Т Паркер - The Room of White Fire

“I love my son.”

Once in a while, I get an inspired idea. “Would you like Clay back here? Under this roof again?”

“Yes!” cried out Patricia.

I don’t know what I was expecting from Rex. Spontaneous combustion, or a backhand to his wife’s cheek, or at least another ugly stare-down. Instead, he looked at her with thirty-plus years of hard-won understanding. “We would consider that. Yes.”

“Please give us that chance, Mr. Ford,” said Patricia.

I had just climbed into Hall Pass 2 when the message came through from Sequoia.

6:25 PM

R ok. Dents in truck from gun. Driving north to find old war friend. Won’t say name or why. U saved us. Clay thanks and me 2.

6:26 PM

Game over. Clay, we need to meet. You are going to hurt someone. Don’t want it to be S. You owe her! Help me help you.

I leaned my head back against the rest and closed my eyes and waited.

No reply.

No surprise.

Justine was all I could think about on the flight home. I cruised just offshore, with the lights of the coast and the great black Pacific beneath me. I let the growling power of the Cessna engine vibrate through my body, the same power that had hummed through me the first time Justine had taken me up. I’ll never forget the charge of it back then, and the charge of what I was already feeling for this beautiful, bright, unpredictable woman. Back then, those two charges had combined to form an irresistible current. Now, flying over the Palos Verdes Peninsula, I remembered it very clearly. But I couldn’t feel it. Justine was gone and even Hall Pass 2 couldn’t make up what was missing.

Paige Hulet stepped inside Clay’s room at Arcadia and held open the door. “Clay texted me one hour ago,” she said with a small smile. “He’s fine. I’m so relieved. So very happy.”

I stepped in. It was Saturday but Arcadia seemed no different than during the week. Through the window I saw the morning sunlight on the green flanks of the mountains. The room was warm and I caught the doctor’s light scent in the still air. She wore the usual black pantsuit and a white blouse and her hair was up and snug. Predictable, like the morning paper — black and white and neatly bundled — day after day after day. She had a small black satchel over one shoulder. She turned on the lights and set the air conditioner, then leaned over the front of Clay’s computer. I stood and watched as she started it up, entered a password, waited for it to boot.

“Clay said he was fine and would be in touch,” said the doctor. “You don’t seem nearly as pleased as I thought you would.”

I nodded to the reading chair by the window. “Would you sit down for a minute?”

Dr. Hulet sat, swung the satchel across her lap, and regarded me. “I have to be in therapy in twenty minutes. What’s on your mind, Mr. Ford?”

“Are we on mic or camera?”

“No. We turn off the room feeds when a partner is absent.”

“Clay and his lady friend surprised his mother and father yesterday. Have you talked to them?”

She had not, so I told her about Clay’s visit to Ojai, the security blitz, the gunfire near the guardhouse, Clay’s acquisition of a gun, cash, and souvenir fighting dolls.

“But Clay is okay?” asked the doctor. “He said he was okay.”

“He’s fine. So is the girl, in case you’re concerned. Her name is Sequoia. I’m not clear on why Clay really went there. But it made me realize how little contact the Hickmans had with him here.”

“I told you it was only once a year.”

“I assumed it was their preference — trying to forget about him, too painful. Something like that.”

She shook her head. “No. The infrequent visits were at Clay’s insistence. He thought his parents wanted to turn him over to the state. I don’t know where he got that idea.”

I thought back to the Hickman couple standing in the study — Rex livid with helplessness, and Patricia trying to find her courage. I thought of Rex’s parting words. I love my son. One thing I didn’t get from them was any hint that they wanted to wash their well-moneyed hands of Clay. “They said Clay’s fear of them began when he was deployed. Over his last two years, especially.”

“Clay and I have talked about it in therapy. He feels that in the war he let his country down, and his airmen buddies, and his family. During his last two years of deployment, his feelings of failure grew and grew. Once he was back home he was better — as you know from the medical charts. Then the first psychotic break. Along with the drinking. And it all seemed to focus on what he’d done — and failed to do — during his time overseas in Iraq.”

“Clay was never at Ali Air Base in Iraq, Dr. Hulet, as you and your alleged service record claim. He wasn’t a flight mechanic, either.”

Silence hung between us like a heavy black curtain. Then it vaporized with her voice. “Really. It says so, right—”

“The record is invented.” I told her about Clay’s attendance and later his teaching at the SERE program at Fairchild AFB from 2006 through 2007. Then his abrupt “disappearance” from 2008 until his discharge in late 2009.

Paige Hulet colored, like she had before when talking to me about Clay. “Well, Alec gathered up all of the military information. I can ask him where he got it.”

“You two can point fingers at each other all day. What good would that do anybody?”

“I resent your implication, Mr. Ford. I certainly did not falsify Clay’s service record in any way, and I doubt that Alec did, either. It was probably the DoD itself. Isn’t that what they do when it’s convenient? Redact documents? Rewrite history?”

“Clay never mentioned SERE or Fairchild?”

“No, never. He talked about fixing those big gunships, the Spookies, at Ali Air Base. However...” She stood, looked uncertain what to do with herself, then sat back down and set her satchel on her lap again. “ However, Clay didn’t offer many details of Ali. His memories seemed neither vivid nor emotionally grounded. There was something rote about them. Which made me suspect that his experience there was too painful for him to recount. Or perhaps untrue. It would not have been his first elaborate fabrication.”

I felt something snap inside me. Like what snaps when you get a runaround at the DMV, but worse. DMV cubed. Enough is enough, and one more word lights your fuse. “What about Clay’s last two years overseas? Did he ever talk about 2008 and ’09? I need something true from you, Dr. Hulet. Not more of your live-streaming nonsense about him being a flight mechanic in Iraq.”

She gave me a power scowl. “I’ve told you what I know.”

“No, you haven’t. And Spencer hasn’t, either. Doctor-patient confidentiality? Maybe. But why did he dig out of this place? Because he couldn’t stand visits from his parents? I doubt it. You’ve been in therapy with him for two years and you couldn’t tell he was ready to run? And what about those paintings of Clay’s? What goes through your mind when you look at those things? You care about Clay Hickman. You blush when you talk about him. You probably know him better than anyone in the world. Speak true words.”

She pulled her phone from her jacket pocket, checked something, gave me another stony look.

“Let me guess,” I said. “Our time is up.”

“Yes, it is. You’re a blunt man, Mr. Ford, but not a stupid one. Two years ago when I came here as the new medical director I assumed oversight of sixty mentally disturbed patients. Clay was by far the most heartbreaking because he had struggled so hard to make something of himself. Struggled for life and health, accomplishment and recognition. For his country. He had soared, then fallen. To me, he’s the definition of a hero. I saw the damage done to him, but I didn’t understand it all. I still don’t. I know I’m blushing now and I just don’t care.”