Authors: Stephen White
Kill Me (38 page)
SEVENTY-FIVE
I attended a public memorial service in Denver that was held for my patient five days after his death. Had anyone at the service asked me how I knew him, I was prepared to make something up.
Adam was still convalescing in New Haven and wasn’t at the memorial, but I did see my patient’s two lovely daughters. I also laid my eyes on Thea for the first time. His description of his wife had been so accurate I felt as though I already knew her. She was accompanied throughout the long service by a man about her husband’s age who stayed within whisper range of her. Some part of his body seemed to always be in contact with some part of hers. He had bright eyes and a quick, engaging smile. I could tell she felt safe with him. During an upbeat gospel song I whispered a question to the woman sitting next to me. “Do you know who that is? With Thea?”
She told me it was a family friend. His name was Jimmy Lee.
SEVENTY-SIX
A little less than three months after the events in New Haven, my partner, Diane, stuck her head into my office at the end of a long Tuesday. She told me that a young man in the waiting room wanted to see me.
I was wary while I made the short walk out to the front of the building. I had no more appointments scheduled that evening.
The person who was sitting in the waiting room engrossed in
Scientific American
was a tall, thin kid with an unruly mop of hair. He wasn’t dressed warmly enough for January in Colorado.
“Dr. Gregory?” he said.
I thought,
Damn,
and figured I was about to get handed a sheaf of unwelcome legal papers by a process server. It wouldn’t be the first time it had happened under almost identical circumstances.
“Yes,” I said.
“I’m Adam,” he said. “You wrote me a note about … my father.”
“I did.”
I’d handwritten the note on my professional stationery about two weeks after Adam’s father’s death and mailed it to him at his mother’s house in Ohio. I’d marked the outside of the envelope CONFIDENTIAL. In the letter, I introduced myself as a psychologist who’d been working with his father and stated clearly to Adam that, if he was interested, I had his father’s permission — encouragement, actually — to share information from his father’s psychotherapy. I suggested that he might find what I had to say interesting and asked him to get in touch with me when he was feeling better.
I wished him a speedy recovery.
I hadn’t heard back from Adam, but based on what little I knew about him I wasn’t surprised by his silence. Nor was I surprised that my first contact with him, when it happened, came in the form of an ambush in my waiting room.
I shook Adam’s hand — his handshake lacked not only character but also enthusiasm — and invited him back to my office.
He dumped a heavy daypack on the floor next to the sofa and sat down.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” I said. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”
He nodded as though he was agreeing with something — perhaps that it was, indeed, a pleasure to meet him. Whatever I might have been thinking about why he was there, he was letting me know that he wasn’t in Boulder as a supplicant.
He looked like his father. Their eyes were so similar that it was hard for me to look away from Adam’s gaze, even for a moment.
“So what do you got?” he said.
His question was a theatrical version of bored. It was also obviously ungrammatical, a smidgeon provocative, and just a tiny bit disrespectful. I assumed that every last bit of the package was intentional.
Adam wasn’t going to make this easy for me. I reminded myself that he hadn’t made it easy for his father, either, that first day that he’d shown up unannounced on his father’s porch and asked if the little girl trying to escape her father’s legs was his sister.
As I recalled hearing about Adam’s first visit to his father, I relaxed.
The ground, unsteady from the moment I spotted Adam in the waiting room, stopped shifting. Therapeutically, I suddenly knew where I was.
I was sitting in my office with a young man who had to be wondering what impact losing an uncle, two stepfathers, and a father might have on his life.
I was sitting in my office with a young man who had been running away from a father who’d loved him, a father he was certain was doomed to leave him.
A young man who had to be wondering what it was going to be like to have every molecule of his blood filtered through the tissue of his dead father’s donated liver.
A young man who had to be wondering — had to be wondering — about the nature of his dead father’s cowardice, and about the nature of his dead father’s sacrifice, who had to be wondering about the betrayals and the benevolence that had played out that day in New Haven.
A young man who was brilliant about many things but who, like his father, probably lacked wisdom about the inviolate link between intimacy and vulnerability.
I didn’t know much about the Death Angels, or the work they did, or about the great thinkers’ take on the ultimate value of life.
Nor was I an expert on the psychology of transplant recipients.
But I knew something about young men. And about young men like Adam. Young men who were searching for perspective and understanding about the bizarre things that happen between fathers and sons, the odd things that happen within families.
I was on solid ground there.
“News from your father,” I said in reply to his question about “what you got.” “I have news from your father. Things he wanted you to know.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah,” I said.
Adam had come a long way. And although he didn’t know it, he’d come to hear a long story.
“Tell me,” he said.
I had to clench my jaw to keep from smiling.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The concept for this book, and some of its vignettes, were inspired during the small window of time I spent with a man named Peter Barton. I befriended Peter while he was experiencing his rapidly approaching death, and our time together taught me invaluable lessons about one special man’s ability to continue living until he took his last breath. Peter faced the end of his life with a measure of courage and grace that was a wonder for me to behold. I strongly encourage interested readers to take a look at the chronicle of Peter’s life, and death, that he co-wrote with Laurence Shames —
Not Fade Away: A Short Life Well Lived
. You’ll find an inspiring, lovely story most unlike the one you just read. Thank you, Hawk, for one more gift.
The circle of gratitude spirals back one additional beat; Peter and I were introduced by our mutual friends, Don Aptekar and David Greenberg. Along the way Dave unwittingly provided some of the raw material that became part of this story. My thanks to them both.
I already owed Kern Buckner a lot. Now I owe him a little more. I don’t think it would have been possible for me to imagine the events I describe in the Bugaboos were it not for the mesmerizing tale Kern shared about his own escapade on the slopes above Steamboat Springs.
When I presented the concept for this book, first to my agent, Lynn Nesbit, and later to my editor, Brian Tart, I was prepared to meet resistance. I received encouragement. Six months later, when they saw the result, I feared even more resistance. But the good fortune that has followed me throughout my career — the good fortune that has placed me in the hands of publishing professionals who have allowed me to take so many liberties with the conventions of series fiction — held fast. As this project has evolved, Lynn and Brian have been supportive and enthusiastic every step of the way. I can’t thank them enough.
Brian’s astute editing made this a much sharper story. His is one of the many names of people behind the scenes who help turn manuscripts into books. Claire Zion, Neil Gordon, Kathleen Matthews Schmidt, Lisa Johnson, and many other fine people at Dutton, as well as Hilary Hale at Time Warner UK, all played essential roles in helping this project find its way into bookstores. They’ve earned my gratitude.
Early readers have to hurdle over the biggest flaws. Al Silverman, Elyse Morgan, Doug Price, Jamie Brown, Terry Lapid, Jane Davis, and Laura Barton walked point on this one. I’m grateful for their critical efforts, but I’m more grateful that I get to call them friends. Nancy Hall put her indelible mark on things later in the process, after my eyes had begun to blur. My thanks to all.
For the long months each year that I write and edit, I live in two parallel worlds. One of them ends up on these pages. The other one is real. Anyone with the (mis)fortune of sharing a house with a novelist will tell you that the demarcation isn’t always crystal clear. Xan and Rose? Thanks for tolerating, supporting, and believing. My mom, Sara White Kellas, remains my biggest fan.
Fifteen years ago two strangers, Jeffrey and Patricia Limerick, had an enthusiastic response to my first manuscript. They certainly didn’t have to, but they talked an old friend of theirs at Viking into taking a look at it for me. It turned out that he liked it, too, and he passed it on to a senior editor. The end result? The Limericks kick-started my career, and I gained a couple of wonderful friends. Sadly, Patty — and about a thousand friends and loved ones — mourned Jeff this past year after a sudden illness took his life. Thank you, Jeff — there will always be a little bit of your spirit on every page I write. You are missed.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Stephen White is a clinical psychologist and
New York Times
best-selling author of thirteen previous suspense novels, including
The Best Revenge
and
Missing Persons
. He lives in Colorado.