Never Too Late (Brier Hospital)

by Larence Gold

  “I’m glad you did, too. We’ve covered a lot in your past, but I never asked you why you left practicing with Michael Rose?”

  Izzy froze. “I’d rather not get into that.”

  Abbie sat upright. “Whoa. That answer is like showing a red cape to a bull.”

  “I don’t give a damn, Abbie. I put that all in the past and I don’t want to get into it.”

  “You wouldn’t back away from a subject like this, and neither will I. Take your time, and tell me.”

  Izzy took a deep breath, stared at Abbie, and began…

  “I’d been with Michael for nearly five years. It had been love, professional love, at first sight. Mike had been many things in his life, a cop, a pathologist, an internist, a general psychiatrist, and finally he settled on forensic psychiatry.”

  Abbie smiled. “He took the long way, did what most of us can never do; held off the critical decision until he was sure.”

  “Yes, in part,” Izzy said, “but he, too had moments that pushed him along a path only partially by intention.”

  “The case material must have been fantastic.”

  “It was,” Izzy said. “This much psychopathology was a field day for a shrink, but that wasn’t the half of it.”

  “Tell me more.”

  Izzy laughed. “Tell me more, I love it.”

  Abbie smiled, but remained silent.

  “With your practice, Abbie, you know better than most that immersing yourself into the tragedy of mental illness and its consequences to the patient and to others, can be heartbreaking. “But,” she paused, “it’s what we do, isn’t it, Abbie?”

  Abbie nodded.

  “If that’s not complicated enough, superimposing the law, the courts, and juries makes the work almost impossible. It was the one of the many things I admired the most about Michael. He did his job, but never became an advocate or a whore for attorneys, prosecutors or defense. He, we slept well at night.”

  “He wasn’t perfect, I’m sure,” Abbie said. “No shrink, attorney, judge, or jury is perfect. Bad things must have happened.”

  “Of course, but as long as you can cling to the belief that you’re doing the best you can, tragic outcomes still extract grams of flesh, not pounds.”

  “And,” Abbie said, “you always did the best you could.”

  Izzy studied Abbie for a long moment. “Spoken like a woman who’s been there.”

  “What happened?”

  “The defense attorney called us in to evaluate, Louis Brand.”

  “The Louis Brand?”

  Izzy nodded. “Yes, the narcissistic serial child molester and murderer. At age nineteen, the court sentenced him to sixty years. He had spent eighteen years in the California Medical Facility at Vacaville. His attorney was convinced that he’d served long enough, was completely rehabilitated, and no longer posed a risk to the community. He wanted our help for his client’s parole hearing.”

  “Better you than me,” Abbie said.

  “Tell me about it,” Izzy said. “His attorneys couldn’t pay us enough for a favorable evaluation, so we went at it with our usual skeptical discipline. We reviewed his eighteen years, interviewed staff, psychiatrists, the prison chaplain, who beamed about Louis, how he’d accepted Jesus and changed his life. The only family left was his sister who hadn’t seen him in years. She was wary. “Don’t trust him,” she said during our interview, “he’s always playing one angle or another.”

  Izzy paused, stood, and stretched. “Michael hated the guy, and it showed, so I did the interviews, fifteen hours in all.”

  “That’s a lot.”

  “How long would you take before you recommended the release of a Louis Brand?”

  “Point taken.”

  “At that time, I had four years of practice and five years of forensic psychiatry under my belt, so I felt confident in performing the evaluation. You know by now that things didn’t work out as I expected.”

  “They often don’t.”

  Louis was perfect. He gave all the right answers, and just enough questionable ones and admissions that I became sure he was telling the truth.”

  “Is psychiatry really good enough to make these critical decisions?” Abbie asked. “I’m not so sure myself.”

  “We live in a Judeo-Christian culture that embraces repentance, forgiveness, and second chances, and other than keeping predators in jail for life, we have to deal with them.”

  “Did you discuss it with Mike?”

  “Ad nauseam. He hadn’t done the evaluation; so he left it to me with the advice, “Don’t let fear get in the way of your studied opinion.”

  “I had sleepless nights following his release and gradually, after a year, I finally felt at ease. And then, one evening when I was watching the evening news…” Izzy began to cry…

  “Take your time.”

  Izzy wiped her tears. “Then the announcement came. “The police had killed Louis Brand after they found him in the home of a young mother and her two little girls. The mother and her two girls had been raped and strangled.”

  “My God!”

  “God can’t have anything to do with this, Abbie. My guilt was overwhelming and I knew, at once, that I could never practice forensic psychiatry again.”

  Abbie remained silent for nearly two minutes, and then said, “Thanks, Izzy. I know it’s not easy recalling that event.”

  “It’s always with me.”

  “Tell me about your running,” Abbie asked. “How are you doing?”

  “Have you ever raced?” Izzy asked.

  “Only to the bathroom with a full bladder.”

  Izzy laughed, and then paused in thought. “This whole thing is way beyond my wildest expectations. Mitch thinks I’m going to do well in the Boston Marathon.” She paused. “As long as these old legs hold out.”

  “Does he think that you can win?”

  “That would be a bridge too far. Runners for that race are the best in the world. Since 1997, all but two winners have come from Africa. Something in the physiology of African runners makes them great. I don’t see how I can compete with them.”

  “That not a useful attitude, Izzy. Confidence and certainty are important parameters for athletic success.”

  Izzy laughed. “That’s false bravado. It’s really fear of failure. That’s why you’ll find our best athletes vomiting or having diarrhea in the restrooms before an event.” Izzy paused. “And don’t think that’s all bad. The anxieties that upset athletes are the same ones that increase their performance.”

  “So you don’t get upset before competing?”

  “Not so much and it’s even better now since I learned to relax in the virtual reality lab.”

  “I didn’t know you were interested in VR. Tell me about it.”

  Izzy talked for a few minutes about her experience in the VR lab.

  “They really think that they can increase athletic performance?”

  Izzy smiled. “That’s the one advantage in a research program. They’re asking the questions, not promoting a commercial enterprise. If you go on the Internet, you’ll find VR programs across the world that makes promises they can’t possibly fulfill.”

  “I heard about the Boston podcast,” Abbie said. “How did you react to it?”

  “My God, how did you hear about that?”

  “Izzy, you’re a celebrity, a topic of conversation—this is your fifteen minutes of fame. You should be enjoying it.”

  “I’m not. Don’t get me wrong, I love running, but winning is a mixed bag. I think I’d run and be satisfied with my accomplishments independent of celebrity. Celebrity is embarrassing. I’m not comfortable with it.”

  “So this has nothing to do with your mother?”

  Izzy leaned back in her chair and laughed. “Everything has to do with that woman, but if you think you’re going to talk a senior citizen into ten years of psychoanalysis, you’re the one who’s nuts.”

  “I’m not asking for anything like that, but it�
�s obvious that your relationship with Miriam leaves much to be desired. You two can barely be in the same room together. Are you willing to leave it that way?”

  “It’s unbelievable. I’m sixty, I’m a psychiatrist, and I can’t get over the fact that my mother is cold, rejecting, insensitive woman who never gave me the love and respect I needed.”

  “And deserved?”

  “Yes, and deserved, too.”

  “Miriam chose to be that way?” Abbie asked.

  “Let’s not get metaphysical here, Abbie. People are responsible for their actions, especially those that affect others.”

  “You sound more like a priest or a rabbi, not a psychiatrist.”

  “You mean I’m too judgmental?”

  Abbie nodded. “I’m betting that you reserve being judgmental for your mother.”

  “You’re right. I should have resolved my Miriam problem years ago. God, how much energy I’ve wasted.”

  “Let’s get it all out here. I promise it won’t take years on the couch.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  When Izzy returned from lunch, Connie handed her a pink message memo. “He came in while you were at lunch. Harold Carter, do you know the guy?”

  “Coach Carter—my God, of course I know him. Is he coming back?”

  “Said he was going to get a bite, but would be here at 1:30 p.m. He seems like a nice old guy. How do you know him?”

  “He was my cross-country coach in high school.”

  “He must be awful proud.”

  Izzy grasped the note, walked into her office, and sat at her desk in thought.

  After a few moments, Connie knocked and stuck his head in. “He’s back. Can I send him in?”

  Izzy nodded and approached the door as Coach Carter entered. He was a faint memory of the tall, vigorous coach she ran for in high school. He stood about Izzy’s chin level and had the exaggerated facial wrinkling of a heavy cigarette smoker.

  He stopped, studied Izzy for a moment, and then opened his arms. As they embraced, Izzy held him against her chest. Tears puddled in her eyes.

  “It’s so good to see you, Coach. All these years. I’m so ashamed that we lost contact.”

  “Life goes on,” he said. “I coached so many students and can’t keep up with their lives.”

  “Come. Sit. I have some time. I’m so glad you decided to look me up.”

  “Looking you up was no problem, Izzy. You’re a celebrity and I’ve been watching your career since you blitzed the running world. Somehow, it didn’t surprise me.”

  Izzy smiled. “You were the one who encouraged me most when I was a gangly teenage girl. I never was quite in step with the teenage aristocracy. You don’t know how important your support was for me.”

  “I knew more than you think, Izzy. I had a sense for the needy ones, and you were certainly that. Moreover, though, I thought you had real potential as a distance runner.”

  They chatted for about twenty minutes catching up on the years passed.

  “You made me feel good about myself, Coach, and I recall that you encouraged me to continue running. Why then didn’t it go farther?”

  “I don’t think we should get into that—anyway, my memory’s not so good about those days.”

  “Coach,” Izzy said.

  “Yes.”

  “You’re the world’s worst liar.”

  “That’s one hell of a way to talk to an old friend, a really old friend.”

  “I know my mother wasn’t a big fan of my running. It didn’t fulfill her image of her beautiful, delicate, and intellectual daughter.”

  “Miriam. That was her name, wasn’t it? Is she still with us?”

  “Nothing wrong with your memory, coach, and yes, mother is still alive and kicking.”

  “She was a force to be reckoned with, if I recall.”

  “She still is.”

  Coach stood. “I must go. I’m meeting my wife at the Sather Gate. It’s been so nice chatting with you.”

  “Please, coach. Just a few minutes more.”

  Coach shook his head slowly and sat.

  “I’m a psychiatrist and no big fan of the ‘what-if’ questions. I’ve done so well running, I wonder what might have happened if I had decided earlier to pursue running as a career.”

  “Nothing good can come from such questions, Izzy,” Coach said. “Look at you. You have a husband, children, a successful career, and now the accolades from the marathon. That should be enough.”

  “What’s so terrible that you can’t give me a straight answer?”

  Coach took her hand. “You knew me as a coach, but never really knew me as a man. I have a hard time hurting anyone, especially you, Izzy.”

  Coach stood again and paced Izzy’s office pretending to study her diplomas and certificates of achievement. He returned to his seat. “I tried to explain your potential to Miriam, but she’d have none of it.”

  “That much I know, now give me the rest.”

  Coach looked down at his feet. “Please, Izzy.”

  “It can’t be worse than what I already know.”

  Coach took out a handkerchief and wiped his brow. “I was into my sixth year at Central High and I’d had some success with several runners reaching the state level of competition, but you, Izzy, were something else. Good coaches recognize the potential for greatness, and you, Izzy, had it.” He paused.

  “Go on.”

  “I tried to make Miriam understand, but she refused to listen. When I told her that I’d arranged for a full athletic scholarship in track at Cornell University, she went crazy. She wanted to know, ‘who the hell was I to interfere with her family’. She even threatened me.”

  Izzy trembled. “Threatened you with what?”

  “It was crap.”

  “With what, damn it?”

  “She didn’t like the way I looked at you.” He paused again. “That was the sixties, Izzy. You know what even a hint of impropriety meant in those days. One word and my life, my career would have been destroyed for good.”

  Izzy lowered her head and sobbed.

  After dinner that night, Izzy recounted her meeting with Coach Carter.

  Ross held her hand and pulled her close as she wept.

  “This is ridiculous,” Izzy said. “I might as well be that teenage girl—so much for a life of introspection.”

  “You’re so kind to everyone, but yourself. Cut yourself some slack, won’t you?”

  “You’re missing the point, Ross. I have unresolved issues with Miriam, but how can I forgive her betrayal? How can I forget that she threatened to ruin a decent man’s life? It’s no longer just about me. The woman’s evil.”

  “And, she’ll always be that way. I’m the last guy to get metaphysical on you, but isn’t life a multivariate analysis? So many factors coming randomly, decisions, accidents, that unless you believe in karma or predetermination, life is a crapshoot.”

  “I can’t believe that you’re making excuses for her, Ross. She made choices. I lived with the consequences.”

  “Right. You live with the consequence of her good, and her bad choices.”

  “Are you being deliberately obtuse? Coach had me a full boat athletic scholarship to Cornell and Miriam turned him down. I waited all these years to discover the truth.”

  “I’m not defending your mother, Izzy.”

  “Yes, you are. Forget the running for a moment, for who really knows how well I might have done. Marathons? The Olympics? Would I have burned out? Would I have a career ending injury?” Izzy paused to organize her thoughts. “Don’t you remember what it took for me to graduate and get those postgraduate degrees? School, jobs, sometimes two jobs, and student loans—I don’t know how I did it. Remind me to thank Miriam.”

  Ross hesitated a moment as he watched his wife. “It’s in human nature—it’s certainly in mine to go back over our lives and focus on crucial decision points and then ‘what if’ ourselves to distraction. If that produces insight, fine. If it tortures
, it’s simply a waste of time. Frankly, I think you’ve tortured yourself enough.”

  Izzy’s eyes filled with tears.

  “We shouldn’t talk about this. Discuss it with Abbie. She’ll have the objectivity that we both lack.”

  “Thanks a lot, Ross.”

  “If I could help you through this, I would. Go see Abbie.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Mitch must have noted something, for when Izzy arrived the next morning, he said, “What’s wrong? You look like you haven’t slept in a week.”

  “No. Just last night. I’ll be fine.”

  “Isn’t that what you always say?”

  “When you’re young, missing sleep isn’t such a big deal, but at my age, it’s more critical.”

  “A buddy of mine at Cal saw you coming from the Sports Science Laboratory. Is there anything I should know?”

  “My friend, Jodie Kaufman works there and she talked me into providing them with physiological data for their studies.”

  “Interesting. Can I see it?”

  “I’m guessing not, but as my trainer, maybe they’ll make an exception.”

  “Anything else?”

  “They showed me some virtual reality stuff—I even ran with the bulls at Pamplona.”

  “I see lots of interest in VR among sports training programs, Izzy, but I think it’s mostly hype.”

  “I’m not so sure.”

  “Look, I’m not going to tell you what to do, Izzy, but we’re on a pretty tight training schedule and I don’t want you overdoing it.”

  “Me, overdoing it?” She smiled. “You must have me confused with someone else.”

  After they finished training for the day, Mitch checked his stopwatch. “Only off by a few seconds, Izzy. Maybe I overreacted.”

  “Maybe not. I’m really tired and my shins are aching.”

  “Shin splints?”

  “You mean medial tibial stress syndrome.”

  He pointed a finger at her. “Smart ass.”

  “Like before, only worse. I’m getting worried.”

  “Me, too. Let’s be careful, I’m going to ease back a bit for the rest of the week. We’re getting too close to Boston to risk injury.”