by Kate Ledger
“Most of this stuff could be donated,” he suggested.
“Be my guest,” she said, tossing in the last package of nipples and tying the drawstring of the bag in a knot. Then she left.
He reopened the bag and made two piles: one to give away, the other to hide away. The diapers were taken by one of his patients who knew of a new baby elsewhere in town. The other pile contained a few tiny items of clothing, a bib, the ice-blue newborn hat Caleb had worn in the hospital nursery, and a small collection of photos they’d taken during his short life. They’d only managed to arrange a few of the snapshots into albums. He stacked the prints and the books in a Tupperware tub and took them down to the basement.
Their silence eased the acuteness of the misery, but did not erase it. The effort to forget pressed on them. They made love infrequently, but with purpose, charging ahead like climbers roped together, pushing onward through a whiteout of mutual sadness. When they spoke, they fretted about the private practice at the house, but patients continued to come to him, and many seemed not to know about his personal life. Then Emily was pregnant again, and, at last, they had a tangible reason to try to be happy.
Though Charles and Lucille had retreated to the balcony, Simon could hear their occasional comments to each other, the rustle of the newspaper and the clink of glasses on the terrace table. Treading in silent, shoe-less prints across the carpet, he wandered down the hallway and into his parents’ bathroom. He found himself in front of the sink, and without thinking, yanked open the medicine cabinet. Calcium supplements. Vi sine. Multivitamins. An eyeglass repair kit. Nail clippers. Thermometer. Oil of Olay. Fleet enemas. Band-Aids. Hair gel. Mylanta. Rolaids. Advil. Motrin. Tylenol. Aspirin. He couldn’t have said what he was looking for along the glass shelves or what he hoped to find. In the hospital, holding Charles’s chart, he’d felt a power over his father he’d never felt before. In the summation of his father’s condition, the test results, the remarks from the consulting physicians, he’d felt Charles’s secrets laid bare. In the authorized trespass of medicine, he’d gained access where he’d always been forbidden, and the titrations—the white blood count, the hemato crit, the platelet count—had prompted a tenderness he’d almost never felt for Charles.
Their bedroom down the hall looked similar to the bedroom they’d had in his childhood. He felt a moment of childish familiarity to see the old green and blue quilt taut over the bed. Lucille had arranged upon it an array of multicolored pillows, like a hotel suite. Simon opened the dresser drawer to see Charles’s neatly folded boxers, his mother’s careful hand having pressed the corners square. He paused to listen for the heaving swish of the glass door to the balcony sliding in its metal track, but he heard nothing. Sitting on the bed, he inched open the drawer of the bedside table. There he found a comb, shoehorn, matches, two watches—one with a leather band, one with metal, both showing the incorrect time.
Then, in the back of the drawer, his hand landed on a small plastic Ziploc, crammed with a jumble of two-inch vials—he estimated at least twenty—each containing what appeared to be about a milliliter dose of clear liquid. A second plastic bag contained a stash of individually wrapped sterile syringes. Popping open the Ziploc, he inspected a single vial, marked with a number. The label said merely, “Active ingredient, sulmenamine . . . 2%” and below it, BOEKER. He didn’t recognize the generic drug name, and in fact felt embarrassed not to recognize a drug. But a person couldn’t be expected to know all of them, he reminded himself. His father was taking injections of some sort. Simon felt his throat tightening. He’d pored over his father’s medical chart at the hospital and had seen no mention of this particular drug. Certainly Charles and Lucille had failed to mention it. He didn’t hear the terrace door, or his father’s steps on the airy carpet, and he started when Charles appeared in the bedroom doorway.
“Now, what’s this?” Charles asked.
“I should be asking you. What’s this?” Simon held up the vial between his thumb and forefinger.
“Mine, is what it is.” He moved into the room, his long dancerlike arms reaching for the vial.
“I didn’t see it when you were in the hospital. What’s it for?”
“Anyone ever remind you to mind your own business?”
“This is my business!” Simon said, nearly shouting. “I came here to help.”
“What’s going on here?” Lucille appeared behind Charles, her voice heavy with disapproval. “Simon. How dare you raise your voice at your father like that?” She stepped into the room for a better view, and when she saw Simon next to the nightstand scolded, “Now, really.”
Charles leveled his eyes on Simon’s face. The eyes were light blue, the rims pink; the directness of the stare made Simon tremble. It was not usual for his father to look into his face. “He’s been snooping,” Charles stated.
“Are you?” she asked. “Are you, Simon?”
“What is this?” Simon demanded, holding the vial between pincer fingers.
“No manners,” Charles said with a dismissive wave of his hand, and he was done looking at Simon. “In our house for a day and he’s going through our drawers. Give him an inch and he takes a mile.”
“Can’t you tell me what it is?”
“Medication,” his mother said, holding out her hand. “For his arthritis. I’ll take it. Right here, Simon.”
Simon held his ground. “I’ve never heard of this stuff. Is his regular doctor prescribing it? What is it?”
“Simon.” Her open palm jutted forward.
“Why didn’t you tell anyone at the hospital?” he persisted.
“It’s my own damn business.”
“Don’t you get it? This could have been dangerous, not telling anyone at the hospital. You don’t know drug interactions. You don’t know what’s contraindicated. I don’t even recognize this. What is it?”
“You can tell him, Charles.”
“Hell if I will. He’s not my doctor.”
“No, I’m your son, and I’m trying to help. But you’re beyond help, aren’t you?”
“You just don’t know when to butt out.”
“It’s hard to butt out when a person you care about crashes a car. When he doesn’t have a clue how to take care of himself, yes, it’s hard to butt out. What’s this medication for?”
“Just give it back. It’s nothing.”
“Why are you taking it?”
“I’m not having this conversation.”
“Dad, what’s the medicine for?”
“I don’t have to put up with this.” With mincing, ginger steps, Charles turned past him, heading for the bathroom. “I’m getting ready for a nap now, if you don’t mind. I’ll thank you to stay out of my things.”
“The medicine, please. Simon.”
Simon deposited the vial onto his mother’s outstretched palm. She slipped it into the pocket of her sweater. He followed her to the kitchen, her turned back making clear that she was done with the interaction. She rededicated herself to an artful, systematic arrangement of the lunch dishes within the spines of the dishwasher shelf.
He stared at her curved back, the distal, disinterested hunch of her neck. “You didn’t tell anyone at the hospital.”
“We didn’t think of it.”
“Who knows, some kind of drug interaction, and you could’ve really harmed him. How’d you like that on your head?”
“I didn’t mean to. He’s just—you know how he is.”
“I know, but you should’ve known better.”
She turned to him, a dishrag bunched in her hands. “I think you should go, Simon. He needs peace and quiet, and I can take care of him.”
“I can help.”
“When’s your flight?”
“Not till late.”
She put her hand on his arm with an apologetic, patronizing nod. Her touch on his sleeve did not feel like kindness but, rather, like punctuation. “Maybe best to make it earlier.”
Gunning the gas so hard the tires scre
eched, he sped out of the condo complex minutes later, heading for the nearest Publix, a strip mall and a half away. Bounced from his own parents’ house. As he slammed the brakes in an undersized parking spot, he did not feel like himself. His thoughts whirred, and he hardly knew whether to laugh or kick the bumper of the car. One detail gave him satisfaction. In a final gesture (of spite, he couldn’t deny it) as he’d prepared to depart, he managed to steal a single vial of the mysterious drug from the hidden cache in the nightstand. Charles had disappeared into the bathroom. Lucille had stepped out onto the balcony with a watering can. Simon tiptoed back into the bedroom, and absconded with a single vial. One missing dose would probably go unnoticed, he figured. And one would be sufficient for him to put an end to the mystery.
Inside the supermarket, the pharmacist focused on the task of measuring a dispensation of white capsules and didn’t look up. “Be right with you,” he said. He was older, balding, with a mustache befitting a barber-shop quartet. When he approached the counter, Simon could tell the guy had a smarmy manner before he opened his mouth.
“What can I do you for?” he asked.
“What is this, do you know?” He held up the vial, trying not to show his exasperation. “Sulmenamine?”
“Is it yours?”
“My father’s, actually. I found it in his things.”
The pharmacist took the vial and squinted at the label. “Probably I can’t tell you anything because of patient confidentiality.”
“All I want to know is, what kind of drug is it? I’ve never heard of it. Is it for arthritis?”
“Don’t know it off the top of my head, but I can look it up.” He moved to the computer and tapped with two fingers. “Nope, nope, nope,” he murmured at the screen.
“I was just wondering if it’s a prescription you’ve filled recently.”
“Not in the computer, not in the database. And no, I can tell you this,” he said, pecking at keys, “it isn’t a drug we’ve ever filled here. Might be new on the market and we just haven’t seen it yet. I usually have information ahead of time, though. Hold on a sec.”
The pharmacist took the vial to the back of the pharmacy. Around a corner, he appeared to consult with someone else. Simon leaned to the right for a better glimpse. The second pharmacist in a white coat was gaunt with old age. The pearl-colored tuft of hair on his head had the swooping architecture of a meringue. Simon watched him turning the vial over in a cramped hand. He made his way slowly to the front counter.
“This yours?” he asked, lifting the vial.
“Do you know this drug?” Simon asked.
“I know the name. It’s an old one. Old old, like before my time. Like early twentieth century. It was used for syncope. Fainting, you know? Probably mostly in women. Fell out of use. That happens with drugs. They find something better, or they just realize it’s ineffective.”
“Fainting?” Simon echoed.
“I’m not sure how it was administered. I doubt it was by injection.”
“We don’t treat syncope,” Simon said, adding, “I’m a physician. There’s no treatment for it.”
“They did back then. Or tried to anyway. I don’t think they made much headway with this drug or it would’ve lasted. Where’d you get it?”
“My dad’s.”
“Your dad’s, eh?” the old man said. “Can’t ask him about it?”
Simon ran his hand through his hair, thinking. His father was taking a drug for vasovagal syncope? But his mother had said clearly that the medication was for arthritis. Hadn’t she said arthritis? Something for arthritis had been in the chart. Was the drug in the vial for some other condition? Lies upon lies. A heat prickled over him. How were they so generally polite but so private that you couldn’t know them at all? Emily had been right. He should have realized how well she interpreted their actions, and he should have paid attention. He’d been a bother to them always, and he was still a bother. Even worse, what they had with each other underscored everything that was wrong with his life. He longed for that rare dependence with his own wife. They proved to him what he was lacking.
“What’s the company?” the old pharmacist asked, squinting at the vial. “Boeker? They’re in Delaware, I think.”
“Thanks,” he mumbled.
The pharmacist handed the vial across the counter. “Don’t know how he got it. I do know it wasn’t sold here or in any pharmacy.”
He handed it back to Simon. The vial fit in the center of Simon’s fist, which he tucked into the pocket of his pants. He left the Publix without another word.
The two-day hiatus jammed up his Friday schedule. The waiting room was thick with anxiety, patients waiting and checking their watches, and there were not enough chairs. They perched themselves on the rocks around the koi pond. They complained to Rita about how long they’d been in the office for a scheduled appointment. Gabi and Joyce moved with exasperated gestures. They were in each other’s way in the hallway, reaching over each other to get into cabinets. Julie McKinley followed Simon breathlessly through the office. He was so preoccupied, he found himself unable to enjoy her attention, despite his determination not to regret having hired her. The word “lamentable” clung to him like plastic underwater that he could not kick away.
He had only spoken to Emily once since he’d left his parents’ apartment. In the airport, wandering around for four hours as he waited for his flight, he’d phoned her to let her know he was on his way.
“I get in at eleven thirty,” he said.
“How’s Charles?” She sounded interested. He imagined she had already begun her before-bed rituals, the moisturizer, the pumice for her heels. In fact, he thought he could hear the scraping of an emery board in the background, and he pictured the tilt of her head as she held the phone against her shoulder. Despite the coolness in her voice, he wished he were home.
“Are you in bed already?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. It’s early. Was he still feeling okay today?”
“He’s the same.”
“Well, that’s good, isn’t it?”
A rhetorical question, he decided. He couldn’t tell for certain, but he thought her voice sounded like a machine slightly overwound. He longed to tell her that he’d been right not to leave Florida early, that he’d uncovered mysteries about his father’s condition because of the fact that he’d stayed. So what, she would probably say, reprimanding. They didn’t want us in their space in the first place, so they weren’t up front about every detail. They don’t owe anybody anything. Vaguely, he hoped she might meet him at the airport, but he thought it might be too much to ask because the flight was so late.
“Jamie didn’t want to eat dinner with me,” she reported suddenly. “I even brought home that Boston Market chicken she likes. She just camped out in her room.”
“That’s her way, isn’t it?” He meant it supportively. He wished Emily were less held back as a mother, less concerned with practical details. She meant well, but he believed she’d reap more if she were more care-free. Nagging never got anywhere with a kid, at least not in the affection department. He loved his wife despite the fact that she didn’t get this fundamental fact, which seemed so obvious. “She’ll come around one of these days,” he said. “You just need to be patient.”
They swapped a few details about the calendar. She had realized there was a conference that weekend in Delaware that she wanted to attend. And then she had to get off the phone because she had to call Janet Grove, who wanted her opinion on the press kit for From on Deep, which Simon remembered was the show drenched in humanity, that apparently was going to take place after all. They hung up. By the time he made his way home, it was midnight. It was Jamie who was still awake when he entered the house. Her bedroom door was closed, but there was a band of light beneath it. She was playing the soundtrack to Titanic.
“Hey.” He poked his head into her room. “I’m back.”
Still dressed, she lay in bed on her back. In her hands, she held the lin
er notes from the CD. “Hey.”
He tried a joke. “The boat still goes down?”
She rolled her head to the side, blinked at him, unsmiling. She was a funny mix, still a kid but with the edge of someone already wounded by the world. And then she could surprise you with an innocent question. “How old do you have to be to get a job?” she asked.
“I don’t know. Sixteen? Eighteen? Why?” he asked. “You looking for work?”
“No.”
He hovered in the doorway. “Don’t you know anyone around? Like kids from school? Maybe you need to find some people, you know? Since you’re going to be home for the summer.”
“Were you serious about the wine? I went down to the basement, and I saw the stuff.”
He let himself into her room and closed the door. “Shh. Keep it down, remember.”
“Sor-ree,” she said, rolling her eyes.
“You saw it? It’s great, isn’t it?”
“You’re serious about this one?”
“All we’re waiting for are the grapes.”
“So when?”
“Few weeks from now. End of summer?” he whispered. “I don’t know when they’ll get here.”
“Fine,” she said, turning back to the liner notes.
“But what about tomorrow?” he urged. “Do you have plans?”
