The Stormchasers: A Novel (3 page)

She is smiling over this when the ward door opens and a small woman emerges—the doctor, Karena presumes, for she wears a white lab coat and carries a clipboard. She hurries across the waiting area with her hand out, sneakers squeaking.

“I’m Dr. Brewster,” she says, “sorry to keep you waiting. You must be Charles Hallingdahl’s sister. I can see the resemblance.”

Karena hastily puts the photo away, claps her laptop shut, and stands up. “Karena Jorge,” she says, shaking the doctor’s hand. “I’m Charles’s twin. You’re good. Most people don’t see it right away.”

“The smile,” says the doctor, “and something about the eyes.” She is striking, with an auburn bob and a bright blue gaze, a pleasantly husky voice. Yet there is about her an air of professional watchfulness, a menthol-cool calm like a force field. Karena smiles at Dr. Brewster with the automatic respect she holds for any member of the medical profession, along with a more personal interest. The doctor is about Karena’s age, and once upon a time, before Charles’s illness and other factors dissuaded her, Karena considered becoming a doctor herself.

“Should we talk out here?” the doctor asks. “Or would you be more comfortable in my office?”

Karena looks again toward the ward door.

“I’m sorry,” she says, “I’m confused. Aren’t we going to see Charles first?”

“Didn’t they tell you?” Dr. Brewster asks. She glances behind her at the RN on desk, then says, “Your brother was released earlier this morning.”

“What?” Karena exclaims.

“Yes, at—” Dr. Brewster consults her clipboard. “Eight thirty A.M. I discharged him myself.”

“Oh no,” Karena says, “I can’t believe it,” and much to her embarrassment, she starts to cry.

Dr. Brewster hands her a squishy pack of tissues from the pocket of her lab coat and guides Karena to one of the couches. “I guess we’d better sit,” she says.

She waits until Karena finishes daubing her eyes, blowing her nose as quietly as she can.

“I’m sorry,” Karena says. “I didn’t mean to make a scene.”

Dr. Brewster raises her eyebrows, as if to say, We’re in a psychiatric ward. “I’ve seen worse,” she says, a little wryly.

“I’m just so disappointed,” Karena says. “I’ve been looking for Charles for twenty years, and now this—So close and yet so far.”

She checks her watch. How far can Charles have gotten in about three hours? Pretty far. Karena deflates with a sigh, then looks up.

“Please, can you tell me why he was released?” she asks. “I thought he was suicidal, or had at least had a psychotic break . . .”

Dr. Brewster doesn’t move, but her gaze sharpens further.

“We don’t usually hold people for panic attacks,” she says. “What makes you say suicidal?”

“Panic attack?” says Karena.

“That’s what we treated Charles for,” says Dr. Brewster. “But it seems I’m missing something.”

Karena shakes her head. “He didn’t tell you,” she says.

“Tell me what,” the doctor says.

“My brother is bipolar,” says Karena. She sighs and recites: “Bipolar One, but rapid cycling and with the occasional psychotic episode. A real mixed bag. He was diagnosed in 1984, by Dr. Amit Hazan at the Mayo Clinic. Later he was an inpatient at a longer-term facility called Black Wing Asylum, from 1988 until . . . sorry, I don’t know exactly. There was a fire at Black Wing in the late nineties and they lost all their records. But the Mayo would still have them, I’m pretty sure.”

Dr. Brewster is making rapid notations on her clipboard. Karena can hear the
pock
of her ballpoint pen.

“Why was Charles institutionalized?” she asks.

“That was the suicide attempt,” says Karena.

“Any attempts after that?”

“Not that I’m aware of,” says Karena. She shivers and rubs her goose-bumped arms. The air-conditioning is high in here. “I’d like to think I’d feel it if he were in that much distress, since we’re twins, but . . . I just don’t know.”

The doctor looks up briefly. “You mentioned psychosis,” she says. “Charles sees and hears things that aren’t there?”

“Yes,” says Karena. “Sometimes. He didn’t mention anything like that when he came in, did he? A particular hallucination? Anything about stormchasing?”

The doctor peruses her notes, flipping back a page, and shakes her head. Karena sags against the couch, then makes herself sit up straight.

“What’s the stormchasing connection?” the doctor asks.

“That’s what Charles does,” says Karena. “And he likes to chase when he’s manic. At least, he did. As you can imagine, it’s kind of an unholy combination.”

“Interesting,” the doctor says, almost under her breath. “Okay, one last question: Any reason you can think of that Charles didn’t tell me any of this?”

“I’m fairly sure Charles doesn’t think he is bipolar,” says Karena. “He never accepted the diagnosis. He used to say he was just smarter than everyone else.”

“Sure,” Dr. Brewster says, “sounds like mania.” She sets the clipboard on her lap.

“Well, Miss Jorge, here’s where we are,” she says. “Charles didn’t disclose any of this to us. When he came to the ER, he thought he was having a stroke.”

“Oh jeez,” Karena murmurs. “Wait, can you hold on, please?”

She takes out her steno pad and Sharpie and smiles at the doctor. “Do you mind if I take notes?” she asks. “I can’t remember a thing unless I write it down. Professional hazard.”

“No, that’s fine,” says Dr. Brewster, though her glance at the notebook is a little wary. “They checked him out, ran the standard tests—blood work, tox screen, head CT, and when everything came back clean, they turned him over to us, figuring it was a panic attack. And Charles was presenting with shortness of breath, heart palpitations, dizziness, et cetera. Your brother’s in fine physical shape, Miss Jorge,” she adds, “but it took us a while to convince him a healthy young man wouldn’t suffer a sudden cerebral accident. Charles was certain he was going to die—he was quite dramatic about it, actually.”

“I’m sure he was,” Karena says, thinking, Oh, Charles. “So what’d you do?”

“We had him breathe into a paper bag,” the doctor says with a little smile. “And suggested he stay overnight for observation. By this morning, when I met with him again, he’d done a total about-face and was demanding to be released. This is when I’d decide whether to impose a seventy-two-hour hold, which happens if I feel the patient is at high risk for endangering himself or others. But there was absolutely nothing to make me think Charles belonged in this category—in fact, that he was anything other than a young man with mild panic disorder. I talked to him for a while about possible causes and how to manage it, then wrote him a ’scrip and let him go.”

Karena’s pen stops. “What did he say about the causes?” she asks.

“That he had felt unusually stressed lately,” the doctor says, “and that he often feels this way around his birthday. Maybe because the two of you are separated?” she adds, smiling kindly.

“Maybe,” Karena says. There are other, excellent reasons why Charles would be feeling anxious on their birthday, but she can’t disclose them. She tucks her hair behind her ears and scans her notes, exhaling.

“Okay,” she says. “Goodness. I don’t suppose there’s any way of tracking him? He didn’t have to be released into somebody’s care?”

“Not for an overnight,” says Dr. Brewster. “Not for anxiety.”

Karena rubs the third-eye spot on her forehead. “How about when he came in?” she asks. “Did he have to give an address to admitting?”

“You’d have to check with administrative,” the doctor says, and Karena nods. She will, but she also knows what Charles will have told them: the location of a motel, or a P.O. box, or an entirely fictional house. NFA, as Karena’s ex-husband used to say. No Forwarding Address.

“Miss Jorge,” the doctor says gently, and Karena looks up. “I hate to put more pressure on you, but if there’s any way you can, it’s important that you do bring Charles back in as soon as possible. Or if not here, to another medical facility. Given what you’ve told me, he needs an entirely different set of evaluations. And although I’m probably preaching to the choir here, Charles needs to be on medication and monitored.”

“I know,” says Karena. “I’ll try.”

“Also,” says Dr. Brewster, “since I didn’t know about Charles’s disorder, the prescription I wrote him was for Paxil. It’s mild as antidepressants go, but if Charles is pre-manic, it could push him over the edge.”

Great, Karena thinks, but she says, “I understand. Thank you for telling me.”

Dr. Brewster is standing now, so Karena puts her pad away, gathers her belongings, and rises too.

“Thank you, Doctor,” she says. “I appreciate your taking the time.”

The doctor walks Karena toward the exit, soles creaking. At the door they exchange business cards, Dr. Brewster scribbling on hers first.

“My home number’s on the back,” she says. “Please call if you find him, day or night.”

Karena knows what a concession this is. “Thank you,” she repeats and means it.

“Hey,” says Dr. Brewster as she opens the door for Karena, “is your brother really a stormchaser? He chases tornadoes? Like the guys on the Discovery Channel?”

“Yes,” says Karena, because this is one thing, the only thing, she does know for sure about Charles. “That’s what he does.”

Dr. Brewster smiles and shakes her head. “Man,” she says. “I can’t even imagine it. I’m from Florida, and I thought we had storms there, but they’re nothing like they are here. I’m a real baby about it too, I’ll admit. The second that tornado siren goes off, I’m under the table.”

“Me too,” says Karena, quite truthfully. She thanks the doctor again and steps into the hall off the ward.

W
hen Karena leaves the hospital it is noon, the sun sizzling down on Wichita. Karena drives her rental car a block over to a sandwich shop on the first floor of a skyscraper. She gets a veggie sub to ward off a hunger headache and shows Charles’s mullet photo to the counter staff. They exclaim over the hairstyle and tux, but they haven’t seen him. While she eats her sandwich Karena searches the Internet for all convenience stores, gas stations, and fast-food joints within a ten-mile radius. These are the places a stormchaser on the move would visit before heading out, and Karena spends the rest of the afternoon connecting the dots from one to the next. If only she could get some idea of Charles’s trajectory! Although maybe he lives here, Karena thinks in despair, driving from Conoco to Exxon, McDonald’s to Arby’s. She expands her search to sit-down restaurants where Charles might work, then to the motels. Everywhere the mullet photo elicits admiring comments made with varying degrees of irony, but no recognition.

By the time Karena pulls into the lot of her own motel, The Sunflower Inn & Suites, out by the Wichita airport, her hair smells deep-fried and she is exhausted. The sun is descending over the service road; it’s six forty-five P.M., prime time for the Dreads. Karena’s mood is probably worse today because of the past twenty-four hours, but still, this low, scared feeling falls on her every evening between four and seven, no matter where she is, no matter whom she’s with. Her ex-husband used to make light of the Dreads, to say they were why cocktail hour was invented. Karena’s former therapist, Dr. B, said they were a circadian response in some people, a natural reaction to the withdrawal of the light. All Karena knows is that this is when she feels most alone, most unconnected and sad. As she checks in to The Sunflower Inn & Suites, Karena reflects as she often does on how strange it is that her twin’s disorder is one of just this: moods, the shifting emotional weather healthy people take for granted.

She shares the elevator to the third floor with a family fresh from the pool, the husband’s face pink and impassive beneath his feed cap, the children whacking each other with foam noodles around Karena’s legs. “Stop that,” the mother hisses and pincers them in the tender spot between shoulder and neck. Karena smiles down at the children, who turn instantly silent and sullen. With their limber little bodies and chlorine-stiff white hair, they remind Karena of herself and Charles.

In her room Karena does a quick sweep perfected over years of traveling on assignment. She yanks the sunflowered nylon coverlet onto the floor, whisks the sunflowered drapes aside, and karate-chops the yellow shower curtain, jumping away each time in case something unpleasant pops out. Nothing does. Good. Karena is not fussy, but she draws the line at live insects, hair that isn’t hers, and suspicious stains. She once stayed in a B&B that had toenail clippings in the bed. Luckily, The Sunflower Inn & Suites, though a little kitschy, is spotlessly clean. Karena scrubs her face, orders a chicken sandwich from room service, puts on the Weather Channel with the sound muted. These routine tasks having been attended to, she settles on the bed with her cell phone. It’s times like this she misses being married, having somebody who among other things would be obligated to help her during crises. But Karena has been divorced long enough, eight years, to know this kind of thinking is a trap, that she misses the idea of Michael more than she misses Michael. And it is her fear of exactly this crisis that eroded their marriage, though Michael didn’t know it. Karena still can’t imagine Michael and Charles in the same room, especially if Charles is manic. No way. It is far too risky.

Karena calls Tiff for the third time that day, saying, “Where
are
you?” when Tiff’s cell phone goes straight to voice mail. “It’s eight o’clock, do you know where your best friend is? Still in Wichita. Did you get my earlier messages?” She drops her voice for dramatic emphasis. “Charles . . . has . . . resurfaced,” she says, then sighs. “Except now he’s gone again. Call me when you have time. Sorry about missing the martinis.”

Then, having put it off to the point when she no longer can, Karena dials her dad’s wife—Karena can never think of the Widow as a step-mother. This is a very long shot, since Karena isn’t sure whether Charles knows their dad married again, or what Frank’s condition is, or even that their mom, Siri, died in 2000. He certainly didn’t show up for Siri’s funeral. Or Frank’s wedding to the Widow. Nor has Karena ever encountered Charles at the New Heidelburg Good Samaritan Center, the nursing home where Frank is spinning out the rest of his days. It therefore seems unlikely that Charles would have tried to contact Frank now and been redirected to the Widow—but Karena suspects maybe, if her brother’s hurting enough, he would have tried to go home, not knowing that home isn’t there anymore. Besides, she has exhausted all other options.