“You shouldn’t leave your mail out like that,” the cop said. “It’s a written invitation.” He turned and walked back to the cruiser.
Hawk watched as it pulled away. “Weird,” he said under his breath as he let himself in.
39
YOU NEED TO CALM down,” Mattei said to Zee. Mattei had talked with Finch for over an hour.
“What do you think?”
“I think he’s depressed,” Mattei said. “Who wouldn’t be?”
Zee had to agree.
“This isn’t suicidal thinking,” Mattei said. “This is a logical thought progression in the course of a devastating illness.”
“He’s not exactly logical. He doesn’t even recognize people he’s known for years.”
“He’s not Maureen,” Mattei said.
“I know that.”
“Or Lilly.”
“I know it’s not the same thing,” Zee said. “But I don’t think I can live with another suicide.”
“I understand,” Mattei said.
“I don’t want to make this about me.”
“You’re entitled to your feelings,” Mattei said.
“Which is probably why Finch and Melville have been keeping things from me.”
“Have you made another appointment with the therapist I told you about?”
“Not yet,” she said.
“Now might be a good time to do that.”
“Just let me get Finch stabilized first.”
Mattei’s look revealed her doubts. Instead of discussing it further, she got on the phone and called the neurologist. When she hung up, she pulled out her prescription pad. “I think we should add Effexor to the mix,” she said. “It seems to work well with Parkinson’s, and it won’t interfere with his other meds.” She wrote the prescription. “This should help his mood a bit,” Mattei said. “You have to do some thinking about what’s next.”
“What do you mean?”
“He should be in a long-term-care facility,” Mattei said. “You know that as well as I do.”
“The whole point here is that he would rather die than end up in a nursing home,” Zee said.
“He needs physical therapy, and he needs counseling. He needs a good nutritionist and a nurse administering his meds.”
Zee wanted to say, Nevertheless, but she kept quiet. She knew that Mattei was right.
“Let’s give these new pills a chance to work. Then we can see what we’re dealing with,” Mattei said.
They sat at the table for several moments, neither of them saying anything. Then, from the bedroom, Finch’s alarm began to ring.
“I’ll be right back,” Zee said, and headed toward his room.
Mattei spotted the unopened wedding invitation on the lazy Susan and picked it up. She was still holding it when Zee came back into the room.
“Is he okay?” Mattei asked.
“He’s fine. He just got a little tangled in his sheets.” Zee saw the envelope in Mattei’s hands.
“I’ve been meaning to send back the RSVP,” Zee apologized. The wedding was not until Labor Day weekend. “I’ll be there.”
Mattei hesitated before speaking. “I’ll understand if you don’t want to,” she finally said. “I hear that Michael’s bringing someone.”
Zee stared at her. “Well, that was fast.”
“I’d say his ego is a bit bruised,” Mattei said. “Again, I’ll understand if you don’t want to come. Though both Rhonda and I will be disappointed.”
“I’ll be there,” Zee said.
40
MELVILLE STILL REMEMBERED THE date that same-sex marriage had become legal in Massachusetts. It was May 17, 2004. On May 20 of that same year, on the anniversary of the day that Melville and Finch first met, he had proposed to Finch.
It wasn’t as if they’d never talked about marriage before. They’d been talking about it for years before the law passed, discussing every aspect of what it might mean for them: long-term care of each other, custody of Zee if anything should happen to Finch. When Finch was diagnosed with Parkinson’s, it became even more important to him for a while, though by that time Zee was in college and the custody issue didn’t much matter anymore. Still, there were reasons that Finch and Melville along with the rest of the gay and lesbian communities in Massachusetts had lobbied for same-sex marriage, and when civil unions became legal in Vermont, they had briefly contemplated a move to that state, but then they’d rejected it and campaigned harder than ever to get a real marriage bill passed in their home state.
By the time it happened, Finch had stopped talking about it. His disease had taken such a toll that it was all he could do to make his way through each day, let alone fight for the changes that he’d once found so important.
But Melville wanted to marry Finch more than ever, and for a number of very practical reasons. He didn’t care about inheritance-Finch had long ago set up his trusts providing generously for both Zee and Melville. But Melville had not been able to get Finch to sign a health-care proxy appointing him to make decisions in the event that Finch was no longer capable of caring for himself. The reason was simple: Finch wasn’t certain that Melville had ever agreed with his wishes.
For the last few years, Finch had been hoarding his medications. Anytime he took a fall and a doctor provided a painkiller, Finch filled all the prescriptions. When his primary-care physician did his annual checkup, Finch complained to him that he wasn’t sleeping, then hoarded the sleeping pills the doctor prescribed. When Melville called him on it, Finch got angry, claiming that Melville wouldn’t help him when the time came.
“I never said I wouldn’t help you,” Melville said.
“You never said you would.”
“We have years before that becomes an issue,” Melville said, persuading Finch to let him flush the pills, telling him that they would have long since expired by the time Finch got sick enough to want to use them.
They hadn’t talked about it since. But the previous summer, in 2003, they’d been up in Wolfeboro, New Hampshire, staying at a favorite bed-and-breakfast and doing a bit of antiquing in an old barn, when Finch found a small brown bottle among a collection of vintage bottles in the loft. He’d been looking at it, rolling around the little silver balls inside the amber glass, when Melville came up behind him.
“What’s that?” Melville asked.
Finch thought about it for a minute before answering.
“Strychnine,” Finch said. “They used to prescribe it as medicine.”
Melville was horrified. He knew well how Maureen had died. It had been a horrible death, unbearably painful, the kind of thing you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy. He stared at the silver balls that Finch held in front of him.
“You’re not thinking of using that,” Melville said.
“It worked for my wife,” Finch said.
“I’ll help you,” Melville said, never wanting Finch to suffer.
Finch stood looking at him.
“Put that back,” Melville said, taking the bottle and setting it among the others. “Or better yet, tell the man to get rid of it. They shouldn’t leave such things around.”
The shopkeeper was approaching. Melville couldn’t stand it. He was close to crying. He walked outside and stood in the sun, willing himself to breathe.
MELVILLE WASN’T THERE TO SEE Finch slip the amber bottle into his pocket. It wasn’t that he didn’t believe Melville. He did. But he knew just how hard things were going to get, and he knew that Melville, when faced with it, might not be able to keep his hasty promise. The strychnine was Finch’s insurance policy.
ON MAY 20, 2004, MELVILLE took Finch back to the same bed-and-breakfast. Finch could no longer climb the stairs, so they had taken a first-floor room with a view of Lake Winnipesaukee. For the last few weeks, Finch had seemed confused. He’d forgotten several appointments and was having trouble finding things in the house. Melville had wondered if Finch was fighting something off; they’d had this problem before since he’d been diagnosed. Usually it flared up when he was about to get sick.