The Architect of Revenge: A September 11th Novel (8 page)

The high-pitched whine of a small jet engine started and stopped and started again. Opening his eyes slightly, he realized he was in bed and wearing his pajamas. How he got undressed
and
in them was a mystery, but, more strange, his hairdryer was somehow intermittently turning itself on and off.

“Cay?” he called.

“In here.”

He got up to see.

The shower door was beaded with water, and standing in front of the foggy mirror was Caroline, wearing his bathrobe. The dangling belt told Morgan the robe was undone in front. The entire scene was so extraordinary he remained unconvinced it was real.

“Wes, there’s over a foot of snow outside, you need to get moving.”

Her pragmatism blended with unruffled immodesty left him confused even more.

“What time is it?”

“Five thirty. You need to get me home. We both have to work.”

She crumpled a scrap of plastic wrapper and tossed it in his wastebasket.

“You found the spare toothbrush,” he said.

“Such a thoughtful touch. Makes a girl feel welcome.”

It was now officially hers.

She spun around with the robe totally open. She hugged him tight.

“Kisses after you brush yours,” she said.

He obeyed and returned for his reward.

“Now, go shower while I make coffee,” she said. “You have coffee, yes?”

Morgan nodded, still dumbfounded.

By six he was warming up the BMW. Caroline closed the back door of his townhouse and climbed in. Snow was everywhere, its beauty marred only by the fact that he had to go to work, and that meant they’d be apart. Following in the tracks of a snowplow, their sparse conversation changed only when he stopped at her lobby entrance. His face desperate, Morgan took her hand.

“Caroline…”

“Cay…” she corrected him.

Morgan nodded and began again. “About last night…” He hesitated. “Maybe we had too much Scotch…I know I did.”

He was worried he’d taken advantage of the situation.

“You don’t snore, Wes,” she confided.

Her words were affectionate but not reassuring.

“I got plenty of sleep and…you’re a good cuddler.”

“That’s not what I—”

She cut him off with a kiss.

“Don’t worry, Dr. Morgan. Again…you were a perfect gentleman.” She gave him another kiss then opened the car door. “You’ll get another opportunity.”

December 2001

A
s the raw drizzle wept from the sky, tire spray splattered his windshield, creating a smeared glare of taillights with each pass of the wipers. Every automobile in front of him seemed intent on creeping toward the intersections then holding back long after the stoplights became green. The entire way home, his frustration grew, pounding his denial deeper into the pit of fatigue, until again grief and exhaustion became one.

Morgan parked the BMW in his garage and climbed the back steps to his townhouse, fumbling through the tears for the key. Once inside, rainwater dripping off his coat, he kicked the door shut with his heel while dropping his overnight bag where he stood. At least when he was at the hospital he was protected from his home’s empty stillness.

He hung the coat on a hook and traced the final gray light of the day to a table and a neat stack of mail. Arranged by Henrietta, he knew the small pile contained the usual bills but no condolence cards. They had stopped coming weeks ago. There was little more anyone could say.

Morgan walked to the kitchen sink, turned on the water, and wet his throat. Only then did he see that Henrietta had placed the damp newspaper near the drain so it wouldn’t water-spot any wood. He didn’t care what happened to the wood—or the paper. It would never be read. The news was the same every day, more testimony to the cruel reality no one could believe.

From their last bottle of Macallan, Morgan poured a few ounces into one of the snifters Caroline had given him. Sitting down on the sofa, he watched the curtains of scotch stream to the bottom of the glass before tentatively taking a sip.

“See, darling,”
Cay had said.
“Daddy taught me that fine crystal makes Scotch taste even more delicious.”
When Morgan filled his mouth with more, she removed a drop from his lips, tasting it with her finger. Tempting him to transgress, she whispered,
“You stay right here.”

Morgan’s gaze held firm on the cold hearth. Its flames had cast their passionate shadows everywhere the first time they made love. He relived again Caroline standing in front of the prurient blaze, her hair decanting over the back of a white gossamer caftan that poured to the floor. With her face in smoldering repose, she placed her Scotch on the mantle, glanced his way while drawing the silk robe behind her buttocks to reveal fine lace underwear—all which remained between them. One of her long legs nudged forward.

“I’m really not this way,”
she said, submitting her open hand to him in anxious anticipation.
“I hope you’re not disappointed.”

Morgan reflexively took a large swallow of the Scotch.
A wave of nausea slammed him and he retched hard. Racing toward the sink, he vomited on the floor.

“You motherfucker!” Morgan burbled through the detritus. “Goddamn you!”

He spit out more globs while he turned on the faucet and stuck his head in the water.

He sneezed.

Using a finger to clean out his nose, he reached for a paper towel to dry his face.

“Goddamn you…” he said, pulling off his shirt, using it to wipe up the vomit on the floor. The balled-up cloth went into the garbage.

Morgan found the snifter miraculously upright and unbroken. Holding the glass at arm’s length he walked to the sink to dump the liquid, and backed away to his bathroom.

He stripped off the rest of his clothes.

“You look like shit!” he grunted to the person in the mirror.

His wilted skin showed every rib. Even though he hadn’t exercised since September, he’d still lost fifteen pounds. He needed a real haircut. With a chimpanzee grin he picked uselessly at his teeth before looking at his retracted, lifeless penis.

“Fuck me,” he said with contempt. “You’re pathetic. Throwing a rock at your TV? Is that all you can do?”

The video released by the Pentagon several days before showed a smiling Osama bin Laden stating how pleased he was that the Towers collapsed completely. Morgan erupted when he heard that and threw the marble paperweight on his desk at the television. The large LCD screen popped, sparked, and went dark. Since then the broken glass and polished green stone, given to him by Ross Merrimac with the engraved date of his first transplant, remained untouched on the hardwood floor.

He turned on the shower, hoping hot water and steam would help him concentrate on anything that might cloak his misery. He thought about an operation he performed the week before, one that changed the destiny of a child clinging to life. His OR team applauded him—said he’d done a stellar job—but he just shrugged off their accolades and walked away. His craft meant nothing to him anymore. It was only a distraction, something that consumed time and kept him away from his townhouse, but the long hours couldn’t cover what Morgan knew. His interest in surgery was gone.

Merrimac had tried to help until yesterday when they had argued in the operating room. In front of everyone, Ross told him that his ability to make precise decisions—the glue that made him a surgeon—was dissolving. As Morgan stood there and listened, he realized didn’t care what Merrimac thought. He didn’t care what any of them thought.

A towel absorbed the cooling water, and Morgan collapsed into his bed between the threadbare sateen sheets he had shared with Caroline. They hadn’t been washed since. His housekeeper had tried, but Morgan said he’d fire her if she did, so they stayed where they were. He’d never wash them. Caroline’s essence was still on the pillows.

He pressed the button on his bedside CD player, and the room came alive with her dulcet tones. Retrieved by the phone company, her twelve words were all he had. He pressed the button again and again, filling the room with her words until his tears ran dry. As he waited in the darkness, he prayed for salvation.

None ever came.

“You motherfucker,” he uttered in a hopeless whisper.

Morgan stared at the paralyzed ceiling fan, his body immersed in the residue of sleepless perspiration and its dried stench. Another night of torment had slowly passed. He smelled her pillow again.

“I’m exhausted. Did we get any sleep?”

“Since when do you need sleep?”
she asked back.

They made love again. Afterwards, Caroline’s head lay deep in the pillows with her blues eyes gazing at his. She touched the tip of his nose and gave a tender smile.

“Had enough?”
she asked.

Morgan had to move.

He had to get to the hospital.

He walked into his bathroom to piss.

“What the fuck? You fucking asshole!”

His fists tightened as his rage swelled.

“Motherfucking bastard!”

He stumbled to the kitchen. From the soaked newspaper, the smell of Scotch hovered above the depth of the sink. He vomited on it again then groped his way to the sofa and lay down—his consumed body in the fetal position, shaking with each tear.

“Cay…Oh, Cay…I miss you so…”

He was empty. Drained. Ruined. His soul sucked dry. The bitter aftertaste of the unfathomable horror drowned him day and night.

Morgan showered, dressed, and went to work.

His stomach growled. After performing in the OR to everyone’s usual expectations, Morgan threw away his damp surgical cap, buttoned his white coat over his sweaty scrubs, and headed for the hospital cafeteria. Perhaps today he’d be able to eat and keep some food down.

Cautiously balancing his tray, he picked his path through the confusion of the cafeteria, hastening his steps to the table where he and Caroline had shared her lunch. Whenever he could, Morgan tried to eat there, often waiting nearby until it was empty. Sometimes he’d just sit and nibble on a cookie and drink some water. Other times he picked at whatever he had scooped onto his plate, taking in a few bites because he knew he had to. But mostly he stared at the empty chair, remembering the day they shared a simple turkey sandwich and his heart melted like an ice cube into the warm lagoon of her eyes.

A group of surgical residents eating in the next section nodded to him, and Morgan did his best to acknowledge them back. When he looked down at his tray, his appetite vanished immediately. He forced himself to take a bite of an apple. As he chewed, its sourness intensified his exasperation.

Morgan overheard the residents’ conversation.

“You could argue that Christians used force to impose their beliefs during the Crusades…”

The speaker was one of Morgan’s favorite students, an enthusiastic young man from the Middle East who was typically private about his faith. Morgan trained his ears to hear better what the man was saying, but a group of laughing nurses passing between blocked any chance of that until they moved on.

“Islam is a religion of peace—”

Another crowd of people walked between them, talking loudly.

“When the Towers—”

Morgan’s stomach twisted.

“Some people in my country cheered.”

Blood rushed to Morgan’s face. The responsibility of being a senior surgeon could no longer restrain him. Reacting viscerally, he threw his tray toward the resident, jumped across the aisle, and lunged at him, yelling, “You goddamn son of a bitch!”

The surgeon’s fingers squeezed the young man’s neck as the institutional cafeteria chair tipped backward. Both crashed to the floor with Morgan on top. The resident almost lost consciousness on impact.

“How can you talk like that?” Purple in the face, Morgan’s grip around the man’s neck grew tighter. “Fucking Bin Laden—and you bastards—killed Cay!”

Many hands pulled Morgan off and forced him into a chair. Food and broken dishes were strewn everywhere.

“I loved her…” His head bowed into his hands as everyone in the cafeteria stared in shock.

The resident stood up shakily and looked at his soiled white coat. When Morgan struggled to move, the terrified man recoiled and quickly stepped away, never taking his eyes off him.

Ross Merrimac paged Morgan and demanded he appear immediately at his office. Once Morgan arrived, Merrimac shut the door. An administrative assistant stood in a corner, monitoring the conversation.

The chief of surgery suspended his friend from surgery and further barred him from entering the hospital. He had to.

“Morgan, you’ll be lucky if that resident doesn’t file assault charges…and maybe he should.”

Merrimac didn’t offer him a chair.

“He deserved it,” Morgan seethed through his teeth. Pumping his fists, Morgan had no intention of backing down.