by Ana Medeiros
“Happily single.” She closed her eyes and gave her head a quick shake, as if she was trying to wake herself up. “I’m sorry, should we be discussing this?”
“Don’t be so American, Meredith. Maybe I can teach you to have a more laissez-faire attitude.”
It was time for Meredith to focus on what brought them together and mention the main reason why she had decided not to write the piece. “See, if it was only about me, I’d go forward with the story on The Raven Room. But it’s not. It involves someone else, someone important to me, and I won’t let them down.”
“The man who took you to the club?” Isaac watched her closely. “You’re choosing him over the piece.”
“Disappointed?”
“It’s personal for you. Nothing I say will change your mind.”
She shook her head, confirming his suspicion.
“Is he worth it?” he asked.
“Our friendship is.”
The chatter and music around them made it easy for them to sit together in silence. Meredith felt relieved she had been honest with Isaac.
He raised his glass and smiled. “I respect your decision, Meredith.”
She reached for her glass and they toasted. “Thank you, Isaac.”
They kept their eyes on each other as they finished their drinks.
“What are you thinking?” Meredith asked, surprised by how quickly her body came alive under his stare. She didn’t dare move.
“How lucky I am to have your number.”
Chapter 7
Julian sat across from a woman he despised.
She looked much older than a woman in her thirties. Although she was a natural blonde, at some point she had decided to go even blonder. Her brittle and wet-looking curls, a sign of too much styling product, had the yellow tinge of a bad peroxide job. She was once overweight, and now her skin hung loosely around her body as if it were slowly melting away from her frame. With a complexion still plagued by acne, her face appeared swollen, or perhaps, Julian thought, it had failed to keep up with the rest of her shrinking body. She reminded him of Sofia and Tatiana’s mother, Olga Dulgorukova.
Every time she moved, a strong odor of stale cigarettes mixed with cheap hair product hit him. He tried to take sparse, shallow sips of air. He wished they were not trapped in a small room on the seventh floor of the hospital, where the windows were permanently shut.
“Lily, do you want to tell your mom what you told me the last time we met?” He shifted his attention to the girl who sat without speaking at the other end of the couch.
Lily looked at Julian, an expression of unease was etched on her face. He didn’t know if her feelings were as obvious to her mother as they were to him, but he smiled at her, encouraging her to speak.
Lily didn’t reply and Julian didn’t rush her. He continued to sit and kept the blank notepad in his hands. His shallow breathing started to make him feel lightheaded.
When he heard Lily’s mother make an attempt to say something, he raised his hand and nodded to Lily, making sure she understood he would not allow her mother to interject.
“I don’t want to go back there. I can’t,” she finally said, her voice timid but clear.
“What do you mean, you can’t?” A deep furrow marked her mother’s forehead. “That’s your home. He’s your dad.”
“He’s drunk all the time,” Lily continued in the same tone.
“Does he hit you? Does he scream at you?”
Lily lowered her eyes to her lap and started to pick at the white bandage on her wrist.
“See? I know—”
“Please, Mrs. Hamilton, let’s give Lily time to answer your question.”
Julian leaned forward on his chair, toward Lily. “It’s OK, you can take as long as you want. Your mother and I will wait.”
“Dr. Reeve, you might have all afternoon, but I’ve got to get back to work. I know my daughter. She’s playing games.”
Julian felt on the verge of losing his restraint. Because Lily was the only person who mattered in that room, he emptied his mind and filled it with thoughts of her. He had to concentrate on Lily and not on her mother.
“Mrs. Hamilton, we’re here for your daughter. There’s time.” He wondered where his affable tone had come from and if he should be shocked or happy about the extent to which he could pretend.
She crossed her arms over her chest and rolled her eyes at her daughter. “Go ahead.”
“Why can’t I come live with you?” Lily asked.
“We talked about this before. Your stepdad and I are moving to North Carolina so he can be near his kids. Now is not a good time for you to come live with us. Maybe in a few months, when we get settled.”
“You’re leaving me here with him.”
“He’s your dad,” her mother said. “He’s dealing with some stuff but he loves you. He’ll take good care of you.”
Lily now picked at the white bandage on her other wrist.
“How do you feel about your mom’s move to North Carolina?” Julian asked her. “And you can be honest. No one here will be upset with you for being honest. We want to know how you’re feeling.”
“I don’t want her to go.”
“Why?” he pressed, hearing despair in Lily’s voice—she was trying not to cry. Julian realized that the whole time Lily had been his patient—they had been having weekly sessions for well over a year—he had never seen her cry.
“Because I know she won’t come back. I know she won’t ask me to come live with her. She’s going to forget all about me. I don’t like living with her either but it’s better than living with my dad.” She turned to look at her mother. “Please let me come with you. I’ll do better. I’ll eat and I won’t try to hurt myself ever again. I promise.”
“Stop lying. You’re saying all of this so you can get what you want. For the last two years all I’ve done is deal with your crap and I’ve had enough, Lily. It doesn’t matter what I say or do, we always end up here, in this goddamn hospital, dealing with these goddamn doctors that can’t fix anything. Now is your dad’s turn. It’s time you were his problem, not mine. You’re staying in Chicago and that’s the end of it.”
Lily shut her eyes tight. The cut on her left wrist had opened up and the bandage turned bright red. “Please, I don’t want to live with him.”
“That’s too bad.”
Hearing her mother’s response, Julian rested the notepad on the table near him and stood up. He couldn’t bear it a minute longer. “Lily, I’m going to ask one of the nurses to have a quick look at your wrist and, while they do that, your mother and I will continue to chat. We’ll both be here waiting for you when you’re done.”
Julian walked Lily out of the room. Seeing the lack of concern on Mrs. Hamilton’s face as he reentered, he knew the conversation he was about to have might mark the end of his career at Lurie Hospital.
“You’re in a rush, aren’t you?” Rage made it hard for him to speak. “So, I’ll be as straightforward as I can. You’re not a fit mother and Lily shouldn’t be in your care. But if you refuse to have her live with you, she won’t be staying with your ex-husband. He’s an alcoholic with a criminal record. Lily will be placed in foster care. Being in the system is hard for any child; in most cases it defines the rest of their lives. Your daughter is a thirteen-year-old girl who suffers from an eating disorder and who recently tried to commit suicide. I know, without a doubt, that she will be dead within a year. Is that what you want for your daughter, Mrs. Hamilton?”
“You don’t know anything, Doctor.” She sat on the edge of the couch and pointed her index finger at Julian. “What have you done for my daughter? Instead of getting better she keeps getting worse. You’re not helping her.”
“I’m doing a hell of lot more for Lily than you ever have.” The professional tone vanished and now he sounded openly hostile. He remembered the numerous times he had wanted to tell her how Lily’s mental state stemmed from her parenting but he had been silenced by his po
sition as a psychologist. Now he no longer cared about the consequences of his words.
“You’ve made up your mind,” he continued, speaking louder. “You don’t want to help your daughter. You want her gone, out of your life, and if she happens to die then better for you. That way you don’t have to deal with her problems ever again. I imagine you wish it hadn’t been her stepfather who found her bleeding to death in the bathroom. Would you even have called 9-1-1?”
“Are you saying I want my daughter dead?”
“If that hasn’t become clear then you’re stupider than I thought.”
“Fuck you, asshole.” She stood up with her purse under her arm. “I’ve been putting up with your smug face all this time because of Lily. I’m done. You think you’re better than me? Well, you’re not. My daughter is staying here in Chicago with her dad and if she ends up in foster care so be it. She’s tough. She’ll be fine.”
“Get out.” Julian left his chair and, if she hadn’t moved past him as soon as he had opened the door, he would have dragged her out of the room.
He slammed the door behind her and pressed both hands against it. Convinced he would be soon out of a job, he let his head hang forward as he heard her cursing and shouting down the hall. Instead of fear, Julian felt relief. He shouldn’t continue to do his job if he couldn’t help someone like Lily.
• • •
Less than two hours later, Julian sat in the office of Dr. Bruno Rodriguez, the head of the psychiatry department. Julian had been throwing his books inside a cardboard box when he received the call.
“I’ve started to pack my things,” Julian said to the man behind the large desk that was littered with papers.
“In a tidy-up mode are you, Dr. Reeve? Because, if you’re looking for part-time work as a maid, I could use your services, as you can see.” He grabbed some folders off his desk and then let them fall, not paying attention to where they landed.
“I’m resigning. Saves you the trouble of firing me.”
“I’m glad you realize what happened earlier today between you and Mrs. Hamilton is unacceptable.”
“Yes, it’s unacceptable, but I don’t regret it. I wish I had said more.”
“You know what else is unacceptable?” Dr. Rodriguez reached inside one of the desk drawers and pulled out a cigarette. Julian had heard rumors that Rodriguez kept a pack of cigarettes in his desk, a memento from when he was a chain-smoker, and every time he embarked on a long conversation with one of his doctors, he pulled out a cigarette and held it between his fingers with the expertise of a veteran.
Julian didn’t understand why the cigarette had made an appearance. Their arguments about Julian’s methods as a psychologist were ongoing and, Julian imagined, if anyone would be happy to see him leave the hospital as fast as he could it would be Rodriguez. But he didn’t seem happy at all. Instead, Rodriguez appeared to be waiting for an answer to his question.
“That I waited this long to resign?” Julian’s words lacked irony. He felt defeated.
“No.” Rodriguez still held the cigarette between his fingers. “That my best doctor thinks he can just pack up and go.”
Julian didn’t know how to respond.
“You never thought you would hear me say that, did you?” Rodriguez’s austere expression broke into a smirk. “Well, neither did I.”
Julian chose to remain silent.
“I don’t like you,” Rodriguez continued. “But you’re great at what you do, which makes my personal opinion of you irrelevant. I want you to take some time to resolve whatever it is you have going on in your life. And once you’re done, I want you back here.”
“What happened earlier had nothing to do with my personal life.” As soon as the words left his mouth, Julian knew he had replied too fast. He sounded defensive.
“I don’t know how you have managed not to fuck up until today but I know a floundering man when I see one. Get your act together, then, come back. A personal leave is my way of saying thank you for caring as much as you do. But I won’t be thanking you ever again.”
Julian rose from his chair but then hesitated. He sat down again. “Lily, my patient, will go into foster care. She won’t survive. What can we do?”
“Dr. Reeve, the foster system is there to catch kids failed by their families. When the system fails them, the best thing we can do is to let them go so we can help the kids who still have a chance. We invest our time, energy, and resources where they can be the most effective. Happy endings. Everyone likes happy endings, right Dr. Reeve?”
At that moment he didn’t care that Rodriguez had offered him an opportunity to save his job at the hospital or, more than that, an opportunity to save the career he had worked so hard to build. In his mind, Julian saw himself beating Rodriguez to a pulp. But such reaction would get him arrested and subsequently bring even more police scrutiny into his life. For that reason alone, Julian didn’t act on his violent urge.
As he stood up, he knocked down a large pile of papers that teetered on the edge of the desk. If Rodriguez saw it as a premeditated act to challenge him, Julian didn’t care.
After he left Rodriguez’s office, Julian went to finish packing up his things. Whether he faced personal leave or resignation, he didn’t want to abandon his collection of psychology books. He felt attached to them. He tossed the last couple in the box and reached for the only picture in his office—a framed photograph of him and Hazel the day he had obtained his GED. The expression of pride in Hazel’s eyes as he held the diploma in front of him made Julian pause. That had been a rare happy day for both of them.
He drove across town toward Hazel’s house with Odetta’s music playing on the car stereo. Odetta’s sorrowful voice forced him to acknowledge how lost he felt. When he caught himself dialing Meredith’s number, he ended the call before she had the chance to answer. He cursed, frustrated by his instinct to reach out to her.
By the time he arrived at Hazel’s it had started to rain. He sat with her on the front porch to watch the summer storm.
“How are you feeling?”
Hazel looked up at him and her expression didn’t change. Not a hint of recognition in her eyes. “Who are you?”
Julian almost told her the truth but, fearing an angry reaction, decided to choose the safe answer. “I’m a friend of your son, Julian. Do you remember Julian?”
“Of course I remember Julian. I’m his mother. A mother never forgets.”
He tried to smile but failed. “I spoke with him recently.”
“Why doesn’t he come visit me anymore? I wait for him but then he never comes.”
“He’s going through a tough time. He doesn’t want you to worry.”
“What kind of trouble is he in now? Is he in jail?” Now Hazel sounded frantic.
“He’s not in jail.” Julian wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “No problems with the police.” Not absolutely true, but he needed to reassure her. “It’s Sofia…she’s…”
For him, Alana would always be his lover with an unwavering adoration for used books, mint chocolate chip ice cream, and cold, gloomy winter days. Alana was the one who had been killed. Sofia remained an eight-year-old child to whom he had been an older brother. But Alana’s death meant he would never again see that young girl. Now he mourned the death of a person with two separate identities and to each one he had given a different part of himself.
“Sofia died,” he said.
Hazel didn’t offer him any words in return.
“I spent twenty-three years wishing I could see her and Tatiana, speak to them and now…” Julian’s voice wavered. “She reminded me of them but I never thought, never believed—”
“Who is Sofia?”
Hazel’s question discouraged him but it didn’t silence him. “Sofia Dulgorukova, one of the twins. Do you remember them?”
“The Russian girls?”
Julian nodded and, in response, she caressed his hair. Unsure of how to react, he stood still. He didn’t remember her s
howing him a physical gesture of affection before. In the weight of her hand on the back of his head Julian felt for the first time the love he knew Hazel had for him.
The noise of a car parking in front of Hazel’s house got their attention. As soon as Julian saw the tall woman in the two-piece suit he tried to regain his composure.
Earlier, as he was leaving the hospital, he had called Kimberly Simmons, a social worker he trusted. When Julian had started his first year at Lurie, Kimberly had already been working within the system for twenty years. She was well past the age of retirement and every time they crossed paths, she told Julian she would be retiring the next year.
“I can’t linger,” she said as she sat down. She glanced at Hazel, who stared at the rain. “Sorry dear, how are you doing?”
Hazel ignored Kimberly’s question.
“It takes her a while to warm up to people she doesn’t interact with often,” Julian said.
“I’ve known your mom even from before I met you. I know who we’re dealing with. But let’s talk about why you called me. How long will you be away? I need you at Lurie.”
“There’s this girl, Lily Hamilton. She’s going into care. I know that sometimes you take in some kids. I need you to take in this one.”
“I can’t. I stopped doing that.”
“Please Kimberly, she’s in bad shape. I e-mailed you her file, have you had a chance to look at it?”
“I have, and that’s why I can’t take her. She needs a lot of help and I already have dozens of kids who need me. I’m spread so thin I can’t even tell you. I can’t offer her the support she needs.” Kimberly shook her head. “I can’t be her foster mom in good conscience.”
“Listen, I know how much you have on your plate. That’s why it’s hard for me to ask this of you, but whatever you give her will be, without a doubt, better than she’s going to get anywhere else. The families who are willing to take in a kid like her won’t be enough. What do you think will happen when she goes to live in a house that’s bursting at the seams with foster kids? Or worse, a group home? You won’t be alone in this. While I’m away she’s going to continue to receive treatment at Lurie. I won’t leave you high and dry. I’ll help you with whatever you need. I’ll help you deal with Lily.”