Could I Have This Dance? (59 page)

In fifteen minutes, she lugged the suitcase to the doorway and prepared for bed. It was there, in her protective cocoon of blankets, that she allowed herself to cry tears for a brother she’d never see again.

Why did he have to die that way?

Could he have taken his own life?

Were the marks on the highway evidence that Clay tried to stop? Then why did Brett think that Clay hadn’t braked at all?

If it was suicide, why would he have braked so hard before going off the road?

And if it was an accident, why there? Why on a straight road?

If he fell asleep, did he wake up just before going off the road?

Claire’s anxious thoughts mixed with her tears in a muddy conundrum, robbing her of sleep and gnawing at the lining of her stomach. Eventually, in the cool, still hours of the morning, she slept.

And dreamed of wings to fly away.

Chapter Forty-Two

B
ack in Stoney Creek, Claire found herself caught in a whirlwind of gossip over just what had happened to Clay McCall. It seemed everyone buzzed with their own theories about Clay’s sudden death. The rumors, good and bad, had filtered their way back to Claire, making her stomach churn.

Ralph Knitter at the café offered his opinion to the mayor, who shared it with the mail carrier, who shared it with Kyle, Margo’s husband. He told Margo and Claire the night before the funeral. “Everyone says it’s the curse. Pure and simple. Suicide is sure proof.”

Grandma McCall hushed the rumors but started others of her own. “The boy was in trouble. Someone wanted him dead.”

The idea troubled Claire, but not because she believed her grandmother. Secretly, Claire couldn’t expel the thought that she had been the target, and that Roger Jones was trying to get to her, and Clay had gotten in the way. The obsession stuck in her gut until the morning of the funeral when she slipped from the crowded living room at her grandmother Elizabeth’s, where her family and close friends had gathered in preparation for the funeral that afternoon. She edged back the paneled hallway into her grandmother’s bedroom, where she placed a long-distance call to Tom Beckler, a detective for the Lafayette PD. She spilled her theory, telling him about the tire marks, her cell phone, and being chased by Roger Jones earlier in the evening of her brother’s death.

The detective seemed nonplused. “Thanks for sharing your concerns, Dr. McCall. I’ll look into it.”

“I want to know what you find out.” She gave him her cell phone number and asked him to call.

“Look, we’ve already had a mechanic look at the car. We pulled it from the crash site early this morning. It seems to check out okay.”

“So you think he committed suicide?”

“It’s a possibility. But that’s not a question I can answer.”

“So you’re not sure, are you?”

Her insistence seemed to irritate him. “You can leave the police work to us. I told you I’d look into it. I’ll call you if I find out anything of value.”

“Sir, I can’t shake the feeling that something is amiss. This wasn’t just an accident, and I don’t believe Clay would have killed himself. Too many things don’t add up.”

“Dr. McCall,” he sighed. “Are you suggesting someone was coming after you?”

“Maybe.”

“Why would someone want to do you in?”

“I told you. Roger Jones is suing me over the way I handled his daughter’s case. He wants revenge. You should see the way he looks at me.”

Claire heard his voice, muffled, as if he had his hand over the phone. Then, more clearly, he stated, “I’ll look into it.”

Right. You’re only saying what you think I want to hear.
“Okay.”

She put the phone down when she heard a click on the other end. Then, turning, she gasped as she saw a man’s silhouette in the doorway. “Oh!”

Dr. Jimmy Jenkins nodded. “I didn’t mean to startle you.” He cleared his throat. “I don’t mean to pry, but I overheard some of your conversation.”

She lifted her eyes to examine the man who’d been a family friend as long as she could remember. “So?”

“Claire,” he began. “I’ve known you all your life. You’re a brilliant young woman.” He paused. “And you’re smart enough to know when you should leave something at rest. Nothing you do now can bring him back. Why torture yourself with the what-ifs? Just remember Clay for the fun-loving guy he was, and …” He coughed. “Go on.”

“He didn’t kill himself, Dr. Jenkins. Clay was depressed, but I don’t believe he would kill himself.”

The doctor nodded. “I know he was depressed, Claire. I gave him some of these last week, when he came in complaining of frequent headaches.” He pulled a sample bottle of Zoloft from his pocket. “It’s helpful when anxieties become overwhelming.”

“He asked you for help?”

His voice was quiet. “Yes.” He kept his voice low. “I haven’t told your mother. I’d prefer to allow her to think that Clay just fell asleep at the wheel, if she can convince herself of it.”

“Why tell me?”

“Because you are a doctor now. And you will be afraid for your own life if you read too much into this. Clay was depressed and ran off a cliff
from a straight stretch of road. You told me so much yourself.” He repeated an axiom he’d told her many times. “When you hear hoofbeats, think of horses, not zebras.”

She studied him for a moment. It seemed so like him to keep the hurtful information to himself. He saw no reason to break a patient confidence and make a family worry even more. He turned and walked away.

“Thanks,” she called to his back.

She turned to follow him up the hallway, as the irony of his last statement floated to the surface.
The last time I was accused of thinking of zebras when I heard hoofbeats was when I diagnosed my father with HD.

That afternoon, on a spring day threatened by rain clouds, the Wally McCall family put their son in the ground. The graveside service was intimate, with family, a few friends of Clay’s, a few coworkers, Dr. Jenkins and his wife, Ralph Knitter from Fisher’s Retreat, and John Cerelli. He stood in the back and exchanged glances with Claire, who sat on a creaky folding chair beneath a tarp emblazoned with the gold lettering of Finch’s Funeral Home.

Pastor Phil Carlson spoke in a loud voice in an attempt to be heard above the wind, and the mourners leaned forward to catch the words which seemed to dissipate into nothingness beyond the first few rows of folding chairs. “I know what many of you have been thinking. Many of you have spoken to me privately about your concerns. But let me speak publicly about this matter of Clay’s state of mind and whether he could have brought this accident upon himself.” He paused, and the little audience leaned even closer. “In the last few months, the McCall family has faced a new trial, that of learning of the genetic illness known as Huntington’s disease. Clay confided in me of his risk of the disease, and of his fear of contracting it. But his response was to embrace life, not death, to pursue the activities which excited and thrilled him, so that even if his life was shortened by illness, he would not look back with regret that he had not accomplished the desires of his heart.

“Was Clay reckless?” He paused. “Perhaps. But in his recklessness, he embraced life with a fervency and fun that I envied. Clay did not fear death. If anything, he feared a life without passion, without gusto, and it was that longing which seemed to guide him.

“Clay was a craftsman, and his fine work will live on in many of our homes. It is a testimony to his love of art, and the creativity which reflects the nature of God himself. Clay made a commitment to God when he was
a boy. It was a decision he took seriously. No, he wasn’t a man without flaws. But as I had a chance to talk through things with Clay in recent months, he thought seriously about eternity, as those facing risk of serious illness are prone to do. He voiced openly his understanding that God had forgiven him, and loved him as he was. If there’s one thing I appreciated most about Clay, it’s that he was real, unpretentious, and not one to put on a face of self-righteousness when others, including me, were around. He seemed to understand the message of grace, and he wasn’t caught up in striving to be accepted by God or others.” The pastor nodded his head and gripped the leather Bible in his hand as he made eye contact with each one under the small tarp. “It’s a message Clay would have wanted all of us to hear. Let us pray.”

Claire bowed her head and strained to listen, but the pastor lowered his voice, and the wind prevented her hearing.

Wally wrestled against the Velcro straps in his wheelchair, Margo dabbed her eyes with a Kleenex, and Della sobbed. Claire watched as Dr. Jenkins gave her a hug and dropped a small white tablet into her palm.

Clay’s casket was lowered into the ground, and Elizabeth held a hand up to accept the first drops of rain.

They retreated toward their cars to escape the storm, with Kyle pushing Wally’s wheelchair and Claire following behind.

“Claire.”

She turned to face John Cerelli. “Hi.”

“I’m sorry about Clay.”

She nodded in an awkward silence.

“Will you be around for a while?”

“A few days.”

Rain began to fall around them, pelting them with large drops. “Can we talk?”

She nodded. “I’ll be at my parents’ place tonight and tomorrow. You can call.” She looked ahead to her father’s car. Della and Kyle were desperately trying to hustle Wally out of his chair, fold it up, and get it into the trunk of the car before getting soaked. “I should go. My family is eating dinner together at my grandmother’s.”

“Okay.” He reached for her hand, shaking it formally, like a stranger. “I’ll call.”

She looked away, then back into the eyes she used to love. “Thanks.”

He nodded.

“For Clay.”

He understood.

And for me.

Claire opened her eyes the next morning with light spilling through the thin curtains onto her bed. With the disorientation that comes from waking up in unfamiliar surroundings, she noticed the sunlight and bolted from bed, knowing she was late for rounds.

Her feet hit the old floor as the cobwebs of slumber cleared away. Reality settled her soul and she collapsed in a thankful heap back onto the bed. For an intern, being late for rounds was a cardinal sin.

There, with the noises of her parents’ morning preparations beginning in the room next door, she relished the rarity of the moment. She didn’t have to be anywhere that day. There were no progress notes to write, no patients to examine, and no residents or attendings breathing down her back to check the adequacy of her work.

She took a deep breath. Here, in Stoney Creek, there were no threatening phone calls, no pyramid, no Ramsey Plank, and no Roger Jones in the rearview mirror. Here, there were no life-and-death decisions, there were no patients calling her “nurse,” and no male surgeons appreciating the anatomy below her neck more than the brain behind her eyes.

Here, she was only Claire, Wally McCall’s daughter, at fifty-percent risk for inheriting the Stoney Creek curse. If only she could have left that behind in Lafayette as well.

She sat up as other memories of home flooded her thoughts. She remembered times spent playing with a twin she’d never see again and felt her throat tighten with sorrow.

She listened as her mother assisted in dressing Wally, combed his hair, and brushed his teeth. She hadn’t realized his own abilities had sunk this far. She lifted the curtain and looked out at the morning haze over the Blue Ridge mountains. And with the bump-bump, rustle, and clatter coming from her parent’s room, her own anxiety floated to the surface again. It was a recurrent worry, a cloud that hovered overhead, the one she shoved aside with the business of Lafayette, but now, in the absence of her internship struggles, again loomed as a threat to her future aspirations.
Will I end up just like Daddy?
Claire rubbed her eyes and consciously tried to shift gears. She definitely didn’t want to spend the day obsessing over that.

She fought the urge to pull out her daily planner and organize her day. With her spare hours, she could easily review a chapter or two in Sabiston, exercise, straighten the house, visit Grandma, maybe even visit the cabinet shop where Clay had worked to look at some of his most recent projects. She stood and began her own morning routine and picked up a
brush from the suitcase beside her bed. Free time should be spent efficiently, in a way that would honor the Creator of time.

Be still.

The thought carried a familiarity, a uniqueness which pushed for recognition. She’d experienced similar vague feelings before, in rare moments when she dared to slow down and listen. She halted, laid the brush on the dresser, and pondered her own reflection in the mirror. Her face was thinner, her jawline sharply defined, evidence of her dedication to long hours at the Mecca without adequate calories. Her hands explored her ribs, more pronounced than she’d remembered. She’d given everything for God’s calling on her life.

So why did she feel so empty and afraid when she was back in Stoney Creek without her work?

Be still.
The same familiar words sharpened into focus.
God?

She looked at her book bag, the one she’d packed as a carry-on for her flight down, the one she’d loaded with her Sabiston text and a half-dozen unread surgical periodicals, but no Bible. Her stomach tightened with guilt.
Okay, God, maybe I have been ignoring your Word. When I get back, maybe I can find a few Christians, start a resident Bible study, maybe go to church when I’m off and—

Be still
. The thought persisted, interrupting her plans to absolve her guilt.

The phrase was something she’d encountered before. Perhaps a verse fragment she’d read as a child, or an item from the pulpit she’d tucked away from her years in church in Brighton. Her right hand again caressed the skin which was taut over her ribs, as the realization of her own spiritual leanness dawned. If she’d had a Christian life at all, she’d pushed it aside, without necessary nourishment, and pounded it with doubts about God’s love and trustworthiness.