Esperanza

by Trish J. MacGregor

  Parcell fell into step alongside Luke, accompanying them into the hall, to the elevators. “If you could stay on the grounds, Mr. Ritter, I would appreciate it. Nurse Bancroft apparently has some concerns about your father that—”

  “She’s a nurse. You’re the doctor. And our attorney says—”

  “Yes, well, I’m just looking at the bigger picture, Mr. Ritter. Your father has been here for seventeen days, on antipsychotic drugs, and he—”

  “Needs to get some fresh air,” Luke said.

  Luke punched the elevator button, Parcell waited with them. “We encourage outings, visits from family members, anything that makes the patient more comfortable and secure.”

  Parcell sounded as though he were reciting from the facility’s brochure, Ian thought, and wished he could slap duct tape across the man’s mouth. When the elevator doors opened, Luke said, “I can take it from here, Doctor. Thank you so much for your time.”

  “Uh, right. Very good. If you could have him back in a couple of hours, for tea. We have afternoon tea and snacks. He’s accustomed to that routine now.”

  “Not a problem,” Luke said, and pushed the wheelchair into the elevator.

  As the doors began to shut, Ian noticed that Parcell nervously shifted his weight from one foot to the other, scratched his chin, and seemed flummoxed about all of it. But he kept smiling. Then the doors clattered shut, the elevator lurched downward. “Where’s Casey parked, Luke?”

  “At the far end of the lot, where they can’t see the van. She’ll take us to my car.”

  “What’s the date?”

  “March twenty-seventh.”

  He had died in January. More than two months, gone. “Jesus. I’ve lost so much time.”

  “Can you walk?”

  “Walk, talk, fart, joke, run fast.” Ian felt a hard, painful throbbing at his temple, heard the muscles in his legs screaming. They were now outside, beneath the dome of a magnificent blue sky, and he sucked in the spring air. “What hospital is this?”

  “The Minneapolis Mental Health Care Center. Daddy Warbucks is on the board here and also on the hospital board, so Mom was able to convince the hospital shrink that you should be placed under observation, then she pulled strings here to get you in. What do you remember?”

  “Raving about brujos, two big guys slamming me to the floor, jabbing something into my neck, then there was a point where I came to and found myself in a straitjacket and nearly lost my mind. I think that was when it was easy for your mother to convince the hospital I should be put under observation.”

  “Casey called me and told me what had happened. By the time I got to the hospital, they’d committed you. A comatose nurse was discovered on the floor next to your bed, with a syringe sticking out of her neck that held traces of phenobarbital. They know you didn’t do it because you were in a straitjacket. She recovered and the hospital fired her and filed charges against her for theft of the drug.”

  Alarm tore through Ian. Had the bruja he’d seen in his room followed him back to kill him? Were his memories real? If so, then the bruja couldn’t kill him in her bruja form, and she’d taken the nurse, who resisted at the end and injected herself. “I need to speak to that nurse.”

  “Casey already did, Dad. The story’s pretty weird. She claims she was possessed by a demon who wanted her to ease your suffering. That’s an exact quote. She claims she fought back and injected herself.”

  So maybe he wasn’t nuts, after all. And if he wasn’t, his conclusions were real. “These brujo fucks intend to kill me. I need to get out of the country, Luke.”

  His son patted his shoulder. “I’m taking you someplace safe. To a cabin in lake country that a friend owns.”

  Luke didn’t get it. He didn’t understand that no place was safe from brujos. The pat on the shoulder was affection, not comprehension. “Where’s your mother now?”

  “The day after all this drama happened with you, she came down with a really bad case of the flu and has been laid up until last night.”

  Maybe that explained why the bruja hadn’t taken Louise. “And you still think this is about revenge on your mother’s part? Getting even?”

  “Fuckin’ A.”

  They moved swiftly along a curving path that followed the contours of a small pond, woods of denuded trees, farther and farther away from the main building. Now and then they passed other patients with nurses, friends, family members, all of them heavily drugged. Ian maintained the same blank stare when he and Luke weren’t alone, but in between kept talking about Esperanza, what he’d experienced.

  Now and then, Luke interrupted with a question or requested clarification. Then they rounded a curve in the lake, where tall, thick pines created a barrier between them and the main building. “Not much farther,” Luke said, and picked up his pace until he was nearly running.

  As the wheelchair clattered across the sidewalk, Ian glanced back. Through the branches of the pines, he saw part of the main building, and wondered if Parcell and his sadistic Nurse Ratched had been watching them through one of the barred windows.

  Luke suddenly pushed the wheelchair into the trees and the sweet-smelling shadows of the pines, and stepped on the brake. “Here.”

  Ian was grateful that Luke didn’t offer to help him up. As they left the safety of the trees, he felt a kind of wonder that he was walking on his own, out here in the free world, relatively drug-free, about to escape this hellhole. I’m one step closer to Ecuador.

  They crossed an employee lot, moving as quickly as escaping thieves, and reached an old VW van parked at the end. A huge peace symbol was painted on its side, antiwar slogans covered the rear bumper, the side windows were blacked out. Luke slid open the side door, Ian scrambled in, then Luke climbed into the passenger seat. Casey, ensconced behind the wheel, her red hair tucked up under a baseball cap, glanced back and grinned. “We’re busting you out, Ritter.”

  “I’m forever in your debt, O’Toole.”

  “You’d better get down low in the seat,” she said. “We’ve got to drive right past the administration building to get out of here. We wanted to bust you out sooner, Ian. But Louise must’ve suspected we would because her attorney told Purcell that Luke and I were forbidden to visit you. Then when Luke got the new lawyer, it took him a week to work his way through the political machine that Louise’s husband apparently rules.”

  The van backed up, its engine making noises that reminded Ian of that bus chugging up the Andes. “I’m just grateful for getting out at all.”

  “Okay, the cops are outside the building,” Luke announced. “With dogs.”

  “Jesus, these people are nuts,” Casey muttered. “You’d better duck down, Luke.”

  The van chugged on, turned, picked up speed. When Casey announced they were clear of the hospital, Ian rose up and leaned forward, between Casey and Luke. “As soon as Louise hears about this, she’s going to press charges against you two.”

  “Hell, she already pressed charges against me for assault,” Casey said. “But the bitch started it by sinking her finger into my boob, getting right in my face. I shoved her away.”

  “I hope you told her to go fuck herself,” Ian said.

  “Worse. I humiliated her.”

  “Then you’re on the shit list for life, O’Toole. I’ll pay for your attorney.”

  “No need. A friend’s doing it for free. Says it’s a pleasure to go up against any member of the Bell family.”

  “And she won’t press charges against me,” Luke said. “That would look bad to her friends, mom against son. And I’ll just say I drove the car. Casey won’t be implicated at all.”

  Casey reached back and patted Ian’s arm. “Hey, don’t worry about it. I’d love to have another excuse to take a swing at Louise.”

  Ian laughed and gave her hand a quick squeeze. Minutes later, she turned into a park and pulled up alongside Luke’s 1967 Chevy. Luke got out quickly and Casey turned, her beautiful green eyes locking on his. She ran her ha
nds along the sides of Ian’s face. “I realize that something happened to you when you died, Ian, and that you’re trying to sort things out. Luke told me about this Esperanza place.”

  I think I met someone there. I have to go to Ecuador to find her. He nearly blurted it, but couldn’t stand the thought of hurting Casey. So he kissed her instead, acutely aware, again, of how her mouth differed from Tess’s. “Thank you for all your help, Casey.”

  She immediately teared up. “If Louise doesn’t have me tailed, I’ll try getting up to the cabin where Luke’s taking you.”

  He kissed her once more, then got out of the van and made a beeline for Luke’s Chevy, the sensation of her mouth lingering against his. He hoped that she didn’t come to the cabin. It would be better for Casey if he simply disappeared from her life.

  Once they were headed north out of Minneapolis, Ian said, “I’m going to Ecuador. I need my passport. It’s in my safe-deposit box at the bank. Since you’re on the account, you shouldn’t have trouble getting into it. And I’ll need some of the cash. You keep the rest.”

  Luke’s expression made it clear that while he believed his father had had some sort of experience when he was dead, he wasn’t sold on the rest of Ian’s story. A magical town high in the Andes. Brujos. A woman forty years in his future. Who could blame him? It sounded nuts to Ian, too.

  “We can figure all this out later, Dad. Why don’t you sack out? It’s a couple of hours to the cabin. There’s a pillow in the back seat.”

  Ian didn’t feel tired, but a few minutes with his eyes closed sounded inviting. He reached into the back for the pillow, pressed it against the window, shut his eyes. When he came awake, long, thin shadows fell like stripes across the road. Late afternoon, he thought, rubbing at the crick in his neck. They were in the lake country, where everything seemed excessive—the towering pines, huge, naked oaks, vast expanses of emptiness. Through the trees, lakes glinted in the late afternoon light, surface ice breaking up as winter surrendered to spring. They appeared to be alone on a narrow dirt road.

  “Where are we?” Ian asked, yawning.

  “Close to the cabin. How’re you feeling?”

  “Sane.”

  “I stopped and got some food. Chicken, mashed potatoes, beans, everything cold now.” He passed Ian a paper sack.

  “It smells fantastic. Thanks, Luke.” He opened the bag and went to work on the food.

  “There’s a thermos of hot coffee in the back seat.”

  Ian turned to retrieve the thermos—and laughed. The back seat was filled with groceries, bags of clothes, firewood, charcoal, pots and pans, quilts, sheets, pillows, camping gear. “Damn, you shopped.”

  “Yeah, I went overboard. The cabin doesn’t have heat, so we’re going to have to use the fireplace and the potbellied stove for that.”

  “Is there a television? Phone?” Internet? Wi-Fi?

  “TV, but the rabbit ears rarely work right. Nearest phone is six miles south, in town. I went by your place before going to the hospital, so some of your clothes are in the trunk. And some books, your typewriter, paper and supplies, the pages you wrote while you were in the hospital. I, uh, read through them, Dad. I hope you don’t mind. It’s some pretty wild stuff.”

  “Wild and, I hope, true.”

  “For a few days, just lay low.”

  “You think I’m demented?”

  “I think . . . something definitely happened when you died, Dad. But your story is so . . .”

  “Outrageous? Ridiculous? Nuts?”

  Luke rolled his lower lip between his teeth, something he’d done since he was very young, a sign that he was struggling to find a way to be tactful.

  “Just say it, Luke.”

  “Dad, people don’t fall in love when they die. And they don’t fall in love with someone from forty years in the future, in some town way the fuck up in the Andes.”

  “Yeah? Says who, Luke?”

  “People who know about such things.”

  “Ah, right. Theologians, priests, rabbis, preachers. You’ve had such vast exposure to organized religion.”

  They both burst out laughing. “Okay, you win. Maybe I just feel like I should play devil’s advocate.”

  “C’mon, Luke. You’ve taken all kinds of consciousness-altering drugs, and you still feel a need to play that role? Tell me again about that mushroom trip you took where you talked to gnomes.”

  “Okay. So death is like a mushroom trip.”

  “Maybe it is. I wouldn’t know. I’m probably the least hip professor on campus.”

  “You make death sound like an adventure.”

  “Honestly, I don’t know if everything I remember actually happened. That’s why I need to go to Ecuador.” Ian pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes and forced himself to recall that conversation with Tess in which they had realized they were comatose or dead and separated by forty years in time. It came back with shocking ease—dates, incidents, names. “But if it is true, then remember this. On March sixteenth of this year, there supposedly was an incident in Nam that will come to be known as the massacre at My Lai. In September of next year, men will be charged with the massacre of hundreds of Vietnamese men, women, and children at My Lai and it won’t come to the attention of the American public until November of next year, when Seymour Hersh breaks the story. On April 6, Martin Luther King supposedly will be assassinated at the Lorraine Hotel in Memphis. Jessie Jackson will be standing on the balcony with him when it happens. On June 6, Robert Kennedy supposedly will be assassinated at the Ambassador Hotel in L.A.”

  “You said this before, right after you regained consciousness. I . . . thought you were raving. Can we stop it?”

  “If my memories are true, I don’t have any idea if any of it can be stopped.”

  “I know this reporter who interviewed King recently. I’ll warn him . . .”

  “The most you can tell him is to keep King away from the Lorraine Hotel in Memphis. I don’t know if that will change the outcome. Besides, if you tell him anything else, we’ll have the Feds at the cabin door.”

  “We may anyway, if Mom figures out where you are.”

  Luke turned up a side road as narrow as a footpath. In the dusk, the trees seemed to hug the car, the encroaching darkness felt intimate, dangerous. The headlights struck a tiny wooden structure that looked as if it were held together with glue and tape. The chimney was large, though, and firewood was stacked to the right of the front door. Frost covered the tiny windows, icicles hung from the shingled roof. Ian hoped he had not traded one prison for another.

  The car stopped. Luke turned off the engine, the headlights. Darkness closed around them, tight as a fist. It scared Ian. A part of him still equated darkness with the fog, brujos.

  It apparently occurred to Luke that it would be difficult to carry supplies to the cabin without some light, so he turned the headlights back on, and they started unloading the car. The cold, sweet air of the Minnesota woods invigorated Ian. He peered up into the underbelly of an ink-black sky burning with stars. Somewhere in time, Tess was appreciating this same sky.

  When they finally were settled in front of the fire with a couple of beers, Luke said, “Okay, let’s say your memories are true. What else should I know?”

  Ian thought about it. “Nixon wins the election this year, and later, under threat of impeachment for something called Watergate, resigns. Gerald Ford becomes prez. After him comes some guy named Carter, Southern man, Georgia, I think, a peanut farmer. Gas becomes a big problem, three-hour waiting lines. In her time, gas is more than four bucks a gallon.”

  “Look, as a favor to me, would you please just spend a few days here, laying low until I get the money stuff squared away?” Luke asked. “And finish writing out everything you remember. Everything. I mean, c’mon, if this stuff really happened to you, Dad, then we’re getting a chance to look forty years into the future. Maybe I can learn to play the stock market and walk away with a couple of million. Or I can invent someth
ing that will change the world.”

  “Google,” Ian said. “It changes the world. It’s a search engine for the Internet.”

  “Put that in the notes,” Luke said.

  They laughed again and in that moment of complete communion, a form took shape over Luke’s right shoulder—an elderly man with thick gray hair who wore Ben Franklin glasses. Ian recognized him, Charlie Livingston, Tess’s dead father. He flashed a peace sign. “Welcome to the mad hatter’s tea party, Ian. You aren’t out of the woods yet. They can’t take you, but they can seize people around you and try to force them to kill you. Your ex is going to pull out all the stops. Dominica has taken her. Compile your notes, lay low, leave when you feel it’s time. San Francisco, Sara Wells at Berkeley, should vanquish any doubts you have.”

  Ian pushed to his feet, his doubts gone. Charlie looked solid and, as Ian moved toward him, he didn’t evaporate or fade away. “Tell me about the nurse, Charlie.”

  “Dad?” Luke sounded worried.

  “Do you see him, Luke? The gray-haired guy?” Ian didn’t take his eyes off Charlie.

  “Uh, no, Dad. We’re alone here.”

  “No, we’re not alone. The nurse, Charlie. Tell me what happened.”

  “Dominica seized her, just as you thought, and tried to force her to kill you.”

  Outside, the wind whined through the trees, branches slapped the windows. The flames in the fireplace leaped and danced, the logs crackled and hissed, plumes of smoke drifted upward. His throat felt parched, he was hungry, tired.

  “She used Louise once and will use her again,” Charlie continued. “Louise won a reprieve because she was sick. Your son is not fully convinced of your sanity, Ian. And because you need his support, you have to convince him that you’re fine, but changed.”

  “Yeah? How the hell do I do that?”

  “Uh, Dad, you’re talking to the wall,” Luke said.

  Ian ignored Luke, listened to Charlie. “Ask Luke about Casey. About what happened that night they were both in your room, when you were in a coma. Go there, Ian. He’ll never again doubt your sanity.”