A Soft Barren Aftershock

  I’d followed her back to her motel, waited while she took a quick shower, then brought her here to Cajun Heat, my favorite restaurant. She’d seemed pretty down when we were seated, but a couple of Red Stripes and an appetizer of steamed spiced shrimp had perked her up some.

  “That one was an accident,” she said. “I was visiting my sister in West Texas last year. She and her husband and I had been fishing on White River Lake when it started to get stormy. We came ashore and I was standing on the dock, helping unload the boat. It hadn’t even started raining yet, but somehow I took a direct hit.” She rubbed the scar. “I had a fishing rod in my hand, my palm against the reel. That’s all I remember. Karen and Bill were knocked off their feet but they told me later they saw me fly twenty feet through the air. I broke my forearm when I landed. My heart had stopped. They had to give me CPR.”

  “You were lucky.”

  “Yeah, maybe.” She stared at her palm with a rueful smile. Her wet hair was pulled back and fastened with an elastic band, making her look younger than her thirty-eight years. “Karen still jokes about how she thinks Bill was maybe a little too enthusiastic with the mouth-to-mouth.”

  I said, “So the first strike was accidental. After what I saw today, I gather the next seven were anything but. Dare I ask why?”

  Kim continued staring at her palm. “You already think I’m nuts. I don’t want you thinking I’m a complete psycho.”

  “Try me.”

  “Hmm?” She glanced up. “Sorry. I’m a little hard of hearing, especially when there’s background noise.”

  “I said, Try me.”

  She looked me in the eye, then let out a deep sigh. “Immediately after that first strike, I saw my son Timmy. I could see the lake and the dock and the boat, but they were faint and ghostly. I was standing right where I’d been when I got hit, but I could see my body sprawled behind me. Karen and Bill were running toward it, but slowly, like they were swimming through molasses, and they too looked faint, translucent. Timmy, though—he looked perfectly real and solid, but he was far away, hovering over the water, waving to me. He looked healthy, like he’d never been sick, but he was so far. He kept beckoning me closer but I couldn’t move. Then he faded away.”

  The pieces fell into place, and there it was, staring me in the face. Somehow I’d sensed it. Now I knew.

  “When did he die?”

  She blinked in surprise, then looked away. “Almost three years ago.” Her eyes brimmed with tears but none spilled over. “Two years, eleven months, two weeks, and three days, to be exact.”

  “You had a very vivid hallucin—”

  “No,” she said firmly, shaking her head. “He was there. You can’t appreciate how real he was if you didn’t see him. I’m a hardheaded realist, Doctor Glyer, and—”

  “Call me Joe.”

  “Okay. Fine. But let’s get something straight, Doctor Joe. I’m no New-Agey hollow-head into touchy-feely spirituality. I was an investment banker, and a damn good one—Wharton MBA, Salomon Brothers, the whole nine yards. I dealt with the reality of cold hard cash and down-and-dirty bottom lines every day. As far as the afterlife was concerned, I was right up there with the big-time skeptics. To me, life began when you were born, you lived out your years, then you died. That was it. Game over, no replay. But not anymore. This is real. I don’t know what happened, or how it happened, but for an all-too-brief time after that lightning strike, I saw Timmy, and he saw me, and that changed everything.” She closed her eyes. “I thought I was getting over losing him, but . . .”

  No, I thought as her voice trailed off. You never get over it.

  But I said nothing.

  “Anyway, at first I tried to duplicate the effect by shocking myself with my house current, but that didn’t work. I concluded I’d need the millions of volts only lightning can provide to see. So I went back to Texas and hung around that dock during half a dozen storms but I couldn’t buy another hit.”

  “Are you trying to die? Is that it?”

  She tossed me a withering look. “I have a Ruger nine-millimeter automatic back at my motel room. When I want to die, I’ll use that. I am not suicidal.”

  “Then what else do you call flirting with death like you did today? And you’ve been hit eight times? The fact that you’re still alive is amazing—you’ve had a fantastic run of luck, but you’ve got to know that sooner or later it’s going to run out.”

  The waitress arrived then and we dropped into silence as she set steaming plates of jambalaya before us.

  “You don’t know much about lightning, do you,” Kim said when we were alone again.

  “I’ve treated my share of—”

  “But do you know that it’s usually not fatal, that better than nine out of ten victims survive?”

  Truthfully, I hadn’t known the survival rate was that high. “Well, you’re closing in on number ten.”

  She shrugged. “Just a number. The first shock on that dock in Texas should have killed me. The usual bolt carries a current of ten thousand amps at a hundred million volts. Makes the electric chair look like a triple-A battery. Of course the charge only lasts a tiny fraction of a second, but that first one was enough to put me into cardiac arrest. If Karen and Bill hadn’t known CPR, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

  She dug into her jambalaya and chewed for a few seconds.

  “Good, isn’t it,” I said.

  She nodded. “Delicious.”

  But she said it with no great conviction, and I got the feeling that eating was something Kim McCormick did simply to keep from feeling hungry.

  “But where was I? Oh, yes. After failing to get hit a second time in Texas, I started studying up on lightning. We still don’t understand it completely, but what we do know is fascinating. Do you realize that worldwide, every second of every minute of every day there are almost a thousand lightning flashes? Most are cloud to cloud or cloud to air. Only fifteen percent hit the ground. Those are the ones I’m interested in.”

  This was the most animated I’d seen her. I leaned across the table, drawn by her enthusiasm.

  “But you’re from Jersey. You were first struck in Texas. What are you doing here?”

  “It’s where the lightning is. The National Weather service keeps track of lightning—something called flash density ratings. According to their records, Central Florida is the lightning capital of the country, maybe the world. You’ve got this broad strip of hot, low-lying land between two huge, cooler bodies of water. Take atmospheric instability due to wide temperature gradients, add tons of moisture, and voilà—thunderstorm alley.”

  “Seems you’ve been pretty successful around here—if you can call getting hit by lightning success.”

  She smiled. “I do. I started up around the Orlando area because of all the lakes. Being out in a boat during a storm is the best way to get hit, but I started thinking it was too risky, too easy to get knocked overboard and drown. Or take a direct hit from a positive giant.”

  “A what?”

  “A positive giant. They originate at the very top of the storm cell, maybe fifty thousand feet up, and they can strike thirty miles ahead of the storm. You’ve heard of people getting struck down by a so-called ‘bolt from the blue’? That’s a positive giant. I don’t want to get hit by one of those because they’re so much more powerful than a regular bolt. Almost always fatal.” She pointed her fork at me. “See? Told you I’m not suicidal.”

  “I believe you, I believe you.”

  “Good. Anyway, I settled on golf courses as my best bet. The landscapers take down a lot of the little trees but tend to leave the really big ones between the fairways.” She showed me a pink, half-dollar-size scar on her right elbow. “That’s an exit burn from the strike at Ventura Country Club.” She parted her hair to reveal a quarter-size scar on her right parietal scalp. “This one’s an entry at Hunter’s Creek Golf Club. I could show you more, but not in public. I’ve got other scars you can’t see. Like a mild seizure di
sorder, for instance—I take Dilantin for that. And I’ve lost some of my hearing.”

  I was losing my appetite. This poor, deranged woman. “And did you see . . .?”

  “Timmy?” She smiled. Her eyes fairly glowed. “Yes. Every single time.”

  Kim McCormick was delusional. Had to be. And yet she was so convincing. But then that’s the power of a delusion.

  But what if it wasn’t a delusion? What if she really . . .?

  I couldn’t let myself go there.

  “One of these times . . .”

  “You’re right, I suppose. And I’m prepared for it. I’ve got a solid will: How I’m to be cremated, where my ashes will go, and a list of all the charities that’ll share my assets. But I stack the deck in my favor when I go out. That’s why I get under a tree. Odds are against taking a direct hit that way. You get a secondary jolt—a flash that jumps from the primary strike point—and so far that’s worked just fine for my purposes. Plus I keep low to the ground to reduce my chance of being thrown too far.”

  “But why do you undress?”

  “I figure wet skin attracts a charge better than wet fabric.”

  I shook my head. “How long are you going to keep this up?”

  “Until I get closer to him. He seems nearer here than he was in Texas, but he’s still too far away.”

  “Too far for what?”

  “I need to see his eyes, hear his voice, read his lips.”

  “Why? What are you looking for?”

  A lost look tinged with terrible sorrow fluttered across her features. Her voice was barely audible. “Forgiveness.”

  I stared at her.

  “Don’t ask,” she whispered before I could speak. “Subject closed.” She shook herself and gave me a forced smile. “Let’s talk about something else. Anything but the weather.”

  I stand alone on a rotted wharf, engulfed in fog. The stagnant pond before me carries a vaguely septic stench. No sound, no movement. I wait. Soon I hear the creak of wood, the gentle lap of a polished hull gliding through still water. A dark shape appears, with the distinctive curved bow of a gondola. It noses toward me through the fog, but as it nears I notice something unusual about the hull. It’s classic glossy black, like all gondolas, but the seating area is closed over. I realize with a start that the hull is a coffin . . . a child’s coffin . . . and bright red blood is oozing from under the lid. I shout to the gondolier. He’s gaunt, the traditional striped shirt hanging loose on his bony frame. His face is hidden by his broad straw hat until he lifts his head and stares at me. I scream when I see the scar running across his left eye. He grins and begins poling his floating sarcophagus away, back into the fog. I jump into the foul water and swim after him, stroking frantically as I try to catch up. But the gondola is too fast and the fog swallows it again, leaving me alone and lost in the water. I swim in circles, my arms growing weaker and weaker . . . finally they refuse to respond, dangling limply at my sides as I slip beneath the surface . . . water rushes into my nose and throat, choking me . . .

  I awoke gagging and shaking, dangling half on, half off my bed. It took me a long time to shake off the aftereffects of the nightmare. I hadn’t had one like that in years. I knew why it had returned tonight: my afternoon with Kim McCormick.

  Over the next few days I realized that Kim had invaded my life. I kept thinking of her alone in that motel room, eating fast food, her eyes glued to the Weather Channel as she tracked the next storm, planned her next brush with death. The image haunted me at night, followed me through the day. I found myself keeping the Weather Channel on at home, and ducking off to check it out on the doctors lounge TV whenever I had a spare moment.

  I guess my preoccupation became noticeable because Jay Ravener, head of the emergency department, pulled me aside and asked me if anything was wrong. Jay could never understand why a board-certified cardiologist like myself wanted to work as an emergency room doc. He was delighted to have access to someone with my training, but he was always telling me how much more money I could make as a staff cardiologist. Today, though, he was talking about enthusiasm, giving me a pep talk about how we were a team, and we all had to be players. He went on about how I hardly speak to anyone on good days, and lately I’d barely been here.

  Probably true. No, undoubtedly true. I don’t particularly care for anyone on the staff, or in the whole damn state, for that matter. I don’t care to make chitchat. I come in, do my job—damn efficiently, too—and then I go home. I live alone. I read, watch TV, videos, go to the movies—all alone. I prefer it that way.

  I know I’m depressed. But imagine what I’d be like without the forty milligrams of Prozac I take every day. I wasn’t always this way, but it’s my current reality, and that’s how I choose to deal with it.

  Fuck you, Jay.

  I said none of this, however. I merely nodded and made concurring noises, then let Jay move on, satisfied that he’d done his duty.

  But the episode made me realize that Kim McCormick had upset the delicate equilibrium I’d established, and I’d have to do something about her.

  Just as she had researched lightning, I decided to research Kim McCormick.

  Her driver’s license had listed a Princeton address. I began calling the New Jersey medical centers in her area, looking for a patient named Timothy McCormick. When I struck out there, I moved to Philadelphia. I hit pay dirt at CHOP—Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

  Being a doctor made it possible. Physicians and medical records departments are pretty tight-lipped about patient information when it comes to lawyers, insurance companies, even relatives. But when it’s one doctor to another . . .

  I asked Timothy McCormick’s attending to call me about him. After having me paged through the hospital switchboard, Richard Andrews, M.D., pediatric oncologist, knew he was talking to a fellow physician, and was ready to open up. I told him I was treating Kim McCormick for depression that I knew stemmed from the death of her child, but she would give me no details. Could he help?

  “I remember it like it was yesterday,” he told me in a staccato rattle. “Sad case. Osteosarcoma, started in his right femur. Pretty well advanced, mets to the lung and beyond by the time it was diagnosed. He deteriorated rapidly but we managed to stabilize him. Even though he was on respiratory assist, his mother wanted him home, in his own room. She was loaded and equipped a mini-intensive care unit at home with around-the-clock skilled nursing. What could we say? We let her take him.”

  “And he died there, I gather?”

  “Yeah. We thought we had all the bases covered. One thing we didn’t foresee was a power failure. Hospitals have backup generators, her house didn’t.”

  I closed my eyes and suppressed a groan. I didn’t have to imagine what awful moments those must have been, the horror of utter helplessness, of watching her child die before her eyes and not being able to do a thing about it. And the guilt afterward . . . oh, lord, the crushing weight of self-doubt and self-damnation would be enough to make anyone delusional.

  I thanked Dr. Andrews, told him what a great help he’d been, and struggled through the late shift. Usually I can grab a nap after two a.m. Not this time. I sat up, staring at the Weather Channel, watching with growing unease as the radar tracked a violent storm moving this way from Tampa.

  I called Kim McCormick’s motel room but she didn’t answer. Did she guess it was me and knew I’d try to convince her to stay in? Or was she already out?

  As the clock crawled toward six a.m. I stood with keys in hand inside the glass door to the doctor’s parking lot and watched the western sky come alive with lightning, felt the door shiver in resonance with the growing thunder. So much lightning and it was still miles off. If Kim was out there . . .

  If? Who was I kidding? Of course she was out there. And I couldn’t leave until my relief arrived. I prayed he’d show up early, but if anything, the storm would delay him.

  Jerry Ross arrived at 6:05, just ahead of a pair of ambulances, and I dashed for my
car. The storm was hitting its stride as I raced along 98. I turned onto what I thought was the right road, fishtailing as I gunned along, searching for that Nelson pine. I almost missed it in the downpour, and damn near ditched the car as I slammed on the brakes when I spotted it. I reversed to the access road and kicked up wet gravel as I headed for the tree.

  The sight of her Mercedes offered some relief, and I let out a deep breath when I spotted the pale form huddled against the trunk. I barely knew this strange, troubled woman, and yet somehow she’d become very important to me.

  I skidded to a stop and ran up the rise to where she sat, looking like a drowned rat. Halfway there the air around me flashed noon bright and the immediate crash of thunder nearly knocked me off my feet, but Kim remained unscathed.

  “Not again!” she cried, not bothering to cover her breasts this time. She waved me off. “Get out of here!”

  “You can’t keep doing this!”

  I dropped to my knees beside her and tried not to stare. I couldn’t help but notice that they were very nice breasts, not too big, not too little, just right, with deep brown nipples, jutting in the chill rain.

  “I can do anything I damn well please! Now go away!”

  I’d been here only seconds but already my clothes were soaked through. I leaned closer, shouting over the deafening thunder.

  “I know what happened—about Timmy, bringing him home, the power failure. But you can’t go on punishing yourself.”

  She gave me a cold blue stare. “How do you—?”

  “Doesn’t matter. I just know. Tell me—was there a storm when the power went off?”

  She nodded, still staring. The red blinker on her lightning detector was going berserk.

  “Don’t you see how it’s all tied together? It’s guilt and obsession. You need medication, Kim. I can help.”

  “I’ve been on medication. Prozac, Paxil, Zoloft, Effexor, Tofranil, you name it. Nothing worked. I’m not imagining this, Doctor. Timmy is there. I can feel him.”

  “Because you want him there!”