by Amity Gaige
“Do you think she thought it was you?”
Charlie looked up, his heart pounding. “What?”
“The delivery guy,” said Harriet, rolling the candy in her mouth. “The man she assaulted. Did she think the guy was you?”
“What?” Charlie laughed. “She probably assaulted him because he wasn’t me.”
“You sure?”
“I’m sure. I’m probably the only person in the world she trusts!”
“Well, it’s painful to trust. It’s painful for a healthy person to take that risk. Let alone someone who’s been messed with a thousand times. Her affection for you could be causing her pain.”
“I know, Harriet. I understand those concepts.”
“But they’re not only concepts.” Harriet pursed her lips. “You know, I’m just talking with you. That’s my job. If you’ve got any more ideas, you could share them with Bruce. Maybe you boys are more comfortable together.” She put her hands on her knees. “Opal will be discharged in a couple days. Let’s see if we can stay on top of this one, all right, baby?”
“Absolutely.”
“How about we go see her together next time?”
“Sure. All right. If that’s what you think.”
“That is what I think or I wouldn’t have said it. Hey. I ever tell you about my brother Odine?”
“No,” said Charlie, checking his watch. “I’d like to hear about it, but I have a med drop.”
Harriet stood, revealing the rumpled seat of her skirt. She took her big beaten purse from a drawer.
“I’ll come with you then,” she said. “Lucky you.”
The morning sky was huge with sun. The bedroom glowed. He turned over, body sleep deprived and belly rumbling, and looked into Alice’s face. Her cheek was pouched against her hand. He remembered her on a ship’s deck. High, black seas. Her white hand clutching the gunwale. It’s only a storm, he had called out. But when she turned to him, her face was calm. We’re in a storm, he said. He expected her to be afraid. But she was not afraid. In the dream he understood that she was not afraid because he was there. Smoothing the blanket down over her body, he licked his lips, hoping for the taste of salt.
Later, outside in the clear, late winter brightness, passing the children waiting for their school buses, the dream clung to Charlie, cheering him up. There was nothing a man wanted quite so much as to be looked at like that by his wife. Girls could excite you, fortify you, but only your wife could blow you away. Behind the driver’s seat, his good suit swung from a hook, pressed and clean, ready for the date. After work, he would dress at the Y, pick up some roses, and arrive not as the man who left his whiskers in the sink, but as the lover. This thought excited him, even though it was a put-on and she might even roll her eyes. He moved through his morning duties swiftly. The staff meeting went through at a clip, and then they all dispersed into the city.
Then, at noon, the switchboard paged him. Somehow, he knew it was Opal. She had been out of the hospital two days. Just the day before, he had gone to see her with Harriet. Harriet had plodded alongside him, as if he needed her protection. Knocking on the door, calling out familiarly, he was thinking, Just you watch.
But it had been awkward. Opal was withdrawn, virtually silent. She sat wrapped in a blanket, chain smoking. She offered him not a single smile. It was as if they barely knew each other. Once, while Harriet was helping herself to a glass of water in the kitchen, the girl’s eyes flared meaningfully. What? Charlie whispered. But Harriet came back in and sat there drinking her water, one big hand spread on the card table. She was too big for the place. Yet they stayed nearly an hour, Harriet talking softly, Opal’s eyes cast down.
Charlie checked his pager and then fumbled for his cell phone. But it wasn’t in his coat pocket. Neither was it in his shoulder bag. He almost ran a stoplight checking for it in the glove compartment.
“No way,” he said, smacking the dashboard. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
Swearing, trying to laugh, he pulled over at a gas station to make the call from a pay phone. He turned up the collar of his coat.
“I am not going to no group home,” Opal said when she answered, her voice lower and huskier than usual. He heard her drag on her cigarette. “She can take my dead body to a group home.”
“Opal,” he said. “You do not have to go to a group home. That’s only if you want to. Didn’t Harriet explain that pretty well yesterday?”
“When I get angry, they think I’m crazy.”
“I don’t see it that way. It’s OK to be angry sometimes.”
He tried to assuage her, telling her it would not happen, not if she showed up regularly to Carter and took her meds and simply stayed out of trouble. Not if she kept her house clean and ate right and if if if. But that day, his heart was not in it. Part of him, he realized to his shame, hoped that she might agree to a group home. If that would do it. If that would help. But mostly he was thinking of how in the hell he was going to finish everything on his docket, including his paperwork, and shower and change at the Y by six o’clock. Scratch the roses, he thought.
Opal could sense his distraction. She breathed evenly on the other end, and then said, in almost a whisper, “You can’t break me.”
“Break you? What do you mean? You feel like I’m against you now? That’s not true.” Charlie turned and checked the car, which he’d left running.
“You know what I mean.”
“Nobody’s going to break you. We care about you.”
“Slice me up. Stuff me into rooms. With groups.”
“No. Nobody’s trying to go against you or hurt you in any way.”
Opal took another drag on her cigarette. Charlie stood there, listening. She did not sound good. Not good at all. But his heart was not in it. His gaze, absently focused on a leaf skipping down the sidewalk, sharpened only when a gust came up the street and washed over him, smelling of metal.
“When are you coming today?”
“I just came yesterday, Opal. I’m coming to see you again on Monday.”
“What if it snows? It smells like snow.”
Charlie looked up at the bright blue sky.
“It’s one hundred percent not going to snow,” he said. “I guarantee it. There’s not a cloud in the blessed sky. Look out your window.”
He heard the cigarette paper crackle. He told her that he was sorry she was having a hard day, and that if she said the word he’d call someone else to come be with her. When she refused, he told her to take it easy and rest and light some candles and don’t forget to eat lunch.
And then, at just about three o’clock, in one complete sweep so total it was almost like an eclipse, a low dark cloud rolled across the sky. The temperature plummeted. By then, his anomalous efficiency had forsaken him and he was late yet again, hustling George Delgado across the parking lot to the pet store to get dog food. George had waited outside for Charlie for an hour, and his face was white with cold. George did not like it when Charlie was late, and often took the opportunity to scold him in his heavily accented voice and compare him to the numerous other social workers he’d had in his long tenure as a mental patient. George refused to quicken his pace across the parking lot toward the pet store. By the time they crossed under the awning, Charlie had felt, on his face, the cold wet kiss of a snowflake.
“Shit.”
The old man turned inside the door of the pet store and glowered at Charlie.
“Don’t swear, OK? I’m your elder.”
“All right,” said Charlie, following the old man into the cavernous store.
But as he watched the old man finger every single ridiculous item on the racks, he couldn’t help but grit his teeth. Why so slow? he thought. Why so slow? George paused over a little tartan vest that he said he wanted to buy for Britney.
“Just the food, George,” said Charlie, gesturing forward.
His pager vibrated again. The switchboard. Leaving George to his reveries in the aisle, Charlie trudged up to
the register.
“Could I ask you a big favor?” he asked the girl in her red apron, who turned and looked upon him with a sanguine expression. “I’ve lost my cell phone. I’ve got to make one quick phone call. If I could just use your phone for a second, it’d be a great favor.”
The girl pointed out the window with a long plastic fingernail. “Out there’s a pay phone.”
Charlie had to squint to see it, clear across the parking lot—a single booth standing amidst acres of tar.
“Yeah,” said Charlie. “Listen, I’m a mental health care worker. I’ve just been paged. It could be an emergency.”
But the girl was already shaking her head, as if to some sad, distant ballad.
“Nu-uhn.” She waved her plastic fingernail in the air. “I’m not supposed to let no one use the store phone. You can head on back and ask the manager to use his.”
The girl pointed. The back of the store and the manager’s office seemed almost as far away as the pay phone in the parking lot.
Charlie clenched his jaw. “Thanks,” he said to the girl. “Thanks a hell of a lot.”
He walked back to George, shocked at himself, but also enjoying the bitterness in his mouth. He wanted to swear some more. They paid for the dog food, and Charlie led the old man out by the elbow, the sack of food over his shoulder. The old man pointed at Charlie’s car as they passed it.
“Charlie. You lost your own car.”
“No I didn’t,” replied Charlie curtly. “We’ve got to go to that pay phone way over there. I’ve got to make a call.”
At the pay phone, Charlie stabbed at the numbers in the cold. George stood beside the booth, shivering and white-faced. This time, Charlie called Margot, the receptionist.
“Another page from Miss Ludlow,” said Margot. “She’s called here three times in the past twenty minutes. Where’ve you been? Would you like me to page Harriet?”
Involuntarily, Charlie’s fists clenched around nothing.
“No,” he said. “Wait. Let me think about it.” He checked his watch. It was a quarter to five already. “It’s the snow.”
“What?”
“Let me call her back first,” said Charlie. “I’ll see what’s up. If there’s any problem, I’ll get right back to you.”
But when he called, there was no answer. He tried twice. Then he slammed the phone down on the receiver. Just as he was calling Margot back, he noticed that George was gone. Charlie charged out of the phone booth, squinting toward the street. Nothing. Panning the parking lot, he spotted the old man halfway across the lot, making for the steps.
“Mr. Delgado!” Charlie ran out of the phone booth, slipping on the thin coat of snow that was already beginning to cover the lot. “George! Where are you going? Wait up!”
“Where are you going?” said Charlie, coming up to the old man, trying to smile.
George shrugged, his large chapped lips pursed. Charlie held him lightly by the arm as they walked back to the car. Once inside, Charlie leaned over and checked the old man’s seatbelt.
“OK?” he said. “Everything OK?”
George said nothing. He shrugged, looking miserably out the window, where the snowflakes were swirling and falling like exploding plaster from the vast grayness of the sky. Why today, Charlie thought. For god sakes why today? The car windows were becoming completely opaque with their breath, and with George’s nervous sullen energy. Turning the corner at the bottom of a hill, the car fish-tailed, arighting itself only as Charlie gunned it uphill, inching forward up the steep incline.
“I can’t see!” George shouted, his hands clawing at the steamed window.
Charlie glanced at the old man. “Just sit tight, George. I can’t talk right now, OK? I’ve got to control the car. It’s very difficult to see right now.”
“I stand outside too long! While you make a phone call. I freeze.”
“Just hold on a minute. We’ll talk in a minute.”
The old man slumped over and looked philosophically out the window. “Why you always got to make a phone call? Why you always got to be late? Why you got to—”
“Because I have a goddamned million appointments every day.” Charlie drew a breath. The windshield wipers beat the snow back in the silence. “Please just be quiet for a second. Please.”
There was quiet as the car squealed up the hill. The pedal was completely depressed now. Charlie leaned forward, as if it might help. Visibility had shrunken to yards, and all he could see with certainty was the glow of the taillights in front of him and the traffic lights on the top of the hill ahead. He checked his waistband. His beeper was still on, but there were no new messages. Why would she call him five times and then not even wait twenty minutes for his response? Maybe she had finally called Emergency Services. Maybe by now everything was fine and he would be able to go home, where he was expected in thirty minutes. Scratch the shower, he thought. Scratch the roses, scratch the suit. So I won’t be the lover.
Miraculously, the old Toyota made it up the hill and into the right driveway. Charlie unzipped his jacket and leaned back against the seat. His hairline was drenched with sweat, and the air smelled of burned rubber. He looked over at the old man.
“Hey,” he said tenderly. “Sorry to be short with you. I just wanted to make sure I got you home safe.” He touched the old man’s shoulder. “I’m really sorry I was late to come get you. I’m sorry you were cold. I should have done better.”
The old man looked over. “Wanna come in for a little? Come see Britney?”
“No, thank you,” said Charlie. “I’ll run the bag up, OK? But then I have plans with my wife.”
“Good for you,” said the old man. “I was young once, too.”
“I know you were.”
Whereas he normally would have been touched by the old man’s nostalgia, Charlie felt dread creeping up his neck, a dampness.
He slapped George’s hat on his head and walked him up the steps to his apartment by the arm. When they had finally climbed the steps and made it inside, Charlie ran back out for the dog food. In the kitchen, he could see the old man holding up a biscuit for the dog. The little dog was jumping up and down as if on a string. Charlie snatched up the phone by the door, dialed Opal’s numbers. The phone rang and rang on the other end. No answer. Call Emergency Services, he said to himself. Call right now.
The dog jumped up and took the biscuit.
“Listen,” called Charlie, hanging up the phone. “I’ve got to run. I put the dog food right here by the door. Okay?”
“Wait! Don’t forget to say hello to Britney!”
“Hello, Britney,” called Charlie.
The dog came to the doorway and dropped her biscuit.
He was off again. The Toyota backslid several feet down the hill before moving forward. At the top of the hill, he veered toward the highway. It was five thirty already. Already the trees were white. People were pulling into driveways, getting out, looking up at the sky. In front of him, a salt truck chugged slowly along. He turned on the radio … a surprisingly low number of hair loss patients.… Time for new furniture? He slammed it silent with his fist. He was missing a headlight; only the right side of the road was dimly illuminated. It was then, squinting at the road, he realized that he did not know what he was doing. He felt completely out of control. Why was he driving onto the highway, away from home? Bracing his body against the seat, he tried to talk reasonably to himself, as he might on a very long run when his mind would try to tell him to turn back, telling him all the things of which he was incapable. But it wasn’t right, to be paged five times and then nobody answers. His throat felt thick. He smeared his snow-wet hair back with the palm of his hand, swearing softly. As soon as he got there, he’d call Margot or the answering service or whoever and do the right thing.
But it was worse than he had imagined. When he pulled up to her house, he felt terror inside. Was it the glow through the pillowcase curtains? The tattling of that single crow from the roof? Was it what he had
begun to see through her eyes—the horror of snow? He ran from the car, leaving the door open behind him, the car bell dinging softly. Something was wrong. Slipping on the un-shoveled walk, he fell down hard, his left wrist shooting through with pain. He stood, painted white with snow, and beat on the door with his other hand.
“Opal!” he shouted.
But he already knew. He staggered to the kitchen window and looked into a crack between pillowcases. The first thing he saw was her small, clenched hand, forefinger pointed at the wall, gun-like. She lay on the carpet with her head on her arm, facing away from the window. That dusty blond head that had become familiar to him, its braid unraveled. He crashed across the frozen garden to the door. He turned the doorknob, but it was slippery with snow. His wrist throbbed as he tried and failed to grip it. He pushed instead with his shoulder; the door gave. Lunging across the room, he removed the blanket from her body.
He stood there, holding the blanket. The hand. The braid. The pill bottle.
“Goddamn it!” he shouted. He lunged to the telephone. It would all be recorded by the dispatcher, his voice, breaking on the word ambulance, as if he were her husband or brother, or somebody who knew her secret childhood hiding place (behind the woodpile) or her favorite food (milkshakes), and not just some caseworker, paid less than thirty thousand dollars a year, who was never supposed to visit her after five o’clock and who already had been warned against doing exactly this sort of thing, but who now held a blanket (knit by her grandmother, the only person who was kind to her, besides himself) filled with her vomit, and was now slapping her cold cheek and shouting into the phone No, no she isn’t conscious and being told to put his finger in her mouth and clear away the vomit. He did so, closing his eyes, feeling the bile rise in his own mouth, feeling along the hard teeth to the tunnel of her throat. With his numb fingers, he dug out her mouth. He was now crouched atop her, one hand on her shoulder. He leaned back. Her mouth closed stiffly and slowly around his absence. No, he whispered into the phone. Nothing yet.