by Julia London
Someone grabbed him, made him lower his gun, then dragged him away and bandaged his leg. They got him out of the chaos, and though he was badly shaken and hurt, Jack thought that would be the end of it.
It wasn’t.
At first, it was the recollection of that day that kept coming to him in the middle of the night, or in the middle of a task. Or he would recall a new, unshrouded detail of the day—like the smell of roasted lamb and cigarette smoke in the air. The hot, dry beat of the sun against his uniform. The steady trickle of sweat down his back.
Over time, Jack’s brain began to alter his recollections. It was as if part of his brain couldn’t distinguish between what had happened and the fear that something like that could happen again.
Even now, his heart was a jackhammer in his chest, unwilling to let the nightmare go. He sat up. His sheets were soaked with sweat. Jesus, help me. He swung his legs over the side and looked at the clock. It was three in the morning. Great.
Jack padded into his bathroom, opened up the medicine cabinet, and took out one of the orange pill bottles. He was supposed to take them when he couldn’t calm his panic attacks. He was supposed to take the pills in the other bottle every day. He rarely took them. He was afraid of dependency. He was afraid of side effects. And he hated having to take pills—they made him feel weak. When he confessed he wasn’t taking them to Dr. Pratt, she’d tried to convince him he’d make greater progress with medicinal help.
“Nah,” he’d said. “I’m good.” Because America was a great country, and he had everything he needed. All he needed was a promise of hope that he would not turn into Peter.
Peter Rangel had also been in that market on the day of the suicide bombers. Only he’d been at the top end of the market and he’d been wounded badly enough to warrant being honorably discharged. He’d ended up in Seattle before Jack’s tour ended.
Nine months ago, Peter had taken his life.
Jack didn’t know Peter had been in Seattle until Terrence Washington, another Marine buddy of his, had seen Jack’s byline on a military blog and had gotten in touch. “Did you hear about Peter?” he’d asked. When Jack said no, Terrence said, “Listen, I’m going to be in Seattle tomorrow. Can we meet?”
Jack hadn’t been as bad as he was now—he wasn’t sure when, exactly, leaving his house had become so damn hard—and he’d met Terrence in a little café near the waterfront he knew about. Sure, he sat with his back to a wall, with a line of sight to escape, and where he could see everyone who came and went.
Terrence had sat across from him with a half-eaten burger on his plate and said, “Man, Peter killed himself last week. Stuck a Glock up under his chin.”
Jack had recoiled with shock and disbelief.
According to Terrence, who’d kept in close touch with Peter, after the discharge his friend was having trouble dealing with stuff. When he started having suicidal thoughts, he’d tried to get mental health counseling from a Veterans’ Administration contract clinic—Victory Health Services—but they couldn’t get him in for six months. When at last he saw a psychiatrist, Terrence said, “They doped him up, man. But he didn’t feel better. He felt worse.”
Jack thought of the warning on his own stash of orange bottle of pills. May cause confusion, hallucinations, or changes in behavior. May lead to thoughts of suicide or hurting yourself…
Terrence said that Peter tried to go back to the clinic, and they scheduled him four months out. In the meantime, Peter felt so weird that he stopped taking the medicine. “Cold turkey,” Terrence said. That was another warning Jack had been given—not to stop taking any medicine without a doctor’s supervision, as a sudden decrease in dosage could cause a worsening of symptoms and side effects. Peter, as it turned out, was a case study of all those warnings that come with psychoactive drugs—his suicide ideation increased and he took his own life before he could make it to the follow-up appointment.
What Terrence told Jack that afternoon had shaken him to his core. Personally, he’d never had suicidal thoughts; his posttraumatic stress seemed to be another animal entirely. Nonetheless, he understood how thin the line was that separated him from Peter. How quickly he could become Peter.
“Here’s the thing,” Terrence had said, leaning across the little bistro table. “I called that clinic to tell them what they’d done, you know? I couldn’t get anywhere with them. So, I drove up from Portland and went in there. I told them what happened, and how it was their fault because they wouldn’t get him in. And this lady behind the counter, she pulls up this computer screen and says, see? Peter missed his appointments. But there was this other lady there, and she wouldn’t look me in the eye, Jack. She turned red and she wouldn’t look me in the eye. Peter didn’t miss his appointment—I know because he told me. He was upset, man. He knew he needed help.”
“Could he have mixed the days up?” Jack had asked.
Terrence shook his head. “He was texting me when this was happening. He didn’t miss his appointments, Jack. I don’t know how they messed up, but they did.”
What Terrence wanted was someone, anyone, to do something about what had happened to his good friend Peter.
So, Jack had begun to dig in between his other assignments.
Just like Terrence said, the clinic had records that completely contradicted the texts and emails between Terrence and Peter. The clinic administration gave Jack a printout of appointment records that indicated he’d not shown up for follow-up appointments. Jack was hitting some brick walls, and thought he was going to have to give up, but then Terrence pulled an ace out of his sleeve. He talked to the woman who wouldn’t look him in the eye. She’d agreed to speak with Jack, and she was the one who had called the day Christie showed up and scared him half to death.
Jack was thinking of Peter when he tossed the pill he’d been holding down his throat. He took a shower and thought about going back to bed, but the pill he’d taken had the weird effect of making him feel as though he were floating off into oblivion but making him too jittery to close his eyes. He went to work on his article about Peter with Buster curled at his feet, snoring like a two-hundred-and-fifty-pound man.
* * *
The familiar knocks and pings of his fridge startled Jack and he awoke with a start.
He’d fallen asleep in his office chair. He sat up, pushed both hands through his hair, then rubbed his face. He slowly became aware of another presence in the room. He moved his hands from his face and turned his head. Buster sat facing him, his eyes fixed on Jack, his tail slowly swishing.
Buster.
He hadn’t fed his dog. He hadn’t taken him out. “You hungry, buddy?” He stood, wincing—his leg was always stiff and sore in the morning. Scratching the dog’s belly, he stumbled down the hallway to the kitchen. He caught sight of himself in the glass of the microwave as he poured the kibble into Buster’s bowl. He looked as if he’d been out on an all-nighter. His hair stood on end. When he leaned closer, his eyes had the droopy red-rimmed look of a pothead.
Buster finished his kibble like a canine vacuum, then trotted to the door to wait. “Hold on,” Jack said, which, in light of the fact it was almost one in the afternoon, was an unreasonable request to make of his dog. He searched around for shoes, shrugged into a jacket, then went into the laundry room and got Buster’s raincoat and leash.
Buster was excited, clearly ready for great things to happen. He kept dancing around as Jack put his doggie raincoat on him.
The center courtyard of Jack’s building could be reached by getting off at the second floor, then walking down the back flight of steps. From the courtyard, through the wrought-iron fence that kept the homeless and dog walkers who did not belong to this building from coming in, he could see the street.
At one end of the fence was the lobby where Frank spent weekdays manning the doors. On the other end of the fence was the Coffee Corner. On those occasions Jack actually made it into the Coffee Corner, he reached it by following this back route and entering a
code onto a keypad so he could walk through the gate.
He eyed the coffee shop while Buster sniffed around. He could see the silhouettes of a few people inside, hunched over their laptops, big cups of coffee drinks at their elbows. That’s what he used to do—there was a time he could take his laptop into any coffee shop and work all afternoon, as recently as a year or so ago. “You could do that,” he muttered as he watched a couple enter the Coffee Corner. “You invented that, man.”
Okay, he was resolved to make it to the coffee shop today. That would be twice in one week, and for a guy like him, that was entering Olympic gold medal territory.
But when he took Buster back upstairs and started to head back outside to the coffee shop, he was already swallowing down a flutter of nerves. “What’s the worst that can happen?” he asked himself, as Dr. Pratt had instructed him to do. “Nothing, man. Don’t be such a pussy.” He made himself walk out the door and to the elevator.
As he waited for the elevator to make its appearance, his mind began to review all the possible scenarios of what could go wrong. The elevator dinged at him and the doors slid open. A guy stood there, his backpack loosely slung over his shoulder. He looked at Jack, unsmiling.
“Sorry,” Jack muttered. “Forgot something.” He practically jogged down the hall back to his apartment.
Once he was safely inside, he bent over at the knees and took deep breaths. “I didn’t prepare,” he announced breathlessly, excusing himself. “I have to prepare.” He had to give himself the pep talk, had to go over all possibilities. He had to do so many things just to go downstairs and get a damn cup of coffee. Jack slid down onto his rump and covered his face with his hands.
Uncontrollable tears, thick and hot, leaked out of his eyes. Buster lay beside him and put his head in his lap. But Buster didn’t get it. How was it possible that a grown ass man could be so deathly afraid of going outside? It had all come down to this—he was a shadow of the man he’d been. But he’d survived the blast! He should be celebrating that close call, but no, it ate away at him like acid, reducing him a little more each day until there was going to be nothing left of him, and then…then, what would he do?
He didn’t like the thoughts that sprung into his head from nowhere, as if they’d been lurking in the weeds of his thoughts, waiting to strike. Thoughts that went something along the lines of ending up like Peter. It shook him. Jack remembered that Dr. Pratt had told him he should call any time he was having trouble.
He lifted his head, hugged Buster, then got up off the floor and wiped his face with the back of his hand. He went to his office and called. Ten minutes later, Dr. Pratt Skyped him.
“Well, hello, Jack,” she said when he answered. “I wasn’t expecting to speak to you today.”
“You said I should call if…” He shrugged.
“That’s right. What would you like to talk about?”
“Nothing.” He realized how stupid that sounded. He hadn’t interrupted her day with nothing to talk about. “I mean, I, ah…” He nervously shoved a hand through his hair. “I wanted to report a couple of things.”
“Okay.” She was smiling. She always smiled. In some ways, she reminded him of his mother. His mother was always patient, like Dr. Pratt. But Dr. Pratt understood him. His mother couldn’t drive because she was afraid of highways.
“Well, I tried a new sauce last night that the dinner girl made,” he said, because that was fairly big news in his world, when one was concerned about being poisoned, and it was easier to tell her that than the fact that he’d been crying at his inability to get a cup of coffee fifteen minutes ago. “It was pretty good.”
“That’s great,” Dr. Pratt said cheerfully. “Did she suggest it?”
He nodded. “She brought it. She said…” He couldn’t help a small smile. “She said I lacked diversity. And then she gave me a list of vegetarian meal kits to order.”
“You agreed with her that you should branch out? That’s exciting, Jack. Have you ordered them?”
“No,” he said. “I need to study them.”
“Why?”
He gave her a look. Dr. Pratt liked it when he admitted his weaknesses, even though she knew them all as well as he did. “You know why, doc.”
“Remind me,” she said, as if she’d forgotten everything about the last few months.
“Because I need to know the ingredients.”
“As I recall, one of the reasons you picked this service was because the cook did the shopping. That would mean your friend would be the one to purchase the ingredients, since she does the shopping. I think you can assume, given your experience thus far, that she will be careful. Why don’t you invite your friend to have supper with you? That should solve any lingering doubts,” she suggested.
Eat with her? “Whoa,” he said. That was too much, too soon. He’d just met her. “I don’t…I’m not sure—”
“You might feel more comfortable trying something new if you had a friend try it with you. Remember, you need to identify portals to safety. Having someone you trust to eat the same foods as you can help you feel safe and can help you progress.”
“I don’t know.” He needed to think about it.
Dr. Pratt cocked her head to one side. “Have you been taking your med—”
“No,” he said quickly before she gave him a lecture about it. “Once,” he amended. “Last night.”
“Nightmare?”
He nodded. He shoved his hand through his hair and looked away for a moment.
“Your anxiety about something like this would be significantly reduced if you took what I’ve prescribed, Jack,” she said patiently.
“That’s okay. I’m fine. Really. I’m fine.”
“Did you go to the coffee shop today?”
He was actually squirming in his seat. He couldn’t tell her—it was too humiliating. “I got a late start today.”
She nodded. “I think you should ask yourself why you haven’t left your apartment in so long if you’re truly as fine as you claim.”
Jack clamped his mouth shut. He didn’t want to say what was in his head. He didn’t want to shout that she didn’t have a buddy who killed himself after taking those pills—he did. And furthermore, suicide bombers were everywhere, hello.
Dr. Pratt looked at something to the side. “I have an appointment in a few minutes. When will your friend be back?”
“I wouldn’t exactly call her my friend. More like… my cook,” he said, although that didn’t sound right, either.
“Let’s think of her as your friend.”
“Let’s not,” Jack said.
“When will she be back?”
“Tomorrow.”
“Great!” She jotted something down. “My challenge to you before our next session is to try the coffee shop again. And I’d like you to invite your friend to have dinner with you, in your house, eating the same food you’re eating. Then we’ll talk about how all that went.”
Jack’s mind was already starting to turn over on itself. So many thoughts crowded into his head.
“You can do it, Jack. Logically, you know that nothing is going to happen. You know the ingredients are safe. You just have to keep reminding yourself of that. We’ll talk on Monday, all right? Take your medicine,” she said, and with a wink, clicked off.
Jack spent the remainder of the day churning over her instructions for him.
He attempted to take his mind off the anxiety by trying Terrence’s source in the clinic again and finally, finally, got her to call him back again. “I can’t talk now,” was all she said when he explained who he was.
“Can I call you Saturday, Sharon?” he asked. “Is that okay? Maybe it’s better if we talk when you’re not at work.”
“I don’t know. That doesn’t sound like a good idea. I have to go—”
“Don’t hang up,” he begged her. “Listen, I wouldn’t bother you if it wasn’t important. But Peter…Peter killed himself, Sharon, and I don’t want that to happen to anyon
e else. I’m a journalist, and I swear on Peter’s life I will never reveal your name to anyone.”
There was a long silence until she said, “Okay. Call me at eleven on Saturday.” She hung up.
That small diversion didn’t last long. Jack’s anxiety began to creep back in. He did not make it to the coffee shop, but he did order a vegetarian meal from Dinner Magic. He agonized about it, studying them, and decided he could live with the chickpea and couscous casserole, which had no sauce that he could determine—sauce being notoriously easy to poison—and included things in cans, which were notoriously hard to poison.
At then, at last, several hours later, it was Friday. He was, he realized, a bit excited. He wanted to see Whitney again. He wanted to see her pretty blue eyes, her curvy figure. He wanted the smile to wash over him again.
Buster was excited, too, particularly when Rain showed up to take him to the dog park. His dog greeted the hipster ex-Marine as though he were his long-lost brother.
It should have been Jack taking Buster to the dog park. It should have been Jack all along. A surge of righteous indignation raced through his veins as he watched Buster trot away with Rain. He was going to beat this. He was going to fight off this anxiety and return to the guy he was, and if he didn’t, he would literally die trying.
When Buster and Rain had gone, Jack swept up his keys and marched to the elevator, hitting the down button several times, grateful that it arrived before he could chicken out. He was going to man up. He would go to Coffee Corner, goddammit, and he would get a coffee and a bagel. And then, he was going to ask Whitney to stay for dinner.
Eight
Whitney finally got smart and purchased an insulated rolling cooler to carry her client’s groceries and her baked goods. She was feeling pretty smug about her purchase and how well organized she could be when she wanted to…until she tried to maneuver the thing into the very crowded Coffee Corner. It had started to rain on a Friday afternoon, which meant insanity prevailed inside. Across Seattle, entire office buildings emptied out into coffeehouses on rainy Friday afternoons.