"Thank you. But I have very little time."
Her pen stopped scratching and she cocked an eyebrow up at him. "Well, then, there will be no pass.
Cole looked down at the floor and saw streaks of grime trapped in the thick wax. "I'll see him."
Five minutes later, he sat across from Fitapaldi, screening out most of the doctor's words with daydreams of the Carolina shore.
"Naturally, we do not need your consent, but I feel you should be informed. This new drug is experimental and the treatment plan will be carefully monitored. Your father's participation could lead to a way to return patients to functional life."
"Return?" The word brought Cole to attention and he felt all the blood drain from his face.
"Oh, not your father's return, of course. The terms of his conviction preclude that. But we have hopes the use of this drug in early stages could prevent--"
"Yes, well--" Cole rose abruptly from his chair. It was not good to remain seated too long in a psychiatrist's office, whether on a couch or a straight-backed wooden chair. It made Cole feel like a germ on a slide. "I'm sure, if he were aware, my father would welcome this chance to repay a part of his debt to society." Cole crossed to the window and frowned down on the terraced lawn below him, his hands clenched behind him to keep them from shaking.
"Exactly so. Mr. Brewer, I note from the charts that you have curtailed your visitation considerably in the past year."
He glanced at the dark, balding Fitapaldi whose eyebrows would soon boast more hairs than his head. "I've been away. Is there a problem with that? I believe I've kept the hospital aware of my whereabouts." As much as Cole, himself, was aware of them, in any case.
The psychiatrist leaned forward on his desk with his elbows and scrutinized him through a triangle made of his fingers. "No," Fitapaldi answered eventually, without much conviction. "Your visits have no long range effect on your father."
"The result is not mutual, I assure you."
"Then why come at all?"
"It is not always a conscious decision," Cole said, with more honesty than he had intended.
"I see. Have you sought counseling or treatment of any kind in recent years, Mr. Brewer?"
"Do I need to remind you, Doctor, that I was the victim here... one of the victims, not the patient? I doubt that any of the victims of Duncan Brewer have sought treatment of any kind in recent years."
"Yes, but the others are--"
"The lucky ones." Cole reached into his pocket and withdrew a scrap of paper. "I'm moving. You can note my new address on your chart. Thank you for informing me of the experimental treatment. I hope that you find some benefit to it. Good day, Doctor Fitapaldi." Cole tried to slip out from under the microscope, but Fitapaldi followed him to the door.
"I can give you some names. You should consider counseling. Or perhaps a surgical exam. The plate is still--"
Unable to stop himself, Cole lifted his palm to cover the right side of his skull where his hair grew in swirls and contrary patches. "Yes, the plate is still there. The payment for my debt is still being extracted."
"They were trying to help."
"So they said."
"It can be removed, you know. The procedure has improved in recent years. The survival rate is--"
"Forget it. I hardly notice it anymore. Except when it picks up transmissions from CIA wire taps." He laughed when Fitapaldi's dumbfounded stare showed he thought Cole was serious. "I have to see my father now."
"But you will call me?"
"Don't wait up." Cole mumbled his goodbye and strode from the office, knowing a periodic hour or two in his father's room was the only treatment he would ever seek. It was shock therapy for him, jolting him out of his haze of memory for a while. If the side effects were harrowing, the returned nightmares terrifying, at least they were familiar and clearly out of the past, preferable to no memory at all, or the strange snaps and flashes that sometimes attacked him and did not seem like memory at all. Nightmares were symptoms of sanity. Everyone had them occasionally.
Cole took the stairs to his father's floor instead of the elevator which he remembered reminded him of a padded cell and moaned with distress each time it hoisted itself to the next level. A bell and a light announced his arrival as he opened the stairway door to the fifth floor. No one paid any attention. He had to tap on the counter and clear his throat twice before the ward clerk glanced over her shoulder at him, then ignored him.
"Excuse me. I'm Cole..."
"The nurse will be with you in a moment."
"Fine." Noticing the balls of yarn and five-inch length of crocheting on the desk across from her, Cole shrugged off a bit of his tension. Yarn meant it would probably be Mrs. Hayes. He could handle her. She never looked at him as if he were the spawn of the devil.
"Mr. Brewer. A surprise visit? It won't be much of a one, I'm afraid. We haven't had a lot out of him in the last week." Mrs. Hayes had a voice of grandmotherly kindness. It always seemed too soft to Cole for the job she had chosen. But he supposed there was enough screaming done around here to make the soft voice be the one that got noticed.
"Sometimes it's easier that way," Cole admitted. "Say, I see you're finally starting that afghan you promised me."
"Go on with you. You never told me your colors." Mrs. Hayes held her hand over the keys at her waist to quiet their jingling as she led him down the hall.
"Brown to match my eyes, don't you think?"
"Hmmm, maybe a shade to the chocolate side, I believe." Peeking into the barred grid of the door, she said as sweetly as a maid announcing teatime visitors, "Mr. Brewer, your son is here." There was no response. "The guard is on his coffee break. I'll stay within earshot until he returns. Call if you need us." She patted Cole on the arm before locking him in the cell with his father.
Two chairs, a bed, and a gray metal wardrobe were the only furnishings in the room. Duncan sat with his chair facing the window, except when seated, he was too low to see anything but the sky through the bars and glass. He made no move to acknowledge his son, and Cole had learned over the years it was best not to touch him. He moved the other chair a few feet closer to the adjacent wall and sat watching his father.
"Pop, it's Cole. I came to tell you I'm moving." Cole always paused as if expecting a reply, though, of course, he didn't. But he found it easier to run these conversations as if they were two-sided, framing Duncan's probable responses in his mind and continuing as if he'd actually said them. It made no difference if his father had not said a civil word to him in fourteen years. Cole knew well enough what he would say.
"Yeah, again. Grand Rapids didn't work out for me." Anyone listening might assume they were hearing one end of a telephone call.
"I'll be headed for Myrtle Beach next. Probably too far away for me to visit much." He searched his father's face for any faint trace of regret but found only his implacable, placid stare, a look Cole always interpreted as disapproval.
"I know it would be better if I got a steady job, but I can't seem to work that out for myself.
"If your only surviving son is a bum, I'm sorry. I may be responsible for the bum in me, but it was you who managed the only surviving part.
"Forgive me, I didn't come here to throw that in your face. I only came to say goodbye." Cole allowed himself to be deceived by a light from the window or a drift of air from the radiator that caused Duncan's eyelid to flutter. He wanted to think it was voluntary. He stood and reached a hand to his father's shoulder.
With lightening speed and vice grip strength, Duncan clamped his wrist and squeezed until Cole felt the tendons crunching. Drawing him down to eye level, Duncan growled, "Why ain't you dead, boy?"
It was Cole's turn not to answer. He merely concentrated on not flinching or pulling away and met Duncan's hateful glare until he released him. When he finally did and returned to his impassive state, Cole moved away from him and called for the guard.
As he stood at the door waiting for him, he asked in a voice bereft o
f all emotion, "Why am I alive, Pop?"
Chapter One
Three years later
Nicholas
A thin streak of brown charring snaked across the paper, and Nicholas could no longer make out the signature or the hugs-and-kisses X's and O's Beth had scrawled across the bottom edge. It didn't matter. He knew the whole letter by heart now. A tongue of flame licked at his finger, but he held the rose-scattered stationary for a moment longer until the corner floated away in cinders. Dropping it, he watched it drift toward the fire, then vanish to ashes. Like Beth. She was too hot for him to handle. And she had known it as well as he had.
Nick Sweets,
Gotta go. Sorry but it would have never worked. Hayley Mills needs me in Hollywood. Seems she can't make a move without me. Ha Ha. I took all the money I could find and the ring. Don't look for me. I'm with Mitch. He wants me. And he seems a little less scary than you sometimes.
Ciao, Beth
P.S It wasn't yours, you know.
Beth. Wild Beth. With her sweet, little-girl-lost looks and her wanton ways. Beth had found Nicholas when he wasn't looking, when he had made a conscious decision not to look ever again. Not after Janey. It had taken too long to get over Janey, longer even than Cynthia.
He remembered he had scared Janey, too. And now Beth. She had gone off with Mitch because he seemed 'a little less scary...sometimes'. And because Mitch would help her where he could not. With the money and ring, Mitch could buy for her what Nicholas had refused to buy -- a way out of her predicament -- an end to the life that grew within her.
Nicholas suspected it was not his baby she carried, but he had craved the hope of it. A future. Something beyond the darkness that always called to him. A way to a different kind of magic than the one he always sought. But Beth had been in control all along, and just as he had started to feel the crazy part of him, the scary side, slip away, she had left him.
"Gotta go," she said. "Ha ha."
"Mister, if you order me a burger and a Coke, I'll sit with you and -- who knows?" she had said softly with her baby lisp on the night he met her. He remembered how her voice had jolted him out of his reverie, and, at first, for just a second, he had thought it was Janey's.
He had rolled the window down all the way to talk to her, and she had leaned on her elbows to meet him eye to eye. "Are you hungry?"
"A little." She looked half-starved with her large, hazel eyes and sunken cheek s. She was dressed in some man's old dress shirt, her father's he had supposed at the time. The shirttails stopped just short of her ragged-denim knees. She had a yellow scarf tied around a pert, if scraggly, red ponytail, and she carried a purse that seemed large enough for her to sleep in.
"Get in." Nicholas turned on his headlights to summon the carhop and leaned over to unlock the passenger door for her. "Do you want french fries, too?"
"Yeah, thanks," she said as she scrambled in, pushing her purse to the floor between her legs. There was silence while she settled herself, rooting in the vast caverns of her bag for a coral lipstick, then spreading and blotting it on her lips. A pot of rouge appeared next. Contorting apples into her thin cheeks she patted them with the coloring, blending it lightly over the bridge of her nose and dabbing it on the tiny cleft of her chin. She disposed of her Juicy Fruit gum in the foil wrapper she fished from her shirt pocket, pulled the scarf off, and quickly brushed through her hair until it crackled with static and wisped about her neck in soft, sunset-colored clouds. She studied herself critically in the visor mirror then turned to smile at him. "Don't let the freckles fool you. I'm old enough."
Nicholas frowned and gave his order into the crackling speaker before he responded. "Old enough for what?"
"You know. Whatever. I'm not a street beggar. I intend to pay for my dinner."
"Do you have a name?"
"Elizabeth Barrett Browning," she said, surprising him.
"Oh, a poet."
"Yeah, limericks mostly. I not only write them. I inspire them. Or so I am told."
"And what's become of Robert Browning?"
"A discarded muse. I got tired of counting the ways."
Nicholas appraised her breasts, which made barely perceptible bumps in her loose shirt, and her tiny wrists, which jingled with charm bracelets. "How old is old enough?"
"I could lie and say I was eighteen, but let's just say I'm getting there. Look, if you want your fee up front, we better start now. I like my burgers hot, and they serve fast in this place."
"What is the going rate? Do I get a little more for the fries?" He was amused by her businesslike manner. He was used to shy innocents. She just had the looks of one.
"Nope, one payment for all I can eat." She had unbuttoned her shirt and was wriggling out of her jeans when he stopped her.
"I'll wait. I prefer dessert to appetizers."
"Fair enough. If you trust me. I could just eat and run, you know."
"That would be all right, too."
"Suit yourself, mister."
"Nicholas."
"Is that a first name or a last?"
"First."
"You can call me Beth."
Their meal arrived and Beth attacked it with unrestrained eagerness. "I'll take the onions off. I have to stay kissing-fresh for you, and I'm all out of toothpaste," she said, flinging the rings one by one out the window.
"The onions wouldn't bother me, Beth. But you've decided not to eat and run?"
She wrestled a huge bite down her throat and sighed. "Maybe. You're such a good cook, maybe I'll finagle breakfast out of you, too"
"When was the last time you had two meals in a row?"
Sipping on her Coke thoughtfully, she answered, "I chased some pigeons away from a doughnut this morning. Only had a few pecks out of it, too." When she saw him grimace, she giggled. "I'm kidding. Don't feel sorry for me. I always eat like this. Whether I had a banquet three hours before or nothing."
"Which was it today?"
"Today, nothing."
They continued to eat in silence for a while. Nicholas did not want to frighten her away by asking too many questions. But he wanted her. He knew from the first that he wanted her. That night in his bed, and the next, and the next. It was usually such a painfully slow process for him. The approach, the waiting, the ever-so-gentle seduction.
Maybe just once, he should try another way, with someone who offered herself immediately, no questions, no promises. Maybe it was just the look of innocence that was important, only the package, not the contents. Beth finished her meal long before he did, and he noticed her struggling to keep from nodding off as she waited for him.
"I can offer you breakfast, if you really want it," he said finally. "Pancakes, or bacon and eggs, or even doughnuts, untouched by pigeon beaks if you prefer."
"A motel?"
"No, my place."
"You're not married?"
"No."
"Okay. Sure. Why not?" She yawned and excused herself for doing it with a shrug. "It'll be nice to spend the night in a real bed for a change."
When the carhop took the tray away, and Nicholas slipped the car in gear and pulled out of the parking lot, she snuggled up next to him and took his arm off the wheel to wrap around her shoulder. "That's better," she sighed.
By the time they had reached his apartment, she was asleep. She stirred when he disengaged himself and propped her against the back of the seat to get out. "Are we home already?" she asked as she slid willingly into his arms and let him carry her up to the porch.
"Yes, Beth, we're home." She seemed so light and breakable, like a delicate bisque statue. Nicholas unlocked the door and deposited her on his bed then went back for her purse. When he returned, she was curled on her side with her elbow under her head. He gently removed her shoes and socks and tugged the spread and blankets out from under her and tucked them around her. She murmured something he could not understand and turned on her stomach.
Getting a pillow for himself and a blanket out of the closet, he took t
hem to the sofa. He knew very well she could be gone by morning, but he suspected she would insist upon breakfast first. And he would be most willing to provide it. He was used to waiting.
Nicholas woke the next morning to the smell of coffee and Ivory Soap and the feather-light touch of her lips on his brow. Beth knelt on the floor next to the sofa and chuckled when his eyes popped open in surprise, then she sat back on her heels and sipped from the steaming mug she held curled in her baby fingers.
"You'll get a backache sleeping on the sofa, and what good will you be to me then?" She offered the mug to him. "I like a little coffee with my sugar. I'll fix it the way you like it if this ain't right for you."
It was his neck that had stiffened from his night on the sofa, and Nicholas grunted a bit as he eased himself up to take the cup from her. "Good morning. I promised you breakfast." He tried not to let her see him wince at the tooth-tingling sweetness of the brew.
"My promise comes first if you don't mind." Wrapped as she was in an old, wrinkled sweatshirt of his that hung to her knees and bunched at her elbows where she'd pushed up the ragged sleeves, and most likely nothing else, Beth had neither the appearance nor the skills of a seasoned seductress.
Taking the mug from his hand and setting it on the coffee table, she leaned into him. She planted wet, eager kisses on his neck and up his chin. "Oooh, bristle puss," she commented as she brushed her lips along his jaw.
Her words had a childlike timbre that unsettled him, quelling his growing desire. He placed his hands on her shoulders and put her at arm's length away from him. "Beth, you don't have to do this. I am not in the habit of playing house with hungry little girls. I should feed you and send you on your way."
Her lower lip set itself into a disappointed pout. With a puckered brow that made her look all the younger, she studied him. "I am not a little girl. What do you want, my birth certificate? You wouldn't be the first, if that's what you're afraid of."
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