Can't Let Go

by David Horne

  She recorded the readings in the laptop she carried and moved out of the curtain room as quickly as she’d entered. Trevor frowned, but Joshua felt if the nurse had something important to say, she’d said it.

  Nora bent over and kissed Joshua’s forehead. He smelled the scent from her hair that overlapped the bouquet of house fire smoke that permeated his body. She wanted to take his hand, but on the left side of the bed, his hand was bandaged.

  “So, did I miss anything?” Joshua asked the two of them. The grave looks on their faces suggested something happened since he’d left Stuart Chittenden’s house. He looked up at Trevor. “Thank you for saving me.”

  “You’re a crazy son of a bitch,” Trevor responded. “But I get it.”

  Retired or not, he was a cop first, a civil servant who’d taken an oath to serve and protect. Just because the job was over didn’t mean Joshua stopped practicing the oath.

  “I’m sorry,” he said lightly. Then he dove into business with his daughter. He looked at her. “What about the fire?”

  She smiled at him. Nora had her mother’s features. She was a little heavier than the last time he saw her, but that came with a fast-food and little exercise. Since she’d graduated to homicide detective, she spent a lot less time on her feet but used her skills more than any patrol officer.

  “I haven’t looked into it.” She shook her head. “I got here as soon as Trevor called me. I’m going to say that I think you’re a damned fool for what you did. And from what I heard on the radio racing over here, the fire was localized to the back of the house, and there was one fatality.”

  “Poor Stuart.” Trevor shook his head.

  “Are you going to look into it?” Joshua asked hurriedly.

  Nora smiled at her father, but there was no humor in it. “Look into what?” she snapped. “It was an accident. It happens. It just happened to your neighbor. That doesn’t make it a conspiracy.”

  “I know.” He felt Trevor’s hand on his shoulder again, a sign to pull back from taking a negative direction with his daughter.

  They had a strained relationship. Similar personalities, analytical minds, she followed the career that suited her. It made Joshua proud but Nora’s mother furious. No matter how hard she tried to pull the girl away from her father, Nora kept going back. They were better at a distance sometimes, like the same sides of magnets, they repelled. Alternatively, when they saw the same picture, Joshua knew they noticed the same details.

  “I love you, Dad. But you’re impossible sometimes.” Nora looked at Trevor. This time when she smiled it was genuine. “I honestly don’t know how you put up with him as long as you have.”

  Joshua and Trevor had been together for twenty years. He’d divorced Nora’s mother when Nora was twelve. She was old enough to know her mother attempted to use malicious tactics in court to remove visitation from Joshua. Nora was stubborn. The more her mother fought to keep the girl away from Joshua, the more they bonded.

  When Joshua and Trevor finally moved in together five years after the divorce, Nora was indifferent about the relationship. She had a father, and now she had another man who saw her as an aspiring young woman who was proud of her accomplishments. She rounded the end of the bed and embraced Trevor.

  “Thank you for saving his life.” She kissed Trevor’s cheek. “Maybe you should increase the insurance policy on him though.” She grinned at Joshua. “I have to get going, Dad.” She kissed Joshua again and moved through the drawn curtains, leaving Joshua alone with Trevor.

  Mutually exclusive for a little more than twenty years, they made their relationship official, moving in together after four years of dating, and they’d been together ever since. Trevor was one of the most intelligent men Joshua ever knew. A retired professor of Art History at Georgetown University, he was never short on interesting conversations, especially when it came to the art world. They traveled together when they took vacations.

  Joshua saw the same tall, strapping man who he fell in love with every time he looked at those blue eyes. Trevor had thick curly brown hair. He had an aquiline nose and slim lips. He tended to shave less since his retirement, but Joshua still liked the feel of bristles against his neck when they embraced. Only, now that he had time to reflect, he’d forgotten the last time they were intimate together.

  “So, Mr. Dimmick,” the doctor started when she entered through the curtains. Around them, beyond the fabric shield, the rest of the emergency room buzzed with activity. “How are you feeling?”

  “I’m fine.” It was a go-to answer and one that prompted a countenance of disappointment on Trevor’s face.

  “How about we move beyond a trite answer and I’ll give you a little insight into what we’re seeing?” She looked from Joshua to Trevor as if seeking some encouragement. “I’m going to schedule you a few more tests. Your lungs look good, but I saw something in your x-rays that I want to follow-up on.”

  “What’s going on?” Trevor asked. The sheer wall of panic displayed on his tired face. Joshua felt the doctor wanted a sense of urgency when there wasn’t a serious issue.

  “Nothing too dramatic,” she reassured. “I’m just looking a little closer at your head. Since you fell, it’s just standard practice to x-ray your skull. But I’d like to refer you to a specialist and order a CT, maybe an MRI.”

  Joshua nodded indifferently. “What are you looking for?”

  “Well, I’m going to let the neurologist answer that. I want to rule out fluid build-up around your brain.” She frowned at him. “No headaches? Elevated stress?”

  Joshua shrugged. Trevor caught it and said, “He’s complained about headaches off and on for the past few months.”

  She nodded. “I can’t tell men how important it is to stop ignoring signs your body is telling you something’s wrong. What is with guys ignoring things that are important like that? When’s the last time you had a physical?” She looked at her laptop. “I don’t see any record of your family doctor. You were admitted to this hospital eight years ago for stitches during a knife fight with a suspect.”

  “I remember that,” Joshua said.

  “But there’s nothing here that shows any relevant or recent health history.”

  “It’s been a while,” Trevor answered for Joshua. “You need a physical.” And the disappointment suggested a few other things needed to happen.

  “Let’s start with this, and we’ll go from there.” The doctor sighed. “The burns on your hand are first and second degree. You’ll have to follow up with the burn center. You’re a fortunate man, Mr. Dimmick. I’ll get your release paperwork together.” She looked at Trevor and smiled. “You can take him home as soon as we’re done.”

  “Thank you, Doctor.” She left them alone again. Joshua did not argue against what the doctor presented. He only had a smile for Trevor. The man shook his head looking down at Joshua lying on the hospital bed.

  Chapter Four

  The doctor’s inner office looked like a hideaway from the rest of the clinic. They were surrounded by books on shelves, a grand dark varnished desk, and a window that overlooked the parking lot on the west side of the hospital from the third floor. Trevor sat quiet, legs crossed, scanning something on the smartphone. Joshua studied the titles of the books on the shelves, hands tucked behind his back. Many of the books were medically based pharmaceutical journals and textbooks. Joshua saw a few fiction novels in the mix, a few nonfiction titles to fill available space. Maybe it was the doctor’s medicine to read things that took him away from the hospital environment and the medical world from time to time.

  They’d spent the day at the hospital. It was a day of testing, a stress test, blood work, and an MRI. Joshua had puncture wounds and a sore back from lying as still as he could while the magnetic machine pounded around him, imaging his head. He didn’t do it for himself. He tolerated the physical and the tests because Trevor encouraged him to take a look at how he’d lived and take responsibility for his health.

  The doctor br
eezed into the office and closed the door. He was a small bald man wearing a white lab jacket that looked too big on him. Joshua turned from the bookshelf and sat in the available chair beside Trevor. Trevor put the smartphone in his pants pocket and waited. He smiled at Joshua, but there wasn’t any humor in the effort.

  “So, Mr. Dimmick,” Doctor Clarkson started. He ran a soft hand over the bald pate and cleared his throat. “We’re sending the blood work out. Your heart looks good.” The small man logged onto the computer at his desk. He multitasked, talking and clicking the mouse. Once he saw something on the flat screen monitor, Joshua saw the doctor squint as he read. “It’s nothing to worry about, but I’m sending your MRI to a colleague who specializes in brain diseases.”

  It felt as if the air sudden sucked out of the room. Joshua was unable to pull in a lungful while Trevor looked as if he’d turned to fleshy stone. The blunt statement came out without sympathy. Then Clarkson waved a hand in the air as if dismissing the tragedy.

  “Don’t look so worried. I don’t want to alarm you both,” he explained. “I see something that comes off a certain way. We look at the results, we have questions, and we confer with colleagues. We practice medicine gentlemen. I don’t want to make a big deal about something until we know we’ve done all the tests.”

  “And what can you do?” Joshua mumbled. “Even if you found something.”

  “Well, there’re a few things we can start doing.” Clarkson laced his fingers together on the desktop. “You drink? Do you smoke? I know people put down one thing on their charts thinking it’s not a big deal. Until it’s a big deal,” he added.

  “Well, I do drink occasionally.” He looked at Trevor as if checking to see if the answer was satisfactory.

  “A little more than you used to,” Trevor pointed out.

  “What changed?” Clarkson asked. “What’s going on with you that you’re drinking more?”

  Joshua shrugged.

  “He’s retired.” Trevor uncrossed his legs, ran a hand over the crease in his slacks. “He’s adjusting to the changes.”

  Clarkson nodded. “That makes sense.” He frowned at Joshua. “You find it hard to concentrate? Are you sleeping?”

  “Sure.”

  Trevor made a noise that sounded like a stifled snicker. “You haven’t slept through the night in six months.”

  Joshua stared at Trevor, but his shoulders loosened. His head moved slowly in agreement. “It’s true. I find it impossible to concentrate on one thing. I feel like I’m supposed to be doing something.”

  “So, is it safe to say you’re feeling a little anxious?”

  “Sure, I guess.”

  “Retirement is a big adjustment for people. What did you do before?”

  “I was a cop.” It came out as a solid statement with hard edges and no softness.

  “He was a homicide detective,” Trevor clarified.

  Clarkson’s eyebrows rose on the otherwise smooth forehead; trying to take root in the available space on top of his head and he said, “That’s like going from one hundred to zero overnight.” The doctor scanned the monitor. “So, you’re not sleeping, and it makes sense.” He leaned back in the chair. “You need to take a vacation.”

  “I’m retired.”

  “I think you’re missing the point. Take a step back. Think of it as a vacation. You’ll start reconfiguring how you’re processing all of it. Stop drinking. Even ‘occasionally’ is a problem sometimes. If you’re honest about not smoking, that’s good. That includes marijuana, by the way.” Clarkson looked relaxed but moved as if full of potential energy. “I can prescribe something to help you sleep. Maybe even a mild anxiety medication. I have some samples if you’d like.”

  “I think I’ll be fine.”

  “What about the MRI?” Trevor asked. He had a look of frustration that Joshua knew very well, but Clarkson had never experienced it. The doctor had glossed over the fact he’d sent Joshua’s MRI results to another doctor. “Are you looking for something?”

  The mood changed, shifting from fast to somber in a moment. Clarkson read Trevor’s concern and did his best to relay important information. “I saw something on the scan. We look at MRI scans for tumors, identifying strokes, and sometimes other facts that can cause dementia—I see the looks.” He held up his hand. “Sometimes cortical atrophy is visible on brain scans. That’s the outer layer of the brain.

  “When a patient has been diagnosed with dementia, we see the degeneration of the cortex. Those ridges of tissues normally look wrinkled and have distinct valleys. These ridges and tissues, the gyri and sulci, become thinner and wider with cortical atrophy. The progressive loss of neurons causes it. MRIs show us changes in brain structures.” He clicked his tongue at Joshua. “Unfortunately, we have no baseline to look at when it comes to most people because they rarely if ever get MRIs, so we have nothing to compare results.”

  He waited, allowing the information to sink in fully. “I send out MRI results to colleagues. They send results to me. We discuss the outcome and make recommendations. Right now you’re in the ‘wait and see’ phase. And I know, I know, it’s a terrible place to be, the potential of receiving life-changing news. But we don’t rush tests, and we don’t make broad judgment calls on one observation. I think you need to take a vacation. Take a break from everything and reboot. If you smoke, stop smoking. If you drink, stop drinking. Eat healthy. I can tell you’re taking care of yourself. At least you were, and maybe that’s the way to rethinking.”

  He turned to Trevor. “I know you’ll take care of him. You’ll probably want to start changing your diets to include more brain foods. The truth is we’re miles away from certain causes of dementia. And I don’t want you to think that’s what’s going on here.” He turned to Joshua. “Maybe that’s just the way your brain looks. If you’ve not had a series of concussions, and you’ve had a healthy life, free of environmental factors that wreak havoc on brain matter, then you’re fine.”

  “So, just go back to my normal, everyday life, and stop smoking meth?” Joshua joked wryly.

  “Exactly!” Clarkson said and stood from the desk. “Good to meet you, Mr. Dimmick.” He shook hands with Joshua and then shook hands with Trevor. “Mr. Emerton, stop worrying, take this man on vacation. We’ll get some information back in a couple of weeks.” He moved between them, opened the door to the sanctum and wandered out. “I’ll be in touch.”

  Chapter Five

  It was impossible to feel comfortable wandering around the house with the enormous blue elephant taking up every inch of the place. That’s how Trevor felt when they got home. Joshua moved as if nothing bothered him except the damaged building next door. On the ride home, watching the world go by through the passenger window, Joshua had a series of rhetorical questions that he posed to no one while Trevor drove.

  Now they were home, Joshua wandered outside through the back door, collected birdseed in the storage container he kept and went to the feeders to refill. Trevor watched from the window. Joshua’s movements were automatic, but he stared at the privacy fence at Stuart’s house. He felt Joshua didn’t worry about his health or his brain, just what happened to the neighbor.

  There was a knock at the front door. Trevor opened it to Nora. She smiled and walked inside. She threw her arms around Trevor and squeezed him. It was as if she saw the draining in him and the hug helped fill him up again.

  “Where is he?” she asked looking around.

  “He’s out feeding his birds.”

  “What did you find out?” she pressed. Trevor kept Nora informed through a few texts.

  Trevor glanced to Joshua, standing in the back yard, halfway through tossing birdseed, trying not to look obvious about staring at the scorched shell of the neighbor’s house. “He had a series of tests. They took blood, and they gave him a physical.” He felt a catch in his throat that caused him to take a breath.

  “What is it?” Nora moved closer to Trevor. They had a good relationship. She wasn’t judgmenta
l when they moved in together all those years ago. She was happy for her dad. There was a joy Joshua experienced being around Trevor that she never saw when he was around her mother. Trevor was a sensible, stable, and intelligent man who focused on the things he could control and didn’t allow emotional baggage to get in the way of living a healthy and productive life. Something clicked inside him. She saw how it spilled out and filled him up.

  “The doctor wanted a second opinion on the MRI results.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “We don’t know yet. I can’t get a read on Joshua because he’s hung up on the neighbor. I don’t think it’s sinking in with him because he sees a house next door and crime, and not what’s going on inside him.”

  “What are you guys talking about?” Joshua said when he wandered into the house. He didn’t need an answer because it was on Trevor’s face and in Nora’s eyes.

  “Hi, Dad.” She moved around Trevor and hugged her father and added a kiss to the stubble on his cheek.

  “What’s the news about Stuart?” he asked.

  She gave him a look of disappointment and sighed. “Is that all you want to talk about?”

  Joshua looked from his daughter to Trevor and back again. “Yup, that’s it.” He shook a finger at her and turned around to walk into the kitchen. “You want to talk about my health. As far as any of us know right now is that I am healthy.” He spoke loud enough for them to hear as he retrieved something and came back into view hoping a tumbler of orange juice. “Tell her the doctor said I was healthy.”

  Trevor’s eyebrows levitated above his eyes. “I suppose that’s relative—”

  “No, no, no, you’re not going into professor mode on this one. I got that he said I was healthy and right now there’s nothing to worry about.”

  “Okay,” Nora said. “But why does that feel as if there’s something you’re not addressing?”