found in, lying on his kitchen floor, unconscious, two days ago. Claudia’s question came back to him. So why was he here now, coming to Clair, like a supplicant? Seeking what? Absolution? He had done nothing wrong. She was the one who had tried to poison him. Jamming his hands deep into his pockets to stop their trembling he leaned forward, into the metal disk.
‘Adam Gage, here to visit Clair Mercer, my wife,’ he said, his voice tenuous, uncertain. He felt eyes on him, and looking up, saw the security camera mounted on the ceiling above his head. Glancing around nervously, he breathed a sigh of relief when he saw there were no other staff or patients down the hall. He didn’t want to be seen or recognized.
‘Wait. I need to find out if we have this person here on the unit,’ Tonya said.
‘What? I know she’s there. What do you mean? She’s under hold orders. My nurse just called to check it would be OK for me to visit.’
‘Sir, you have to wait. ‘I’ll be right back.’
Adam looked around. The hallway behind him was empty. Feeling weak, he leaned against the side of the door. What would he say to Clair? Maybe she wouldn’t see him. What would he do then? He had to talk with her, find out why she tried to kill him, and herself. It was crazy. Maybe she really was crazy and now he would add this to his long list of miseries. How had it all gone so wrong?
‘Open the door when you hear the click. Wait in the sallyport for the second click. Then you can come through,’ a different voice said.
He was met on the other side by a short woman wearing black scrubs. Adam followed her down the hall. Large photographs of local scenic sites covered the walls, along with art work done by patients, he assumed. Positive affirmations were written on every available flat space reminding patients and staff that ‘Everything is Temporary’ and to ‘Be in the Moment’. It was hard to tell staff from patients. Everyone wore scrubs. It seemed patients were uniformly dressed in blue whereas staff wore a variety of colors. And there were the eyes. Patients’ flat, restricted gazes held no joy, no eagerness for the next moment. Or in a few cases, eyes were wild, drifting from side to side, looking for what? Adam wondered. A way out or a way in?
They stopped at a door directly across from the nursing station where several men and women sat at computer monitors. Glass walls and locked doors kept them safe and isolated from the outsiders.
He heard his escort speaking through the small opening in the doorway, her head leaning through.
‘Clair, you have a visitor. Do you want me to let him in?’
‘Who is it?’ Adam heard Clair ask.
‘Says he’s your husband,’ Belinda answered wit
h a doubtful tone. Several seconds passed.
‘He can come in.’
Adam was surprised at hearing Clair’s voice, usually soft, lyrical, but today, hoarse, flat. He stepped inside, half afraid of what he would find.
The room was dark. He could make out her form sitting cross-legged on the twin bed, closest to a set of windows. Curtains were pulled tightly together but a sliver of light pushed its way through, scattering dust mites in the air.
‘Clair, you look well,’ he said, remaining in the doorway.
‘No, I don’t and you don’t have any right to bullshit me. So, stop. Why are you here?’
Adam walked into the room, sat on the side of the second bed in the small room, resting his elbows on his knees. He leaned slightly forward, his gaze focused, intense.
‘Clair, it wasn’t my fault. It wasn’t your fault. It was a natural disaster. An act of God, if you will. A goddamn sneaker wave took Devon. There are signs up warning people about them everywhere. It happened. Every year it happens. You have to accept this and move on.’
‘How dare you even mention him in my presence!’ she cried. ‘You have no right.’
Adam felt a rush of anger, so strong he had to stand, to move. He walked towards the window, then back to the bed again. He sat, not wanting to hover over her. Taking in a deep breath, exhaling through his mouth, lips pursed, he clenched his fingers, pressing his nails into the soft flesh of his palms.
‘He was my son too. I have a right, as much as you.’
‘No, you denied yourself that right, after you realized he wasn’t your perfect little mini-you. Once you learned about the autism, you disengaged. You know you did – from both of us.’
The Wave Page 4