Childless: A Novel (18 page)

For now.

Tyler peered
through the glass wall at three sleeping babies: two girls and a boy, judging from the colors of their caps. He knew he should think they were cute; but in all honesty, they looked a bit like misshapen aliens with oddly colored skin. Sights only their mothers could love.

Hannah Walker stood in the corner, hovering momentarily over a fourth baby, her stethoscope pressed against the child’s chest. A boy, he noticed when she shifted her stance to perform some sort of test. The child suddenly let out a raspy, quavering scream of pain or irritation. Tyler sympathized with the little guy. One minute you’re floating comfortably to the rhythmic echo of Mom’s beating heart, the next you’re being poked in the bottom by a colossal stranger with chilly hands. Next stop? Who knows? Spying for jealous lovers? Investigating obscure death threats?

“Welcome to the asylum, kid,” he whispered through the glass. He sniffed his cup of lukewarm coffee before tossing it in a trash can next to the nursery entrance.

Hannah exited the hospital’s newborn nursery, giving Tyler a quick smile.

“Sorry about that,” she said, indicating down the hallway. “Where were we?”

“You enjoy your work?” It was more an observation than a question.

She smiled again, bigger this time. More genuine. Laugh lines formed to nearly obscure the slight scar along her lower jaw. “I really do.”

“Quite a change from your previous line of work.”

“Well, Mr. Cain, that’s about the biggest understatement I’ve heard in all my life.”

Tyler chuckled at himself. Hannah Walker had gone from helping push seniors out of this world to helping smuggle newborns in.

“It’s OK, though,” she went on. “I needed to find something positive if I was going to stay in the medical field. For over a year I kind of wallowed in self-pity after leaving New Day. This job came along, and it was serendipity.” She paused. “I have this neighbor who believes in reincarnation. And sometimes I think that maybe, just maybe, these little ones are the souls of my former clients.”

“You believe that?”

She pursed her lips with a slight shaking of the head. “No, not really. Wish I did, though. It would probably ease a bit of the guilt.”

“Guilt for what?”

Hannah stopped their advance and turned partially toward Tyler. “One thousand, four hundred and twenty-three deaths,” she said, her eyes still fixed down the hallway. “I stayed more than two years at New Day.” The words dripped with disdain.

He said nothing. They resumed their stroll, rounding a corner under a sign that read
BIRTH AND DELIVERY
.

“Why did you? Stay, I mean.”

She shrugged. “I don’t know, honestly. At one time I thought I did.”

A brief silence.

“At the time I think I had convinced myself I was helping heroes fulfill their destiny.” A single laugh scoffed. “It took leaving to realize.”

Tyler looked toward Hannah, waiting for the rest. Nothing came. “Realize what?” he asked.

“That I believed a lie. Wanted it to be true.”

She met Tyler’s eyes.

“No one likes to admit that about themselves, Mr. Cain. Especially when you’re still living in the lie. So you go on, swallowing back sour bile while telling yourself you’re part of some greater good.”

She glanced upward, noticing the sign that summarized her new reality. She pointed toward it. “‘Birth and Delivery,’” she read aloud. “Back then I sneered at breeders. Can you believe that? I actually made fun of the women who are helping me climb out of the pit.”

“What pit is that?” he asked curiously.

“The one I helped dig. As of this morning it was eleven hundred and sixty-four graves deep. That little boy you saw me with in the nursery moved me one closer to the surface. Only eleven hundred and sixty-three to go.”

“Sounds like a steep climb,” Tyler said, from not knowing what to say.

“Believe me,” she replied. “It’s much easier climbing up than digging down. Like I said, I love my new job. Nine months now.”

She paused, as if surprising herself with the comment.

“Nine months,” she repeated. “Kind of ironic, isn’t it?”

Tyler offered a weak smile of agreement before steering the conversation back.

“I see why you’re
not
a fan of NEXT Transition Services.”

She grimaced at the possibility. “Not in the least.”

“You’d be pretty happy if they lost the appeal?”

“I wouldn’t shed any tears if they lost. Other than possible tears of joy.”

“Can you think of anyone else who would benefit if NEXT lost the appeal? Other than Jeremy Santos, that is?”

“Benefit?” Hannah Walker began, but an urgent ringtone erupted from the phone stuffed in her nursing scrubs pocket. She held a brief conversation on where to be for her next patient: a baby being born by C-section in just a few minutes. She ended the call, then glanced at Tyler, quite intently. “I’m sure there are plenty who would benefit, Mr. Cain. But why do you assume the person you are dealing with is
opposed
to NEXT? Does it say that explicitly in the letters?”

The question confused him.
Of course it does. Wait. Does it
? “Why do you ask?”

“Well, I’m sure there are many who want to see NEXT lose the appeal. But others would have far more to gain if they won.”

Tyler had been so focused on Jeremy or some other lawsuit beneficiary he had barely considered the possibility. How stupid of him!
Losing my edge
, he thought with a sigh.

“The transition business is just that: a business. It’s about making money, and a lot of it. Certain people will go to great lengths to make a buck. And when it comes to the old and afflicted, death pays handsomely.”

“So you think it’s NEXT?”

“Maybe. Or maybe someone with more to gain than NEXT.”

“Like?”

Hannah shook her head as her phone beeped, then started down the hallway backward while finishing her thought. “I haven’t a clue. That’s for you to find out. But might I suggest you visit the clinic where I worked? See for yourself what goes on. You might find a lead or two. Goodbye, Mr. Cain.”

And with that, she scurried off.

New Day Transition Center seemed considerably smaller in person than it had in the video tour, at least from the outside. The brick exterior blended seamlessly into the surrounding establishments. It would be easy to miss unless you were looking. Probably on purpose. Despite the overall popularity of transition clinics, Tyler imagined there were still a few crazy zealots around eager to bomb the place if given half an opportunity. But here, nestled neatly between a pediatrician’s office and that of a gynecologist specializing in reproductive screening, it felt rather harmless. Tyler laughed at the grouping.

It did seem odd, though. For a business set up to make lots of money, as Hannah Walker supposed, the interior seemed rather lackluster. Tyler wasn’t even sure what he hoped to find here. He’d already seen the place, virtually, through the police recording. Maybe he needed to actually experience it for himself.

He glanced around the waiting room, where two elderly men sat with their fiftysomething children beside them. One was in a wheelchair, and the other had a canister of oxygen attached via clear plastic tubing to his nose. It was disturbingly quiet.

The receptionist smiled brightly. “Welcome to New Day, may I help you?”

Tyler was caught off guard, momentarily unsure of what to say. He glanced again at the man in the wheelchair. Probably the same age as Renee’s father, or a few years beyond. A fleeting thought crossed his mind. What it would be like to see Gerry or Katherine here, Renee holding his or her hand as they prepared to say their final goodbyes? She would never do it, of course. But the image gave him the needed reply.

“Yes,” he said, bringing his gaze back to the young woman’s. “It’s my father-in-law, really. He’s…well…”

“Oh, I understand. Hang on one moment.” She stretched to check on the clients in the waiting room, as though fearing they had escaped, then handed Tyler a series of papers. “I’ll have you meet with a counselor. In the meantime, you should read through this, making sure you, your partner, and his or her father understand everything fully.”

Tyler continued playing the part as the receptionist leafed through the first several pages of legal mumbo jumbo. She stopped on the final page.

“This is the official application. The front is just basic personal information. You know. Name, date of birth, that kind of thing. On the back is a series of questions you—I mean your father-in-law—will need to answer after meeting with one of our counselors.”

Tyler flipped the page to the back, scanning the list. On the surface they all seemed quite reasonable questions to ask oneself before deciding to die. But then Tyler realized how pointed some of them seemed. Like “Have you pre-identified allocation and distribution of your estate via a legal will?”

At the bottom, in barely legible fine print, was a revision number and date. It was recent, less than six months old. This was the eighth version of the form, in fact.

Ten minutes later Tyler sat on faux-wood-grained furniture across from a male counselor. A cheaply framed lithograph hung crookedly. The hint of fresh-breeze-scented air freshener wafted from a small plug-in behind the man. His nametag read
LEO
, probably short for Leonard.

Tyler had dutifully filled in the first page with Gerry’s personal information, but held off on the questions targeting Gerry himself. Leo glanced at the form, then leaned forward, hands prayerfully folded.

“I know this must be a difficult time,” he began.

Tyler nodded, then feigned an appreciative smile. “To be honest, I’m not even sure this is what he wants. But Renee…I mean, my wife, she’s a bit overwhelmed right now.”

“That’s to be expected. No one should have to go through the process of having to see their parents slowly deteriorate to the point that they can’t even take care of themselves. But we see it so often. And it doesn’t have to be that way.”

“But when’s the right time?”

Leo leaned back too quickly, as if checking
Show compassion
off a mental list. It must have seemed Tyler didn’t need convincing, just the proper motivation. “That’s the tricky part,” he said.

“Tricky?”

“Yes. See, transitions must be completely voluntary. We can’t have overburdened children making decisions on behalf of their mother or father without absolute certainty that the parent understands and agrees to the process. That’s the point of the second page. See there?”

“Yes.”

“And so, assuming your wife is in agreement, the first step will be helping your father-in-law understand what kind of burden he has become to your wife. Sometimes that takes time and a little bit of patience.”

“A little bit?”

Leo chuckled. “Or a lot. One of the volunteers sitting in our waiting room now had his first consultation nearly six months ago.”

“Six months?” Tyler had spent less than ten days of hosting Gerry and Katherine in his house and already felt burned out.

“I know, but don’t worry. Those are exceptional cases. If your father-in-law is already aware of his worsening condition, which is…?”

“Uh. Mild dementia.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” Leo said, briefly returning to a posture of pity, then continuing. “If your father-in-law can be made to see the toll his dementia is taking on your wife he’ll be more open to volunteering. You can help that along some.”

“Help it along?”

“Not that you want to push him into something he doesn’t want to do.”

“No,” Tyler heard himself say.

“Like I said before, the decision must be completely voluntary. But sometimes the person less emotionally tied to the situation, such as yourself, can help them see the situation from a more clearheaded perspective. You know, help them focus on the benefits rather than just grieve the potential separation.”

“Benefits?”

“Such as freeing resources for your wife, any grandchildren—”

“No kids.”

“I see. Does she have a career, then? In a very real way, your father-in-law is probably holding her back.”

Tyler’s mind filled in other motivations. He and Renee hadn’t had sex since the day her parents moved in. “I hadn’t thought of it that way.”

“Here,” Leo said, handing the forms over to Tyler. “Take these. Discuss them with your wife. Look over the questions. And when you’re convinced that your father-in-law is ready to answer them honestly, then you’ll know the time is right.”

Tyler folded the forms and slid them into his pocket before standing and offering his hand in thanks. Leo returned the gesture, escorting Tyler back toward the lobby. On the way Tyler caught a glimpse of the man in the wheelchair being moved through an open door. The sign overhead read
TRANSITION ROOM
#2
.

In the waiting room Tyler noticed the man’s daughter sitting quietly, dabbing a mascara-stained tear from each eye. She returned his glance. He sensed both relief and regret.

Hannah Walker had been right. He
was
surprised. Not because he had found any useful lead. He hadn’t. He was surprised by the efficiency of the process. It had taken the NEXT staff less than thirty minutes to move him from a vaguely curious inquirer to a convinced salesman of their product. One or two sentences had emphasized that volunteering must be “completely voluntary.” But they had seemed like legally required fine print, not sincere attempts to dissuade. Under other circumstances the encounter might have convinced Tyler to seriously explore a step he had never really put much thought into before.

Was Antonio Santos as easily convinced
? he wondered.

Tyler forced the question out of his mind. Private detectives don’t have the luxury of rabbit-trail thoughts. He got paid when he delivered. He put his Mustang in reverse, matching the direction of his case. The interviews with Julia Simmons and Hannah Walker had brought him no closer to finding the author of Judge Santiago’s threatening letters. Nor to pocketing his thirty-thousand-dollar bonus.