After giving Sasha the information about the hospital and answering her questions, they agreed to talk the next day.
After signing off with Sasha, Rudy considered whom else he should let know of his whereabouts. He thought of all the casseroles Bee’s many friends had dropped off after her death. The frozen lasagnas. The bagels, cream cheese, lox, and OJ. Ready-made meals. One woman from Bethany’s book group, Glenda—who was tall and always wore spotless white pantsuits and stylish shirts with big collars and big necklaces and heels that clicked intimidatingly fast along the floors of the house—came over and did Rudy’s laundry, much to his chagrin. His boxers! She had a take-charge attitude and alarming speed, which made it impossible for Rudy to refuse her help.
“I know I’m barging in,” she’d chirped, insisting Rudy show her the way to the hampers. There were piles, too. Unsorted piles of dirty clothes that had resulted in Rudy delving into those goodwill bags. Combined with the weight loss, he knew this wasn’t a good look and imagined Glenda on the phone to CeCe as soon as she pulled out of the driveway in her mini Mercedes.
“Oh, this isn’t anything to be ashamed of,” Glenda insisted. “It’s called grief. When my sister died at thirty-seven of ovarian cancer, I wouldn’t ring hospice in to the apartment building to declare her dead so that the coroner could come and retrieve her body.”
She turned to Rudy, who stood there speechless in sweats and a long-sleeved grad-school tee, thanking God he had showered that day—the first in many.
“Top that one.” She smiled at Rudy, pointing a red fingernail at him. “Locking hospice out of the house.”
“I’m so. I’m so.” Rudy sat on the toilet seat and covered his face with his hands so Glenda couldn’t see that he was crying. “I’m so grateful.”
But now Glenda wasn’t someone who needed to know he was in the hospital. Rudy imagined her motoring in and mopping the ward’s floors—which, frankly, you didn’t want to look at too closely. There were splotches of pee in the bathroom, and smudges of spinach on the dayroom floor, withered dry daffodils on the piano. Stanford was a first-rate hospital, yet it was so clear that psych patients got the last dribs and drabs of sheets, towels, housekeeping. Still, the doctors and the smart PhDs who led the groups were what really mattered. Egyptian cotton bath towels and five-hundred-thread-count sheets weren’t going to cure mental illness. There, he’d said it: mental illness. To himself, at least.
Rudy looked at the light-blue wall peppered with essential information—a calendar of events, his chart and medications. It was a good thing to roll over and open your eyes to: Here’s what time it is, here’s what day it is, here’s where you are, here’s your phone number, here are your doctors. The whiteboard left room for activities specific to you. Rudy’s first day, the gentle male nurse had asked what his goal was for the day. He could not think of anything other than showering and maybe going home.
“Shower?” Rudy had assumed this didn’t count.
Beside “GOAL” the nurse wrote, “SHOWER.” “Great. Later on I’ll show you where the shower room is and everything you need.”
“SHOWER” was a legitimate goal after all.
After dinner that night Rudy absentmindedly tinkered at the keys on the out-of-tune upright piano in the dayroom. Kevin sidled up with a Styrofoam cup of cocoa, which he set on the top of the piano.
“Do you know anything from Man of La Mancha?”
Rudy pulled out the bench, sat, and started plunking out “The Impossible Dream.” He was beginning to hum the vocals when Kevin broke out into the most beautiful tenor.
Other patients gathered around to listen. There were two who were out of it on account of medication; they sat slumped in two of the dayroom chairs dozing, but perked up when they heard the music. A nurse passed by and smiled at the scene.
When Rudy and Kevin finished the song, Rudy shyly cupped his hands in his lap.
“You sing beautifully.”
“You play beautifully.”
“Nah, hobbyist, really. Department store pianist.”
“Laid off San Jose City Opera singer.”
“I’ll be damned.”
“Here’s to windmills.”
“Here’s to windmills,” Rudy agreed, holding up his own Styrofoam cup of cranberry juice and ice.
As an orderly quietly approached Rudy, Kevin bowed and backed away.
“Oh, hi,” the orderly said, whispering conspiratorially now. “You have a guest.”
Rudy assumed it was his daughter. He wished it were Sasha.
“A Detective Jensen,” the orderly added, speaking softly. “You can meet in the conference room for privacy.”
“I thought this was supposed to be a retreat from stress,” Rudy griped.
“You checked that visitors and phone calls were okay,” the orderly said apologetically. “Would you like me to tell him you don’t want to see him?”
“No, no, that’s okay.” Suddenly it occurred to Rudy that the orderly might think he’d done something criminal. “My wife died suddenly,” he said. “They’re looking into it.” The orderly nodded, unfazed. Each day it became more apparent: The staff here had seen it all. And they were perhaps the least judgmental people on the planet. A planet where “SHOWER” was a fine goal for the day.
16
The conference room where Rudy met with Detective Jensen was behind a closed door along the same hallway as the patients’ rooms. It was surprisingly like any other corporate meeting room: One large and long fake wood-grained table, surrounded by black chairs on wheels, a flip chart with colored pens at one end and a spaceship phone in the center of the table for conference calls. All pre-layoff reminders to Rudy. Downsized. (Honestly, these terms couldn’t be any more dehumanizing. Downsized into a smaller version of himself? A little man, a husk that might blow away down the driveway in the wind.) But a room like this, carpet the color and texture of Teflon—like his rented tuxedo—was a reminder that he didn’t long for the corporate world.
Jensen peered out the tiny window at the back of the room where the red lights of ambulances and the unloading of gurneys could be seen. He seemed to be one for dramatic entrances, and if arriving first robbed him of that chance he would keep his back to Rudy and remain silent, until turning around and taking off that ridiculous fedora and raincoat. So, it’s raining out, Humphrey Bogart?
“Please have a seat,” Jensen said, as though he were running the dang joint.
“Okay, Detective Jensen.” Why did Rudy hate this man? There was just the tiniest bit of smarminess: I know more than you know, and I’ll decide when you need to know more, and I’ll always know more than you know, and your wife isn’t just dead, but maybe murdered, maybe went on a cruise with your neighbor who has the ride-on mower you’ve been coveting. Do not covet thy neighbor’s ride-on mower!
But he didn’t hate Jensen. He hated having to see the guy again. The prospect of some act of violence against Bee.
“Listen,” Jensen said, lowering his voice, perhaps in deference to the hospital. “We have good news. Well, it’s conclusive news, and in our world of unsolved crimes, conclusive news is good news.”
“My wife is alive?” Rudy asked.
“Err. No. Of course not.” Jensen looked nervous, which tickled Rudy for a moment.
“Detective Jensen. I’m joking. I may be in the nuthouse, but,” he said, knocking on his head, “this coconut isn’t totally cracked.”
Jensen’s relief was palpable. “Of course, Mr. Knowles. We have some resolution. This young man who confessed to murdering Mrs. Knowles, Bethany, fits every element of the profile of a false confessor. He is a troubled fella, but we have no reason to believe that he harmed your wife, nor that he even had a grudge against her. This was confirmed by both our full investigation and another review of the autopsy report.”
Rudy’s anger against this false confessor, okay, this detective, this entire business, made him feel he was choking with tears and bile. He wasn’t sure why the a
nger boiled over so vigorously now. Surely, the fact that his wife wasn’t murdered was good news. But good was not an appropriate word. Was he supposed to celebrate?
Detective Jensen plowed forward. “These attention-seekers are criminals of their own kind—you can press charges for his claims—but we know he did not hurt your wife. There is simply no evidence other than his confession. I thought this development might put your mind at ease.”
Rudy squinted grimly at the detective.
Jensen bit his lip and rolled the brim of his fedora, which he cradled in his hands in a way that was not improving its shape.
“You think it’s a joke,” Rudy continued. “Like ha-ha, you’d never end up in the booby hatch and it’s only your noir life that has brought you to the psych ward. Well, guess who the patients are on this floor?”
Jensen raised his eyebrows, opened his mouth to say something, but nothing came out. For the second time, he seemed rattled. Speechless. “No, I, not at all—”
“An opera singer with the San Jose Opera, an ER nurse from the Valley Med Trauma Center who saw a few too many people burned over ninety percent of their bodies and has panic attacks. A college kid who works at a yogurt shop, and if you heard this kid describe the number of toppings available I’d swear that’s what put him in here. A young doctor who works here, a student who hadn’t slept in three nights, a lovely mother and wife who is bipolar and needs a lithium adjustment, which is too dangerous to do outside the hospital. Did you know that small amounts of lithium can be very helpful to people? It doesn’t mean they’re not fit for society. A man who ran a restaurant with his wife and when she died he could not go on. He hadn’t been able to get up and shower for three weeks, and self-care is a big part of grief and depression and trauma, it turns out, Detective Jensen. Write that down in your little notebook,” Rudy spat as he pointed at Jensen’s notebook, one of those long flip jobs, like a reporter’s. He was crying now, mucous and spit and tears a globby stew on his face, but he didn’t care. He reached for the box of rough tissues at the center of the table, pulled out a wad, and cleaned up his face.
Jensen opened his mouth again to speak, but Rudy continued.
“May I make a confession?” He leaned across the table at Jensen.
“Of course.”
“I can’t handle talking about my wife’s autopsy right now. And I think that’s okay.” He slammed his forefinger into the table to make the point, then drew it away, massaging the aching knuckle.
“The patients here are not that different from you or me. They are people who stepped off the curb and got run over by life. You should hear their stories. They broke down. But they’re not nuts. The world is nuts. I awoke one morning and my wife was dead and some dingus in a fedora and trench coat came to tell me at work—at work—that my wife might have been murdered. And now,” Rudy said this last part with arsenic and sarcasm, “he tells me it was all a false alarm. And now all variables point to the joyous fact that my wife died in her sleep—my original nightmare!”
Rudy did realize that this last fact was not Jensen’s fault.
Jensen massaged his temples. “I’m sorry. Your wife died of cardiac arrest in her sleep and there wasn’t any foul play.”
Rudy stood up. He felt as though he were floating above himself now. His brain told him: Stop, calm down. But he slammed his hands on the tabletop.
“Fuck you and your fedora! I want my wife back. I WANT MY WIFE BACK!”
The orderly and Rudy’s nurse had slipped into the room.
Rudy lowered his voice. “And if you wanted to deliver this good news, Christ on a bike, you could have called ahead and given me notice. What kind of entitled bullshit do you cops think you can get away with by just showing up unannounced and throwing around the discussion of autopsies when someone is at the hospital for rest? And how am I supposed to explain this mess to my daughter?”
Jensen said, “It’s not a mess. It’s over. You don’t have to tell her. Or tell her some day in the future. Or I’d be happy to talk to her—”
“NO. I will not worry her with this now.” Rudy thought of CeCe’s marriage, her grief, her having to take care of him.
“Okay. And I’m sorry, I did phone your doctor for permission to visit, and of course he discussed none of your information with me—he just okayed my coming. I should have let you know in advance.” Jensen rubbed his cheeks, which were blue with a shadow of stubble. Frankly, he’d looked much more composed when he arrived that day at the store, suddenly emerging from the mannequin population.
Rudy’s nurse gently held his forearms, urging him to look into her green eyes, and asking him to please breathe with her.
“I know ‘breathe’ sounds so annoying right now,” she said, “but please, just a few breaths. In through the nose for four, hold for four, out through the mouth for four.”
Rudy clutched her forearms, holding the soft purple cotton of her scrubs as though he were in water over his head at the edge of a dock and she was his only help up. She breathed with him. It wasn’t exaggerated or goofy. It helped to hang on to her, look at her, and breathe simultaneously. This breathing thing wasn’t BS.
The orderly lowered the lights by flipping off half of the overhead fluorescents.
Jensen sighed heavily.
Rudy sat down. It occurred to him that maybe Jensen hated his job as much as Rudy had loathed the corporate environment on some days. Having to deliver bad news and good news that wasn’t even good. Jensen had handled his hat to the point where it was squashed into a lump of felt. These cracks in the detective’s demeanor made him seem more human. The tension began to leave Rudy’s body, and he started to feel badly for taking his depression out on a man who was probably just doing his job. However badly.
“You want some lemon pudding?” Rudy asked him.
“Er, no thanks.”
“Really? Because my neighbor at lunch is a diabetic and got this one by mistake so I got two. It’s actually great. I may try to emulate it at home.” Rudy looked at the taut plastic wrap around the plastic dish of pudding. He couldn’t imagine not being able to get out of bed and look up lemon pudding in his cookbooks and on the Internet—a task he’d enjoyed before he fell apart.
“You know, if you’re ever in here, never check the pork or the beef on your menu,” he advised Jensen. “Always go with the chicken or fish.”
“I’ll keep those menu choices in mind.” Jensen laughed lightly. He looked tired. Two gray semicircles matching the fedora hung under his eyes. He stood up, straightened his hat with his fist, making a soft pop. He came around the table to Rudy and shook his hand.
“I’ll be in touch,” he told Rudy. “After you get home. In case you want to take any measures against this guy when you’ve had time to think about it. But it’ll be brief. Tell you what, I’ll email ahead to let you choose a time we can meet.”
“Sure,” Rudy agreed, pulling a deep breath in through his nose again. One, two, three, four.
“You know what?” Jensen added. “That pudding looks good. And I haven’t had any lunch. Maybe I will take it.”
“It’ll help coat what hurts on the inside,” Rudy told him, holding out the dish, which included a plastic spoon on top.
Jensen put on his coat and hat, took the pudding, thanked everyone, and was out the door.
A little while after Rudy was back in his room, sitting in the chair by the window, his friend the nurse with the purple scrubs poked her head in. She wore a cautious look—a tiny wince, brown eyebrows raised.
“You have another visitor,” she announced. She steepled her hands under her chin. “But she seems lovely. Very sweet.”
Oh, how Rudy loved his dear flawed daughter. But not tonight. Not tonight responsible, dutiful CeCe.
“A Sasha?” The nurse smiled.
“Oh. Oh!”
“Someone special?” the nurse asked.
“Yes. I just wish . . . I looked better.” Rudy patted the top of his head. He was fortunate in
that, as a middle-aged man, he was not lacking hair. Yet the salt-and-pepper curls became unkempt if they weren’t regularly trimmed and groomed with a dab of the curling cream Bethany had brought home for him from her salon. Without that special salad dressing for after the shower, his hair grew out, instead of down, and he looked like a mad symphony conductor. “I feel like a disheveled badger,” he told the nurse, panicking.
“You look nice. I wouldn’t tell you if you didn’t. Your color is great and you’ve had your shower today and you’re dressed. I’ll give you a few minutes to look in the mirror and do anything that’ll make you feel better. She can’t see you from the nurse’s station.”
Rudy did have on old khakis and a frayed but brightly hued oxford shirt, which was above and beyond what he’d worn on previous days. “Color,” he laughed. “The color this season: anger, tinged with despair.”
“You’re smiling,” the nurse observed with a note of hope.
You look fine, he heard Bethany’s voice say softly. Bee’s voice still popped into his head all the time. Intrusive thoughts were normal with PTSD, the doctor had explained. But Bee’s voice didn’t butt in rudely, like the PA lady at the store. It was a part of Rudy’s own inner monologue—had been for he didn’t know how long.
“I’m okay, I think,” he assured the nurse, comforted that they were in cahoots over his nerves and presentability.
She turned back into the hall and soon Sasha stood outside Rudy’s room. He saw her from his position perched on the edge of his bed before she saw him. As she turned to thank the nurse at the doorway, Rudy saw that Sasha’s wispy blond hair was woven into its typical French braid with pieces that escaped at her neck and temples so beautifully that he wanted to cry now, instead of screaming. What was wrong with him today? I’m on the psych ward, he reminded himself, trying to think of this as a reassuring fact.
Sasha’s delicate face broke into a broad grin. In one hand she held a grocery bag, and her other arm was folded around a pile of books and magazines. A smaller paper bag and a basket sat on the floor beside her. Rudy hadn’t noticed that she’d also brought those. And she got past the guards with all of these treats, none of which must have been sharp.
Me for You Page 14