Where the River Ends (6 page)

He placed a finger in the air. “Oh, and both dopamine and dexamethasone, while effective when used alone, can cause a problem when used together. They counteract one another. Using both together can be a bit of a balancing act.”

He was right. Abbie had been using various forms of these and other drugs for so long that she’d become desensitized to their effect. Meaning, she needed more narcotic to achieve the same benefit. Which would have been fine if the pain had stayed the same. Problem was, while the pain ramped up, our ability to combat it spiraled downward.

He folded his arms. “As her doctor, I’m obliged to tell you. Over the long term, dexamethasone causes ulcers, bleeding of the organs, euphoria, water retention, heart insufficiency, blurred vision and wide-angle glaucoma. Other than that, it’s a peach.”

I shrugged. “I guess the good news is that we needn’t be too concerned about the long term.”

He shoved his hands in his pockets and turned toward the street. “And…”

“Yeah?”

“You won’t see it coming and it won’t be pretty. In truth, you’ll hear it before you see it. Once you do, it’s a ticking time bomb. Problem is, you can’t see the fuse.”

He pointed at my bag of goodies. “The dexamethasone…one will ease the pain, two will knock her out for most of a day…three will…well…”

I knew what he was trying to say. “Thanks, Gary.”

“If you have anything left to say, say it now.”

I walked back up the steps. “Close your eyes.”

“What?”

“Just close your eyes. I have a present for you.” He did and I backhanded him about as hard as I could in the left eye.

He hit the floor. “What’d you do that for!”

I helped him up. “You need a story to go with the lie that you’re going to tell the office manager in a few hours.” I pointed at his swelling eye. “Now you’ve got one.”

“You could’ve warned me.”

“Sorry.” I handed him an Actiq. “Here, this’ll help with the pain.”

“Very funny.” I turned and started walking down his steps. “Doss, you know what you’re doing?”

I shrugged. “Not really. I just know I can’t stay here.”

He shook his head. “I don’t envy you.”

“I’ll be seeing you, Gary. Sorry about your eye.”

“One more thing.”

“Yeah?”

“One of the conversations right now in the medical community is how much is too much narcotic. With all the conversations about euthanasia, we are constantly asking ourselves, whether out loud or quietly to ourselves, when we, as physicians, have crossed the line from fighting pain to…helping someone go quietly into that long night. You following me?” I nodded. “Given Abbie’s desensitization to the medication, she’ll need a lot of it. If…if you give her what she needs…at the end of the day, you could be charged with, well…between what’s in that bag and what would be in her bloodstream, they’d just build the prison on top of you.”

“Thanks, Gary.”

I
TIED THE CASE
to my seat and shoved it behind me. I could lose everything else but it. And maybe the revolver. I stepped in and shoved off, dipping the paddle tip in the water. My cell phone rang in my pocket. Caller ID read “
SIR
.” This was not unexpected. I shoved it back in my pocket and let it ring. When we first married I managed to fly beneath his radar. Now, not so much. A few minutes later, it rang again. And again. Abbie whispered from beneath the tarp, “You better answer it. You know how he hates to be kept waiting.” The fourth time he called, I flipped it open. The tone of voice reminded me of the one he used while in the Chamber as he was speaking to members on the other side of the aisle. The booming one heard on C-SPAN, FOX and CNN. “Where is Abigail Grace?”

D
OUBLE NAMES IN
C
HARLESTON
are a way of life. Most blue bloods decree at least one. It’s an oral remnant of Scarlett’s Camelot days and a not-so-gentle reminder of their ancestral link to nobility. When he first enrolled her at Ashley Hall, then Governor Coleman had insisted on it—intending to elevate her above the fray and distance her from her competitors. One of the youngest governors in the history of the Union, he expected people to jump when he barked, so he surrounded himself with people who asked, “How high?” Propped in pigtails and pearls, she cared nothing for the sort. She did not work for him, had no ambition other than being his daughter and didn’t give two bits about his title.

Thus began the tug o’ war.

Ever since, they’d lived with this private uneasiness. In public, they shared a necessary truce. She gave him that. That, too, was Charleston. Appearances must be kept. But if you listened to the way she said “Daddy,” it was there.

From the moment I’d met her, Abbie had been nothing I expected. On the surface, she was a senator’s daughter, birthed in lace, raised by “help” and K-thru-12’d at Ashley Hall, where the echoes of the Gullah nannies hung in the air.
I’m Charleston born and Charleston bred and when I die I’m Charleston dead.
Steeped in society and cured in culture, her first word had been
deb
—as in
debutante.
Beneath the surface, where we swam, she was as at home there on a beach wearing a bikini top and frayed cutoffs as at the Hibernia Society ball decked out in pearls and shoulder-length white gloves. Somehow, she moved seamlessly, and effortlessly, between both worlds.

Miss Olivia, who changed her diapers and gets a good bit of the credit for raising her while Dad was trying to get reelected, said that somewhere in the first grade, Abigail Grace Eliot Coleman put her hands on her hips, stamped her foot and said, “What’s wrong with ‘Abbie’?” Over the years, in direct proportion to their escalating battle, she chipped away at her name. From third to sixth grade, she clipped it from “Abigail Grace” to “Abbie Grace.” Cute, while still respectable. It also fit with her starring role in the musical
Annie
at the Dock Street Theater. In junior high, as her modeling career began to take off, landing her jobs in national mail-order clothing catalogs and local commercials, her name survived another cut to “Abbie G.” A butchering that narrowed her father’s eyes, but technically it was two names and only used in informal settings—which meant never around him. She’d outgrow it. As a junior, several would-be beaus, prom hopes high, rang asking for “Abbie.” He responded with a dial tone. No matter, sixteen-year-old Abbie went anyway and just to add insult to injury she accepted jobs from two of the largest swimsuit makers in the country. Those two-piece photos quickly earned her a first-class ticket to New York where she and her agent—an attorney sent along by her father—met with cosmetics lines, shampoo and perfume companies, a sports news company with a rather famous swimsuit edition and one well-known lingerie monopoly. Midway through her senior year, he discovered that her teachers were addressing her as “Abbie.” Which was bad, but it would get worse. Much worse. One Saturday morning, after two cups of coffee and a bran muffin spurred his daily constitution, he was flipping through the swimsuit edition and stumbled upon her picture. That magazine went in the trash—along with his subscription. Abbie graduated and he brokered a peace with a gift. He pulled the Mercedes out of cold storage and gave her the keys. But the cease-fire was short-lived. Speaking at her commencement ceremony, Senator Coleman fired what he thought was a final volley across her bow, announcing her full name in a tone that sought to return her to legitimacy, reestablishing her bloodline. Owners spoke of horses in much the same manner. But the smug smile was premature. A year later, “Abbie Eliot” sealed her rebellion when she quit Georgetown and signed an exclusive New York contract. Within weeks, her travel schedule included Europe and the Far East. By the age of nineteen, her travel schedule included New York and London and her glossy picture stared back at him from the glass-topped table in the dentist’s office. Establishing a professional and public name that did not link her to him was a blow he could not counter.

She’d made a name for herself. Which was just fine with her.

A
DEEP BREATH.
“She’s right here.”

“Where is ‘here’?” He could be direct when he wanted.

“Sir, I can’t tell you that.”

“Can’t or won’t?” See what I mean?

A pause. “Won’t.”

“Son…” He laughed uncomfortably. Senator Coleman did not like
not
being in control. Now that he’d been appointed chairman of the Finance Committee, he liked it even less. “At the wiggle of my finger, every law enforcement officer in the states of Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina will be looking for my daughter. And don’t think for one second that I won’t call out the National Guard.”

“She mentioned that.”

“You doubt my resolve, son?”

“Sir, I don’t doubt your love for your daughter, if that’s what you’re asking. But…this is something I’ve got to do.”

“Son, you’re deranged. You’ll bring her back here right—”

“Sir, there’s a part of me that would really like to do that, but…with all due respect, you don’t know—”

He was screaming now. “Don’t tell me what I don’t know!”

While his public persona was all poise, polish, cuff links and Hermès ties, his backroom manners were more brass knuckles, Dickies and Carhartt. When he lost his temper, spit collected in the corners of his mouth, spewing like venom the louder he spoke. “You can’t run far enough. Hide and I’ll find you…I’ll have you buried beneath the jail.”

I guess you picked up on the fact that our relationship had not been smooth sailing. Despite his disdain for me, I’d always admired him. Even voted for him. He’d come from little and done much. And while getting elected is one thing, staying elected is another. He’d managed to do both. From the governor’s mansion to now his fourth term as senator, he’d never lost an election. His tentacles stretched far and wide in Washington. A blessing and a curse—because what they say about power is true. I think in his other life, that one that included the good-old-boy farmer from South Carolina with the piece of hay sticking out his mouth, we’d have gotten along pretty well.

I swallowed and stared out across the water and at Abbie’s pale frame tucked beneath the tarp. Senator Coleman detested the thought of dying for one simple reason. It was beyond his control. Others’ deaths reminded him of this. The fact that his daughter showed no signs of fearing it might have been his singular weakness. It had always struck me as odd that someone so powerful, so accomplished, could be so easily derailed by something that no human, save one, had ever beaten. Because of this, we’d not seen much of him the last few years. Notice I said we hadn’t seen much of him, not that he wasn’t much help. He was. It’s complicated. He got us into places we’d have never gotten in alone and on more than one occasion bumped us to the front of the line. If we didn’t fly first class, he sent a jet. He helped from a distance because being too close hurt too much. Except once. That’s how I knew he loved her. She knew this too, but that did little to make it any easier.

I needed to hang up before he traced the call with some NASA satellite. As a ranking member and chairman of several committees, the least of which was Armed Services, they were probably triangulating me now. “Sir, I’m sorry. I’m real sorry for a lot of things, but I”—I spoke softly—“this is for Abbie.”