“Are you sure?” I asked.
He raised an eyebrow, but said nothing in his own defense.
“I don’t mean to question you,” I said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t go to medical school. But before it happened, we were at a party, and he was gone a long time. I think...” I felt so stupid even saying it. I’d only told Margie my theory, and she’d dismissed it. “I think he was poisoned.”
I stared into my teacup.
“That’s a pretty broad accusation.” He said it softly and kindly, but under it all was a hint of condescension, as if what he really wanted to say was that I was crazy.
“He has enemies,” I said.
“Yes.”
“His ex-wife was mad at him.”
“Okay.”
“He was fine just before.”
“No, he wasn’t.”
“I was there, you weren’t. I’m sorry, but he was fine.”
He put his cup down, and I felt the weight of my intrusion. He was playing a video game at eight in the morning, getting a moment’s peace from a high pressure job, and here I was dragging his work into his kitchen. And he didn’t believe me. I wanted him to believe me, even as I was feeling crazier and crazier.
“There was nothing on his tox screen. I sat with his attending for two hours looking at EKGs. He had a massive coronary event. There’s a pretty good chance he’d been having small heart attacks in the days previous. His valves are shot.”
He stopped his sentence as if catching himself. He’d been talking about a man’s heart like it was a carburetor.
“I should go.”
“He has a very good prognosis.”
“Thanks for the tea.” I put it on the counter.
“Monica, listen—”
“Dr. Thorensen—“
“I’m Brad.”
“Brad, it’s been a rough five days. He’s got seven sisters and a mother and they...most of them...act like I’m no one to him. I’m on his list, so I’m told everything, but I’m surrounded by strangers. And seeing him like that, with the IV and the tubes and just waiting to get cut open. Everyone’s worried and no one wants to listen.”
“I understand the desire to blame someone, but he wasn’t poisoned. I promise you.”
He was right, of course. There had been no evidence of poisoning, and Jessica had been in my sights, or in the bathroom most of the time, but I was looking for a ten second interval where she could have...What? Fed him something? Slyly injected him? Did I think I was living in an Agatha Christie novel where conceptual artists moonlit as chemists?
“Yeah,” I said. “I guess.”
“Tell you what. This is fun. Why don’t you play City of Dis with me for a little while? I’m in the eighth circle. I’ll build you a character from my profile. You’re not getting an opportunity to play at that level anywhere else. All your problems go away.” He snapped his fingers. “Magic. Come on.”
“I can’t.”
“An hour.”
“I haven’t done laundry in two weeks and I have to go to work.”
He put his cup down. “Rain check?”
“Yes, and thank you, Brad.” His short name sounded, at once, overly familiar and coldly detached in my mouth.
“Any time.”
He walked me out and I went home to wrestle with the laundry. Maybe I’d hang out a Christmas light myself.
There was a letter taped to my screen door. No envelope, just an open sheet.
NOTICE OF PUBLIC AUCTION
The rest was legal bullshit, but I scanned the page for the handwritten parts. My address. Thirty days. Non-payment.
“Shit.”
I looked at my house as if there might be an answer there, but it was just a dark wooden box with a crumbling foundation. I still hadn’t gotten the papers signed to fix it, but if the permits had been opened, my mother had gotten the notice in the mail. So she knew something was going down. Now, this, which must have been the result of my failure to send her a check two months running.
I had to call her.
I didn’t want to call her.
I stared at my phone. The number was right there. I’d missed the rent twice before. Once when Kevin and I broke up, and once when Gabby had tried to commit suicide. Both times, I’d just sent two month’s rent in an envelope with a thank you note. So when Gabby died and I was short, I just figured I’d make it up. And I could have, except I was in Vancouver December first and forgot and then I stopped working when Jonathan collapsed into my arms, so honestly, even if I’d had the cash in there, I was too preoccupied to manage any practical aspect of my life.
That’s what I get for living in her house. Really. How long could I mooch off someone I wasn’t speaking to anyway? How old was I?
I hit her number while I unlocked my front door. It was easier to do difficult things if I multitasked through them.
My house was exactly the same every time I went into it to shower or grab something, as if it was a museum of my life. Nothing moved. The blanket on the couch was rumpled in the shape of an opening rose. The curtains draped over the back of the chair like perfectly-trimmed bangs. The dishes in the rack were filed and waiting for archiving in the cabinets.
The phone stopped ringing and there was a click. Mom’s voice still had the slight Brazilian accent that had been carefully chipped away, but never smoothed off completely. My heart skipped a beat, an adrenaline rush in preparation for the confrontation.
It was a message.
“Hi, Mom. I got a notice the bank is auctioning off the house? Should we talk about it?”
God that was stupid. I hung up. Shoulda paid the f**king rent. Shoulda called her to let her know I was in a pinch. Shoulda had Darren move in. One more stupid shit thing in a long line of other stupid shit things. I folded the notice and wedged into the corner of my notebook. Fuck the Christmas lights.
CHAPTER 2.
MONICA
I was nearly out of gas, and I had five dollars in my pocket, one maxed out credit card and a bank account dangerously close to scraped clean. I could get to work and make some cash, but without that eighth of a tank, I’d be taking the bus to the hospital for the duration and paying the fare with change found between couch cushions.
I didn’t dare tell Jonathan things had gotten that bad. I went to him every night with sunshine in my voice and rainbows in my pocket.
But when I wasn’t at Sequoia, I let the panic come. Slamming my locker closed, I painted on a customer service smile for no one in particular.