The Suicide Gene Page 10

  So far, she had spent seven counseling sessions with each of the twins and throughout those tumultuous fourteen hours, they teetered between alluding to suicide and adamantly denying it. Both continued to refuse medication, so she had insisted they sign a standard “Refusal to Accept Medication” form. Minnie didn’t read the waiver. She signed it and tossed the paper across the desk at her, laughing. Mary nonchalantly read the form at the end of her appointment and turned her copy in to Sharon. Briefly, Emma thought Mary might reconsider. She made a note to discuss the topic again at her next appointment and reassured herself she’d be fine until then.

  Mary had mentioned Mass and the rosary several times during her sessions, so Emma knew she still clung to her Catholic values—which was good. Catholics tended to simplify suicide. Commit it and you jump on that chute to hell. Period. Lots of Catholic clients skirted the suicide line because they believed killing themselves meant a direct descent to hell. Emma never relayed she thought the belief absurd. The bottom line was, if a skewed Catholic concept prevented suicide, so be it. Who was she to interfere with prolonged life through fear of God?

  She moved on to Minnie, pulling her January 13th session transcripts up on the screen for review, but stopped short of reading them when she heard the front door chimes.

  “Sharon?”

  “Nope, not Sharon,” the male voice called back. He stepped leisurely into sight, leaned against the door frame, and smiled.

  “It’s Attorney Boy.”

  Instantly, she laughed. “Sharon and I were hoping you hadn’t heard that.”

  She cleared her screen, shuffled papers, and brusquely tucked the McKinney files in her drawer.

  “I heard Sharon call me that long before I stepped foot in your office.” He strode forward with a CoffeeHut bag. “She has a deep voice. Talks on the phone a lot. CoffeeHut is small.”

  “Did you say Sharon? First name basis already.” She crossed a leg, swung her chair back and forth, and laughed. “I hope you know you’re in for it now. You’re not exactly busting at the seams. She’ll be bringing you food soon.”

  He cocked his head, squinted one eye, and grimaced but said nothing.

  “She didn’t.” Emma blurted, stopped swinging.

  “She did.” His eyes widened. “Chicken and biscuits. Two days ago.”

  She leaned toward him. “Wasn’t it the best?”

  “Delicious.” He sighed as though he’d relinquished his deepest secret. “Who knew peas in mashed potatoes could be so good?”

  “Wait until you taste her black raspberry pie. It’s to die for.”

  “Well, I better stop over more often.” He nudged his suitcoat aside and slid a hand into a trouser pocket. “Wouldn’t want to be left out on that. I’m a sucker for black raspberry.”

  “How did you trick her into bringing you food?”

  “Trick? Really? Do you think she needs to be tricked into anything she does?”

  “True.” She leaned back and chuckled, felt her hair bounce against her shoulders. “I like to call her an open book that loves to cook.”

  “She called the meal a peace offering for stealing my CoffeeHut order. Apologized for not bringing it sooner. Said she was vacationing. Then she pounded me with questions.”

  “Get used to them. Quenching her curiosity comes with riding her meal train. Did she say you’re too thin?”

  “Yep, asked me how many miles I ran a week. Said it was too many.”

  Emma laughed and jumped at the opportunity to find out more about him. “How many did you tell her?”

  “Twenty-five. Then she proceeded to tell me you used to run thirty-five miles—five miles a day during the week and ten on Saturday—but now you run none, and yet you’re still too skinny.”

  “My life story in a nutshell,” she groaned. “Twenty-five, not bad. Treadmill or Yaktrax in the winter?”

  “Yaktrax.” He patted his chest twice with his hand. “Last Saturday the wind chill was minus ten degrees. I’m hard core. Hate the dreadmill.”

  “Me too,” she said. “I need to start running again. I miss releasing my aggression into the wind. Last winter—”

  Her cell’s loud ring cut through the room’s cheery air and killed their light conversation. Her smile disappeared under a closed-eyed sigh. She wished she’d turned her ringer off. If she had, she could have talked over the vibrating phone, and he never would have known it was ringing, but there was no ignoring that ring tone. The “hard knock life we live” tune bounced off the walls.

  “Aren’t you going to answer that?” He laughed after a time.

  “Yes.” She sighed. “I have to change that ring. It’s my friend Ally’s idea of a joke.”

  She knew before she picked up. Unlocking their doors was becoming an annoying chore. A slight yet growing paranoia had her parents bolting doors and windows and hiding keys. Now her father, too, was forgetting to replace the spare key above the back door. Emma had two spare keys made last weekend and meant to give one to each next-door neighbor. She’d do that today.

  She picked up her own keys, tucked her cell between her chin and shoulder, and jerked her coat sleeve over one arm before her dad answered the phone. “Locked out again? I’m on my way, Dad,” she said. She hung up the phone and shook her head at Giff. “I’m sorry. I have to run. My mom locked my dad out of the house, and I have a client at two.”

  “How about I drive you?”

  “What?”

  He helped her with her coat as she fumbled futilely for the sleeve with her right hand. “How about you take this coffee and your lunch and finish it on the way? I’ll drive you.”

  “Oh, no, I’ll be fine.”

  “I insist. My car is right out front. I was merely dropping this off before heading to the post office.” He opened the bag and let her peer down at the brownie inside. “This is your dessert. If you lose any more weight, Sharon won’t have any food to spare for me.”

  She smiled, glanced at her watch, and conceded. Giff ushered her outside, opened the car door, and she slipped inside. It took exactly thirty-seven minutes to drive to the house, unlock the door, drop keys off to the neighbors, mail his documents, and get back to the office in time for her next client. When she thanked Giff, he simply smiled. She walked away thinking Josh wouldn’t have done that in a million years and what a good mood she was in now.

  They had spent the entire time laughing.

  Chapter 13

  Saturday, February 14, 2015

  Eighty-nine days.

  “You were so small.” Heidi Kerr turned a page of the scrapbook and gasped when she saw the pictures on the next page. “Look at your tiny fingers, Emma, my hands shook when I cut your little nails.”

  Emma put her arm around her mother and lay her head on her shoulder. Today her mom was having a good day.

  “Here you are just shy of one month old.” Heidi pointed to a picture. “Jaundice yellowed every inch of your skin. The doctor forced us to bring you back to the hospital each morning that first week to make sure your count didn’t worsen. He told us to remove everything except your diaper and lay you in your bassinet near the front window for the sunlight. We did. We were terrified of your count rising. Afraid of being forced to admit you, the adoption agency judging us unfit, and losing you forever.”

  “I know, Mom, but my bilirubin count came down. You and Dad took care of me. My entire life from the time you brought me home until right now today, you’ve been there for me.”

  Heidi reached a hand toward Emma, squeezed her fingers, smiled, and then flipped another page. “Look at this one. You and Ally swimming. Do you remember how long you’d stay in the water?”

  “I do,” she said. “So long our lips turned purple.”

  “You’d swim until the sun set.”

  “And you would say Erie sunsets were the most beautiful in the world. You told us if we concentrated hard enough, we could see the reflection of our souls, where life would lead us, in that last second when the sun s
ank below the horizon.”

  “Did I say that?” Heidi glanced out the window, stared. Her fingers felt for her chin. She mused for a while, then gazed into her daughter’s eyes. “Oh, Emma, are you sorry you came to us?”

  “No, never. How can you ask such a question?”

  “I’m sorry, honey.”

  “Sorry for what, Mom?”

  “For being such a burden to you.” She lowered her eyes. “You were the answer to all our dreams. When we signed those final adoption papers, and you were truly our little girl, well, there are no words to express our joy. I’m sorry, darling, that your life turned out this way.”

  “Mom, if God allowed me to choose any parents in the entire world, I would have chosen you and Dad. You turned me into a princess.”

  Emma pointed to the picture of herself at three years old. She wore a Cinderella costume, silver crown, and plastic slippers for Halloween that year. “See.”

  “Oh, how beautiful you were then and still are today.” Heidi ran her fingers over the photograph. “You’ve been our whole world and now? Now we are yours. All your time is wasted on our doctor appointments and meetings.”

  “I’m fine, Mom,” she said, swallowing hard to beat down the burning ache rising from her stomach. She lightening her tone, attempted optimism. “Ally is going to help me with some cases until Sharon and I can find a replacement for Doctor Cameron. We’ve narrowed the potential candidates down to three and hope to check references and hire someone by April. Then I’ll be able to spend more time with you. You’ll see.”

  Yesterday, she asked Sharon to copy the McKinney transcripts, along with three other clients’ files, onto a disc. Ally picked it up and kindly promised to review all seven cases over the weekend. Called her life dull and boring since Rhett left town for a conference in warmer weather.

  “Ally is such a good friend. She dropped off peanut butter pie with chocolate sprinkles this morning,” Heidi said.

  “Yes, she’s a good friend, and she loves you like a second mother.” Emma laughed and scolded at the same time. “But don’t be swayed by her pie. She bought it from Al’s Bakery.”

  “I know.” Heidi giggled. “She left the sticker on the bottom of the pan. How is she doing? She set up the painting studio in her office for her clients, right? How is that going?”

  “Yes, she did!” Emma was thrilled her mom remembered. “She received an award a few months ago from Pitt for the idea. They’re studying the sessions of clients when they paint beforehand and when they don’t and are finding painting relaxes them and they’re more at ease talking—especially children. They also evaluate their paintings.”

  “Wonderful.” Heidi turned another page. “Here the two of you are at Girl Scouts camp. I remember that like yesterday. Thank you for making this scrapbook. It must have taken so much time and you’re so busy.”

  “No worries, Mom, I started the book last spring. It took me a while. I had fun going through our old pictures. They reminded me what a great childhood I had.” She watched her mom flip through the pages.

  “I’m sorry no one found your birth family, Emma.” Heidi’s voice quieted. “That bothered me. I contacted the adoption agency and Office of Children and Youth, OCY, many times when you were a teenager because you started asking so many questions. OCY couldn’t explain how they lost your records.”

  “That’s all in the past,” Emma said. “It’s not important.”

  “I always thought you might be a politician’s daughter or the child or grandchild of someone important in Erie, maybe an executive from the big insurance company downtown or a federal judge.” She stopped turning the pages. “Why else would they expunge them?”

  “You are the most important person in Erie, Mom.” Emma stretched her arms across Heidi and hugged her mightily.

  “Well, whoever they are, they were smart, because you are brilliant.” Heidi patted one of Emma’s elbows.

  “Spoken like a true mother.” Ben Kerr entered the room and took a seat on the other side of Heidi. He winked at Emma. “I told her you were smart because you talked us into reading you so many books before bed. We fell asleep before you.”

  “Nonsense, Ben.” Little lines crawled across Heidi’s forehead. “Her IQ was high, she was ingenious on her own.”

  Emma lifted her head from her mother’s shoulder. “What did you say?”

  “About what?”

  “My IQ.”

  “Your IQ?” Heidi repeated, her gaze climbing to the ceiling. “It was 140, I think.”

  “Mom, are you sure? How did you know that?”

  “Your eighth-grade homeroom teacher told me, Mrs. Hill. They tested you. She said few students scored that high.”

  “Your mother bragged about it all over town,” Ben added.

  “I think they said—194? Oh no, what am I thinking? That is way too high.” She glanced toward her husband. “What did I say her score was? I can’t remember now.”

  “In the 140s, darling.” Ben put his arm around her.

  “How can I remember the name of her eighth-grade teacher but not remember something I was so proud of?” Heidi lowered her gaze disconcertedly.

  “I didn’t know my IQ was that high.” Emma glanced toward her father.

  “It was up there.” He nodded and raised his eyebrows. “Gifted range. I think it was close to 150.”

  “Are you kidding me?”

  “No, your mother told me the high 140s.”

  “Your friend’s was high, too.” Her mom’s speech slowed. Her eyes remained fixed on the book. “But not as high as yours.”

  Heidi turned to the front of the scrapbook and pointed to the picture of Ally and Emma that they had looked at before. “Remember this?”

  Emma held still, forced a smile. “Yes, I remember.”

  “You loved the water. It was always a struggle to get you out of the water. Which beach did we go to, Ben?”

  “Beach Eleven,” he answered, “the waves weren’t as high.”

  “That’s right. Oh, and look. Who is that little girl you are with?” Heidi pointed to Ally in her pigtails and sand-covered swimsuit.

  Emma’s smile faded and she couldn’t respond.

  “The girl in the picture is Emma’s friend, Ally,” Ben said. “You remember. She brought you peanut butter pie this morning.”

  “Oh yes, Ally,” she replied, but a void in her eyes showed she no longer recognized her. “What a nice girl.”

  Emma choked back her tears. It was the first time Heidi forgot Ally, and she knew, in time, her mother would forgot her, too.

  It had begun as a good day, then, like the strike of a match, the Alzheimer’s lit up. The fire burned for a good part of the afternoon. By dinner, Heidi seemed back to herself. But the dimness resurfaced in the evening, and Emma stayed much longer than planned. She had intended on being home early to catch up on work. It was going to be a long night.

  When she turned into her driveway, her next-door neighbor came running over in a coat, pajamas, and boots, carrying a long package. She hollered for Emma to wait as the garage door opened. Emma put the car in park and rolled down her window. Judy, the neighbor, said a delivery had arrived for Emma in the afternoon. Because Emma wasn’t home, they left the package with her. Emma opened the car door because the box was too big to fit through her window. Judy handed it to her, saying, “I’m freezing, can’t feel my toes. See you later,” then shivered her way home.

  Once inside, Emma set her briefcase and the package down and tossed her scarf and gloves aside. She examined the box before opening it. Allburn Florists stood out in script on the attached envelope. Surprised, she never took her eyes off the package as she hurriedly unbuttoned her coat, took it off, and hung it on a hook. In the years she’d known him, Josh had only sent flowers three times: on two of her birthdays and on their one-year anniversary.

  She opened the box carefully, wondering if he was coming around. Maybe he’d reconsidered dismissing the marriage so easily.

>   She folded back the tissue and exposed twelve pink roses. Pink. She couldn’t believe it. Pink was her favorite color. He’d never acknowledged that before. He’d always sent red.

  She found the little envelope marked “Emma” and pulled the card out, glancing toward the bottom, expecting Josh’s name. Her mouth widened. Her stomach fluttered and for the first time in months, she felt euphoric. All feelings of dismay left her. She read the card three times in a row without stopping:

  Who knew switching a raspberry-orange scone for a bagel would make my life so much better? Your friendship means the world to me, but how about dinner and a movie? 925-947-4433. Trust me. I’m waiting for your answer. Attorney Boy.

  Pink roses. How did he know? She pressed the card to her chest and covered her mouth with the other hand. She looked at the clock. It was 11:42 p.m. She reached for her cell and dialed the number.

  “What in God’s name took you so long?” was how he answered the phone.

  Chapter 14

  Thursday, February 26, 2015

  Seventy-seven days.

  Emma stared at the note in her hand. Ally was angry. And how could she be anything but angry? Emma had been acting irrationally for months.

  How had she come to this point? Considering nursing homes for her mother? Dating while she was still legally married? Counseling the McKinneys when there was a possibility they were her family? She was better than that. Wasn’t she?

  She attempted to rationalize her behavior, determine where she had gone wrong. Her problems and mistakes always looped and twisted back to her gene obsession. Past influencing fascinations flooded back. Her fixation had begun with Amanda Williams.

  Amanda died from cystic fibrosis when Emma was in sixth grade. Her lungs filled up with fluid, and she endured the inserting of a chest tube that final time right before her eighteenth birthday. Amanda lived next door to Emma.

  Jacob Williams, Amanda’s brother, had cystic fibrosis, too. Emma wondered if he was alive today. He told Emma not being able to breathe was like having a hippopotamus sit on your chest and waiting for a breathing tube to be inserted into your lungs with no anesthesia, like awaiting an execution. You know the pain is coming but there’s nowhere to run. His family moved out of Erie to a milder climate not long after Jacob’s double lung transplant.