by James Dobson
“I see,” the minister said. “And no bodily resurrection from the dead?”
“What for? The body decays. Only the spirit matters.”
“Go on,” Reverend Grandpa said, as if loosening a fishing line. “You say Augustine believed this?”
“He did. At least until he blindly accepted church dogma that condemned Manichean teachings as heresy.”
“Those nasty church dogma guys!” Reverend Grandpa seemed to suppress a smile.
“Are you mocking me?”
“Not at all, my boy. I would never—” A bouncing torso interrupted the minister’s explanation.
“You’re laughing at me!”
The old man regained his composure with a snort. “I’m sorry, son. I’m just playing with you.”
“But I’m serious!”
“I know you are.” He suppressed another laugh. “If you only knew how many times I’ve heard some version of this same nonsense.
“Jesus wasn’t God, just an exceptional man.
“Jesus didn’t rise bodily, he showed us the path to enlightenment.
“Same song, two thousandth verse!”
“Have you ever asked yourself what it would mean if the Manicheans got it right and the Church got it wrong?” asked Matthew.
“They didn’t get it right.”
Matthew thought of Dr. Vincent. “Some very smart people think they did.”
“I’m sure they do. But a lot of very smart people think and do some very dumb things.”
“But if the Manicheans were right it would make a big difference, you know, in what you need to do six months from now.”
Reverend Grandpa glowered at Matthew. “What do you mean, six months from now?”
Matthew swallowed hard at the realization he had said too much. “I didn’t mean to hear.”
“Hear what?”
“I overheard your conversation with Peter.”
“Little Pete,” he corrected. “What part of the conversation?”
“The part where you talked about money, and how you would be around for another six months.”
The old man appeared confused. “And?”
“And, well, I assumed you were depressed because you plan to”—Matthew groped for the best word—“volunteer.”
“Volunteer for what?”
“To transition. What else?”
The minister’s face turned a furious shade of red. “So you brought up all this Manichean nonsense because you thought I was planning to commit suicide?”
“Not suicide. Transition.”
“Same difference!” he barked. “Why in the world would I kill myself?”
“Well,” Matthew scrambled, “you seemed a bit depressed. And then I heard you talking about money and a change in six months. I just assumed you wanted to help your daughter and grandkids.”
The old man took a deep breath as if trying to submerge his rising ire.
“I do want to help Marissa and the kids,” he began. “I’ve sat in that room thinking about little else. But, other than going back in time”—he slapped his leg brace and pinched his oxygen tube—“there aren’t any good options.”
Matthew sensed an intense self-doubt. No, self-condemnation. That would explain the depression.
“It was an accident,” he said sympathetically.
“A stupid accident. And an avoidable accident if only I hadn’t been too stubborn and cheap to add the accident anticipation package when I bought that car.”
“Package?” Matthew wondered aloud. “I thought accident anticipation came standard on every vehicle.”
“It does now. But not in the late twenties when I bought it.”
“The twenties? Wow.”
“Vintage, my boy. Vintage. Anyway, a measly thousand dollars then would have saved us a boatload of medical costs now. Plus I could’ve kept working for at least another decade. As it is, I’m probably gonna end up living with her and the kids.”
“Is that so bad?”
“You tell me,” Reverend Grandpa said. “Would you want the burden of me if you were my child? A child, incidentally, who’s spent her whole life trying to get away from her religious nut of a father?”
Matthew held his tongue. He, too, had rejected a parent’s religion. He knew what it was like to dread and then endure days on end managing doctor appointments, medication doses, overdue bills, and bathroom mishaps. The time and expenses of caring for a sick parent strangled dreams and killed options. They had reduced Matthew from budding professor to live-in caregiver.
“Six months is how much we have left on my reverse mortgage,” he explained. “After that, no more income.”
“What happens to the house?”
“The bank will own it. I can still live here until I die, but without the monthly check I can’t afford utilities, upkeep…” He paused, glancing back toward Matthew. “Or help.”
“I see.”
“Either I’ll move in with Marissa or she and the kids will move in with me. We need to pool resources.” A faint, humorless laugh. “Correction. We’ll live off her paycheck.”
Reverend Grandpa looked around the room as if scanning a gallery of better days. “Olivia and I bought this place when she was carrying Marissa. Seems like yesterday. Three hundred and sixty payments later it was all ours.” He stopped, another reminiscent gaze sweeping over his eyes.
“How’d you lose her?” Matthew asked gingerly.
He cleared emotion from his throat. “Her ticker quit. Seventy-one years young.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Anyway, I’ve been living off the house’s equity ever since the accident.”
Matthew tried to imagine how it would feel, a proud father knowing he would soon be dependent on his little girl.
They sat silently, two men living in the wake of different misfortunes.
The elder finally spoke. “I should have listened to Olivia.”
Matthew didn’t follow.
“She wanted to give Marissa a sibling. Maybe two. I didn’t think we could afford a houseful of kids on a preacher’s salary.”
“Sounds sensible to me,” Matthew said reassuringly.
“Now I’d give anything if she had someone to share the burden. A brother maybe.”
The minister put his hand on Matthew’s shoulder like a wounded marine explaining how to disarm land mines. “Marry that girlfriend of yours, Matthew Adams.” He moved his hand back to the side table, where his fingers gently caressed the book’s leather binding. “And once you do, take some ancient advice.”
“What’s that?”
“Be fruitful and multiply.”
Matthew smiled politely. “Forgive me,” he said. “But you could leave what little is left in your estate to Marissa, Isabelle, and Peter by doing the same thing millions of others in your situation have done. Volunteer.”
“I can’t do that,” Reverend Grandpa insisted. “Never could.”
Matthew heard a hint of hesitation and saw a touch of self-doubt in his client’s eyes before they looked away. He decided to drop what was clearly an uncomfortable subject.
For now.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Tyler peered through the glass wall at three sleeping babies: two girls and a boy, judging from the colors of their caps. He knew he should think they were cute; but in all honesty, they looked a bit like misshapen aliens with oddly colored skin. Sights only their mothers could love.
Hannah Walker stood in the corner, hovering momentarily over a fourth baby, her stethoscope pressed against the child’s chest. A boy, he noticed when she shifted her stance to perform some sort of test. The child suddenly let out a raspy, quavering scream of pain or irritation. Tyler sympathized with the little guy. One minute you’re floating comfortably to the rhythmic echo of Mom’s beating heart, the next you’re being poked in the bottom by a colossal stranger with chilly hands. Next stop? Who knows? Spying for jealous lovers? Investigating obscure death threats?
“Welcome to
the asylum, kid,” he whispered through the glass. He sniffed his cup of lukewarm coffee before tossing it in a trash can next to the nursery entrance.
Hannah exited the hospital’s newborn nursery, giving Tyler a quick smile.
“Sorry about that,” she said, indicating down the hallway. “Where were we?”
“You enjoy your work?” It was more an observation than a question.
She smiled again, bigger this time. More genuine. Laugh lines formed to nearly obscure the slight scar along her lower jaw. “I really do.”
“Quite a change from your previous line of work.”
“Well, Mr. Cain, that’s about the biggest understatement I’ve heard in all my life.”
Tyler chuckled at himself. Hannah Walker had gone from helping push seniors out of this world to helping smuggle newborns in.
“It’s OK, though,” she went on. “I needed to find something positive if I was going to stay in the medical field. For over a year I kind of wallowed in self-pity after leaving New Day. This job came along, and it was serendipity.” She paused. “I have this neighbor who believes in reincarnation. And sometimes I think that maybe, just maybe, these little ones are the souls of my former clients.”
“You believe that?”
She pursed her lips with a slight shaking of the head. “No, not really. Wish I did, though. It would probably ease a bit of the guilt.”
“Guilt for what?”
Hannah stopped their advance and turned partially toward Tyler. “One thousand, four hundred and twenty-three deaths,” she said, her eyes still fixed down the hallway. “I stayed more than two years at New Day.” The words dripped with disdain.
He said nothing. They resumed their stroll, rounding a corner under a sign that read BIRTH AND DELIVERY.
“Why did you? Stay, I mean.”
She shrugged. “I don’t know, honestly. At one time I thought I did.”
A brief silence.
“At the time I think I had convinced myself I was helping heroes fulfill their destiny.” A single laugh scoffed. “It took leaving to realize.”
Tyler looked toward Hannah, waiting for the rest. Nothing came. “Realize what?” he asked.
“That I believed a lie. Wanted it to be true.”
She met Tyler’s eyes.
“No one likes to admit that about themselves, Mr. Cain. Especially when you’re still living in the lie. So you go on, swallowing back sour bile while telling yourself you’re part of some greater good.”
She glanced upward, noticing the sign that summarized her new reality. She pointed toward it. “‘Birth and Delivery,’” she read aloud. “Back then I sneered at breeders. Can you believe that? I actually made fun of the women who are helping me climb out of the pit.”
“What pit is that?” he asked curiously.
“The one I helped dig. As of this morning it was eleven hundred and sixty-four graves deep. That little boy you saw me with in the nursery moved me one closer to the surface. Only eleven hundred and sixty-three to go.”
“Sounds like a steep climb,” Tyler said, from not knowing what to say.
“Believe me,” she replied. “It’s much easier climbing up than digging down. Like I said, I love my new job. Nine months now.”
She paused, as if surprising herself with the comment.
“Nine months,” she repeated. “Kind of ironic, isn’t it?”
Tyler offered a weak smile of agreement before steering the conversation back.
“I see why you’re not a fan of NEXT Transition Services.”
She grimaced at the possibility. “Not in the least.”
“You’d be pretty happy if they lost the appeal?”
“I wouldn’t shed any tears if they lost. Other than possible tears of joy.”
“Can you think of anyone else who would benefit if NEXT lost the appeal? Other than Jeremy Santos, that is?”
“Benefit?” Hannah Walker began, but an urgent ringtone erupted from the phone stuffed in her nursing scrubs pocket. She held a brief conversation on where to be for her next patient: a baby being born by C-section in just a few minutes. She ended the call, then glanced at Tyler, quite intently. “I’m sure there are plenty who would benefit, Mr. Cain. But why do you assume the person you are dealing with is opposed to NEXT? Does it say that explicitly in the letters?”
The question confused him. Of course it does. Wait. Does it? “Why do you ask?”
“Well, I’m sure there are many who want to see NEXT lose the appeal. But others would have far more to gain if they won.”
Tyler had been so focused on Jeremy or some other lawsuit beneficiary he had barely considered the possibility. How stupid of him! Losing my edge, he thought with a sigh.
“The transition business is just that: a business. It’s about making money, and a lot of it. Certain people will go to great lengths to make a buck. And when it comes to the old and afflicted, death pays handsomely.”
“So you think it’s NEXT?”
“Maybe. Or maybe someone with more to gain than NEXT.”
“Like?”
Hannah shook her head as her phone beeped, then started down the hallway backward while finishing her thought. “I haven’t a clue. That’s for you to find out. But might I suggest you visit the clinic where I worked? See for yourself what goes on. You might find a lead or two. Goodbye, Mr. Cain.”
And with that, she scurried off.
* * *
New Day Transition Center seemed considerably smaller in person than it had in the video tour, at least from the outside. The brick exterior blended seamlessly into the surrounding establishments. It would be easy to miss unless you were looking. Probably on purpose. Despite the overall popularity of transition clinics, Tyler imagined there were still a few crazy zealots around eager to bomb the place if given half an opportunity. But here, nestled neatly between a pediatrician’s office and that of a gynecologist specializing in reproductive screening, it felt rather harmless. Tyler laughed at the grouping.
It did seem odd, though. For a business set up to make lots of money, as Hannah Walker supposed, the interior seemed rather lackluster. Tyler wasn’t even sure what he hoped to find here. He’d already seen the place, virtually, through the police recording. Maybe he needed to actually experience it for himself.
He glanced around the waiting room, where two elderly men sat with their fiftysomething children beside them. One was in a wheelchair, and the other had a canister of oxygen attached via clear plastic tubing to his nose. It was disturbingly quiet.
The receptionist smiled brightly. “Welcome to New Day, may I help you?”
Tyler was caught off guard, momentarily unsure of what to say. He glanced again at the man in the wheelchair. Probably the same age as Renee’s father, or a few years beyond. A fleeting thought crossed his mind. What it would be like to see Gerry or Katherine here, Renee holding his or her hand as they prepared to say their final goodbyes? She would never do it, of course. But the image gave him the needed reply.
“Yes,” he said, bringing his gaze back to the young woman’s. “It’s my father-in-law, really. He’s…well…”
“Oh, I understand. Hang on one moment.” She stretched to check on the clients in the waiting room, as though fearing they had escaped, then handed Tyler a series of papers. “I’ll have you meet with a counselor. In the meantime, you should read through this, making sure you, your partner, and his or her father understand everything fully.”
Tyler continued playing the part as the receptionist leafed through the first several pages of legal mumbo jumbo. She stopped on the final page.
“This is the official application. The front is just basic personal information. You know. Name, date of birth, that kind of thing. On the back is a series of questions you—I mean your father-in-law—will need to answer after meeting with one of our counselors.”
Tyler flipped the page to the back, scanning the list. On the surface they all seemed quite reasonable questions to ask onese
lf before deciding to die. But then Tyler realized how pointed some of them seemed. Like “Have you pre-identified allocation and distribution of your estate via a legal will?”
At the bottom, in barely legible fine print, was a revision number and date. It was recent, less than six months old. This was the eighth version of the form, in fact.
Ten minutes later Tyler sat on faux-wood-grained furniture across from a male counselor. A cheaply framed lithograph hung crookedly. The hint of fresh-breeze-scented air freshener wafted from a small plug-in behind the man. His nametag read LEO, probably short for Leonard.
Tyler had dutifully filled in the first page with Gerry’s personal information, but held off on the questions targeting Gerry himself. Leo glanced at the form, then leaned forward, hands prayerfully folded.
“I know this must be a difficult time,” he began.
Tyler nodded, then feigned an appreciative smile. “To be honest, I’m not even sure this is what he wants. But Renee…I mean, my wife, she’s a bit overwhelmed right now.”
“That’s to be expected. No one should have to go through the process of having to see their parents slowly deteriorate to the point that they can’t even take care of themselves. But we see it so often. And it doesn’t have to be that way.”
“But when’s the right time?”
Leo leaned back too quickly, as if checking Show compassion off a mental list. It must have seemed Tyler didn’t need convincing, just the proper motivation. “That’s the tricky part,” he said.
“Tricky?”
“Yes. See, transitions must be completely voluntary. We can’t have overburdened children making decisions on behalf of their mother or father without absolute certainty that the parent understands and agrees to the process. That’s the point of the second page. See there?”
“Yes.”
“And so, assuming your wife is in agreement, the first step will be helping your father-in-law understand what kind of burden he has become to your wife. Sometimes that takes time and a little bit of patience.”
“A little bit?”
Leo chuckled. “Or a lot. One of the volunteers sitting in our waiting room now had his first consultation nearly six months ago.”
