All I'll Ever Need Page 5

  “Okay.” She studied him for a moment. He was uncharacteristically fidgety. Perhaps it was just the shock of losing his wife. “Are you sure you want to make a social visit? I mean now? They’d understand. You just — ”

  “Richard is very sick, Della. His wife claims he just wants to die.”

  “Are you sure you’re up to encouraging him?”

  “Della, Nancy asked me to help Richard die.”

  Her hand went to her mouth. “Are you? I mean, what — ”

  “I just told them I’d come by to see him. I wanted to bring Miriam for her opinion.” He shuffled his feet. “You’ve faced terminal illness with Wally.” He looked up. “Would you want to go along?”

  “Jimmy, are you sure you want to think about this now?”

  He ran his hand through his silver hair. “Della, if anything, I need to think about something else besides Miriam right now.” He picked up his hat. “But I’d understand if you were uncomfortable. You’d be crazy to get involved.” He shrugged and faked a smile. “I should get going. I’m sure the break in the parade won’t last long.”

  Della stood. “Wait up, Jimmy. I’m coming with you.”

  Looking like a statue, Nancy Childress stood on the front steps of the white-sided ranch house. Her cheeks were pale from too little sun and the apron around her waist was stained with ketchup or worse. She didn’t smile when they arrived. She just ushered them into the front room and closed the door. Della knew of Nancy’s devotion to her husband. The way the town talked, she practically worshiped the man who’d rescued the single mother a decade before. The lines on her forehead belied her age, but witnessed to the strain of dealing with an abusive first husband and a schizophrenic daughter.

  The room was dim, the light of the morning sun blocked by yellowed venetian blinds. The air carried the musty scent of illness and sweat. Della edged closer to a small window in the front door and squinted toward an empty hospital bed in the center of the room. Della’s eyes met Nancy’s as Jimmy made the introduction.

  “Nancy, this is Della McCall. She’s a friend. Her husband has been ill for a long time. I thought she might be able to help me.”

  She nodded slowly. “Richard’s been having headaches. He likes it dark.” She looked at Jimmy. “Dr. Jenkins, this is a bad time for you. You shouldn’t be having to think about us when — ”

  Jimmy held up both hands. “Nancy, it’s okay. I needed to get out of the house. Really.” He offered a half smile. “How’s your daughter?”

  Della watched as the creases deepened from the corners of Nancy’s eyes. “Hard to tell with her. She tells me she’s got a boyfriend now. A new job.” She shook her head. “I’m afraid she’s still not right. Delusions, her shrink says.”

  “Too bad,” Jimmy muttered.

  “She don’t come around much. Richard ain’t her real father, you know. But he treated her like she was his own. If you ask me, I’d say most of her problems are because of the things her biological father did to her.”

  Jimmy let the comment fall. The trio stood in the little room as silence gathered around them. Nancy didn’t seem to know where to start. She pointed to a couch crowded up against the front wall by the bed. “Thanks for coming. Have a seat.”

  Della cleared her throat and sat on the edge of the old couch next to a blue absorbent pad that occupied the center. Nancy pulled the pad away. “Sometimes Richard likes to lay on the couch when he tires of being in the bed.”

  Della felt like an intruder. She examined the couch cushion beside her and wondered about whatever secretion the pad was supposed to collect.

  Nancy touched the tip of her chin with her hand. “McCall?” She said the name slowly as if trying to make a connection.

  “Dr. McCall’s mother,” Jimmy said.

  Nancy straightened. She diverted her eyes from Della and spoke to Jimmy. “You should have come alone.”

  Della stood. “I can wait in the car if — ”

  Jimmy shook his head. “I asked her to come.”

  “Dr. McCall didn’t look too kindly on our request. She refused to help us.”

  Della felt her dander rising. “Jimmy, I’d better go.”

  She turned as Jimmy gripped her arm. “No.” He looked at Nancy. “Anything that happens here is just between us. Dr. McCall won’t know anything about this.” His eyes bore in on Della’s.

  She nodded. “Of course.” Della’s stomach knotted. “It’s confidential, just like any doctor visit.”

  Nancy sat on the edge of the hospital bed staring at her hands. She stayed quiet for a moment before looking at Della. “You can stay.”

  Della shuffled her feet and sat back down, careful to avoid the center cushion.

  “Richard is in the bedroom. He divides his time between this bed and the one in the bedroom.” She paused. “We should talk before you see him.”

  “Sure,” Jimmy said.

  Nancy began a saga of Richard’s decline, beginning with a long battle with Crohn’s disease, a bowel blockage, three surgeries, radiation, and chemotherapy. Della found her mind drifting as Nancy detailed the spread of colon cancer to his liver and his multiple visits to the oncologist. When Nancy began to describe his vomiting and diarrhea and the drainage from openings near her husband’s buttocks, Della forced her mind away, willing her own stomach to obey. She closed her eyes. Mountain views with fresh air, the salt smell of the ocean in the morning, meadows with spring flowers.

  Nancy’s voice intruded. “Sometimes he vomits until I see blood . . .”

  Riding in a convertible with the top down through the country.

  “He cries every time I have to clean the raw areas of . . .”

  Crisp autumn, sweater weather with morning frost.

  “. . . his body is so thin that the diapers won’t even conform to hold in the . . .”

  Della put her hand to her mouth. Her diversion tactic had been overcome. Not knowing where the bathroom was, but knowing she needed to be somewhere quick, she broke for the front door and the fresh air beyond.

  Outside, she lowered her head behind a bayberry bush and surrendered her morning coffee. A few moments later, Jimmy crouched beside her. “I’m sorry, Della.”

  Embarrassed, she spat into the mulch and wiped her mouth with a tissue. “I’m okay,” she said. “I just didn’t know what to expect.” She looked up to see Nancy standing on the top of three steps.

  Her face was without expression. “I’m sorry. I’ve kind of gotten used to things after so long.”

  Jimmy whispered, “Do you want to wait in the car?”

  Della shook her head. “No. I’m okay now.” She hesitated. “I feel better.”

  They walked back into the house, following Nancy down the hallway to the room where Richard lay. His skin was yellow gray, the whites of his eyes pumpkin orange. Della remembered pictures of starving children in Africa who looked vigorous compared to this. Bones on the side of his face seemed determined to erupt to the surface, tenting up the skin like moles in spring grass. He looked over at Jimmy and slowly raised a hand covered with purple blotches. “Hi, Doc.”

  Nancy looked at Jimmy. “It’s been three years this month since you sent him to a surgeon in Carlisle.”

  “You’re the one who diagnosed me, remember?” Richard said.

  Jimmy nodded. He stepped closer. “Mind if I take a look?”

  Della watched as Jimmy pulled down a sheet and raised up the shirttails of a tattered pajama top. Richard’s stomach was bloated like a tick after a meal.

  “Are you in pain?”

  “Here,” he said, placing his hand over his stomach. “Cramps all the time.” His fetid breath hit Della’s face as he coughed. She stepped back, wondering if she would need the bayberry bush again.

  She edged closer to the doorway as Jimmy looked at Richard’s back, diverting her eyes completely as she heard him pulling away the sticky tape of his diaper.

  In a few minutes, they were done, and retreated to the front room. “I ne
ed some air,” Della said.

  Della sat on the front steps and waited, trying to make some sense out of Richard’s current life. Is a life like Richard’s worth living? She thought about Wally. Is it ever right to hasten death to relieve suffering?

  She’d grown used to Wally’s misery, but this was different. She stared unseeing across the yard. Was she shocked because of her newness to Richard’s condition? Could she have grown calloused to her husband’s grief? Confusion and despair played tag team against her belief in life’s sanctity. Why now, God? Why am I suddenly faced with another soul asking for death as a healing?

  Five minutes later, Jimmy emerged. He took a few deep breaths, coughed, and cleared his throat. She watched as he shook his head slowly and reached for her hand. He didn’t speak. Instead, they drove away in a contemplative silence, with Richard’s wretchedness hanging between them like an impenetrable fog.

  Claire closed the clinic during the memorial service for Miriam Jenkins, expecting most of her patients felt loyal enough to Dr. Jenkins to pay tribute to his wife. She was right. As she sat in the back of the Presbyterian church, she recognized most of the people from the files at the clinic.

  Miriam died from a ruptured cerebral aneurysm, a silent killer that had given the Jenkins no warning until its fatal rupture. Claire studied the backs of the heads that lined the pews. Odds would have it that at least one or two of them harbored a pea-sized bubble on a blood vessel that would seal their date with the grim reaper as well.

  Claire had gone for the sake of her mother. And of course, as the new replacement physician for Dr. Jenkins, she supposed everyone expected her to be there. Certainly Jimmy Jenkins had been there for her over the years, cheering at Claire’s basketball games, and providing her work in his office when she showed an interest in medicine.

  It all seemed so odd to her now, looking back from the vantage point of the last year’s discovery. As she’d diagnosed her father with Huntington’s disease, it became important to trace blood inheritance of the illness from generation to generation. In doing so, she put to rest the folklore about the Stoney Creek curse, the mysterious illness that weaved its way through the families of the Apple Valley. In the middle of her search, her twin brother Clay died from injuries sustained in a car accident. During her review of his medical records, she made an unexpected discovery: Clay’s blood type revealed that he could not have been fathered by Wally McCall. That, of course, prompted Claire to question Della about an affair. Her mother confessed to an intimate relationship with Jimmy Jenkins, the town’s family doctor, but stopped short of providing the details. Claire’s discovery initially gave her hope that she had also been fathered by Dr. Jenkins, and that in fact she may not be at risk for inheriting the Huntington’s disease gene. But that was not to be. Further digging into her family’s troubled past revealed that she and her twin had different fathers, a rare but possible situation because her mother slept with Wally and Jimmy within a few days’ time. Knowing that her mother had kept a dark secret that was confessed only when forced, Claire’s mind wandered through the possibilities. Who seduced whom? Was he a one-night stand or a regular lover?

  Looking back with the new knowledge that Dr. Jenkins had fathered her twin brother, Clay, she felt funny about her connections with her longtime mentor. She respected him as a successful professional, but found that when she was around him, her mind drifted to questions about his relationship to her mother, questions that intrigued and troubled her. She told herself that she didn’t need to know. She wanted to forgive, forget, and go on.

  The service was one hour by the clock. Three of Miriam’s favorite hymns. Memories by Janet Brown, a close friend. A tribute by Dr. Anderson, her pastor.

  After the service, Claire answered Emma Harrison’s questions about her bursitis and Fred Smith’s need for home oxygen. After dodging a brittle diabetic who always wanted to show Claire her most recent blood sugars, she managed to give Jimmy Jenkins a polite hug and told him to stop by the office.

  The afternoon was crowded with three work-ins who had food poisoning after a family reunion. At five, Claire exited an exam room to see Lucy. She wasn’t smiling. The staff rarely did after five.

  “Joanne Phillips is here. She claims to have an appointment to see you. I don’t have her on the books and I told her we don’t schedule after five.”

  “It’s okay,” Claire said. “Just send her back to my office. The staff can go.” She lowered her voice. “It’s a personal matter.”

  A few moments later, Claire looked up from her desk to see a young woman with shoulder-length dark hair, smartly dressed in business chic. She stood and extended her hand. “You must be Ms. Phillips.”

  She smiled. “Call me Joanne.” Her eyes scanned the room. “Am I interrupting? Or are you ready to begin?”

  Claire took a deep breath and shoved a file aside. “Ready.” She winced. “I guess.”

  “Why don’t we sit out here,” she said, pulling around two chairs so they faced each other. “An open posture.”

  Joanne gestured to the other chair and sat. “I take it from our phone conversation the other day that you’re dealing with some issues of your own?”

  Claire nodded. “Perhaps you saw the story. It was splashed all over our local press. An employee of mine, Tyler Crutchfield, was taking advantage of young women who were physically disabled, several fresh from operations that made them vulnerable to attack.” She paused. “I was his last victim.”

  Joanne opened a notebook and tapped a silver pen against her chin. “I did read about that.”

  “I fought back. He did not rape me.”

  “How is it affecting you now?”

  Claire looked at the floor. “Trouble sleeping. He attacked me in my bed.” She looked up and met Joanne’s dark eyes. “I’ve been sleeping with a loaded gun on my nightstand.”

  “What else?”

  “It’s weird. It’s like the whole experience has brought up a memory I’d shoved away, hoping to avoid.”

  “A memory?”

  “Let’s call it a partial memory. I remembered a night when I was about sixteen. I wasn’t a big partier or anything. I’d grown up with an alcoholic father, so I’d tried to steer away from the stuff.”

  “What happened?”

  “I remember getting some wine with some friends. I got totally smashed. I had no tolerance whatsoever. I don’t remember even getting home.”

  “What’s the first thing you remember?”

  “I was sick in the bathroom. I remember looking up at the ceiling . . . feeling pain . . . thinking I’d gotten myself messed up. I remember crying because I thought my virginity may have been taken away.”

  “But you don’t remember what happened?”

  Claire shook her head. “I was so drunk.”

  “You think you may have been raped?”

  “I know this sounds weird. But I’ve been having horrible dreams. A few nights ago, I sat up after a dream and I had this horrible déjà vu experience. It was like I knew something dark had happened to me in that place. It was so terrifying that it made me sick to my stomach. I went to the bathroom, and that’s when the other memory came back.”

  “Claire, this isn’t weird at all. It’s very common for one bad experience to stimulate memories of other pain in our past.” She leaned forward. “Let me see if I understand. You were attacked in your own bed a few weeks ago, but the rapist wasn’t successful with you.”

  “Correct.”

  “But you have a vague sense that something else happened to you in that same place. You remember being sick and worrying that you may have been with a man, but not really remembering.”

  Claire nodded.

  “Can you remember why you thought you may have been raped?”

  Claire looked down, feeling reluctant to explain. “I remember waking up and someone was touching me. My breast.” She pinched the bridge of her nose. “I’d never been with a man, you know, had sex before. So I didn’t know what to
expect. I wasn’t sure.”

  “Were you bleeding?”

  “A little.”

  “Did you tell anyone?”

  Claire shook her head. “I just remember thinking I’d better not tell my mom.”

  “You were afraid?”

  “I think so.”

  “What did you do?”

  “Nothing. Well, I worried about it for a while. I wasn’t sure what had happened, so I finally just put it behind me.”

  “Until now.”

  Claire looked up as Joanne reached for a small framed picture on her desk. Her eyes seemed to savor what she saw. “Your boyfriend, I take it?”

  “My fiancé.”

  “How has the rape attempt affected him?” She ran her finger over the top of the frame. “Men can be funny about this kind of thing. Has he been angry? Jealous?”

  “No. But he was badly injured in a car accident around the time of my attack. I think he’s been pretty focused on getting better himself.”

  “How have your memories affected your relationship with him?”

  “I’m not sure.” She thought back to their last good-bye. “There was a time when we were kissing.” Claire felt heat rise within her cheeks. “Anxiety suddenly seized me. I didn’t understand it. I pushed him away.”

  “Maybe another memory trying to surface?”

  Claire shrugged.

  “What other men lived in your house during the time of your memory? Brothers, uncles, perhaps?”

  “Only my father. My twin brother was living with a cousin at the time.” Claire stared at her counselor. “Why?”

  “I’m just trying to determine who may have had access to you in your own bed.” She seemed to hesitate. “Sometimes those who are closest to us can hurt us the most.”

  The thought sickened Claire. She looked back to her hands in her lap. “So now what?”

  “Realize a few things. You’re safe now. Whatever memories are surfacing come from a long way off. Whatever hurt you then cannot hurt you now, unless you let it.” She leaned forward and took Claire’s hand. “You’re in a safe place to remember. And whoever hurt you then is not hurting you now.”