Love Gone Mad Page 10

  “I have a great relationship with Marlee.”

  “But, Adrian dear, she’s another man’s daughter.”

  There’s a pause; Adrian knows Mom’s getting emotional.

  “Listen, Adrian, you’re not a father, so it may be hard for you to understand, but a child forms a permanent link between a man and a woman—and also between the child and her father. It’s the natural order of things, and no matter how you feel about this little girl, there’s a connection between the child and her father—it’s a biological thing—and you can never be part of it.”

  “I’m not so sure, Mom.”

  “And, Adrian, you know this woman for only a few weeks.”

  “How about you and Dad way back when? It was three months, right?”

  “Yes, but times were different then, dear, and we weren’t young, either,” Mom says with a quaking voice.

  Adrian is about to protest that he and Megan aren’t young or inexperienced in life’s affairs, and he regrets even more deeply allowing himself to be sucked into this dialogue. It’s discouragingly the same—each time—and he seems powerless to alter it. He knows he should’ve diverted the subject to something less charged.

  Mom’s breathing sounds choked, and he thinks she’s sobbing, though she’s doing her best to stifle it. A twinge of sadness stabs at him. He hears her Swiss chalet cuckoo clock strike the hour—the clock that telescopes time because he’s heard it as far back as he can remember, the clock on the kitchen wall of their brick-faced attached house in Queens, where he lived until he left for college at Ithaca. Now it’s a Florida cuckoo.

  How time can telescope on itself. Things from years ago can come back in a split second … and can have incredible emotional pulling power.

  Silence on the line until the clock finishes its last cuckoo.

  “I still miss him … so much,” Mom says in a strangled whisper.

  “I do too, Mom,” he says, as a mammoth lump fills his throat. The conversation’s gone south; it’s in the tar pits of his memory, of times long gone, but it’s part of the matrix of their lives. Adrian knows that talking with Mom can bring on a bone-deep ache as ugly images of that night assault him.

  He was nearly six years old. They were at a Chinese restaurant—he recalls the festive ambience, the aroma of garlic and ginger, the egg rolls and steaming wonton soup with sliced shallots and pork-filled wontons steeping in the broth—when midway through the meal, Dad clutched his chest. His face turned chalk white and then sagged, as though life suddenly washed out of it. Dad keeled over, the table tilted, and dishes clattered. Adrian recalls the horror of seeing Dad inert on the floor, hearing Mom scream, seeing the tumult of patrons, then the ambulance, the ride to the hospital, the medics working on Dad—the oxygen mask and the frantic pumping on his chest—and then they stopped. He recalls his father’s open shirt, the limp body, his slackened face, the clouded, blank look in his still-open eyes, and his own terrified disbelief that Dad was gone.

  It’s still difficult for him to feel comfortable in a Chinese restaurant—especially a Cantonese place. The decor alone makes his stomach lurch—fantail goldfish in a tank, the butterfly and flower wall fans, chopsticks and cylindrical paper lanterns—it’s too evocative of that night and brings it all back in an instant. He’s never eaten wonton soup again. Even the sight of it in a bowl would sicken him.

  Adrian recalls the funeral: it was a dreary day with his aunts and uncles crying at the chapel. He remembers his mother hunched over the coffin, her shoulders shaking in disbelief and despair. They wouldn’t let him look in the casket.

  “No … No … the boy shouldn’t see this,” Uncle Al said.

  “Not even a last look?” asked Aunt Bea.

  “No, he’s too young.”

  At the cemetery—a mammoth expanse of granite tombstones near the Long Island Expressway with the Manhattan skyline looming beneath a sickly steel-wool-gray sky and stacks of gray-black, even greenish clouds—his relatives shielded him from seeing the coffin lowered. Dad sank slowly into the grave, never to be seen again or be part of his life.

  Quoth the raven, “Nevermore.”

  The men shoveled dirt, and Adrian remembers the smell of freshly turned earth, the sound of soil thumping heavily onto the coffin lid, the grave filling quickly, Mom pressing him close, and her grief-stricken shuddering while her tears dripped onto him. God, the horror of it all was overwhelming, and Adrian recalls the feelings—the shattering upheaval in a boy’s life.

  He felt so lost, so empty and bereft—as though life cheated him of his father—he was upended in the world. Adrian knows he felt cheated of what they could have shared; it was stolen from him. His dad would have been so proud of him at Cornell—his grades, the varsity baseball team, the honor society.

  Adrian knows that losing a father so early does something to a boy. Megan could be right: maybe now—doing heart surgery—he is trying to fix God’s mistakes.

  And Megan: working with newborns—newbies as she calls them—wanted and unwanted, is she trying to redo her own past?

  But in this life there are no do-overs. What’s done is done and can’t be made whole again.

  He recalls saying to Megan a few evenings ago, “I think injury brings us to our work,” and she’d nodded.

  “They’re deep wounds, and they lead us to what we’ve become,” she said.

  He knew then that Megan has a certain emotional savvy—an affliction-induced wisdom. And now, on the telephone with Mom, he’s reminded of what Megan said that same evening: “Life is so fragile. Everything we are and all we know can be gone in a moment.”

  When Mom talks this way, it all comes back to him—the hollowness of loss, feeling dispossessed—feeling wanting and deprived.

  “Oh, Adrian, just be sure you know what you’re getting into.”

  “I will, Mom. I will,” Adrian says, feeling sadness so deep, he fears his heart will burst.

  Thirteen

  Megan throws her Ford Fiesta into park, kills the engine, and steps out of the car. The parking lot in front of the Stop & Shop is clogged with cars and SUVs this sunny autumn afternoon, and she angles between them toward the store.

  Then she sees it; her heart feels like it’ll burst through her chest.

  A black, muscular-looking pickup sits two rows over from where she’s parked. Darkened windows; she can’t see inside the thing. A huge silver toolbox sits behind the cab and a row of amber-colored lights sits atop the cab. She wonders if it has Colorado plates. But she can’t tell from this angle. The engine is running—gray-white exhaust fumes billow from dual tailpipes. The air shimmers where the vapors pour out the back of the thing. The parking lot is brilliantly bright; chrome and glass glare in the low afternoon sun in a whitish sky. Megan suddenly feels light-headed; her knees begin buckling and she nearly trips. She angles herself to get a rear view of the truck.

  It has Connecticut plates. It’s not him. Or is it possible that by now he’s registered the truck in Connecticut? She recalls her conversation with Chief Mulvaney. He said there was no DMV record of Conrad Wilson registering a vehicle in Connecticut. But that was a few days ago. She walks toward the store entrance, exquisitely aware of that eerie feeling of eyes boring into her. The skin at the back of her neck prickles, and she suddenly feels like prey.

  Ann Johnson was right, Megan thinks as she grabs a shopping cart and moves past the automatic doors. She could be bobbing in the ocean, adrift in the inky darkness of a watery night with no stars or moon above. She’s treading water and her feet dangle … just like in Jaws.

  A cold swell rises beneath her.

  Girl, you’ve got to stop thinking about movies. It never helps.

  Entering the store, she passes the floral section; a faintly sweet scent fills her nostrils—it reminds her of the gladioli. Queasiness seeps through her and drops to her legs, turning them to jelly. It’s the same feeling she gets when she’s looking down from a great height. A sickly sensation invades her belly. She�
��s had these feelings before. She knows what it is: pure nerves, that queasy, on-edge, heart-fluttering sensation—the skin-crawling edginess of anxiety.

  She glances at her shopping list. It’s her usual routine. She’ll wind her way through aisles she long ago memorized and grab pretty much the same items as always, and she’ll end up at the dairy section. But she’s aware she’s in a rush and can’t wait to get out of the store.

  She heads for the fruit and vegetable section first, picks out some lettuces for a salad—packaged cores of prewashed romaine and one of baby lettuces—and selects a cucumber and a clump of radishes. She doesn’t even bag them in plastic—just tosses them into the cart.

  Megan glances up, feeling tense, jumpy. She scans the other shoppers—mostly women, a few preschoolers, and some retired older men filling idle time by shopping for their wives.

  She makes her way to the center of the store. Marlee’s running low on Apple Jacks, the only breakfast cereal she’ll eat. Megan tosses two boxes of cereal into the cart and moves to the next aisle.

  She passes a sky-high facade of shelves stacked with Pringles, Utz chips, Fritos, Doritos, and Tostitos, wheels the cart past an endless assortment of sugary soft drinks in bottles and cans, and then heads for the pasta aisle, tosses two boxes of Barilla penne into the cart, and grabs a bottle of Colavita olive oil.

  Suddenly, the hairs on the back of her neck bristle. She feels, rather than sees, a shadow behind her, and a cold, sickening feeling pervades her. Her insides shudder. She whirls around.

  A woman with a shopping cart peers at the shelves. Behind her, a perplexed-looking man with a furrowed brow holds a box of linguine, staring at it with that befuddled-husband-who-never-really-shops look. Megan turns and peers in the other direction. There’s no one there. An internal humming begins in her chest, and she knows she’s pumped herself into fight-or-flight mode; she’s shooting adrenaline into every part of her being.

  She rolls her cart to the next aisle. She’s certain someone was behind her only a moment ago. Or was it her imagination, her overprimed, hyperattuned expectation, knowing Conrad’s back in Connecticut? God, she feels brittle, as though if she fell to the floor, she’d shatter into a thousand pieces.

  Megan feels this strange tingling sensation around her lips and at her fingertips—a low-level electric buzz. She knows she’s hyperventilating, sucking air in and out, and if it continues, she’ll be light-headed and fall into a faint. And now her chest heaves like an air bellows. A bristly rush spreads through her. She slows her breathing, willfully controls her intake of air, and closes her eyes for a few moments. Calmer now, she decides to pick up the other items and head home.

  About to head toward the dairy section, Megan sees a shadow out of the corner of her eye. Her stomach drops. She abandons her cart and slips over to the next aisle.

  Suddenly, there’s a crashing sound. Voltage shoots through her body; she spins around. A woman stands over a pile of display cans her shopping cart has knocked to the floor. Megan’s knees wobble and her body feels weak, as though she’ll keel over. Her lips feel numb, and without another thought, she heads for the supermarket’s exit. For a moment, she thinks of going back for her cart, but her heart pumps violently and she’s on the verge of collapse. The hell with the cart, she thinks without another second of hesitation and rushes out the doors to the parking lot.

  Breathless, she threads her way between Beemers, Escalades, and Suburbans ranging in color from Tuscan bronze to vanilla latte. The black pickup is still sitting there; it rumbles ominously in place amid a bluish cloud of fumes. Megan feels the blood drain from her head as she fumbles with her car keys; she nearly drops them and knows she can’t get out of this place fast enough.

  I just want to get out of here. I want to get home.

  She hits the remote, unlocks the Fiesta’s doors, gets behind the wheel, and locks the car doors. She clutches the steering wheel and, suddenly, her fingers cramp. She turns the key, starts the engine, and pulls out of the parking spot.

  At the exit leading onto the Post Road, she looks left and right, realizing she’s near the spot where she and Adrian were nearly killed by the maniac in a huge black pickup, just like the one in the parking lot. Traffic is heavy—vehicles pour down the Post Road in a honking rush; she’ll never make it out in time to cross over for a left turn. She’ll have to wait until the light down the road turns red before pulling out. She feels so edgy, so completely amped, she’s tempted to hit the gas pedal and lunge into traffic heading west in the lane closest to her. She can then make a series of right turns and get back onto the Post Road heading in the right direction.

  She waits for a break in the traffic as her heartbeat rampages through her. Cars flow in an unending stream of horns and exhaust fumes. Drivers cruise bumper to bumper in the early-autumn brilliance. She squints in the near-blinding glare of light bouncing off this shimmering vehicular procession. Her eyes dart in each direction of the fast-food-franchise-filled Post Road—a commercial artery of on-the-run eateries: Taco Bell, Wendy’s, Boston Market, and scores more.

  Glancing into the rearview mirror, Megan sees it: the black pickup is right behind her. A jolt of galvanic tension ramps through her body. The thing is massive, with a sky-high cab, chromed grill, and growling engine. She can’t see into the darkened front windows. Her heart sends a heated rush of blood into her face. Then she’s aware of a tight feeling, like a clenched fist inside her chest.

  The light changes.

  She turns onto the Post Road, heads east, and stays in the left lane. She glances into the mirror and sees the pickup lunge onto the Post Road. It’s behind her, following closely. Her heart tumbles and her hands curl tightly around the wheel. She realizes she’s driving erratically—one eye on the road, the other in the mirror. She may even have run a red light, but she isn’t sure. The pickup’s still behind her in the shimmering glare. She reaches into her purse for the cell phone and pulls it out.

  Dial 911? And say what to the police? There’s a pickup following me on the Post Road? It’s ridiculous.

  There’s a sudden horn blast. She’s veering into a car on the westbound side. Jolted, Megan yanks the steering wheel to her right and straightens out. Shaking, she drives on and tells herself not to look into the mirror, but glances up and sees the pickup turn suddenly off the Post Road. Her breath flutters in relief; her fists loosen on the steering wheel.

  Megan heads home, feeling damp and weak.

  Fourteen

  It’s sunday, a late-afternoon October dinner at Erin and Bob’s house. Adrian realizes that this get-together reminds him of those Sunday-afternoon dinners at Dad’s sister’s house in Hempstead, Long Island. Though he was only four or five at the time, he has hazy memories of Dad driving from their modest attached house in Ozone Park, Queens, taking the Cross Island Parkway to the Southern State Parkway and then heading east to the Hempstead exit.

  A boisterous throng of aunts, uncles, and cousins gathered around a large table at Uncle Al and Aunt Bea’s ranch house, a short distance from the Southern State. Adrian recalls the festive Thanksgiving dinner only a few months before Dad died. Everyone watched Dad carve the turkey. Adrian sometimes jokes that his surgery career was inspired by watching his father slice the bird that day. He recalls the laughter. Most of all, Adrian remembers the feelings of that November afternoon. He was part of a family.

  He feels it today—a sense of connectedness with Megan, Erin, Bob, Marlee, and Marlee’s younger cousins, Robert and Ellie. Marlee and her cousins are playing with Sampson in the living room. The little pug yaps furiously.

  Puccini arias play on the sound system. That’s Megan’s doing, Adrian thinks, as the melody soars through the house. An intense feeling of well-being seeps through him as he sips a robust Barolo wine. Erin sets a roast beef–bedecked platter onto the table.

  “Let’s have the good surgeon carve the roast,” Bob says.

  “What’s your fee for this surgery?” jokes Erin, handing him t
he carving knife.

  “I think Bob should do it,” Adrian says.

  “No way, Doc. I defer to you.”

  “Come on, Adrian,” urges Erin. “Just do it.”

  “Yes, Adrian, we’d like to see your surgical technique,” Megan says. “Your fee for services comes later.” She grabs his hand and squeezes.

  Dinner is over. The kids play again with Sampson in the living room.

  “We have an announcement,” Bob says, and he clinks a spoon against his wineglass.

  “Yes, we do,” Erin rejoins. Her cheeks look flushed.

  “We won’t be moving to Hartford,” says Bob. “I’m staying with Sikorsky.”

  “Bob won’t tell you because he’s too modest,” Erin says, her eyes shining. She stands behind her husband and sets her hands on his shoulders. “He got a huge promotion—with appropriate compensation, of course—and we’re staying put.”

  “That’s great,” Megan says and claps her hands together. “I’m so happy for you.” She grabs Adrian’s hand, moves it to her lap.

  “Congratulations, Bob,” Adrian adds.

  “So then we’re all staying here in Eastport,” Erin says.

  “That’s another reason I’m glad,” Adrian says, caressing the nape of Megan’s neck. She leans closer to him. His arm goes around the back of her chair; he rubs her shoulder.

  Erin nods, casts a Cheshire-cat smile at Megan, and glances at Bob. He barely smothers a knowing smile. “Here’s to you two,” Bob toasts, raising his glass.

  “Here’s to the future,” Erin says, grabbing her wineglass. They clink glasses. Adrian looks into Megan’s eyes; she purses her lips in a mock kiss.

  Sampson scuttles around the living room, the kids crawling after him. An aria from La Bohème drifts through the house. There’s laughter, congratulations, and some jokes. Bob pours more wine, the kids giggle and yell, Sampson yaps, and Adrian realizes that this is what he wants: family.

  “Any new developments?” Erin asks.