At the Atlanta airport, Lyle watched the guards and thought about soldiers, police, vigilantes, armed youth, the suburban dads who, terrified, shot some kid on-site, asking questions later. On the flight, he hardly slept. He could feel a generalized fear, stoking people to defend themselves, the way that the immune system defends itself, then becoming so deadly effective, so out of control, that the mechanism turned inward.
Why had he been devoting everything to help people who were turning on one another?
Thinking back to that time, as he sat on the subway, Lyle wondered if he’d, in a way, done exactly the same thing. He’d withdrawn, protecting himself by disengaging only to discover that he’d actually destroyed the good parts of his life and himself, too. Depression, sadness, he knew the literature, they, too, were outgrowths of survival mechanisms, like the fear and anxiety that warn us of danger, remind us of situations where we’ve been harmed and could be so again, but toxic and even deadly when spun notches out of control. Had he protected himself and ground to a halt as a result?
Melanie had told him that intimacy and love were the true medicine. He’d never have used those words. But damn it if he didn’t know she was right. The antidote in the micro, the antidote in the macro. Hard to let in when the perimeter defenses get jacked to the sky.
Lyle got off at the Civic Center and burst with energy on his ride to the apartment, not joy but grinding, an effort to exhaust himself. Lost in himself, he didn’t see the driverless car tagging a few paces behind.
He considered the new piece of evidence: the text he’d sent Melanie about a brilliant student. On its face, that sounded as bizarre and vague as the pandemic thing. First of all, it was three years ago, and there were myriad brilliant students in the UCSF medical classes and he knew almost none of the ones in a giant lecture. They sat out there and he stood up there. Sometimes, one would ask a question or he’d meet a few in office hours. He couldn’t remember a single student from that particular semester, well, maybe his graduate assistant. Emily, he thought with a last name that started with S or C. Maybe worth a contact.
Back at home, he went to the refrigerator to see what modest remains he’d left himself. He opened the creaky door and, no sooner had he done so, shut it. He stared at the front of the fridge. In the middle hung a magnet advertising a local pizza place. Last time that Lyle had seen that magnet, it held the note that he’d written himself about the pandemic.
The note was gone.
Lyle heard a gunshot and pasted himself to the ground.
Thirty-Eight
In the ten seconds that followed, Lyle felt a deep connection with and understanding of the veterans he had treated during his residency. That wasn’t a gunshot. It had been a tire popping out his window. Yet he’d heard a gunshot, like the Vietnam vets he had seen at the VA wincing at as little as the click of an unfolding chair. What made it strange is that Lyle couldn’t recall being amid gunfire.
Then he could.
He pushed himself up into a push-up position and saw bursts of gunfire. Flashes of light against the snow. He cascaded across a fleeting montage: a body in orange on a tarmac; a cavernous building echoing with footsteps; a stricken child. He tried to hold on to the images. They evaporated.
He walked to the cupboard over the dish rack and unscrewed the cap on a bottle of Black Label, mostly drained. He poured a finger, finished it, poured a second and walked to a recliner in the open area that served as a living room across from the kitchen, staring for a long time at the distant magnet on the refrigerator.
What happened to the note?
His phone buzzed. He saw a text from a number he didn’t recognize. It was just a link. Spam, he immediately thought, and then the second message arrived from the same number. It read: We’re not imagining things. I’m using a new, temporary cell phone. You can get me here. Eleanor.
The pilot. Apparently fearing some digital scrutiny. Lyle clicked on the link she’d sent him. It brought up a newspaper article. The headline read: ODD NIGHT LEAVES SGT. IN CRITICAL.
The outlet was called Steamboat Today, the mountain town’s local newspaper. The article said that a police sergeant remained in critical condition after crashing his cruiser into Lindy’s Mountain Art. The local police said they were investigating the late-night crash and stood by an officer with a spotless record.
The first big snow of the season took other casualties, including a woman whose car overturned on the highway north of Steamboat. Authorities also said they believe that may have been the night of a still-unexplained shooting involving a local hermit, Dwayne Summerset, an avid gun collector found at his secluded home. And an isolated fire broke out at the Sleepy Bear Mobile Home Park, taking the life of a resident there and may, authorities said, have been caused by a storm that appears to have caused electrical problems.
“A witching of a night,” Mayor Ron McCloud said. He added that he was praying for the sergeant, eight-year-veteran Leonard “Len” Parker.
Lyle saw plainly that the unusual night being described matched the date of his landing in Steamboat. He drifted over the article again and again and kept settling on the words electrical problems. He felt the liquor clouding his thoughts. His head lolled with exhaustion. He fought it and scrounged for his laptop.
He looked up Dr. Jennifer Sanchez, the darling of the infectious disease department. She had moved her office from Parnassus to Mission Bay, the new UCSF research headquarters. She had taken the title of associate dean. Just days earlier, he dismissed the idea of going to talk to her and now backtracked, considered it.
He next went looking for his former assistant at UCSF. Searching through various disciplines and using Emily as a keyword, he eventually found Emily Chase. That was her, his former assistant in his lecture class. That was someone he’d have no problem talking to; she’d always seen him for what he was, guileless, rather than cunning, in his less conventional tactics. Maybe she could help guide him through the department if he needed expertise, and maybe she could make sense of this text about a student he might’ve made reference to.
With blurry eyes, he pulled up Eleanor’s text. He put his fingers on the keyboard to respond and typed Let’s meet again and fell asleep before he hit send.
For two days, that was it. He slept and sat, and thought. Repeat. He ate there, too. He looked to be waiting. He looked in the direction of the refrigerator but his mind’s eye often went to Steamboat, the little of it he could recall. Little by little, his efforts gave way to images and reflections of Melanie. He dreamed about her.
When he could no longer take the company of the stench of his dead ardor, he took a shower. Long beneath the hot water he scrubbed. He shaved away the itchy stubble. He put on khakis and a clean T-shirt.
He emerged into the kitchen, walked to the refrigerator, and stared at the magnet where the note had been. Now the magnet once again held a note. Lyle glanced around the apartment. He saw no one, heard nothing. He walked to the refrigerator and read the note. It was the same piece of paper as before, but it was turned around and a new message had been written on the side opposite.
It read:
I’ve got your back this time.
And there was a little red drawing of a heart.
Lyle carefully plucked the note and read it again, and again. The handwriting was neat, careful. As to meaning, Lyle couldn’t make heads or tails of it. Only briefly did he wonder if the note had been written by Eleanor. No way, he dismissed the idea. Equally briefly, he wondered if he, somehow, had written the note himself. Could he be truly losing his mind—truly?