Five
1987
Noah slipped away from the records room when his mother dozed off at her desk. The halls were dimmed in some areas of the hospital after midnight. He wasn’t afraid, but he should have been. He pushed the big, metal button that made the doors swing wide and traipsed through, easy as you please. A kid wandering the halls shouldn’t have been so easily overlooked. But there were so few people around. In fact, there was only one, standing just beyond the doors, and Noah jumped, startled to have company after all.
The man crouched down in front of Noah, putting their eyes on the same level. He was thin, and the bones of his wrists protruded like the bolts on bike wheels, his collar bones like handle bars, his eyes spinning like the spokes.
“What’s your name, kid?”
“Noah. What’s yours?”
“Noah, huh? When’s the flood comin?” he cackled.
Mer had told him about the man named Noah and his ark with all the animals, so he knew what the man was talking about.
“The flood already came and went,” Noah said. “You’re safe.”
The man looked at Noah, dumbfounded, and then he began to weep. “I’m not safe, Noah. I’ve never been safe. Nobody is safe.”
“You’re safe here. It’s a good place.”
“But they’re gonna kick me out. Eventually, they’re going to make me leave. I’ll drown. I’ll drown, Noah! You gotta help me.”
“How?” Noah squeaked.
“Take me home with you,” he begged. “I don’t eat much. And I’ll tell you when there’s ghosts in your room, and ask ‘em to leave.”
“You see ghosts?”
“Yeah. They’re all over. They show me things.” The man cocked his head to the side, and his pinwheel eyes seemed to focus beyond Noah’s head. “Did your daddy die, Noah?”
“No. I don’t think so. He’s just gone.”
“Huh. Somebody’s daddy died. He’s missin’ the back of his head . . . and his legs. Why’s he missin’ his legs, Noah? He a soldier or something?”
Suddenly there was a shout, and an orderly as black as coal and as big as a grizzly bear came rumbling down the adjacent hallway, moving surprisingly fast. A doctor and a blond nurse were coming from the other direction. The man of sharp bones and whirling eyes was gone in a flash, running toward the doctor and the nurse at full speed, his narrow butt flashing through the gap in his gown with every step. Noah would have run away from the big man too. The odds were better with the doctor and the nurse.
“John?” The doctor called out to the skinny man. “John, we need you to come with us.”
The man named John ran through the doctor and the nurse like it was a game of Red Rover on the playground. The man and woman toppled like bowling pins, and John staggered and almost fell. A policeman appeared at the intersection of another hallway, and without hesitation, zapped the fleeing John with a bolt of electricity. John jerked and fell, lassoed by lightning, and Noah backed away, ducking down another hallway, and slipping into the elevator, back to the records department and the relative safety of his mother.
Noah’s mother said John Davis Cutler had killed someone. A few someones. The fact that he’d gotten loose inside a hospital was a big deal. They called him Houdini because he was so skilled at slipping away.
“Who did he kill?” Noah asked his mother, shocked. John of the tears and bad jokes didn’t seem like a killer. Killers carried machetes and machine guns. Killers wore sunglasses and chewed on toothpicks. Killers had long, greasy ponytails and rode motorcycles with spurs on their boots.
“He killed two women. His file says he thought they were already dead. Drugs fried his brain, Noah. Don’t ever take drugs.” Shelly Andelin nodded like she’d done her duty, enough said.
“He said if they made him leave, he was going to drown. Who’s gonna make him leave? Are they gonna put him in jail? Why would he drown in jail?”
“You talked to him?” she gasped.
“Yeah.”
For a moment, Noah saw her love for him in the fear that widened her eyes and slackened her jaw. Then she clamped her teeth closed and squeezed her lids tight, pushing out the fear and the love and finding that old cloak of self-pity that kept her safe from caring too much about him or anyone else.
“I can’t bring you anymore, Noah. I could have lost my job last night. If everyone wasn’t so upset about Houdini breaking out of Psych, they woulda fired my ass.”
Noah thought of the rows of records detailing the workings of the minds and bodies of so many damaged people. And he mourned. He was fourteen, and he wasn’t afraid to stay at home alone. He’d done it more often than not. Mer wasn’t far, and Alma, Oscar and Abuela would let him sleep on the couch if he didn’t want to be by himself. But he wanted to read the files. He wanted to learn. He was going to be a doctor someday. He was going to help people like John.
“Who’s going to help you? I make the work go faster. You said so yourself,” Noah pressed.
His mother bit her lip and wrung her hands. “Maybe you can come with me here and there, just so I don’t get behind. But you’ve got to promise me you won’t wander. Ever again.”
“I promise,” he said. The shelves of files would have to be enough.
* * *
Little ghosts and bats hung from the trees lining his street and carved pumpkins adorned every doorstep, but Noah still forgot all about Halloween. He hadn’t cared about Halloween for so long, it didn’t even register anymore. The year before, Cora had dressed Gia in orange foot pajamas and a stocking cap that looked like a green stem, and they sat out on the front stoop with a huge bowl of candy, greeting the trick-or-treaters as they approached. Gia had been too little to know what was going on, and it was cold. Cora came inside and handed the bowl to Noah, who had put up with the doorbell ringing for about an hour before he turned off the porch light and called it a night.
Halloween fell on a Sunday that year, and Utah, with its high-density Mormon population, didn’t do Halloween on the Sabbath. So Saturday was the designated day, and Noah realized in the middle of his twelve-hour shift, when a psych tech asked him if he had Halloween plans, that he should have purchased a costume for Gia and bought some candy for the trick-or-treaters. He hadn’t done either.
On his way home from work, he stopped at Walgreen’s and bought a plastic pumpkin bucket and all the Halloween candy left on the shelves, which wasn’t much. Kids who came to his house were getting the crap no one else wanted. Unfortunately, the only costumes remaining at Walgreen’s were way too big for an eighteen-month-old toddler. There was a clown mask that might have worked, but he didn’t like clowns, and the rubber stunk. Heather had completely forgotten about Halloween too, and she stared at him blankly when he stopped to pick up Gia. Heather begged a bag of cheap candy off him, but wasn’t any help with a costume.
While Gia ate her supper, watching him from her high chair as she pinched peas and carrots between her tiny fingers, Noah cut holes into an old, white pillowcase—two holes on the sides for two small arms, two more for eyes, and one for the mouth.
“We’re going old school, Gia Bug,” he warned. “Your old man was a ghost several years in a row.” He felt like a ghost now, flitting quietly through his life.
When he pulled the case over Gia’s head, she peered out at him in wonder, reminding him of a tiny ET, and miraculously, she didn’t try to tug it off again. She kept the costume on as they traipsed around his neighborhood with the pumpkin bucket and a gaggle of costumed kiddos and their parents. He even taught her to say BOO! when people answered their doors. She loved every minute of it, especially handing out tiny handfuls of Tootsie Rolls and Dum Dum Suckers—his candy really was crap—to the endless stream of trick-or-treaters that came to their door.
She fell asleep at nine o’clock, still wearing the pillowcase. When he carried her up to her crib and removed his homemade costume, he realized she had somehow managed to get a sucker stuck in her hair and chocolate all over her face. Regardless, he considered the night a total parenting win. She didn’t stir when he used a warm washcloth on her face and hands, changed her diaper, and cut the sucker from her hair. Halloween had worn her right out. He pulled a pink nightgown—a gift from Mercedes—over her head, threaded her limp arms through the sleeves and covered her carefully before slipping out and closing the door.
For the first time since Cora died, Noah slept in his bed instead of on the floor next to her crib. He kept the baby monitor beside his pillow, turned up as loud as it would go, but it was progress, and before he went to sleep, he sent a picture of Gia in her homemade costume to Mercedes’s email. She replied a half hour later with a picture of Cora, Noah, and Mercedes from a Halloween almost two decades before, a Halloween he’d completely forgotten about. They were all in ghostly sheets and sneakers, with pillowcases filled with candy clutched in their hands. When it came to candy, there was no messing around. They had trick-or-treated for hours that year. It was obvious who was who by their height and the shoes on their feet. Funny how you could forget something so completely, and a snapshot brought it all back, worn sneakers and all.
On the memo line of the email Mercedes wrote, “Gia Andelin, carrying on the Three Amigos tradition,” and Noah went to bed with a smile on his face and a sentimental ache in his chest.
* * *
It was circle. That’s what they called it. It was common in group sessions because it was effective. No corners. No sharp edges. Everyone facing everyone else, unable to hide, even the therapists. Noah was still the newest doctor in rotation at Montlake since returning from Afghanistan. The other doctors preferred one-on-one consultation and left the group sessions to the therapists and psych techs. The circle could be taxing, but Noah liked to watch the interaction between patients. Most of the time, it told him things a private consult couldn’t. But that night, Noah wasn’t ready for circle. It had been a long month, and he was weary and emotionally spent, and he hoped for an uneventful, peaceful group session.
He didn’t get one.
David—Tag—Taggert was vibrating like a junkie, though he was clean as a whistle and had been for weeks. He drank too much before he arrived at Montlake, but that wasn’t his problem now. Moses Wright was eyeing him, eyeing everyone, but his eyes had taken on the faraway gleam that made Noah think of pinwheels and John Davis Cutler. He’d been on duty the night they brought Moses Wright in, heavily sedated, and again a few nights later when Tag Taggert had been brought in, shouting and crying. It was an oddly accurate first impression of both.
They were both eighteen and too young for the adult ward, in Noah’s opinion. But that was the law, and they weren’t little boys. In fact, they were both powerfully built and majorly troubled. But the similarities ended there.
Tag was a white, shaggy-headed cowboy, and he wanted to talk. He was all talk. Moses was mixed-race and quiet. He listened. Maybe he didn’t talk much because nobody believed what he said. Noah had read his file, but he hadn’t spent much time with him. All he knew was Moses claimed he could see ghosts, and he drew the things they showed him.
Noah had never had a patient like him. But he’d known someone, a long time ago, someone who’d seen ghosts and overdosed to make them go away. John Davis Cutler, who confused the living with the dead and the dead with the living. Who killed a woman at a rest stop because he was convinced she was a demon. Noah didn’t want Moses to end up like John Davis Cutler.
They were ten minutes into the group session when Moses decided he was through listening.
“Who here knows a girl named Molly?” he blurted out, interrupting a woman weeping for the children she hadn’t seen in two years. The woman stopped, sniffled, and forgot about her children all over again.
“What did you say?” Tag hissed, his arms hanging loosely between his knees. To the casual observer he was relaxed. Noah knew better; Tag’s head was about to explode.
“Molly. Do you know a girl named Molly? A dead girl named Molly?” Moses threw the words at Tag, and Noah was a heartbeat too slow. Blame it on fatigue. Blame it on his reluctance to get between two troubled, young men.
“You son of a bitch,” Tag shouted, and was across the circle before Moses could blink. Whatever Moses had intended, it wasn’t combat, and his face registered shock as Tag hurtled into him, knocking him back in his chair. Moses recovered quickly, and his fists were flying before he hit the ground. Tag was raining blows as he bellowed something about his sister, and it took Noah, Chaz, and three others to pull them apart. Noah had Moses face down, shoving his face into the floor, and Tag was still running his mouth, outrage pouring from his lips, his body vibrating beneath Chaz, who had him in an identical position.
“How did you know?” Tag gasped. “How did you know about my sister?”
“Tag. No more!” Noah snapped, and traded positions with an orderly who, unlike Noah, was not bleeding.
“My sister’s been missing for over a year, and this son of a bitch acts like he knows something about it?” Tag raged. “You think I’m gonna shut up? Think again, Doc.”
Noah put three chairs together and cleared the room, instructing Chaz and the other orderly to stay to ensure nobody got killed. They helped Moses and Tag rise from the floor, and pushed them down into two of the seats. Noah took the seat at the top of the triangle, equidistant between Tag and Moses, and swiped at his bloody lip. Chaz handed him a tissue, his eyes apologetic. Chaz was the muscle in the room and would consider it his fault Noah had gotten hurt. But Noah hadn’t let Chaz protect him. Noah gave the orderly a small smile and then regarded Moses and Tag, who didn’t seem any the worse for wear.
“Moses, do you want to explain to Tag what you meant when you asked about a girl named Molly?” Noah instructed quietly.
“A dead girl named Molly!” Tag hissed. Chaz patted his shoulder, a reminder to calm down, and Tag swore violently.
“I don’t know if she’s his sister. I don’t know him. But I’ve been seeing a girl named Molly off and on for almost five months,” Moses said.
Noah studied him, perplexed. “Seeing her? Do you mean you have a relationship with Molly?”
“I mean she’s dead, and I know she’s dead because for the last five months I’ve been able to see her,” Moses repeated patiently.
Tag’s face was almost comical in its fury. Noah caught his eye and breathed slowly, in and out, urging him to do the same. Then he turned back to Moses.
“You see her . . . how?” He really didn’t want Moses to be a John Davis Cutler.
“The same way I can see your dead wife, Doc. She keeps showing me a car visor and snow and pebbles at the bottom of a river. I don’t know why. But you can probably tell me.”
Noah felt his jaw tighten and his heart stop. “What are you talking about?” His voice was calm, but his head was spinning. Moses continued, forcing Noah to mentally stumble after him.
“She follows you around the joint. She messed you up. She knows it, and she’s worried about you. I know she’s your wife because she shows you waiting for her at the end of the aisle. Your wedding day. Your uniform is a little too short in the sleeves.” Moses said this all flippantly, as if it wasn’t real life. As if it wasn’t Noah’s wife. As if his knowledge was common and Noah’s grief, all too public. Noah glanced at Tag and saw that he’d lost his fury. Tag stared back in confusion and compassion. And Noah went with it. He showed them his scars so they would trust him with theirs.
“My wife, Cora, was driving home from . . . work. They think she was blinded—temporarily—by the sun reflecting off the snow. It’s like that sometimes up here on the bench, you know. She drifted into the guardrail. Her car landed upside down in the creek bed. She . . . drowned.”
Noah supplied the information matter-of-factly, giving a sterilized version of a blood-spattered memory, but his hands shook when he touched his beard. Mer would say the beard stroke was his tell, a sign that he hadn’t told the whole truth. But only Mer would know, and she wasn’t there.
But Moses wasn’t done, and Noah’s scars were still the only ones being exposed.
“Peanut butter, Downey fabric softener, Harry Connick, Jr., umbrellas.” He paused with obvious discomfort and then continued in a rush. “Your beard. She loved the way it felt, when you . . .when you . . .” His voice trailed off.
When he made love to her.
Cora liked his beard. Noah shaved it and grew it back every time duty demanded. The military didn’t allow facial hair among the rank and file. In her own perverse way, he thought that was why Cora loved it. The beard reassured her that he would get out, that he would not end up like her father, that he wouldn’t be a casualty of war. Cora was a casualty instead.
Noah hadn’t thought about making love to Cora for a long time. When he’d returned from Afghanistan, she was still recovering from delivering Gia. And after that, even when her doctor gave the all clear, she was tired and self-conscious, and she didn’t seem to want him to touch her. The few times they came together had them scurrying apart when they were done, turning away to hide their despair and their disappointment in each other.
Moses’s words were a reminder that it hadn’t always been that way.
Somehow, Noah found his voice. “Those were some of her favorite things. She walked down the aisle on our wedding day to a Harry Connick song. And yeah. I’d grown out of my uniform. She always laughed about that and said it was just like me to try and make it work. And her umbrella collection was out of control.” Noah’s voice broke, and he stroked his beard again, trying to soothe himself, trying to rein in the emotion threatening to break free. He’d lost control of the session—if he was honest, he’d never had control—and he needed to end it now before Moses reduced him to a quivering mess in the corner.
“If you know all that—about Dr. Andelin’s wife—then I want you to tell me about Molly,” Tag said, straightening in his chair and swinging his gaze from Moses back to Noah.
Noah rose to his feet.
“Tag, I promise we’ll revisit this. But not now. Not tonight.” And with a nod to the orderlies, who seemed as shaken as he was, Noah ushered everyone out of the room.
* * *
“You aren’t as calm and gentle as you want us all to believe, are you, Dr. Noah? You know how to handle yourself,” Moses said when Noah pulled out a chair and sat down beside him. Noah hadn’t seen Moses since Tuesday night. It was Thursday now. He’d had some time to recover.
“I spent some time in the military.” Noah shrugged.
“That makes sense. You didn’t mind wading in with Chaz.”
“I like Chaz, and he was outnumbered.”
“I like him too. I wouldn’t hurt Chaz.”
“I know. But sometimes people get hurt, even when we don’t mean it.”
“Those for me?” Moses’s eyes were on the stacks of drawing paper and the Styrofoam cup of grease pencils.
“Yes.”
“Can I have ‘em now?”
“You can.” Noah pushed the supplies toward him.
“You lost your wife.”
“I did.” Noah wondered who was helping who. “But you said she was okay.”
“She is.”
“That is a great comfort to me.”
Moses shrugged. “It’s true.”
Noah nodded, acknowledging, even if he wasn’t completely sure he believed. And he changed the subject.
“Who have you lost, Moses?”
“Nobody,” Moses said, derisive.
The word hung between them, painting the air with false disdain. Noah didn’t correct Moses or tell him he knew different. He just handed him a pencil and sat back.
“I lost GiGi,” Moses whispered, almost remorseful. “GiGi wasn’t nobody.” He said the name with hard g’s—gee gee—and Noah waited for him to explain her significance. Noah knew who she was. He’d read the file. But he waited. Moses’s knee started to bounce, and his shoulders twitched. His hand started moving across the page, and a woman with a thousand lines and flyaway hair was brought to life.
“Is that GiGi?”
“Yes,” Moses grunted.
“She looks a little like Abuela,” Noah commented. Moses looked up, surprised.
“You don’t look Hispanic, but . . . I guess how we look doesn’t tell the whole story, does it?”
“No. Not even close. It doesn’t tell the best parts,” Noah murmured. “But I don’t think I’m Hispanic. I guess I could be. I don’t know who my dad was.”
Moses hesitated, his hand pausing over the paper. “You don’t?”
“No. I don’t even know his name.”
“Me neither,” Moses muttered. “But to be fair, I’m guessin’ he never knew I existed.”
Noah didn’t respond. He just watched Moses move onto another piece of paper, setting the picture of his grandmother aside.
“So who’s Abuela?” Moses asked, his eyes on the paper. Noah was surprised at his interest.
“My friend’s grandmother. She made me feel loved. She was good to me,” Noah said.
“She gone?”
“She is. She died when I was serving in Afghanistan two years ago. I didn’t get to say goodbye. I miss her.”
“I didn’t get to say goodbye to GiGi either.”
“You can’t see her?” Noah asked.
“No. I don’t ever see the dead I want to see.”
“What about right now? Are you seeing anyone you don’t want to see?
“Besides you, Doc?” Moses shot back, a smile in his voice.
“Besides me.”
“Nah. Right now the dead are quiet. It’s nice.”
Noah nodded. “That’s good. I could use a little quiet myself. Will you let me sit here while you draw?”
“As long as you don’t stare at me and write a bunch of notes in my file that I can’t read.”
“I’ll show you everything I write if you show me everything you draw.”
“I don’t really want to know what you think about me, Doc.”
Noah laughed. “I understand that. Sometimes it’s better that way. But you might be surprised what I think.”
“You sure you’re a doctor? You aren’t very old.”
“Neither are you. But look what you can do.” Noah nodded toward the drawings.
Moses smiled. “I feel ancient.”
“Me too,” Noah murmured.
Moses looked down at the page and his hand began to sail again. Noah didn’t ask him for an explanation. He just sat, watching him create, watching a face emerge from the lines.
It was Cora. Her hair whipping around her face, her eyes so alive his heart seized in his chest. Moses had drawn her smiling, as though that was what he saw, and Noah took the portrait from his outstretched hands.
“She’s okay, Doc.”
“I believe you, Moses.”
“Are you okay?”
“Right now, I feel better than I’ve felt in a long time.”