Jonathan Kellerman - Devil's Waltz

Chip stuck his head in, retracted it, and said, “Still out.” Looking down at the cups, he held one out to me. “No sense wasting bad coffee.”

“No, thanks,” I said.

He laughed softly. “The voice of experience, huh? Has it always been this bad?”

“Always.”

“Look at this — little Exxon Valdez we’ve got here.” A faint, rainbowed slick floated on the black surface. Grimacing, he raised the other cup to his lips. “Yum — essence of grad school. But I need it to keep conscious.”

“Long day?”

“On the contrary — too short. They seem to get shorter as you get older, don’t they? Short and crammed with busywork. Then there’s having to drive back and forth between work and home and here. Our glorious freeways — humanity at its nadir.”

“Valley Hills means the Ventura Freeway,” I said. “That’s about as bad as it gets.”

“Vile. When we were home-hunting, I purposely picked a place close to work to avoid commuting.” He shrugged. “Best-laid plans. Sometimes I sit bumper to bumper and imagine it’s what hell would be like.”

He laughed again, sipped.

I said, “I’ll be experiencing it firsthand in a couple of days — making a home visit.”

“Yes, Cindy mentioned it. Ah, here comes Ms. Nightingale... Hello, Vicki. Burning the midnight oil again?”

I turned and saw the nurse marching toward us, smiling, cap bobbing.

“Evening, Professor Jones.” She sucked in air, as if preparing to power-lift, then nodded at me.

Chip handed her the untouched coffee. “Drink it or toss it.”

“Thank you, Professor Jones.”

He cocked his head at Cassie’s door. “How long have the Sleeping Beauties been snoozing?”

“Cassie went down around eight. Mrs. Jones, around eight forty-five.”

He looked at his watch. “Could you do me a favor, Vicki? I’m going to walk Dr. Delaware out, maybe get something to eat while I’m down there. Please have me paged if they wake up.”

“If you like I can go down and get you something, Professor.”

“No, thanks. I need to stretch — freewayitis.”

Vicki clucked sympathetically. “Of course. I’ll let you know soon as someone’s up.”

When we got to the other side of the teak doors, he stopped and said, “What do you think about the way we’re being handled?”

“Handled in what way?”

He resumed walking. “Handled medically — this current hospitalization. No real evaluation’s going on, as far as I can tell. No one’s really checking Cassie out physically. Not that I mind — thank God she doesn’t have to endure those godawful needles. But the message I’m starting to get is placebo . Hold our hands, send in a shrink — nothing personal — and let whatever’s going on with Cassie just wind itself down.”

“Do you find that insulting?”

“Not insulting — well, maybe a little. As if it’s all in our heads. Believe me, it isn’t. You people here haven’t seen what we have — the blood, the seizures.”

“You’ve seen all of it?”

“Not all of it. Cindy’s the one who gets up at night. I tend to be a solid sleeper. But I’ve seen enough. You can’t argue with blood. So why isn’t more being done?”

“I can’t answer for anyone else,” I said. “But my best guess is, no one really knows what to do and they don’t want to be unnecessarily intrusive.”

“I suppose so,” he said. “And, hey, for all I know it’s exactly the right approach to take. Dr. Eves seems smart enough. Maybe Cassie’s symptoms are — what’s the term — self-restricting?”

“Self-limiting.”

“Self-limiting.” He smiled. “Doctors propagate more euphemisms than anyone... I pray to God it is self-limiting. Be more than happy to remain an unsolved medical mystery if Cassie finally stays healthy. But hope comes hard by now.”

“Chip,” I said, “I haven’t been called in because anyone thinks Cassie’s problems are psychosomatic. My job is to help her deal with anxiety and pain. The reason I want to visit your home is to build up rapport with her in order to be useful for her when she needs me.”

“Sure,” he said. “I understand.”

He looked at the ceiling and tapped one foot. A couple of nurses walked by. His eyes followed their trail, absently.

“I guess what I really have trouble handling is the irrationality,” he said. “As if we’re all floating around in some sea of random events. What the hell is making her sick ?”

He punched the wall.

I sensed that anything I said would make matters worse, but I knew silence wouldn’t help much either.

The elevator door opened and we stepped in.

“Pissed-off parents,” he said, punching the DOWN button hard. “Pleasant way to end your day.”

“My job.”

“Some job.”

“Beats honest labor.”

He smiled.

I pointed to the cup in his hand. “That’s got to be cold. How about we both get some fresh sludge?”

He thought for a moment. “Sure, why not?”

The cafeteria was closed, so we went down the hall, past the Residents’ Lounge, where a row of vending machines stood next to the locker room. A thin young woman in surgical scrubs was walking away with two handfuls of candy bars. Chip and I each bought black coffee and he purchased a plastic-wrapped packet containing two chocolate chip cookies.

Farther down the corridor was a sitting area: orange plastic chairs arranged in an L, a low white table bearing food wrappers and out-of-date magazines. The Path Lab was a stone’s throw away. I thought of his little boy and wondered if he’d make the association. But he ambled over and sat down, yawning.

Unwrapping the cookies, he dunked one in the coffee, said, “Health food,” and ate the soggy part.

I sat perpendicular to him and sipped. The coffee was terrible but oddly comforting — like a favorite uncle’s stale breath.

“So,” he said, dunking again, “let me tell you about my daughter. Terrific disposition, good eater, good sleeper — she slept through at five weeks. For anyone else, good news, right? After what happened to Chad, it scared the shit out of us. We wanted her awake — used to take turns going in there, waking her up, poor thing. But what amazes me is how resilient she is — the way she just keeps bouncing back. You wouldn’t think anything that small could be so tough.

“I feel kind of ridiculous, even discussing her with a psychologist. She’s a baby , for God’s sake — what kind of neuroses could she have? Though I guess with all this she could end up with plenty, couldn’t she? All the stress. Are we talking major psychotherapy for the rest of her life?”

“No.”

“Has anyone ever studied it?”

“There’s been quite a bit of research,” I said. “Chronically ill children tend to do better than experts predict — people do, in general.”

“Tend to?”

“Most do.”

He smiled. “I know. It’s not physics. Okay, I’ll allow myself some momentary optimism.”

He tensed, then relaxed — deliberately, as if schooled in meditation. Letting his arms drop and dangle and stretching his legs. Dropping his head back and massaging his temples.

“Doesn’t it get to you?” he said. “Listening to people all day? Having to nod and be sympathetic and tell them they’re okay.”

“Sometimes,” I said. “But usually you get to know people, start to see their humanity.”

“Well, this is sure the place to remind you of that — ‘A rarer spirit never did steer humanity; but you, gods, will give us some faults to make us men.’ Words, Willy Shakespeare; italics, mine. I know it sounds pretentious, but I find the old bard reassures me — something for every situation. Wonder if he spent any time in hospitals.”