The Last Day (2 page)

“I'm sorry, Josh,” Natasha said. “We didn't keep it.”

“What did you do with it?” he asked, curious.

“We incinerated it.”

A look of confusion grew on his face. “What?”

“Incinerate means we had to burn it up. When we remove things from people, we are required by law to burn them up in a furnace.”

“You
cremated
my palendix?”

Natasha smiled. “Yes.”

“Like Buster,” Josh said.

“Buster was our Labrador,” Mrs. Wasserman explained.

“A
vetanarin cremated Buster,” he went on. “In a hot, hot fire.”

“He was nine,” Mr. Wasserman added.

“Mr. Murphy runned over Buster in a car,” Josh said with a tiny sneer.

“Ran over,” Mrs. Wasserman corrected.

“He ran over him. I wanted a new dog, but I'm getting a new sister instead. I wanted to bury him, but Daddy said our yard was too little. Our yard is all brown and crunchy because the police won't let us put any water on it.”

“It's very dry where I live, too,” Natasha said.

“Where do you live?” Josh asked.

“I live way out in the country north of here,” she replied.

“Do you have a dog?”

“We don't have any pets. But we do have deer, squirrels, raccoons, and possums, and lots of birds.”

“You live on a farm and you don't got pigs and cows?”

“We don't live on a farm. We live in the woods.”

“You got many snakes?”

“We have a few. Mostly harmless snakes, thankfully.”

“Do you live with your daddy and mommy?”

“My mommy and daddy live in Seattle, Washington. That's a long way from here. I live with my husband.” Natasha braced herself for the next question.

“Do you have any little boys and girls?”

“No,” Natasha said, smiling.

“Why come?”

“Josh,” Mr. Wasserman said, “you shouldn't pry into Dr. McCarty's personal life.”

“I'll see you tomorrow morning, Josh,” Natasha said, rubbing his head.

“When can I go home?”

“In a few days.”

Natasha was near the nurses’ station dictating her notes for transcription when she saw Dan Wheat walking toward her. One of her partners, Dan had the bedside manner of a mor tician. She didn't know why he'd gone into pediatric med icine, since he seemed to view children as troublesome monkeys. He was rail-thin with a roving eye and a legendary bag of tired pickup lines. Natasha had once overheard one of his young patients tell him he had stinky breath. Dan immediately ordered a spinal tap for the offender before he went off in search of mints.

“Natasha,” he said, waving her down. “You see my new wheels?”

“No.”

“I broke down and treated myself to a top- of-the- line Benz SL five- fifty—that's a two- seat convertible—in jet black. It's a bitch to keep clean, so I run it wide open to blow the dust off. I figure, hey, I work hard for my money and
I deserve it. You know, he who toots not his own horn risks leaving it in a state of untooted-ness.”

“Lovely, Dan,” Natasha interrupted. “How are your patients?”

“Claire is making me buy her a new car as an act of revenge because I won't let her drive the Benz, so I was thinking maybe a simple Lexus SUV like yours so she can haul the kids around in fair style. You buy it or do you lease?”

Natasha sighed. “Ward bought it for me.”

“I lease strictly for tax purposes. I drive it free, basically.” Dan barely paused for breath. “Oh, did Edgar talk to you about my little brother? I was thinking he'd be a great addition to our practice. The boy's got hands like mine, and he aced medical school. We should get him here before he gets an offer he can't refuse in a major city.”

“I didn't know we needed a sixth partner,” Natasha said.

Natasha had met Dan's younger brother. If such a thing were possible, Bill Wheat was half as impressive as his older brother. He was short and stocky, and his half- open eyes made him look like he was in the process of passing out. Natasha
hadn't wanted Dan brought on board, but she hadn't felt like opposing her partners. Dan was typical of what was coming out of medical schools: very intelligent, aggres sive, competitive, and greedy. He saw each patient as a business opportunity and his billings were off the chart because he ordered every test he knew the insurance company would pay for.

“Perhaps we should discuss this at the next partners’ meeting,” she said noncommittally. “I hate to break this off, but I haven't slept in two days.”

“Does Ward get fed up with your hours? It drives Claire crazy that I'm always working.”

“Ward doesn't complain.”

“Well, keep my brother Bill in mind. We're getting busy as hell and it would help you and Ward to spend some more time together.”

Natasha realized to her horror that Dan Wheat was staring at her right hand, which was tingling like it was asleep. And that hand was shaking ever so gently.

“Are you all right?” Dan asked her, the note of concern ringing false.

“Fine,” she said, shoving it into the pocket of
her gown. “Fatigue, I guess.” She turned and headed for the bathroom.

After she'd finished at the hospital, Natasha got into her Lexus SUV and headed home. Al though it was just after noon, she was exhausted; she hadn't been able to fall asleep after the Wasserman surgery, which had ended around ten- thirty the previous evening.

Twenty minutes later Natasha was turning into her driveway. The McCartys’ twelve wooded acres had been a wedding present from Ward's father. Ward and Natasha had selected a wide ridge for their house site, cleared the trees from it, and built a four- thousand- square- foot split- level modern house. Other than the asphalt driveway and the mailbox, there was no sign at all that a house sat back in the woods. The asphalt driveway wound through the trees, and curved in front of the house. The home's façade of raw textured concrete and floor- to- ceiling windows had been built with its back facing a tree- lined and elevated ridge.

Natasha used the remote to open her bay in the three- car garage, and pulled in. She went
into the kitchen, poured herself a glass of Pinot Grigio, and carried the bottle into the den, where she turned the large- screen television to the Food Network. She put the bottle on the Noguchi coffee table, drank a long swallow from the glass, went into the bedroom, and took a hot shower. After slipping into a robe she got a blister pack of Ambien and went back to the den.

Natasha popped a pill out and held it in her palm for a moment, staring out at the grounds, feeling again the unease she'd become all too familiar with. Her eyes caught a motion in the shadows as she searched the tree line for the source. A chill ran up her spine. Her discomfort grew. A wild animal, or perhaps a house cat foraging for field mice. Of course, with the new subdivision up the road, it was possible that kids were playing in the woods. Over the past two years she and Ward had seen evidence of people having been in the woods—beer cans, soda bot-tles, and candy wrappers—but had never caught anyone close to the house. Ward had the standard
POSTED
signs on the property line, but they knew that such signs were just suggestions, respected only by the reputable.

Due to the woods, and since the house faced
north, there had been no need for curtains to block the sun or to give the McCartys privacy. For the past weeks, though, she'd been considering having blinds installed. She had even gotten an estimate, which had been staggering since the curved thirty- foot- wide wall was comprised of four- by- eight double panes of thick glass.

Natasha sat down and put her feet up next to the bowl on the coffee table. The bowl held a baseball she'd put in it the night after Ward left for the trade show. She'd been almost asleep when she put her hand under his pillow and was startled to discover the baseball. She brought it out to the den as she paced, holding it like the egg of a strange bird, trying to figure out why Ward had placed it there. It had to have been a message about Barney, but the meaning hadn't been apparent, unless Ward simply wanted her to think about him. When had she not thought about their son? The incident had stunned her and she'd fought the urge to call Ward and yell at him, but she had taken a pill instead and had gone to sleep angry. It seemed cruel, and not like the old Ward she'd fallen in love with—had lived with all these years.

Natasha reclined on the couch and chased an Ambien with a glass of the chilled wine. She held up her hand and stared at it, daring it to shake.

THREE

LAS VEGAS, NEVADA

The hotel shuttle deposited Ward McCarty at the airport to catch his flight home after three days of overfilled tote bags, crowded sales booths, and insincere smiles. He hated trade shows but had to attend them in order to keep up with new suppliers, new materials, gimmicks, manufacturers, competition.

After standing in a long line, Ward showed his North Carolina license and ticket to a bored female guard, slipped off his shoes, belt, cell phone, and watch, and put them all in a plastic tray. He took the computer out of the briefcase and placed it, his briefcase, and his carry- on on the conveyor belt, watching them vanish into the X-ray machine. He felt naked in his sock feet
and he hated holding his khakis up with one hand so the cuffs didn't drag.

At the other end of the conveyor belt, a burly guard with a buzz cut opened his briefcase. Ward glanced over to see an elderly woman standing calmly while a guard ran a wand up and down over her stooped body. Satisfied, Ward's guard lifted out a bubble-lined envelope from the briefcase and slipped out a small blue die-cast race car. As he studied the toy, his eyes grew comically larger. He looked at Ward as if asking permission.

Ward smiled. “Go ahead,” he said.

“Man.” The guard whistled. “Richard Petty's Road Runner die- cast in near mint. You are one lucky devil. That was a one- year deal, that car.” He looked at the underside. “It's not marked on the bottom.”

“It's a prototype. It was never produced. One of a kind.”

“One of a kind?” The guard placed it back into the envelope with care. “What's it worth?”

“No idea. It's been in my family since before I was born,” Ward said.

“Have a good day, sir,” the guard told him, as
he put the padded envelope into Ward's briefcase beside his computer and closed it.

Ward reached his assigned concourse through a maze of temporary signs, Sheetrock dust, scaffolding, plastic sheeting, and constructive pandemonium, accented by the shrill buzzing of power drills and electric saws. At Ward's insistence, the travel agent had booked his and his uncle's flights so the two business owners wouldn't be on the same plane. Ward had spent a few hours of his time in Vegas with Mark and his second wife while they were being entertained by manufacturers’ reps, only slightly more pleasant than visiting the dentist.

At his gate Ward spent the time waiting for his flight staring at an open novel he'd bought before leaving Charlotte, trying to absorb the words and make sense of the plot. When he traveled with paperback novels, he always tore out the chapters as he finished them and threw the pages away, which served to both mark his place and make his load lighter. After he finished the chapter he was working on, he ripped the pages out and put them on the seat beside him, then slowly realized that he had no idea what had happened in the discarded chapter.

Ward was bothered by the lack of clocks at the gate, which meant that passengers had to have watches or cell phones in order to know how long they had until their planes boarded. Of all of the things Ward didn't like about Las Vegas—and there was nothing he did like—he most disliked the city's denial that time passed there. Sitting in a leather chair with his carry- on bag and briefcase at his feet, he looked out through the windows at the Strip—easy to spot from the monstrous black glass pyramid and the giant sphinx with its lion ass backed right up to it.

Ward called his wife on his cell phone to explain the delay, but got their home answering machine. He had spoken to Natasha only once in the past few days, when he'd arrived at the airport for the memorabilia- suppliers’ trade show. Of the six or seven times he'd called since, he'd left short messages. He wasn't alarmed, because Natasha often turned the phones’ ringers off, or ignored them. She carried a cell phone but rarely turned it on unless she needed to answer her emergency beeper.

Sudden jazzy notes of youthful laughter froze Ward and he turned slowly to see not the young
boy he expected to see but a young girl of eight or so playing tag with a smaller child. He exhaled loudly and looked down at his paperback, feeling the sudden tears running down his cheeks. Several times each day for the past year, something brought Barney into his mind, and, with that trigger, a choking gloom descended over him like a wet curtain. It could begin with a familiar odor like iced tea, a flash of a red shirt, a sudden movement in his periphery, a flag snapping in a brisk wind, a child with blond hair, a bicycle lying on a lawn—just about anything at all. Any thought of Barney brought Ward back to the memory of clutching a small, limp body in his arms as hell closed in on him.

Barney's given name had been Ward McCarty III, but he chose the name Barney himself at the age of five because he so admired that insipid purple dinosaur. At first, Ward and Natasha humored their beautiful boy. Soon, he stopped answering to anything but his newly chosen name.

Ward often dreamed—some dreams included a cameo by his son, or, if Ward was very lucky, a starring role. Those double- edged dreams were sweet torture, leaving his soul lacerated and leaking some essential nectar. He always woke with
an odd feeling of being both full and empty at the same time.

What consumed a great deal of Ward's waking hours was the thought that every decision a creature made led to a path with unknowable consequences. An animal's choice of an action—or path—might find it a mate, shelter, or food—or the possibility of becoming another animal's dinner. By the same token, some bean counter with a sharp pencil might choose to install a less expensive—not ground- fault-interrupted—electrical outlet near a pool, and then not properly insulate a connection which, if the ground was saturated, could lead to the tragic death of an angelic child. Ward thought about this faceless man in some generic office day after day and saw no relief to being forever haunted by the avalanche that had begun with the simple decision of a budget- conscious drone.