Rejoice

by Karen Kingsbury

  “Stop!” Peter held the pills to his palm with two fingers and pressed his hands over his ears. “Get out of my house now!”

  The voice was silent.

  Peter relaxed and eased his hands back to his lap. The four pills were still intact, still pressed against the palm of his right hand. “Good!” Peter grumbled. His headache was getting worse, and the fine muscles in his arms were twitching. “Stay gone!”

  He blinked and considered his actions. What was he doing? Talking to someone who wasn’t there? Holding a conversation with a disembodied voice? He gritted his teeth and groped around the floor for his water bottle. His fingers felt the smooth plastic and he took hold of it, hating the way it shook in his hands. Four pills, man. Take the pills and go to sleep.

  Then without giving another moment’s consideration to strange voices or warnings or the dangers of taking four painkillers at once, he peeled back his fingers, popped the pills into his mouth, and washed them down with half the water. The minute they were down, a ripple of fear tickled his conscience.

  What if four were too many? What if that was enough to knock him out, to make him throw up again, and this time maybe after he was asleep. He could drown in his own vomit, couldn’t he? They’d find him a few days from now, facedown in his own mess, and the report would read suicide—even if that wasn’t the legacy he wanted to leave Brooke and the girls.

  Already he could feel the tension in his arms and legs starting to ease. He wasn’t going to pass out or die; no, he was simply going to feel normal again. Another swig of water and he returned the cap to the bottle of pills. But four was too many. Far too many. He set the bottle back on the table and squeezed his eyes shut. Never again. Never take four pills again. Understand?

  He blinked his eyes open and rose to his feet, but somewhere in the distance he could barely make out the sound of someone laughing. A shrill, bone-chilling, evil laugh.

  As he made his way to bed, he remembered that it was New Year’s Eve, and somewhere—probably still in New York City—Brooke and the girls were celebrating it without him. The way they would celebrate all holidays from here out. The thought weighed like a cement blanket on his shoulders as he turned out the bedroom light and settled into his pillow.

  Four pills made the difference, and sleep came easily. Never again, he told himself as he drifted off. Never four pills again, no matter how bad it gets.

  Peter’s promise was good until the next day at noon. He’d had a series of difficult patients, two old men with advanced cancer, both of whom needed hospice care. And a woman whose unborn baby showed signs of serious birth defects. He sent all three patients on to specialists, but the pills he popped between visits weren’t doing the trick, weren’t calming his nerves.

  Worse, he’d seen Hayley’s face everywhere. First he saw her in the terminally ill old man, then in the nurse who helped with his chart, and finally in the pregnant woman. Hayley was everywhere, looking to him, begging him to help her. After the third patient, Peter gripped the bag of pills in his pocket. No use fighting the inevitable.

  He took four pills, and the relief was better than anything he could’ve imagined . . . for an hour, anyway.

  As the days ran together, even four pills weren’t enough and finally—three weeks into the new year—Peter realized the awful truth.

  No amount of pills would ever be enough.

  Only one answer remained, one that would forever take away the pain and anxiety and loneliness. One that would promise him an eternity without even once having to second-guess that Saturday with Hayley.

  Just after three in the morning, he woke up in dire need of a fix. His toes and knees and ribs and elbows shook. Even his eyebrows trembled.

  He took hold of the pill bottle near his bed and tore off the lid. This is it, he told himself. Figure out a way, West. It’ll all be over in a few minutes.

  Son, come to me!

  Peter froze and his eyes darted about the room. He hadn’t heard that voice, the gentle warning voice since New Year’s Eve, but now here it was again. He started to speak, started to answer that he couldn’t come, had no way to come until he’d taken the pills. But before he could speak, another whispered voice, angry and hissing, pierced the silence.

  Take the pills, Peter. You want relief, right? This is the way . . . the only way out.

  Peter held his breath, too afraid to move. What had the voice said? Take the pills? The pills were the only way out?

  He worked the muscles in his jaw and felt his body relax just enough so he could shake a pile of pills into the palm of his hand. Whoever had told him to come didn’t understand. The second voice was right. He had no right to live, no reason anymore. The pills were the only way out.

  His hand shook as he lifted the pills to his mouth, so hard that six or eight capsules fell to his lap. Peter lowered his hand and scooped the wayward pills back into his palm. All of them, he told himself. Take all of them so there’s no doubt about the outcome.

  No, son. I will give you rest. Come to me.

  Peter wrapped his fingers around the pills and squeezed his fist to his midsection. “Go away!” He shouted the order into the vacant space before him. He was crazy; that had to be it. Already crazy. “Whoever you are, I don’t want your kind of rest.”

  He waited, and the quiet, gentle voice was silent once more. The hissing voice was silent also, and Peter stared at his clenched fist. It was time—now, before any other voices filled the room.

  Again his hand shook as he lifted it to his mouth, but this time he kept his fingers tight around the pills until the last possible second. Then he peeled his fingers away and thirty—maybe forty—pills spilled into his mouth. He wanted to gag, but he wouldn’t. Not this time. Instead he grabbed his water bottle, squeezed it over the pills and swallowed, swallowed hard enough to down the entire pile of pills.

  There.

  He blinked and set the water bottle back on the bedside table. It would all be over soon. Nausea grabbed at him, but he resisted. He wouldn’t lose the dose again. Not when the only way out of the nightmare of his life was to end it. A strange warmth began making its way down his limbs and throughout his body.

  The pills would be breaking up by now, releasing their potent chemicals into his bloodstream. A matter of minutes really—ten at best—and he would never again have to wonder what it would take to get his next fix, never have to guess if Brooke was going to call and invite him over for a movie, never have to look Maddie in the face knowing that he had robbed her of her little sister, never have to look at Hayley and . . .

  A hissing, laughing sound started in the corner of the room. With every heartbeat it grew louder and louder. Louder than any other time. And then the laughter became words, words that spit at him and surrounded him and filled his soul all at once.

  That’s right, Peter; I tricked you! Now you’ll never say good-bye to Hayley or anyone else. The game’s over, friend.

  Game over? Peter’s mouth hung open and he gasped. Whoever . . . whatever was making that noise, the words only now made sense. He’d taken an overdose of pills and now he wouldn’t get to say good-bye, wouldn’t get to explain the torment he’d been in, the reason he’d had to take the pills. The reason he’d chosen to end his own life.

  “Wait!” The word was a shout, a cry. But even as he spoke, he heard the way the letters ran together, the slur of his voice and his inability to say anything further. The pills were taking effect. They were making their way farther and farther into his system. This time there would be no turning back.

  No second chance.

  And suddenly he wanted to live. More than he’d wanted anything, more than he’d wanted even the pills and the wonderful feeling of peace, more than he wanted a permanent solution for his miserable existence, he wanted to live.

  “Help me!” His eyes moved slowly about the room, his lids heavier than before. Where was the other voice, the kinder, gentler one? The one that had sounded like it was from God himself? “Help m
e, God!”

  In that exact instant his eyes fell on the phone next to his bed. The room was already starting to spin—not the way it did when he needed a fix, but faster, more forcefully. In a way that signaled the end.

  Make the call, Peter.

  “God . . . help me!”

  And with a strength that wasn’t his own, with a steadiness that belied the medication coursing through his veins, he reached for the telephone. Then with unexplainably steady fingers, he dialed the only three numbers that mattered.

  9-1-1.

  He held the phone to his ear and waited, the receiver growing heavier with each half second. Answer . . . please answer.

  “9-1-1. What’s your emergency?”

  “I’m . . .” The words didn’t want to come, and he had to fight the urge to fall over, to give in to the unbearable pull toward sleep, toward death. No . . . help me, God! He held his breath and gave a single shake of his head. “I’m . . . dying.”

  The woman was saying something, asking what had happened and whether someone was in the house. But it was too late. Peter couldn’t say another word, couldn’t remember even why he had the phone in his hand in the first place.

  Sleep.

  That’s what he needed. A good night’s sleep. The receiver fell from his hand, and distantly he heard a tinny voice. Not the hissing voice or the gentle voice, but someone talking from the phone, saying something about his condition or the house or something he couldn’t quite make out.

  Not that it mattered.

  Peace had finally found him and now—after so many nights of restlessness and dark evil voices, he was finally falling asleep. Sleep was a good thing, the one bit of respite he hadn’t been able to find, right? It had to be good. But still, as he closed his eyes and gave in to the almost violent pull toward oblivion, he had one thought. One that didn’t seem to make sense in light of the relief he was feeling. Or maybe it wasn’t so much a thought as a knowing, a knowing that filled his waning consciousness.

  God.

  That was all. God was real after all. He was real—yesterday, today, and tomorrow. God would always be real. Real in the person of Jesus Christ. And somehow, Peter needed that same God now more than ever before.

  But sleep was closing in fast and he was out of time, out of chances. He had one more thing to say, something he wanted to tell God, since God was real and he’d missed that fact while he was alive. But he couldn’t remember, couldn’t make the words come. Couldn’t formulate even a thought.

  And with that, Peter’s eyes closed—still, silent, dark.

  Forever dark.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  It was Monday night, well into January, and Ryan Taylor was watching a late-night college basketball wrap-up, when the phone rang. Kari had a modeling job the next day and was already asleep upstairs. Ryan had no idea who’d be calling so late.

  He grabbed the receiver and clicked the On button. “Hello?”

  “Ryan Taylor?”

  “Yes?” Ryan sat back down in his recliner and looked at the TV screen again.

  “I’m Dr. Williams from the Bloomington Mental Health Hospital. We admitted Peter West on Friday, and this evening we finished our most intensive session.”

  The man paused and Ryan leaned forward. Peter West? In a mental hospital? A rush of realities flooded his senses. How long had it been since he’d talked with Peter? Before Christmas, at least. He’d called him twice since New Year’s, but both times he’d left a message and heard nothing in response.

  Now Ryan understood why. Things were worse than he’d thought. He waited for the man to continue.

  “Mr. Taylor, I’m sorry about the late hour, but Dr. West is asking for you. We thought . . . if you were willing to come now . . . Dr. West might be close to a breakthrough.”

  A breakthrough? Peter West was one of the most respected doctors in Bloomington. How had he plummeted so far without someone stepping in and helping? Ryan realized the man at the other end was waiting. “Definitely.” He used the remote control to flick off the television and headed into the kitchen for his keys. “I can be there in ten minutes.”

  Ryan wrote a note for Kari in case she woke up, and then he drove to the facility. It was a shaded two-story building, discreet and set back from the road, not far from the medical center. The place where people could hide and find help when their world was caving in on them.

  People like Peter.

  Ryan used an intercom to gain entrance and then filled out a form and passed a simple interview with a security guard. Finally, he was allowed in, where he met up with Dr. Williams in the hallway.

  Dr. Williams clutched a clipboard to his side. “Mr. Taylor, your brother-in-law wanted me to tell you why he’s here.”

  Ryan pictured Hayley, drooling from her wheelchair. “Okay.”

  “Some time ago he became addicted to painkillers. The addiction got out of hand, and last Friday he tried to kill himself. He tells us it wasn’t the first time.”

  The information slammed across Ryan’s soul like a tidal wave. Peter had tried to kill himself? Why hadn’t he called . . . Ryan or John Baxter or Kari? even Brooke? Someone would’ve been willing to meet him, talk him down off a ledge before it was too late. Ryan raked his fingers through his hair. “How’d he get here?”

  “Apparently he overdosed and then had second thoughts. He called 9-1-1, and they found him passed out in his bedroom. Doctors pumped his stomach and stabilized him. The next day he was brought here.” The doctor pursed his lips. “He’s in our most secure detox lockdown area.”

  “Detox lockdown?” The entire scene was surreal, happening to someone off the street or to a man with nothing to live for. But not to Peter West—definitely not. “Okay . . .” Ryan squeezed his eyes shut for a moment. When he opened them, he studied Dr. Williams’s face. “Could you explain detox lockdown?”

  “Yes.” The man nodded. “We admit people to that unit when they come from the hospital. It means we take away belts, blow-dryers, electric shavers. Anything with a cord. Also anything that can be used as a weapon.”

  Ryan shook his head. “Peter isn’t dangerous, Doctor. You’ve got the wrong man.”

  “He’s dangerous to himself.”

  The idea shot through Ryan’s gut and knocked him back against the wall. It was one thing for Peter to take too many pills. But to be considered a danger with a belt or a blow-dryer cord? “You said he’s been here since Saturday. How . . . how’s he doing now?”

  “He was very addicted.” Dr. Williams stuck one hand in his pocket. “We’re past the hardest part, but his body is still screaming for relief. Obviously we’ve helped him through the process as much as possible, but at this point he can’t leave without permission from the admitting doctor.”

  Ryan stared at a spot on the floor near his feet. What would Brooke think when she heard the news? And how was she supposed to deal with Hayley and Peter? He remembered the offer he and Kari had made to Peter and Brooke back when Hayley first had her accident. Lord, we’ve asked you for opportunities like this. Use me, use us to bring healing to Peter’s family. Please, God.

  I am with you even now.

  The jumbled thoughts in Ryan’s head cleared and he gave a slight nod. Thank you, God . . . I feel you. He lifted his head and looked at Dr. Williams again. “What can I do?”

  “Well, as I said, we had an intensive session, and he talked about God. We’re not a religious facility, Mr. Taylor, but when one of our patients expresses a faith, we try to involve the person that patient trusts the most with spiritual matters. In this case, that person is you. It took hours to reach a place with Dr. West where he wanted to see you, Mr. Taylor. We didn’t want to lose ground by waiting until tomorrow to call.”

  “Is he—” Ryan pointed down the hall—“can I see him now?”

  “Yes.” The doctor motioned for Ryan to follow. “This way.”

  The hallway was quiet, most of the patients in the lockdown unit asleep. Dr. Williams led Rya
n to the last room on the right. He used a key to enter and the two of them walked in.

  Ryan stopped short the moment he saw Peter. The man was a shrunken replica of his former self. Ryan tried not to stare. He must have lost thirty, forty pounds since the last time Ryan had seen him. His skin was a lifeless gray, his eyes hard and empty. The hollows of his cheeks sank way in, accentuating his cheekbones and the fact that he’d lost weight.

  “Peter . . .”

  Their eyes met, but Peter said nothing. He was sitting in one of two chairs, part of the sparse furnishings that included only a bed and a small nightstand. His hair—which had always been short and neatly cut—hung unkempt an inch past his ears. He clutched the armrests, his knuckles white. He wore blue sweatpants and a white T-shirt, and his entire body vibrated with what looked like a constant tremor.

  Dr. Williams took a few steps closer to Peter and cleared his throat. “Mr. Taylor has agreed to meet tonight.”

  Peter let his eyes fall to his lap and worked his mouth open and shut several times before finally saying, “Thanks, Ryan.”

  The shock was beginning to wear off, but Ryan was still too surprised to say anything. How had this happened? The last time he’d seen Peter, the man was still pretending to be fine, acting as if Hayley’s drowning and his decision to move out were mere speed bumps on the road of life.

  “Let’s go ahead and begin.” Dr. Williams pointed to the other empty chair a few feet from Peter. “Mr. Taylor, if you could sit there. I’ll sit on the edge of the bed and monitor, in case the discussion needs direction.”

  Direction? Ryan stared at the doctor. “I think we’re okay alone, Doctor.”

  “I’m sorry.” The man took his place leaning against the end of Peter’s bed, his feet planted on the floor. “At this stage of detox, conversations need to be monitored.”

  Ryan looked at Peter. He was staring out the darkened window, as if he hadn’t heard the discussion. Ryan nodded at the doctor and took the chair near Peter. “Hey . . .”