by Alison Ryan
That first night we walked and walked, going from near campus all the way to Las Vegas Boulevard and from one end of the Strip to the other, never running out of things to talk about.
He was from Cork City, Ireland; a member of the UNLV soccer team. I was from Kingman, AZ; I’d never watched a soccer game in my life.
We got married the weekend after medical school graduation on the beach in Malibu. His parents, brother and two sisters all flew in from Ireland. I had plenty of friends there, but I was an only child and I’d lost both my parents to cancer while in high school. My inspiration for pursuing medicine, I suppose. My surviving grandparents weren’t up for the travel. I had two cousins make the trip, but I loved the fact that Callum’s family was large and close. They welcomed me with open arms and made me feel like I had been an O’Grady from birth.
I sat next to Odin’s bed holding his hand and I broke down. The tears trickled at first, but once the dam was broken, they poured out of my eyes. For weeks after Callum’s passing, all I did was cry. Then I’d go a day without a panic attack. A few days. Then a week. After a while, it would take something like a certain song or line in a movie that was a favorite of ours to bring the memories flooding back and make the tears start falling again.
It had been almost two years since I’d sobbed uncontrollably over him. I wasn’t sure what triggered these tears, but there was a feeling of finality to them. As if the time for mourning was past. Not that I’d ever forget Callum or ever want to, but that he was putting a hand on my shoulder to reassure me that he wanted me to be happy. To find peace. To get up and walk away from his grave and let the sun shine on my face again.
I wiped my tears away and sipped from a bottle of water to help compose myself.
Odin lay peacefully, unmoved by my blubbering. Still, when you have a moment in front of another human being like I’d just had, I think you feel the need to offer some sort of explanation.
“I’m sorry, that was so weird and ugly,” I said. “The last thing you need is me crying.”
I sat and squeezed Odin’s hand, lifting it and pressing the back of it to my cheek. It had been years since I’d recounted the story out loud or had reason to discuss it, even in part with anyone.
But if I’d truly reached a turning point in my life, I had to share, at least this final time, the story of Dr. Callum O’Grady’s passing.
So I started babbling, I’m sure, adding in all sorts of details that nobody would care about, and bringing that awful, tragic day back to life. Odin listened, as Odin was wont to do, but for the first time in our relationship, I worried that I was being selfish. That rather than being therapeutic, my words could be damaging. My job was to heal and uplift, not to crush his spirit. Once I started, however, I couldn’t stop until the tale was told.
It was a November morning, a Thursday, unseasonably warm, even for Las Vegas. I’d just come off a shift and woken up after only a few hours’ sleep to share breakfast with Callum before he left for work. Our beagle, Abner, lay on the floor with his doleful eyes awaiting any bacon that escaped our mouths.
We discussed plans for the weekend; a hike to the top of Mount Charleston with some San Diego-based friends of ours on Saturday and then brunch with them before they departed for home on Sunday afternoon.
Callum asked me if I wanted to meet him for lunch later in the day, but I begged off, knowing I’d be exhausted and in a deep sleep with Abner tucked tightly up against me in bed.
He was a clinical psychologist, with a booming practice, and he’d just taken on two new partners to help handle his caseload. He departed for work with a deep kiss that I refused to break. Between my long hours at the hospital and his own hectic schedule, it had been too long since we’d had any “fun” together, and I did everything I could to tempt him to stay and give me what my body needed. I pressed my body against his as we kissed, making my intentions clear.
“Careful, or I might just cancel my afternoon appointments and come home and have my way with you, Doctor O’Grady,” he smilingly threatened.
“Promise?” I asked, letting the robe I was wearing slip off my shoulder.
He stared at me like a hungry wolf would a defenseless rabbit. I withered under the intensity of his gaze.
“Guaran-fucking-teed. Dr. Osterman can handle my afternoon patients. I’ll bring you lunch, then you’ll be my dessert. Does Varghese Kitchen sound good?”
The mention of my favorite Indian restaurant made my stomach grumble. But even more than the food, I wanted Callum now.
I pouted and nodded my head. He took my face in his hands and kissed me powerfully. He looked so handsome in his suit. I hated to see him leave.
I watched him leave the driveway and I caught Abner giving me a glare. He was about the most jealous dog I could imagine. As much as he loved Callum, if Abner could have his way, he’d have been the only man in my life.
Once he was gone, I put the breakfast dishes in the sink and drew a bath, soaking and then shaving my legs so that I’d be completely fresh and ready for the action Callum had promised me.
Abner lay dutifully next to the tub and when I finished, he hopped up into bed, making sure I’d cleaned myself adequately by licking all over my hands and face. We fell asleep together, Abner more comfortable than I, but I didn’t have the heart to move him, since I knew that he’d be spending the afternoon locked out of the bedroom.
I set no alarm, knowing that in a few hours my man would wake me up with the best curry in Las Vegas and then the best sex on the planet. Life couldn’t be better.
At 3:36 that afternoon, I woke up because our dog was barking to be let outside.
I stared at the clock on the nightstand a long while, not comprehending where or when I was, the fog of sleep muddling my brain. I rose from bed to walk to the backdoor, hoping Abner hadn’t made a mess.
I reached for a bottle of juice and took a long swig and then it hit me; Callum should have been home. Hours ago.
I pulled my phone from the purse I’d dropped on the couch when I came home late the night before. It was so filled with text messages and missed calls that it threatened to burst. But none from my husband. Something about hostages; a shooting… none of it made any sense. I dialed Callum and it went to voicemail after the fourth ring.
I dialed up my friend from work, Nicole, not wanting to go back through and listen to the dozen new voice mails I’d received. I had to know what was happening. Nicole had sent me the first texts. She worked with me at the hospital, just across the street and a few doors down from Callum’s office building.
When she answered, it wasn’t with a hello, but with a frantic, breathless barrage of questions. “Clara, oh my God, have you heard from Callum? Is he okay? Are you okay? Have you heard anything at all?”
Fear grabbed me by both shoulders and gave me a good, hard shake.
“Nic, I’ve been asleep. I don’t know what’s happening. Callum isn’t answering his phone.”
“There was a guy at Callum’s building with a gun. A bunch of guns. He was a patient, I think, that’s what they’re saying. He went in there and stated shooting. They think he had bombs, it’s been all over the news, the entire street has been closed for a few hours now. Some people got out; I hadn’t heard Callum’s name or seen him or anything. I’m so, so sorry Clara. They’re still there. The police I mean. SWAT teams and everything. I bet Callum is hiding somewhere, keeping quiet.”
I hung up and dialed Callum’s number again. After four rings, his voice. “This is Dr. Callum O’Grady; sorry I’ve missed your call. Please leave a message.” Then a beep.
Then nothing.
I dialed again and again, ignoring Nicole on the call waiting.
I let Abner in and he climbed onto my lap as I sat cross-legged on the floor. He licked my face tenderly; not with his usual enthusiasm, but softly.
Nicole pounded on my front door until I let her in, and we drove together to the Desert Springs Medical Complex. A few blocks away, we parked in
a Wendy’s parking lot and walked the rest of the way until somebody in a uniform stopped us. I explained who I was, that my husband’s practice was on the third floor of the tower, and the officer looked at me grimly.
“Follow me,” he instructed, and we were taken to a makeshift command center in the gas station parking lot behind my husband’s building.
A sergeant met with me, a gruff older man with blue eyes and skin long ago cracked and made leather by the desert sun.
“We have an active shooter situation, Ma’am. I have men inside the building, but that’s all I can say right now. I have a list here of people who made it out, and you’re welcome to look at it, but I have an even longer list of people unaccounted for. Several people have been taken to MULV.”
I looked at Nicole, but I knew that if Callum had arrived there, that she’d know about it. She shook her head solemnly.
“There’s nothing else I can say right now, Ma’am,” the sergeant offered.
“But you’re looking for him, for my husband, right? Can’t you just go in and find him? He might be hurt! Please!” I was frantic.
“We’re doing all we can. I want to send all of my people back home to their families at the end of all this, and we’re working as safely as we can to ensure a good outcome for everyone.”
“Good outcome?” I was incredulous. “My husband could be in there bleeding to death or with a gun to his head? Some maniac is in there with bombs and guns and you want a ‘good outcome’? Fuck you! You aren’t helping! I need my husband!” I pounded on the sergeant’s barrel chest, and he let me. Nicole embraced me, and together we collapsed to the gravel underfoot. I wept bitterly. The sergeant returned his focus to his radios and his paperwork.
All I wanted to was to run inside the building. If I could save my husband, great. If I couldn’t, then hopefully the man with the guns would shoot me, too.
Without Callum, I had nothing.
I’d sat in the kitchen of a stone farmhouse in the province of Munster, County Cork, southwest Ireland when I received the call. After Callum’s funeral, I was invited by the O’Grady’s to stay and heal.
His aunt and uncle, Maggie and Seamus, had a big house and bigger hearts, and told me I could remain indefinitely.
It took the better part of two days for me to receive final confirmation that Callum had been killed, but details were scant. Bombs in the building made the going slow for the police, even with help from the FBI.
The outpouring of grief from his family, his classmates, people he’d met through soccer, work colleagues, friends from Ireland and the States and beyond, was overwhelming. Nicole watched my house for me after she returned to Las Vegas from Ireland, and she told me that the cards and letters continued, unabated, for weeks. My social media accounts were flooded.
I was lost.
My phone rang one day, Sergeant Hutton, the man I’d encountered at the scene and screamed at in my desperation. He told me he had news from the medical examiner and from his own investigation that I’d want to hear.
I apologized profusely for my actions the day of the tragedy, but Sergeant Hutton instead offered an apology of his own, telling me he was sorry that I’d had to wait like I did and that he wished he could have done something to prevent the entire tragedy.
Marvin Fenske, a retired electrician, had lost his son Nathan, a veteran with PTSD, to suicide. Unsatisfied with what the VA was doing to help, Marvin had paid out of his own pocket for Nathan to see a doctor in Callum’s building, on the fifth floor of the tower. After three visits, Nathan’s demons won out, and he hanged himself from a tree in the backyard of his childhood home.
When Marvin went to see the doctor who had been treating his son to look for answers, he was rebuffed by a receptionist, told he’d need an appointment, that the doctor was “a very busy and important man.”
Marvin Fenske went home and armed himself. He crafted pipe bombs and loaded his weapons, and three days hence, at 10:54 AM on a warm November Thursday, he and his brother, Jim, arrived at the Desert Springs Medical Complex, each carrying two duffel bags. They entered the building and identified themselves as elevator repairmen. They set about disabling both the building’s elevator cars, then barred the door to the emergency staircase in the rear of the lobby. What remained was the main staircase, going all the way to the seventh floor.
Marvin produced a gun and murdered the receptionist, then Jim gunned down two patients in the lobby, likely before any of the three had any idea what was happening.
The killers then chained the main doors shut and attached a bomb to them before returning to the stairs.
A witness reported that two doctors, upset that the elevators weren’t working and that they couldn’t reach the receptionist, came down the steps next. Marvin shot them both, killing one instantly. The other, a friend of Callum’s, was wounded but managed to drag himself into a bathroom and make the first 911 call.
Marvin and Jim Fenske methodically climbed the stairs, shooting everything that moved. By the time they reached Callum’s floor, word had spread about what was happening and panic had set in. People hid where they could, did their best to bar the doors to whatever room they were in, and prayed. Most of the victims were found in defensive postures; bullet holes through raised hands and gunshot wounds through the back or down into the head as they cowered.
A notable exception to the terror was Callum O’Grady. When news reached him, he shepherded his patients and colleagues into his own office, where he helped them to push his heavy oak desk against the locked door. That door was never breached by the Fenske brothers.
Satisfied that his people were safe, Callum climbed a chair and got into the air ducts, dropping down in the reception area of his office. He would not wait to be shot. He armed himself with a fire extinguisher and waited. The gunfire got closer and closer and when he saw the barrel of Jim Fenske’s rifle cross the threshold into his office, he swung the extinguisher with all his might. The shooter collapsed in a heap, and Callum yanked the weapon from his hand and slid it across the room. He straddled the man to hold him in place, thinking the danger was over.
Unbeknownst to him, Jim Fenske’s brother was right around the corner. By the time Callum realized his mistake, that there were, in fact, two shooters, it was too late. A hail of gunfire from Marvin’s rifle shredded Callum O’Grady’s chest.
In the midst of the tragedy, Sergeant Hutton informed me, Callum O’Grady died a hero. Among so much senseless bloodshed that day; nineteen dead and another eight wounded, not counting the two Fenske brothers, both killed by police, one man died fighting. My husband.
No one who remained on the fourth floor or above died that day. Once Jim had been injured, Marvin became unsure of how to proceed and the two of them went back to the lobby and exchanged gunfire with law enforcement.
I took a deep breath as I finished telling Odin the story. My cheeks were dry. My heart swelled with pride whenever I told anyone what Callum had done that day. At first, I battled with hating him for having to be the hero, wishing he’d just stayed in his office and lived. But over time, I came to realize that the man I’d fallen in love with, the man I’d planned to spent the rest of my life with, the man who stopped the murderous rampage, did what he had to do.
I sat silently for a moment, my knees pulled up my chest, pensive.
Tears fell, rolling and staining his cheeks. The cheeks of Odin Titan.
“Oh my God,” I said, leaping to my feet.
“Odin? Odin, can you hear me?”
He didn’t respond, but the tears were unmistakable. Somewhere in there, my story had moved Odin to tears.
I fled the room, calling for Atlas and Piper. Raven Conway and her miracle machine couldn’t arrive quickly enough.
12
Odin
I struggled and fought. Willed my muscles to obey the commands of my unclouded mind. So badly I wanted to wrap my arms around Clara, to comfort her. But the short circuit between brain and body remained. As much
as it killed me to hear Clara pour out her heart to me, I was helpless.
I remembered the shootings at the Desert Springs complex; it was national news for several days, until the next school shooting or suicide bomber, I couldn’t remember which, blew it off the front page. But I had no personal connection to that tragedy, or any other like it.
My brother, Atlas, had seen his share of war and killing, but he’d survived with stories and scars. Having such an event personalized, as Clara had done, wrecked me. It made me realize the human cost, the ruination of those left behind, the true cost of the senseless violence that shaped so many parts of our world. I wondered, if I didn’t make it, who would mourn? My father, my brothers, Raven, a handful of friends, but a man like Callum O’Grady made a difference in this world.
Beyond making money and attending red carpet events, there had to be more to life. My father’s name was emblazoned across buildings on college campuses, hospitals, and museums the world over. He’d be remembered. Atlas had a chest full of medals, even if he couldn’t display, wear, or even keep some of them due to the classified nature of his missions. He also had a baby due in just a few weeks. I had… what? A Maybach? A fancy condo? Years after I was gone, would anyone speak of me in the reverential tone that Clara used to describe her late husband?
I considered my legacy, and more than that I empathized with the pain Clara must have felt. Sweet Clara, who’d done so much to ease my suffering, to nurse me back from the brink. The pain she felt, the senseless suffering she’d endured.
Listening to the passion with which she described her late husband made me realize what I’d been missing in my own life. And gave me a goal to which I should aspire, should my brain ever decide to cooperate with my body again.
I’d been having flashes of feeling of late. I experienced the soft caress of Clara’s hand on my cheek. Atlas’s rough hands enveloping mine when he’d clasp them together and lean across my prone form to embrace me. The other day I’d even felt a little cold before Clara intuitively knew and added a light blanket to my bed.
