by Harry Kraus
Lena took her eyes from the TV screen, unwound her hands, and placed her left hand in Claire’s.
Claire shared a moment of eye contact before her attention was turned to the ring she felt on Lena’s hand. She leaned forward and gently pulled on Lena’s hand. She was wearing a beautiful diamond solitaire! “Where’d this come from? I don’t remember seeing such a beautiful ring on you before . . . Did Billy Ray—”
Lena pulled her hand away, blushing. “No, I—” She shook her head, and looked away and hesitated. She shrugged. “I don’t wear it often. It makes me feel special.”
“Billy Ray sent this to you?” Claire shook her head, imagining that Billy Ray must have resources beyond his apparent means. Was he making a plea to get her back? A letter, flowers . . . and a diamond ring? “He’s trying to buy you back, Lena. Don’t fall for this.”
“It’s not from Billy Ray, Dr. McCall.”
“What?”
“For a while, I thought it might be, that maybe he was going to surprise me or something.”
“I’m not following you. You have a ring but you don’t know who it’s from?”
“I found it.” She held the ring out to admire it. “Well, actually, Old Jeb found it and brought it to me.” Lena looked over, her eyes suddenly moist. “Have you ever wanted something so much that you were willing to pretend it was true?”
“I–I think lots of people do, Lena.”
“When I wear the ring, I pretend I have a happy life, a rich husband who loves me and gives me what I want.” She closed her eyes. “It’s stupid, I know.”
“It’s not stupid, Lena. Dreams are important.”
Lena sniffed and nodded. “I kept the ring thinkin’ I could cash it in if things get really tight. I took it to a pawn shop . . .” Her voice cracked. “But then I just couldn’t part with it. Anyway, the ring was like some sort of miracle . . . a message maybe . . . a sign that things were going to work out. I almost believed God sent it to me so I’d be brave enough to run away.” She hung her head. “That sounds stupid.”
“It is pretty.” Claire took her fingers and lifted the ring to her face to admire it again. As she did, a hint of familiarity surfaced, and she felt another wave of stomach upset. She took a deep breath. “Can I see it?”
Lena pulled it off, and Claire took the ring in her hand and rolled it around. Could it be? She would know this ring anywhere. She’d spent hours looking at it, memorizing every lovely detail. She turned the ring to look at the inscription, a simple blend of her and John’s last initials. M.C. McCall Cerelli. This was Claire’s ring!
As she stared at the ring, Lena gushed. “Isn’t it weird? It has my initials in it! That’s why I’d hoped Billy Ray had secretly gotten it for me.”
“Lena, it says, ‘M.C.’”
She shrugged. “My real name is Melinda Chisholm.”
“Oh.” Claire looked down, her heart racing. “When did you find this ring?”
Lena thought for a moment. “Old Jeb brought it to me. He must have dug it up around the place, ’cause he hasn’t been out huntin’ since last fall.”
“When was this?”
“I remember just where I was. I was just recovering from . . . well, Billy Ray’d been drinking and had roughed me up pretty bad. That’s when he . . .”
Claire spoke gently. “He raped you, is that what you were going to say?”
Lena nodded. “Anyway, Billy Ray was treating me real sweet.” She managed a little smile. “Maybe because he’d woken up with a shotgun barrel in his face.” Lena slipped the ring back on. “Anyway, he went to AA and propped me up on the porch swing with a pillow under my ankle and that’s when Old Jeb carried up the felt box.” She frowned. “It was disgusting, covered with dog slobber.”
“Do you know the date?” She pulled out a little calendar from her purse and opened it for Lena.
Lena looked puzzled. “I remember calling around to find an AA meeting that Billy Ray could attend on a Saturday. That’s right, it was a Saturday. And it was right after I first saw you in the clinic in Stoney Creek, ’cause I was limping pretty bad from a swollen ankle.”
“So you found the ring on a Saturday. And the night before was when you were assaulted.”
“Yes.” She squinted toward Claire. “Why does it matter?”
Claire couldn’t explain her concern. “I’ll explain it later.” She stood up. “Listen, Lena, I’m glad you’re doing well. Remember your promise to me.”
Lena looked away. “I never promised.”
“Lena, please. Don’t go back to him without talking to me. At least promise me that.” She paused. “I care about you.”
Lena nodded. “Okay.”
Claire needed to leave. She was having abdominal cramps. If for no other reason, the ring she’d just seen was enough to give her indigestion. At the door, she turned back. “Please don’t pawn off the ring, Lena. It’s too beautiful for that. I’ll buy it from you if you get real desperate.”
Lena held out the ring to admire it once more and smiled. “I knew this ring was good luck,” she said.
Claire shook her head as she left. Good luck for you, maybe.
On her way out, Claire walked past the operating rooms and down the hall to the surgical pathology lab. There, she was pleased to see a medical school friend, Eddie McCullough, who had stayed at Brighton University for a pathology residency. Eddie’s back was to her, bending over a microscope, but she could recognize his hair pattern easily. Prematurely bald, and with the remaining hair around the sides buzz-cut with the same number-two razor guard as his dirty-blond goatee.
“What’s the world coming to? A path resident in the hospital after six?”
He turned from the microscope and lowered the wire-rim glasses from the top of his head. “Well, well,” he said, grinning. “I should have known.”
“Hey, Eddie.”
He opened his arms and walked toward her. “Claire McCall!”
She stuck out her hand. “Oh, no, you don’t. I don’t hug men wearing plastic aprons.”
He laughed and pointed to a stool under a high counter filled with tissue stains and microscope slides. “Have a seat. What brings you back?”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
He thought for a moment. “What’s the world coming to? Dr. Blythe is doing some sort of head and neck commando operation. He must have sent me a thousand frozen sections to do.” He halted and turned to a young woman standing in the doorway. She was wide-eyed and wearing a pair of scrubs. “Tell Dr. Blythe the pharyngeal margin is free of cancer . . . finally!”
The woman, wearing a medical student ID, nodded. “Thanks,” she said before scurrying from the room again.
Eddie rolled his eyes. “There’s another crazy medical student who wants to be a surgeon.”
“Careful, Eddie.”
He smiled again. “What’s up?”
“How much trouble would it be to get some DNA studies on an ectopic pregancy?”
“Come again?”
“A girl, a patient of mine, came in yesterday with an ectopic pregnancy. Her husband insists the baby isn’t his.” She halted. “The story is complicated. But the baby might be important evidence in a rape case.”
“The girl was raped?”
“And got pregnant, but it was an ectopic pregancy. She was operated on here yesterday when her fallopian tube ruptured.”
“Listen, Claire, you know I can’t take this and do anything outside of official channels. The forensic lab can do all of that stuff, but first the law will have to make a request for the specimen after getting approval by a magistrate that agrees that the baby is important evidence of a crime.” He shook his head. “I’d get skinned alive if I just took the specimen to forensics myself. The chain of evidence the law follows would be broken. I’d screw up the case.”
Claire listened and nodded. “I thought that’s what you’d say.”
“Why do you need to know?”
She looked at Eddie
and held her tongue. Because my boyfriend is a suspect in the case. She shrugged. “I just want to know.”
He pushed his glasses up on his nose. “Are you feeling okay? You’re pale.”
She shrugged. She rubbed her abdomen. “I’m an LMD now. I think one of my pediatric patients must have brought some flu bug in the office.” She sighed. “But I’m always pale, Eddie. I spend my life inside the clinic.”
“It’s summertime, Claire. You need to get out more.”
“Fine advice from someone who spends his evenings staring into a microscope.”
“I’m a resident. I’m supposed to be pale.”
Claire nodded and started for the door. “Thanks, Eddie.”
“Hey, Claire,” he called from behind her. “Why don’t you ask this girl’s husband why he’s so sure it’s not his child? I’ll bet the guy’s had a vasectomy or something. That’s the usual way a guy can be so sure his pregnant wife has been foolin’ around on him.”
Why didn’t I think of that? She smiled. “Thanks.”
Claire pulled over twice on the way back to Stoney Creek to empty her stomach on the roadside as the mountain curves and indigestion joined forces to create a very bad situation. She stopped at her clinic and raided the sample cabinet for Cipro in case she started with diarrhea and Protonix for her acid stomach. She took one of each and walked to the file room to search for Billy Ray Chisholm’s record.
With the record in hand, she sat at her desk and opened it for inspection. The first page documented her involvement in caring for a laceration in his arm. She didn’t have to go much further to find what she was looking for. Billy Ray hadn’t been to the doctor too many times. On the pages to follow, Claire read about Mr. and Mrs. William Raymond Chisholm’s workup for infertility. Apparently, his wife, Rachel, had every conceivable test, including a laparoscopy under general anesthesia, before Billy would submit a semen sample. She pulled out a lab slip, a sperm count from a semen specimen. “No sperm seen.” Underneath, Dr. Jenkins had written, “Azoospermia.”
That liar! He knew about this when he married Lena. She wanted children and he never told her he was unable to father children.
So ...Billy Ray was telling me the truth!
Claire stood up, as a pain shot through her stomach again. It was dull, but aggravating. She held her abdomen. It felt better not to move around.
She walked slowly to her VW bug and drove home with her memory working overtime, trying to piece together the new information she’d gathered.
I saw Lena in the office for the first time the evening before Dday.
John had the ring in his pocket when he went with me the next day to get the results of my Huntington’s gene test.
And, accordiing to Lena, Billy Ray raped her Friday night, woke up to face a shotgun Saturday morning, and promised to change. He goes to AA and Old Jeb brings Lena the ring John had in his pocket.
Wasn’t that the day that John’s father called the house looking for John? Tony told of the phone message John had left, how John had said he’d really blown it and that he was in a jam. What was that about? Aconfession? Claire shook her head. Impossible!
Then Lena is pregnant, but denies ever being with anyone except Billy Ray. And he is incapable of fathering a child.
The implications made her sick. “No,” she spoke aloud. “This is too crazy!”
She pulled in the lane to her house to see Della loading a suitcase into the trunk of her car. Della slammed the trunk and put her hands on her hips.
Claire climbed from the VW slowly, trying not to upset her volatile stomach.
“Where have you been?”
“I went to Brighton to visit Lena after work. I was concerned about her.”
“A phone call would be nice.”
Claire winced. She had meant to call from the car, but her escapade in the parking lot with Billy Ray had so occupied her that she forgot. “I’m sorry, Mom. I meant to.”
“Your father went to Pleasant View Home today.”
“Mom, why didn’t you call?”
“I knew you were busy. And I thought I’d tell you myself tonight at supper.” She pointed to the house. “I left it on the stove for you.”
“I’m not hungry,” she mumbled. “What’s with the suitcase? Taking some stuff over for Wally?”
“This is my stuff. I’m the one leaving now.”
“What?”
Della motioned to the door. “I’ll explain. I was hoping you’d get home sooner so we’d have a chance to talk. As it is, I’m going to be driving in the dark.”
Claire came in and sat slowly on the old couch. As she did, she thought about her menstrual cycle. I just finished. This shouldn’t be ovulatory pain. She looked at her mother. “So give me the short version.”
“John came over this morning.”
Claire didn’t understand and she was losing patience. “So John came over. So . . .”
“My leaving has nothing to do with John. But he came to say goodbye to Wally. He told me about last night.” She stared at Claire. “Too bad I have to get it from him.”
“Mom, I’m sorry. I was planning to tell you, but I didn’t feel like hashing it out yesterday. Besides, I didn’t know he was really going to leave, like now. What did he say?”
“Only that he needed a little time away from Stoney Creek. I think he needs some time to sort through his feelings.”
“Did he say that?”
“Not exactly that. He said he needed to go to northern Virginia and Richmond for a few days, then see how he felt. It sounded like he wanted to talk to his father for some advice, then make a final decision.” She lifted an index finger and pointed it at Claire. “You’d better be careful. You don’t want to drive this one off. I think he needs to see that you really trust him to be around through thick and thin.”
“Did he say that?”
“Not exactly.” She offered a smile. “But close enough.”
“Fair enough. Now where are you going?”
“Hawaii.”
“Hawaii!” Claire allowed her jaw to hang open. “Just like that? Put Wally in a home and it’s off on vacation?”
“It’s not just like that. It’s a gift from your uncle Leon. I notified him of Wally’s move this morning. And then he dropped by with this printed flight itinerary. I leave from Dulles at 6:00 A.M.”
“But what about Dad? He needs you to help him adjust.”
“I explained it to Wally. I promised him that you’d visit every day.” She flinched. “You will do that, won’t you? I couldn’t stand the thought of Wally thinking we just dumped him in that place. He’ll feel abandoned. He’ll—”
“Easy, Mom. Of course I’ll visit every day. I’ll remind him where you are. He may not like it, but I think he’ll understand.”
Della sighed. “Oh, I knew you’d do it. I told Leon I couldn’t leave Wally, but he claimed Wally wouldn’t know the difference.”
“He doesn’t know Wally like we do.”
“That’s what I told Leon. But he insisted that I take a break. He’d already talked it over with the staff at Pleasant View. Evidently they feel the adjustment may actually be easier for him if I stay away a few days.” She held up a piece of paper. “I’m only going to be gone a week. Leon has a time-share for me to use.” She frowned. “You don’t think I should go?”
“No, I . . . well, it’s just so sudden . . . and so unlike Uncle Leon to be so generous.”
“What about Wally? Do you think he’ll be okay?”
“What does it matter what I say? You’re already packed.”
“Claire!”
Claire moaned. “He’ll be okay. I’ll go see him every day.”
“Would you? That makes me feel better.”
Claire could sense her mom’s reluctance. “Mom. I said I’ll go every day. I promise.”
“Okay,” she said slowly. “I think I can do this.” Della stood up. “Times a-wastin’. I’ve got a two-hour drive tonight. I’m stayin�
� at the Hampton Inn tonight so I can just shuttle over to the airport in the morning.”
“Wonderful. I’ll bet that was arranged by Uncle Leon too.”
Della waved. “How’d you guess?” She turned to leave.
“Mom?”
Della stopped and looked back.
“If anyone deserves this, it’s you. When’s the last time you spent a week on vacation by yourself?”
She shook her head. “Never, child.” She nodded. “I guess it is time.
Maybe I’ll go crazy without Wally to talk to.”
“Have fun.”
Her mother walked away, leaving Claire sitting on the couch. Her mind was weary. She wanted to call Randy Jensen, but she wanted a quick nap. She curled up on the couch and pulled a worn afghan from the back of the couch over her shoulders. In two minutes, she surrendered to exhaustion and slept.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Claire awoke with a start to the piercing scream of the smoke alarm. Fire! She sat up, the smell of burning milk assaulting her nostrils. The air was thick with smoke and the room dark. What time is it? The sun has gone down. She lowered herself to the floor on her hands and knees. Then, more alert, she stood up and rushed to the kitchen, coughing and waving her hands at the smoke. Her eyes burned. She opened the back door, then attacked the source of the problem, a smoking saucepan.
Claire carried it out and dropped it in the backyard. She peered into the bottom of the pan, but the smoke was a thick plume and she couldn’t see anything in the dim moonlight except a black char of something her mother left for her dinner.
She wasn’t hungry anyway. She walked back into the house where the smoke alarm continued to shriek. She opened the front door for cross ventilation and silenced the alarm on the kitchen ceiling by standing on a wooden chair to reach the silence button. That’s when she felt another stab of pain in her abdomen. “Ugh,” she groaned.
She retrieved a Diet Pepsi from the refrigerator and sat at the kitchen table. The wall clock read ten-thirty. She didn’t feel like eating. She sniffed. The smell seemed to be making the nausea return. She should have checked the office for some Phenergan. She sipped the Pepsi and walked to her bedroom, where she undressed and lay on the bed.