Boundaries (8 page)

"Oh?"

"Well, yes, I saw him in the theaters, didn’t I? And there’s David, of David and Goliath—to say nothing of Goliath—and David O.
Selznic
, and David . . . David
Ahl
, who was my brother-in-law’s friend, and David Letterman, and now you, too. David."

"It sounds like quite a crowd," David said, and regretted the statement immediately, because he thought it sounded facetious, though it was merely the most apropos observation he could make at that moment.

But the man clearly did not consider the remark facetious. He gave David his nervous smile, his eyes sparkled a grim light; he said, "And I don’t like crowds, David."

~ * ~

David tried to leave the ward that night.

He got into his clothes, left his room at a bit past eight, and walked quickly down the corridor toward the nurses’ station, eyes on the nurse all the while. He smiled, nodded, was aware that she was watching him. She said, as he passed her desk, "Please don’t leave us just yet, Mr. Case."

He stopped and pointed toward the closed glass doors. "I was going out for a bit. It’s okay."

She shook her head. "No. I’m sorry. Please return to your room." He saw that she had her finger on a button on her desk.

"Orderlies?" he asked.

She nodded a little. David wasn’t sure she was answering him or whether the nod was a nervous gesture. She said, "Please return to your room."

He looked for a long moment at the closed doors.

"Yes," the nurse said. "You could run."

He said, "I’m not going to do that. I don’t need to do that." And he went back to his room.

~ * ~

In Anne’s house, a breeze pushed in through the same window the martins had used and coaxed the pinkish white petals from a small flowering plant that had dehydrated.

In the basement of the house, the family of dormice set itself up in a corner far from the gas leak which had given the mother dormouse so much anguish.

At a little before nine, a cat got into the house through the open window. The cat was large and friendly and confused; earlier in the day, his owners had let him off on a country road not far off, then, with tearful eyes, had watched as their pet watched
them
drive away.

The cat’s name was Jackson. His owners had thought it was an interesting cat name, one not on a list they had seen in a book about cats; it was a list of overused cat names, and Jackson’s owners were intent upon being unique.

But Jackson was not unique. He was tired and hungry and confused. And he didn’t know it, but no one would ever call him "Jackson" again.

~ * ~

Karen Duffy said to Christian Grieg, "I try to figure you out sometimes."

Christian said, "I didn’t know I needed figuring out."

Karen nodded. "You do." A pause. "
I
need to figure you out." She smiled. She was aware that it was attractive and quietly sexual. "I guess I don’t know if you mean well, Christian."

He smiled. It was designed to be understanding and forgiving. "You mean with you?" he said.

"With me?" she asked. "Our relationship?" She paused. "In a way. But that’s not all of it—I was thinking," she hurried on, "when you were gone yesterday and I was waiting for you that I don’t . . . know you very well." It was a gentle lie. She didn’t know how to say to him,
I think you’ve changed in the last couple of months, Christian. I want to talk about it
.

"It’s good that you don’t know me very well," he said.

She thought a moment. "Yes. It’s good. I see what you’re saying. But we don’t have a
relationship
, per se. We
know
each other."

"I’ve always wanted a relationship with you, Karen."

She said nothing for a moment. If what he was saying was true, it was the first inkling she’d had of it. She said, "I wasn’t aware of that."

"Weren’t you?"

"No."

"You should have been. I was obvious about it.”

“Then I was pretty dense, Christian. I’m sorry.”

“That sounds like a brush-off."

She shook her head. "It isn’t." She was confused. "I don’t know what I want from you, Christian." She paused. "Because I really don’t know you. I mean that." She wanted to add,
Especially lately
, but he said: "I have secrets. We all have secrets."

"I wasn’t talking about that, Christian." There had been a tinge of anger in his voice and it concerned her. "I don’t want to know your secrets." She was pleading with him and she wasn’t sure why. "I want to know you, Christian."

He smiled; it came and went as swiftly as a heartbeat, but she knew it was a smile that she was not meant to see.

"Something’s funny?" she said.

"Nothing’s funny, Karen." He shook his head slightly. "Why?"

"Because you smiled."

"I didn’t smile." Again he shook his head. "I’m sure I didn’t smile." He looked upset.

Karen said, "I didn’t mean anything by it, Christian. It was an observation. I thought you smiled." He shook his head. "No. I didn’t. I know when I smile."

"I’m sorry," Karen said.

~ * ~

A week after he was admitted to the psychiatric unit of Syracuse General Hospital, David was transferred to the intensive care wing; he was suffering from what appeared to be a drug-related relapse. He had slipped into unconsciousness, come back, slipped away again. Now, three hours after his initial unconsciousness, the monitor showing his brain function indicated that he was in a light coma.

David’s doctor telephoned Laude Pharmaceuticals, talked with Kay
Fortunato
—David’s lab assistant—told her the situation, and requested that she send him the results of all the company’s research into A2d-40, including the results of human testing.

"There has never been any human testing," Kay told him.

"Never?" the doctor asked incredulously.

Kay said, "It was noted in the material I sent you when David was admitted a week ago."

"I haven’t familiarized myself with that material."

"Doctor, I know that it arrived."

"Yes. It has. I’ve seen it, actually. I haven’t studied it." He paused. "Miss
Fortunato
, if there has been no human testing then we’ve got a hell of a problem here."

~ * ~

Detective Fred Collins was inside Anne’s house and he was spooked. Not just because it was a place where a murder had happened, but because he could so strongly sense Anne in it. Her personality. Her spirit.

He told himself that he did not believe in such things, that, actually, he
should not
believe in such things, because he had been in too many places where a murder had been committed and he was therefore jaded and professional. He had sensed before what he sensed here—spirit, personality, the leftovers of a person’s existence—but it had always been fleeting and weak. It was not fleeting and weak, now.

Strangely, there seemed to be precious few leftovers of Anne Case here, although her house was full of furniture, books, paintings, art prints. Most of it seemed too much like window dressing—necessary accoutrements of a big house—that had little to do with the private and doomed personality that had lived inside it. There was little that was singularly reflective of Anne Case. There was a vase with flowers. The flower petals were on the floor and they were gray. (Collins smiled thinly at that. It was such a grim allegory.) On a table in the parlor there was a photograph of Anne—it was a small and oblong photograph that looked as though it had been cropped from a larger photograph. Collins had spent many minutes looking at it, but at last the face that smiled dimly back at him had told him little. It whispered of sensitivity and pain, but her life had screamed of it.

He had no reason for being in Anne Case’s house today other than that he was intrigued by her. He thought that he might, when she was alive, have found good reason to love her.

~ * ~

It is several years earlier, the day after David’s near drowning, and Anne—riding in Christian’s car—has made the 120-mile trip from Batavia to the hospital in Syracuse, where David is recuperating nicely.

The trip has been hell for Anne. It’s the first time in years that she’s left her big, comfortable house for so protracted a time and when she arrives at the hospital, she feels ill—her stomach’s churning, she’s dizzy, seeing double.

Christian helps her from the car and, despite her nausea, she hurries into the hospital, into the peace and security of finite spaces and unmoving walls.

And when she goes into David’s private room, he gets shakily from his bed and hugs her.

The room is empty, except for the two of them. Christian has elected to wait in the lobby.

David whispers, "Anne, I went over."

She says nothing, though he assumes she’s heard him.

"I went over to the other side, Anne," he whispers.

She nods. He can’t tell the meaning of the nod. He moves back from her, holds her slim shoulders in his hands. He finds that he’s smiling giddily. "You heard me, Anne?"

She nods, smiles too, and he’s uncertain what kind of smile it is—a patient smile, a smile of assent, a smile of acceptance and belief. She’s always been good at hiding her moods, when she wants, even from him.

David is still smiling giddily. He doesn’t want to. He senses that, somehow, it’s making his sister uncomfortable.

He sighs, forces his smile down. "Did I say thank you, Anne? For coming here?"

She looks silently at him for a few seconds. Then she tells him, her eyes still on his, "Let’s not talk about what happened to you, David. It’s . . . painful. Do you understand?"

He says nothing for a moment. He’s not sure he understands. Is she talking about the accident itself, or about the fact that he went over to the other side? He wants her to explain. But he says, "Yes, I think so."

She shakes her head, smiling tearfully. "No," she says. "I doubt that you do." She nods at the bed. "Let’s sit down, okay?"

"Okay," he says, and they sit together on the hospital bed, their bodies turned obliquely toward each other, hands clasped.

"Christian told me what happened to you, David." She takes a breath. "He told me what you believe happened to you."

"Do you doubt it, Anne?"

She shakes her head earnestly and looks down at their clasped hands. "No. God no!" She squeezes his hands. "I’ve thought quite often about dying." She pauses. "And about . . . going over." She looks up at him; she’s still smiling tearfully. "We’ve talked about it, haven’t we?" It’s a rhetorical question. He doesn’t answer. She continues, "And it’s always been so . . . abstract." She pauses again. She touches his face tenderly. "Oh, David, you’re all right, aren’t you? They told me you were . . . under the water for a long time—"

He nods quickly. "Yes. I’m all right. The doctor says there should be no lasting effects."

"He said the same thing to me. I wanted to hear it from you, though. Doctors lie. They try to be kind, and they lie." She looks away,
lets
go of his hands. David wants to ask her what’s troubling her, but says nothing. He knows that she’ll tell him, in time.