The Secret Room
Page 14
“I know. And I think he’s got a blind spot when it comes to her.” I glance up from my toy. “Oy, that’s terrible. Really, that pun was not intended.” Sam betrays a glimmer of a smile. “Anyway, she might actually be genuine about this conversion thing. I’m still not sure.”
“Nor is it your burden to decide.”
“That’s true.” I try to hold off a yawn, and find my foot jittery again.
“How are you feeling about your medications?”
“I think they’re okay.”
As he turns his head, the bright-red temple of his glasses flashes in the sun. “If you aren’t noticing any problems, we’ll keep everything the same for now, but let’s watch it, okay? I want to see you back in a week.”
“A week?” We’ve been monthly now or even less, unless some crisis pops up.
“You’re obviously under a great deal of stress.” He takes off his glasses, holding them between two fingers. “And I can sense something isn’t quite right.”
“Uh-huh.” Sam has a keen nose for this. But he might not be able to guess what isn’t quite right. Or that I flushed all my pills down the toilet. What isn’t quite right is that I’m pregnant, and I haven’t told Mike. That I’m pregnant and have no idea what to do about it.
But I don’t say any of this.
We spend the remaining minutes wrapping up, he pushing issues and I avoiding them in an uncomfortable tango until finally I am released.
I sit in the car a moment, enjoying the enveloping heat of the sun through the windshield. Then I turn on the engine and dig out of my satchel the paper with Andre’s aunt’s number on it. I sit through about eight rings and am about to hang up when a voice mail message comes on. She states her name, so I know I got the right number, at least.
“Hi. I’m Dr. Goldman,” I say, sounding young and nervous. “I’m working with Andre, and I just wanted to go over a few things, if we could.” I give her my cell number and hang up, hoping that she doesn’t run this by her brother-in-law. Though certainly she might. I stare at my phone with a sigh. It’s only six in the evening, and Mike’s on late tonight.
So I do a quick Google search on my cranberry bean. I find out that “your jeans might not be fitting much longer!” and “your womb is already twice the normal size!” which actually astonishes me. I turn back to my pros-and-cons list.
Pros: Cranberry bean looks pretty cute at 2 centimeters.
Cons: Not ready to have a baby.
I shove the phone onto the passenger seat in exasperation. The truth is, I have to talk to Mike.
* * *
She gives me the thinnest smile, but it’s clear XO Serena isn’t thrilled to see the likes of me back in the ER. But I can’t face dinner alone tonight. Mike spots me right away. “Hey, hon.” He kisses my cheek.
“It’s Zoe, the master psychiatrist!” Sean says.
“I thought you were in Derm,” I remark.
“They told me they had too many PAs this month. Sent me back to ER.”
“Too many PAs, I’m sure,” I say.
“Anything in there for me?” Sean asks, eyeing the Chinese food bag like a hungry puppy.
I plunk the bag down. “Well, I got an extra egg roll, if you want it. And one for Serena, too.”
“Nice.” Sean scoops it up.
“Oh.” She squinches her nose. “Is it, I mean, vegetarian?”
“No, it’s not.” I turn to Mike. “Chicken lo mein for you.”
He lays out a napkin and the container. “Perfect timing. I was starved.”
I pull the lid off my wonton soup (which is also, I mean, not vegetarian) and start in. We all eat in silence for a bit, and Sean takes the next patient. Serena doesn’t stray an inch from her spot at Mike’s side. She would use surgical glue if she could.
“So, what’s new?” Mike asks, wiping some soy sauce off his face.
“Not much, this and that.” I’m pregnant, not so sure how far along or what to do about it. “Had grand rounds today. So that was good.”
“Uh-huh. What about Newsboy?” he asks. “Is he still stalking you?”
“I held him off for a bit longer, at least.”
“Who’s Newsboy?” Serena asks.
“Some asshole from the Buffalo News who wants to interview me,” I answer.
“Oh,” Serena says, flinching, as if they don’t use profanity in her world of beautiful, skinny, not-too-tall people.
A nurse flashes by then. “Trauma coming. MVA.” A burly EMT bustles down the hall with a gurney, and a group of staff starts gearing up for the trauma room.
“See ya in a bit,” Mike says.
Serena puts her water bottle down. “Here we go again,” she says, as if she’s auditioning for a new TV doctor drama. She grins at Mike, establishing ownership for the next few hours. Then they race off, and the ER suddenly goes dead, devoid of the usual bustle. A nurse gets a med here and there, a doctor looks after a broken hand.
All at once I feel terribly out of place and alone. Mike and XO Serena are out saving lives while I’m losing them, just barely scraping by in my fellowship. And I’m pregnant. And I haven’t told Mike. The sound of a text breaks up my dark musings.
Did you miss me, Angel of Death?
My spoon falls from my hand.
How about another riddle? I examine the number, which is a different one from the last text. No, I type in. I’m not playing your games.
Come on, you’re so clever. You must love riddles.
Seems like you think you’re pretty clever too, I answer back, figuring the more I can get the riddler to talk, the better the shot I’ll have at catching the person.
Ready or not here we go.
Razors, ropes, pills or all of the above.
Who’s the next one you’ll get rid of?
I told you I’m not playing, I answer.
A nurse in lavender-heart scrubs leans over me. “Smells good. I could really use some Chinese food right now.”
“Oh, I know. It definitely hits the spot,” I say, covering the phone, and we smile at each other before she walks down the hall. As soon as she’s gone, I take my hand off the screen.
How about the boy with the bright-red gloves?
Chapter Twenty-Four
I call the detective about a hundred times but can’t get a hold of him, and Mike won’t be home for a few more hours. So I lie down in bed, trying to sleep, but the riddle keeps me awake.
It must be someone who knows about Andre. Not just his name, but this particular detail. Someone with more than just a passing knowledge of the case. The texter has to have seen Andre. Could it be someone from work, as Detective Adams suggested? Who, then?
Jason? No way. Dr. Novaire? Too busy collecting his ducats. It could be one of the guards or another male inmate. But my brain keeps landing on the most obvious candidate: Abraham Green. But I don’t understand why he would be texting me.
Exhausted with these thoughts swirling in my head, I finally start to drift off as Arthur snuggles beside me. I descend into a broken sleep, dreaming of beans. Lima beans, red beans, cranberry beans.
Then I dream of a baby bean whizzing against my palm, like a trapped fly. Teeny, delicate. A slippery Mexican jumping bean.
I’m cupping my hands together, trying to hold it but not smother the thing. “Stop it,” I say into my hand, with consternation. “I don’t want to hurt you.” But the bean finds a space between my fingers, tunneling out, and I am chasing it, this Tinker Bell of a thing. It is looping up and down, playing with me. The thing darts up the stairs, and I run after it.
“What are you looking for?” Mike says, suddenly materializing on the steps.
“Our baby.”
“Oh,” he says, nonchalantly, “I think it went into the baby room.”
A baby room? I scramble up the stairs with an exquisite relief. Mike knows, of course he knows. He always knew. Mike set up a baby room for us. I enter from the hall, expecting soft pastel colors, a stenciled runner. Winnie-the-Pooh, maybe.
Charmayne stands in the middle of the room in her wedding dress.
“He killed me,” she says, and reaches out to me with bloody fingers. Backing away, I slam the door shut and turn to go down the stairs but find myself floating off the staircase instead. I am flapping my arms, madly, trying to fly, and I land on a hospital gurney being rolled down a hallway.
Prisoners’ faces hang over me in a line, menacing.
“Bitch. You wanna fuck me now?”
Globs of saliva fly past. Urine falls like raindrops on the hospital bedsheets.
“Come over to Big Daddy. Let me show you how we do it.”
“I bet you like it rough, don’t you, whore?”
At last we motor past them and into a brightly lit hospital room. A doctor removes his scrub mask, revealing the face of Dr. Novaire. He places a gold coin in my hand. “It’s a magic coin,” he says. “Don’t lose it.”
But right then a grinding in my belly takes my breath away. “Help me.”
Mike appears beside the gurney. “It’s okay. You can do it, Zoe. Push.” His kind, handsome face. His hand gripping mine. The gold coin is sweating in my palm. A pain wrenches in my belly. “Push!”
And I can feel the relief then, of the baby coming out. And the pain is gone, and I look at Mike with pride and anticipation, but his face is distorted in shock.
“What?” My voice is hollow. “What’s wrong?”
As Dr. Novaire smilingly lifts the baby in victory, I can see its muddy-brown fur, its double tongue slithering in opposite directions.
And a hundred ribs, moving up and down.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Checking my phone, I see the detective still hasn’t called back. I toss the drugstore bottle of prenatal vitamins back into my purse as Aubrey is led into the room.
She doesn’t look bad, after her solitary stay. She’s lost a few pounds she couldn’t afford to lose, and her sumptuous strawberry-blond hair is on the stringy side. But her smile is warm, and her bright-green eyes are no longer haunted. Considering I hardly slept after the dream last night, she probably looks better than I do. “How are you?”
“Getting there,” she answers with some relief.
I check her chart. “We went up on the Prozac. Do you think it’s helping?”
“Maybe?” She answers it as a question while playing with her bracelet, which is a new one, a light-green thread now. “I think it’s more than that, maybe. I think, in the end, you were right after all.”
“About what?”
“Just talking about it. Getting it out there.” Aubrey tugs at her bracelet. “It’s like, it made it less terrible, somehow. Well, it’s still terrible. But, you know, I could deal with it.”
“Instead of running away from it.”
“Yes.” She releases the bracelet, looking at me. “That just made it worse.”
“I know,” I say, nodding. “Secrets can fester and bubble out in different ways, usually negative ways.” As I say this, I am pierced by the truth about my own festering secret. Physician, heal thyself.
“You’re smart, you know. You remind me of my sister.”
“Oh yeah?” I want to laugh. Because you’re not at all like my sister.
“Yeah. She’s smart, too.” She taps her thin fingers on the table. “She’s older. Really smart. She always kind of protected me.”
I check the computer family history for a mention of her. “Does she come visit you?”
“At first she did.” Aubrey shrugs. “But not so much lately. She’s got kids and all…so it’s hard.”
“Anyone else come to see you? Your mom, dad?”
Her eyes grow red, but she doesn’t cry. “My mom died.”
“Oh.” I reach over and touch her arm. “I’m sorry.”
“Thanks.” She blinks back tears. “I was already addicted, so…she didn’t get a real pretty picture of me, before she went.”
I nod. “I’m sorry about that, Aubrey. But I’m sure she loved you.”
“I don’t know.” She takes a quick breath. “I wasn’t very lovable.”
“Parents love their kids, no matter what.”
She rolls her eyes, letting out a surly laugh. “Why don’t you tell my dad that? He’s certainly not on my visiting list. He hates me.”
I lean in toward her. “Why do you say that?”
“Because it’s true.” Her hand turns into a fist, and she rubs her knuckles on the table. “He blames me for my mom’s death. Though I don’t get that one,” she grumbles. “I might be an addict, but I didn’t give her cancer.”
“No. That’s not right of him.” We sit in silence for a while.
“Anyway.” She puts her hands on her knees with an expression of renewed hope. “My sister did say she’d help me once I get out. So that’s something. As long as I’m clean.”
“Hey, then that’s motivation right there,” I say, building on her positivity.
“Yeah, until I screw it up again.”
“Look.” I pull my own faded pink friendship bracelet out from under my sleeve. “There’s a lot of people rooting for you, Aubrey. Don’t forget that.”
Aubrey grins at me, then reaches over to touch my bracelet, before pulling away with some embarrassment at the closeness of the moment. “You know what I wish?” she asks, her tone hushed.
“What?” I turn from the computer chart to look at her.
“That I had met you when I was sixteen. Instead of Todd.”
I search for the wry smile, the false tone of flattery, the hint of manipulation in her eyes. I search for it, and maybe it’s in there somewhere, but I don’t see it. All I see is such bald approbation that it’s almost discomfiting. So I decide to accept this compliment. To add it to the win column, negating the longer list of names on the other side. As Sam said, you have to remember the good cases, too.
“You know what?” I say. “I do, too.”
* * *
Tyler Evans struts into the room as Harry mans the door closely again. I am inches away from the red button. With Tyler in the room, I never let that button out of my sight.
“So I did my homework, Dr. Gold-Jew.” He lays his chained hands on the table.
“How did it go?” I ask, deciding that ignoring his jibe is the best play.
“Good, real good.”
“Is that so?” I ask, pleasantly surprised. “Why do you say that?”
“Some of the things they asked.” He looks up at the ceiling, trying to remember. “Like about manipulation. That was one of them. Do you use manipulation to get things you need? And hell yeah, man. I’m really good at that.”
“Oh.” This is not exactly the insight we were after, however.
“And lying,” he adds. “I’m a great fucking liar. This one time”—he cackles at the memory—“my cousin Jonesy got all upset that someone took his shit. You know, a little crystal he had laying around. And I told him I didn’t know for sure, but I saw Hunts in that room earlier. And maybe he could’ve took it. Hunts is our nickname for my other cousin. His real name’s Hunter.”
“Right. Hunts, I got it.” I bite back a yawn. “And I’ll bet Jonesy is actually Jones.”
“Yeah. How’d you know that?”
“Lucky guess.”
“So, anyways, Jonesy goes after Hunts who’s all like, yo, I didn’t touch your shit, man. And I’m, like, fucking laughing inside because I know that Hunts had nothing to do with it, right? And you know how I know?”
I pause. “Because you took it?”
He looks at me with approval. “Damn, girl. They’re right what they say, you know. You Jew bitches are pretty smart.”
“Uh-huh. Well, thanks.”
“So Jonesy goes after Hunts, actually ices the dude. And I’m like, fuck, man, I better hide that shit and quick, right? So I go sell it to some guy from out of town, and Jonesy ne
ver even heard about it.” He crosses his arms, shaking his head at the memory. “He would have killed me, too, for sure. Jonesy, he’s a fucking psycho.” He laughs then, looking like a little boy in his glee at sharing his funny story. “Whoo-ey, that shit was close.”
I stare at him in silence. “So what happened to Jonesy?”
“Oh,” he says, as an afterthought, “he got locked up here, too. Caught fifty for murder. For Hunts. We boys in here, though. It’s all good.”
I shake my head. “Okay, then. I’m glad you got something out of the homework. You keep working on it. We’ll have one more session to wrap up.”
“Cool. Cool, yeah.” He stands up, his chains clinking. “You do any courses in here? Like on war and shit? My friend is always going on about some book he’s reading about how war is like art. And I was thinking maybe I could do some homework on that.”
“Sorry, no. I don’t have that particular book.”
“Oh, okay. Cool.” Harry immediately steps in to take Tyler back whence he came. I am finishing my note about Tyler’s happy little story when Detective Adams finally calls me back. Just seeing his number fills me with relief.
“Hello, Detective.”
“Hi, Zoe. I saw that you called. Sorry, I’ve been stuck in meetings all day.” I hear the buzz of his office in the background. “And I do have some more information for you, but first…you said you got another text?”
“Yes. I sent you a screenshot. Did you see it yet?”
“No, sorry. I saw you e-mailed but didn’t get a chance to read it yet. Wait, just a second, I’m pulling it up right now.” There is a pause while he reads it. “Who’s the boy with the bright-red gloves?”
“Andre,” I say.
“Oh.” The word is weighted with worry. “That is concerning.” Keyboard tapping sounds out over the phone. “I’ll put a call in to the warden ASAP. We need a record of everyone who’s accessed Andre’s file.”
“Yes, good plan. But I also have a strong idea about who could be texting me now.” I brace myself for his protest. “Abraham Green.”
The detective pauses. “He certainly would know about the gloves.” I hear more typing. “But on the other hand, it doesn’t make sense. Why would he be texting you about other patients?”