by Garth Stein
When she had finished with her story, they fell back into silence. Several minutes passed. Then Field spoke.
“I have to ask you. Did a boy drown out there tonight?”
Jenna looked down and shook her head.
“I’m not sure,” she said, quietly.
Field rose and held his hand out for Jenna.
“You should get some sleep.”
Jenna took his hand and stood, letting Field guide her into the bedroom. After he closed the door, leaving her alone, she stripped off her clothes and stood before the bedroom window looking at her grandmother’s house. As the sky regained its color and the birds awoke, Jenna stood, naked before the world, wondering what was real and what was imagined, trying to fathom an absolute truth, a set of values assigned by some kind of higher being that she could live by, a belief system that would give her the answers she wanted and that she could depend on to survive more than a few thousand years.
There was none. And as she climbed in between the cold sheets, she fought back her feelings of frustration and tried to embrace the new set of rules she must live by now. She clenched her eyes shut and hoped for sleep, some kind of darkness that would stop the spinning of her world.
FIELD JOINED THE SHERIFF and Eddie out on the porch. They were arguing about whether or not to call off the search. The men were tired and nothing had been turned up. Furthermore, nobody had reported a child missing. If a child did drown, he had no parents to worry about him.
“Eddie,” the sheriff said, “if there was a boy—”
“I saw him.”
“I know, I know. Let’s say there was a boy. Let’s say he ran out into the water—”
“He did.”
“He could have let the current carry him down the beach some and come back ashore. Understand? Nobody’s missing. We don’t know if there’s a body out there.”
“I saw it, Brent,” Eddie snapped at the sheriff. “With my own damn eyes. He swam out, went under, and never came up. Don’t be an ass.”
The sheriff ground his teeth. “It was dark, Ed.”
“Jenna saw it, too.”
“No, she didn’t,” Field broke in. Both men stopped and looked at Field.
“She said she isn’t sure anymore. She’s not sure the boy drowned.”
Sheriff looked at Eddie and shrugged. “She’s not sure, Ed. I can’t let these men risk their lives searching for something she’s not sure about. I’m calling it off.”
Sheriff Larson squeezed Eddie’s shoulder in a peremptory way. He didn’t want any further discussion about it. He stepped off the porch and headed down to the water to round up the men.
Eddie laughed bitterly.
“Jesus Christ. She’s not sure. I saw it, Field. I saw the little fucker drown.” He looked Field in the eye. “I saw it.”
Field nodded and shrugged, then he, too, took his leave, stepping off the porch and heading up the street to his home. It had been a long night and Field wasn’t sure about much of what had gone on. But he was sure that Jenna was a very troubled woman. And that Eddie was in love with her. And that those two facts, together, could create quite a commotion over nothing.
Chapter 28
THAT NIGHT JENNA HAD A DREAM ABOUT ROBERT. A DREAM that seemed so real it was frightening. He stood in front of her in their living room in Seattle and told her that it was time for him to leave. He told her it wasn’t working anymore and that it would be best if he left her alone now. She watched him walk down the stone path to the street and get in his car. Bobby was in the passenger seat, and they both waved as they drove away.
Jenna woke up filled with the most overwhelming feeling of depression and emptiness. She was alone, all right, with nobody to hold on to. She needed some kind of human contact, some warmth that only a person could give. It wasn’t that she was afraid to be alone. It was that being alone was killing her, sapping her energy. Some people are meant to live a solitary life and can provide their own best company. Jenna was not one of those. She needed to borrow other people’s energy and feed off them. If she did not have contact, she would wither and die.
And so, eyes red, Jenna climbed out of bed, slipped on a T-shirt and pants, and went into the hallway. She stood outside the door to Eddie’s room for a minute, her hand on the knob, listening to the silence in the house. She knew that what she wanted could cause lots of problems, but her need was strong enough to overcome any objection she could raise. The door opened silently and she made her way across the room in the gray light until she stood over him, watching him sleep, not wanting to disturb him, feeling caught between her desire and her fear. Eddie was pretty in the soft light, his face pressed deeply into his pillow and his mouth open a little bit, enough to let the air in and out. He was tired, so tired he didn’t stir at all as Jenna lifted the sheet and slipped underneath, next to him, not touching, afraid to wake him, afraid that he would tell her to go away, but feeling better already, taking in the heat that radiated from his body. If she could get a little closer, just a little, she would be happy, sliding into the crescent of his body as he lay on his side, making herself fit into his mold, her back to his front, his warm breath on her neck, his thighs brushing hers, he didn’t stir, and she was safe. Safely within another. She had made it. And she fell softly into a dreamless sleep.
THE POUNDING AT THE DOOR jarred them both awake at the same time. Eddie was doubly surprised: first by the pounding, then by Jenna. He looked at her for a moment and she gave him a guilty shrug. But the insistent pounding preempted Eddie’s questions.
“Damn,” he said, climbing out of bed. “Who’s that?”
Jenna hadn’t thought about Eddie’s nakedness. If she had, she probably wouldn’t have climbed into his bed. He scurried across the room and slipped on his jeans, trying to keep his back to her, but as he zipped up his fly she caught a glimpse of his erection in the mirror and she smiled. He ran out the door and down the hallway.
There were voices at the front door talking. One was Eddie’s and the other Jenna didn’t recognize. She got out of the bed and listened behind the closed bedroom door.
“She dropped this and I wanted to give it back.”
“Well, I’m sure she appreciates it. I’ll give it to her.”
“Is she here? I’d like to give it to her myself.”
“She’s sleeping right now. Give me your number and she’ll call you when she gets up.”
“Oh, um, that’s no good. I don’t really have any place I can be reached.”
“Look, I’m sorry, but she isn’t feeling well and she was up real late last night. I don’t want to wake her.”
It was that kid she met yesterday, the one with the comical Midwestern accent. The puppy dog. What did he want? Well, it wasn’t as if she was going to get any sleep with them talking, anyway. She opened the door and walked toward the living room. Both men turned and watched her shuffle toward them.
“It’s okay, Eddie, I’m awake.”
The young man waved.
“Hi, Jenna, I’m Joey, remember me?”
She nodded.
“I saw you at Chief Shakes’s house yesterday and someone said you dropped this when you ran out, so I brought it back to you.”
He handed Jenna the silver necklace with the kushtaka on it.
“What was wrong yesterday, were you sick?” Joey asked.
Jenna tried to remember yesterday—it was such a long day. Chief Shakes’s barf house. Right.
“I ate something bad, I guess.”
“Oh. I brought it back because I thought it might be valuable or something.”
Joey stood in the door, watching Jenna. Eddie leaned against the door, watching Joey. And Jenna stood there looking at the charm. She looked up at Joey.
“Thanks. Do you want a reward or something?”
“No, no. I wanted to get it back to you, in case you needed it, that’s all. I’d want someone to do the same for me.”
“Well, I appreciate it, thanks.”
She reached forward and shook Joey’s hand, trying to put an end to the conversation so she could get back into the warm bed and maybe sleep some more.
“Sure, no problem.” Jenna had turned away to head back down the hall when he spoke again. “Is it?”
She stopped. “Is it?”
“Is it valuable? I’m just curious.”
“No. It’s nothing and it’s not valuable. A friend gave it to me, that’s all.” She made another attempt to escape down the hall.
Joey looked toward Eddie for some help, although neither Jenna nor Eddie could figure out what it was that Joey wanted. Eddie shrugged and smiled.
“Hey, it’s the thought that counts, right?”
Joey chuckled and nodded. He called to Jenna again.
“Is this the friend you’re staying with? He’s a nice guy. I like him.”
Jenna stopped and turned from the hallway. This kid was being weird now. What did he want?
“I’m sorry, but neither one of us got much sleep last night. There was kind of an emergency down here, I don’t know if you heard all the commotion from the park, but we’re real tired and we have to go back to bed. If you want money, I’ll give you twenty dollars for a reward. But if you want a conversation, I’m afraid now isn’t the time. If you want something other than one of those two things, you’re going to have to come right out and say what it is, exactly.”
Joey mulled over his options for a moment, then he smiled and shrugged. “No, I just wanted to give you your necklace back, that’s all.”
“Well, thanks.” Jenna forced a smile.
“Sure, no problem. Well, I’ll be seeing you guys around town. Eddie, nice meeting you.”
Joey shook Eddie’s hand and walked off toward town. Eddie shut the door and made a face at Jenna.
“Who the hell was that?”
Jenna laughed and shook her head, slipping the necklace on over her head.
“Some kid who’s spent too much time alone, I guess.”
She shuffled into her own bedroom with Eddie following.
“Hey, what were you doing in my bed?”
“Sorry, I was lonely and I needed a friend.”
“Not that I minded, or anything . . .”
Jenna, already half asleep, climbed into her bed. Eddie watched from the doorway.
“I’m sleeping now,” she said, burrowing into the sheets. She would have loved to go back into Eddie’s bed, but it seemed different now, in the light of day. She had needed him last night for his warmth, just to recharge a little, so she’d be ready to face the unknown.
JENNA COULDN’T MANAGE to get herself back to sleep after all. She tossed and turned in a dream state for half an hour, finally sitting up. It was nine. She was exhausted. But she had a job to do, so she got out of bed and got dressed.
John Ferguson was in the phone book. Jenna called from the living room, trying to make as little noise as possible. A young woman answered the phone. Jenna asked for John Ferguson, and the woman asked Jenna what she wanted. Jenna explained briefly, and the woman said that John was very sick. He’d had a major stroke and was in the hospital. The woman would be happy to pass on a message, but there was no way Jenna could talk to him. Jenna thanked the woman and hung up.
She sat for a moment on the sofa and pondered her options. How important was it for her to reach him? Very important. Vital. Dire. Of course it would be an invasion. You can’t barge in on someone in a hospital. There are certain rules of decorum. One must show respect. But Jenna couldn’t worry about any of that. She had to know the truth. Her path was taking her in one direction only. Delays and deviations were not allowed. She would have to go to the hospital and find John Ferguson. She had to find out. He owed her. She left a note for Eddie and headed out.
The hospital in Wrangell is on the far side of town, toward the airport, past the old folks home. It was a fifteen-minute walk in the light morning air. It smelled and tasted so sweet. It was better than air in Seattle, Jenna thought as she walked. It was full of vitamins and minerals. There was no soot and smog. Nothing that clogs lungs. Just good, clean pioneer air. For centuries untouched. Virginal.
The hospital was surprisingly nice for such a small town. Like the air, it was clean and fresh. There were no multiple stab wounds at the Wrangell Hospital. No freaks on angel dust shooting dirty blood all over the floor from injuries sustained during manic battles with the cops. But Jenna still felt dread upon entering. The anonymity of hospitals always affected her. The concept of being treated by strangers, no matter how nice and attentive, always upset her.
She asked and was told which room was John Ferguson’s. She went there and she was surprised at how bad he looked. He was in a room with a large glass window in the wall so people could see in from the hallway. The curtains were open. There were no lights on in the room, but Jenna could see well enough by the daylight that spilled in from the other window, which overlooked the parking lot.
On the far side of the bed, a woman sat silently, head bowed, hands clasped in her lap. The bed itself didn’t seem to be occupied by anyone. Just a head on a pillow and a white blanket. Jenna suspected that under that blanket lay the rest of John Ferguson, but it was hard to tell. There was no geography. A head on a pillow, and millions of machines all around.
There was the machine that breathed the air. The machine that drew pictures of the heart beating. The machine that leaked liquids into the veins. And another machine about which Jenna didn’t care to speculate. John Ferguson didn’t appear to be doing very well.
Jenna knocked on the open door lightly. The woman raised her head and, seeing that Jenna wasn’t a nurse or a doctor or some other hospital official, rose to greet her. She stepped out into the hallway and closed the door to the room behind her.
“Yes?”
“My name is Jenna Rosen. Are you Mrs. Ferguson?”
“Yes.”
Jenna paused. It wasn’t too late to back out. She could apologize for the mix-up, turn around and leave. But she had to know. She had to push on.
“I’m a friend of your husband. Well, not really a friend. I met him a couple of years ago when he was at Thunder Bay.”
Mrs. Ferguson looked at Jenna and waited for more.
“Is he doing all right?”
Mrs. Ferguson gestured toward the glass wall.
“No, not really,” she said simply.
It wasn’t too late. Jenna could still walk away. But she didn’t.
“I guess that was a stupid question,” Jenna said.
“Yes,” Mrs. Ferguson said with a half smile. “Is there a message I can give John?”
“Mrs. Ferguson,” Jenna said, breathing deeply. ”I feel bad about this, but I have to do it.”
And she told her everything. Beginning, middle, and end. A story that was so familiar to Jenna now. She had lived it, thought about it, told it, and told it again. Like the ancient mariner. It was her burden. She must deliver her story. But the story wasn’t yet complete.
Mrs. Ferguson took it all in and understood. She smiled at Jenna and touched her arm.
“Oh, dear,” she said, “you’ve been through quite a lot.”
“I need to understand,” Jenna pleaded. “I need to speak with him.”
Mrs. Ferguson considered the request.
“He’s asleep now,” she said. “Wait in the waiting room, and when he wakes up, I’ll come and get you if he thinks he can be of any help.”
Jenna thanked Mrs. Ferguson profusely and retreated to the second-floor waiting room, an alcove with three green couches. She sat and looked out the window and realized that waiting rooms were why she hated hospitals. Not sickness, because Jenna had never really been sick. She’d never had an operation. She’d had Bobby in a hospital, but that was a twenty-four-hour affair. In and out, commando-style. She’d never been the subject of the scrutiny she despised so much. She’d only been in hospitals to wait for others who were patients. All this time Jenna had dreaded hospitals because of the doctors a
nd the medicine, and all this time she’d been wrong. Doctors and medicine were good. Waiting. Not knowing. Having no power to influence the final outcome. They were the culprits. They were why Jenna dreaded hospitals.
It was an hour and two cups of coffee later that Mrs. Ferguson shuffled up the hall toward Jenna. Jenna feared the worst. Why would a dying man want to talk to her? The answer, most likely, was that he wouldn’t. He would want to die in peace. The answer would be no. Mrs. Ferguson stood before her.
“He’d like to see you.”
“Really?”
Surprised, Jenna followed the tiny woman down the hallway to the room.
“I explained to John why you were here. He wants to help.”
“Thank you.”
“But I should warn you. He’s on medication for pain. He doesn’t always speak sensibly.”
“Neither do I, and I’m not on medication,” Jenna said. Mrs. Ferguson laughed politely.
Jenna took Mrs. Ferguson’s chair by the side of the bed. John blinked several times at her. She could see his body now. It was emaciated: a thin, scraggly little body with hardly an extra ounce of fat or muscle. Skin and bones. That’s where the saying comes from, Jenna thought. He obviously had been sick long before the stroke. His body had begun to expire before Jenna had arrived in Wrangell.
“Are you the Irishman named Ferguson?” Jenna asked with a smile.
He smiled back and took a breath. The sound of the breath was magnified by the machine on Jenna’s right. It had a black bellows inside a plastic cylinder. A clear tube ran up John’s nose and delivered oxygen to his lungs. He nodded.
“I’m very sorry to bother you at a time like this—”
He cut her off with a wave of his hand. When he set his hand back down, it was on top of Jenna’s. He was warm. That was a good sign.
“I need to know what happened,” she said. “I need to speak with the shaman. I know this is all crazy and I’m sure none of it is true, but I need to find out for myself.”
“It’s not crazy,” he said, stopping for a breath. “I’ve seen.”
