I was going home.
My head found my pillow a few minutes after two o’clock. But I couldn’t sleep. The night’s events felt unreal, my subconscious rendering them into the hazy stuff of dreams. I didn’t think I had slept at all when I looked up and saw the clock at four-forty-two. At five to five I crawled out of bed, took a shower, dressed, and headed to Denver before rush hour.
I had my own notifying to do.
The adolescent psychiatry unit at The Children’s Hospital was still. The kids were all asleep, and the night shift was putting finishing touches on the kids’ charts, looking forward to going home. My arrival surprised everyone. The nursing staff wasn’t accustomed to doctors showing up before dawn for psychotherapy sessions, especially on weekends.
After I explained the circumstances, they handled my request to awaken Merritt with aplomb and informed me that Merritt had not started speaking with any staff members.
Generally, adults awaken looking like leftovers. Kids awaken looking soft and tousled and unkempt. And Merritt was still a kid. Her skin was puffy and pink and she held her hair back from her face with one hand. She examined me with a combination of vigilance and fire in her sleepy eyes. Defiantly, she said, “Is Chaney okay? Is this about my sister?”
“I’m not aware of any change in Chaney’s condition, Merritt. I’m here about something else. Please sit.”
She did.
“There’s no easy way to tell you this, but-”
“Are my parents okay?”
“As far as I know, yes.” With a cushion in my voice, I added, “Please, may I go on?”
She nodded.
“Merritt, I’m afraid your friend Madison is dead.”
Merritt released so much air from her lungs that I expected her to collapse in on herself and implode, like a punctured balloon. I waited for the inhale. The delay was inexorable and when she finally breathed, she gulped at the air, swallowing hungrily.
“Are you sure? What happened?”
I searched for a euphemism. I didn’t find one. “She was murdered. Sometime yesterday, probably. The police aren’t sure yet.”
“Was it Brad?” No hesitation.
“We need to make some decisions about the ground rules, Merritt. I need the freedom to let the treatment team know what we talk about here.”
She looked injured, mumbled, “God.”
“It’s essential, Merritt.”
“Not my parents? You won’t tell them?”
“No, I don’t need to tell them.”
“Not the police?”
“No, certainly not the police. Not unless it’s about child abuse or hurting someone.”
She stretched her neck back and tried to tame her unruly hair. “I think…I’m about to trust you. Do you deserve it?”
“I hope so.”
“Okay. You can tell the treatment team what we talk about if you also tell them not to tell anybody else. That’s important. And you can tell the lawyer, Mr. Maitlin, too. Now you tell me, was it Brad?”
“It may have been. She was with him.”
“Did he beat her again?”
“Has he beaten her before?”
“He’s hit her before. He has a temper. Did he beat her?”
I thought about the bloody trail and Madison’s pitifully crumpled body. I said, “Someone may have.”
“He beat her to death?”
“No, she wasn’t beaten to death.”
“How did she die?”
“She was shot.”
“Did you see her?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“In the mountains. Near Steamboat Springs.”
“No, no. Where was she shot? Where on her body?”
“She was shot a number of times, Merritt. Different places.”
“Was it really awful? Like…Dr. Robilio?”
“I didn’t see him. What happened with Madison wasn’t pretty, Merritt. I don’t think she suffered, though.” I had no idea whether or not Madison had suffered. But I desperately wanted to put a Band-Aid on Merritt’s hurt.
“She’s so stupid. I told her not to stay with him. He’s, he’s trouble. He’s…”
“What?”
“He scares me, okay? I told her not to tell him. He’s such a jerk.”
“Tell him what?”
She looked at me with total concentration. I knew we had reached the edge of the frontier. She had to decide whether to guide me through it.
She hesitated, hugged herself, and said, “It’s about Chaney.”
Twenty-nine
“It’s about Chaney?”
When she answered me, Merritt’s voice was low, tentative, as though she were speaking to herself. She said, “Yes. Everything is about Chaney.”
With another agenda in different circumstances the therapist in me could have mined the sibling issues in those words for a mother lode. But my agenda this day insisted that I dig differently, cautiously. So I waited.
A minute or so later, Merritt said, “I hate it when Trent does that.”
“Does what?”
“The silent thing. Waiting for me to talk. To say something stupid.”
I said, “You think I’m waiting for you to say something stupid?”
She slapped her open hand against the knee of her sweatpants and yelled, “Don’t! Damn it, don’t! This is too important for your games. Jesus. I thought you knew that. Don’t you see what’s going on?” And she started to cry.
I felt as though I’d been slapped across the face. I said, “I’m sorry.” And I was.
“I don’t want her to die.”
“I know you don’t.”
“Everything I did, I did because I don’t want her to die. You have to believe that.”
“I do. I believe that.”
She looked at me. She said, “I have to pee.”
I almost smiled. In the same situation, an adult would have held it in. I said, “After you do, we’ll continue?”
“Yes.”
“Let’s go find a nurse.”
Peeing took a long time. Merritt returned in her familiar leggings and T-shirt, with heavy socks on her feet. This T-shirt was inscribed HICK. Her T-shirts were like hieroglyphics to me. Her face was washed, her hair combed and down. She ran her tongue across the front of what I guessed were freshly brushed teeth.
She said, “I feel better.”
I said, “Good.”
“I promised I’d never tell anyone this story.”
“I’m sure it’s hard.”
“But Madison’s dead now, so…” Her face tightened and she fought tears.
“The promise was with her?”
She nodded. “You really won’t tell?”
“No.”
“What I did was Madison’s idea. Don’t blame her for everything. It wasn’t her fault. It was my fault. Blame me for what happened. But it was her idea.”
She paused for a moment as I considered why it was so important to her that I believe that Madison had been the instigator of whatever had transpired. Merritt seemed to soften as I sat with her. Intuitively, I guessed that she was trying to determine if I was planning to permit her to tell this story her way. I forced my face to remain fifty times more impassive than I felt.
“Trent knew where he lived. Dr. Robilio. I’d heard my mom and him talking about Dr. Robilio. They said that there were two people who could give Chaney the procedure she needs. One was the insurance guy, the head of the board that decides who gets what. And he had already turned us down. The other was Dr. Robilio. He could give Chaney the procedure if he wanted. If he said okay, then Chaney could go to Washington and get those drugs and get the transplant.
“I followed my dad there a couple of times. To his house, Dr. Robilio’s house. Madison helped me tail him. She’s older than me. She can drive. She’d get her mom’s car. And we would sit and wait a block away while my dad just sat and waited outside Dr. Robilio’s house.
“One day, Trent finally talked to him. I couldn’t see them the whole time, but I think they went in the house. I was so excited. I couldn’t imagine anyone would turn us down. Trent just had to make him see that it was a choice between money and Chaney. I thought we’d won for sure.