The Widow's Walk (9 page)

Chapter 15

Mike was dying to talk out the situation with a sympathetic soul, but guys don’t blab like that. Of course, if he just dropped a hint and Kevin asked a question, who could fault him for answering? “I really appreciate you coming along, Kevin. Liz has been really getting on me about quitting.”

“Aye.” Kevin’s uncharacteristic silence had nothing to do with the early hour or the cold–the man was used to that. He was just being polite.

The stinking cough re-ignited in the back of Mike’s throat, and he tried to clear it by growling. Didn’t work. “Better get some tea or I’ll scare off the lobsters.” He pulled into the Brewster Diner lot.

“Could use a cup myself.” Kevin got out of the truck, and they walked in together.

“Late this morning, Mike.” Sylvia knew her regulars, and grabbed a teabag.

“Got a lousy cough, Syl. Can you make it with honey and lemon today? Nice and sweet. Large enough to last all day. And one for my friend, too.”

“Aye,” Kevin said. “Cures a whole bunch of ills.”

“It’s no wonder you’re sick, going out in this.” Sylvia put the two cups into a molded paper tray. “There. They won’t spill. Must be rough with all this wind.”

“You sound like my wife, Syl.” Mike left her a five and didn’t wait for the change. It all equaled out on the days he was short.

“Great minds think alike.” Sylvia laughed and went back to the other customers huddled along the counter.

They both sipped their tea during the five minute drive to Breakwater Beach, cradling the cups to absorb the warmth. An icy gust off the bay hit Mike, and he started to cough again.

The pair slogged over the muddy flats and pushed the beached Boston Whaler off the sand bar. The normally sticky mud looked like frozen chocolate pudding. There were no signs of crabs or other sea life, no vegetation, just cracked shells, fragments of what used to be living creatures.

Jared squirmed. A vision of a crumpled woman’s body lying face down in the mud flashed by.

Mike shook his head to clear it.

The engine cranked twice before it turned over. Mike gunned the throttle to warm it up then motored toward his orange and red buoys bouncing in the whitecaps. Despite the neoprene gloves, his hands ached with cold as they plunged into the icy water to haul in the traps. Only three lobsters in the entire lot, snapping in desperation, clawing to get out, get free, get away.
I can’t do this anymore.

“Poor bastards.” He dumped them overboard and watched as they disappeared into the murky blackness, flailing their way back to the bottom, to freedom. Had they learned their lesson not to take the bait? Probably not. Had he learned his lesson to not get involved with damsels in distress?

Was it the gray day or just a gray cloud hanging over him? Was it Jared punching his gut? If he ditched Liz, this would all go away. All of it.

Mike sagged over into a coughing spell. Kevin patted his back. A swig of the lukewarm tea topped off his friend’s magic touch and the fit passed.

“Michael, did you just throw them back? They looked legal size.”

“It’s not worth the gas to get three lobsters to market.” A lead weight sat on his chest.

“Leave the pots in the boat. I don’t have it in me to come back tomorrow. They’ll starve to death. That’s just plain cruel. Liz is right. I’m too old for this.” He slumped into the seat, out of the wind.

“Mike, something’s weighing’ heavy on yer mind, isn’t it now? Is it that yer sick, or more trouble with the missus? Is she still actin’ strange?”

“Calm before the storm.” Mike shifted out of neutral and headed back.

“Want to talk about it?” Kevin sat next to him.

“Not now.” Mike had lost the will, the strength to tell him the truth: He and Liz could pretend the ghosts didn’t bother them, but Elisabeth was revving her engine and Jared’s was just getting started.

Despite the winter chill, once the air hit the traps the seaweed and barnacle decomposition started. By tomorrow they’d be riper than a pile of trash in August. Tomorrow. He’d deal with it tomorrow. Or the next day. Or the day after that.

The smell of lingering lobster fear suffused the air. His stomach lurched. “You drive. I’ve got to secure these.”

“Aye.” Kevin took the wheel.

Mike wrapped bungee cords through the traps to hold them steady as the boat hit the chop and pitched. The effort stole his breath, exhausted him. A wave of nausea rose, then ebbed. Strange, he hadn’t been seasick in years.

Cold air triggered another coughing spasm. He hacked until the lousy tasting cough drop kicked in. All the pellets Liz had bought were gone, and he was afraid to go back to Sandra’s store.

Mike stared into the water swirling around the bow as Kevin drove the boat in. Drawn into the whirlpool, he began to spiral and blinked to clear the double vision. Breathlessness pressed on his chest like an anchor, the spikes digging into his ribs. A vision of Jared materialized, lying in bed, Katherine and Paul sitting next to him as he gasped, then died.

He leaned over this side of the boat, gasping, coughing. He choked up a plug of phlegm but still couldn’t breathe. He tumbled overboard and didn’t feel the water as he plunged in.

Elisabeth lay crumpled in the mud. Her hair smelled like fish and seaweed. Jared brushed tiny hermit crabs and flecks of dirt off her as he struggled uphill toward the house, carrying the body, willing her heart to beat, knowing it wouldn’t. Katherine sobbed. Paul walked, staring straight ahead.

Bethea Vauxhall screamed at him. “You did this to her.”

Kevin’s face looked down at him, blabbering. “He was fine one minute then just keeled over the side. Didn’t even wake up when he hit the water.”

Two men, dressed in blue uniforms hopped around, slapping gadgets on his chest, his arms. Mike tossed off the blanket that looked like it was made of tin foil and tried to sit up. The pain in his back brought him right back down.

“Tell me where it hurts, what you’re feeling.” Brewster Fire and Rescue emblazoned in gold on a blue uniform swam in Mike’s eyes.

“Pain . . . my back . . . my chest. Can’t breathe.”

The rubber mask smelled like glue. Oxygen whispered into his nostrils. The breathlessness eased, but not the pain. Mike sucked more air.

I
gave up fishing, farming, just about everything, even after I was acquitted of murdering her. Dying wasn’t so bad–it offered relief and a long peaceful rest.

I’m not ready to die!
“I can’t catch my breath.”

“Your blood oxygen is low, sir. Try and relax.” The blood pressure cuff inflated and deflated. One paramedic studied the monitor. The other stuck Mike’s finger for a blood sample. Hurt like hell.

“Extend your arms, sir. Good. Scrunch up your face. Stick out your tongue. Squeeze my hands. Good. Follow my finger with your eyes.”

“I will . . . if you stop . . . shining that light...into them.” Might as well go out joking this time.

The guy wasn’t laughing. “How old are you, sir?”

“Fifty-six.” Was he really that old?

“Medical problems? Allergies?”

“None.” Impotence didn’t count, wouldn’t kill him.

Static crackled as he spoke into the two-way radio. “56 year old male previously in good health. Syncope, now alert, with severe shortness of breath, chest pain. No focal signs suggestive of stroke. RR 40. Glucose 86. Sinus tach, no evidence of STEMI. Decreased breath sounds both lobes.”

What the hell did all that mean?

“What’s your name? What year is it? Who is the President?”

“Mike Keeny. 2010. Barack Obama, but he’s selling out the Democratic Party. Not much of a choice . . . between him . . . and this crazy House and Congress.”

“He’s been sick fer weeks.” Kevin stood to the side on the dock. Worry lines etched deep into his face.

“What’s wrong with me?” Mike rasped, then coughed. His chest threatened to explode.

“Not sure, sir. They’ll be doing lots of tests once we get you there.”

“Sounds like fun.”

“Try not to talk. Conserve your energy. Okay, transporting now.” They picked him up like a soggy sack of clams, dumped him on a stretcher, and ran.

“Call my wife.” He needed to see Liz one more time.

Kevin ran next to them like a dog about to hit the water and retrieve a bird, his hair spiked, shivering, clutching a sodden blanket around himself. “Mae’s contactin’ the school. They’ll meet us at the hospital.”

“Did you jump in after me?”
My God, if he wasn’t here . . .

“Shh, now. Take it easy. The water was only up to my waist. Getting’ ya up on the beach, well that was the tough part. Ya know what they say about adrenaline.”

Soon the whole boatyard would be on the horn blabbing that Mike Keeny fell off his boat. If he wasn’t having a fatal heart attack, they’d be teasing him to no end, bringing gag gifts to the hospital.

The stretcher bounced as it hit the floor of the ambulance and launched him into the cube shaped truck. The jolt sent pain searing up his back and through his chest. He balled a fist and pressed in on his abdomen. It didn’t help.

Kevin took a seat opposite him, out of the way.

Would he ever see Liz and Eddie again?
I have a lot to live for, Jared.

The driver accelerated to highway speed on the tiny Brewster streets. The paramedic in the back wrapped a glove around Mike’s arm and swabbed it with alcohol. “I’m starting an IV to give you pain medicine–morphine.”

They’d given that to Mary to ease her transition from life to death. The needle seared as it pierced his skin. Cold liquid stung his vein. He shivered.

Red lights flashed. The siren blared.

Mike let go. God, not Jared, would decide if he lived or died today.

Chapter 16

Liz’s cane clacked. The hinges on the knee brace kept time. What if it was too late? What if Mike was already dead?

Cold air hit her in the face as she punched the exit bar on the front door of the school. Liz pulled out her cell. “Allison, I hope I stored your number . . .”

Her hands shook so much the touch screen wouldn’t work. “Goddamn phone.”

“Liz!” The principal ran out after her not wearing a coat. “What happened? What can I do?”

“My husband had chest pain and . . . passed out.” She dissolved into tears. “I’m trying to call his daughter, but this stupid phone . . .”

“Let me help.” Mr. Blaylock took it from her. “What’s her name?”

“Allison.”

He scrolled the address book. “Not listed. What’s the area code?”

“Damn, I saved her number. Where did it go?”

“What’s the area code, Liz?” His patient reminder broke through the fog.

She processed it the second time. “New Hampshire is 608, right?”

“Here’s one. You better talk so she doesn’t think a stranger is bothering her.”

Liz shook off the hysteria. It would take Allison two to three hours to get down from New Hampshire. So much could happen by then. How was she going to do this herself?

The call went to voicemail. “Allison, it’s Liz. Your father was just rushed to the hospital in Hyannis. Chest pain. Please call me.”

Car wheels screeched around the circular drive.

“Here comes your ride. Call me. I’ll be worrying.” Mr. Blaylock helped her off the curb to the car.

Mae took off before Liz got the door closed. She glanced at Eddie gnawing on Big Bird’s nose, then buckled her belt as the car swayed left, then right along the curves.

Mae kept her eyes fixed on the road. “Mike woke up right after Kevin pulled him out of the water.”

“He fell overboard? My God, what if Kevin hadn’t been with him?” Relief faded to anguish. Mike tangled in his lines. Mike adrift, under the boat. Mike in cardiac arrest . . . “I’m so scared.”

“We’ll be there soon, Liz.” Mae gunned through a yellow light.

“Stay with Eddie until I find out what’s going on.” The last thing she needed was to attend to him in the middle of this.

“I grabbed dry clothes for both of them, though I doubt Mike’s goin’ anywhere for awhile.” Mae negotiated past ambulances and double-parked cars to the emergency entrance.

Liz jumped out, leaving the cane behind. Her head seemed to travel a few feet further down the hall than her body, her eyes trained on the sign ‘Authorized Personnel Only Past This Point.’

“Can I help you, ma’am?” The security guard moved in front of her.

“My husband, Michael Keeny . . .” Tears clogged her throat. Would this man have any inkling if he was dead or alive? Probably wouldn’t say anything if he did.

“Medical/critical one. Wait for the nurse outside.” He handed her a sticky badge.

She limped to the door. The brace cranked. Her heart beat double time.

No one was in the hall. No one. No frantic calls. No doctors and nurses.

“Oh my God.” A red cart sat in front of Medical/Critical One. They always pulled that out for a code blue, at least on television. She forced herself to breathe. The door was closed, yet the equipment was outside. Surely if they needed it, but wait, if he was dead . . .

Should she go in? Maybe it wasn’t his room. Maybe it was somebody else they were working on. Her hand trembled as she reached for the handle, palms so sweaty they slipped off as she pulled it down.

Liz dried them off on her pants, and pushed the door open, bracing for chaos. No sound escaped. The empty bed neatly made, stood about four feet off the spotless, still damp floor. What had they done with him? If he’d died they would have left him here and taken her into a room to deliver the news before letting her see him motionless under a white sheet. Just like when her parents were killed in the car accident.

“Mrs. Keeny? The same doctor who’d attended her stood behind the cart.

“Yes.” Was he going to lead her down the hall, make her sit down?

“I thought I recognized you.” He smiled.

“Where is my husband?” Liz resisted the urge to pummel him. Didn’t he realize how cruel this was?

“Right now he’s in CT scan to see what’s going on inside his chest. Could be a blood clot or pneumonia. We’re still waiting for the results.”

The second sentence propelled Liz to other places she didn’t care to re-visit. A blood clot had killed her grandmother. She swayed, grabbed the wall. According to Sandra’s book, Jared had died of pneumonia. Synchronicity was not always a good thing.

“Sit down, Mrs. Keeny. We don’t need another patient.” She rubbed her eyes to clear her double vision, but the doctor’s doppelganger remained as he took her arm and guided her into a seat. “Put your head down. Karen, get me some water.”

Everything tingled. Nausea swept over her. Was her whole life reduced to flashbacks of past traumas?

“Deep breaths, Mrs. Keeny. Drink this.” Nurse Karen, in purple scrubs with pink bows on the smock, held the cup to her lips. “I was with your husband in CT scan. He’s more worried about you and the friend who pulled him out of the water.”

“Kevin, where is Kevin?” Liz’s voice echoed, tinny, in her ears. Her vision cleared. She forced herself to breathe deeply.

“Once I’m sure you’re okay, I’ll go get him.” She wrapped Liz’s fingers around the cup. “Your color is coming back.”

“Thanks.” She sipped.

Mae’s brogue drifted through the halls. “I understand I can’t bring the baby in, but can ya please find my husband? I have dry clothes for him.”

The nurse patted Liz on the back. “Let me go reunite the two of them and find out how much longer your husband will be. Are you okay?”

“Can’t I go with you?” The empty room seemed too much a portent.

“No, he’s coming back here.” She headed down the hall.

Liz stood to follow anyway. The knee/ankle duo kicked up a fuss. Dizziness pushed her back into the seat. She flipped open her phone to try Allison again. No service. Nothing was working. Nothing.

Wheels squeaked, oxygen hissed a warning.

Mike fussed. “Just a little water, please. Tea would be nice, but I’ll settle for a wet sponge to suck on.”

Hearing him strong and feisty left Liz unprepared for the sight of her burly husband in a powder blue gown, pale as the sheets, lips blue, prongs in his nostrils. Bad memories wrapped around her like a shroud; her grandmother on a respirator until Liz was allowed to turn it off and release her from the living death of coma. Gerry, a mere skeleton, barely breathing from the morphine but just not quite ready to die. The passage in Sandra’s book detailing Jared Sanders death rattles with trusty servants Katherine and Paul by his side. Was it coincidence or did she have a knack for bringing pulmonary afflictions to bear on her loved ones?

“Hey, sweetie.” Mike’s voice was raspy, breathless, but he managed a smile.

Her heart quivered, melted. She smoothed his hair and stroked his cheek.

An orderly wheeled the stretcher in. Nurse Karen reattached monitor pads to Mike’s chest, checked the intravenous pump, and lowered the sound on the console so they could hear themselves over the blips of his heartbeat.

“Oh, Mike.” Liz reached to hug him, but the rail got in the way.

“Let me put this down as long as you’ll be here, Mrs. Keeny.” Karen was competent, empathic, just like the nurses who were there when Gerry finally gave up, when Grandma Mulcahey’s heart stopped. Liz dearly hoped this young woman would not be called upon in that capacity.

She pulled a chair next to the bed and put her head down next to Mike’s arm. “I’m so sorry I did this to you.”

“Mike raised his hand and tousled her hair. “Come on, honey. You didn’t do anything to cause this.”

Liz’s head shot up. “You’ve been sick for weeks, and barely missed a day fishing in the freezing cold. If it weren’t for me and Eddie . . .”

“ . . . I’d be an old man, dying of loneliness without my beautiful wife by my side.” Mike’s puffy eyes narrowed. His arm rested heavy on hers, too weak to do more.

Her heart thumped twice that of his monitored rhythm. “I didn’t make you go to the doctor. All we’ve been giving you is chicken soup, cough drops, and homeopathics.” She pounded the mattress in frustration.

“Modern medicine will kill you faster. That’s why you had Eddie at home, right?”

The doctor strode in. “Good news. The CT is negative. Everything points to pneumonia: Fever, cough, increased white blood cell count. We’re going to admit you to the hospital for a couple of days for antibiotics and some respiratory treatments to get the phlegm out.”

A coughing fit overcame Mike again. Liz rubbed his back to try and soothe him. A niggling sense of unease wormed its way into Liz’s stomach. Jared had died lonely, if not alone, in the very same way. Did the ghost or Sandra Kensington have anything to do with this? Sure, things were different in those days–no antibiotics, no oxygen–but he was fifty-six years old and looked seventy right now.

The doctor waited until the hacking stopped “So you’ll be going to a room shortly.”

“My daughter is a nurse.” Mike beamed. “Cardiology at Dartmouth Hitchcock.”

“Interesting.” The guy probably didn’t want someone who knew as much as him snooping around. He left without saying goodbye.

Liz scrolled through the number in her phone and found it this time. “I must call her back. Who knows if she got the message?”

“You called Allison? Why?” Displeasure oozed from Mike’s face.

“Because she’s your daughter, and she’s a nurse, and I had no idea what I’d find once I got here.”
And because I’m scared and need someone with a clear head who is grounded in reality. He can’t find out about Sandra’s book, not now, not this way.

Mike’s eyes teared up. His voice, already gravely, became even coarser. The cough returned, incessant, wet. He spit into a tissue. “She’s two hours away. What if she runs off the road rushing here for nothing?”

I can’t seem to do anything right
. “I’m sorry, Mike. I did what I thought best at the moment. I’ll go call her, tell her not to come, and find Kevin and Mae.”

He slumped against the pillow, his face ashen, struggling to catch his breath. Liz studied the monitor. Surely if there was a problem there would be an alarm, the staff would be in. 94% flashed near an icon that read Sp O2. Oxygen? Was that good enough? Allison would know.

Mike cleared his throat again. “I don’t want a lot of fuss.” He closed his eyes and dozed off.

A foreboding, premonition of death rumbled through her. Liz settled into a torn vinyl chair, which snagged against the seat of her pants.
You can’t leave him alone. Not for a minute.

She picked up Mike’s hand, and he turned at her touch. She squeezed. He smiled. She cried silently and kept watch while his eyes closed again.

Liz jumped when Mae poked her head in. “Kevin is chilled to the bone. I’m takin’ him home. How’s Mike?”

She stepped outside to talk, leaving one eye on him. “He’s got pneumonia. We’re waiting for a room.”

Mae’s jaw hung open. They’d never discussed the British accent during the aftermath of her accident. Would Katherine’s ghost be agitating? Could May already know? Anxiety prickled Liz again.

“So long as it’s not a heart attack.” Mae peeked in at Mike, still sound asleep. Maybe she hadn’t remembered.

“I’m staying here with him. Pack me a change of clothes and toothbrush.” She had to call the school, and Allison, but that would have to wait.

“I’ll pack an overnight bag. Kevin will bring ya some dinner.” She hugged Liz. “Yer doing the right thing to stay with him. Damn hospitals. They didn’t even give Kevin a pair of those paper clothes to wear and he’s wringin’ wet.”

As Mae disappeared behind the ER doors, the ache of loneliness descended over Liz. Life was nothing more than a vigil. She’d kept one at Gerry’s bedside, just as Mike had kept one at Mary’s. Elisabeth kept an eternal one for Edward to return. Jared’s was a solitary watch, during which time he’d encased himself in an embittered shell, living only until he worked up the courage to die. There was no end in sight, no new beginnings, just one long middle, dragging under the weight of endless despair.

Voices mumbled outside the partially closed door. The monitor bleeped but, unlike the comfort of Mike’s heart beating next to hers, the electronic rendition jarred Liz’s nerves. She waited for it to skip, to end. Each breath rattled, he coughed to clear it, then it began anew.

Artificial light in the windowless room cast a yellow tint over everything. Footsteps scuffed the floor. Liz expected the nurse, but a woman in street clothes burst through the door.

“Daddy?”

Mike’s eyes shot open at the sound of Allison’s voice. She ran to him, leaned over, and hugged her father. He patted her back.

“What happened?” Her practiced eyes went to the monitor. She tilted the IV bags, read the contents.

“Pneumonia, so they say.” Mike’s eyes filled with tears.