Poison

by Galt Niederhoffer

  “Any number of things,” he says. “A compromise to one’s immune system, leukemia, virus, toxins. But to be honest, even I barely understand them.”

  “So it can be associated with toxins,” she says, “the ingestion of a toxic substance. Possibly a substance that is hard to detect, otherwise impossible to trace in the system.”

  The doctor pauses for a moment, looks directly at Cass, as though he is considering her statement, but it quickly becomes clear he has arrived at another thesis. “You realize that most of the symptoms you report can be caused by stress and anxiety.”

  Cass draws a sharp breath. “I’m not hysterical, Doctor,” she says. “Frankly, I find the reflex to ascribe a woman’s symptoms to stress—to psychosomatic symptoms or the imagination—to be, at best, a medical error and, at worst, a sexist compulsion. Only a woman could state her account of a crime and have it called a delusion.”

  “Then it seems you have a good understanding of the overlap of the mind and body.”

  “I get that you think I’m imagining it.” She shakes her head and sighs, but it is not despair she feels. It is terror. It’s the panic of being in a small room and watching the walls close in around her.

  “I don’t think you’re imagining it,” says the doctor. “I just don’t know what caused it.”

  Cass opens her mouth to speak but something wisely stops her. She has realized one facet of her situation is its tragic irony—the more she insists what she knows to be true, the more she is discounted. Given that the credulity of others now stands between her and her safety, it is necessary to censor herself, to silence both her facts and her indignation. Both have the power to foil the very thing she so desperately needs: assistance.

  “I’m sorry I can’t be more helpful,” he says.

  “No worries. Hopefully, I’ll stop bleeding out of my asshole.”

  The doctor gasps in quiet indignation. “If it persists, please make an appointment, and we will assess the merits of doing a colonoscopy.” He hands her a copy of her labs, a small pamphlet of papers. Cass leafs through her CBC, a seven-screen, the test for the top seven drugs and narcotics, and her heavy metals panel. Her eyes stop on two rows with the letter H. “The arsenic is high,” she says.

  “Not really,” says the doctor.

  “It says the normal range is zero to fifteen. Mine is nineteen.”

  “Hmm,” he says. “Do you eat a lot of fish? Such excellent seafood in this region.”

  Cass ignores the question. “You don’t find that odd?”

  He shrugs. “It’s a naturally occurring element in the dirt and on the seafloor. There are trace amounts in lots of things. Fish. Rice. Vegetables. Apples. Almonds. Red wine.”

  Cass nods, unconvinced. In the last week, she has barely consumed more than tea and toast.

  “Your mercury is on the high side too. That would indicate something in your diet.”

  “But I don’t eat any of those things in excess,” she says.

  “Good,” he says. He forms a patronizing smile. “Then you should be all set.”

  Cass gathers her belongings as Nora thanks the doctor.

  But the doctor has one more pearl of wisdom. “If we spend our lives avoiding every possible hazard, we might all die of starvation.”

  Cass idly considers which would be worse: starving to death or being poisoned. She leaves the doctor’s office in a state of agitation. She and Nora sit in silence all the way home from the doctor, and Cass wishes she could return to lighter concerns, like what to make for dinner. Nora focuses on the powder blue sky that has graced Portland. Cass tries to still her nausea by focusing on the air rushing through the window.

  Nora pulls over in Cass’s driveway. Cass turns to her friend.

  “Where would I be without you?” she says.

  “Locked up in a padded room somewhere?”

  Cass smiles, rolls her eyes. Thank God for Nora and gallows humor.

  As the car pulls out, she looks down to find a missed call on her phone from a blocked number. No number, no message other than a short text.

  “The item you ordered is ready.”

  * * *

  They say it takes weeks for a habit to form. Six weeks to kick a drug. Half the length of a relationship to forget a lover. That grief follows phases like the moon, from denial, to anger, to sadness, to acceptance. Whether anyone ever accepts a loss—that is a different question. All these clocks and calendars are set by culture, consensus, comparison. No such luck for Cass. She is deeply confused by the basics right now, by the geography of her home, by the route from her home to the children’s school, by right and left, by facts and falsehood, by schedules and logistics. The darkness brings all these questions to the surface.

  The car arrives, and Cass moves from her perch at the window. She leaves the room with purpose, descending the stairs without a sound, putting on an old sweater of Ryan’s, slipping on the large black boots that sit underneath the red coat hook. In this odd outfit—pajamas, boots, and a man’s sweater—she looks something like a hunter on an expedition. She pauses in the hall before she leaves to double-check the children, and then she crosses the path from the house to the curb and joins the man in the running car, slipping noiselessly into the passenger seat beside him.

  He hands her a shiny new phone.

  “This should work.”

  “Thanks,” she says.

  “Right now, just texts and emails.”

  “No way to see calls?”

  “Not right now. I would need some more time with it. Do you have his iTunes password?”

  “No, but my daughter might. She’s always buying movies.”

  “Can you get it now?”

  “She’s asleep right now.”

  “Oh, I see. I’m sorry.” He seems embarrassed by the query. “Maybe ask her in the morning.”

  She thanks him and opens the car door, hurries back inside with the new phone in her possession.

  Once inside, she places the phone on the empty space on her bed. She watches it as she falls asleep, waiting for the first text. It is almost like being with Ryan—and therefore, equally comforting and sad.

  The first text rolls across the screen. It is shocking—magical, even—like watching a butterfly burst from a cocoon. But the content brings her down. Quotidian life, once again.

  “Mr. Connor, your dry cleaning will be ready for pickup at 4:00 P.M. at the Cherry Street location.”

  She scans the room for a spot that will escape the curiosity of her children. Then she slides the phone underneath the bed, in between the mattress and the box spring. As she falls asleep, she thinks about the perks and price of prophecy. And for the first time in days, she sleeps through the night soundly.

  FOURTEEN

  Cass types two words: family and law. She assembles a list quickly, using the simplest criteria: the one with the most pleasant-sounding name (Matthews and Jeffreys are good), the one with the highest number of stars, and the ones who look the most affordable. By ten in the morning, she has contacted four adequate options, two of them named Becker. By eleven, she has spoken to two of these people. By noon, she sits in the modest office of a young man who graduated from law school after Sam was born. His office is a space he shares with an immigration agency. As a result, it is sometimes hard to hear him above sporadic shouts in Cantonese and Mandarin. She focuses on the name on his degree. Seems convincing enough: Matthew Becker.

  Marley busies the baby in the waiting room while Cass and Matthew speak in private.

  “How can I help you?” Matthew asks. His skin reminds her of the kids’ Play-Doh. He wears winter snow boots with gray pinstriped pants. His accent is thick and hard to place—Massachusetts? Jersey? His office is unadorned—no photos of loved ones or children. Stacked with messy piles of paper and a large antiquated computer. He is not the lawyer she would have imagined arguing her case in a courtroom. But until today, she did not expect to be standing in a courtroom with an adversary who was, a week ag
o, her husband. He is not the lawyer she would have chosen for herself under normal circumstances, but nothing is normal now.

  Cass summons the energy to begin, tries for the short, sweet version. Matthew puts his pen to his notepad.

  “My husband is trying to get custody of our child.”

  “Are you amenable to this?” he asks.

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because he has lost his way, and he’s prone to violence.”

  “Why do you feel this way?” asks the lawyer.

  “Because he tried to kill me.”

  The statement stops the lawyer, but to Cass’s surprise, he does not give her the now familiar look. “I’m sorry to ask you to do this, but I need you to start from the beginning.”

  Cass summons the strength to talk. It is like scraping a bloody wound with a pick, but somehow, every time she digs, the skin underneath grows more numb. When she has finished, they sit through a long pause. The lawyer looks unnerved.

  “You need to file an order of protection. And petition for sole custody.”

  “I’m not sure I’m ready for that,” she says. “He needs a shrink most of all. Psychiatric intervention.”

  “With all due respect, you have to do what’s best for you and your children. Not what’s best for him.”

  Cass nods, then shakes her head.

  “It’s going to be painful and confusing. There’s nothing I can do about that, but I can help you through the legal system. That is something I can do. We need to move quickly. We need to file a petition for custody. We need an order of protection. And we need to get the food tested.”

  Cass nods. It is a relief to be with someone who recognizes the severity of the crime and wants to see it proven. Her self-led investigation, while compelled, at first, by emotional reasons—confirmation, vindication, jealousy, even—has become necessary for practical reasons—for safety and survival. Proof precedes charges; charges yield protection. But she cannot do this on her own. She needs corroborating witnesses, data, photographic evidence. Proof of method, motive, weapon. Proof of the source, proof of purchase. In other words, the resources and manpower of a criminal investigation.

  “I agree. That’s why I saved it.”

  “Where is it now?”

  “It’s still in the fridge.”

  “We have to be very careful with it. There’s a whole process. And they’ll try to get it thrown out regardless.”

  “Sorry. I don’t follow.”

  “Chain of custody,” he says. “The rules of evidence in the courtroom. How evidence is deemed untainted and admissible in a trial.”

  Cass nods. “I thought I understood these things, but I’m learning how much I didn’t.”

  “Is there anything else you need to tell me?” he says.

  Cass pauses, weighing the wisdom of this disclosure.

  “You understand that you have privilege,” he says. “Anything you tell me in this room is strictly confidential.”

  “In my efforts to prove his crime,” she says, “I may have done something illegal.”

  He nods. “Go ahead. Tell me.”

  “My friend knew this guy.”

  “A guy,” he says.

  “He’s something of a computer specialist.”

  The lawyer understands right away. “Hacking is a felony.”

  “Does it matter if I didn’t know that?”

  “No,” he says. “Knowledge of the law has little bearing on charges against those who break it.”

  “Got it,” says Cass. She looks at her wrists, imagines them in handcuffs.

  “Did you learn anything from the specialist?” He allows this one question.

  “I’ll let you know next week.”

  This does not elicit the smile Cass hoped it might garner.

  “Tell no one else about this man, what he is doing.”

  “Should I get rid of it?” Cass says.

  The lawyer pauses. “My legal advice is yes. Dispose of it. Immediately.” Another pause. “Off the record … depends on what we can learn from it.”

  The baby’s voice precedes a knock on the door from Marley. They have run out of paper or energy or both. Matthew’s attention veers toward her, his eyes traveling from her face to her hips, from her hips back up her torso. He needs a few more minutes with Cass, so he excuses himself for a moment, leads Marley to the stash of office supplies, and sets them up in an empty conference room with paper, pens, and some cardboard boxes of copy paper, which Sam gleefully topples.

  “I’m glad you have support right now,” he says as he returns to Cass in his office.

  “That girl is superhuman,” she says. “She looks very young, but would you believe she’s actually a licensed nurse practitioner?”

  “A nurse practitioner? Really?”

  “That’s what she told me.”

  “She’s licensed to practice?”

  “I believe so.”

  “How old is she?”

  “Twenty-four, twenty-five?”

  “That’s fast for medical training.”

  “Must have started her first year in college.”

  “They can write prescriptions also.”

  Cass nods. “That could come in handy.”

  Matthew stares at Cass, fixated on something. “Why is she working in child care?” he asks.

  “She’s been through some hard times,” Cass whispers. “She’s been told she can’t have children.”

  “I see,” he says. “Sorry to hear that.” But he is stuck on something. “How much do you pay her?”

  “About $500 a week.”

  “Not bad, but there are better ways for a licensed nurse to make money.”

  Cass looks directly at Matthew, tiring of the questions. “I’d be happy to introduce you,” she says.

  “Oh no, it’s not that,” he says. “Just sort of an odd career path.”

  * * *

  Cass drives quickly from downtown to school pickup. Winter has settled on Portland. The light has bleached the red hues of fall. The clouds are low and chiseled. Silver tinsel and twinkle lights have begun their three-month occupation of storefronts and streetlights. Sam is fast asleep by the time they cross Tukey’s Bridge and enter leafy Cumberland. Cass parks at home and carries the baby in to his crib, successfully depositing him without a flinch. She whispers a quick goodbye to Marley along with a handful of instructions and then hurries to school to pick up the older children.

  A man stands on the sidewalk outside her house, directly in her path. She struggles to connect a name to the face, either because her brain is a blur or because he has not made enough of an impression to form a memory. Suddenly, memory and meaning intersect. It is her neighbor, Aaron, the self-proclaimed insomniac, the little boy’s father, the weird dad at the playground. He always seems to be coming when she’s going—or going when she’s coming. This would bother or alarm her were she not in such a rush at the moment.

  His house is the tall, graying Victorian with the peeling white shutters. Until moving to Cumberland, she thought of shrubbery and potted plants as arcane suburban status symbols. But now, as she thinks of this man’s house, she wishes he would tend to it as a courtesy to the neighborhood.

  “Hey, how are you doing?” he says.

  She has come to hate the word hey when used in this context. “I’m good,” she lies. “How’ve you been?”

  “Great.” He seems to have missed her deception. “We should get that playdate on the books.”

  His thick black eyebrows and big dark eyes exaggerate his expressions.

  “Definitely,” Cass says. “I’m just in a bit of a rush now.” She fishes her car keys out of her bag, signaling her hurry.

  “No worries. I’ll come and get you,” he says.

  She looks up quickly, startled by his word choice.

  “I’m more interesting than I look,” says Aaron.

  “I’m sure you are,” says Cass.

  “I did some cool shit in
my misguided youth.”

  Cass nods. All she wants right now is for this man to keep walking.

  “I heard about you and your husband,” he says. He seems to say this as a last resort, as though he knows this will force her to pause. “I just wanted to say I’m sorry.”

  “Thanks. I really have to go.”

  “Just let me know how I can help,” he says. “Anything at all. I could mow your lawn, cook the kids’ dinner. Just know that your neighbors are here for you.” His eyes are full of emotion.

  Cass sees this, and it affects her. And perhaps because she wants to believe, needs to believe that neighbors can be counted as friends right now, she chides herself for dismissing him and promises to schedule the playdate sooner rather than later.

  * * *

  She is only five minutes late to school pickup. The sight of her children restores her, erasing all other thoughts from her head—their enormous eyes, their clean, healthy skin, their earnest demands. As usual, they both want to go in different directions.

  “Can we go to the park?” asks Pete.

  “Can we please get ice cream?” says Alice. “I have a massive quiz tomorrow. I need energy to study.”

  And despite the chaos, the impossibility of fulfilling everyone’s immediate desire, Cass is comforted. Her love and attention is all they need; their health and happiness is all she needs for survival. They are her air and water.

  * * *

  Cass pulls up the sheets, their softness stiffened by the cold. She removes the cloned phone from her pocket, scrolls through Ryan’s correspondence. She feels no guilt for this act, only relief. This will have to suffice as a trade for their old ritual, in which they exchanged accounts of the day’s events, hand grazing arms, or toes touching toes, before falling asleep side by side in the same bed together.

  The afternoon has brought a haul of new information: an email to Ryan from his lawyer, discussing strategy, an email between Ryan and Cass. A slew of useless finds: another notice from the dry cleaner that his shirts are ready for pickup. The sludge of work emails. An ad, it seems from a pharma co, Rx.com, with an obtuse message. And then the relevant emails and these, of course, are painful.