Ghosted

by Rosie Walsh

  * * *

  • • •

  The next morning our meeting was preceded by a tour of the hospice.

  Like anyone, I supposed, I found hospices hard—after all, few places in life treated death with such certainty. But I wore my best impassive face; kept the lurch of fear deep inside myself; made sure to breathe slowly. And I was doing quite well at it, I thought, until we walked into the TV lounge and I saw a girl in a chair near the window.

  I stared at her.

  “Ruth?” She was wrapped in a soft blanket, waxy pale and horribly slight.

  Ruth looked up, and after what felt like an agonizing pause, she smiled. “Oh, my God,” she said. “This I did not expect.”

  “Ruth!” Reuben bounded over to hug her.

  “Careful,” Ruth said quietly. “Apparently my bones are brittle. You don’t want to snap me in half or anything. You know how fond Mom is of a lawsuit.”

  Reuben hugged her gently; then I joined in.

  Ruth had been one of our first patients, back in the day when it was just Reuben and me and we’d barely heard of Clowndoctors. She had been a tiny baby, in and out of surgery, and we’d always known that her life expectancy—if she survived at all—was very limited.

  But my God, that girl had fought. And so too had her single mother, who had raised the money to go to the Children’s Hospital LA for her neonatal care because a doctor there was a world specialist in Ruth’s rare genetic condition. Their we-will-not-take-no-for-an-answer attitude had repeatedly compelled Reuben and me to push on with our own work.

  I did not make a habit of meeting the kids. I found it far too painful. But there was something about Ruth I couldn’t resist. Even when my job had ceased to involve hospital visits, I still went to see her, because I couldn’t not.

  Now here she was, aged fifteen and a half, wrapped in a blue fleece blanket with a moon print on it, an IV stand next to her armchair. Tiny and scrappy; her thin hair brittle. For a moment I stood still as shock curled around my throat.

  “Well. This is a nice surprise,” I said, sitting down next to her.

  “What, to find me looking like a dead chicken in a hospice?” she asked. Her voice was thin. “How do you like my hands? See? Like chicken feet. Oh, come on,” she said, when I tried to disagree. “You’re not going to try to tell me I look like a hot babe, are you? Because if you are, go away.” She smiled through chapped lips and I felt a savage tearing in my heart.

  “You came back home, then,” Reuben said. “To sunny Fresno.”

  “Yeah. I felt that the least I could do would be to check out somewhere close to home,” she said. “Poor Mom’s exhausted.”

  And without warning, she started to cry. She cried silently, as if she no longer had the energy to produce noise or tears.

  “This sucks,” she said. “And where are your guys? Where’s a red nose when you need one?”

  “That’s what we’re here to talk about,” Reuben said, blotting her tears with a tissue. “But even if it doesn’t go ahead, we’ll try to have a Clowndoc come visit you. As long as you don’t think you’re too old.”

  “I don’t,” she said weakly. “Your people have never talked to me like I’m a kid. Last time I saw Doctor Zee, he said he was going to help me write a poem for my wake. He’s a great wordsmith when he’s not being a dick. Can you send him?”

  “We’ll make it the first thing we talk about in our meeting,” I told her. “I’m sure Zee’ll be up for visiting.”

  “I love those guys,” Ruth said. She leaned back against the chair, the effort of talking to us leaching energy fast from her body. “They’ve been the only constant, all these years. The only people who are bigger assholes than me. No offense,” she said in Reuben’s direction. “I know you started out as a clown.”

  He smiled.

  “Do you want us to help get you back to your room?” I asked Ruth. I tucked the blanket more tightly around her. There was a hard swelling in my throat. How was this possible? Funny, smart Ruth, with her ginger ponytail and those parsley-green eyes. Why was her life ending just as it was beginning? Why wasn’t there anything anyone could do?

  “Yes,” she whispered. “I need a nap. Damn you, making me cry.”

  As we left her room a few minutes later, I brushed away an angry tear and Reuben took my hand. “I know,” he said. “I know.”

  * * *

  • • •

  After our presentation to the board we broke to a sunny terrace for coffee. The hospice’s VP of Care Services took me to one side to ask further questions.

  I should have seen it coming; I should have known from the questions he’d asked earlier. We often came across people like this man, who couldn’t see past the red noses, refused to differentiate our practitioners from party clowns.

  “The thing is,” the man was saying, with his pebbly glasses and wobbly chin and thunderous hauteur, “my team have years of training among them. I’m not sure I’m comfortable with them having to work around . . . well, clowns.”

  The passion that had driven our presentation had now dissipated. I felt an overwhelming need to escape.

  “Your staff will always be in charge of the children’s medical care,” I made myself recite. I watched a bird in the tree above him. “Just look at our practitioners as you would any other visiting entertainer. The only difference is that they’ve been through months of specialist training.”

  He frowned into his coffee and said that his own staff were also highly trained, actually, but they didn’t need to wear silly clothes or carry musical instruments. And suddenly—even though years in this job had taught me never, ever to take on people like this man—I found myself doing just that.

  “You can focus on the playful side of what they do, if you want,” I said. “But we’ve had countless doctors and nurses tell us they’ve learned helpful tools from our practitioners.”

  The man started. “Oh!” he said. The sun flashed in his glasses. “So you’re telling me our staff could learn something from a bunch of out-of-work actors?”

  Reuben, standing with the main group, turned round.

  “That’s precisely what I’m not saying,” I said. I had him eye to eye as if we were in some kind of duel. What was I doing? “All I’m saying—as you’d know, if you had actually listened—is that feedback from medical professionals is resoundingly positive. But these professionals have had some level of humility.”

  “Mrs. Mackey. Did you just say what I think you did?”

  Reuben joined us very quickly. “Can I help with anything?” he asked.

  “I don’t think so,” the man said. “Your business partner was just telling me that my care staff could learn a thing or two from your clowns. Including humility, if you can believe it. So I’m just taking a moment to let that one sink in.”

  “Mr. Schreuder—” Reuben began, but he was cut off.

  “I have a team to manage,” Pebble Glasses said. “Good day.”

  The bird above him took off and flew down the street. I watched, wishing I could go with it.

  “What the hell is going on?” Reuben demanded, as soon as we got into the taxi.

  “Sorry.”

  “Sorry?” Reuben was furious. “You might have just cost us that entire contract. Which would be fine, Sarah, if it were just about us, or money, but it’s not. It’s about Ruth. And all the other kids in there, and the four other hospices they own.”

  From the front of the taxi I could hear snatches of a Latin American voice and cumbia music. I took a few slow breaths. If I were Reuben, I’d be furious, too.

  “For chrissakes, Sarah!” Rueben exploded. “What’s up?”

  The taxi driver had finished his phone call and was listening to us with interest. He didn’t get a great deal of satisfaction, however, because I had nothing to say.

  After a long pause
Reuben spoke. “Is it about me and Kaia?” he asked. He was staring fixedly at the spread of traffic on the other side of the highway. “Because if it is, we really need to talk it out. I—”

  “It’s not about Kaia,” I said. “Although if I’m honest, I think she needs to back off.”

  “Then what? You’ve been off-key a while. Sarah, we were married seventeen years,” Reuben said. “I still know you.”

  “No, you don’t.”

  A mother and her two kids crossed the road ahead of us at the lights. One of them was kicking his legs in a stroller; his sister was dancing ahead of them with a shiny little party trumpet, toot-toot-tooting for all she was worth. Hannah had had one of those. Sometimes she’d blast it in my ear if she woke up before me, and I’d scream my head off. And she would be in hysterics, running around with her trumpet, hooting and tooting and laughing.

  As the lights changed and we pulled forward, I realized I was crying.

  * * *

  • • •

  I stood in the dirt-flecked window of the gate later on, watching planes taxi through an evening the color of rust. My cell phone rang out three times before I realized it was mine.

  “Jenni?”

  “Oh, Sarah, I’m glad you picked up.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “Pass. But look, the strangest thing happened just now.”

  I waited.

  Reuben waved at me. The last few passengers were disappearing out of the gate area.

  “I just saw Eddie, Sarah. In our building.”

  “Sarah!” Reuben called. “Come on!”

  I signaled to him to wait, holding my hand in the air as if waiting to be counted.

  “I’ve looked at his photo so many times,” Jenni was saying. “There was no mistaking him. He was talking to Carmen at reception, but by the time I went out there, he’d left.”

  “Oh.”

  My arm dangled stupidly in the air, all the blood running out.

  “He asked Carmen if you were in, then left without leaving a message.”

  “Oh.”

  “It was him, Sarah. It was definitely him. I looked at a photo right afterward. And Carmen said he had an English accent.”

  “Jenni, are you sure? Are you one hundred percent sure?”

  “One hundred percent.”

  “Right.”

  “Sarah? What the hell’s going on?” Reuben sounded angry again.

  “I have to go,” I said heavily. “I have to get on a plane.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Dear Eddie,

  I promised you that the last letter I wrote would really be my last.

  But the thing is, I’m beginning to wonder who you actually are. My friend Tommy recently asked if I thought you might have had something to do with the accident. I dismissed the idea out of hand, only now I’m not so sure.

  Was it you who came to my office today? Was it you I saw at a traffic light last week? And if it was, why? What are you doing?

  Eddie, do you know exactly who I am? Why I never came back to England?

  Are you the person I’m afraid you might be?

  The chances are, you’ll read this and think, What is this girl talking about? Why won’t she leave me alone? Is she out of her mind?

  But what if that’s not what you’re thinking? What if you know exactly what I’m talking about?

  I just keep wondering, Eddie. I just keep wondering.

  Sarah

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Extract from the Stroud News & Journal, June 11, 1997

  Police have arrested a man in connection with the fatal accident on the A419 near Frampton Mansell earlier this month. Senior Investigating Officer PC John Metherell confirmed last night that a nineteen-year-old man from Stroud had been taken into custody on suspicion of causing death by dangerous driving.

  The crash, which has left a local family devastated, has led to calls for better speed control on this remote stretch of road. Frustration has also been expressed at the police’s failure to make any arrests until now.

  Since the accident Gloucestershire Constabulary have been searching for a man—described at the time as male, in his late teens or early twenties—who escaped the scene of the crime via fields or local footpaths. New information received by the force on Monday has led to his successful detection and arrest.

  The SNJ was unable to obtain confirmation before going to print that the suspect had been charged.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  I lay in Jenni’s spare bed, listening to Javier loading his truck outside. On his radio a man spoke in rapid Spanish about the wildfire roaring across the dry hills of California. El fuego avanca rápidamente hacia nosotros, he said. The fire is coming at us fast. When he said the word “fire” his voice slowed right down, caressing each syllable like a new flame licking through paper. Fu-e-go.

  Jenni was playing Diana Ross in the shower, although she wasn’t singing along. The boiler was groaning. Next door’s cat was making childlike wails, which meant Frappuccino was out in the yard.

  I rolled over onto my back and rubbed my belly.

  There was a man out there, somewhere, a nameless man I’d been thinking about for nineteen years. I didn’t know his face or his voice, had nothing to go on beyond his surname, but I’d always known I’d recognize him when he found me. I would look him in the eye and I’d just know.

  Which was why Eddie David couldn’t be that man, I told myself. Despite the fact that his surname was wrong, I’d have sensed who he was the moment I met him. I’d have known.

  The fire is coming at us fast.

  Without warning I got up and ran to the toilet and threw up.

  * * *

  • • •

  “A school-night hangover!” Kaia held a smile in those pleasant eyes of hers, so I’d know she wasn’t judging me. “You’re making me feel old, Sarah.”

  I crouched in front of our little fridge, crammed with salads and wraps, and closed my eyes. I couldn’t eat my lunch. I couldn’t face even finding it. “You shouldn’t be impressed,” I said. “You should judge me. I deserve it.” I pulled myself up.

  “We’ve all been there,” Kaia said. She was huddled over something by the kettle, as if to shield it from my view. I peered miserably over her shoulder and saw, as expected, a perky salad.

  I wish she weren’t so good at handling me, I thought. Or so bloody thoughtful. She was only hiding that salad so I wouldn’t feel bad about myself. Above all I wished she weren’t here in our office. Yesterday her excuse for coming had been that she had some insight to share from a recent fund-raisers’ meeting at the Children’s Hospital, but today there had been no explanation. She’d just wandered in at ten and sat at a computer. Even Jenni was annoyed.

  I went back to my desk with a glass of water in one hand and a tremor in the other. Reuben and Kaia went out onto our little roof terrace for lunch.

  I tried to read my e-mails, but once again the words were shapeless and floppy. I tried to drink the water, but my stomach wasn’t having it. Ice! it told me. The water has to be iced! I dragged myself back to the kitchen, only to find the ice tray in the freezer empty. I sat back down at my desk and watched my husband and his girlfriend canoodling outside. Kaia was sitting in the crook of Reuben’s arm.

  “I can’t do this,” someone said.

  Me, I realized, after a pause. I had said it.

  I almost laughed. Here I was, shaking, nauseous, dizzy, now talking to myself at my desk. What next? Animal sounds? A nude streak?

  Then: “I can’t,” I heard myself say. My voice was coming from a part of me I couldn’t control. “I can’t do it. Any of it.”

  I escorted myself quickly into our meeting room.

  Stop this, I told myself, closing the door behind me. Stop this immediately. I wandered around the
table, pretending to text someone; looked at them again. Kaia kissed Reuben’s forehead. A stray cat watched them from the roof of a neighboring Botox clinic. Behind them rose the straggle of high-rise buildings over in Downtown.

  “I can’t do this.”

  Stop it!

  Anyone would feel unsettled watching her ex-husband fall in love again, I reasoned. It was okay to feel upset.

  Only it wasn’t about Reuben and Kaia.

  The fire is coming at us fast.

  I tried to stop the words worming their way to my mouth but hadn’t the strength. “I want to go home,” I said.

  The meeting room hummed quietly.

  “Stop it,” I whispered. Hot tears prickled. “Stop it. This is your home.”

  No, it’s not. This was never more than a hiding place.

  But I love this city! I love it!

  That doesn’t make it home.

  Jenni slid through the door. “Sarah,” she said. “Sarah, what’s up? You’re talking to yourself.”

  “I know.”

  “Is it about Reuben? I can ask Kaia to leave, if you want. They shouldn’t behave like that.”

  I took a long breath. But while I waited for the right words, Jenni marched out of the room. I stared stupidly at her back, realizing only too late what she was about to do.

  Kaia and Reuben looked up. Jenni said something; they smiled, nodded. Reuben was whistling as he came through the door, but there was something about his face that told me he knew what was coming.

  No, I thought weakly. Not this. This is not the problem. But Jenni had already kicked off. She stood squarely at the top of the table, talking in a voice I had heard three, maybe four times in our entire history.

  “Kaia, we’re very grateful you’ve been helping us out, but I think we need to clarify exactly which projects you’re helping with, and whether or not there’s an unmanageable workload somewhere in our team. Because if there is, we’ll need to take a look at that. It’s not appropriate for you to be here, helping on a casual basis. Nobody signed off on it.”