Gilchrist: A Novel

by Christian Galacar

  Carlson smiled modestly. “Thank you.”

  Sylvia slid to the edge of her seat and set her purse on the floor. Her legs were crossed at the ankles, her posture stiff. There was something noble about the pose. She looked like a person prepared to face a firing squad, at peace with whatever was coming her way.

  “So…” Dr. Carlson closed the file and leaned forward on his elbows. He rubbed his hands together dourly, his face sobering. “Let’s get right to it. I have both good news and bad. The good news is I can find absolutely nothing wrong with either of you. We’ll get that out of the way. You’re healthy.”

  Peter touched Sylvia’s arm and smiled. She looked at him, but her face didn’t match his spirits. “What’s the bad news?” she asked Carlson.

  He sighed. “Well, that’s just it. The bad news is the same. I can’t find anything wrong. By all medical standards—according to all the tests we’ve run—you and your husband should be perfectly capable of having another child.”

  Sylvia deflated with a huff and fell back in her chair. It was almost as if she’d wanted there to be something wrong because at least then she would have a definitive answer—a target at which to aim her frustration. “But we’ve been trying for over a year now. There has to be something wrong.”

  Peter looked at his wife. “You heard Dr. Carlson, the tests said we’re fine. Maybe it’s just going to take some more time.”

  Sylvia closed her eyes, clenched her jaw hard enough to ripple the soft sides of her face.

  “Well, no, I didn’t say that everything was fine,” Carlson said, holding up a hand. “What I said was that I can’t find anything wrong with either of you. An absence of evidence doesn’t mean there isn’t something we simply cannot find. Infertility is an area of medicine that is still quite new, and often the cause is idiopathic. The science and research simply isn’t there yet.”

  “Infertile?” It seemed to be the only word she’d heard, the one for which she’d—they’d both—been waiting. Sylvia was at the edge of her seat again. “Is that what you just said? Infertile?” she repeated.

  “How do you know that?” Peter said. “It doesn’t make sense. We had a baby three years ago, and it was never a problem then.” He looked over at the globe. He thought of the coast of Africa and how his finger had landed and stopped the world spinning.

  Sylvia reached over and put her hand in Peter’s, bringing his attention back.

  Carlson crossed his arms on his desk. His eyes were emotionless and steady. He was a man doing a job. “Medically speaking, after a year of trying without success, we will generally diagnose the cause of failed conception—provided you are actively trying—as a fertility issue. It can be a problem in both men and women. And as in your case, where you both appear to be healthy, it can simply be an unexplained reason. Medicine isn’t an exact science. I know this isn’t easy. But you need to understand that I am not telling you that you’ll never be able to have another child. Not at all. Fertility is an area of medicine where so much is still unknown. We get it wrong sometimes. It’s just the nature of it. People absolutely still conceive children after attempting for much longer periods of time than a year, and the reasons for the difficulty are often never known. This time next year, you could very well be parents again.”

  Peter shook his head and opened his mouth to say something, but his wife beat him to it. “So what next? You’re saying you think it’s a fertility issue with one of us, or both of us, or… or—”

  “Yes, or neither of you,” Carlson said, finishing Sylvia’s thought. “That’s what I’m saying. I sincerely do wish I could offer the two of you something more concrete—vague answers, I’m sure, aren’t what you were hoping for—but at this time, we have to work with what we know. In this case, you’re both young, healthy adults, but you’re having a difficult go of getting pregnant. Your position is hardly unique, although I understand that doesn’t make it any less frustrating.”

  “What do you recommend we do?” Sylvia asked. “I don’t want to give up.”

  “And you shouldn’t.” Carlson’s up-shifting tone suggested he was about to make his closing point. “I would advise you to keep trying like you’ve been doing. The only way to guarantee you won’t get pregnant is to stop attempting altogether. And there’s a lot of research currently being done in the area of hormone treatment, which is something that might be an available option in the near future. I’m not able to say when—or even if—for sure. But it can be comforting to know that new advancements in medicine are made every day.”

  Sylvia nodded as if she’d decided something. “Okay.” She blinked twice, both times hard enough to wrinkle her nose. It was another tic of hers—one Peter thought was cute. “Okay… okay.” Her finger picked at the side of her thumb. It was starting to bleed.

  Peter looked curiously at his wife. “Are you all right?”

  Sylvia smiled a plastic smile. “I’m fine. Yes. We’ll just have to keep trying. That’s all. Dr. Carlson is right. We shouldn’t lose hope.” She faced her husband, met his eyes briefly, then looked down and picked up her purse. She set it in her lap and sat straight and proper, hands clasping the straps of her bag. She was done here, had heard all she needed. “We won’t give up.”

  Peter nodded blankly, unable to find anything suitable to say.

  Carlson filled the dead air. “And if you do decide to continue trying, I’d recommend making a follow-up appointment for three months from now, just to see how things are going. You can schedule it with Wendy at reception.”

  “Okay. We’ll do that,” Sylvia said. “Is there anything more?”

  “Not unless you have any questions,” Carlson said. “I’d be happy to answer any you or your husband have. And consider that a standing offer. If you should think of something tomorrow, or even next week, don’t hesitate to call.”

  They had nothing more to ask.

  3

  Sylvia stared out the window as Peter drove home. He fiddled with the dial on the radio but couldn’t find anything he wanted to listen to and eventually shut it off. They rode in silence, until they turned off Route 2 and onto the main strip of downtown Concord.

  “I’m sorry,” Sylvia said, cutting the stillness inside the car.

  “For what?” Peter asked as he pulled onto a narrow street that fed into a small shopping plaza, and parked in a space in front of the liquor store. He put the car in park and looked up at the sign hanging from the brick building: CONCORD WINE AND SPIRITS. Below that, in cursive: “Est. 1944, Concord, Massachusetts.”

  “I don’t know. I just felt like I should say that.”

  “Want to talk about it?”

  Sylvia pressed the edge of a finger under her eye, catching a tear before it could track through her makeup. Then her lower lip trembled, and it was all coming up. “I miss Noah. I miss him so much. And I feel like we’re being punished for what happened to him. Like we don’t deserve a second chance.”

  “Oh, hey, that’s not true at all. No one’s punishing us. We did nothing wrong. It was an accident. A horrible accident, that’s all.”

  “I’m such a bad person.” Sylvia glanced at Peter with a shameful look in her eyes.

  “No you’re not. Why would you say such a thing?”

  “Because.”

  “Because what?”

  “Because it’s not your fault. I know that. None of this is,” she said. “But I find myself blaming you sometimes. Even though I know you’re trying as best you can.”

  Her words felt like a slap, but Peter understood it and bit his tongue. Instead, he leaned over and put his arm around her. He didn’t know whether he was legitimately trying to console her or if he just didn’t want to have to hear her cry. He was sick of tears.

  “It’s not as bad as you think,” he said. “And you’ve never blamed me. I’ve never felt that way, at least.”

  “Yes, I have. Maybe I’ve never said it, but I can feel the way I act toward you. And sometimes I do think it outright. S
ometimes I think it was stupid that you insisted on writing with your door closed. Maybe if you’d kept it open, you might’ve heard something sooner. And I blame you for that.” She broke down sobbing, her hands covering her face. “And I blame myself. It was such a waste.”

  A car pulled up beside them, and a man and a woman got out and went toward the store. Peter watched them for a moment. He watched them smiling at each other, happy and excited about whatever they were discussing. Maybe a great future was still waiting for them—one without tears, endless doctor’s visits, and funerals with small caskets. They had to be about the same age as he and Sylvia. The man held the door for the woman, and he followed her. The faint jingle of the entrance bells filtered into the car.

  “It’s okay. I know this is hard. But you heard what the doctor said—we’re perfectly healthy. That’s a good thing. There’s nothing wrong with me, and there’s nothing wrong with you.” He rubbed his wife’s back rhythmically as he spoke, as if he were trying to hypnotize her. And perhaps he was.

  “I don’t want to do dinner tonight. I’m cancelling,” Sylvia said. “I’ll call Evelyn when we get home.”

  Peter was actually relieved to hear her say that, but he had to give at least one show of effort; he didn’t want to seem too eager. “Are you sure? Maybe you’ll feel better when we get home. I’ll go in here, get some wine, and we’ll have a few drinks and put today behind us. What do you say? Maybe that will change your mind.”

  Sylvia pushed herself up and wiped her eyes. “I just want to go to bed.” She pulled a tissue from her purse and dabbed her red-rimmed eyes.

  “Bed?” Peter checked his watch. “It’s not even five o’clock. Don’t you think maybe—”

  “I know what time it is. I just don’t want to think about anything anymore. I’m tired, Peter. I’m just tired.”

  “Okay. Say no more. I understand. Just let me run in real quick, and we’ll go home. I actually wouldn’t mind a quiet night. I have to be in Boston tomorrow morning to meet with the publisher about foreign rights stuff.”

  “All right,” Sylvia said.

  Peter regarded her. God knew he had seen her sad since their son died, but something had changed. She looked broken, and all he wanted to do was fix her. That was all he had ever wanted to do—to fix them, to get them back to normal. But the damage seemed such an impossible thing to mend.

  Sylvia was looking straight ahead at the brick wall of the building, wringing the wadded piece of tissue in her hands. It was covered in little dots of blood from the raw flesh on her thumb. Her knuckles were white with strain, her eyes unblinking.

  He opened the door and swung his legs out with a long sigh. “I’ll be right back. You want anything?”

  “No, thank you.”

  Peter got out and shut the door. He stood outside the car for a moment. The heat from the engine drifted up from the undercarriage, carrying with it the smell of rich exhaust and asphalt. It was a summer smell that only seemed to exist on hot days. And it was hot. He ran his finger around the inside of his collar and looked around the parking lot. It was a strange kind of desert. Desolation in the middle of a bustling town.

  He removed his jacket, opened the back door, and tossed it on the seat. He watched Sylvia take a small pillbox from her purse and finger out one of her Equanil. The tranquilizers might’ve been the glue keeping their marriage together. Over the last few months, she had worked herself onto a steady schedule of the drug: one every morning with her coffee; one at night before dinner; two an hour before sex (or as she always referred to it: “trying to conceive”); and a few here and there when needed, just for good measure and to keep the anxiety from creeping in.

  Sylvia popped the little pill in her mouth, jerked her head back, and swallowed. Then she went back to staring vacantly ahead.

  Peter watched her a moment longer, a sinking feeling in his heart. He wanted to tell her he loved her and that everything would be all right. But at that exact point in time, he wasn’t so sure he believed it. Sometimes things weren’t fine. Sometimes the broken thing stayed broken until it was thrown away.

  He shut the door and went inside.

  4

  Peter was having a dream. He was kneeling, bent down, and looking at an elderly reflection of himself in a river. When he focused on the constant burbling of moving water, the sound seemed to wax and wane, becoming a rhythm, as if the water itself were breathing. He broke away from his reflection and looked around the sad landscape. An ominous red sky cast a sick light over everything. In the distance, a dilapidated church stood in the middle of an empty field that looked scorched. He went to it. The doors were open, and he could see inside. The pews were covered in blood.

  Something moved behind him. Many somethings. He turned around. They were pouring out of the ground like black ropes of oil. But the ropes had eyes. And the ropes slithered. And the ropes had teeth. They were all whispering, and it was one word hissed over and over again: Gilllchrissst… Gilllchrissst… Gilllchrissst…

  One snaked across the back of Peter’s calf, latched on to him, and bit. He looked down and the ground was covered with them. He tried to scream, but no sound would come.

  He awoke.

  Sylvia was snoring when Peter opened his eyes. He caught his breath and picked his watch up off the nightstand: 3:27 a.m. He sat up, drenched in sweat, and searched around the floor with his toes until he found his slippers. A twinge of fear needled his mind as he thought of his foot touching something slick and slithery below, but he wasn’t sure what that something was exactly. The dream was already disintegrating and taking on a lost and distant feeling like a fading echo. It left behind only its disquiet, not its details.

  He went to the bathroom. He needed water. His mouth tasted like a New York drain gutter. He hadn’t intended to get drunk when they had returned home, but after Sylvia had popped a few extra Equanil and followed through on her promise to go to bed early, he had decided to have a drink or two while he did a little writing on his new book. But as was often the case, one or two drinks became the whole bottle. Then after the bottle was gone, it became whatever else was in the house.

  He bent over the sink and drank directly from the faucet, lapping the cold water like a greedy dog, each sip feeling somehow purgative. He straightened and looked at himself in the mirror. To spare his eyes, he hadn’t turned on the light, but he could still see his reflection. He looked worn out. A hint of something familiar touched him, but it was too faint, and he was too tired to grasp the connection to his dream.

  Peter went back to the bedroom and stood at the foot of their bed. He watched Sylvia sleep. She snorted, cleared her throat, and rolled over on her back, kicking her leg out from under the covers. She threw her arm over her head, her hair somehow remaining perfectly neat. She really was a beautiful woman.

  Five minutes passed. Maybe ten. The house was so silent, so still. Memories of their happier past seemed to have real volume when he replayed them in his mind at this hour, as if he could reach out and touch them. But behind it all, looming overhead like a storm cloud, was a very real thought. All he could think about was how easy it would be to pack a bag, leave, and never come back. Walk away from it all. That might be the only way either of them could ever have any sort of good life again. Death had hardened the soil of their hearts, and now no new love could grow.

  The thought sickened him, and a surge of guilt rose up in him for even having it. He would never leave her. He loved her, and they would make it through this together. They would ride it out, no matter what.

  That’s right, he thought. No matter what.

  Peter got back into bed, but he didn’t sleep.

  Chapter Two

  DALE’S DELIGHT

  1

  Peter saw the highway sign when he was seven miles from home. He’d driven that stretch of Route 2 between Boston and Concord at least a hundred times and had never noticed it before. Perhaps because it wasn’t the type of thing you did or did not notice, he thought
, not when you’ve seen it so many times that it’s become part of your landscape. Not when you already know the way. You don’t read the signs when you already know the way, do you?

  In bold white lettering over the bright-green background, the sign read CONCORD 7, LEOMINSTER 30, GILCHRIST 48.

  Gilchrist, he thought. Something had said Gilchrist. Something had…

  And there it clicked. All at once, the dream resurfaced like a thunderclap in his head, and he remembered it all: the old church, the red sky, his aged reflection staring up at him from the water, and the black snakes that had oozed like tubes of oil and slithered over his leg.

  Gilllchrissst… Gilllchrissst… Gilllchrissst…

  Peter shivered, and his skin broke out in fat bumps of gooseflesh despite the sweltering heat inside his car. He had always been a vivid dreamer, but he hadn’t dreamed one that bizarre in a long time, and somehow, this one felt a little too close for comfort.

  A car honked behind him, breaking his concentration. He glanced down at the speedometer. He had dropped to almost forty miles per hour. The speed limit along that stretch of road was a posted fifty-five.

  “Pass me if you don’t like my driving,” he said, pressing his foot down on the accelerator. “There are two damn lanes. What’re you honking for, jerk?”

  The white Chevy Impala put on its blinker, changed lanes, and sped around him. Peter checked as the car went by. The driver, a bald man holding on to wispy patches of gray along the sides, scowled at him and shook his head.

  “Yeah, yeah… sorry, pal.” Peter waved a half-hearted apology as the man went by, offering a sarcastic, apologetic smile. Baldy didn’t seem to care for it. He flipped Peter the middle finger, and soon after, Peter was looking at the Impala’s rear bumper pulling away up the road. If this were another time, if he were ten years younger, he might’ve tried to mess with the guy, see if he could goad him into a race, but those days were behind him. Besides, the slant-six under the hood of his Dodge Dart wouldn’t stand a chance against the monster V8 the Impala was probably packing.