The Drifter

by Susan Wiggs

  “I’m sorry to disagree with you, sir, but she is indeed.” Ah, that voice. It was starting to get to him. “Carrie takes her elixir in copious amounts several times a day, doesn’t she?”

  Jackson shrugged. “The dark stuff in the blue bottle? It’s mainly molasses, near as I can tell.”

  “It contains a great deal of morphine, which is a derivative of opium. I took the liberty of analyzing the contents. I wrote to the manufacturer and finally received confirmation of my findings.”

  The cold buzz intensified, freezing his limbs, clamoring in his ears. He remembered seeing the light on in Leah’s surgery. She’d been hard at work with her beakers and bottles and a strange blue flame, open books strewn across a table.

  “I thought the tonic helped her.”

  “It gave her the illusion of feeling better. But she’s become a slave to it.”

  He shuddered, thinking of all the times he’d brought the bottle to her. “So how bad is this stuff?”

  “Morphine is a powerful narcotic, and it’s not always bad. I administer it to patients who are suffering unbearable pain from injury or grave illness. But when a person takes too much, and does so repeatedly, the result is addiction. Unfortunately, medical texts—even recent ones—rarely mention the potential hazards of addiction. Some even advocate opiates as a way to maintain a proper equilibrium or to cure the craving for liquor. But most modern physicians believe it’s a destructive substance.”

  She made him feel ignorant and helpless. Worse, she made him feel he’d failed Carrie, that he’d been blind to what ailed her. He wanted to lash out, to hit something. He forced himself to stand there calmly. “You’re sure about this addiction?”

  “I am. Tell me, has she ever run out, ever gone without for any length of time at all?”

  “Hell, yes, she has, and she does just fine—” Jackson broke off. This woman was Carrie’s physician. Like it or not, he had to be honest with her. He stared at the floor of the porch. The wood planks were weathered and gray with age. “I don’t guess she’s ever far from a bottle of Pennysworth.” Cracking his knuckles, he dragged his gaze up to Leah’s eyes, those calm brown eyes. “So what’s it mean, Doc?”

  “An addict’s dependency will commonly increase until she thinks of nothing else. Eventually, she could suffer from malnutrition, dementia and other ailments.” Her unsmiling face was stark with honesty. “Mr. Underhill, it’s very dangerous to let her continue taking this substance. We must set her on the road to recovery without delay.”

  “Yeah, all right,” he agreed. But the ominous hum inside him wouldn’t subside. He had to have faith in Leah’s competence. He had to believe she knew what was right. “You do that, Doc.”

  She pushed away from the rail and looked out to sea. The sunlight shimmered like copper coins on the Sound, and a fresh breeze, redolent of the coming summer, skimmed across the surface.

  Just then, Adam Armstrong came around the corner of the house, Carrie holding one of his arms, Aunt Leafy the other. The ladies looked petite and doll-like in contrast to their towering companion. Carrie waved and blew a kiss in Jackson’s direction; then they continued down the sloping yard to a giant chestnut tree with a bench swing suspended from a stout branch.

  His gestures smooth and gallant, Armstrong seated the ladies in the swing and gave them a gentle push. Jackson made sure Leah was watching them. “You’re sure she’s that sick,” he said.

  “I’m afraid so. I realize that at times like this, she seems as charming and healthy as any young woman. But what would happen if she ran out of medicine?”

  He had a flash of memory—a night in Santa Fe when Carrie had run out of her tonic. She’d thrown a screaming fit, then retreated to her bed with cold chills and a look in her eyes that scared him. He remembered rousing the owner of the chemist’s shop in the middle of the night just to get more. After that, he made sure she never ran out of the stuff.

  “She doesn’t like to be without her medicine,” he said.

  “I’ve never treated an addict before. From my reading and correspondence, I understand it’s a difficult and painful treatment, and the disease is not always curable.” She turned to him, cleared her throat nervously. “I know that’s not what you wanted to hear from me and...”

  “And?” he prompted, irritation hardening his tone. “What else?”

  She regarded him steadily, her gaze impenetrable, infuriatingly so. “She absolutely must not conceive a child while she’s in this state.”

  If everything hadn’t been so goddamned awful, Jackson would have laughed. If only she knew. “We talked about this before,” he snapped. “I told you that wasn’t going to be a concern.”

  He meant it. This was one thing he could state with perfect certainty. One of the few things. In truth, he had no clear vision of what his future with Carrie would be. He’d never thought beyond the next horizon. But he did know he wouldn’t put her in danger of conceiving a baby.

  “Yes...well, I just wanted to make certain. It’s very important. The baby she lost—” She broke off, biting her lip.

  Jackson’s irritation intensified. “Just what the hell are you saying?”

  “Infants born to addicted mothers often have problems.”

  He wanted to clap his hand over her mouth, beg her to say no more. He didn’t want to hear it, didn’t want to know that somewhere there was a child who would never be, never feel the wind in his face or build a sand castle or know a father’s love....

  “There’s very little documentation,” Leah went on, nervous but relentless. “The narcotic—”

  “I get the idea.” He didn’t want to hear any more. Sweat ran down his temples as the unthinkable occurred to him. “Oh, Christ. Tell me this, Doc. Did I cause it? By giving Carrie her medicine, did I make it happen?”

  Her brown eyes softened. “Her addiction made it happen. You cannot blame yourself. An addict will find a way to her medicine regardless. The craving is that strong.”

  Feeling sick, he tugged open the top button of his collar. “Then cure her addiction. Do what you have to do.”

  “I hope you’ll remember that you said that.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “What I have to do is deprive Carrie of her medicine altogether. She’ll beg for it, Mr. Underhill. She’ll be ill—truly physically ill—without it.” She clasped her hands together nervously. “We must help her, because if she continues this way, by my estimation she could become beyond redemption.”

  “What do you mean, beyond redemption?” God, he couldn’t handle that. His whole life had been about redeeming Carrie, keeping her safe.

  “She won’t be Carrie anymore,” Leah said. “Just some creature who is a slave to the drug. I’m sorry to be blunt, but—”

  “Then fix her,” Jackson lashed out, noting with perverse satisfaction that he made her flinch. Leah, with her perfect calm and her polished shoes and her starched white apron. “You’re the goddamned doctor. You heal her.”

  * * *

  Leah knew, from the moment she told Jackson Underhill that his wife was a morphine addict, that life for all in the boardinghouse would become a living hell. But even in her wildest imaginings, she had not anticipated this.

  For the fourth night in a row, unearthly yowls issued from the room at the top of the stairs. Leah hauled herself out of bed, stuffed her feet into slippers, and shrugged on her robe as she hastened up to Carrie’s room.

  Zeke Pomfrit stood in the hall, a candle flame illuminating his cranky expression and his bent mustache. “Miss Mundy,” he said, “this racket has gone on long enough. If it continues—”

  “I’m sorry, I know this illness is difficult for everyone in the house.”

  “Difficult! Why—”

  “We’ll discuss it in the morning,” Leah said curtly. “
I have a patient to see.” She knocked at the door to Carrie’s room, though she knew her knock wouldn’t be heard. Then she stepped inside.

  Carrie sat in the middle of the bed, her alabaster throat taut as she screamed. Jackson had his arms around her, pinning her wrists to her sides. His face was pale, his mouth grim, his eyes dark with concern.

  “Carrie.” Leah focused completely on her patient. “Carrie, look at me. Carrie.” She took her face between her hands.

  “Don’t you touch me!” Carrie threw off Leah’s hands. “Jackson, get her away! She’s trying to kill me! She knows I’ll die without my medicine. I’ll die. Is that what you want, Jackson? For me to die?” She ran out of breath and started to shake.

  “Ah, honey, you know that’s not what I want. It’s not what anybody wants.” Jackson’s voice was amazingly gentle as he spoke into Carrie’s ear. She clutched at the front of his shirt, her fists twisting into the fabric.

  Leah stepped back, watching them. There was a discernable pattern to these episodes. Carrie raged madly for a while; then she subsided. But tonight she seemed different. More desperate. More determined. More filled with hate as she glared at Leah. She resembled a small child hanging on to Jackson for dear life. But the eyes she raised to Leah were anything but childlike.

  “You want Jackson, don’t you?” she said.

  Leah was so startled that she could only say, “What?”

  Jackson spoke at the same time. “What?”

  “You want Jackson. Women always do. They always have. But you want him so much you’ll kill me in order to have him.”

  Leah’s cheeks flamed. She couldn’t help herself; she thought of that day on the boat when his touch had almost felt like an embrace. She remembered his heat, the timbre of his voice close to her ear, remembered the way the ache of loneliness seemed less fierce when she was with him. She struggled to force the thought from her mind.

  “I am your doctor,” she said. “I have no interest in your husband beyond the interest I have in you as a patient.”

  “Liar.” Carrie began to rock back and forth. “Liar, liar, liar.” Sweat broke out on her ashen brow, and she shivered, still clinging to Jackson. “Please, please, please get me my tonic. Just a tiny drink, Jackson. Just one little swallow. I’ll be all better after that. I promise you. All better. Then everyone can go to sleep.” She sounded so pitiful. Her request seemed so reasonable.

  He glanced up at Leah. It was the look she expected, the look she dreaded. He wanted to give in to Carrie.

  “She’s in hell,” he said in a low voice. “Where’s the harm in a spoonful? One single spoonful. Just enough to calm her down so she can sleep.” He nodded meaningfully toward the outer hall. “So we all can sleep.”

  Carrie stopped rocking. She held her breath, waiting.

  “No, Mr. Underhill.” Leah turned to meet the burning eyes of her patient. “Carrie, if you take the tonic now, you’ll feel better for a very short time. But then you’ll only have to start this treatment all over again.”

  “I never asked for your damned-to-hell treatment in the first place!” Carrie clawed at the bedclothes. “You’re killing me! Jackson, oh, Jackson, please. Don’t let her kill me. I’m so sick. It hurts so much.”

  “Honey, Dr. Mundy says you have to get it all out of your system.”

  “You promised.” Accusation glowed in her eyes. “Way back at St. I’s you promised to protect me.”

  “I know, Carrie, but—”

  “You’re breaking your promise, Jackson.”

  Leah could see the battle in his eyes. She understood that he was a man who didn’t make promises lightly, didn’t break them willingly.

  He snarled at her. “Your treatment is worse than the sickness.”

  “Don’t let yourself believe that, Mr. Underhill.”

  “Not one thing you’ve done is working. Why the hell should I trust you? All we’ve done is torture her. For the love of God, let her have just a little.”

  “One spoonful will produce a false calm. Then the craving will come back, but stronger,” Leah said, “harder to fight.”

  “She hates me,” Carrie wailed. “She hates me and wants to do away with me.” She caressed her husband’s shoulders, her manner suddenly fawning. “Get the medicine, Jackson. Or get the sort the doctor keeps for herself. I know where she puts it. I’ve seen where she puts it. There’s a locked cabinet in the office. She let me see it once to torment me. Get it, Jackson. Please!”

  Leah was shocked that Carrie knew of the medical locker in the surgery. She’d never shown it to her. But according to the literature, addicts were unfailingly sly and clever in discovering ways to find their narcotics.

  “Hush, honey.” Jackson’s big hand cradled her head, fingers threading into her silky hair. Carrie couldn’t see his face, but Leah could. She saw the lines of strain fanning out from his eyes and mouth, the bleak color of sleeplessness under his eyes, the twist of agony on his lips as he said, “It’ll be all right. Hush... Think of something else, Carrie. Think of the place we always talk about.”

  “Paradise,” she whispered, her hands clenching and unclenching. “Tell me about it again, Jackson. Tell me about paradise.”

  “Warm breezes,” he whispered in her ear, “waterfalls and beaches with sand like white sugar, all the sweet oranges you can eat. Music and dancing every night...”

  “I’d like that.” Carrie sighed against his chest. “The warm breezes and the music.”

  Leah felt a lump in her throat. They were both in such pain, these two, and it was a pain only time and abstinence would heal. She so wanted to help them. Then a terrible inner voice whispered the truth in her ear: She wanted this sort of devotion for herself. She wanted to matter to someone as much as Carrie mattered to Jackson.

  When he finished the story, Carrie lifted her face to his. Leah looked away, not wanting to intrude on the private moment. But they didn’t kiss.

  “Jackson,” said Carrie, “we’ll never find that place if you keep my medicine from me.”

  The story hadn’t scratched the surface of her craving after all. Disappointed—even more for Jackson than for herself—Leah said, “You must be strong. Each moment you pass without the morphine is a moment closer to the time you no longer need it.”

  Carrie reared back from Jackson’s embrace. “Get out!” She picked up a drinking glass and hurled it at Leah. “Get out of this room. I don’t want to see you anymore. I wish you’d burn in hell. Get out! Get out!”

  Leah ducked as the glass flew past her and shattered on the floor. She almost flinched at the accusation she saw in Jackson’s eyes. He thought she was hurting his wife. He hated her for it. She shouldn’t care, but she did.

  You want Jackson. Women always do.

  Carrie’s words haunted her as she trudged back to her room to lie sleepless in the dark until the screaming stopped.

  * * *

  Once Carrie was quiet, Jackson stole out onto the front porch to have a smoke and try to escape the echo of her screams in his ears. He sat on the steps, letting the night enclose him, losing himself in the chorus of chirping frogs and the scent of the sea. Christ, when would this be over?

  He heard a noise behind him. Leah pushed open the door. Unaware of Jackson’s presence, she came out, stretched, then leaned against the wall, looking dead weary. “God, I can’t do this alone,” she whispered to the stars.

  Jackson tossed away his smoke. “You don’t have to.”

  “Oh!” She pressed her hand to her chest. “Mr. Underhill. I didn’t see you there.”

  “You’re not doing this alone,” he said, keeping his voice low. “I’m trying to keep up with all the things you said—encourage her, get her mind on other things. But sometimes nothing works.”

  “I know,” she said in a small voice. “And I do so
want something to work. It’s...what I am. What I’m about. Making things better. When I fail...” Her voice trailed off into a sigh. She looked small and alone to him just then. Not helpless, but like someone in pain. Someone he wanted to know better.

  He patted the step beside him. “Sit down, Doc.”

  She hesitated, then joined him, leaning against the newel post and facing him. “It’s hard for me to sleep after these episodes.”

  “Me, too.”

  “I shouldn’t complain to you. It’s you who bears the brunt of her fury.”

  “She hates me,” he said, feeling oddly objective about the fact.

  “No,” Leah said quickly. “The hunger for the drug makes her say things the real Carrie would never say.”

  Jackson recalled Carrie’s wild accusation: You want Jackson. Women always do. It would be funny if it wasn’t so outlandish. All Leah Mundy wanted from him was—what did she want? When was the last time anyone had asked her?

  Her shoulders looked tense. He thought about offering to rub them and soothe her burning muscles, but he talked himself out of it. Touching this woman wouldn’t be right—because it wouldn’t just be an impersonal touch.

  “Is there a story behind that tattoo?” she asked, leaning toward him.

  He angled his forearm so the moonlight illuminated the tattoo. “It’s a mermaid.”

  “How...interesting.”

  “I thought so at the time. But it was a long time ago.” He laughed without humor. The whaler had made port at Rio de Janeiro, and he’d lost his heart to a soft-eyed girl called Dolores. But as it turned out, his heart was worth only three days of her time. “A present from a lady to a stupid young man.”

  “Now that truly is interesting—”

  “Dr. Mundy!” A boy on a horse galloped up the drive.