Loving Time

twenty-eight

“Hi, Jason, it’s Friday around three-thirty. April Woo returning your call. Long time no see, huh? I’ll bet you called about the case at your shop, Cowles—or has something else come up? I’m here for a half an hour or so. Saturday I’m working four to one. Sunday I’m off.”

That was your last message. Doodle oodle oo.

Jason hung up and glanced at the brass bull with the clock on its back on the bottom shelf of the bookcase, between a glass paperweight in the shape of an apple and a stack of JAPA journals. Jason knew the clock was at least two minutes slow. That made it three-forty-seven. He’d had back-to-back patients since the meeting at the Centre that morning. At the best of times it was exhausting having to figure out what was going on with each patient every moment so he wouldn’t slip up and make a fatal mistake about what he or she might really be saying. At the worst of times—when he had more than the needs of his patients on his mind—he felt overwhelmed.

Today, he had wanted to think only of his patients and getting some groceries in the house so that when Emma returned tomorrow from her six-month absence, she wouldn’t have to indict him for domestic incompetence. Instead, Clara Treadwell had cleverly maneuvered him into the seething cauldron of hospital politics where he’d never, ever wanted to go. He had to hand it to her. Two days ago Clara had gotten him to agree to review the Cowles case. Now, as a result of this morning’s highly unpleasant meeting, he was suddenly chair of an “ad hoc Quality Assurance Committee” with the responsibility of investigating the Director of the Centre, the person who claimed to want to be his mentor.

Jason snorted at the thought He was supervisor, and maybe mentor, to several residents every year; but he’d never actually had a mentor himself. He hadn’t wanted to be constrained in his thinking and loyalties, so he’d trudged along, with no advice or support, his parents telling him he was crazy to go into psychiatry instead of becoming a heart or brain surgeon where the money was.

Jason glanced at his watch. The second hand advanced painstakingly around its face, reminding him of himself, trudging along all those years, listening to his own counsel every step along the way, making his own choices and his own mistakes. He had to laugh at Clara Treadwell’s arrogance. It was too late to mold him. He was already formed; she could worry and disturb him, but she couldn’t influence his findings.

The clocks ticked, and time was passing. Jason wanted to try April before his next patient arrived. He heard the door to his waiting room open and close. After a cooling-off period in his waiting room, his last patient was finally leaving. Jeannie had sobbed nonstop for forty-five minutes, apologizing the whole time. “I’m so sorry. I just can’t stop. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

Jason knew what was wrong. The poor woman’s husband was selfish and no longer loved her. He’d told her he needed time to relax and was insisting on the freedom to do his thing. Jeannie had long ago given up her career and earning power to care for the two tiny children her husband had wanted and now expected her to care for. She felt heavily burdened with the responsibility for everything since her husband was the kind of man who thought his time was too precious for any kind of domestic endeavor. She starved herself in her misery and apologized for her anguish as if only she were at fault for her loneliness and pain. Twice a week when Jason met with her, he appeared solid as a rock, unemotional and calm. She had no idea that every muscle in his body ached from the tension of restraining his impulse to hug her.

Thinking of Jeannie’s tiny wrists and puffy eyes, Jason flipped open his address book to April Woo’s number. He didn’t really have to look it up. They’d worked two cases together: Emma’s kidnapping six months before and the Honiger-Stanton sisters case three months later. By now the precinct number was burned in his memory. He smiled grimly at the thought that his quiet analyst’s life had changed so dramatically that he was suddenly the Psychiatric Centre’s crime expert. And not only that, it seemed a New York cop thought a few weeks of their not seeing each other was a long time.

As he reached for the phone, Jason heard the door of his waiting room open and close again. His next patient had arrived. That reminded him of the moment April had told him she was more scared of a closed door than a handgun with a cocked trigger aimed at her head.

“Behind the door could be anything. With a nine-millimeter at least I know what I’m up against.” He remembered her smile. “Sometimes they jam.”

April had also told Jason it took a pressure of between eight and twelve pounds to pull a trigger, depending on the gun. “But in the heat of the moment, all it really takes is a tiny little squeeze. If you have to shoot at somebody, afterwards your hand shakes for about a week.”

Things like that Jason hadn’t known before meeting April Woo and probably would never have known. He may have been a streetwise kind of kid, growing up in the Bronx with a basketball never long out of his hands, but he’d never held a gun, never had a cop on his side. Never been involved with the investigation of criminals, let alone his colleagues and peers. All this was new.

Jason had always left the door to his waiting room unlocked so his patients could come in and out. The two doors to his office were closed. His patients came in and then waited for him to open the door to his inner sanctum. He used to take comfort in the fact that he knew who was out there, but they never knew who was inside with him or what he was doing when he was alone. Now he was more like April. He couldn’t be so confident anymore about anything he couldn’t see with his own eyes. He needed to urinate, needed to reach April before she went home.

He considered taking his portable phone into the bathroom to talk to April while he was relieving himself, decided against it. He dialed her number. This time she picked up.

“Hi, it’s Jason. I don’t mean to be abrupt, but I only have a minute. What can you tell me about Raymond Cowles?”

She didn’t hesitate before replying. “The death report came in yesterday afternoon. The M.E. says there’s no indication of foul play. As far as he’s concerned, Cowles’s death is consistent with suicide. We closed the case.” April did not waste words in the telling.

Jason let out a small groan. “Suicide” was not the word he’d wanted to hear. He said, “I’d like to chat with you about it.”

“Fine. Tomorrow?”

Emma was coming home tomorrow. “How about early next week?”

“Okay by me.”

They scheduled a time. Jason replaced the phone in its cradle, then took a moment to urinate before opening the door to his next patient.