by Edward Lee
Ann nodded. She shuffled into the kitchen. Dr. Heyd was hanging up the phone.
“Dr. Heyd… I’m very sorry about the things I said to you. I don’t know what came over me. I didn’t mean—”
“No apology necessary, Ann,” he said. “This is a difficult time for everyone; I know what you must be going through. But you must realize the facts. The symptoms are undeniable. Your father suffered a massive orbital hemorrhage. Regrettably, no medical technology in the world can help him. There’s little anyone can do except try to make him as comfortable as possible. Your mother thinks it best that he stay here, closest to the ones he loves, in familiar surroundings.”
Dr. Heyd’s politeness, and his reason, made Ann feel even worse. What a shitheel I am, she thought. “How much time does he have? Do you think he’ll linger on like that for very long?”
“Highly unlikely. A stroke of this magnitude generally produces the same result. It’s a large hemorrhage. The hemorrhage will systematically clot, dispersing particles of coagulation into the major cerebral blood vessels. I’d say a week at the very most, though he could go at any time.”
Ann looked down at the floor. “Is there anything I can do?”
“Simply being here is the best thing you can do for him. And for your mother.”
Ann sighed quietly. Shitheel, shitheel, shitheel.
“He’ll be under constant supervision. I’ll be checking on him several times a day, and there’ll be a nurse ’round the clock. Do you remember Millicent Godwin? She’s several years younger than you, I believe.”
The name seemed familiar. High school, she thought.
“She’s a registered nurse now,” Dr. Heyd explained. “She’ll be staying at the house, to look after Josh when I’m not here. You needn’t worry. She’s quite qualified.”
“I can’t thank you enough for all you’ve done, Dr. Heyd. And, again, I’m very sorry about—”
“Think nothing of it, Ann.” He smiled and grabbed his bag. “I’ve got a house call to make right now, but I’ll see you soon.”
The doctor left. Ann craved a drink after all this, but then she remembered liquor was not kept in the house. She looked out the kitchen window. Large, gnarled trees kept the spacious backyard in shadow. Beyond the kiosk, Melanie could be seen walking through the grass with Ann’s mother.
—
Chapter 11
The top line read:
THARP, ERIK.
The second line read:
ADMITTANCE STATUS: NGRI.
And the third line:
DIAGNOSIS: Acute Schizoaffective Schizophrenia.
The standard form, Statement of Clinical Status, was dated five years ago.
PHYSICAL STATUS: The ad-mittee is a 25 year old white male. Build within ectomorphic range, 69 inches, 121 pounds.
BOARD EVALUATION, INITIAL: The patient was oriented, alert, and coherent. His motor behavior was unremarkable, his speech deliberate and monotone. His facial expression showed sadness, and he described his mood as “tired, but I’m relieved to finally be away from them.” His thought processes seemed clear though there were clear paranoid ideations. Somatic complaints included difficulty in getting to sleep and morbid dreams. The patient appeared to have a high I.Q., though his recent, past, and immediate recall were clearly impaired.
NARRATIVE SYNOPSIS: Admittee is subject to bizarre delusions highly sexual and subservient in nature. Admits to extensive CDS use during late teens and early twenties, though denies any such use within the past two years. Board concludes likelihood of PCP related receptor damage, which could explain delusion fixe and hallucinotic inferences. MMPI results indicate overly concrete abstract association and reduced multimodal creative assembly. No paranoiac or delusional tendencies, however, via MMPI results, which is curious. Patient demonstrated above average scores on Muller Urban diagnostic, which is puzzling given the nature and detail of delusions. TAT recommended prior to med therapy. Narcosynthesis is advised.
For the next hour, Dr. Harold read the narrative summation of Erik Tharp’s madness. The hospital board had evaluated him yearly. The last three narratives were fairly dull; Tharp denied the delusion outright, claimed to no longer be bothered by his nightmares, and dismissed all that had happened to him as “Craziness, I must have been crazy,” he told Dr. Greene. “I can’t believe that I believed those things, if you know what I mean.” Lying, Greene had written in the comments section of the evaluation form. Still believes delusion, just not admitting it anymore. But why would Tharp do that?
To qualify for roam status? Dr. Harold thought.
Of course, and to eventually…
“Escape,” he muttered.
It was obvious. Tharp had been planning his escape for some time.
Dr. Harold ruminated. Five years ago Erik Tharp had believed a disturbing delusion. So thereafter he lied, hoping Greene would think he was no longer possessed by the delusion and hence give him roam status.
His premeditation, even though it hadn’t fooled Greene, proved something very clear. Tharp had a preconceived motive for his elopement. He wasn’t escaping just to escape. He wanted to escape in order to do something specific. But what?
Why had Erik Tharp denied his own delusion after one year? The problem was, delusional people weren’t able to do that unless they weren’t delusional in the first place.
There’s something on the outside that he feels he needs to do. Whatever it is, it involves the original delusion, and the original delusion involves the place of his original crime.
At once, he dialed Dr. Greene. “I have some impressions for you,” he said. “I don’t think Tharp and Belluxi have fled the state, nor do I believe they plan to. I think they’re heading for the immediate area surrounding Tharp’s crime scene.”
“Because Tharp’s not cured of the demon thing even though he pretended to be?” Greene postulated.
“Yes.”
“You think the delusion is still important to him?”
“Very important. It’s the sole motive for the elopement.”
“Okay, I’ll go along with that. What else?”
“Tharp will abandon Belluxi as soon as possible.”
“Because he doesn’t need Belluxi anymore, right?”
“Right. Tharp only needed Belluxi to get off the ward, and he’s probably regretting it right now. Tharp isn’t homicidal—my guess is Belluxi’s the one doing all the killing, and Tharp doesn’t want any part of that. Tharp’s MMPIs indicate a high order of morality.”
“We’re talking about a guy who buried babies. Morality?”
“Sure. Tharp didn’t kill anyone, he just buried the bodies. But he may kill Belluxi in order to prevent more murders. That’s my guess anyway. However crude, Tharp’s TATs reveal highly focused guilt assemblies and even ethics. Plus, now Belluxi is baggage to Tharp. For every minute that Belluxi is with him, Tharp’s goals are jeopardized.”
“What do you think his goals are?” Dr. Greene asked.
“That’s anybody’s guess. Tharp believes in demons, so who knows? But you know what bothers me more than anything else?”
Dr. Greene laughed. “Tharp’s pathologically obsessed with a delusion but he’s not pathological.”
“Exactly. And that makes me wonder.”
Dr. Greene maintained his laughter. “Let me guess. You consider the existence of demons as a possible reality?”
“No but maybe the base of Tharp’s belief is real.”
“The cult, you mean?”
“Why not? I just read in Time that there are over a hundred fifty incorporated devil worship cults in the United States. I for one don’t believe in the devil but I can’t deny the reality that there are cults that worship him.”
“That’s an interesting point,” Greene remarked. “Maybe Tharp really did belong to some crackpot cult.”
“And if that’s the case, you just answered your own question. Tharp is motivated by a delusion. The delusion is motivated by a cult. Therefore�
�”
“That’s what he’s returning to,” Greene considered. “A cult. There was never an investigation because the state NGRI’d him almost immediately. The state attorney’s office was satisfied that Tharp perpetrated the murders.”
“At least it’s something for the police to go on,” Dr. Harold pointed out.
“I’m going to give them a call right now. Maybe you’re right, and even if you’re not, so what?”
“That’s the fun of clinical psychiatry, isn’t it?”
“Actually, I’m only in it for the free pens and coffee cups… Yeah, I think I’ll tell the cops to keep a real close eye on Tharp’s hometown.”
“Where is Tharp from, by the way?”
“A little town about twenty miles north of the hospital. Lockwood.”
Lockwood, Dr. Harold pondered. What a coincidence. Hadn’t Ann Slavik said she was from a town called Lockwood?
«« — »»
“I don’t know,” Ann said. “It’s just that your grandmother and I don’t always get along. We don’t always see things the same way.”
“Like you and me?” Melanie responded.
What a comeback, Ann thought. But it was proof of her innocence—the simple way in which she perceived the truth and how she associated it to herself. “Everybody has disagreements, honey. We’ll work it out, we always do.”
How honest a reply was that? In a sense, she knew she had never worked anything out with her mother. Adversity was their only common denominator. Ann Slavik had become everything in life that her mother opposed.
You’re afraid of becoming your mother, Dr. Harold’s voice haunted her again. Had she really been repressing Melanie’s perceptions all these years, by condemning her alternativism, by objecting to her friends? It was times like this that Ann wondered if she had any business being a mother at all. She would have to try harder, she knew, much harder, to give her daughter the conceptual freedom that she herself had never been allowed to have.
Melanie would be staying in the last bedroom on the east wing. It had been Ann’s room as a child. When she’d left home after high school, her mother had changed it as much as she could, “To turn it into a guest room,” she’d said, but Ann knew better. Back then her mother had felt so betrayed she’d gone out of her way to remove all reminders of Ann—a subconscious punishment. She’d gotten rid of all the furniture, and all of her things she’d left behind. She’d even changed the carpet and the wallpaper.
Ann looked out the same window she’d ruminated through so many times as a child. The backyard dimmed in early dusk. How many times had she peered through this same glass in complete misery, contemplating a future that did not include this place at all?
“Can I see Grandpa now?” Melanie asked.
“Let’s wait. He’s not conscious very often, and he’s probably very tired.” The truth was Ann was afraid. She didn’t know how to prepare Melanie for the still figure in the room at the other end of the house. Sometimes the facts of life included the facts of death. “Tomorrow, maybe,” she said.
Melanie seemed sullen. She loved her grandparents. She didn’t understand, but maybe that was the problem. Ann had never taken the time to explain the real world to her daughter. Melanie had been left to interpret it herself.
“I’m going for a walk,” Melanie said. When Ann turned, her daughter was stripped down to her underwear and was pulling on jeans.
“I don’t know, Melanie. It’s getting late.”
“This isn’t exactly New York, Mom,” Melanie observed. “I doubt if there are any drug dealers or rapists around. You think?”
Ann frowned. She couldn’t very well blame Melanie for her sarcasm. She’s had a great teacher, she thought. “Just don’t stay out too late, all right?”
“I’m only going for a walk, Mom. I’m not going to join the circus.” Melanie pulled on a T shirt that read “Cherry Red Records,” then she grabbed her Walkman. “Why don’t you come with me?”
Ann hesitated. “No, you go, honey. I’m going to straighten up our room.”
“Okay. Bye.”
Ann went down the hall to the room she and Martin had. It was on the other side of the house, across from her father’s room. Again, it was little things that bothered her, insignificant things. She didn’t want Melanie out by herself. She didn’t want Melanie to see her father in his present condition. She didn’t even like the idea of Melanie’s room being so far from her and Martin’s.
Now she felt isolated. Martin had gone out earlier. “I need some air,” he’d said. “I’m going for a drive.” Ann wished he and Melanie had gone to Paris without her; this scene was a dice of strained proximities and discomfort. It was a family matter surrounding a family that had never accepted Martin and had never been sufficiently exposed to Melanie by Ann’s own devices.
There was no sign of her mother at all. Where could she be at this hour? Perhaps Ann and her father were the only ones in the house. Down the carpeted hall, a slice of light glimmered. Dr. Heyd said that her father would have a nurse. But no one could be found when Ann stuck her head into the cramped, warmly lit room.
Only her father lay there, swaddled in covers.
He shouldn’t be here alone, she thought, but then she heard something downstairs.
In the kitchen, a figure leaned over the refrigerator, a plainly attractive woman about Ann’s height and build dressed in traditional nurse’s garb, a trim starchy white dress, white stockings, white shoes. Light brown hair had been cut short, and she looked up with very dark brown eyes.
“Hello, Ann,” she said. She removed a little bottle from the refrigerator. “You probably don’t remember me, but we went to high school together.”
“Milly Godwin,” Ann said. “Of course I remember.”
“You’re sort of a legend around here. You know, Local Girl Makes Good. Dr. Heyd probably told you, I’m the only RN in town. I’ll be looking after your dad. Your mother put me up in the room next to his.”
“I can’t thank you enough for that,” Ann said. “Just let me know your rates and I’ll write you a check.”
Milly Godwin looked slighted. She closed the refrigerator. “That won’t be necessary,” she said.
The offer probably offended her, Ann realized. She’d have to remember that this wasn’t the city; here time was not redefined in terms of money.
“We thought it best that I stay at the house, and if there are any complications I can’t handle, Dr. Heyd can be here in minutes. He has a beeper.”
“Well, again, we’re very grateful for your time.”
“I could never even begin to repay your parents for all they’ve done for me. They’re the most wonderful people, the whole town’s in debt to them. I would never have been able to go to nursing school without their help.”
What did that mean? Had her mother helped her financially? Ann thought it best not to ask.
“We’re feeding him intravenously,” Milly Godwin said, shaking the little bottle. “Most of the meds have to be refrigerated.”
Ann followed the nurse back upstairs. In the room she proficiently injected the bottle’s contents into one of the IV connections. When she looked down at Joshua Slavik, her expression remained flat.
Ann deliberately averted her eyes. It was hard for her, too, to see her father this way. Hopeless, she thought now.
“He comes to every now and then,” Milly enthusiastically remarked. “You should try to be around as much as you can.”
Ann knew what the woman was saying. The next time he comes to may be his last.
Milly could see Ann’s restrained despair. “Let’s let him rest now,” she said, and went out. “Even though he’s comatose, he shouldn’t be disturbed at night. The brain continues the normal sleep cycles. Unnecessary noise and movement can disturb him.”
“Is that what this is considered? A coma?”
“I realize it’s a scary word, but, yes, unfortunately. I’m sure Dr. Heyd has explained…” The rest fell off. Ann
didn’t need to be retold that her father was dying.
They went back downstairs. Milly poured two iced teas and took Ann out back. Potted plants hung off the enclosure over the slate patio. Peepers thrilled heavily from the woods beyond. “This is the most beautiful house in town,” Milly remarked, “and such a lovely yard. Your mother does a terrific job keeping it up.”
“Where is she, by the way?”
“Board meeting. They have several per week. The town wouldn’t run without your mother. It’d be like any other town.”
Would that be so bad? Ann wondered. “Where do you live, Milly?”
“I have a house two blocks up from the town square. It’s small but very nice.”
Ann couldn’t imagine that Milly made much money, not as an RN in Lockwood. How could she afford her own house? “What are mortgages like around here?” she strategically asked.
Milly looked at her as if shocked. “There are no mortgages. Lockwood is a collective incorporate. Didn’t you know that? Anyone who lives in the town contributes to the town. The town gave me the house, and my car too. For as long as I live here.”
Ann winced. Whatever happened to private enterprise?
“Plus, the town pays me. Fifteen thousand a year.” Milly Godwin beamed.
Ann’s firm paid more than that in overtime for their three paralegals. “Couldn’t you do a lot better somewhere else, like at a hospital. RNs start at several times that where I live.”
“Yeah, and they also pay rent, car payments, auto insurance, health insurance, and thirty percent in taxes. Lockwood pays all that for me. It’s part of the community employment plan. Besides, I wouldn’t dream of leaving Lockwood.”
“Why?”
“No crime, no drugs, no corruption and sleazy politics. No gangs and no half assed education. I’d never want my daughter growing up in all that.”
“Oh, you have a daughter?”
“Her name’s Rena, she’s fifteen.”
