Chapter 21: Unconditional Release - Lucidity

FREMMER WAS NEVER ALONE IN THE ROOM. WHENEVER HE WAS, EVEN for just a few minutes, Paulette came in and sat in one of the two empty chairs. She was less sexy than the woman in his dream, but resembled her just enough to make it difficult for him to look her in the eyes without feeling a whiff of embarrassment. Her job as a psych ward nurse—or at least part of it—was to make sure he didn’t try to harm himself again. And that meant he wasn’t allowed to be in the room by himself. Someone had to watch him at all times.

When she popped into the room this time Jamie was there, so it wasn’t to keep him company.

“Sir, that friend of yours in a wheelchair is still out in the waiting room,” she said. “She asked if she can come in now. What should I tell her?”

Until now Paulette had been quietly bland. But Fremmer detected a bit of attitude in her voice, like he could hear her thinking, What kind of asshole treats a person in a wheelchair like that?

“Tell her I’m too dangerous.”

“Dad, you’ve got to speak to her,” Jamie cut in. “She’s been sitting out there for almost two hours. It’s rude.”

Fremmer didn’t want Denise to see him like this. He’d sent Morton away and told him to tell her on his way out that he was in no condition to see anybody. That apparently hadn’t worked. Fremmer’s attempts to extricate himself from the hospital had been equally unsuccessful.

“Spoke to 2 docs,” he texted his friend Bernstein earlier. “One was a shrink. They still won’t discharge me.”

“Patience patient,” Bernstein said. “U r a liability. Be out in a little while. They’re getting ready to close here.”

Bernstein was in surgery. Fremmer pictured him there, sitting at the head of the operating table by the patient’s head, texting on his cell phone. As a patient you didn’t realize what was happening while you were lying there, cut open. But that was what anesthesiologists did. Most of the time they weren’t doing anything so they texted. Or checked their email, stock quotes and sports scores.

“OK, tell her to come in,” he said to his son. “But give me a few minutes alone.”

He told Jamie to go find them some food. Maybe he could dig up a turkey club. He was starving.

“What are you going to say?” his son asked.

“I’ll think of something.”

“You can’t be a dick, Dad.”

“Me? A dick? What are you implying?”

“You know what I mean. Don’t be your blunt self. Some people don’t appreciate it.”

“Some people do. And those are the ones you want to hang out with. But point taken. Ixnay on the blunt self. Now amscray.”

In the thirty seconds he was alone he tried to make himself more presentable. He finger-combed his hair and popped a Lifesaver from the roll Morton had left behind. He still had the IV needle in his arm, but he’d been disconnected from the banana bag of fluids so he wasn’t tethered to anything. He could have greeted her standing up but he thought that wouldn’t look good considering he’d had Morton tell her he was in no shape to see anyone. So he stayed in the bed, propping himself up a few more degrees with a press of the button on the bed’s remote control.

Paulette knocked first, and then held the door open so Denise could wheel herself in. This isn’t going to end well, Fremmer thought as the door closed behind her.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hey,” she said back.

“You hear the one about the guy who hit the prescription pills a little too hard and texted his lawyer and ex-fiancée about wanting to kill himself?”

“You scared me, Max. You scared Jamie.”

“I know. I’m sorry. I am a little surprised though.”

“About what?”

“No flowers.”

That got a smile. A tiny one. “I debated it,” she said. “But then I decided it wasn’t appropriate to bring flowers to someone who tried to kill himself.”

“Probably not. But I’m glad you came. I’m sorry I kept you waiting. It’s just that I’m feeling a little stupid and not so attractive. You look good, though, kid.”

She did. From the waist up she looked exactly as she had all those years ago, maybe better. And with the bed in the way, that’s all he saw, her upper half without the chair. Her tight shirt showed off her arms; she was in better shape than he was. A real-estate broker now, he’d heard she’d been doing some wheelchair racing, which made sense—she was a serious runner when they’d been dating. He hadn’t seen her in four years. She’d been in a relationship with another wheelchair racer. They were going to get married. Then they weren’t. She didn’t post much on Facebook, but sometimes she liked the images he posted. Occasionally she made comments on them. He commented back. That was the extent of their relationship.

Instead of answering, she wheeled herself forward and pulled up alongside the bed. The chair barely fit between the bed and the wall. Before he knew it she’d taken his hand and was looking at him intently. He wasn’t sure what she was looking for but it felt good to hold her hand. So good he wanted to cry. And then he did. He felt a tear go down his cheek. He couldn’t believe it.

“If you still love me, why didn’t you just tell me,” she said.

“I don’t know.”

And then he heard Rochelle in his head saying, “Are you lucid? Are you lucid now?” And he really wasn’t. He was completely unsure what was happening. He wondered if some residual GHB had suddenly kicked in.

“I’ve got to tell you something,” she said.

“What?”

“The last few years …”

Her voice trailed off.

“What?” he said.

“I wanted to say something but I didn’t. But the last couple of years Jamie’s been coming to see me.”

He blinked, startled. “Excuse me?”

“We have dinner sometimes. When you’re teaching that six forty-five spinning class I take him to dinner and you don’t know. I’m sorry, I should have said something. He reached out. He wanted to talk. So I agreed to meet with him.”

“What did he want to talk about?”

“Your book.”

“I didn’t say he could read that. He’s too young to read that.”

“I know. I told him that. But he already did. I think he was curious. He’d met me a few times when he was younger but said he didn’t really remember it. So I agreed to meet him. And he asked a lot of questions. About you. About us. But then he just started asking questions in general. I think he just wanted to hear a female voice. That’s what I really came here to tell you. I knew you didn’t try to kill yourself, Max.”

“You did?”

“Look, I was concerned enough to call 911. I had to do that. But it wasn’t like you. It was sloppy. You’re not a sloppy guy, Max.”

He wasn’t so sure about that. “I’m not?”

“Sure, you seem like you’re winging it a lot of the time. But when it comes to the important things you’re meticulous. You want everything to be perfect. If you wanted to kill yourself, you would have done it right. All your affairs would have been in order. Remember what you used to say, ‘If you’re going to do it, do it with conviction. Always do it with conviction.’”

“I still say that.”

“Well, this lacked conviction.”

She was right, of course.

“So what was I really up to?” he asked.

“I don’t know. Some guy feeling sorry for himself. Or being a pussy about his emotions.”

He nodded. That made sense. He squeezed her hand a little tighter.

“I’m going to go now,” she said. “But when you get through all this, I promised Jamie that the next time we go out you’d come with us.”

“That’d be good,” he said, “I lost my spinning classes, you know. I don’t know if you’ve been reading the papers about this woman who was pushed in front of that car, but she—”

“I know. She’s your client. I saw you on TV.”

“I may have gotten out over my skis a little too far. This guy that pushed her, I thought he was innocent. Now I’m not so sure. And I roped my lawyer friend into this whole thing. I’ve got to raise some money for him. We’ve got to get him a proper defense.”

“You also landed yourself in the hospital. What’d you take?”

“I’d rather not talk about it. The whole thing is embarrassing.”

Just then there was a knock at the door and his friend Bernstein came in. He looked startled. He wasn’t expecting to see Fremmer holding hands with a woman in a wheelchair, having a moment.

“Hey, you made it,” Fremmer said.

“You want me to come back in a little bit?”

“No, it’s OK,” Denise said. “I was just leaving.”

She introduced herself to Bernstein as she backed out of the room. Bernstein wasn’t much taller than Denise sitting in the chair. He was still in his scrubs, a trim forty-six-year-old who still had a full head of mainly dark hair that looked like it hadn’t been cut in a while. Fremmer knew him from his spinning class. He was a regular. They occasionally rode outside together, around the loop in Central Park or over the George Washington Bridge to New Jersey.

“I’m the ex-fiancée,” she said.

“Oh,” Bernstein said. “I have one of those. You’re a lot better looking than mine, though. Who broke it off?”

Bernstein may have been the bluntest guy Fremmer knew.

“I did,” she said.

“I thought so.”

After she’d gone, Bernstein said, “Something tells me you were engaged while her legs were working. What happened?”

“Body-surfing accident. Mexico.”

“C6?”

“Between C6 and C7,” Fremmer said.

“Bummer.”

“Yeah.”

“Was she really the one who called it off?”

Fremmer nodded. “I handled things pretty well at first. And then I didn’t. I couldn’t accept it. She eventually got tired of the act and granted me my unconditional release. Put me on waivers.”

“Mine was a banker,” he said. “Still walking and making lots of money. Didn’t like to give head. In retrospect, probably not my best life decision. Now I’m an underpaid middle-aged doctor working for sucky people at a sucky hospital trying to send three kids to private school with a wife who quit her job and stopped giving head after the kids started private school.”

“Bummer.”

“On a happier note, I do have some good news for you.”

“What’s that?”

“Your peds vs. car woke up a couple of hours ago. The attending just told me.”

“She’s awake?”

“Yeah, you wanna go see her? The daughter’s with her now. If she’s OK with it I can get you into the ICU.”

“Let’s go,” Fremmer said.

“Let me get you discharged first. You good with me telling them this was a revenge-jealousy-gay thing? That’s a language they understand. GHB and ass-fucking tend to go hand-in-hand. You throw a little homo erotica at them and everything suddenly becomes clear.”

“Whatever it takes, man. Just don’t talk that way in front of my son when he comes back.”

“I’m just kidding,” Bernstein said. “But I like your spirit. You’re hardcore, Fremmer. That’s what I like about you.”