Wanting Rita (34 page)

I want to return to the ‘Big Bang’ of my life, just before everything exploded, expanded and scattered in obfuscation and affect. I will accomplish this by starving these damned adolescent emotions and silly orbiting thoughts of desire and guilt.

Megan smiled. “And you’re starving yourself, too.”

I winked with dark amusement. “I am growing in wisdom, stature and strength, like a resolute monk, whose reward will be a stupendous enlightenment—an authentic discovery of the simplicity of living and being. I am abnegating the throne of self-aggrandizing obsession and willful egocentric living to become good and wise. And that, Dr. Megan Corcoran, takes sacrifice.”

“And you, Dr. Alan Lincoln, are full of bullshit and I have no idea what you’re talking about.” She shook a finger at me. “Take some time off and stop thinking so much!”

But I pressed on, until my tenuous outward warmth was eroded by combustible emotions.

I shouted at reception for the least mistake: the wrong chart was pulled; a referral was forgotten; an insurance form was lost. My somber dignity turned to self-righteous indignation. Friends stopped calling and that was just fine with me.

My sister called several times, inviting me to Florida for Thanksgiving. When I finally returned her call, I told her I was too busy.

“Busy doing what?” she asked.

“Does everything I say warrant a cross-examination, Judy?” I said, sharply. “I’m working at a homeless shelter, for God’s sake. There are people out there who are starving and scared and poor, okay! Somebody has to help them. Everybody can’t just stay locked up in their gated communities and comfortable multimillion dollar condos and pretend that everything is just great! Just grand! Just fucking marvelous! Can they?! Somebody has to…”

I heard the dial tone, loud and final. I slammed down the receiver, fuming.

A week before Thanksgiving, I heard the alarm. I went to reach for it, to turn it off; to rise and start the day. But I was paralyzed. The alarm was in my head, ringing frantically, and I couldn’t turn it off. The bedroom was dark, like the darkest cave in deepest earth. I was wet with sweat. I felt as if an elephant were sitting on my chest. Through clenched teeth, I painfully and desperately gasped for air. I was sure that I was having a massive heart attack. The alarm screamed on.

I struggled to move a finger, toes, anything, but I was a frozen block of terror. Death would surely come swiftly, I thought. It would rip me away from my goal, and I had not become perfect. I had failed. I had not passed any of the tests. I had not healed anyone. I had failed them all.

I saw their floating liquid eyes clearly—all the eyes of all the patients I had ever treated, drifting by me, over me, looking at me searchingly, with pity. I tried to find the voice to assure them that there was more time—that I could still find the true efficacious medication, technique or diagnosis that would heal them—save them—but I couldn’t speak, and so I watched and listened to them. I listened to their weak, insistent voices pleading for help and begging for a cure.

I saw medical charts blowing past the foot of my bed, like leaves, with boldly written words: HE COULDN’T BARE HIS PAIN, and WHY CAN’T YOU FIND THE CURE, DOCTOR?

Infinite moments pulsed, as faces slid by, like projected slide images on the wall, until a final image appeared, lingered and spoke. It was Rita. She gave me a critical glance from a gorgeous face. She gave a forlorn sigh. “Alan James…Did you really believe? Did you? We don’t want to join your unhappy little circus. Your little crusade is just another silly ride on the Ferris wheel of life.”

And then she was gone.

At first light, easier breaths cooled some of the fear and lifted the heaviness. I lifted an arm, a leg. Five minutes later, I stood precariously with a racing heart, bracing myself with my hands crabbing along the wall, until I sank into the nearest chair. I leaned back, remembering only vague fragments of Rita’s words. I strained to remember, but they fell away into an incoherent echo, and then plunged deep into my subconscious, like a rock in black water. They returned later and I wept.

I couldn’t go to work that day, nor the next. I slept and ate little. I missed Thanksgiving altogether and didn’t make it to the homeless shelter.

A week later, I arrived in Florida with the intention of staying only a couple of days. From there, I had booked a flight to Barbados, where I was going to spend as many weeks as I needed to recover.

Judy was still livid at me over our previous conversation and over the total destruction of the house. I listened, humbly resigned, as she closed the door to Dad’s room and returned to me in the kitchen. She threw me all her unexpressed anger, which she javelined at me for 30 minutes. I’d never given her the chance on the phone. I’d hung up on her twice.

“That was my inheritance, too, Alan! It was so irresponsible to let that woman stay there. She came from a loony family! I mean, God forgive me my rightful anger here, but what in the hell were you thinking about!?”

“We’ll get more from the insurance than we’d have gotten from the sale, Judy,” I said, dimly.

“That’s not the point and you know it.”

“You didn’t want the house, Judy! You wanted the money. Okay, so you’ll get money. Plenty of it!”

Judy fumed.

The great kitchen was a gleaming canary yellow, with a skylight and generous windows that looked out on a peaceful rolling golf course, where her husband, Greg, was playing golf. He had escaped, knowing good and well that Judy was going to blast me. The kids were with neighbors, and their latest scribbled artwork was magneted to the gleaming yellow refrigerator.

Judy was thin, fit and high strung, with short, tight ash blond hair and a tight thin mouth. She had the friendly assuredness and good-natured smile of a Weather Channel expert and the energy of a sprinter. She was always in motion, as if the clock was running down and the game was nearly lost. Some thought was always spinning—some project hovering—and she balanced them all expertly like a happy juggler, looking over her shoulder for the next challenge. Because of this, the kids were never bored and Greg, a more relaxed and easy-going fellow, often appeared breathless and slightly startled, as if he were waiting for the next inside fast ball from his wife.

Judy stood by the sink, right foot tapping the floor and sparkling blue-gray eyes rolling with irritation. “It has been three months now and I am still in shock. I still wake up from nightmares and anger over this! I just hate it, Alan! I hate it! I’m devastated. And I have to lie to Dad and open his mail so he won’t read the cards and newspaper clippings his friends are sending every other day. It would kill him, Alan. It would just kill him if he knew he’d lost his true home and all those things he’d collected and loved. It would just…” she stopped, throwing up her hands in vexation.

She tossed a newspaper clipping down on the table in front of me. “This one came this morning. It’s two weeks old, and people we haven’t spoken to in years are sending them. God only knows how these people get our address.”

It was from a Pittsburg paper. I scanned the article.

In a bizarre story of love and revenge, fire engulfed an historic Victorian home in Hartsfield, Pennsylvania...

At first, arson was suspected, but police found no evidence to support this suspicion. They only know that the fire started on the first floor. It was learned that the owner of the house, Dr. Alan Lincoln, and his live-in girlfriend, Rita Fitzgerald Palmer, had had a bitter argument the day of the fire. The police searched for Rita, but quickly discovered from her mother that Rita had left town the same night, after quarrelling with Frank Fitzgerald, her father, whose whereabouts were unknown. The FBI was called in and, two days later, Rita was found on Interstate 70, her car broken down by the side of the road near Lawrence, Kansas. She was arrested and taken to the local police station. While she was being questioned, investigators discovered a charred body in the basement of the Lincoln house, near the location of the wine cellar. The identification was made through dental records: it was Frank Fitzgerald. 

A stack of unopened wine bottles was found next to a rosebush garden. Most likely, detectives said, Frank was hurriedly stealing the wine from the cellar, when he was either overcome by smoke or trapped by falling debris. How the fire actually started is still a mystery and, according to Fire Chief McCann, “We may never know what really caused the fire.”

There was an 8 million dollar insurance policy on the house.  

Ms. Fitzgerald Palmer was released and her whereabouts are unknown. Dr. Alan Lincoln returned to New York City, where he practices medicine as a general practitioner.

I pushed the clipping aside and folded my arms.

“It’s so humiliating, Alan. I just despise everybody in the world knowing about this. Knowing about our personal lives and our money.”

“Hey, we’re providing a nice living for the journalists and bloggers.”

“Don’t be sarcastic.”

“Whatever.”

“And don’t be flippant about this, Alan. I’m just so disappointed in you. It’s just unthinkable that you let this happen. All my friends have been texting me and e-mailing me.... It just...Just....”

I stood, weary of the conversation. “Okay, fine… I’m sorry, Judy, I really am, but there’s nothing I can do about it… And, I’m leaving.”

Judy lifted a perfect eyebrow. “What do you mean, leaving? You’re staying for two days.”

I shook my head. “No…I need to be alone.”

Judy started toward me. “Alan, don’t do this. Don’t make me feel terrible.”

“Judy…” I said dropping my arms to my sides with frustration, “I’m going to go spend some time with Dad and then I’m leaving. I’m tired of hearing about this, talking about it, thinking about it. I’m fed up, okay!”

Judy scratched her ear, softening. She reached for a bottle of water and drank. After she’d replaced the cap she faced me. “Alan…has the divorce come through?”

I nodded. “Signed, sealed and delivered. I’m not her man anymore. Nicole is going to marry the guy she’s been with for awhile.”

Judy’s glance traveled the room, finally resting on me again. “Please stay for a day. At least for a day. You haven’t seen the kids in so long.”

“I don’t want to see kids!” I snapped.

“Alan! Don’t say that.”

“Rita…” I heard the name fill the room. I quickly recovered, embarrassed. “...I mean…Judy…” Then more quietly, “Judy…I need to go. It’s not the kids or you. I’m just tired. I need to rest and think things over. You know I love the kids. You know that. You know I love you.”

Judy drew in a long breath and released the words on the exhale. “All right, Alan. Go visit Dad. He was really looking forward to seeing you.”

Dad was in his wheel chair, folded slightly forward, half asleep, his nose making a little whistling sound. He wore navy blue cotton pants, a white cotton shirt and sneakers. He still wore his wedding ring. His moist eyes found me. In them, I thought I recognized borderline worlds: old memories looping; astounding things remembered; glorious visions soaring in a high noon sky, too well remembered but too painful to let go. His eyes dimmed. The visions fell from lofty flight, through the dark clouds of present bewilderment, and into the quiet low dusk of evening.

The room was a cheery robin egg blue, with a cream-colored carpet, a medical bed, plenty of CDs, some audio books, a wide screen TV and, on his dresser, framed photographs of the family. There was plenty of sunlight from the windows and there were fresh lilies scenting the room. Judy truly was a saint.

The photos showed the four of us seated under the Christmas tree in the living room, wearing red and green sweaters, corduroy pants and broad smiles; standing by the pond in summer, subdued and casual after a long day in the gardens; and standing tall and gleaming, in formal dress, beside my mother’s blossoming roses, after Judy’s wedding.

There were two large photos of mom. One captured her wry humor; the other, her refined features, luscious long auburn hair and indulgent lips. She was probably 25.

“Hey Dad,” I said, softly.

He nodded. “Son…” His voice was thin, eyes vulnerable, his countenance, humble and frightened.

I found a chair and sat opposite him. “Sorry it’s been so long.”

“…Busy?”

“Yeah.”

Dad lifted his left arm, shaking. His right arm was frozen, dead. His hair was cotton white and thinning on top. “Skinny…too…skinny.”

“Yeah, I’ve lost weight. I’ll gain it back.” I paused. “Judy said you’re improving. Said you’ve been working with a speech pathologist and a physical therapist.”

He shrugged his left shoulder. “Wasted…money…time.”

I searched for an attitude, and pushed at a smile and a bright tone. “Your color is better. Must be working. Your speech is good... and I think you’ve gained some weight. Judy’s a great cook.”

He saw through my bad performance. “Nicole?”

“Fine. Doing fine.”