“Janice and I met at a fund-raiser for the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture eight years ago,” he said. His tone was tender, almost reverent, whenever he spoke her name. “From the moment I saw her I knew she was the woman I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. Love at first sight... I’d always considered it a ridiculous concept. But it isn’t, it really isn’t.”
I remembered my reaction to Kerry the first night we’d met. “I know.”
“We were married after three months. The first year... I can’t describe how wonderful it was. Janice was working at the Salishan Gallery when we met, but of course there was no need for that after our marriage. She’d always wanted to be an artist, had done some oil and acrylic painting in her spare time. With my support she was able to paint full time. She is, or was, quite good. A very distinctive style and vision. She had two showings while we were together, the second at the Salishan. I think if she hadn’t gone off the beam, she would’ve honed and refined her talent. Become quite successful in her own right.”
“How do you mean, ‘gone off the beam’?”
“Drugs,” Erskine said sadly. “Curse of our times.”
“Hard drugs?”
“Cocaine. It started after Thomas was born... our son, Tommy. She had a very difficult, very painful pregnancy. Tommy was born Caesarean and there were complications. She couldn’t have another child. The combination of that and the pain... I suppose that’s why she turned to drugs. She seemed to stop caring. Not that she stopped loving Tommy or me, at least not at first. It was a loss of passion, of zest, rather than of love.”
“Her zest for everything, including her painting?”
“Yes. After I found out about the drugs... she never completed another canvas, as far as I know.”
“When was that? That you found out?”
“Tommy was about a year old. I knew something was seriously wrong, but drugs... well, that never occurred to me. She’d never used them before. And she was careful to hide her addiction from me and our friends.”
“How did you discover it?”
“By accident. A packet of cocaine hidden in her studio. I was looking at some of her older canvases, admiring them, and there it was. I confronted her and she admitted she was hooked.”
“And then?”
“I convinced her to enter a rehab center,” Erskine said. “She was there six weeks, but it did no good. She was using cocaine again a week after her release and she no longer bothered to hide the fact. She went downhill rapidly. Neglected Tommy. Began staying out half the night. Then she disappeared for three days. I was frantic, I thought something had happened to her. When she finally did come home... well, she’d been in Taos with a man, another addict. No shame or remorse when she confessed it to me. That was the final straw. I couldn’t keep on forgiving her, watching her destroy herself, colluding in her destruction. For Tommy’s sake I filed for divorce.”
“How did she take it?”
“She didn’t seem to care. Didn’t contest it or my claim for custody of the boy. Drugs and money were all that seemed to matter to her by then. After she moved out of our home she lived in an apartment downtown, near the Plaza. Then, three months later, she disappeared completely.”
“Before the divorce was final?”
“Yes. She already had the settlement we’d agreed on.”
“You let her have it early? The entire amount?”
“She insisted on it and I was afraid not to comply. Afraid she’d do something crazy. I couldn’t stand to see her suffer, even then. In spite of everything, I loved her. Even now, after three years, I still love her. I know that sounds foolish—”
“No, Mr. Erskine. Love is pretty hard to kill sometimes.”
“Yes. Yes, it is.”
“How long had she had the settlement when she disappeared?”
“Nearly three months. I gave her the money when the papers were filed.”
“Then what prompted her to leave Santa Fe so suddenly?”
“I don’t know. There was no reason I could find.”
“Just there one day, gone the next?”
“That’s right.”
“Cleaned out her apartment or were her belongings still there?”
“She took some things with her. Not everything.”
“Any idea where she went?”
“To Albuquerque. From there... no.”
“How do you know she went to Albuquerque?”
“I hired a private detective to look for her. I couldn’t bear not knowing if she was all right. He traced her to Albuquerque but lost the trail there.”
“Did she contact you at any time after that?”
“No. Not a word in three years.”
“Your son? A birthday card or present?”
“Nothing,” Erskine said. “I kept hoping. Trying to make myself believe she’d find a way off drugs, turn her life around, and then... if not come back to Tommy and me, at least let me know she was all right. After a year or so... I thought she must be dead. An overdose or something like that.”
“But now you think she’s alive.”
“I don’t think it, I know it. Alive and recovering.”
“What changed your mind?”
“A postcard. A blessed postcard.”
“Sent to you or someone you know?”
“An old friend of Janice’s in Santa Fe. She received it two days ago.”
“Written by your ex-wife?”
“Yes. And postmarked San Francisco.”
“Arrived out of the blue?”
“That’s right.”
“Saying what?”
“I can quote the message verbatim,” he said. “ ‘I’ll bet you thought you’d never hear from me again. Tell Ira and Tommy I still love them. Tell them I’m okay now and sorry for all the pain I’ve caused them.’ ”
“That’s all? No indication of where she might be living?”
“No. It could be anywhere in this area.”
“Unless she mailed the card en route to somewhere else.”
“No,” he said, “no, she’s here in northern California. I know it. I can feel it.”
“Why do you suppose she sent the card to the woman friend and not to you?”
“I don’t know. Guilt, maybe.”
“She could be gearing up to send you one, too.”
“It’s possible, but I can’t just wait and do nothing.”
“Are you sure the handwriting on the card is hers?”
“No doubt of it. Janice wrote it, and thank God she did. It couldn’t have come at a more necessary time.”
“Necessary, Mr. Erskine?”
“Because of Tommy. That’s why I’m so desperate to find her, as fast as humanly possible. Because of our son.”
“I don’t understand. Is something wrong with the boy?”
The radiant pain in Erskine’s eyes was so intense I had to look away from it. “He has leukemia. The doctors... they give him no more than a few months to live.”
There is nothing you can say to a statement like that that doesn’t sound lame or inadequate. A simple “I’m sorry” comes closest to being adequate, so I said the words and then we both sat there in heavy silence and waited for enough time to pass so we could get on with the interview. Across the office Tamara was very busy at her Apple PowerBook, pretending not to listen. Ms. Corbin, I thought, I ought to kick you in the pants for letting me get hammered like this.
Erskine finally broke the silence. “They told me a little over a week ago. The boy’d been ill... they gave him a battery of tests... there’s nothing they can do. Janice is his mother, she has a right to know. To see him, be with him before it’s over. Even as terrible a mother as she’s been, I couldn’t deny her that right even if I wanted to. And I don’t want to.”
Nothing much you can say to that either. I kept my mouth shut.
“Funny, isn’t it?” Erskine said, but he was talking to himself, not to me. “The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. I’m going to lose Tommy, but maybe...”