Goodnight Beautiful

by Aimee Molloy

  “Annie, do you think—” Maddie stops, her face pinched.

  “What?” Annie says.

  “I don’t know. It’s weird he didn’t tell you this.”

  Annie swallows a rising lump in her throat. “I know it is,” she manages, hearing steps in the hallway outside. She waits, and they pass by. “I have to go,” she says, composing herself. “I’m at work. I’ll call you later.” She hangs up, opens her door a few inches, and returns to her desk, where she opens one of the books she’d assigned for the next class. It’s no use: thirty seconds later she grabs her bag from the floor, reaches inside for the bills, and scans the items again. “Sam, you idiot,” she whispers. “Seven hundred dollars on steak knives?”

  “Dr. Potter?” A student is standing at the door. Annie hunts for her name. “Sorry, the door was open.”

  “It’s fine, Clara,” Annie says. “Come in.”

  “Are you sure?” She steps inside as Annie slips the bills back into her bag. “Because I got a job offer and could use some advice.”

  “Of course,” Annie says, zipping the bag shut. “Have a seat, let’s talk.”

  Chapter 31

  The light is on when Sam wakes up, the room is quiet around him. He holds his breath and listens for Albert Bitterman.

  “Albert Bitterman Jr., to be exact. The son my father always wanted.” That’s what Albert said to Sam, the day they met. He’s been combing what’s left of his memory for what he knows about this guy and it came back to him earlier—their first meeting. Annie was in New York, finishing the last two weeks of her fellowship, and Sam called her from Chestnut Hill, where he’d spent the morning touring the terrible selection of available offices for rent, resigned to settling on something subpar. And then, like magic, he stopped at the bank and came out to find the flyer on his windshield. “Office space available in historic home, perfect for a quiet professional.” He couldn’t believe his luck.

  Albert was standing on the front porch when Sam pulled into the driveway twenty minutes later, excited to show him the space for rent downstairs. “It’s got good bones, but it needs a little work,” he said, leading Sam down a path along the front of the house. “You’re welcome to design it the way you want it. I wouldn’t have the foggiest idea how to do that.” He unlocked a door and led Sam inside. The room was large and open, empty other than a stack of boxes along the wall. “All this space, it would be nice to do it right.”

  Sam looks around, guessing he’s in a room on the first floor of Albert’s house, the one down a hallway from the kitchen, and just above his office. Albert had given him a tour of his house the day Sam came inside to check a leaky faucet. It was part of their deal, a deal Sam never wanted: free rent in exchange for helping with odd jobs—raking leaves, changing lightbulbs, nothing too strenuous, Albert assured him. Sam tried several times to refuse, telling Albert he’d prefer to pay rent, but Albert insisted, said Sam would be doing him a favor.

  Strange. That’s the word Annie used when Sam told her about the unbelievable offer: a raw space at the garden level of a Victorian mansion, which he could design himself. “It’s not strange,” Sam said. “It’s called being nice. It’s what we do in the country. Don’t worry, you’ll get used to it.”

  And it was nice: Albert told him to spare no expense, and so he didn’t. Radiant heat under the floors. Central air. A floor-to-ceiling window offering a calming view of the backyard. The office was perfect, far better than anything he’d ever dreamed. But then Albert was always there, lingering. Drinking his tea on the porch in the morning when Sam arrived. Stepping out to check the mail as Sam was leaving for lunch. Appearing with that goddamn tray of drinks at the end of the day. Hey there, heartbreaker, how was your day? Sam felt sorry for the guy. He was lonely up here, with nothing to do all day.

  “Hello?” Sam calls out. “Albert? I need to make a phone call.”

  Silence.

  He looks at the door to the hall, gauging the distance. Seven feet, eight at the most. He can manage that. He ran the fastest mile on his cross-country team; surely he has it in him to get himself from this bed to that door, and then out to wherever Albert Bitterman keeps the heavy, black cordless phone someone like him probably has.

  Of course Sam can do that.

  He takes a deep breath and throws off the blanket, horrified by the sight of his legs. The casts are a disaster, one of his feet twice the size of the other. He puts that concern—along with the question of how, exactly, his landlord has either the supplies or the wherewithal to apply casts to his broken legs—aside for the moment and considers his options for getting out of the bed. Shimmying? Rolling? He chooses a marriage of the two: shimmying to the edge of the mattress and then attempting a gentle roll onto the floor.

  “Fuuuuuucccccckkkkkkkk,” he moans as quietly as he can as his chest hits the floor hard, his casts close behind. He rests his throbbing forehead against the pine floorboards and breathes through the pain, waiting for the sound of Albert’s footsteps racing frantically down the hall.

  But it’s quiet.

  He hoists himself onto his elbows and drags himself toward the door, his legs like boulders attached to his hips. He’s sweat-soaked and out of breath when he gets there, but he does it—he reaches the door and grabs for the knob.

  No, that can’t be right.

  It’s locked.

  He scoots closer and pulls himself up to sit. Gripping the knob with both hands, he rattles the door, praying for this to be a dream. He looks around. The window. He drops to his belly once more and makes his way back across the room. It’s all going to be fine. He’ll open the curtains, and Sidney Pigeon will be there at the end of the driveway like she always is, with that prizewinning cocker spaniel. She’ll come unlock the door, and Sam will say hello and elbow-walk right past her, out the door, over the bridge and straight to the bakery, where the nice old woman who works mornings will give him two Tylenol for his headache and let him use her phone to call Annie.

  He reaches the window and catches his breath before hoisting himself back into a seated position and pulling open the curtain. He freezes. The window is boarded over with a sheet of plywood, nailed into the wall on either side of the window, letting in not an ounce of light.

  I’m locked in a room with two broken legs. And then it hits him. Misery.

  The memory is clear. The front porch, the leaves turning gold. Albert came out and asked what he was reading. Sam showed him the cover. It’s totally deranged.

  His skin prickles with heat, and he’s quite sure he’s going to throw up, but then something else happens. He starts laughing. A giggle at first, and then the dam breaks and he’s laughing so hard he can’t breathe. Textbook defense mechanism: using laughter as a way to ward off overwhelming anxiety. Of course the whole thing is made even more absurd by that bright yellow smiley-face rug staring at him from the corner of the room.

  “Oh yeah, rug?” he says through the laughter. “You think this is funny?” He’s still laughing as the panic rises further, the gravity of the situation dawning on him. He stops laughing and cocks his head. He could have sworn he heard the sound of a car engine, but it’s quiet. He must have been imagining it. But wait, no, there it is: a car door slamming. Someone is here.

  Thank god. He was right. It is all going to be fine. Albert’s not some crazy, obsessed woman. In fact, at this very moment he’s outside, in the driveway, meeting the ambulance that has taken inexplicably long to arrive. He’ll show the paramedics the way to this room, offering a perfectly good explanation for why the door is locked and there’s plywood covering the window. Annie is probably here, too, yelling at everyone to hurry up, insisting on being the first one inside. They’ll all think it’s sweet, but the truth is, she’s got some things she needs to get off her chest. Four days, and you couldn’t find a phone to call me? Really, dickbrain?

  He waits for the sound of footsteps in the hall, but instead he hears the unmistakable slam of his office door. That fucking door, he th
inks, the one that Albert kept promising he’d fix, interrupting his sessions every time someone came or went. Sam’s head is pounding, and he’s doing his best to make sense of why (1) the paramedics are going to his office, when clearly he’s here, in a bedroom upstairs, and (2) how they got in when he has the only key, when the strangest thing happens.

  The happy-face rug starts talking to him.

  “Do I call you Doctor?” the rug asks. It has a man’s voice.

  “What?” Sam says.

  “Is it Dr. Keyworth?” the rug says.

  The voice is familiar. “No,” Sam replies. “It’s Dr. Statler.” The thought occurs to him that maybe he didn’t survive the car accident. Maybe, in fact, he’s dead and discovering that the afterlife looks exactly like that time he did magic mushrooms in Joey Amblin’s backyard the summer of 1999.

  “What happened to your hand?” the rug asks.

  Sam holds up his hand.

  “I cut it putting down a glass.” Those words didn’t come from Sam, and he’s losing track of who’s talking, distracted by the strange familiarity of the rug’s voice. And not only that, but in the pauses in the conversation, Sam makes out what he’s pretty sure is the sound of someone eating popcorn.

  “Who are you?” Sam whispers to the rug, inching closer.

  “Dr. Keyworth, I’m the deputy White House chief of staff,” the rug says.

  “What?” Sam’s confused. The voice. Where does he know that voice?

  “I oversee eleven hundred White House employees,” the rug says. “I answer directly to Leo McGarry and the president of the United States. Do you think you’re talking to the paperboy?”

  “The paperboy?” Sam asks the smiley face, lifting the rug and holding it at eye level. Something metal glints on the floor. A vent. He places his ear to it, just in time to catch the unmistakable whoop of Albert Bitterman’s laughter, followed by the sweeping opening notes of the best theme song in television history.

  The West Wing.

  Albert’s downstairs in Sam’s office, watching The West Wing—“Noël,” season 2, episode 10, to be exact—and Sam can hear every word of it through this vent in the floor. It happens again: Sam starts laughing. A big belly laugh this time, as it all comes together: Albert was up here, listening to the therapy sessions. Well, by god, of course he was, Sam thinks, tears rolling down his cheeks. He knew it; that deeply unconscious sense of Albert above him suddenly becomes conscious—an energy upstairs, moving in and out of this room above him, Albert’s rhythm in tune with his.

  Sam’s laughing so hard that he almost misses the commotion downstairs—Albert’s voice through the vent (“My god, Sam, is that you?”), the sound of Sam’s office door slamming again. And not only is Sam laughing, he’s also taking a great deal of pleasure in beating the absolute crap out of the happy-face rug—a truly flimsy piece of shit—and the rug is in tatters by the time Albert is standing in the doorway, a terrified look in his eyes, a bag of Smartfood popcorn in his hands.

  “You were up here listening to me,” Sam says.

  “What? No—” Albert says.

  He stops laughing as the memory of that night returns, clear as day. The storm was building, and Sam closed the door to his office, picturing Annie. She’d be waiting at home for him, stirring something on the stove, wine uncorked on the counter. Albert was on his porch, holding a tray of drinks. Sam pretended not to see him as he ran to his car.

  He got into his car and realized he didn’t have his keys. He’d left them on the top of his desk.

  The memory of what happened next is surprisingly vibrant, even the small details, like running back through the rain to his office, and the band of sweat on Albert’s lip when he appeared in the waiting room, rain dripping from his hair, a shovel gripped in his hands. The wild look on Albert’s face as he charged toward Sam, the shovel raised over his head.

  A wave of fear engulfs Sam. “Please, let me call my wife.”

  “I’m sorry, Sam, but I can’t do that.” Albert’s expression is vacant and he stands still in the doorway.

  “What do you mean? Of course you can,” Sam pleads. “Go get your phone.”

  “No, Sam, I can’t.”

  “Why, Albert?” Sam feels a sob rising in his chest. “Why are you keeping me here?”

  “Keeping you here?” Albert says, looking as if he’d been slapped. “I’m not keeping you here, Sam. I’m taking care of you.”

  “But I don’t want you to take care of me,” Sam whispers. “I want to go home.”

  “Well, then, you should have had that drink,” Albert spits. “The specialty cocktail I made you. You didn’t have to be so rude.”

  “The . . . drink?” Sam stammers. “This is all because of a drink?”

  Albert makes a show of taking a deep breath. “No, Sam, this isn’t all because of a drink. It’s because you need help, and I’m the only one who can help you.” He walks into the room and picks up the tattered rug before exiting the room and slamming the door behind him. Sam waits until he hears the lock click into place, and then he does something he hasn’t done since the day his dad left. He allows himself to cry.

  Chapter 32

  The Pigeon’s having a party.

  I catch glimpses of it from my upstairs window. Six couples, one inconsiderate enough to park on the Pigeon’s lawn. Dinner Club, they call it. A bunch of former cheerleaders from Brookside High who take turns hosting every few weeks. Tonight it’s the Pigeon’s turn, and Drew is making steak. He started the marinade at two o’clock while the Pigeon snapped a photograph to post on Instagram, letting everyone know how #grateful she is to have a hubby that cooks.

  The lights are on inside, everyone where they’re supposed to be: the men braving the cold rain at the grill out back, the women in the kitchen, sharing guacamole and red wine, probably chitchatting about the article in the paper this morning: “Police at a Loss for Clues in Case of Chestnut Hill Doctor Missing for Four Days.”

  Young Harriet Eager is starting to make a name for herself, staying on top of the story (not to mention the front page).

  Four days into the search for the local psychologist, detectives on the case have exhausted all means to locate Sam Statler. “All that’s left at this point is to appeal to the public for any information they can provide,” said Chief of Police Franklin Sheehy.

  The article was shared dozens of times on Facebook, where some chubby guy named Timmy Hopper had the nerve to make a joke about Sam’s reputation back in high school—“Anyone check Sheila Demollino’s basement?”—garnering six likes the last time I checked.

  A light turns on upstairs at the Pigeon’s house. The second-to-last window, the middle boy’s room. I check the time. Five forty-six p.m., right on schedule. Fourteen years old and sneaking upstairs every evening, two long streams of smoke out the window, just to get through an evening with his family. The lighter flashes on, illuminating his face, as my oven timer beeps downstairs. I hang the binoculars on their hook and head grudgingly down to the kitchen, hoping Sam will still be asleep when I bring his dinner.

  He’s asking to go home. I’ve been avoiding him since yesterday, when I walked in to find him out of bed. I’ve been puttering around upstairs, mentally compiling my latest list.

  Reasons why Sam can’t go home: A list

  Because I want to take care of him. It’s what you do for the people close to you: you tend to them when they’re in need. If anyone is going to understand that, it’s the guy who moved home to take care of his mom.

  Look at all I’ve done for him. A top-rated mattress, clean sheets daily, fresh flowers to brighten the room, because—

  If there’s one person who understands exactly what a homebound patient needs to be at their best, it’s me, Albert Bitterman Jr., twenty-five-year employee of Home Health Angels, employee of the month three times.

  In the kitchen, the Egg Beaters casserole looks done and I scoop a perfect square of it onto a plate, on top of the meat. I set the plate on the
cart with a clean set of plastic flatware, and head down the hall. Sam’s breathing is raspy when I unlock the door and peek my head inside. Thank god, he’s asleep. I take the tray from the cart and quietly set it on the nightstand, then pause at the foot of his bed to admire my work.

  Only once have I applied a cast to a broken bone: twenty-five years ago, during the six-week (unpaid) hospital internship required to become a certified Home Health Angel. A doctor allowed me to wrap a hairline fracture in a nine-year-old’s wrist. That was nothing compared to what I had here—two legs in need of mending, compound fractures in each one, as far as I can tell—and while I’m not typically one to brag, this was a five-star job.

  “Something smells good.” I freeze. He’s awake. “What is it?”

  “Steak and eggs,” I say, clearing my throat.

  “Steak and eggs?” Sam props himself up on his elbows, sleepy-eyed, his hair tousled. “What’s the occasion?”

  “A little extra protein in the evening is helpful when you’re trying to rebuild your strength,” I say, heading toward the door. “I hope you like it.”

  “Albert?” I pause. “You want to hang out for a while?”

  I turn back around. “Hang out?”

  “I’m going a little stir-crazy,” he says. “I could use the company. Unless you’re in the middle of something.”

  “No,” I say, clearing my throat again, and smoothing my apron. “I have a few minutes.”

  “Excellent.” Sam winces as he reaches for the tray, and I hurry to help him. “Thanks,” he says as I adjust his pillows. “Much better.”

  There’s no place to sit other than his bed, so I stand in the middle of the room as Sam cuts into his meat and takes a bite. “Very good,” he says.

  “Salisbury steak,” I say. “Ground beef, ketchup, and half a can of condensed onion soup.”

  “Soup. Was wondering what that taste was.”