Poison

by Galt Niederhoffer

  But Ryan is upon them. “Cass, what are you doing?”

  “I’m taking him to the hospital,” she says.

  “He doesn’t need a hospital.”

  Cass keeps walking. “It’s okay, sweetheart. It’s okay. Everything’s going to be okay. Do you hear me, sweetheart?”

  Pete holds on to consciousness, his eyes fluttering as Cass carries him. He lets out a rhythmic, breathy moan, as though his lungs are trying to expel whatever is in his system. He heaves and begins to convulse. Cass stops and kneels to the sand as he vomits green and yellow. “There you go, baby. Get it out.”

  A couple strolling on the beach wanders closer in the shadows. They stare, alarmed by the spectacle.

  “Do you need help?” says the woman.

  “No, thank you,” says Ryan. “Just a family issue.”

  They keep walking, chided by his tone, trying not to stare as they hurry toward the main house.

  Ryan grabs Cass by the arm. Cass flinches at his touch and wriggles out of his grasp. She nearly misses the next step but catches herself in time and holds Pete tighter.

  She is walking faster now, approaching the lobby.

  “Alice, give me the baby.” He is following her, one step behind.

  “Help!” Cass yells. “Somebody help! My son is not well! We need a doctor!”

  They are nearing the cheerful pink stucco of the main house, and the New Year’s Eve excitement is a stark contrast to the horror the Connors are living. Guests float past in cheerful attire, cheeks singed and hair yellowed, women boasting their browned cleavage, men, relaxed and clean-shaven, everyone wearing shades of blue and salmon. Chefs and waiters rush about, preparing the holiday celebration, setting the table with silverware, spruce, and candles. The kitchen door swings open, and a waft of deep, meaty air and baking bread swarms the lobby.

  Cass rushes to the front desk, approaches the female concierge. “Please call an ambulance now. My son needs to go to the hospital. It’s very, very urgent.”

  The hotel owner overhears, approaches the desk, and takes over.

  “There’s a clinic,” he says. “Come with me. We’ll get there faster if I drive you.”

  He fumbles for his keys, locates them in his pocket, and nods at a squadron of golf carts parked outside the window. “I’m ready to leave when you are.”

  Cass hurries out the main door and takes a seat in the golf cart, sitting in the passenger seat with Pete clutching her, face-to-face, like a koala. Alice follows her mother into the back seat with the baby.

  “Cass, don’t do this,” says Ryan. “You’re not thinking clearly right now.” He turns to the hotel owner. “This really isn’t necessary. We don’t want to waste your time with a false alarm. I’m afraid this kind of thing happens often.”

  “Please go,” Cass says.

  The motor is running, and Cass, Pete, Alice, and Sam begin down the dusty dirt road as though they are merely taking a joyride around the island.

  “Stop!” Ryan yells.

  The driver brakes on reflex, and Ryan, without missing a moment, grabs the baby from Alice.

  Cass has no time to react. She must distinguish between an emergency and an urgent situation. And so she allows the driver to keep his pace and watches her baby recede as they speed into the darkness. Once she has gotten help for Pete, she will come back for Sam. Once Pete and Alice are safe, she will have a better chance of escaping with the baby. She rests on one simple but chilling assurance, that while Ryan is capable of harming her, in spite of this, because of this, he will not harm their child.

  The cart pulls up to a modest house close to the main harbor. The driver stops the cart and darts to Cass’s side to help her carry Pete. With one hand, he shepherds mother and child. With the other, he takes Alice’s hand and guides her. The four walk into a clinic that looks like a small suburban home. They are greeted by a woman in nurse’s white and ushered into a larger room filled with small white beds and bottles.

  The nurse conducts a frenetic triage. “How long has he been like this?”

  “He collapsed on the beach about an hour ago. I took his pulse and it was 160.”

  Alice grabs her mother’s arm. “What’s wrong with him, Mommy?”

  “We’re trying to find that out, sweetie. Just give me a—”

  The nurse deftly unbuttons Pete’s shirt and begins to stick electrode sensors to his chest. “What hurts, hon?” she asks Pete. “Can you tell me?”

  “Head,” Pete says. “Tummy.”

  “Did he lose consciousness?” asks the nurse.

  “Almost, but not completely.”

  “Any recent injuries?”

  “No.”

  “Was he in the water earlier?”

  “Yes, but no issues.”

  “Any history of—”

  “No,” says Cass.

  “He’s very healthy,” says Alice. It is an offering and a plea.

  “He ingested something,” says Cass.

  “By mouth?”

  Here, Cass pauses. The truth has backfired too many times. She cannot risk delay or dismissal. She looks directly at the nurse. “He needs to be checked for arsenic. That’s the cause. What is the most effective antidote?”

  The nurse looks at Cass, conducts an instantaneous study. Then, moving quickly, she calls for help from another nurse, places a mask on Pete’s face, and prepares his arm for an IV. “We’ll put him on oxygen and run fluids to flush his system. There’s no antidote for arsenic, but this should help to stabilize him.”

  Pete is quickly strung up to a circuit of wires, his small chest dotted by stickers with metal nubs at the center. The wires stretch from his chest to a machine that translates the activity of his heart. Cass sits next to her child, holding his hand, stroking his head, each brush of her hand a prayer that she might take his pain as her own. His eyes are little moons with dark crescents underneath, and his pink flesh is translucent. Alice sits at her mother’s side, and Cass grasps her hand now. As she squeezes the hands of her children, she tries to impart her strength to them.

  The nurse finds a vein and injects the IV. The fluids begin their cycle.

  Cass follows her gaze to the screen. Tiny spikes dart across the screen like confused lightning. She stares at the lightning on the screen and makes a solemn prayer, the kind that only sinners make, in the absence of prior devotion, with knowledge of her own failures, promising any trade in the world in exchange for her son’s safekeeping.

  The next ten hours pass in a state of alertness and terror, feelings that have become all too familiar, as Cass sits by her son’s bed next to her sleeping daughter, who lies on a cot wheeled in by the nurses. The nurse is joined by another nurse and, soon after, a doctor. She is grateful for the kindness and competence of this modest clinic. The medical care is far purer, the method more instinctive, not filtered through the lens of potential liability and lawsuits. As a result, Pete receives better care here than Cass has in Portland. There is no doubt, no disbelief, just a concerned and competent doctor. Slowly, by the grace of God, the spikes on the screen—and Pete’s breathing—grow more stable.

  The nurse returns to take blood and sends him to the bathroom with a cup to collect urine. They will run a heavy metals panel. Unfortunately, it will take days to get the results. Even in an American hospital, this is a send-away test. Double that on a remote island.

  A thought occurs to Cass.

  “Can you test mine as well?” she asks the nurse.

  The nurse looks at her for a long moment. Then she hands her a second plastic cup.

  Cass walks into the bathroom to produce her new exhibit.

  “Cass Connor. 12/31.” Like a signature on a love note.

  Cass thinks of her mother now. She needs her help to survive this.

  She takes out her phone and steps into the hall. “Mom,” she says.

  Alice looks up. She has never heard her mother say this before.

  “Mom,” she says. “I need your help.”
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br />   “Cass,” says her mother. “Is that you?”

  “Yes,” says Cass. She leans her forehead against the wall, as though to test whether it will support her.

  “It’s New Year’s Eve, Cass.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “Where are you?”

  “I need you to come pick up the kids. Can you do that for me, Mom?”

  “You said that in your email,” she says.

  “You didn’t respond. Mom, I need your help now.”

  “I couldn’t tell if you were serious.” A pause. “Or being dramatic.”

  “I’m serious, Mom,” Cass says.

  “Where are you?” her mother asks.

  “We’re in Bermuda.”

  A long pause, during which Cass regrets the decision. This was a mistake, she decides, or will be a mistake at some point in the future. But before she can change her mind, her mother has assented.

  Cass sits awake through the night, running through her options. It seems her best choice is to divide and conquer. When it is safe for Pete to leave the clinic, she will take Alice and Pete to the airport. She will meet her mother with the kids and put all three on a flight back to New York. The kids are not safe around Ryan, and she cannot risk another minute. Once Alice and Pete are safe, she will go back for the baby. She will fly back to Portland with Ryan and Sam, return to their jurisdiction. And then, at the first opportunity, she will take Sam and their still-packed suitcase and show up at the precinct. She will stay until they listen. She will present every shred of evidence and beg them to arrest her husband. Then she will fly with Sam to New York to reunite her children. And, once they are together and safe, she will slowly begin again. Again, she will start over. It is nearing daylight when she settles on this course of action.

  By six o’clock, she has formed a plan and set it in motion. She has found the flight for her mother from New York to Bermuda. She has booked three one-way tickets to New York, using her mother’s card. She has contacted Nora and Matthew to keep them posted on her actions. She has sent them all the evidence in her possession so that there are several copies of this information. Her mother will fly from New York at seven and land at noon in Bermuda. Cass will bring Pete and Alice by ferry to the main island. They will meet at four o’clock at the airport. Her mother will greet her children, travel with them to her home in New York, and she will keep them safe until Cass comes to retrieve them.

  Now Cass must begin her performance. She must contact Ryan and convince him of her compliance. She must bait him now to take her back, just as he baited her to forgive him. She must delay his attack long enough to get Sam out of his possession. She must dangle a reward for sparing her life, an incentive for détente, a pause in the negotiation, by arriving with a wound that immunizes him against charges. This time will require a trade of sorts, an offering at the door as collateral. It will require dropping her weapon and entrusting him with something he can use against her. She must hand him her own poison pill. His very own signed retraction. An admissible exoneration. Without doing this, she will not last a night. He will have no choice but complete the attack. Her knowledge makes her too dangerous. She is as dangerous to him as he is to her. Both could end the other’s freedom.

  By dawn, Pete’s heart rate has returned to normal. The twitching in his arms and hands has abated. Cass kisses his forehead, inhales his sweet scent, and thanks good God above that her son has survived this. At nine o’clock, she leaves her sleeping children in the hospital room and walks into the hall to call Ryan.

  “Ryan,” she says, “I’ve lost myself. I don’t know what’s up and down anymore. I’m like a broken compass.”

  “How is Pete, Cass?” he says. His voice is cold and officious.

  “Stable,” Cass says.

  “I told you he was fine,” Ryan says.

  “You were right,” she says.

  “Good,” he says. That’s all he says. Ryan uses silence the way most people use words. To communicate and disable.

  “You were right,” she says. “I must have had a breakdown.”

  “Yes,” he says. “You have. Admitting this is the first step.”

  She pauses to sniffle. “I’m coming back so I can heal. Regain my health. My sanity. I’ve asked my mother to pick up Alice and Pete so they don’t have to see me like this. I’ve lost my way, Ryan.” A long pause. During this time he gauges her sincerity, her intentions.

  “Fine,” he says. His voice is still cold. He is suspicious also, but either he buys her act or sees the opportunity, a chance to immunize himself by discrediting her for good—or better yet, silence her forever. Two for one: eliminate the victim and the witness.

  “They’ll discharge us around noon,” she says, “then I’ll take the kids to my mother. I’ll see them off on their flight and be back at the hotel by dinner.”

  “Do you want me to pick you up from the clinic?”

  For a moment, she forgets herself and considers his question. But she catches herself in time. He cannot be near her children again. God knows what he could do now.

  “No,” she says. “But thank you. Take care of Sam until I get back. Give him a big kiss from me. Tell him Mommy is going to get better.”

  She hangs up the phone and returns to the room where her children are just waking.

  Slowly, as the children rise, she begins to prepare them. She presses her cheek to theirs, whispers kisses and comfort and, once they are fully alert, she looks into their eyes and tells them the plan she has made to protect them.

  “Guys,” she begins. “I have some news that will be upsetting. We’re ending our vacation early. Your grandmother is coming to pick you up and take you back with her to New York. I will stay behind for a day and fly back to Portland with Sam and Ryan tomorrow. You will stay with Gram for a couple of days, resting and playing. And when I am done, I will come for you with Sam, and we will be back together.”

  “Why?” says Alice.

  “Because I need to take care of something, and I want you two to be safe while I do it.”

  “No,” says Pete. “I don’t want to.”

  Cass takes their hands. “I know,” she says. “I understand, but it’s very important.”

  She squeezes their hands tighter. “It’s okay to feel scared right now. We went through something terrible. We went through something awful. But now you are safe, and I will do a better job of protecting you from this moment forward. Ryan has been very bad, and he will never again be near us. But I have also made mistakes. I stayed with him. I let him be near you. I should have packed up a long time ago, loaded the car with our clothes and toys, and driven us across the country. I thought I could fix this myself, but I was wrong. I didn’t understand, or I wanted to believe, and that was a mistake also. Belief is a very powerful thing. It gives people comfort. A sense of purpose. It also gives people excuses. But I don’t need belief anymore. You are my only purpose.”

  Alice and Pete are crying now. Cass fights her own tears, but the sorrow is too massive. She squeezes her children’s hands as though they are part of one electric circuit. She tries to impart her hope and strength. And the solace of survival.

  * * *

  At noon, Cass, Alice, and Pete leave the clinic for the harbor. Pete is weak. Alice is visibly shaken, but she channels her fear into her gaze, which is steady and determined. The hotel owner picks them up and drives them from the clinic to the harbor. The same small boat carries them across the bay. The same captain holds their hands as they step from the rickety dock onto the gangplank. The same water that dazzled before with its various shades of blue is now different shades of black, cover for sharks and shadows. Cass gazes at her children, their faces glowing in the sun reflected off the pink houses that fortify the harbor.

  Dale Rosen is waiting in the airport when Cass arrives with the children. The terminal is a small, humid room with twenty wooden chairs affixed to the floor and a small window with a plastic partition and a sign for coffee. Dale sits in one o
f these wooden chairs, drinking one of these coffees. She sips as though she is trying not to touch her mouth to the Styrofoam cup. Dale is a compact sergeant, surrounded by a phalanx of scarves. She peers through thin glasses that rest on her nose to greet grandchildren she has not seen since they were toddlers.

  Mother and daughter embrace, and then Dale’s grandmother’s instinct takes over as Dale moves past Cass to shower her grandchildren with affection. After hugs and the diversion of so many useful presents—colored markers for the flight, new books, and sundry trinkets—the four sit quietly in the airport, heartened by the simple safety of being with someone bound if not by unconditional love, then by genetics. At five, Dale nods at Cass, signaling the time and their imminent departure.

  A sharp breath draws pain into her chest.

  “When will you come?” Alice asks.

  “As soon as I can,” says Cass.

  “When?” Her voice is high and scared.

  Cass takes another breath. “To be honest, I don’t know. I don’t think it will be more than a week. I’ll fly home tomorrow with Sam and Ryan. And when I get home, I’ll go to the police. And they will protect us also. Then I will come for you.”

  “Will he be arrested?” Alice asks.

  “I don’t know, sweetheart. I hope so.”

  “Mommy,” says Pete. This is all he says. His eyes are big and wet.

  “Sweetheart,” she says. “I love you. Everything’s going to be okay. You’ll spend the week playing with Gram, and by the time you remember to think about me, I will be there to get you.”

  “And then what?”

  Another breath. “And then we’ll figure out what’s next. And we’ll keep going together.”

  “I’m scared,” said Alice.

  “I know, my love. What we’ve been through is scary. Now the worst is behind us.” She gathers her children onto her lap as though they are babies. “Guess what?” she says.

  “You love us,” they say.

  “Yes,” she says. “I love you.”

  They nod and smile, comforted by their favorite chorus.