Good Medicine

by Bobby Hutchinson

  Jordan made the call to the Tofino hospital, and was assured by the attending physician, Doctor Magrath, that they’d be expecting Patwin and that as soon as the tests were completed, Jordan would be notified.

  Back in the examination room, Patwin was quiet, his eyes closed. His breathing was still erratic and obviously painful, but the morphine had calmed him.

  Jordan took his hand in hers. When he looked up at her, she explained that Silas would accompany him to Tofino, and added that she could request he be taken to Nanaimo for psychiatric assessment.

  Patwin was obviously disturbed by that. He tried to say something but grimaced in pain. His eyes were bloodred now, and dark bruises were beginning to pocket beneath them.

  Jordan quickly explained about Silas and the no-harm commitment, and Patwin wriggled his fingers as if writing in the air. Christina brought a pen and a pad; Jordan scribbled a promise and released the restraints enough so that Patwin could scrawl his name.

  Following the ambulance attendants, they made their way to the school’s playing field where the helicopter was already waiting.

  A crowd had gathered, silent as Rose Marie kissed Patwin. Peter bent and pressed his lips to his son’s forehead, and when her turn came Christina bent over him.

  Jordan heard her say, “You bloody fool. Do you think I changed your diapers and babysat just so you could go and do something like this? I’d like to kill you myself, you damned idiot.” Her tears dripped down on her brother’s face. “I love you, we all love you, don’t you know that?”

  Patwin was still strapped on the C-board. He couldn’t hide the tears that rolled from the corners of his eyes and dripped into his hair. His hands were strapped down, but his fingers were free. He lifted one to Christina in a silent salute as the stretcher was carefully loaded on the helicopter.

  “I’ll take care of him,” Silas promised his mother, giving her a hard hug. He did the same to Christina, then he and his stepfather clasped hands. Turning to Jordan, he put both hands on her shoulders. “I’ll call you later tonight and let you know what’s happening.” And in a quick featherlight caress that took her by surprise, he bent and touched her lips with his. Then he climbed into the helicopter beside the pilot.

  Jordan was stunned. In front of his family and probably half the village, Silas had made a statement about their relationship. If they hadn’t guessed already, they certainly knew now. She should have been furious with him, but instead his gesture touched her heart.

  They all watched the helicopter lift steeply up and turn toward Tofino, where an ambulance would be waiting.

  Rose Marie came over and put her arms around Jordan, giving her a hug. “Thank you for helping my son.” She threaded her fingers through Jordan’s. “Come and have something to eat with us now, okay? Food always helps at a time like this.”

  “Yeah, Jordan,” Christina seconded. “Come home with us for a while.”

  Jordan, who’d been looking forward to going to her apartment, shutting the door and taking quiet time to assess the various events of the day, opened her mouth to refuse. It was late, and now that the crisis was over, she felt drained.

  But the expression on Rose Marie’s face stopped her. The older woman needed reassurance, and Jordan guessed that maybe she needed to talk about her son.

  She smiled at them and said, “Thanks, I’d like that.”

  Jordan had stopped being surprised at the way food appeared in an emergency in Ahousaht. When she and the family trooped into the Crows’ house, it was almost ten, but two neighborly women were in the kitchen, taking hot biscuits out of the oven and putting freshly baked salmon on a tray. On the table were mashed potatoes, salad and crumb cake.

  With a few words of comfort, the women slipped away, leaving Jordan and the Crow family to eat the food.

  No one had much of an appetite, though. Peter filled his plate and then set down his fork.

  “I keep thinking, what if I hadn’t needed that damned socket for the spark plug.” His kind, scarred face, usually smiling, was pale and grim.

  Rose Marie wasn’t eating, either. “I’d gone over to Auntie’s, it was our evening for sewing circle. I didn’t even know Patwin was home. He hasn’t been around much these past few days.”

  “Dumb-ass idiot.” Christina was still angry. She jabbed viciously at a biscuit, breaking it into crumbs. “He got better marks than I did in school—he won every scholarship award there was before he got mixed up with a bad crowd. He could have been anything he wanted—doctor, lawyer, teacher…. But instead he quit school in grade ten. It’s one disaster after another with him. And now he goes and tries this.” She burst into tears. “I still can’t believe he’d do a thing like this.”

  Jordan reached over and drew Christina into her arms. “It’s such a scary thing when someone tries to take their own life.”

  “Did you see many attempted suicides, when you were working at the E.R.?” Rose Marie asked.

  “Yes, unfortunately we did.” Jordan didn’t add that many survivors ended up severely damaged. “Like I said, it’s a cry for help, and the great thing here is that I think Patwin came out of it without serious side effects. And he’s going to get help. If he won’t let Silas work with him, then we’ll find another way.” She studied Rose Marie. “Tell me about Patwin. What was he like as a little boy, what did he most enjoy?”

  “Christina, go get the album.”

  Christina blew her nose and hurried off, and Rose Marie said, “Patwin wasn’t an easy child, not like Christina.” She smiled a little and shook her head. “I didn’t think I’d ever have any more kids, and then I got pregnant with Patwin. I guess we spoiled him bad, being the youngest.”

  Christina came back with an armful of albums, and Rose Marie selected one and opened it to a photo of a younger Peter holding a cherubic small boy under one arm. Patwin’s face was split in a wide, happy grin.

  “I remember that day,” Rose Marie said, tapping a forefinger on the photo. “Patwin was three there, and he got away on me. He went down to the docks looking for his daddy.” She looked up at Peter. “You remember how many times we had to go looking for him? He was the worst kid for running away, from the time he could first walk. Peter built a fence around the yard to keep him contained, but Patwin would always find a way out. He needed to explore, to experience everything firsthand.”

  “Is this Silas?” Jordan was looking at a black-and-white photo of a somber boy in short pants, standing on the dock, holding a suitcase.

  “Yeah, that’s him,” Rose Marie confirmed. “He was about eight in that picture, coming to stay for the summer. I used to look forward so much to him coming home, but he wasn’t happy about it. Look at that face.” She rubbed a finger lovingly over the picture. “It was hard for him, living in two worlds. Funny, I always worried more about him than Patwin.”

  “It must have been hard on you, only seeing him in the summer.”

  “It was really hard.” Rose Marie nodded. “I think when he was little he didn’t know why I’d gone away and left him. I just didn’t have the money for lawyers, plus I was sick at the time. That’s partly why when Patwin came along, I couldn’t help spoiling him—I wanted him to have the security Silas missed out on.”

  “Did Silas ever run away, the way Patwin did?” Jordan was curious about him, about what kind of baby he’d been, what kind of little boy.

  Rose Marie shook her head. “No. Silas wasn’t like Patwin that way. Silas was a quiet boy, but did he have a mind of his own. There was no reasoning with him if he got an idea in his head.”

  “He also had a ramrod up his ass,” Christina said. “Thought he was too good to play with us when he was here in the summer. So the other kids and I used to play mean tricks on him. Grandmother Sandrine always caught us and gave us hell for it.”

  Rose Marie clicked her tongue. “And well she should. In those days Silas was used to a different sort of life. And I think he was jealous because you had a big family around all the time. He
spent most of his life at boarding school.”

  Rose Marie turned a page in the album. Here were photos of Christina graduating from high school, then nursing school, of Patwin receiving an award for scholarship, and one blurry newspaper photo of Silas in mortarboard and gown, graduating from university.

  “I wanted to go so bad,” Rose Marie said softly. “But he said no. That was when he didn’t want anything to do with us.”

  Jordan studied the pictures, thinking of her own graduations. The best one had been from medical school. Toby had been there for her that day. She’d given up on Mike long before, but some small part of her had still hoped he’d appear. Had Silas missed his mother, in spite of telling her to stay away?

  She turned the pages of the album. “What sort of things does Patwin like to do? What are his hobbies?”

  “Drinking,” Christina snorted. “Driving us all bonkers.”

  “He used to like to build things out of wood,” Peter said. “When he was twelve, he and I built a small boat for him to sail. Remember that, Rosie? He was never interested in fishing, but he liked sailing.”

  “He’d get along with my brother,” Jordan commented. She told them a little about Toby, confiding the early problems he’d had and the fact that he’d done jail time and was now a successful boatbuilder. Patwin’s family needed to hear that other people had similar problems and came through them all right. Besides, it was easier to talk about Toby than confide in them about Garry. “Toby’s coming for a visit as soon as he finishes this yacht he’s been contracted to build.”

  When Jordan’s cell phone rang, everyone waited quietly as she talked to Doctor Magrath at the Tofino hospital.

  The news was good. Just as Jordan had suspected, there was no real damage except bruising to Patwin’s spinal cord, and his voice was already beginning to come back. With Jordan’s approval, Patwin would be released the following morning in Silas’s care. She reported all of that to the Crows, but she didn’t repeat what else the doctor said.

  “These native kids get thinking there’s no way out for them except suicide,” Magrath sighed. “I wish we could help them before they become that desperate. Patwin’s brother seems to be a stable guy, maybe he can help this kid get a handle on what’s bothering him.”

  Relief that Patwin was physically okay made everyone relax. Rose Marie made coffee and Christina served the crumb cake. As soon as the meal was over, Jordan headed home.

  She’d just walked in the door when her cell rang again.

  Jordan answered eagerly, knowing it was Silas.

  And froze when Garry said, “Hey, Jordie, how’s it going?”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  SHE HAD TO SWALLOW HARD before she found her voice.

  “Garry, how did you get this number?” On her lawyer’s advice, she’d had it changed so he couldn’t contact her.

  Tone playful, he said, “Now is that any way to greet your husband? I’m just calling to say hi, how are you. No reason for you to be so snarky, Jordie. And phone numbers, hell, I’m a lawyer. I know how to find numbers—and missing persons, too. You can run but you can’t hide, babe.” His laughter spiraled out of control, and Jordan knew he was high.

  It was unlikely that he knew exactly where she was, but her stomach began to churn, and it was tough to keep her voice even.

  “What do you want, Garry?” Dumb question. There were only two possibilities. One was drugs, and the other money.

  “That matrimonial hotshot you hired just served me with divorce papers, honey pie. You really think I’m going to sit back and let you dump me like a bag of garbage?”

  Jordan was shivering, but her hand clutching the phone was damp with sweat. There was no point in trying to reason with him. Instead, she waited for whatever he’d say next.

  “I don’t want a divorce. If you do, it’s gonna cost you, Jordie. Any judge I know is going to be sympathetic to a guy who was seriously injured in an accident only to get dumped by his rich doctor wife.”

  “I’m far from rich, Garry.”

  “You have medical insurance, and you owe me, bitch.”

  So that’s what this was about. But how had Garry lost his own insurance coverage? Jordan didn’t want to know.

  “I don’t think I do owe you, and neither does my lawyer,” she said in as cool a voice as she could manage. “So from now on, call Marcy instead of me. You and I no longer have anything to say to each other.” She disconnected, and didn’t answer when the phone rang again almost immediately.

  It rang consistently for the next hour, and Jordan finally shoved the phone under a pillow on the sofa and closed herself in the bathroom to run hot water in the tub.

  “Tomorrow morning, I’ll just get a new number again,” she promised herself as she lowered her body into the steaming water. And when he found that number, she’d do it again. And again. Panic began to settle over her, and she struggled with it. She’d moved beyond these feelings, she didn’t want to go back there.

  And the afternoon she’d so enjoyed now seemed to have taken place a very long time ago.

  SILAS DIALED JORDAN’S cell number for the third time, and for the third time her recorded voice asked him to leave a number, which wasn’t possible. He was calling from a pay phone in the hospital. He could have left a message, but he wanted her, not a machine.

  Frustrated, he gave up and went back to Patwin’s room. The doctors had finally finished their testing, and the results were exactly what Jordan had predicted. Physically, Patwin would recover. Emotionally, the jury was still out. With all the activity, there hadn’t been a chance to talk to Patwin alone.

  His brother lay immobile on the high hospital bed, eyes shut, throat swollen and bruised an ugly purple. On oxygen support, his breathing was easier. Silas had heard him whisper a response to a nurse’s question, so his vocal cords were beginning to recover.

  The doctors told Silas exactly the same thing Jordan had—that Patwin could either be transferred to the psych ward in Nanaimo or, with the consent of the psychiatrist who’d see Patwin the following day, he could go home with Silas.

  They’d agreed to let Silas stay in the room for the night. A pretty blond nurse had even wheeled in an oversize chair that made a makeshift bed and found pillows and a blanket to make him comfortable.

  It was time to find out whether his hunch was right.

  “You awake, bro?”

  Patwin’s eyes opened, bloodshot, with huge black bags under them.

  “Did you do this—” Silas touched Patwin’s neck with a featherlight forefinger “—because Mary told you she was pregnant?”

  Patwin’s eyes revealed his torture. He started to shrug only to grimace in pain. “Partly,” he whispered, his eyes watering with the effort the simple word caused. He picked up the paper and pen beside him on the bed.

  I’m a total fuck up, he scribbled, pen digging into paper. How can I take care of a kid? I can’t get own shit together. Wanted to run, but if I leave… Can’t go to prison again, rather die!!

  Silas nodded. “Did Mary mention marriage when she told you she was pregnant?”

  Patwin shook his head. But I knocked her up, I marry her, right?

  “No point in getting married if it’s not what you want, not what you can handle. But hanging yourself isn’t the answer, either.”

  So what is? Patwin bore down so hard the pen tore the paper. You and Chris—different, know what you want. He tore off the sheet and began another one, his writing erratic. All I’ve done is drive Mom and Dad crazy, fuck everything up. Now a kid.

  Silas read the note and started to laugh.

  Patwin threw the pen at him, and it hit Silas on the side of the head.

  “Ouch.” He rubbed the spot and then laid a hand on his brother’s arm. “Calm down, Patwin, I’m not laughing at you. I’m laughing because I can’t believe you actually think you’re the only one who’s ever felt like that. I don’t know about Christina, but I’ve spent most of my life wondering who the hell I was an
d where I belonged. I spent years so jealous of you I used to fantasize about drowning you in the chuck.”

  The astonishment on Patwin’s face made Silas laugh all over again.

  “Think about it, little brother. You had parents who lived in the same place, a family the same color as you, a home where you belonged, where you lived all year round. I spent most of my time in boarding school and summers feeling like a stranger in a very strange land. But I’m not the one with the sore neck. How are we going to make sure you never feel so alone and desperate you have to do something like this again?”

  Patwin waited.

  “I asked you this before, when you were doing drugs, and you wouldn’t make a commitment. I’m going to ask you again. I want to hold a gathering, with everyone in our family present, plus friends and neighbors, all of Mary’s relatives, as well, and any elders who want to come. Everyone gets a chance to say how they feel, what’s made them feel that way. No blame. Together, we’ll come up with a plan that supports you and Mary and the baby. I’ll hold a healing ceremony. Lots of the elders have been hooked on drugs, too, you know. They’ll understand, and maybe give you some guidance.”

  Patwin didn’t look convinced.

  “Or you can be transferred to the psych ward at the hospital in Nanaimo.” Silas hated using that as a lever, but his kid brother was one tough nut.

  NO, Patwin scribbled. I want to go home!

  “Then you agree to work with me?”

  Patwin glared up at him. OKAY. Tired now, want to sleep.

  Maybe almost dying would make Patwin more willing to change.

  Silas could only hope.

  “Sleep now.” He took hold of Patwin’s hand and gave it a squeeze. “I’ll be here.”

  He waited until Patwin was snoring softly, and then he went down the hall to the telephone again. He dialed and waited while it rang, hoping she’d pick up. At last, her service came on with the now familiar words. “Jordan here, leave a message and I’ll get back to you.”

  “It’s Silas,” he said. “Hey, pretty lady, I know you’ve heard Patwin’s doing okay—the doc said he called you. He’s agreed to a healing. I’ll explain more about that when I see you.” He paused for an instant, wondering what it was he really wanted to say. “I enjoyed our time at the springs. I appreciate your efforts on my family’s behalf.”