John Kenney - Talk to Me

But there were a few things Ted Grayson was very good at and one of them was the ability, under pressure, to maintain calm. Because of course it wasn’t calm. He felt what any normal human being felt. He just put it in a small box, off to the side. Because if he thought about it, if he really thought about his daughter, alone, overdosed, well…

“Claire.” And for a moment he thought the line had gone dead. “Claire?”

“I’m here.”

“Honey. Listen to me. I’m on my way.”

It was the “honey.”

“Ted,” she said, an involuntary intake of air, a gasp, his name coming out in barely a whisper. A whole world in a name. A lifetime and a family and this girl who desperately needed them.

“I know,” he said.

Two and a half hours later he was on a flight to Boston. The winter storm made landing there impossible so they were rerouted to Providence. Most of the car rental companies were closed but he tracked down a rent-a-wreck place; the guy behind the counter, greasy shirt, Lucky Strike hanging from his lips, a tubercular cough, just shook his head as Ted filled out the paperwork.

The drive should have taken two hours. It took five and a half.

When she first came into the infirmary she had been vomiting. Later, in a semiconscious rage, she tried to leave the infirmary, swinging at the doctors and two nurses. They sedated her and she had been unconscious for several hours.

“How long has she been using drugs, Mr. Grayson?” the doctor asked Ted.

“I don’t know.”

The doctor stared at Ted, not the first time he’d heard a parent say these words, feel this emptiness as they looked down on their child in a hospital bed.

“Her mother will be here this evening,” Ted said.

The doctor seemed to understand. He nodded.

“I’ll check in later. I enjoy your newscast, by the way.”

He sat in the room throughout the afternoon and evening, staring at her. Should he put a hand to her forehead, like they do in movies? Should he hold her hand? Should he give a touching speech. That would be the movie version. Real life is harder. Real life was his worry that she would wake and explode upon seeing him there.

There was a cafeteria and he bought himself a coffee and a stale muffin and brought it back to the room. She was pale. Her lips were dry and cracked. Her hair matted. She spoke in her drug-haze sleep. Mostly unintelligible sounds, head moving one side to another.

A nurse came in and wiped her head with a damp cloth, put a salve on her lips, gently wiped back her hair, a care and intimacy that Ted found moving.

“It happens everywhere now.”

She looked up at Ted.

“The drugs,” she added. “We see it all the time.”

They’d done a five-part series about it. About the Massachusetts city of New Bedford. They’d spoken to families whose teenage children had died from heroin overdoses. It was just a story, though, to Ted. Overdose segue to war segue to corporate corruption segue to political scandal segue to global warming segue segue segue. It never ended. How was he supposed to do his job if he didn’t have some veneer, if he wasn’t able to distance himself from the horror of it?

Ted turned to see someone at the door.

“Hi, Mr. Grayson. I’m Lauren. Franny’s roommate.”

Claire arrived, breathing hard. She sat on the edge of the bed, felt Franny’s forehead, her cheeks. It was as if she had to make sure she was real, that she was here.

Only then did she turn to Ted, her coat still on.

“She’s going to be fine. A detox, which won’t be pleasant. But she’s lucky.”

Claire nodded.

“I want to bring her home. I don’t want her here anymore.”

“Whatever you think.”

“You look tired,” she said.

He managed a half smile.

“Do you have to get back?” she asked.

To Claire, it was an invitation to stay. Please stay. Please make the right decision.

To Ted, it was a suggestion to leave. What good am I doing here anyway. She hates me.

“I should,” he said. “We’re reporting from Kosovo all week. Unless you want me to stay.”

Of course I want you to stay, she thought. But I want you to want to stay.

The lawyers left them alone in the thirty-second-floor conference room. Polly had gone. Just the three of them.

Claire now owned their home, possessions, automobiles, art, and retirement savings. And $14 million in cash. Franny now co-owned the Sag Harbor home and had $3 million, via a payout Ted was owed from the network.

Ted had $275,000 and a MetroCard worth $27. But he didn’t care. The video, Franny’s story, the firing. Claire’s lawyers had everything they needed to demolish him. He put up no defense, told Polly not to say a word. He sat there and took it all. In an old New England, puritanical way, it felt good. A penance. He had been stripped of everything.

He stood at the windows with his hands in his pockets, jingling change. He was his father, he thought, almost smiling. Except not a fraction of the man.

He turned and saw them both looking at him. He suddenly felt very awkward.

“Okay, then.” He forced a smile.

“Dad.” Franny’s voice. Higher than normal. Urgent. “I’m sorry.”

“Never apologize for reporting the truth, Frances.”

She wanted to say more. She wanted to explain what happened. She was rubbing her tongue against the back of her lower teeth. She wanted him to prove how much he loved her. She wanted to make him prove it. Because she never believed it. Because she needed it so much it terrified her. Because it couldn’t be real. So push him away. Make him prove it. And then he stopped trying. And that was the worst thing in the world.

Frances. Please don’t call me Frances, she thought.

Ted walked around the table and put a hand on Claire’s shoulder, light as a bird landing. It caused Claire’s head to fall forward.

“I’m the one who’s sorry.”

Tracking her down was easy, of course. Through her Facebook page. Her Twitter account. LinkedIn.

My name is Henke Tessmer, he’d written. I run a website in New York City. Scheisse . Perhaps you have heard of it? I would love to talk to you about your old roommate. Might you have time to talk on the phone?

Henke called her. And listened. She talked. Without interruption. Henke knew what he had in her, this troubled, lonely soul who only wanted to be listened to. Henke listened and typed, recorded the call, would use it on the site over images Lauren was more than happy to send of her time at NMH.

“We were friends once. I think. I mean… we were. That story was just so… mean… about her father. Her mother is sooo beautiful. I met her once. And her father. During the snowstorm, the time Franny OD’ed.”

“Sorry, what’s that you said?”

“Oh yeah. You don’t know that story? Do you want to hear more? I feel like I’ve been talking a lot. Have I?”

“No,” Henke said. “Not at all. Tell me more Lauren.”

Ted was watching himself die. How many people get that chance?

He was watching it, right there on his MacBook Pro, in a wildly expensive apartment high above Central Park West. It was late now and he’d put a good dent in a bottle of Ketel One and, for some reason, he was not wearing pants.

He’d watched the video several times, which may have accounted for the fact that he was crying. Ted found this partially amusing, the pathetic image of himself, and laughed between sobs in a way that would have made an onlooker think, That fellow is unwell.