Flashback

by Gary Braver

  “No, but my guess is that it will be coming from GEM Tech, right?”

  “Yes, but you’re participating in clinical research for me, and God knows I can use the help. And you can use the money.”

  Was this ever true. Nearly forty thousand dollars remained to be paid off in student loans. And on a salary of seventy thousand dollars, she’d be paying it back for years. Plus her car was beginning to break down, and her wardrobe was full of gaps, and her credit card debts were mounting up.

  “Also, you’re the last person who’s going to look the other way if there’s a problem.”

  “What exactly would I be doing?”

  “Compiling data on meds and behavior from the clinical nurses, maybe even taking note yourself of any changes in the behavior of patients.”

  “How long do I have to think it over?”

  He nodded down the path. “Until we reach that tree. And the rate is fifty dollars an hour.”

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  “So is GEM’s potential profit.”

  “How many times can I sell my soul to them?”

  Nick laughed. “Do I hear a yes?”

  Screw it. “Yes.”

  “Good.”

  They jogged silently for a few yards. “By the way,” she said, “is Jordan Carr working with you on the Jack Koryan case?”

  “No.”

  “Oh.”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “He requisitioned a blood assay of Mr. Koryan.”

  “He did?” Nick looked genuinely surprised.

  “Then later he asked Alice to fax it to another number. I checked,” she said. “It’s the office of Gavin Moy.”

  “Gavin Moy?” Nick nearly stopped, but he caught himself and continued his pace again.

  For several moments they jogged along without further comment. But René sensed a festering behind Nick’s silence and the way he stared at the water as if half-expecting something to surface.

  33

  BY MID-OCTOBER, BETH HAD CUT HER visits with Jack at the rehab center to once a week. In spite of the aggressive efforts at sensory and motor stimulation, the staff at Greendale had failed to elicit any on-command response from Jack. He could breathe on his own, cough on his own, make occasional meaningless sounds. But for all practical purposes, Jack was dead.

  Meanwhile, Yesterdays opened to rave reviews in both the Boston Phoenix and the Boston Globe. Because Beth had no interest in the restaurant she had sold Jack’s share to a cousin of Vince’s.

  And Jack slept.

  And one night at the Bristol Lounge in Boston’s Four Seasons Hotel Beth met George King, an investor from McAllen, Texas. He was in town for a week of meetings. He was a kind, handsome man, and they spent the evening together walking through the Boston Garden. His wife had died the year before of breast cancer. To Beth’s mind they shared a common loss. On the eve of his departure, they shared his hotel bed.

  And Jack slept.

  When she visited Jack again, Beth felt less conflicted with devotion and honor than she had been. She knew she was slightly neurotic, more concerned with herself, thinking that she could end up like one of those family members waiting seventeen years for their loved one to wake up. But she had to be honest with herself. That just wasn’t her. She was no bedside wife. Besides, she had considered leaving him before all this happened. If he were awake, he’d understand.

  When the nurses left, Beth laid her hand on Jack’s and, her eyes pooling with tears, she kissed him softly on the forehead. “I’m sorry, Jack,” she whispered.

  The next day she filed for divorce.

  34

  “WHO’S FUZZY SWENSON?” RENÉ ASKED Christine Martinetti.

  Christine looked startled. “How do you know about Fuzzy Swenson?”

  “Your father. He was a little confused the last couple times I was in and asked if I was Fuzzy Swenson’s sister.”

  “I don’t know about her, but Fuzzy Swenson was a buddy of Dad’s in Korea. He’s got a picture of him in his room.”

  “I saw it.”

  “What did he say about him?”

  “Nothing. Just that he thought I was his sister. Also became a little agitated.”

  Christine nodded and sighed. “I think his real name was Samuel. He was in a POW camp with Dad in North Korea. He died over there and I guess it was pretty bad what happened to him because Dad never talks about it. Funny thing is that he’s beginning to talk more about his Korea days—the good stuff. Maybe it’s the Memorine.”

  “Maybe. His cognitive test scores are beginning to improve.”

  They were sitting in the conference room on the locked unit having coffee and waiting for Louis to finish his shower. Christine, who was about René’s age, lived in Connecticut and visited her father maybe once a week.

  “He’s otherwise so healthy. He could live another fifteen years.”

  “Absolutely.”

  Christine was silent for a few moments. “From what I’ve read, nobody ever dies of Alzheimer’s. They die of heart attack or cancer, but not the disease itself, right?”

  “Yeah, it’s usually some prior condition. But if they’re in advanced stages and are confined to wheelchairs or a bed, they’re susceptible to internal infections and pneumonia.”

  “Because they forget how to walk and eat. So they starve to death.”

  René nodded at the primal reality. “By then they’ve lapsed into a coma, and the family usually decides to discontinue feeding and not to take any extraordinary measures to resuscitate.”

  “I don’t want him to go like that.”

  “Of course not.”

  “I don’t think I could take it.”

  DNR. One of the countless antiseptic shorthands.

  It’s what René had finally yielded to. Do not resuscitate. To spare her own father from pain and more humiliation. Because she did not want him to linger on until the basic circuitry of his brain had become so gummed up that he had lost memory of how to breathe. It was that raw eventuality that caught up to her—when she had come to accept the fact that he would never recover, that no matter what she did or what the doctors came up with he would never come back but continue to descend into the disease. So she signed the DNR order. And the day he died was a release for the both of them. Her only compulsion was to be with him at the moment of his death. And when that came, she held him in her arms and told him over and over again that she loved him, that he and Mom had given her a beautiful life, and that he was going to be with her soon. Of course, he heard none of René’s words. And even if he did, they meant nothing to him. They were for her.

  His breathing came irregularly, in short gasps and long intervals. Then in a long thin sigh that seemed to rise out of a fundamentally held resignation of all living creatures, he died. In a blink his life and all that had gone into making him who he was ended. She held her face to his and sobbed until she thought her heart would break. When the nurses came, they sat with her. Then they left to give her one final moment with him.

  For the last time she kissed him on the forehead and whispered, “Tell them I remember you.”

  Against that memory flash René forced a bright face and matching voice. “Well, if he continues to improve the way he has, that may not happen.”

  “You really think it’s working, that he may actually recover?”

  “It’s really too early to say for certain, but from what I’ve seen around here the signs are very promising.”

  “God, I pray it’s true.”

  René felt the tug in her chest again. “Me, too.”

  An aide stuck her head into the room. “He’s all ready.”

  René followed the aide and Christine down the hall and into the dayroom, where Mrs. Martinetti was sitting with Louis at a table. Louis was looking at black-and-white photographs. Old photos of the Martinettis in younger days.

  “Good morning, Dad,” Christine said with a big smile, and she gave Louis a kiss on the forehead. “You look so hands
ome in that shirt.”

  His white hair was still damp from the shower and his face had a bright sheen. And although the bright red polo shirt gave a youthful glow to his face, it could not mask the confusion in his expression as he looked at Christine, then back at René.

  Christine pulled up a chair beside him. “So, what’s new? What’s been going on?”

  Louis continued to glare at her in bewilderment. Finally he said, “Where’s … my other daughter?”

  “What other daughter? You only have one daughter—me. Christine.”

  Louis looked at René for help. “I have another daughter. Not her.”

  Christine’s body slumped. “No, Dad, you only have me. You just forgot.”

  “She’s not my daughter,” he insisted, looking at René. Then he lowered his voice. “She’s somebody else.”

  “Dad, how can you forget? It’s me, Christine. You remember.”

  The photos were of Louis and Marie posing with Christine when she was a girl. Louis’s face turned angry and red. “You’re somebody else. You’re an … imposter.” He again turned his face away, clapping his eyes on René for safety.

  “I’m not an imposter. You’re just a little confused.”

  René could hear the fracturing in her voice. It had only been a few days since Christine was last here. Remarkably, his scores had increased twenty percent since he had first entered the home eleven months ago.

  René knelt down and took his hand. “Louis, you remember me, right?”

  He looked at her at first with a disconcerting scowl. But then his face smoothed over. “Yeah, you’re the pharmacist woman.”

  “That’s right. We’re friends—you can believe me. And this is Christine. Look at her, Louis. She’s your daughter, Christine.”

  Louis did not look at Christine. But he shook his head. She asked him again to look at Christine, but he refused.

  René got up and nodded to Christine to follow her. “We’ll be right back,” she said, and led Christine out of the dayroom and into the hall where Louis couldn’t see them.

  “How can he not recognize me? I was here three days ago, and he was fine. He’s supposed to be getting better.” Tears puddled in her eyes.

  “It might be that he’s remembering you from years ago—the old photos. That happens often. In fact, it’s called Capgras syndrome—when they think that loved ones are doubles or fakes.”

  “Can’t you give him something? I means with all those meds you got?”

  “He’s been treated with antipsychotics.”

  “Maybe you can recommend they up the dosage or something.”

  The nursing staff would give him Ativan or Haldol when he got seriously agitated or threatened to disrupt the ward. But they could not medicate back the recall every time he forgot his daughter. Ironically, Memorine was supposed to do that.

  Christine looked distraught. Rene took her hand. “Let’s try this,” she said, and led her back into the dayroom. “Hey, Louis. Look who’s here. It’s Christine.”

  Louis looked at her for a prolonged moment. Then his face brightened into a smile. “Where you been?”

  “The traffic was bad.” Christine walked over and gave her father a big hug. “So what’s going on? How you been?”

  They talked for a while. Then Louis glanced at René as she was about to leave them. “I couldn’t stop them,” he whispered. “I tried, but I couldn’t. I’m sorry.”

  “You couldn’t stop who, Louis?”

  “Sorry.” His eyes filled with tears.

  “Dad, what are you talking about?”

  But he disregarded Christine. “Louis, you’re getting confused,” René said. “What’s upsetting you? Tell us, please.”

  He looked at Christine, then back to René. “Sorry about your brother.”

  “Louis, I don’t have a brother.”

  He nodded. Then his face tightened. “But I’m going to get them back some day, the fuckers.”

  “Get who back?”

  He nodded to himself as if he had just settled something. “They’ll know.”

  35

  “WELL, YOU GOT YOUR OUT-OF-COURT SETTLEMENT, and it cost me a friggin’ bundle,” said Gavin Moy.

  “Two years from now, it’ll look like petty cash.” GEM Tech stocks that morning were up by twenty percent since last week over the rumors about the new Alzheimer’s drug. In a year Nick’s holdings would double several times over. And Jordan Carr would probably own an entire fleet of Ferraris.

  It was a warm late October day, and Nick and Gavin were riding at thirty knots southward on Gavin’s boat in celebration of the settlement and Nick’s agreement to head up the clinical trials. When Gavin asked where he wanted to go, Nick said he had never been through the Cape Cod Canal. It would be the last run before Moy put the boat in dry dock.

  A thirty-eight-foot Sea Ray sport cruiser with twin 350 horsepower Mer-Cruiser engines, the boat was long, sharp, and very fast; and it was named the Pillman Express, Moy’s punning homage to George Pullman, whose railroad car industry grew into a dynasty. Teddy drove while Nick and Gavin settled back at the stern.

  According to Moy, Broadview Nursing Home had assumed full responsibility for negligence in the death of Edward Zuchowsky, while, behind the scenes, GEM Tech paid the lawyer fees and damages. The Zuchowsky family agreed to accept a settlement of $1.5 million as well as an apology from Broadview and a promise to upgrade the security system of Broadview and other homes in the network.

  “So, to use your phrase, ‘God’s in His heaven, all’s right with the world, right?’”

  “It’s actually Robert Browning.”

  “Whatever. So how’s your colleague and former student doing?”

  Nick let pass the sarcasm in Moy’s voice. “She’ll be relieved it’s all behind her.”

  “Some things are better left forgotten,” Moy said.

  “I guess.”

  “By the way, we’re going to make an official announcement in a couple weeks—press release, video, you name it—the whole nine yards.”

  Moy beamed at Nick as if he were Moses glimpsing the Promised Land. Nick nodded, thinking he would not spoil the moment by reminding him of the flashback issues that lay before them—the delusional seizures that had probably led to the killing of Eddie Zuchowsky and the death of one of Peter Habib’s patients, William Zett, on a playground slide.

  No free lunch in pharmaceuticals. No magic bullet—or very few that don’t leave scars.

  They had left Marina Bay at nine that Saturday morning, when the sea was like polished marble, and headed down the coast. A little before noon they passed through the canal and out into Buzzards Bay. They lunched at Woods Hole, then by two they headed deeper into the bay at Nick’s request.

  On the right they passed Naushon and Pasque Islands and some of the others in the Elizabeth chain. Short of Cuttyhunk, Moy asked Teddy to turn the boat around because he wanted to catch the tide and the headwinds.

  As they swung around, Nick nodded toward a low blue hump on the western horizon. “Isn’t that Homer’s Island?”

  “Yup,” Moy said without even looking.

  “You been out there recently?”

  “Nope.” Then Moy waved at Teddy to head back.

  Teddy leaned on the throttle, and the boat roared back up the ferryboat lane toward the canal which would take them back home.

  “You remember that guy I was telling you about—the one who got caught out there in the jellies?”

  “Yes, Jordan Carr told me something about it. In fact, I saw the blood workup.”

  “Quite a coincidence.”

  “I guess. What’s the name again?”

  “Koryan. Jack Koryan.”

  Moy shrugged. “Sounds like a countertop. How’s he doing?”

  “Still comatose. It doesn’t look good.”

  Moy nodded and raised his face to the sun and took a huge breath as if he were trying to drain the atmosphere. “Man oh man, it doesn’t get much better than thi
s.”

  “No, it doesn’t,” Nick said, thinking that maybe that was that about that.

  But it wasn’t.

  36

  THREE WEEKS LATER IT WAS THE lead story. And René clicked up the volume as the Channel 8 anchor made the announcement:

  “More good news in the fight against Alzheimer’s disease. At its annual meeting of shareholders, GEM Neurobiological Technologies announced some early successes in its trial use of Memorine, the lab’s revolutionary experimental drug for the treatment of various forms of dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease.”

  The screen then showed a female reporter outside of Mass General Hospital. “Patients enrolled in GEM’s phase three clinical trials of the Memorine compound were diagnosed with early or mild forms of Alzheimer’s. And early reports have shown very promising results.

  “Heading up the team of clinical physicians and researchers is Dr. Nicholas Mavros, neurologist at MGH.”

  They shifted to Nick at his desk. “It’s very exciting to participate in this historic effort to develop a cure for Alzheimer’s. Until now there’s been no way to stop the decline in mental functions. And certainly nothing to reverse the disease’s progress. It’s still relatively early in the trials, but we’re seeing cognitive improvement in nearly forty percent of our trial patients.”

  René could feel Nick’s restraint. Successful trial results were not officially made until the study was complete and findings were published in a reputable journal. But, of course, this was Gavin Moy’s ploy to start a Memorine fever.

  Their faces strategically blocked, trial patients were shown doing puzzles, writing on pads, talking to nurses and aides. Many smiled and looked focused. There was tearful testimony from Christine Martinetti who told how her father was regaining his memory and coming back to his old self. “When we put him in the nursing home, he was confused and frightened. He got people mixed up. He couldn’t recognize family members. He struggled to do simple tasks like tie his shoes. Now it’s all beginning to come back.”

  The camera shifted to Louis sitting in a chair with one foot on a stool as he tied his shoes while chatting with an aide. He looked at the camera and waved with a big smile. And René felt a warm surge in her chest.