The Suicide Gene Page 5
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Dr. Kerr: You don’t get along with Matt?
Minnie: No, he hates me.
Dr. Kerr: Hate is a harsh word. Why do you believe he hates you?
Minnie: Because he does; he hates Mary and me both. Hated us since we were little. He only likes Mel.
Dr. Kerr: You felt this way in childhood?
Minnie: Yes, he started this—almost abhorrence—with us before Mel was born but after the baby died.
Dr. Kerr: The baby? Died?
Minnie: In between Matt and Melanie, my mother gave birth to—a baby girl, whom she named Melissa. Melissa died of SIDS. He hated us after that and wouldn’t play with us, kiss us goodnight, or even hold our hand when we crossed the street. Mom called it childhood bereavement and his way of coping. He isolated himself from the family because of Mimi—Missy.
Dr. Kerr: Mimi?
Minnie: (Pause.) Sometimes I call her Missy and other times I call her Mimi as in the first letters of her first and middle names. M-E-M-E for her first name, Melissa, and her middle name, Megan. Mimi. Get it?
Dr. Kerr: You were an early reader.
Minnie: Yes, I could read by age four. I was no Einstein but pronounced letters easily, so sometimes I called her Mimi. Mary doesn’t like to talk about her at all. Mother said we all dealt with her death differently. Matt became a little recluse, I talked about it incessantly and when Mom gave birth to Mel, Mary became unhealthily overprotective of her. Mary thought Mel might die, too, so she acted as her bodyguard. She still protects her.
Dr. Kerr: Still?
Minnie: Yes. She thinks she’s her guardian.
Dr. Kerr: What is she protecting her from?
Minnie: Everything, Mel is naive. In the past Mary protected her from the bullies in the neighborhood, the kids at school and everyone else, even family members like Mom and Dad, before they died, and my grandmother when she was alive, Matt and me. No one could discipline her in Mary’s presence. (Laugh.) Mel was too trusting for her own good from birth. I always questioned what Missy would be like. She was only home from the hospital a day or two before she died. Even though I was young, Mother said her birth and death traumatized me the most.
Dr. Kerr: You experienced nightmares, correct?
Minnie: Terrors. Mom called them terrors.
Dr. Kerr: Do you feel the baby’s death initiated those night terrors?
Minnie: Probably; my mother said I lacked coping skills. Melissa’s death frightened me so much—she died during the night—that I hated going to bed. Then the terrible dreams started, making matters worse.
Dr. Kerr: What type of dreams?
Minnie: (Pause.) Adult-frightening dreams. I don’t want to talk about them.
Dr. Kerr: That is fine, but answer this if you are comfortable. Do you remember much about the baby?
Minnie: Oh, yes, I remember everything. My memory is stellar. I remember the excitement, the preparations—the crayoned signs and pictures I drew—to welcome my baby sister. Mother promised I could help watch over her and then—nothing. I remember the baby’s death as vividly as I remember yesterday.
Dr. Kerr: She died shortly after she arrived home?
Minnie: A few days, yes.
Dr. Kerr: How unusual. Was she a preemie?
Minnie: (Silence.)
Dr. Kerr: By preemie I mean a premature baby. Well, of course you know that. You’re a nurse. An LPN, correct?
Minnie: (Silence.)
Dr. Kerr: I’m sorry I upset you. Statistically, SIDS doesn’t occur often in the first few days of a baby’s life, so I wondered if the infant experienced an extended stay in the hospital.
Minnie: (Silence.)
Dr. Kerr: Minnie, are you feeling all right? You’re flushed. Can I offer you some water?
Minnie: Yes, I mean no. Yes, I’m okay. No water, thank you. Sometimes I get emotional over the baby.
Dr. Kerr: We won’t discuss anything you don’t feel comfortable talking about.
Minnie: I’m fine.
Dr. Kerr: It’s a sensitive issue—losing a sibling—even an infant.
Minnie: Yes, it is. I may be wrong about when she died. She may have been a week old. Or older. Being so little, I don’t remember. Mary will know.
****
Emma opened her laptop, and her fingers skimmed the keyboard until her monthly calendar unfolded on the monitor. They were coming in again tomorrow. She would ask Mary about the SIDS then. If she couldn’t coax information from her, she would try Melanie. She scanned the schedule and found Mel’s next appointment: December 3rd.
She took a slight break, rose from her chair, stretched, and went to crack the window and turn down the thermostat. As she did, she peeked outside across the street, wondering where Ally’s Attorney Boy was. He usually arrived early on Mondays. She returned to her desk, cautioning herself not to allow Ally, Josh, her mom, dad, or DNA to distract her.
She cleared her head and returned to Minnie’s transcripts, moving her pen over the lines as she read and then making notes in the session’s summary: erratic personality, bipolar, narcissism? She noted similarities between Minnie and Mary: inattentive, prolonged stares, distracted, nervous laugh, agitation.
She pulled the November 3rd transcripts Sharon had printed for both twins. They had scheduled their first and second appointments back to back and a third Mary-Minnie combo for tomorrow. A safety-in-numbers pattern? Sharon said they wore the floor out pacing while waiting for each other. Emma made a note of their impatience.
She leafed through the pages. They discussed school days, college, and stressed the boredom they endured during classes. Each mentioned a few friends, admitted ostracism, and talked about being comfortable with each other so naturally that Emma wondered who did the ostracizing. They expressed fond memories of their mother. Not so fond of their father. Yet both agreed having a bad father was better than no father at all. Neither grew angry at their father’s name, nor did he evoke any emotional outbursts.
Both women’s moods were calm and casual on the third. If not for Emma remembering Minnie liked Hemingway, the sessions would have bordered on normality. She proceeded to the Post-it marked Hemingway in the transcripts.
Patient: Minnie McKinney
Psychiatrist: Dr. Emma Kerr
Date: November 3, 2014 2 p.m.
****
Dr. Kerr: I understand you are a fan of Ernest Hemingway’s.
Minnie: Oh, yes! He’s my all-time favorite author.
Dr. Kerr: What do you like about his writing?
Minnie: Everything. Absolutely everything. Do you think intelligent people can be happy? Like you, Doctor Kerr, are you happy?
Dr. Kerr: Excuse me?
Minnie: You are a smart person. Are you happy?
Dr. Kerr: Why do you ask, Minnie?
Minnie: Hemingway said smart people are never happy, but I think he’s wrong. Aren’t you happy? I know some pretty smart people who are happy and some pretty people who aren’t happy. (Laugh.) I mean drop-dead gorgeous people like Margaux Louise. She was prettier than Muriel but unhappy. She killed herself. Drug overdose.
Dr. Kerr: Are you talking about Margaux Hemingway?
Minnie: Yes, I saw a documentary that showed an old clip of a Phil Donahue show she appeared on once. I think the guy was Phil Donohue. Well, he, or someone like him, interviewed her, and she admitted trying to take her life but said she was seeing a counselor and getting better. It seemed believable. I would have believed her if I saw the original version. She was already dead when they aired that clip, though. She took a drug overdose and died on July 1, 1990. I don’t know why she didn’t wait until July 2nd. Dumb. Did you read The Sun also Rises? My favorite line is when Barnes says he’s a rotten Catholic. (Laugh.)
Dr. Kerr: No sorry, I didn’t read that. Why did you say she should have waited one day? Until July 2nd?
Minnie: (Laugh.) Because it would have been 29 years since her grandfather killed himself. He shot himself July 2, 1961. Everyone knows that
.
Dr. Kerr: I didn’t know the details.
Minnie: (Laugh.) Maybe you will know this. You’re a psychiatrist. Aren’t scientists studying ancestral memory through DNA? In other words, I may be able to remember something in my father’s lifetime—or my grandmother’s—before I was born.
Dr. Kerr: That’s not exactly accurate, but there has been DNA memory research, yes.
Minnie: Well, for simplicity’s sake, let’s say my interpretation is accurate. If so, that explains why Gig liked to dress up as Gloria.
Dr. Kerr: I’m sorry, who?
Minnie: Gig—Gregory—Hemingway. Ernest Hemingway’s son. Hemingway’s own mother dressed Ernest like a girl when he was a little boy—dresses, long hair, the whole bit. She stopped when he started school. I always speculated. Maybe Gig’s DNA remembered that. He was a cross dresser. He dressed up as a woman and called himself Gloria, which infuriated Ernest.
Dr. Kerr: (Silence.)
Minnie: (Laugh.) Mary says that is a crazy thought—memories from your father’s DNA.
Dr. Kerr: I’m impressed you know so much about the Hemingway family.
Minnie: I love them! But I think I like the story of Ernest Hemingway’s life more than his books. It was strange, don’t you think? Strange but phenomenal. He travelled so many places—France for romance, Spain for bull fights, Africa for safaris. He received both the Pulitzer Prize and the Nobel Prize, but he couldn’t be there to accept the Nobel Prize. Isn’t that sad? He was recovering from the two plane crashes. The ambassador—what was his name? —well the American ambassador accepted it for him because Hemingway still suffered in pain. He was almost killed in both those crashes, but then in the end he just killed himself in Idaho. Pitiful. Cabot. John Cabot.
Dr. Kerr: John Cabot?
Minnie: The American ambassador. I think an American university somewhere in Italy, probably Rome, was named after him. Did Mary talk about our IQs? I never found Hemingway’s. They said it was high but no one could confirm that.
Dr. Kerr: Yes. Mary did mention your high IQs.
Minnie: (Laugh.) She hates that she has the lowest IQ. She thinks Matt cheated and Mel’s is wrong. She can’t accept hers is the lowest.
Dr. Kerr: Did she tell you she thought they were wrong?
Minnie: Not mine. She knows how smart I am. And Doctor Kerr? I’m not an LPN. I’m an RN. In fact, I completed all the credits to become a nurse practitioner.
****
Emma dropped her forehead into her hand. Calling Minnie’s Hemingway familiarity impressive was just bad counseling. It encouraged the obsession. She blamed her blunder on being knocked ajar by Minnie’s cracked comments. At the time, she was attempting to bring up baby Melissa’s story, but Minnie caught her off guard. Hit her with the July 2nd comment, the Gig Hemingway remark, and the DNA question—bam, bam, bam—stunning her into disorder.
Rereading exhausted her. Ernest? Margaux? Gregory? Minnie jumped topics like a cat on coals. Laughed too loud and continually fidgeted—with her sleeves, her bracelet, her ponytail. Her hair was in a ponytail then out. In and out again. So much body language surfaced that Emma didn’t have the strength to write it all down. She struggled to summarize Minnie’s complexities.
Documenting sessions perplexed her—the McKinneys’ especially. The possibility of being sued sat at the back of her mind like a potato rotting in a cupboard. If you forgot it, the smell eventually hit you.
She also worried, as with all her clients, she might underestimate their psychological frailties. Misdiagnose them. Miss psychosis. In the past, those apprehensions amalgamated with years of battling depression herself made her a better psychiatrist, more dedicated and hard working. Now time constraints weakened her.
Her concentration began sliding, and her own muddy life oozed back into her thoughts. I need more time for this family. I have to pick up my dad’s high blood pressure pills. Bring my mother her wash. Renew my Journal subscription. Get a haircut.
She reread portions of Minnie’s dialogue, but the lines blurred together on the page. The Hemingway chatter bored her. And if Minnie introduced one more M name into the conversation, she was going to lose it completely. She barely kept their names straight now, let alone adding talk about Margaux and Mariel Hemingway. And seriously—two plane crashes? Did Minnie expect her to believe Ernest Hemingway survived not one but two plane crashes?
She stopped playing with her pen and asked herself if Minnie was toying with her?
She opened her laptop and googled Ernest Hemingway, confirming in only a few minutes that, yes, he survived two plane crashes. A John Cabot, the American ambassador, did accept the Nobel Prize for him. Ernest did have a son Gregory who occasionally dressed up and called himself Gloria, and Margaux Louise committed suicide on July 1, 1990. As did Ernest on July 2, 1961.
So, with her fixation on him, how much would Ernest Hemingway’s words about smart people not being happy influence Minnie? Enough for her to consider suicide? Emma doubted that. Call it a hunch. She didn’t believe this woman was ready to leave this world. She noted her file. No immediate concerns to act upon.
Whenever those words spilled from the tip of her pen, she said a quick prayer they didn’t come back to haunt her. Spotting suicidal tendencies was her forte. She had helped several suicidal patients swim through the roughest waters in her short career. But these were the McKinneys. The sort too wise to tell all, but miserably strange enough to tell you some.
And then there was—well, everything else.
She decided then and there to consult Ally. Handling these caseloads alone—with everything she had on her plate—was impossible. And in order for Ally to keep straight the M names, she pulled a black folder from her briefcase to review and then plotted an abbreviated McKinney family tree on a slip of paper. The chart relayed at least what she knew:
Michael McKinney wed Rose Temple 7/11/29
John born ?/?/31
Shane Scully wed Mary Smith 7/11/31
Sara born 6/7/33
Twin born 6/7/33
Joshua born ?/?/36
John McKinney wed Sara Scully 6/9/51
Mathew born 5/20/53
Carol born 2/23/55
Coleen born 2/24/55
Mathew McKinney wed Renee Blake 12/22/79
Mary born 3/10/82
Minnie born 3/10/82
Mathew born 8/17/83
Melissa born ?
Melanie born 9/28/87
That was the best she could do. She tucked the diagram inside the file and replaced it in her briefcase. Then she opened Charles Brown’s file just as the chimes on the front door rang.
“Good morning.” Sharon stomped her boots and hollered merrily. “Fresh coffee.”
“Perfect timing. I need a boost.” Emma reached her arms upward, glanced toward the room’s low, coffered ceiling, and stretched her back. Twisted her torso left and right. “I think I’m losing my mind.”
“Why? How’s your mom?” Sharon pranced into Emma’s office, tramping her wet boots on the Persian area rugs to protect the hard-wood floors, and set a CoffeeHut bag on her desk.
“Okay. Better than Dad.”
“How’s he doing? Hanging in there?”
“He’s devastated. Mom is staying in the St. Mary’s Alzheimer’s unit while they evaluate her. They asked us not to visit for three days,” Emma said. “Not sure I can last that long.”
“You can wait three days, honey.” Sharon circled her desk, leaned down, and squeezed her shoulders. “You need to take care of yourself and that husband of yours. Did he show up Friday night at the hospital?”
“No, he didn’t.” Emma ripped the top off her coffee and sipped. “I was glad. I didn’t need him moping around.”
“Did he visit her at all?”
“Nope. Got called in both Saturday and Sunday. He did come home last night in a better mood. At least he spoke to me. He promised to go to her next meeting.”
“Good. He should be there with you.”
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br /> “Wow, this is sugary,” Emma said, glad for a divergence from the subject. “Do I have your coffee by chance?”
Sharon took a sip from the other cup. “No, this one is mine, but hey, that reminds me. Attorney Boy distracted me. He was there so I texted Ally to see if she could stop on her way to work.”
“He was at CoffeeHut? No wonder she’s been going there lately.” Emma smirked, sipped hot coffee again. Even when she was nowhere in sight, Ally still rescued her from seriousness.
“He’s so darn cute.” Sharon stopped fishing in the bag to comment. “I told her to ask him out. She needs a nice guy.”
“Rhett is nice.”
“You’re right, he is, but Attorney Boy is dreamy.” She laughed and reached back in the bag. “I guess he flustered me. I doled out extra sugar for you. Sorry.”
“No problem. Tastes good. Did Ally make it there in time to see him?”
“No,” she said, chuckling. “She answered the phone from the shower.”
Sharon plucked something from the bag, scrunched her nose, and rustled through the bag’s contents. Neither of them heard the front door chimes.
“This isn’t my order.” Sharon unwrapped a scone, reached down, and found a partially wrapped chocolate chip brownie. “They gave me the wrong bag. What is with that place? This is the second time this week.”
“Really?” Emma stood and swiftly snatched the treat. “A brownie? My lucky day. I haven’t eaten one of these in months. Trying to eat healthier. Curb my chocoholic problem. This is just what I needed today. Like Mom says, waste not, want not.”
She plopped back in her seat and bit into the bar with closed eyes. Chocolate used to be her comfort food. At one time, she’d likely killed for it. She moaned and chewed dramatically, enjoying the temporary happiness that so seldom surfaced anymore.
“Oh, how I’ve missed you,” she said to her brownie, then turned to Sharon. “Someone else’s bad luck is my good fortune. It’s still warm. What else is in there? Anything else with chocolate?”
Like two kids peeking over the edges of a grab bag, immersed in curiosity and expectation, neither of them heard the footsteps coming toward them or saw the figure hovering at the office door. He stood for a minute, leaning his fine Brioni suit against the doorframe to enjoy the room’s mood. He smiled and considered backing out quietly, keeping her hoydenish devouring of his brownie a secret. But he couldn’t pull himself away.