Stuck in Manistique

by Dennis Cuesta

  Mark shook his head. “Intermission isn’t long enough.” There really wasn’t much of an explanation at all. He might have continued in a static relationship with Laura, perpetually enduring the subtle talk of something more. But one night she threw down the ultimatum: “If we’re not progressing toward marriage soon, then . . ." She never finished the sentence. Mark simply told her that he wasn’t ready. As Mark reached the front door that night, her ten-year old son, Shane, ran out from his room and hugged him. He messed up the boy’s hair and told him to always listen to his mother.

  Mark didn’t want to think about Laura or Shane. Especially Shane. He was having too good of a time. “So do you do anything besides estate planning?” he asked, reaching for the pitcher of beer.

  “Not anymore. Believe it or not, I was originally in criminal defense. But I didn’t care for it much, so I became an estate attorney.”

  “That’s a switch. I had a similar experience, though not as big as that. I started out in corporate finance and then became a personal financial planner.”

  The camaraderie in the bar extended into the second period with more high-fives in the early going, but by the middle of the third period, the ruckus had died down and people started to leave. Having gotten another pitcher while times were good, Walters stayed. And Mark, not one for ditching even a bad game, stayed too.

  “I have a question for you,” Mark said. “Curiosity, really.”

  “Yeah, what is it?”

  “Why did Vivian pick you as her lawyer? Not that you’re not a fine attorney. But aren’t there any good lawyers in this Manistique town?”

  He nodded, slowly setting down his beer. “She came down here for cancer treatments, and from what I gathered, she wanted a bit of privacy.”

  Vivian had cancer? “Oh.”

  Chapter Two

  Emily tended wistfully to her white coat, folding it in thirds before setting it in the box. She ran her fingers over the scripted Emily Davis embroidery. The letters weren’t as black as they once had been, faded after so many washings—no, faded after that one washing with extra bleach. She thought back to when she had received the coat, to the sense of accomplishment and the fervor and anxiousness she’d felt.

  She closed the box and taped it shut. Except for some clothes in a small suitcase, all of her belongings fit in five small boxes—mostly books and notes from medical school. Lauren, her roommate, helped her load them into her old Saab.

  Emily gave her roommate a long hug—they exchanged goodbyes and good-lucks and promises to reunite someday soon.

  “Wait! I almost forgot.” Lauren turned back toward the house.

  Emily leaned against the car, a sadness catching in her chest. The two had shared the Hillcrest bungalow for the past two-and-a-half years. Lauren, a third-year resident at a nearby hospital, was the closest friend Emily had had during her medical school years. A big sister of sorts, Lauren was ten years older and almost done with her residency. Yet Emily had never confided in her about her relationship with Dr. John Bulcher. Lauren would have certainly disapproved. And of her recent crisis at the hospital, Emily only vaguely discussed it. Had Lauren known the full story, she would have likely given Emily some disquieting advice. Even so, Emily deeply regretted never sharing these burdens with her.

  Emily considered spilling it all out now. There was no one else in the world she could imagine telling. Not her parents. Not any of her medical school classmates. Not any of her high school friends back home.

  Lauren returned with a book in her hand. “I know, I know, it’s all you need, another book.” She handed it over. “But it has stories from Médecins Sans Frontières.”

  Emily read the cover. Doctors Without Borders: Helping the Helpless. “You just can’t say Doctors Without Borders, can you?”

  Lauren grinned impishly and shrugged. “It’s the French in me.”

  “You’re not French.”

  “All Canadians have some French in them,” she protested.

  Emily rolled her eyes. “Are you still trying to recruit me?”

  “Yes!” Lauren had done a one-year mission as a nurse in Mali before enrolling in medical school. “You said you’d think about it. Remember?”

  “I was probably drunk.”

  “You know what they say about drunk confessions . . ."

  Emily folded her arms. “No, what do they say?”

  Lauren shrugged. “I don’t know. But one of my psych professors—no wait, it was a boyfriend—”

  “Or both.”

  Lauren chuckled. “You know I’ve done stupid things, Em, but even I know better than to do that.”

  Emily put up a quick smile, hoping to hide the awkwardness she felt.

  “Anyway, whoever it was said that alcohol doesn’t make you say something you don’t mean, it only makes you care less about what you say.”

  “Careless? Yes, I agree.”

  “No. Care. Less. But probably careless, too.”

  Emily grinned. “I have to finish residency first, so I have a good couple years to think about it, right?”

  “Sure, of course.”

  She lifted her hand to make an oath. “I promise to read this before then.”

  “That’s all I ask. A mission will change your life and your perspective on everything in life, not just medicine.”

  Emily nodded absentmindedly, thinking about her life right now. She turned away for a moment, reaching deep inside. When she turned back ready to tell Lauren everything, her throat seized up. With Lauren’s hair pulled back, exposing her makeup-free face and wrinkled brow, Emily caught a glimpse of a different woman. A familiar woman from long ago.

  “Are you all right?”

  Just then Emily saw her: her second-grade teacher, Mrs. Schubert, the strictest teacher in her whole elementary school. Even after she’d finished second grade, Emily tensed up each time she heard Mrs. Schubert’s voice crackle through the hallways or outside on the playground. And throughout high school, Mrs. Schubert had continued to haunt Emily in bad dreams. She hadn’t thought of that nasty woman in many years.

  “Em?”

  Emily lost the little fortitude she’d mustered, suddenly convinced that Lauren would upbraid her. After all, what med student in her right mind got romantically involved with an attending, her mentor, a man twenty years her senior?

  Emily gave a terse nod and pulled Lauren in to hug her again, to escape the teacher’s face. And after a few seconds Emily got in her car, and without saying another word, drove away.

  It was a little after nine in the morning when Emily left East Lansing. She had a three-hour drive ahead of her, north to the tip of the Lower Peninsula and then a short ferry ride to Mackinac Island where John would be waiting.

  In the beginning, Emily quickly fell in love with Dr. Bulcher, the way someone becomes enchanted by a movie star and their distant facade. But this movie star gave her attention, shared his personal life, put his arm around her, held her, kissed her. She couldn’t help but feel special, even privileged, that Dr. John Bulcher had selected and trusted her.

  None of it should have ever happened. A renowned pediatric surgeon with extraordinarily precise hands had acted carelessly with his career. It was a serious violation of Dr. Bulcher’s position as an attending and teaching physician. As it stood, he could probably unravel it as a brief lapse of judgment and receive only a minor reprimand from the hospital.

  His wife might not be so forgiving. Emily had seen her picture on his desk—the housewife-model, the gorgeous blonde who married a doctor. They weren’t a match, Emily had concluded, and his wife was only interested in riding his prestige and wealth. The wife was described as cold and shallow, and Emily didn’t care much about the disruption she might cause their marriage. But the two standing next to their mother in the photo, little Joey and Cory, caused her to sweat guilt—but only until she shielded herself with contempt. His wife was the reason for the dissatisfaction in his marriage.

  She was generally pragmat
ic about it all, figuring it would end once school ended. She would leave for residency and he would remain, teaching another group of med students, eventually replacing her with another insecure, awe-struck girl. And with time and distance—especially distance—that part of her life would wither and fade into the past. That all changed when John asked her to join him on Mackinac. After he finished with a medical conference there, they would meet up at a secluded inn on the northwest side of the island. He had planned this rendezvous, and she had agreed to it without protest or glee. Now she felt terrified and alone.

  She felt something for John, she was sure, but she wasn’t sure what it was. Admiration, yes. He was a gifted surgeon and her med-school mentor. Maybe she could get over their age difference and the breaking-up of his family. Maybe they could make it work over the long distance during her Chicago residency. But she still hadn’t worked out the death of Nicholas, a boy who had died under their care. It bothered her that John had so deftly put the whole episode behind him, even making the boy’s name unmentionable between them. He had never apologized for putting her through that.

  An hour into her journey north, the landscape around her grew constant, the ground covered in hues of browns and greens, deciduous trees with new leaves and evergreens running together. Only the sky changed, a typical Midwestern sky shifting between white and dark clouds, then long stretches of blue.

  When the highway cut through denser forests, it reminded her of northern Wisconsin, of long-weekend camping trips to the North Woods, where birches mingle with pines and maples and summer barely arrives. She figured she was near or even passed the same latitude as her hometown, Appleton.

  Since high school, she had wanted out of Appleton, and now all she wanted was for it to be the cozy center of her world again. And at least for a short while, that’s exactly where she would be. Five weeks at her parent’s house before starting residency at the region’s best pediatric hospital, Lincoln Presbyterian.

  Settling comfortably in Wisconsin for a month was a dreamy notion, she knew. Home had lost its comfort ever since her brother Kyle had died. Her parents, a gregarious pair, folded into themselves. Her mother fell into a deep solitude, and her father, after a couple more years of work, retired early from a job he loved. Emily dealt with her brother’s death differently. Kyle had just started his medical residency when he died, so his pursuit became hers. A sophomore in high school at the time, Emily immediately volunteered at the local hospital.

  An approaching billboard unsettled her. A picture of the Grand Hotel with its familiar expansive white porch, the landmark of Mackinac Island, conjured up the phone message John had left her earlier that morning while she was in the shower. Now she imagined John, standing stately on the balcony watching the world as if it were his ward, as she replayed the message in her head: “Hello from the Grand Hotel,” he had said. He finished the message with “And Emily, I have some big news to share with you when you get here. Drive safely. See you soon.”

  Big news? The thought that he was divorcing his wife had immediately popped into her head. No, that’d be too reckless for him. But nothing else ever came to mind except that, so now she feared that’s exactly what he was going to tell her. A hot sensation poured over her.

  Emily missed the exit for the Mackinaw City docks and only realized it when she saw the sign for Exit 339. Jamet Street. LAST EXIT BEFORE FARE. She pulled off the highway and turned into the first gas station.

  She walked inside the convenience store to ask for directions. The clerk joked that she hadn’t actually missed the exit for the docks; there were boats leaving from the other side of the bridge in St. Ignace.

  She thought for a moment. She’d have to cross the bridge on her way to Wisconsin anyway. This way she and John would part on the island and avoid the awkward ride back on the ferry. She drove off, taking the northbound highway entrance toward the bridge.

  Chapter Three

  It was at the age of thirteen that Mark confirmed and internalized his fear. On a visit to San Francisco—accompanying his mother to a psychiatry conference—Mark faced the Golden Gate Bridge. Before they’d even reached the tollbooth, the looming rust-orange towers caused his heart to beat spasmodically. He quickly became nauseated and dizzy. Crumpling into himself and blaming his illness on lunch, he leaned against the car door and shut his eyes. On the return crossing, he feigned falling asleep.

  The fear afflicted Mark as a driver, too. He avoided overpasses by taking alternate routes or even getting off the highway, detouring through side streets, and getting back on the nearest onramp. Small bridges were mostly manageable, but only if crossed straightaway. Once, when he was in Galena for a 5K race, cars were backed up over a five-hundred-foot bridge leading into town. He wouldn’t risk it. He parked near the steel-arched pedestrian walkway and sprinted across.

  In the early morning, Mark drove up the lakeside highway and, as directed by the front desk clerk, he stopped at a park on the north end of Petoskey. There he jumped on a trail parallel to the bay and ran south, swallowing the cool gusts coming off the lake. Running hard under a gray sky, he hoped to sweat out his anxiety and enervate his fear. The longer and harder he ran, the more determined he became to conquer the bridge. After six miles he stopped and turned back; the trail had no end in sight. He was not a long-distance runner, neither by love nor by training, so by the time he reached his car, he had exhausted himself entirely.

  At ten o’clock he checked out of the hotel and drove to Woodland Hills Funeral Home, a converted Victorian house on a busy street. After perfunctory condolences, the funeral director asked Mark whether he’d like his aunt’s cremains placed in an urn, presumptively waving him to a nearby room. Thinking it would come across as obscene if he told the solemn man that Vivian’s “cremains” were to be dumped in Lake Michigan and that a plastic baggie would do, Mark nodded.

  Feeling compelled and idiotic at the same time, Mark chose from the display, an urn made of cerulean glass and waited ten minutes while Vivian’s ashes were settled. When everything was done, the man set the urn on a desk, and as Mark paid, chagrin gripped him as he noticed that the suction lid had a white flower, a lily perhaps, painted on it. It was much too ornate and delicate for intrepid Aunt Vivian.

  He said nothing about it and grabbed the one-foot urn with two hands and held it like a baby that wasn’t his. Mark cradled the urn under his left arm and steadied it with the caring touch of his right hand, thanked the man, and left.

  Mistrustful of the suction seal, Mark strapped the urn upright in the front passenger seat. As he drove away, he kept glancing to his right, in turns mesmerized by its color and annoyed by the flower on top. “Sorry, Aunt Vivian,” he muttered.

  Driving north on Highway 31, leaving Little Traverse Bay behind and heading toward the tip of the Lower Peninsula, Mark forcibly reinvigorated himself. He was determined to cross the bridge. “I can do this!” he yelled. He looked over at the urn and laughed out loud—Vivian had dealt with wars and diseases, and he feared a perfectly solid bridge.

  A burst of rain fell. The shoddy wipers left a smear across his view of the road before him, and he gripped the steering wheel tightly with both hands. He certainly hoped the weather would clear before he reached the bridge. “What the heck are you doing living way up here, anyway?!” he erupted. He shook his head, feeling foolish for yelling at Vivian’s ashes.

  As he reached the lakeside town of Conway, the rain settled to a light sprinkle. The highway turned east, following the curve of Crooked Lake on his right, the banks at times stretching to the road. Ducks rested in the calm waters near reeds that barely poked above the surface. He went through another town with pleasant lakeside homes. The lake then vanished from view, replaced by tall trees and stands of birches, and not long after, the road turned north and the sky ahead cleared.

  He thought of his mother. Had she ever known about his fear of bridges? She would have tortured him through some kind of therapy session, he concluded. “Tell me wh
y you’re afraid of bridges, Mark,” he said, mimicking the haughtily soothing tone his mother used with patients.

  “Are you afraid that they will collapse?”

  No, I know they won’t, though maybe deep down . . .

  “Are you afraid of being trapped?”

  I don’t know, maybe, yes.

  “So what you’re really afraid of is being trapped, of not being able to get off the bridge if you wanted to.”

  OK. How does that help me?

  “You have the power to overcome this fear.”

  How?

  “Don’t think of it as being on a bridge. Force your mind to think of it as any other road, that’s all.”

  Mark patted the lid of the urn. “Of course, she’d say, ‘Don’t take my professional opinion as a psychiatrist as relevant here.’ She had the answers to everyone’s problems, right? If only they’d listen to her.”

  Mark watched the scenery as intently as he could, and as he passed each small town, he envisioned living there. What would it be like? he wondered, wishing he could experience living in different places. This peripatetic vision of his life ran counter to his real life, in which he’d resided almost exclusively in the genteel village of Oak Park, just outside Chicago. He was born there and left only briefly for college. When he returned, he found a job in Chicago and rented an apartment in Oak Park, three blocks from the Green Line, four blocks from his parish, and half a mile from his mother’s house.

  As he reached the overpass where Highway 31 merged with 75, a queasy pang struck Mark. Not because of the overpass per se, but because he had diligently studied the map and knew the bridge was a few minutes away. After a long bend in the road, the first tower of the Mackinac Bridge came into view. It stood out like the work of a giant with his Erector set. Memories of the Golden Gate Bridge cascaded vividly through Mark’s mind. He did the math. Five mile bridge at forty miles per hour . . . seven and a half minutes. The accelerator got stiffer, harder to press.