Here After

by Sean Costello

  Then she was bathed in the sun’s glare, her dark eyes narrow in a face that was set in wariness, her body gliding toward him with a litheness Peter had seen in big people before. She had put on weight since that video was shot, but it wasn’t fat, not the doughy variety he saw on more than half the patients who came through the OR back home. This woman was full-figured and robust. And she had to be six feet tall, her close-cropped hair peppered with gray.

  “Mrs. Dolan,” Peter said before she got to the door, the words rushing out of him. “My name is Peter Croft. I’m a doctor from Sudbury and I’ve got something I’d like to show you.”

  She stopped inside the screen and wiped her hands on her apron. “If you’re selling something,” she said, her voice huskier than he remembered it from the video, “I’m not interested. You didn’t see the No Trespassing sign out there by the turnoff?”

  He hadn’t and he told her so, apologizing for the oversight, saying, “But I’m not here to sell you anything.” He held up the two sheets of printer paper, the images turned discreetly away from her. Recalling Roger’s reaction, he didn’t want to blow it before he got started. He said, “I wonder if I could come inside? Or you could join me out here for a few minutes?”

  “Listen, Mister...Croft, is it?” Peter nodded. “I’m busy and I don’t appreciate people just wandering in here, ignoring the sign I nailed out there myself, in plain sight. Now if you don’t mind—”

  “It’s about Clayton,” Peter said, and saw her face clench like a fist, her dark eyes widening to look him up and down, gauging, Peter assumed, how little trouble she’d have tossing him off her porch. He took a step back from the screen.

  Maggie Dolan said, “What about him?”

  “If we could talk out here...”

  Her hands dropped to her sides, her stance like that of a gunslinger. In a calm, modulated tone she said, “I’m about to walk away from this door, Mr. Croft, and go back inside to call the police. State your business, from where you’re standing, and do it now. If you knew the first thing about me, you’d know my boy was taken by a stranger, right here in this yard. For all I know it was you.”

  “Look,” Peter said, “I’m sorry. This isn’t going anything like I’d hoped. I didn’t take your son, of course I didn’t. But I have an interest in his disappearance that’s difficult to explain.”

  “I suggest you give it a try.”

  Peter was beginning to feel intensely uncomfortable. “I have a friend whose son was taken, too. From his bed, three years ago. His resemblance to your son is amazing. Well, here, see for yourself...” He flipped Jason’s picture around and held it up to the screen.

  The woman’s eyes widened slightly, then she said, “That’s not my boy,” and backed away, starting to swing the inner door shut.

  “Please, Mrs. Dolan, I know it’s not your son. That’s why I’m here. I wanted to talk to you about—”

  But the door continued through its arc until it latched. Peter heard it lock, then heard the woman’s receding footfalls.

  Tired, discouraged, no shred of the thin logic that had brought him here in the first place remaining in his mind, he turned toward the steps, thinking he’d spend the night in Ottawa, book himself into a nice hotel, the Lord Elgin maybe. Thinking it was time to give up on all this lunacy.

  He heard a sound then, a faint metallic jangle, like the rattle of keys only softer. He glanced along the length of the porch and saw a tall, thin boy of perhaps eighteen standing on the other side of the low railing, staring at him through crooked Buddy Holly glasses, a John Deere cap perched ridiculously high on a halo of curly dark hair, a set of dog tags—that jangling sound—slung around his neck on a chain, one of them silver, the other gold, the polished wafers setting off sunflares as the boy tapped his ankle with the baseball bat that hung from his hand.

  Startled, Peter said, “Aaron?” but the boy just stood there, his mouth hanging open to show prominent teeth and a thick tongue he ran out every few seconds to wet his lips.

  Peter got back in the car and accelerated too quickly, raising a rooster tail of gravel as he blew past the tree line onto the road. What he was leaving behind was a living tragedy, a once strong woman and mother broken by suffering and loss, her sanity fragile at best, its remaining shreds bound by depression, isolation, and paranoia, no one to keep her company but that strange boy, his own mind stalled somewhere in early childhood. For Peter the experience underscored yet again the harrowing cost of the missing child, and as he turned left onto Route 22, heading east toward Ottawa now, he could hear Roger’s voice clearly in his mind, posing one of the most chilling questions he’d ever heard:

  “Now can you see how dead is better?”

  And God help him, he could.

  * * *

  The Lord Elgin was booked solid, but Peter found a suite at the Chateau Laurier on Rideau Street. The place was a century-old landmark, its copper roofs and limestone walls mirroring the gothic style of the nearby Parliament Buildings. The interior was sheer opulence, marble floors, high ceilings, brass bannisters, and sparkling crystal chandeliers.

  While he was waiting to register, Peter read an inscription on a plaque that said the man who’d commissioned the construction of the hotel in 1907, Charles Melville Hays, never made it to the grand opening in late April of 1912. Hays, a wealthy railway magnate, had been aboard the Titanic, accompanying a load of dining room furniture back from England.

  Absorbing this information, Peter felt a stir in a forgotten part of himself, a part that had once reveled in facts like this, a part that would have felt an almost childlike excitement at the prospect of staying in a place like this, the privilege so costly it was pointless even to think about it. It made him feel young again, reminding him of the times before David was born when he and Dana had spoiled themselves, doing things that were reckless and spontaneous, spending money they didn’t have, creating memories they’d cherish forever.

  When he got to the check-in counter, the uniformed clerk told him they were having a weekend promotion on some of their executive suites that included a lobster dinner catered in the suite, a double-decker bus tour of the downtown area, and a ticket to a Blue Man Group concert at the old Rialto Theatre on Bank Street. Peter said, “Let’s do it,” and handed over his credit card.

  He slept like a baby that night, cocooned in down and air-conditioned comfort, and in the shower next morning decided to treat himself to a nice long holiday as soon as the schedule at work would allow. Australia came immediately to mind, a place he’d always vowed to visit one day. And as ghoulish as it seemed, it occurred to him that Dana’s death had left him more than able to afford such a whimsy, the various life insurance policies she’d insisted on having amounting to well over six hundred thousand dollars, money he hadn’t touched a dime of yet, leaving its investment to the estate planner.

  He pulled into Sudbury in mid afternoon and decided on a whim that enough time had gone by to drop in on Roger. The Suburban was parked in the driveway, but when Peter rang the bell there was no response. Standing on the porch, he called Roger’s number on his cell phone and again got no response. He glanced back at the house as he pulled away and saw Roger standing in an undershirt in his son’s bedroom window, staring out into space.

  The message light on the answering machine was flashing when Peter got home. There were five messages, one from the Toyota dealership wanting to know if he was pleased with their service, one was a hang-up, and the other three were from Erika. She wanted him to call her back, wanted to discuss what happened the other night. She sounded upset, but Peter just didn’t feel like getting into it with her. He erased the messages and went to bed.

  He slept fitfully on that muggy July night, haunted again by his dreams, David’s touch almost electric in its intensity now, his expression in the glare of the summer storm that flared up fretful and distressed. His image lingered tauntingly in the room this time, long enough for Peter to sit up in bed and reach out for him.

/>   And when his son faded like a whisper, Peter drove to the hospital and spent the balance of the night there, lying cramped on the couch in the deserted doctors’ lounge, sleepless and numb.

  Just before dawn someone crept in and started picking quietly through the shelves of scrub suits. Pushing up on one elbow under his thin blanket, Peter said, “It’s okay, you can turn on the lights.”

  A woman’s voice said, “Oh, okay, thanks,” and the fluorescents ticked and shivered into life, making Peter blink. The woman said, “Sorry to wake you,” and Peter saw that it was Lisa Black.

  He said, “Lisa,” and the word hung there. He sat up, running a hand through his hair, rubbing his aching eyes. “No bother,” he said. “I wasn’t really asleep. What are you doing here?”

  “A cancer patient of mine is having surgery this morning. I promised her I’d go into the room with her. She’s only four.” She showed him a set of OR greens. “I was just looking for some scrubs.”

  Sighing, Peter said, “Lisa, I’ve been meaning to—”

  “It’s okay, Peter, I understand.”

  “Please, hear me out.” He patted the couch beside him and Lisa glanced at the exit. He said, “I won’t bite, I promise,” and Lisa’s shoulders relaxed. Smiling, she settled in next to him, her small hands fussing with the scrubs she’d chosen.

  “I wanted to apologize,” Peter said. “I’ve been meaning to come see you, it’s just...”

  She touched his hand and said, “Really, I understand.”

  “You did what you had to,” Peter said. “I’d’ve done the same.” He took her hand and squeezed it, gazing into her pale brown eyes. “And believe me, I’m glad you brought me back. There are things I still need to do...for David.”

  Lisa tugged her hand away and stood. “I appreciate you bringing it up,” she said, “but there’s really nothing to forgive. I just hope you’re moving on. I know it’s hard, the hardest thing in the world. I see it all the time. But you’ve got to let him go, Peter. You really must let him go.”

  She left him then, almost fleeing, the scrubs she’d come in to get forgotten on the couch beside him.

  Peter lay curled on the couch again, pulling the blanket over his shoulders, staring at the clock on the wall. And when the first few staff members started filing in, he trudged into the OR to face his day.

  * * *

  Over the course of the weeks that followed, Peter Croft began to lose track of himself, any thought of Australia or companionship or healing laughter sinking into a kind of sucking black mud that filled his psyche.

  * * *

  At noon on Wednesday, July 30, Roger Mullen stood with his boss’s nephew outside the cage, a narrow steel elevator that would carry them the last three thousand feet to the surface. Roger had spent the morning giving the seventeen-year-old a VIP tour of the mine, taking him all the way down to 4700 Level, showing him the rich vein of ore they’d been working for the past several weeks.

  Now he pointed at the green call button and the kid thumbed it, looking up with wide eyes as the cables in the open shaft shuddered and started rolling.

  Roger said, “Won’t be long now,” and turned to see three miners walking toward them from an adjoining tunnel. One of them was Reggie Diggs, a mouthy asshole Roger had gotten into a scrape with about five years ago at a retirement party. The guy was constantly running his mouth and today was no exception, his pals flanking him like groupies, hanging on every word.

  Roger heard him say, “I told the bitch to keep her brat quiet when I’m sleeping,” and felt the muscles in his shoulders tense. “How hard is that? When I moved in I told her straight. I work shift, I put food on his plate, he’s got to respect that.”

  One of the other guys said, “Right,” and Roger turned his attention to the shaft, the lower half of the double-decker cage dropping into view now. When the rig stopped, he opened the outer gate, then the one to the personnel compartment. He put his hand on the kid’s shoulder to lead him inside and Diggs said, “Hey, Mullen, who’s your new girlfriend?” and his two buddies laughed.

  Roger said, “We’re heading up. You boys need a lift?”

  Diggs said, “Jeeves, you’re a good man,” and brushed past him into the cage, his confederates right behind him.

  The kid positioned himself at the back of the cramped compartment and stood mutely, avoiding eye contact with the men. Roger shut the gate and the cage started moving.

  He thought, Three more minutes, and Diggs went back to his story.

  “So Sunday morning I’m drifting off and the little peckerwood starts hollering at the top of his lungs. I yell at him to shut the hell up and the kid just ignores me.” One of the lesser assholes said, “Whoa,” like God himself had been provoked, and Diggs said, “So I get up and cuff him one in the ear. The kid starts bawling and now the bitch comes at me and I’ve got to belt her one, too. She threatens to call the cops and I tell her go ahead.”

  Without looking at Diggs, Roger said, “You don’t deserve that kid.”

  Diggs said, “At least I can protect him,” and Roger drove his fist into the man’s face, shattering his nose, using his full weight to drag Diggs to the floor and piston a few more shots into his bloody beak, the thing already swelling under the vicious assault. Diggs spluttered, “Get this fucker off me,” and his buddies dragged Roger to his feet, needing all of their strength to pin him to the wall. The cage was rocking in its shaft now, banging against the steel guides as it continued its unstoppable ascent, and the kid screamed, tears springing to his eyes.

  Looking at the boy, Roger said, “Okay,” and let the men subdue him. Diggs wobbled to his feet, picked up his helmet and slammed Roger in the side of the head with it. Roger saw a sliver of daylight as the cage glided to a stop at the surface, then sagged unconscious to the metal floor.

  10

  Friday, August 29

  THE ALARM ON THE ANESTHETIC machine sounded again, and for the fifth time in as many minutes Peter silenced it, checking the monitor—again—for its source. He kept getting the same result, a flashing gray box identifying the problem as HIGH PEEP PRESSURE, which was odd because he wasn’t using PEEP on this patient, an otherwise healthy fourteen-year-old with a fractured wrist.

  He said, “Angie,” and the circulating nurse looked up from her charting. “Call Biomed for me, would you? Tell them I’ve got a nuisance alarm.”

  The nurse made the call and Peter started backing off on the anesthetic, the surgeon almost finished closing the skin. The kid woke up promptly, a little combative as kids sometimes were, and Peter told him everything was fine, his surgery was over. Jake from Biomed came in as they were transferring the patient onto the stretcher. He hadn’t seen Peter in a while, and his face registered a faint horror when their eyes met. Peter was unfazed; he’d been getting a lot of that just lately.

  He explained the alarm problem, and Jake said he had an idea what it was, he’d be back in ten minutes to sort it out. Peter dropped the kid off in Recovery and returned to his room to prepare for the next case, an open femur fracture in a twenty-year-old girl who’d fallen off her mountain bike. He drew up the drugs he would need, then checked the integrity of his anesthetic circuit, making certain there were no leaks, something he’d done before every case since his first day of training.

  As he completed his checks, a recovery room nurse hailed him from the doorway, waving an anesthetic record at him, telling him he’d forgotten to order something for pain. He did that now, scratching the order into the appropriate box, apologizing for the lapse. Then he went to the john in the change room, filled the sink with cold water and bent to douse his face in double handfuls, the water soothing against his throbbing eyeballs, his pounding forehead, his unshaven cheeks. He straightened to dry his face and caught his reflection in the mirror. A ghost stared back at him with skull eyes that registered the same faint horror he’d seen in Jake’s eyes, in almost everyone’s eyes over the past several days. It was no surprise, really. He hadn’t s
lept more than two hours straight in weeks and had lost ten pounds from a frame that could have stood to gain twenty.

  He went to the abandoned doctors’ lounge and sat on one of the worn couches. A copy of The Globe and Mail lay strewn on the table in front of him, but it held no interest for him. He put his head back and fell asleep. A few minutes later, a couple of anesthesia residents came through the door in animated conversation and startled him. Peter looked at them with red eyes, disoriented at first, then waved off their apologies. It was two-thirty in the afternoon.

  He got up and started back to his room, meeting Jake in the hallway. The tech had a piece of equipment in his hand, which he held up for Peter’s inspection.

  “Condensation in the pressure sensors,” he said, and Peter could see the droplets in the clear plastic valve ports. “You got a fresh one in there now.”

  Peter thanked him and continued along the hall, the nurses just wheeling his next patient into the room. Though he caught only a glimpse of the girl—blond, deeply tanned and slim—it was clear she was in a great deal of pain.

  He took a deep breath and followed them inside. In the wake of his brief nap, which had seemed more like unconsciousness than sleep, the whole scene seemed faintly unreal to him: the lights too bright, creating shimmering auras around metal surfaces; the girl’s moans and the nurses’ murmured reassurances sounding somehow arcane, like a prelude to human sacrifice.

  Peter grabbed the girl’s chart and moved to the head of the operating table. After a quick scan of her lab results, he prompted her through a brief medical history, then injected a potent narcotic into her IV. Within seconds the tight mask of pain on her face relaxed into blissful calm.