Michael’s Wife (23 page)

“Oh, hell.” Harley bent to grab an ankle and began pulling out short bristles and hooked barbs. Jimmy returned to his screaming and Harley said, “Jesus, what a family.”

Laurel knelt to help and then drew Jimmy to her. “Hush, baby, they're out now. Harley, he's only two.” They were kneeling close together so that they could look directly into each other's eyes over Jimmy's shoulder. Harley's forehead wrinkled and a questioning expression came over his face.

“What?” Laurel said and then she heard it, too. The rumble of an engine.…

“Car, Mommy.” Jimmy's sobs turned off instantly. “Blue car.”

“Oh, God, no.”

Harley's eyes were fixed behind her now, one hand shielding out the sun. She turned in time to see the long gleaming car come to a stop behind the truck, sunlight flashing back off the deep metallic finish.

“Daddy's car.”

Jimmy shot forward, but she and Harley were fixed in their kneeling positions as Michael stepped from the car and slammed the door.

Green buglike sunglasses in gold wire frames hid his eyes, the familiar tan uniform—short-sleeved, navy blue belt, multicolored strips of ribbon above the left pocket of the shirt, silver wings above the ribbons. He would have looked even more official if Jimmy hadn't been attached to one leg. His hand ruffled his son's hair, but the sunglasses were directed at the pair on the ground. And with the sun behind him, Michael cast a formidable shadow.

Harley rose slowly to his feet. “Well, what d'ya know, a real live Devereaux.”

The sunglasses followed Harley's rise and then, still silent, Michael removed them and laid them on top of the car. For an instant his chilling, unblinking glance rested on Laurel and then moved back to Harley.

“You wouldn't bring me here, so I asked Harley.…” she said.

But both men seemed to have lost all interest in her. Harley squinted back at Michael and the grin slowly returned. “Well, I never … a blue-eyed Mexican.”

“Harley, don't.…”

Michael carefully guided Jimmy over to Laurel, and as he straightened, he jerked his fist into Harley's face with a horrid cracking sound and Harley lay at his feet.

“Get Jimmy back.” Michael's command was thrown at her over his shoulder.

“No. Please.” But she moved a few feet away with Jimmy.

Harley raised up on one elbow, shaking his head, and when he looked up at Michael, Laurel shuddered. It wasn't the teasing grin she'd become so fond of but something different, something cunning, naked on Harley's face …
he's enjoying this
!

Harley got to his feet with surprising quickness, dodged Michael's next blow, and, with head lowered, rammed into Michael's middle. And now Michael sprawled on the desert floor.

“Daddy.”

“Get out of here.” He fought to regain his breath between clenched teeth and to push Jimmy away before Harley was on top of him.

Laurel snatched a kicking Jimmy to safety and covered his eyes with her hand, watching, fascinated, as the two men rolled over and over jabbing each other anywhere they could. Harley a little stockier, Michael longer and quicker … rolling down the slight incline to the bottom of the wash … Michael's hand finding Harley's throat … screams rising in her own throat.…

She sat in a depression in the earth, a miniature stream bed without water that twisted among small trees and clumped bushes until out of sight. Cacti, weird and distorted, rose above the bushes, some taller than the trees, with spiny green arms reaching upward … the sun scorching her eyes, her face … voices behind her.

She tried to turn her head but it made her dizzy, so she turned her body around on her hands and knees until she faced the other way. Two men ran toward her, one fair, the other dark, both soaked with sweat. They were too big, too close. She felt too weak to run. Slowly, she sank facedown onto the sandy pebbly earth, so hot and tired she didn't care.

Rough hands forced her to roll over, and the blinding sun was on her face again. Splotches of violent moving red and green almost blotted out their shapes as they knelt above her.

“Laurel?”

“Maybe now you'll see she gets a doctor.”

“She's none of your business, Mr. McBride!”

Her eyes focused on a third shape, a small boy. He looked terrified as he held a hand out to her. What did he want? She wanted to reassure him, but the two men were lifting her to her feet. When she wobbled, the dark one picked her up and carried her.

The streak of blood at the corner of his mouth confused her. “Was there an accident?” she asked.

He gave her a strange look but didn't stop walking.

17

Laurel was up and dressed when Dr. Gilcrest made his “visit” that morning. She wanted to convince him that she was ready to go home. After a month of counting the tiny holes in. the ceiling tile she felt she'd suffocate in the crowded room if she had to spend another day in it. A couch and two easy chairs had been packed into an already furnished hospital room to make it look less like what it was.

She waited as the young doctor stood in the doorway briefing himself from the papers in a manila folder on who she was and why she was there. Then he would beam his personal “And how are you this morning, Mrs. Devereaux?” as though they'd known each other for years, while impersonal eyes studied her closely. And she would answer, “Fine.” Because he expected it, so he could start her talking, so he could prove to her she wasn't fine.

“And how are you this morning, Mrs. Devereaux?”

“Fine.”

“Good. Good. All dressed I see. Good. Good.” He sat in a chair and motioned her into the other, scratching his crew cut with the end of the pencil. “Still no luck in locating your parents. Their vacation seems pretty extended.”

“Dr. Gilcrest, I don't want my parents. I just want to go home to my son.”

“And your husband?” His eyes were quick to search hers.

“Yes.”

“You really think you're able to handle the world this time? And I don't mean the world the way you want it to be, but the way it is?”

“I have to face it some time. Why put it off?”

“You're not afraid you'll forget again?”

“It didn't last long this time.” After the first night here she'd awakened, remembering everything. Everything since last April.

Dr. Gilcrest leaned back in the chair, crossed his legs, and chewed on the eraser end of his pencil, his eyes under sandy lashes never leaving her face. “We can be fairly confident that your memory will return. All of it. Some of it is likely to be unpleasant or you wouldn't have locked it away to begin with. Wouldn't you rather be here when that happens?”

“How soon do you think.…”

“Your recent trouble might well be an indication that it will be quite soon. Then again.…” He shrugged.

“I can't stay here. I have a child to think of.”

“Which is quite a responsibility for someone who can just walk away from life when there's a crisis,” he said, smiling his open, frank smile.

He'd done it again. Every morning he kicked away the props that she would spend the rest of the day and most of the nights rebuilding. “You think I'm insane?”

“There are many levels of mental illness, Mrs. Devereaux. What we know of your behavior in the last few years is at least peculiar. But no, I don't consider you insane, dangerous, or even incompetent. Neither do I consider you entirely healthy. Amnesia is an illness of the mind as pneumonia is an illness of the body.

“As I've said before, there are no bars on the windows. You have not been legally committed. You are here on a voluntary basis because you need help, but I cannot help you if you won't let me.”

“I've told you everything I know.” And she had, over and over until she had her story memorized in the same words, used them in the same order.

And it hadn't been as bad as Evan had led her to believe. Dr. Gilcrest had patiently plumbed her fears, held them up for her to examine. He had shown her how her nervous state could have produced that shadow in the courtyard. How, after hearing the story of Michael's wrecking the nursery, she was ready to see the figure standing at the window with an ax. How, given this line of thought, she was able to construe a dangerous but accidental gas leak as a personal threat, imagine even the look of doubt on the repairman's face.

He could not explain how she could have foreseen Michael and Harley fighting on the desert. It was a relief to talk to someone and her reasoning side could not dispute his logic. But her instinctive self was not convinced. It had learned since April to trust no one.

The fear that now took precedence over all the others was the fear that she might not be allowed to leave. That the interrogation would go on and on, driving her to real madness. It wouldn't take long in a place like this.

Dr. Gilcrest leaned forward, tapping the pencil on his knee. “There is a garden here, a lounge where other patients meet; you have a television, and newspapers are delivered daily. But you stay in your room, seldom watch TV, the newspapers leave this room unopened, and the nurses report that whenever they look in you are either sleeping or sitting by the window. You have a great deal of free time here. Now, how would you interpret this behavior?”

“I needed rest and the other patients make me uncomfortable.”

“They frighten you?”

“Yes.” Hollow eyes, sad eyes, crafty eyes … eyes filled with hopelessness, terror … empty eyes.…

Dr Gilcrest narrowed his probing eyes and pointed the pencil at her. “And the newspapers—do they frighten you?”

Laurel stared at the end of the pencil and tried to swallow. She was trapped again. She had avoided newspapers and news in general because it depressed her. He would note it as another example of her inability to face the world. A lot of people didn't read newspapers for the same reason. She'd be willing to bet that Myra read nothing but the women's pages. But Myra wasn't in the hospital.

“Newspapers, Doctor, concentrate the hysteria and horror of the world. Then they're thrown on your doorstep like a hand grenade. With just a few pages of newsprint you can keep daily tallies on war, super weapons, crime, riots, revolution, starvation, poverty … when I read that my very way of life is destroying the air I breathe and water and wildlife and vegetation, when I read of whole generations of people who can't even talk to each other … yes … I'm afraid. And I don't think that's crazy.”

She'd been sitting straight, her hands folded in her lap, trying to impress him with her calm control. But now she had to get up and move to the window. “When I see a picture of an injured child in the newspaper, I see Jimmy and how I'd feel if … or read of a young man killed in battle, I see Jimmy fifteen years from now and I hurt. I almost bleed myself. I.…”

The pencil scribbled furiously in the manila folder. “Oh, I give up.” She flopped down on the couch.

“Go on. Don't stop.”

“What's the use?” Five holes on one side of the square tile and five on the other makes twenty-five.
No, count them out. One, two, three
.…

“Mrs. Devereaux, this personal involvement with life's terrors and the consequent avoidance of the news media, which refuses to concern itself with much else, this is more common than you might think and surprisingly frequent among young mothers. But few resort to amnesia. Some have nervous breakdowns.” He rearranged the folder, put it under his arm, and rose. “The amnesia is an overreaction. But I think you are going to work this out for yourself. In fact, I think you are doing so already.”

“Then why am I here? When can I leave?”

“I'll stop by this afternoon. We'll talk about it then.” With a glance at his watch, Dr. Gilcrest left her.

That evening Michael made his nightly duty visit. He usually stayed no more than a half hour, uncomfortable half hours in which he assured her that Jimmy was getting along “fine” with Myra and Sherrie, and then he'd fidget in the cramped room until his time was up and he could escape. She didn't help him much, felt relieved when he left. When they'd exhausted the subject of Jimmy, they had little to say to each other. Or maybe they had a lot to say—but Jimmy was the only safe topic.

Once he'd started to explain that he was on his way home early that day a month ago to apologize for the night before, only to see her in Harley's truck. He'd thought she was running off with Jimmy and had followed them. But she became upset and he stopped explaining.

Michael was the only visitor they allowed her and she always knew of his arrival because the blond nurse with the bad teeth would stick her head around the door, her face covered with blushing smiles and utter some inanity like, “That
gorgeous
man is here again. Ready?”

But this time Laurel was at the door to meet him and Michael was visibly startled as she took his hand and drew him into the room.

“Guess what?”

“I can't imagine,” he said, trying to smile.

“I'm getting out.”

“Making a break for it?”

“No. Dr. Gilcrest said I can leave in three days. I'm to see him once a week at his office and call him if I feel myself slipping again.”

Michael sat on the couch, the haunted look he'd worn the last month unrelieved by her news.

“You will let me come home … won't you?” She'd ridden high on relief since her talk with the doctor that afternoon. Now first doubts assailed her. She sank down on the floor in front of him. “Please say I can come home.”

The pale mesmerizing eyes studied her intently down the long slender bridge of his nose. Then he leaned forward and said quietly, “You don't know me.”

“I don't know anyone else either. Please?”

He drew a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and lit one, the first time she'd seen him smoke. “Do you want to take Jimmy and go back to Tucson?” he asked.