Sandman Read online

  Kim thought: Nobody’s ever gonna want to do that stuff with me. The thought opened a hole inside her, but before she could fall in she heard her father’s voice...

  Your choice, my treat.

  She flipped onto her side, facing the wall, and pulled the comforter over her head, blocking out the sounds. In her cocoon, Kim thought about going out with her dad.

  It was a long time before she fell asleep.

  * * *

  Fifteen miles away, in the sister city of Orleans, Will Armstrong took a last look at the contents of Nina’s night table drawer and ran it closed. In spite of the air conditioning he was sweating heavily. He looked at his watch for the tenth time in as many minutes.

  Twenty minutes late.

  From outside came the crisp sound of tires crunching gravel. Will dashed to the window and saw a van pulling into a driveway across the street. An old man clutching an untrimmed terrier climbed out. Will turned from the window in a fury.

  He picked up his scotch and drained it, pacing around the room, glaring every few seconds at his watch. The buzz in his head was maddening. Where was she?

  Out for a walk with Beth, the note on the counter had said. Twins at Tommy’s. Will found it when he got back from doing his pre-op visits. Back by eight. But it was almost eight-thirty. Why couldn’t she call if she was going to be late? She could be maimed or dead in the road for all he knew.

  Or polishing some fucker’s knob. That’s what she’s doing.

  Will brought his fist down on the thick glass top of Nina’s vanity, starring it. Then he jerked open a drawer and began rummaging through it, no longer trying to keep things in order. Suddenly his wife’s orderliness stoked his rage to the point of detonation—he got a crystal image of Nina folding her lover’s pants over a chair-back before sinking to her haunches in front of him—and he started pitching things out of the drawer. He had no idea what he was looking for, all he knew was that she was hiding something.

  A jar of cold cream struck the wall and shattered, sending clots of goo everywhere. A satchel of makeup and assorted nail polishes spilled its contents onto the bed. A thick Fotomat envelope spewed prints of Nina and the twins every which way.

  Sweat stung his eyes. He grabbed an unopened package of pantyhose and the telephone rang. Breathing hard, he picked up the receiver and said hello. It was Nina.

  “Hi, it’s me. Beth and I got talking and I lost track of the time. I’m heading out now. I’ll pick up the boys on my way.”

  Will bit his lip. Wipe your chin, he wanted to tell her. Brush your teeth good. Because if I smell cum on your breath I’ll beat you to within an inch of your life.

  In the background Will heard Beth Simpson order her youngest son, Wesley, up to bed. He felt his face flush with shame.

  “Okay, sweetheart,” he said, looking at their trashed bedroom. He felt like a guilty child. “Take your time. I was just doing some laps on the Life Cycle.”

  “I wondered why you were puffing.”

  “Yeah. Gotta get rid of this spare tire.”

  Nina chuckled.

  “Hon, listen,” he said. He wanted another drink. Wanted it bad. “I’m sorry about this weekend. I’m, there’s pressure at work and, I’m sorry. I can’t believe I hit you. It’ll never happen again, I swear. Take your time coming home.”

  “We won’t be long.”

  “Okay.”

  Will hung up and got busy cleaning the room.

  Nina’s car pulled into the driveway twenty minutes later. Will was humming in the shower when she poked her head in to say hello.

  5

  “OKAY, JEN, I WANT YOU to relax...”

  Jenny closed her eyes and tried to comply, but it was damned hard to relax with your legs up in stirrups and your privates hanging out for all the world to see, never mind that ice cold speculum.

  “Jesus, Craig,” she said as the doctor inserted the instrument’s lubricated bill. “Where do you keep that thing? The freezer?”

  The obstetrician chuckled. It was a grievance he heard at least a dozen times a day. “You should see the one I use on the complainers.” He advanced the speculum slowly. “A little pressure now...”

  Jenny sucked air into her lungs, but managed to relax herself where it mattered. She’d put up with this trespass every Monday morning for the past three months, and although she understood its necessity, she loathed every jabbing moment of it. It was like being raped by a robot.

  She held her breath and waited, praying the device wouldn’t slip and harm her unborn child.

  “There,” the doctor said, withdrawing the instrument; he clunked it into a basin and the nurse whisked it away. Now he stood, smiling over the sheet across Jenny’s knees. “Everything looks fine, Jen,” he said. “Why don’t you get dressed and I’ll see you in my office.”

  “Okay,” Jenny said. She’d known Craig Walsh for years, liked and trusted him, but she still felt ashamed every time he grinned at her from between her spread legs. It was only her fear of losing this baby that made her abide it.

  The doctor went out, nurse in tow. Jenny climbed off the table, wiped away the excess lubricant with a handful of tissue and retrieved her clothes. Once dressed, she let herself into Craig’s office and sat in the chair facing his desk. She’d missed some of the lubricant with the tissue and now she could feel it oozing into the crease of her buttocks.

  “Well,” Craig said, “everything looks fine. You’ve sailed past the danger zone with room to spare. Your baby’s growing nicely and your cervix is healthy and snug.” He smiled. “So, for the time being at least, no more tests, no more embarrassing examinations. And no more worry. I want you to go home and get on with the job of being a normal mother with a normal pregnancy. Barring any problems—and I don’t foresee any—I won’t expect you back in this office until the first week of July.”

  “July...Craig, you must be joking. That’s three weeks away. I mean, what if...”

  The doctor leaned forward in his chair. “You must stop worrying, Jen. The worry will only make you ill. And if you make yourself ill, that will be bad for the baby.” He stood. “So. You’re outta here. I’ve got a waiting room full of fat scratchy women, and they’re starting to sound like a lynch mob.”

  “I can call you if anything comes up?”

  “Anytime. You know that, Jen.”

  Craig led her to his office door. Suddenly, almost desperately, Jenny clutched his arm.

  “One other thing, Craig. Can...lovemaking harm the baby?”

  “Nature has allowed for that. Now go. And stop—”

  “Worrying,” Jenny said. “Stop worrying.”

  * * *

  “Take a deep breath,” Jack said to the teenage boy on the OR table. The kid was about to have his wisdom teeth removed and he was terrified. “Slow, deep breath...”

  Jack injected a bolus of Propofol into the boy’s IV, chasing it with a measured dose of succinylcholine. The latter drug was fast-acting and would paralyze the kid’s muscles long enough for Jack to intubate him and begin to ventilate his lungs with a mixture of anesthetic gases.

  He replaced the used syringes on the drug cart and bagged the kid with oxygen for a couple of breaths. When the saturation monitor read 100%, he removed the mask and began working a foot-long, heat-softened endotracheal tube into the boy’s right nostril. The tube made a crinkling sound as it squeezed past the nasal turbinates—the sound of a potato chip bag being crumpled in the hands—then it slipped into the oral cavity. At this point Jack inserted a laryngoscope—a fiberoptic device with a curved blade which allowed him to visualize the vocal cords—and advanced the E-tube into the airway. After removing the scope, he attached the tube to the ventilator and turned on the gas. Three minutes later the oral surgeon took over.

  While Jack was doing his charting, Karli Warner, the circulating nurse from the neuro suite, came in and whispered in his ear.

  “Can I speak to you a moment, Doctor Fallon? In private?”

  “Can
it wait?”

  Karli was blushing. “It’s kind of urgent.”

  Jack sighed. He thought he knew what the trouble was. Will was in neuro today. He followed Karli to the outer corridor.

  “What is it, Karli?”

  “It’s Doctor Armstrong,” the nurse said. “Doctor Shamji’s trying to clip an aneurysm in there and Doctor Armstrong is hardly ever in the room. He’s out on the phone all the time, and a couple of minutes ago the patient lifted his arm. I turned the gas up a notch, but I’m not supposed to...”

  “I know,” Jack said. As department head it was his job to police his members. “You did the right thing coming to me. I’ll talk to him, okay?”

  “Thanks, Doctor Fallon.”

  Shaking his head, Jack returned to his room.

  * * *

  Kim sat hunched over a work table at the back of the grade nine science room. The science room itself was abandoned. It was lunch time and everyone had scattered to lounges, the cafeteria or the sunny front campus.

  Kim was alone.

  But if someone were to ask her if she felt alone, if the intrusion of such a question somehow failed to send her into a timorous silence, Kim would have replied emphatically in the negative. She was not alone, nor did she feel that way. She had her sketch pad and her pencils, and the marvel she’d waited three long weeks to witness was about to unfold inside the Mason jar on the desk in front of her. The cocoon was about to open, and Kim meant to capture each stage of the process on paper. The transforming pupa had been active for days now, brisk, fitful spasms that made her wonder if the strange creature dreamed, and she’d lived with the nettling fear that she’d miss the moment when it came.

  But here it was, about to happen.

  She aimed an extension lamp at the jar’s interior, angling the beam so the quivering cocoon was partially transilluminated. If she concentrated, she could just make out the moth’s tiny mouth parts furiously laboring, gnawing at the fragile walls that had both sheltered and concealed it from inquiring eyes.

  Now a spiky black foreleg poked free and swept the air, as if scenting it for danger. Kim gasped softly. The secret lives of the Order Lepidoptera had been her quiet passion since the age of eight, when she first plucked a pupal carapace off a branch and felt it wriggle with life against her palm. Fascinated by the torpedo-shaped object, she stuffed it into her pocket and later, placed it on the windowsill in her bedroom at home. When she awoke the next morning the cocoon was empty and a gorgeous swallowtail butterfly was perched beside it in the sunlight, drying its untried wings. Kim began her studies then, with a thin Golden Guide book called Butterflies and Moths, and the fascination never ended. A repulsive, segmented larva weaving a magical shawl, then slipping into an enchanted sleep of change...

  Sometimes, in the dark of her bedroom when sleep refused to come, Kim cocooned herself in her comforter, head and all, and if she focused her mind, really concentrated, a dream would come. In the dream she stood naked before a faded mirror, stooped with disgust at the short, lumpy mass of herself; the bloated fruit of her breasts; the dimpled thickness of her thighs; the grotesque black bush of her pubis...

  Then she was falling, and there was a scent of dead leaves and creeping moss, damp shadows and slithering things, and she was in a real cocoon, sleepy, oh, so gloriously sleepy, and hands were moving over the bulge of her body, potter’s hands, awakening sweet passions, bringing hot thrills and slick wetness but also shaping, molding, changing.

  She knew the mystery then. She was the mystery...

  The insect’s head popped free, it’s antennae droopy with moisture. Kim selected an HB pencil and bent over her pad. She would do the finished works later. For now quick sketches would have to suffice. Of all the specimens she’d collected and drawn over the years, this would be her masterwork. It was a Luna moth, an elegant green giant reaching lengths of up to five inches and sporting impressive, out-sweeping tail fins.

  The proboscis appeared, coiled and faintly pulsing, then the first few millimeters of bristled thorax—

  “There you are.”

  Kim spun in her seat and saw Tracy Goodman standing right behind her. Blushing furiously, Kim closed her sketch book and switched off the extension lamp.

  I’ve been, like, looking all over for you,” Tracy said. She peered over Kim’s shoulder at the Mason jar, saying, “Whatcha got in the jam jar? Oh, gag. A bug.”

  “It’s not a bug. It’s—”

  “A bug, Fallon.” Tracy planted a ring-infested fist on one hip, a dozen neon-colored bracelets chattering on her wrist. “Now c’mon,” she said, the wad of gum in her mouth snapping under the vigorous assault of her perfect white teeth. “We’ve got things to do.” She flashed a “get over it” look at Kim and then just stood there, waiting.

  Kim felt her heart sink. She looked at the Mason jar and saw that her exquisite green moth had almost got its thorax free. What she really wanted was to tell Tracy to leave her alone. But without Tracy, she really was alone. And there were other urges stirring inside her, strange, unsettling urges. And some nameless instinct told her Tracy might be her only key to their gratification.

  With a last glance at the Mason jar, Kim stuffed her things into her tote bag and followed Tracy outside.

  * * *

  With an hour to spare until her lunch date with Nina, Jenny decided to drop in on Paul Daw. His office was in the same building as Craig’s, and he usually spent Monday mornings catching up on his charts. His secretary told Jenny to just go ahead in.

  Paul was seated at his desk with his back to the door, facing the single tall window that overlooked Bank Street, three stories below. He was on the phone, his tone sharp, and Jenny was sure he hadn’t heard her come in.

  “Chris, I’ve told you why I can’t let you move in. My mother would never understand. Why do you insist on—”

  Jenny cleared her throat and Paul spun in his chair. It was the first time Jenny had ever seen anger in her old friend’s eyes, even the startled kind, and she felt her simple desire to see him wither into embarrassment. Paul’s face was beet red. Absurdly, Jenny was reminded of a time as a girl when she walked into a bedroom in her Aunt Frannie’s house and caught her cousin Nelson masturbating over a Playboy centerfold.

  Without addressing her, Paul turned his chair back to the window and spoke in hushed tones. Jenny caught only fragments.

  “...talk to you tonight...can’t right now...don’t push it, Chris, okay...love you, too...”

  Paul hung up and turned to face her, a big bogus grin on his face. And although Jenny had no idea why, she felt a sudden pity for him. She’d always suspected, and this accidental trespass only reinforced the notion, that Paul functioned under some burden of guilt or shame. She’d never asked him about it because their relationship, their intimate exchanges, had always flowed in the opposite direction, from Jenny to Paul. It struck her now how very little she knew about the man. She’d always taken it for granted that Paul was straight and well adjusted and that whatever he was hiding—if anything—was none of her business anyway.

  She wished she’d exercised the simple courtesy of knocking before waltzing in where she wasn’t wanted.

  “Paul, I’m sorry...”

  “Nonsense,” Paul said, getting to his feet. “Come in. Take a load off. You startled me is all.” He looked at the phone. “That was just...a friend. No big deal.”

  Jenny sat in the comfy leather chair Paul used for his patients. The action seemed to ease him and he sat across from her, assuming his accustomed posture, arms crossed, head cocked, lips thoughtfully pursed. The attentive therapist.

  “So,” he said. “To what do I owe the honor?”

  Jenny wanted to take up the pretense of normalcy, but the way he’d looked at her just then...

  She said, “I feel so bad about just barging in like that. Is everything all right?”

  “Everything’s fine, Jen. Actually, I should thank you. You saved me from a row with a pushy female.”
/>   Did I? Jenny thought. But she decided to let it go.

  Smiling, she said, “When are you gonna let one of these ‘pushy females’ net you?” She patted her belly. “Get one of ’em knocked up and settle down once and for all?”

  Paul said, “When hell freezes over,” his smile more genuine now. “When the sun sets in the east and God renews Satan’s pass at the Pearly Gates. Coffee?”

  “Got any lemonade?”

  Paul came around the desk and offered Jenny his hand. “Follow me,” he said. “I’ve got just the thing.”

  Relieved to have that pocket of tension closed, Jenny cheerfully complied.

  * * *

  “When did you build this little nest?”

  They were on the roof of the Doctors’ Building, Jenny gazing at the distant green spine of the Gatineau Hills, Paul serving iced tea from a Coleman thermos. There was some inexpensive patio furniture up here—a circular table with a gaudy parasol and two plastic chairs—and Jenny sat in one of the chairs, tilting her face into the mild breeze that was working at this altitude. It was going to be another hot, muggy day in the nation’s capitol.

  “I got the idea about a month ago,” Paul said. He handed her a glass of tea. “I bring some of my more difficult patients up here. The casual setting helps open them up.” He grinned. “And I can ignore them better up here.” He sat across from her and took a sip of his drink. He was a tall, slender man of thirty-eight with fine, almost effeminate features. “So, what brings you to this neck of the woods?”

  “I had to see Craig. And I want to kill him. He’s cut me off until July, if you can believe that.”

  Paul shrugged. “Probably doesn’t want you worrying.”