One September Morning

by Rosalind Noonan

  “Who’s been messing with my patients’ charts?” He rifles through the open file then turns to her. “Do you have the charts for Dryer and Brown?”

  She shakes her head, tying to remain void of expression. “I have Bernadette Conseco.” Not your patient, thank God.

  “Where the hell are my patient charts? Nurse Hobart? Where’s Rhonda Hobart?” he calls, swiping past her again. The metal part of his clipboard scrapes her elbow, stinging. Deliberate? Probably, the bastard.

  But she refuses to look up and acknowledge the pain.

  So much for worrying about any sexual harassment at work. Jump is acting as if he’s never met her, which is chilling in a different way.

  What kind of person swings to such radical extremes? First, he insists on being a part of her life, helping her in any way he can—his promise to John. Then, he refuses to let their relationship end. “You can’t abandon me, I won’t let you,” he said, first pathetic, then angry. And now, he’s cold, slightly hostile, estranged.

  Those mood swings, the fear of abandonment…Could it be that he suffers from borderline personality disorder? Fluctuating emotions, inappropriate anger…

  My first week as an intern, and I’m diagnosing the director of psych services.

  If that isn’t typical of an overenthusiastic student. For now, she will apply her knowledge of the field to the patients she’s assigned to work with.

  Once she hears his barking voice fade down the hall, she runs her index finger over the tabs of the files until she comes to “E.” There in the front of the file is the chart for Emjay Brown. Jump didn’t think to look there, and when he asked her if she had it, she was honest when she said no.

  Abby glances out at the Day Room where Emjay seems to have drifted off to sleep between a handful of patients involved in an animated card game and Oprah chatting with some author about near-death experiences.

  It’s been a day of landmarks.

  Emjay Brown returned to the land of the living.

  She survived a face-to-face with Dr. Jump.

  And it looks like she’s got Brown’s chart concealed from Jump for at least one more day. Of course, all this information will have to go into the hospital databases eventually, but electronic charts are only updated once a week.

  She’s still got time to help Emjay. Time to solicit another doctor to look at the case. Time to figure out why Charles Jump is determined to either seduce her or hurt her.

  Chapter 59

  Canada

  Noah

  Noah Stanton breaks open a fresh bale of hay and loosens it with a pitchfork. Lipsy and Pearl need fresh hay in their stalls. He stabs the pitchfork in and begins tossing the fresh hay into Lipsy’s stall. Stab, toss. Stab, toss. The rhythmic motion that once made the muscles in his shoulders and back ache now feels like a soothing song. Work on the Delacroixs’ small mixed farm is physical and very tiring, but at the end of the day, sleep is welcome and peaceful.

  Lipsy’s round, sleepy eye watches him as he corrals her into the cleaned stall. Edna and Collette have had her for many years and she’s proven to be an excellent milking cow. He’d been impressed and surprised to meet these women who milked the cows themselves; he didn’t think anyone did that anymore.

  When he asked where the milking machines were, the old woman clapped her hands to her cheeks dramatically and exclaimed, “Mon Dieu! Vous êtes ridicule!” He later figured out she thought he was speaking nonsense, but her disapproval was obvious in that moment.

  “We do the milking,” Collette explained. A solid young woman with hair the color of caramel cascading from a high ponytail and a mouth that curved in a permanent smile, she had the patience to explain so many things to him. “My mother will continue to milk the cows, but she is growing old and needs help lifting buckets and bales of hay and whatnot.”

  Heavy lifting he could do.

  In exchange for his work, they provided him with meals and the use of a small cottage behind the farm. The one-room cottage with its fireplace, simple kitchen, and shower stall suit him well. This is a place where a man can live and be safe.

  Finished with Lipsy’s stall, he hangs the pitchfork and gloves on the wall and heads back to the cottage for a cup of tea. Nestled amid tall pines, the cottage is a tiny gem, its new windows glittering in the receding afternoon light.

  When he first arrived, the windows of the cottage needed replacing, and he has begun that task. He accompanied Collette into the city when she made the drive back in December to purchase double-paned replacements from a wholesaler, then did the job himself, hammering and caulking, pressing insulation into the walls. After the first window was installed, he stood there for a good ten minutes, soaking it all up: the shock of golden light on a pasture, long purple shadows dwarfing towering evergreens.

  By installing the window, he feels that he has opened up this beauty, somehow gained access to it.

  So many windows here in the north.

  Windows to look outside. Windows to gaze within.

  He lights the fire under the kettle and opens his laptop, realizing that it’s time. There’s an outside chance that his story might reach someone who’s trapped in the same place, someone else searching for a window. He’s been told by the webmaster that his bio will be posted whenever he’s ready. He’s been putting this off, mostly waiting for the words to form, but now that his path is clear, his fingers fairly fly over the keyboard.

  For a kid raised in a military family, going AWOL seemed to be the unthinkable. And yet, having served in Iraq, I have witnessed atrocities of this illegal war that are far beyond my comprehension. Violence and bloodshed without reason.

  He takes his hands from the keyboard, wondering if he should be more specific. The images of daily life at Baghdad Hospital come to mind. The bodies brought in by soldiers desperate to save their buddies. The amputations, pulverized limbs dropped into red plastic bags with the casualness of a housewife cleaning a roaster.

  Is that necessary to reach people?

  His mission is not to shock but to help the reader become more aware.

  For the thinking man, blind service in war is a dilemma. Do what you’re told, not what is right. I could no longer live that way. I feel fortunate to have escaped without blood on my hands, and I pray for the soldiers who live that ordeal every day and night.

  To the brewed tea he adds a touch of milk, marveling at the richness of fresh milk. Taking one of Edna’s fresh-baked lemon cookies from a tin, he decides to give more of his personal past and writes:

  Canada has given me my second chance to live, and I have fallen in love with this beautiful countryside. The good people here remind me every day that I made the right decision not to be a tool of destruction.

  That will put him back on the radar, although he suspects the U.S. government could have found him if they really wanted to track him down. So be it. The other war resisters on the Web site had been left to live in peace. Granted, the Canadian government had yet to grant them political asylum, but the war resisters movement was still in its infancy. He clicks on the Web site to see their faces—Jeremy, Brandon and Patrick, Darrell and Robin. He’s never met any of them, but he enjoys seeing their faces, men living their lives. Living.

  I am sorry for the good people of Iraq who cannot “opt out” the way a war resister can escape to Canada. It is not enough for American soldiers to hand out candy and pencils to Iraqi schoolchildren. It’s not enough to rebuild the schools and hospitals and bridges we destroyed. The solution may not be simple, but it exists simply in the end result of peace.

  He sends the e-mail, then grabs his jacket to clean the horses’ stalls before he brings them in for the night.

  Down in the paddock, Collette is adjusting the saddle on Midnight, “Minuit” she calls him.

  “Getting some exercise?” he calls through the cool evening air.

  “I am always getting exercise.” Her tone is matter-of-fact as she lifts herself easily onto the tall horse.
/>   “I meant the horse,” he says.

  She shakes her head. “No, you meant to tease me.” Collette has a solid grip on reality that’s harsh and reassuring.

  They have spent many evenings sitting by the fire in the big house, after a fine meal cooked by Edna, who doesn’t even try to understand Noah when he speaks English. Collette is tutoring him in French, and somewhere in the process they have exchanged stories of their childhoods.

  Collette has helped him remember the good times he had with John. The day Noah lost his boots in a snowdrift and John carried him all the way home—three blocks—on his back. The way John supported him when he played football with the older boys, picking Noah first for his team and letting him be quarterback. And John’s generous manner when they were teenagers. That night when he lent Noah his car and gave him three condoms to take out Courtney Swanson. Noah, a virgin at the time, looked at the three packets and asked if you needed to wear all three at once.

  Embarrassing, yes, but good memories. Noah is proud to have been John Stanton’s brother. He is still angry at John for dying, but he is no longer angry at him for living.

  Chapter 60

  Washington

  Abby

  The “Secret Cupid” gift exchange is a tradition among the staff in the psych ward at Lakeside Hospital. Each year at the start of the second week in February, interested staff members put their names into a hat and select the name of a person they’ll play Cupid to. Cupids are instructed to secretly deliver five small gifts to their person: pens, a Starbucks gift card, pantyhose, candy—anything under five dollars.

  When Abby picks Rhonda Hobart, she’s pleased to purchase small gifts for the tough but nurturing training supervisor. A personalized mug. A box of pens. Her favorite hazelnut-flavored coffee creamer. Abby looks forward to delivering Rhonda’s gifts, one a day, until the brief staff meeting on February fourteenth when the Secret Cupids’ identities will be revealed.

  But the first day, Abby’s satisfaction at seeing Rhonda squeal over her cute little Beanie Baby is diminished when she finds her own gift next to her locker in the staff room—a potted miniature rose bush with a note saying: I WILL NEVER STOP LOVING YOU.

  Repulsive fear tingles down her spine as she sets the roses back on the ground. Her Cupid will not win any points for being PC.

  Is it someone with a crush—or a moronic practical joke? She decides to wait for the second gift. Maybe she is overreacting. Maybe it’s just someone’s attempt at making her feel loved.

  That first night she puts it out of her mind and focuses on her treatment plan for Emjay, who is progressing well, in her novice opinion. He’s beginning to understand that there might be some value in talk therapy and has even started opening up a bit in group sessions.

  The second day she tries to check in at her locker during the day, hoping to spy her Secret Cupid and confront him or her. Not only does she not catch Cupid, she does not receive a gift that day. Hmm. Maybe Cupid knows he/she blew it on the last note and is trying to rethink the plan.

  Day three goes by without any sign of a gift. At the end of the day Abby closes her locker with a huge sigh of relief. She doesn’t need a gift, though she did enjoy watching Rhonda enjoy a cup of coffee in her new “Rhonda” mug.

  When Abby arrives home, there’s a bouquet of black lilies on her front porch with a note that says: IF I CAN’T HAVE YOU, NO ONE ELSE CAN.

  Oh, it’s a sicko. It must be Jump.

  Dread weighs her down as she brings the flowers in and puts them in water, unable to find any beauty in the swirling cone shapes of the dark calla lilies. Black flowers…rare and exotic, but not the most cheerful variety.

  This has Jump written all over it.

  How unlucky could she be to have Jump as her Secret Cupid? Or maybe he found out who picked her and forced a trade. Whatever the scenario, she will not falter. She won’t let his sick attachment affect her job performance, end of story.

  But that night, she finds she cannot sleep with the lilies in the house and tosses them onto the patio after dark, reminding herself to pick them up and put them in the compost bin in the morning.

  When the fourth day also goes by without a gift, Abby begins to imagine what frightening symbol might be awaiting her at home. To offset her dread, she calls Suz, who agrees to meet at Abby’s house, then go out to dinner from there.

  But as Abby heads toward her car in the parking lot, she realizes that Cupid has struck unexpectedly once again. On the hood of her car sits a gift wrapped in pink paper with red foil hearts—so cheerful and sweet. She nudges it with her keys, feeling a strong desire to slide it to the ground then kick it over to the garbage can where it would remain, abandoned, until the hospital custodian removed it along with the trash.

  But compulsion makes her tear into it. She needs to know what she’s up against, what the enemy has tossed at her.

  It’s a framed photo of John. In the picture his soulful brown eyes exude knowledge and warmth, and she wants to reach into the landscape of the photograph and bury her face against his shoulder, bask like a cat curled in the sunshine in the wise aura that swirled around him. However the frame, a weave of silver bars, possesses a darker karma. Like Gothic latticework, it feels like sticky ice in her fingers. She wants to drop it and run, but how can she abandon a photo of John? Tossing it into the trash and running is no longer an option.

  She pulls off the envelope taped to the wrapping and opens the note. VALENTINE, I WOULD DIE FOR YOU.

  The sound that escapes her throat seems alien, the cry of a wounded bird. The sheer ruthlessness, the perversity behind all this—the impact is like a physical punch right to her chest.

  Her blood ices over in her veins at the realization that this must be Jump. Who else in the psych ward even knows that she is John’s widow? She still goes by her maiden name, Abby Fitzgerald, and she’s never mentioned John to anyone but Emjay, preferring to keep her professional life separate, to keep the daily pangs of grief personal.

  But now…now that she is sure Charles Jump is terrorizing her, a window of truth opens upon the scene of John’s death. Truth bursts, bold and bright.

  Charles Jump killed John.

  It must have been him.

  Although his motivation is not clear, she knows he had access, he had the means, and he has exhibited the sociopathic behavior that would make him capable of killing without guilt or conscience.

  Frantic, she gathers up the wrapping, the framed photo, and the note into her arms, then runs along the crosswalk of the parking lot and straight through the automatic double doors. She does not stop when a scrap of wrapping paper falls to the ground beside her. Only when she is on the elevator heading up to the ward does she even try to catch her breath and slow her racing pulse. When the doors open she bolts out and spots Rhonda Hobart heading down the corridor with two interns.

  “Rhonda! We need to talk,” she blurts out.

  Annoyance fades from Rhonda’s face when she catches sight of Abby. “Step into my office,” she says, nodding toward the tiny kitchenette, a closet of a room containing a refrigerator, coffeemaker, and microwave. In a ward where many rooms do not have doors and privacy is nearly forbidden, it’s not easy to find a place for two people to have a personal conference.

  Abby presses into the room and pushes back boxes of cocoa mix and sweetener so that she can drop her armful of debris onto the counter.

  “Honey, you look like you just got goosed by a ghost. What’s all that?” Rhonda asks, nodding at the photo and torn gift wrap.

  “A gift from my Secret Cupid.” Abby explains how she was upset by the first two gifts of flowers with inappropriate notes. “And now this…I found it on my car just now. The photo—” Abby pauses in an attempt to control the tremor that’s crept into her voice. “That’s a picture of my husband, John. He was killed in Iraq last September.”

  Rhonda’s lips purse in a pout. “Oh, Abby…How cruel is that? I can imagine how that makes you feel.” She shakes her
head, gazing down at the photograph. “A good-looking man he was. But do you think maybe someone thought you’d appreciate the photo?”

  “Here’s the note.”

  Rhonda winces as she reads the note. “‘Valentine, I would die for you.’ Now, that’s just sick.”

  “I don’t know what to do. I have a feeling I know who’s giving me these things, but I can’t prove it.”

  Rhonda nods encouragingly. “Tell me. Who do you think?”

  “I…” She glances at the kitchenette’s open doorway behind Rhonda, then says in a near whisper: “I think it’s Dr. Jump.”

  “Really?” Rhonda’s chocolate-brown eyes open wide. “I gotta say, that’s the last name I expected to hear. Dr. Jump is pretty popular among the staff here and, frankly, with his busy schedule, I don’t know where he’d find the time. What makes you think it was him?”

  “We had a relationship. Well, I thought we were friends before I started my internship. It all ended badly, and I don’t think he can put it behind him. I know he doesn’t treat me fairly.”

  “Are you sure we’re talking about the same guy? The other interns adore Dr. Jump. I just had two newbies beg me to let them trail him. Maybe it’s the attractive, single-man thing but…I don’t know quite what to say, Abby. People around here are fond of Charles Jump. I know the man has his moments, but even when he’s bad, he’s a hell of a lot more charming than some of the ogres I’ve worked for in the past.”

  “You don’t know him,” Abby says, pinching the bridge of her nose. She was considering telling Rhonda about her history with Jump, but now she’ll have to take a different tack. “How long has he been a director here? Two months?”

  “In this line of work, you get to know your coworkers pretty damned fast. But Abby, if you want to lodge a complaint against him, I’ll get HR here faster than you can whistle. The only drawback of that is, just so you know, you’ll have to go on record with your previous relationship with him.”