The Suicide Gene Read online

  She closed the pages and promised herself to move it in the morning and to review Minnie’s session when she was wide awake, alert. She couldn’t miss anything with this family. Needed to review every word in detail, peel the bizarre layers away like an onion.

  She placed the files back in her briefcase and clicked off the light. Instantly, her cell phone lit up the room. She jumped back, flat-handing her chest, startled. The phone vibrated along the polished ridge of the wooden table. She recognized the number. The call was from her parents’ land line. She closed her eyes and rested her head against the sofa. For a second she contemplated not answering. Then she came to her senses and picked up the phone.

  It was her father. He breathed heavily into the receiver. She could barely understand him at first. Then she got it. Her mother had stabbed him.

  Chapter 5

  Tuesday, November 18, 2014

  One hundred seventy-seven days.

  Emma sat dumbfounded in the sterile room. Her stack of unopened work files lay idly on a hospital windowsill. Her mom rested peacefully underneath a single white sheet—one wrist and ankle barbarically tied to a bed railing. A long, skinny fluorescent light buzzed annoyingly above her.

  “Emma?” Heidi Kerr blinked her eyes open and lifted her head gingerly off the pillow. “Where am I?”

  “You’re in the hospital, Mom.”

  Emma watched her mother’s weary eyes wander across the room.

  “Oh, no,” she said, “the psychiatric unit?”

  “Yes, Mom, you had an accident. Do you remember?”

  “No, I don’t.” The lines on Heidi’s face deepened. “What have I done? Where’s your father?”

  “He’s talking with the doctors. He’ll be here soon.” For once Emma was glad for Heidi’s memory loss. “Try to rest.”

  Emma never imagined life would work out this way—that she would transition from child to caregiver so soon. She had chosen psychiatry to help families, and turned down a Pittsburgh psychiatric ward residency that centered on the aged, because she didn’t want to work with the elderly. She wanted to work with parents, children, siblings. Haunted by her own small family, she longed to research big, complex families and the causes of their depression.

  But now her mom’s early-onset Alzheimer’s disease vied for her attention.

  “What time is it? Emma, you look so tired.”

  “I’m fine, but it’s the middle of the night. It’s time to sleep.” Emma took her mother’s untied hand in hers. It was creamy soft. Lined and spotted but still so smooth and tender it felt young. Emma closed her eyes, lifted her mother’s hand to her cheek, and let the warmth of her mother’s touch sooth her. “Let’s both close our eyes and rest, Mom.”

  “I’m sorry, honey, for whatever I have done to make you so sad.” Heidi reached her other hand toward Emma. When the tether jerked her arm back, her head sunk deep within the pillow and she whispered. “What kind of person have I become?”

  A tear slipped out the corner of her eye, trickled down, and disappeared into her twisted hair.

  “It’s okay, Mom, don’t think about anything now.” Emma pushed the tangled hair from her mother’s cheek. “Remember what you always say? Tomorrow will come and everything will look brighter in the morning light.”

  “Do I say that?” She took a deep breath. “But, oh, Emma, no child should see her mother this way, tied to a bed like a criminal. Why don’t I remember what I have done?”

  “Don’t think. Just rest, Mom.”

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered, her lips trembling.

  Emma leaned in and stroked her mother’s hair. She had never seen her cry. After a time, Heidi’s breathing evened out and her tears stopped falling. Once again, sleep brought her peace.

  Emma rested a chin on the bed, closed her own eyes, and blocked both the stringent, antiseptic smell of the hospital and the soreness of her tight shoulders. She slipped back in time to a happy summer day on a nearby beach at Presque Isle State Park. Pine scents permeated the air, sweat beaded on the back of her neck, and she took big bites of gritty, sand-laced peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on the fly.

  Her mom taught her to swim there—at Beach Eleven where you walked a quarter mile out into the water and onto a sandbar without slipping into a deep hole like on other beaches. She cherished her memories there: shovels and buckets, juice boxes and brown-bagged lunches, water wings and bow-tied bathing suites, beach glass and stone skipping, Mom and me.

  “Keep sandals in the sand. Stay away from three-leavers!” her mom would warn as they walked up the little sand path to the car when they were leaving. Poison ivy grew rampant on Presque Isle. Her mom applied calamine lotion many times to her in her younger days. Emma’s ankles would be chafed from scratching. Then her mom would sit her up on the sink in the bathroom, apply the cream—instant relief.

  She opened her eyes and gazed at that familiar face amid the pristine white sheets.

  It was her mother who taught her how to tie shoelaces, bake cookies, and etch a straight line in cotton fabric on a sewing machine. She volunteered as her room mother, took off work for field trips, and brought fruit-juice boxes to her soccer games. She brushed her mother’s hair away from her face, and thought about the long conversations they had over the years about life and love, her father and Josh.

  Josh.

  All matrimonial guilt now lingered at the back of her mind like a dreaded chore you can’t get to, like a lawn overgrown. The longer you ignored it, the harder the mowing.

  Her mother had taught her “all things in God’s time.” But Josh wanted a baby now and Emma didn’t know if she ever wanted children, let alone now. Genes and illnesses and so many “what ifs” still needed consideration.

  Did she love him? What if she hadn’t hastily said yes when he proposed? Maybe—she laid a cheek down on the side of her mom’s bed, saw the skewed reflection of her face in the shiny handrail, and realized she wasn’t an ugly duckling anymore—maybe she’d made a mistake.

  Not now, she thought, don’t think of him. She was too tired to dwell on her marriage. She needed the peacefulness of sleep right now. She forced herself to stand, and she strode to the window to pack her work files, gazing out into the black night.

  Directly across the street on the fourth story of the hospital’s parking garage, a few figures moved like shadows from light to light, and she wondered what they were doing there at this hour. Coming to see a parent? Saying goodbye to a loved one? She watched some scurry toward cars and a few toward elevators.

  One lone person, coffee cup in hand, leaned against the railing facing her, at eye level. The figure almost appeared to stare back at her, lost in contemplation. You never knew a stranger’s plight, she thought. The figure sprung sideways, swiftly disappearing into the shadows. She watched for a moment, but the dark figure never resurfaced, and she reached for her files.

  She packed and locked them in her briefcase, and then lay her head down on the edge of her mother’s bed, reaching again for her hand. With her cheek against the soft linen and her mother’s hand in hers, she could ignore the past forty-eight hours, and block out the policeman’s words that, no, they wouldn’t risk allowing her mother to leave and hurt anyone else.

  Her dad was going to be fine. It was a clean cut. No pierced organs. Her mom had slipped a butcher knife in his side when he snuck up behind her in the dark kitchen. She didn’t recognize him. Mistook him for a burglar.

  Emma knew exactly what happened. The dim light from the open refrigerator wasn’t enough to spark recognition. Her mother woke up hungry and wandered to the kitchen for an apple. Sister Mary Francis from the church had dropped them off, and they were so sweet. She just wanted an apple. The knife was beside the refrigerator in a butcher’s block. The bad man came. Her dexterous hands grabbed the knife and stabbed. When she ran for the lights, the man called her name. He leaned over. He looked familiar. His voice was kind. He asked for the phone. Then he called his daughter—spark!—whic
h was her daughter, too. That was all.

  Now Emma sat at her bedside wishing she’d taken that college elective in criminal justice Ally said sounded fun and wondering what came next in the legal chain. The McKinney files called to her from her briefcase, begging for assistance. Her cell stacked messages from other clients. Josh was angry. She needed to get home. But all she could think was this is the hand of the gentle savior who rescued her from every life situation that ever challenged her, and she tightened her grip.

  When she should have gotten up and gone home, Emma stayed. She edged closer to her mom, yanked the cord to cut the dim light completely, put an arm around her mother’s waist, and left the McKinney files locked in the briefcase beside her.

  She lay her head down on the hard bed. With the room so dark, the light from the parking ramp across the street attracted her attention. She could see the cars and floors more clearly now. She raised her head. Was the dark figure, the nameless person peeking past the ramp post still there? Yes. She watched the figure toss a cup in a garbage can, turn, and head toward the cars.

  Emma laid her back down. After a time, she closed her eyes and slept.

  Chapter 6

  Wednesday November 19, 2014

  One hundred seventy-six days.

  “Where the hell have you been?” Josh, dressed and waiting when she walked through the door, stood as straight and unscathed as an unused pencil. His point sharpened.

  “I fell asleep in my mother’s room.”

  “Why wouldn’t you answer your phone? The news reported seven accidents last night because of the black ice on the roads. I was worried. Couldn’t you tell me if you weren’t coming home? I at least deserve a phone call.”

  “You’re right. I’m sorry,” she said. “Next time I’ll call.”

  “Next time?”

  “I’m not sure when they are going to release her. I may have to go back.”

  Josh yanked his coat over his arms, rolled his shoulders, and tugged at his sleeves until his overcoat smoothed into a perfect fit. He let a short, sharp sigh whir between his lips.

  “We can’t keep doing this, Emma.”

  She hung her keys on the cherry latch and walked past him. She had received word they were moving her mother to a secured nursing home sometime before Thanksgiving, so she had no strength to argue about sleepovers. Not now when all thoughts lingered on doing something she swore she would never do—admit a parent to a nursing home. Now the decision was out of her hands.

  Her attention drifted further away. She pictured Heidi sleeping in a little bed like the one she saw when she toured the St. Mary’s Nursing Home facility. That place where the bedroom doors never locked and the doors to the outside world never unlocked. She wondered if her mother would be there for Christmas.

  “I’m talking to you,” he said, his voice escalating.

  She turned toward him but said nothing.

  “This marriage isn’t just about you. There are two of us. You don’t talk to me anymore.” He lowered his voice. “I’m trying, but you won’t give me a fragment of your energy.”

  Her head swirled with lightheaded weariness and her stomach grumbled out a hungry melody. She couldn’t remember the last time she sat down for a good meal. Seven pounds ago, she and Josh ate seafood on Friday nights at a bayfront restaurant. Sometimes Ally met them, dragging a guy along for sport. Then the baby talk began, the Alzheimer’s, Cameron quitting, her father drinking. Her anger peaked.

  “Why don’t you tell your troubles to your little secretary, Anna? Maybe she can talk you through them.” Her own words shocked her. She knew she shouldn’t utter them before she did and was unsure how she allowed the insinuation to slip out. Not now, she scolded herself.

  He stepped back for a moment and cocked his head. “Is that what this is about? Anna?”

  “Go, just go.” She waved her hand and began climbing the stairs, the balls of her feet pounding out heavy stomps. She didn’t have time for insecurities to burrow out of the back of her mind. She needed to change and get to the office.

  “This is not about Anna. It’s never been about—Anna,” he said.

  She stopped climbing, halting mid step, appalled and infuriated over the smooth way the word Anna flowed over his lips.

  “Yes, it is about Anna.” She turned and became the ugly person she swore she would never be. “I saw your car at Perry’s Monument last week, Josh.”

  He said nothing.

  At the time she rode past the monument parking lot, she questioned whether the car was his. She didn’t know for sure until right then—when she saw the surprise in his eyes. A chill rose up the back of her neck.

  “Serendipitously, three clients cancelled at work. I called home and my mom was having a good day, and my dad desperately needed a break. So I took Mom for a ride around Presque Isle, and I noticed your car there. Surprise, surprise.”

  Still he said nothing.

  “Lo and behold, there in the next parking lot sat a cute little blue Fiat. One like I see in your office parking lot whenever I stop by. So I thought ‘Gee, that wouldn’t be the office girl’s Fiat would it?’ ”

  She stood on the stairs, unsure why the words bled from her. The incident had hardly crossed her mind at the time. She certainly hadn’t dwelled on the thought that the car was Anna’s. Yet, his reaction made it clear.

  “I stopped and took a little jaunt,” she lied, folding her arms and straightening her back. Then she guessed. “There you sat with Anna.”

  When he didn’t respond right away, the pit of her stomach turned, and she thought she might throw up. Finally, he spoke, but it was too late.

  “We were just talking,” he said, his voice quiet, apologetic.

  Oh my God, he’s cheating on me.

  “You said some terrible things to me last week when we fought, Emma. I needed someone to talk to.”

  That’s right, blame the wife. That’s what they do.

  “So you drive six miles out on Presque Isle. All the way to Perry’s Monument. In a secluded, off-the-beaten-path spot. To meet someone who works beside you all day long?”

  “We were just talking. I was upset. That’s all.”

  She said nothing. A piercing chill, the sort that comes when mere words change the direction of your life, billowed over her flesh and physically drained her of the little energy she had remaining. She took hold of the railing to avoid falling.

  “Do you really believe I’d cheat on you? With Anna?”

  “You have to admit. You’re gone a lot lately, Josh.”

  “And why do you think that is? Do you want to go there, really? With all the time you spend away? Your late office hours, the supposedly late nights at your parents’ house. And why, all of a sudden, are you going in so early in the morning? Maybe I should be checking up on you. You used to run and eat breakfast with me. You never went in early—until recently.”

  “You can’t be serious.”

  “I don’t know you anymore, Emma. The past few months we’ve barely talked. You’re the one who’s never home. Maybe there’s more to this not wanting a baby thing than you’re revealing.”

  “This has nothing to do with having a baby. You know that since Ralph took that job at Hamot I’m swamped.”

  “Yeah, well, we’re both swamped, Emma. And now I have to go,” he said. “Rounds start at eight.”

  “Yes, please go,” she uttered, hanging on tightly and hoping not to fall down in front of him. She refused to let him know how deeply his words cut her.

  He didn’t respond. His hand gripped the doorknob. He hesitated briefly, but went out the door without looking back.

  She slumped down on the stairs and cried.

  Chapter 7

  Monday, November 24, 2014

  One hundred seventy-one days.

  “Sharon, are you out there?”

  She needed her dark-roast coffee. She managed to sleep three hours last night, but fatigue still dizzied her. She waited. No answer from Sharon. Her
mind must be playing with her. Her gaze fell back to her files.

  Not quite eight o’clock, it was too early for Sharon to be there, but too late for Emma to continue making a dent in her work before her first client. She arrived long before dawn, reviewed CT scans of two clients being treated for schizophrenia, pulled a new Mayo Clinic study on opposition defiant disorder for someone else, and faxed release forms to family practice physicians for patients Doctor Cameron had accepted but transferred to her before seeing. She read transcripts, closed two cases, and referred three clients to other psychiatrists who, mercifully, agreed to accept them.

  The hospital had moved her mother to St. Mary’s Nursing Home. That paperwork still called “pick me” from her “to-do” stack. Her car inspection was overdue. She missed her dentist appointment. Scissors hadn’t touched her hair in ten weeks, and she had been so overwhelmed and confused over the weekend that she had entertained thoughts of hiring a private investigator to trail Josh. Whether she had wanted to know if he cheated on her remained unclear. At least he had stopped his lectures on the joy of motherhood.

  She expected her first client for the week to walk through those doors soon. So much more needed to be done that catching up looked glum, and her hope of finding a bit of time to research emerging suicidal hypotheses was out of the question. She must get through at least one McKinney file. Matt, Minnie, and Mary had appointments in the upcoming week, Matt’s second and the twins’ third, and still the transcripts from Minnie McKinney’s first session sat in its file unopened. She grabbed that one, shook her head, and asked herself who in their right mind gives a baby that name. Almost as damaging as Charlie Brown. She began reading half-way down the second page.

  Patient: Minnie McKinney

  Psychiatrist: Dr. Emma Kerr

  Date: October 29, 2014 2 p.m.

  Notes: Minnie McKinney, age 32, identical twin of Mary. Her mother died when she was fifteen years old. Her marriage lasted one year. They separated but never divorced. She works as a nurse at St. Vincent Medical Center.