I DON’T THINK GARY had been all that happy to see me when I’d knocked on his door. It was the middle of the night. He appeared in a robe and sleepy haze. “Abbie okay?”
I explained what we were doing while he made coffee. He blew the steam off his cup. “You know you’re nuts.”
He scribbled three prescriptions and handed them to me. I shook my head. “Gary, I can’t fill these.”
“Why?”
“Because the folks at Walgreens will be on the phone for three hours making sure you meant what you wrote and by then, the senator will have gotten a whiff and he’ll know something’s up. We’ll never get out of Charleston. Don’t you have this stuff in your office?”
“Yeah, but I can’t give you this much narcotic without someone else in my office assisting. Wait a few hours.”
“I don’t have a few hours.”
“Doss, there’s a reason the law requires us to keep this stuff under lock and key. It’s a check-and-balance sort of thing.” He dangled his keys. “I have the key. My office manager has the combination.”
“Come on, Gary. I know you better than that.”
“I won’t do it. If we’re audited, I’d lose my license.”
“Then tell it to me.”
“What?”
“The combination. I’m no dummy.”
He took a deep breath. “I’m going back to bed.” He laid his keys on the countertop next to him and stopped on his way out of the kitchen. “First drawer to the left of the cabinet. Left side. Written in pencil. It’s backwards, so start on the right side and work to the left. And don’t look at the cameras over your left shoulder. We have twenty-four-hour video surveillance. Better yet, put some panty hose over your head.” He walked out, so I grabbed his keys, drove to his office and let myself in. I found the combination, wrote it in reverse, unlocked the cabinet and on the second try, the safe door clicked open.
I dug through the inside, found what I needed, dropped it into a plastic bag and was about to walk out when I saw the unopened box of Actiq—raspberry-flavored pain lozenges on a stick that come in doses from 200 to 1,600 mcg. They were lollipops prescribed a lot for kids and older folks who needed fast-acting, ingestible medication to combat breakthrough pain. In the last several months, they had become Abbie’s candy of choice. She ate them as needed. I grabbed the entire box. I never looked at the camera over my left shoulder, but since I had turned on the light and wasn’t wearing panty hose, my identity would be rather obvious. The combination of all the drugs in my possession was basically weapons-grade pain management—and enough to guarantee prison if caught.
I drove back to Gary’s house, handed him his keys and he rummaged through my bag. He handed it back, speaking in his doctor’s tone of voice. “Now, listen. This is important. You’ve got six dexamethasone syringes, two dopamine syringes and enough fentanyl patches to last a month. The dexamethasone injections will reduce the swelling in her brain, giving her a few hours of clarity and returning her to a nearly normal playing field. If the pressure grows too much and begins pressing on her brain stem, it’ll do one of two things. If it raises her blood pressure, there’s nothing you can do. Probably won’t bother her much anyway. If it lowers it, it’ll hinder her body’s natural desire to breathe and probably send her into shock. The dopamine counteracts this by elevating her heart rate and pressure. In more practical terms, the dexamethasone is a nuclear bomb to her adrenal gland. Each injection will be like burning jet fuel in a car engine. It’ll run great while the fuel lasts, but chances are also good that it’ll blow it altogether. High-altitude climbers on Everest and K2, working in the death zone, pack it in as a last-ditch effort in the event that they need to counteract the effects of edema, which compresses brain structures. If you’ve ever been congested to the point that you could not breathe through your nose, then squirted some Afrin nasal spray up your nose, then you have a pretty good idea of how it works.”
He placed a finger in the air. “Oh, and both dopamine and dexamethasone, while effective when used alone, can cause a problem when used together. They counteract one another. Using both together can be a bit of a balancing act.”
He was right. Abbie had been using various forms of these and other drugs for so long that she’d become desensitized to their effect. Meaning, she needed more narcotic to achieve the same benefit. Which would have been fine if the pain had stayed the same. Problem was, while the pain ramped up, our ability to combat it spiraled downward.
He folded his arms. “As her doctor, I’m obliged to tell you. Over the long term, dexamethasone causes ulcers, bleeding of the organs, euphoria, water retention, heart insufficiency, blurred vision and wide-angle glaucoma. Other than that, it’s a peach.”
I shrugged. “I guess the good news is that we needn’t be too concerned about the long term.”
He shoved his hands in his pockets and turned toward the street. “And…”
“Yeah?”
“You won’t see it coming and it won’t be pretty. In truth, you’ll hear it before you see it. Once you do, it’s a ticking time bomb. Problem is, you can’t see the fuse.”
He pointed at my bag of goodies. “The dexamethasone…one will ease the pain, two will knock her out for most of a day…three will…well…”
I knew what he was trying to say. “Thanks, Gary.”
“If you have anything left to say, say it now.”
I walked back up the steps. “Close your eyes.”
“What?”
“Just close your eyes. I have a present for you.” He did and I backhanded him about as hard as I could in the left eye.
He hit the floor. “What’d you do that for!”
I helped him up. “You need a story to go with the lie that you’re going to tell the office manager in a few hours.” I pointed at his swelling eye. “Now you’ve got one.”
“You could’ve warned me.”
“Sorry.” I handed him an Actiq. “Here, this’ll help with the pain.”
“Very funny.” I turned and started walking down his steps. “Doss, you know what you’re doing?”
I shrugged. “Not really. I just know I can’t stay here.”
He shook his head. “I don’t envy you.”
“I’ll be seeing you, Gary. Sorry about your eye.”
“One more thing.”
“Yeah?”
“One of the conversations right now in the medical community is how much is too much narcotic. With all the conversations about euthanasia, we are constantly asking ourselves, whether out loud or quietly to ourselves, when we, as physicians, have crossed the line from fighting pain to…helping someone go quietly into that long night. You following me?” I nodded. “Given Abbie’s desensitization to the medication, she’ll need a lot of it. If…if you give her what she needs…at the end of the day, you could be charged with, well…between what’s in that bag and what would be in her bloodstream, they’d just build the prison on top of you.”
“Thanks, Gary.”
I TIED THE CASE to my seat and shoved it behind me. I could lose everything else but it. And maybe the revolver. I stepped in and shoved off, dipping the paddle tip in the water. My cell phone rang in my pocket. Caller ID read “SIR.” This was not unexpected. I shoved it back in my pocket and let it ring. When we first married I managed to fly beneath his radar. Now, not so much. A few minutes later, it rang again. And again. Abbie whispered from beneath the tarp, “You better answer it. You know how he hates to be kept waiting.” The fourth time he called, I flipped it open. The tone of voice reminded me of the one he used while in the Chamber as he was speaking to members on the other side of the aisle. The booming one heard on C-SPAN, FOX and CNN. “Where is Abigail Grace?”
DOUBLE NAMES IN CHARLESTON are a way of life. Most blue bloods decree at least one. It’s an oral remnant of Scarlett’s Camelot days and a not-so-gentle reminder of their ancestral link to nobility. When he first enrolled her at Ashley Hall, then Governor Coleman had insisted on it—i
ntending to elevate her above the fray and distance her from her competitors. One of the youngest governors in the history of the Union, he expected people to jump when he barked, so he surrounded himself with people who asked, “How high?” Propped in pigtails and pearls, she cared nothing for the sort. She did not work for him, had no ambition other than being his daughter and didn’t give two bits about his title.
Thus began the tug o’ war.
Ever since, they’d lived with this private uneasiness. In public, they shared a necessary truce. She gave him that. That, too, was Charleston. Appearances must be kept. But if you listened to the way she said “Daddy,” it was there.
From the moment I’d met her, Abbie had been nothing I expected. On the surface, she was a senator’s daughter, birthed in lace, raised by “help” and K-thru-12’d at Ashley Hall, where the echoes of the Gullah nannies hung in the air. I’m Charleston born and Charleston bred and when I die I’m Charleston dead. Steeped in society and cured in culture, her first word had been deb—as in debutante. Beneath the surface, where we swam, she was as at home there on a beach wearing a bikini top and frayed cutoffs as at the Hibernia Society ball decked out in pearls and shoulder-length white gloves. Somehow, she moved seamlessly, and effortlessly, between both worlds.
Miss Olivia, who changed her diapers and gets a good bit of the credit for raising her while Dad was trying to get reelected, said that somewhere in the first grade, Abigail Grace Eliot Coleman put her hands on her hips, stamped her foot and said, “What’s wrong with ‘Abbie’?” Over the years, in direct proportion to their escalating battle, she chipped away at her name. From third to sixth grade, she clipped it from “Abigail Grace” to “Abbie Grace.” Cute, while still respectable. It also fit with her starring role in the musical Annie at the Dock Street Theater. In junior high, as her modeling career began to take off, landing her jobs in national mail-order clothing catalogs and local commercials, her name survived another cut to “Abbie G.” A butchering that narrowed her father’s eyes, but technically it was two names and only used in informal settings—which meant never around him. She’d outgrow it. As a junior, several would-be beaus, prom hopes high, rang asking for “Abbie.” He responded with a dial tone. No matter, sixteen-year-old Abbie went anyway and just to add insult to injury she accepted jobs from two of the largest swimsuit makers in the country. Those two-piece photos quickly earned her a first-class ticket to New York where she and her agent—an attorney sent along by her father—met with cosmetics lines, shampoo and perfume companies, a sports news company with a rather famous swimsuit edition and one well-known lingerie monopoly. Midway through her senior year, he discovered that her teachers were addressing her as “Abbie.” Which was bad, but it would get worse. Much worse. One Saturday morning, after two cups of coffee and a bran muffin spurred his daily constitution, he was flipping through the swimsuit edition and stumbled upon her picture. That magazine went in the trash—along with his subscription. Abbie graduated and he brokered a peace with a gift. He pulled the Mercedes out of cold storage and gave her the keys. But the cease-fire was short-lived. Speaking at her commencement ceremony, Senator Coleman fired what he thought was a final volley across her bow, announcing her full name in a tone that sought to return her to legitimacy, reestablishing her bloodline. Owners spoke of horses in much the same manner. But the smug smile was premature. A year later, “Abbie Eliot” sealed her rebellion when she quit Georgetown and signed an exclusive New York contract. Within weeks, her travel schedule included Europe and the Far East. By the age of nineteen, her travel schedule included New York and London and her glossy picture stared back at him from the glass-topped table in the dentist’s office. Establishing a professional and public name that did not link her to him was a blow he could not counter.
She’d made a name for herself. Which was just fine with her.
A DEEP BREATH. “She’s right here.”
“Where is ‘here’?” He could be direct when he wanted.
“Sir, I can’t tell you that.”
“Can’t or won’t?” See what I mean?
A pause. “Won’t.”
“Son…” He laughed uncomfortably. Senator Coleman did not like not being in control. Now that he’d been appointed chairman of the Finance Committee, he liked it even less. “At the wiggle of my finger, every law enforcement officer in the states of Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina will be looking for my daughter. And don’t think for one second that I won’t call out the National Guard.”
“She mentioned that.”
“You doubt my resolve, son?”
“Sir, I don’t doubt your love for your daughter, if that’s what you’re asking. But…this is something I’ve got to do.”
“Son, you’re deranged. You’ll bring her back here right—”
“Sir, there’s a part of me that would really like to do that, but…with all due respect, you don’t know—”
He was screaming now. “Don’t tell me what I don’t know!”
While his public persona was all poise, polish, cuff links and Hermès ties, his backroom manners were more brass knuckles, Dickies and Carhartt. When he lost his temper, spit collected in the corners of his mouth, spewing like venom the louder he spoke. “You can’t run far enough. Hide and I’ll find you…I’ll have you buried beneath the jail.”
I guess you picked up on the fact that our relationship had not been smooth sailing. Despite his disdain for me, I’d always admired him. Even voted for him. He’d come from little and done much. And while getting elected is one thing, staying elected is another. He’d managed to do both. From the governor’s mansion to now his fourth term as senator, he’d never lost an election. His tentacles stretched far and wide in Washington. A blessing and a curse—because what they say about power is true. I think in his other life, that one that included the good-old-boy farmer from South Carolina with the piece of hay sticking out his mouth, we’d have gotten along pretty well.
I swallowed and stared out across the water and at Abbie’s pale frame tucked beneath the tarp. Senator Coleman detested the thought of dying for one simple reason. It was beyond his control. Others’ deaths reminded him of this. The fact that his daughter showed no signs of fearing it might have been his singular weakness. It had always struck me as odd that someone so powerful, so accomplished, could be so easily derailed by something that no human, save one, had ever beaten. Because of this, we’d not seen much of him the last few years. Notice I said we hadn’t seen much of him, not that he wasn’t much help. He was. It’s complicated. He got us into places we’d have never gotten in alone and on more than one occasion bumped us to the front of the line. If we didn’t fly first class, he sent a jet. He helped from a distance because being too close hurt too much. Except once. That’s how I knew he loved her. She knew this too, but that did little to make it any easier.
I needed to hang up before he traced the call with some NASA satellite. As a ranking member and chairman of several committees, the least of which was Armed Services, they were probably triangulating me now. “Sir, I’m sorry. I’m real sorry for a lot of things, but I”—I spoke softly—“this is for Abbie.”
“She should be here. With us.”
“With all due respect, sir. You’ve had four years. You couldn’t have asked for a much more captive audience. If you wanted to be with her, you could have.”
“Just what is that supposed to mean?” His anger was palpable. He was not used to, nor did he tolerate, discussion that was not geared toward total agreement. I had never fallen in line with this so our conversations had been short and usually started and ended by him. It has its roots in the moment I asked him if I could marry his daughter. Also another short conversation.
“Sir, I don’t expect you to understand.”
He was screaming now. “You’re delusional…a dreamer who never would have amounted to anything had it not been for Abbie.”
“I agree with you, sir, but—”
“But, what!
”
I stared at Abbie. “Please understand…” He started to say something else, but I flipped the phone closed and tossed it in the river, where the water swallowed it. Tiny bubbles rose up around its edges as the light on the faceplate dimmed to dark.
I climbed back to my seat, my hands remembering the feel of the paddle, and fought to find that one description that just nailed my wife. You’d think after fourteen years, I’d come up with something, anything but “Honey.” I admit, it’s rather weak.
I tapped the article in the map case. “You would have to pick the most difficult one.”
“I’m not here to check off just one.”
“I figured. Guess we better get busy.”
“Uh-huh.”
“You rest. I’ll paddle.”
She cracked a smile. “Just the way it ought to be.”
I sunk the paddle in the water, pulled hard, reminding my muscles, and slipped beneath the moss-draped arms over the river. The ocean lay 130-plus miles beyond—an hour in a car or a week on the river.
On the outside, everything had been taken. Abbie’s professional life, her beauty, the welcoming softness of her bosom, the rounded curves, the confident smile. But that was just the external stuff. We could live without that. What about the stuff you couldn’t see? Her unbridled passion for life, her intimate desire for me, her childlike hope in pretty much anything, her incomparable dreams. Abbie was a shell of her former self. A feeble skeleton dressed in a ghost’s clothing. The only thing left was time.
I’m no sage. I don’t pretend to have this all figured out, but I know this: some live well, some die well, but few love well. Why? I don’t know if I can answer that. We all live, we all die—there is no get-out-of-jail-free card, but it’s the part in between that matters. To love well…that’s something else. It’s a choosing—something done again and again and again. No matter what. And in my experience, if you so choose, you better be willing to suffer hell.
I didn’t look back and wouldn’t look ahead. So I stared at Abbie, sunk the paddle in the water and pulled.