Richard Paul Evans: The Complete Walk Series eBook Boxed Set Page 56

  Somewhat surprising was that my father, who drank as infrequently as I did, opened a bottle of Chardonnay. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen him that happy or loose.

  Later, after my father had gone to bed, Nicole knocked on my bedroom door. “It’s me,” she said softly.

  I opened. Nicole was wearing sweat pants and a Victoria’s Secret PINK T-shirt. She looked cute.

  “Come in,” I said.

  She walked inside, running her hand down my arm as she stepped past me. “Your dad’s home is nice,” she said. “It’s very . . .”

  “Seventies?”

  She grinned. “I was going to say cozy.” She walked over to the window and pulled back the curtain. “Which home did McKale live in?”

  “That one,” I said, pointing. “The little ranch-style house.”

  “You married the girl next door.” She spotted the prom pictures on my dresser and walked over to them. She lifted one and burst out laughing. “Is this you?”

  “In my defense, my dad cut my hair back then.”

  “No, you look great.” She looked at the picture, then back at me. “You were adorable as a teenager.” She smiled at me. “You still are.”

  “Thanks.”

  “And this is McKale?”

  “That’s McKale.”

  “She’s beautiful.” She looked at each of the pictures, stopping at the one odd one. “Who’s this?”

  “I think her name was Jennifer. Or Jodie. Or Justine. Actually, I have no idea what her name was. That was a girls’-preference dance at another school.”

  “I take it she didn’t get the memo that you were taken?”

  “Apparently not. First and last date.”

  “How did McKale take it, you going out with someone else?”

  “She handled it with her usual passive aggressiveness. She said it didn’t bother her, then went out on a date the next weekend with some football jock. I think she just wanted to remind me that she had options.”

  “We girls are like that.” She stepped away from the bookshelf. “How is it being back here with your father?”

  “It’s been difficult. He’s made it pretty clear that he wants me to stay.”

  “Yeah, he told me that while we were shopping. He asked if I’d help talk you into abandoning your walk.”

  I looked at her and frowned. “He really said that?”

  She nodded.

  “I’m finishing my walk.”

  “I know. I tried to explain to him how important it is to you.” She took my hand. “Don’t be angry with him. He’s just worried about you. Remember how upset he was when he found out you’d been mugged? And now you have a tumor. You may be over thirty, but he’s still your father. And you’re the only family he has.” She took my hand. “He just cares.”

  I thought about what she’d said, then breathed out slowly. “I know.”

  “Other than that, how have you been feeling?”

  “It’s getting worse,” I said. “The doctor said it would.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay. It will be over soon.”

  Something about the way I said this affected her. Her eyes welled up.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  She wiped her eyes, then looked into mine. “Sorry. I didn’t like how that sounded.”

  I put my arms around her and she fell into me. I held her for several minutes. Then she leaned back. “I better let you get your rest.”

  “I’m glad you’re here,” I said. “Thank you for coming.”

  “There’s no way I was going to let you go through this alone. Besides, I kind of like you.”

  I smiled. “The feeling’s mutual.”

  “Night,” she said. “Sweet dreams.”

  That night I dreamt I was kissing McKale. When I pulled back, it was really Falene.

  CHAPTER

  Eight

  Looking at someone’s brain is a little like looking at the outside of a movie theater.

  Alan Christoffersen’s diary

  The morning of the nineteenth my father drove us to the hospital several hours before my scheduled surgery time, so we’d have plenty of time to wind our way through the labyrinth of admissions. After filling out a pile of forms, we sat in the waiting room for nearly an hour before I was called to the preoperative holding area, where they put me in one of those ill-fitting, tie-in-back gowns, then sent at least a dozen people in to see me in my humbled state.

  “You look cute,” Nicole said, lifting her phone. “I’m taking a picture.”

  “No pictures,” I said.

  She brought out her phone. “I’m taking one anyway.”

  “No pictures,” I said again.

  She snapped a picture. “Too late.”

  Shortly before surgery a young man came in to shave my head, which, considering the length of my hair, was no simple feat. When he was done, I just stared at myself in the mirror.

  “I’m bald.”

  “As a bowling ball,” Nicole said.

  “A billiard ball,” my father corrected.

  “They’re both hairless,” I said.

  “Like you,” Nicole said.

  “Thanks. Are you going to take another picture?”

  “No.” She held up a lock of my hair. “But I’m keeping this.”

  “You know, they didn’t have to shave all of it,” my dad said. “They could have shaved just one side.”

  “What do you do with half a head of hair?” I asked. “That’s like half a mustache.”

  “Or one eyebrow,” Nicole said. “Then again, you could have had the mother of all comb-overs.”

  “Being here reminds me of when you were seven,” my father said. “You had to get your tonsils out. That used to be considered major surgery.”

  “I remember,” I said. “Mom read me a story about a baby whale. And I got a stuffed Snoopy doll. I wonder what happened to it.”

  “I probably left it in Colorado,” he said.

  My father and Nicole were still at my side when the anesthesiologist came in to introduce himself and make sure I was properly prepared for surgery. He told me that they would come for me in five minutes. As he walked out, Nicole began crying.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “Nothing. I’m just a crybaby. I get so worried.”

  “Everything is going to be all right,” I said.

  She wiped her eyes, forcing a smile. “I know.”

  A few minutes later two surgical techs arrived to take me to the operating room. Nicole kissed me on the cheek. My father, in a rare show of affection, took my hand. “You’ll be fine,” he said, sounding more as if he were trying to convince himself than comfort me. I think I was the least worried of all of us.

  The techs wheeled my entire bed to the operating room, and Nicole and my father followed me down the hallway until we came to the NO PUBLIC ADMITTANCE doors of the surgical center. Nicole was teary-eyed again and blew me a kiss. I smiled at her and touched my lips.

  Once inside the operating room, the anesthesiologist put the mask on my face and told me to count backward from ten. I only made it to nine.

  When I woke in recovery, my father was sitting by my side. He was reading a Popular Science magazine, but set it down when I stirred.

  “Welcome back.”

  My head felt thick and my words came slowly. “Thanks.”

  “How do you feel?” Nicole asked.

  I slowly turned my head to look at her. “My throat hurts.”

  “That’s from the breathing tube,” another female voice said. A nurse leaned over me. “Alan, I’m Rachel. I just need to check a few things.” She lifted a small flashlight. “Let me have you look forward.” She shone the light at my pupils. “Can you tell me what day your birthday is?”

  “Are you planning a party?”

  She grinned. “At least you haven’t lost your sense of humor. Do you know when it is?”

  “June fifth,” I said.

 
; She looked to my father for verification. He nodded.

  “Very good,” she said. She got up and walked to the foot of my bed. She lifted the sheet, then cupped my feet with her hands. “I want you to push your feet into my hands.”

  “Why?”

  “Just for fun,” she said.

  I must have done a good enough job at it because she wrote something on her clipboard, then left. After she was gone, I turned to my dad. “Do we know the verdict?”

  “It’s benign,” he said.

  “Benign. That’s the good one, right?”

  Nicole laughed. “Yes, it’s good.”

  “Good.” I groaned out slowly. “I’m tired.”

  “The doctor said you’d be out of it most of the day,” my father said.

  “I think he was right,” I said. I fell back asleep.

  Dr. Schlozman came in to check on me an hour later. My father stood as he entered.

  “It went well,” he said to me. “I’m sure they told you the tumor was benign, so we can all high-five, or chest bump, however you want to celebrate.”

  “Why do I feel so crummy?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe it’s because you just had brain surgery.” He grinned. “You’ll feel a little better tomorrow.”

  “What’s next?” my father asked.

  “He’ll have an MRI in the morning to make sure we got it all, then, if all’s well, he heads home on Thursday.”

  “That soon?” Nicole asked.

  “If the MRI checks out, so does he.” He smiled at me. “Thanks for staying alive, Alan. It looks good on my résumé.”

  The rest of the evening I drifted in and out of sleep. When I woke the next morning, I had been given a catheter, something I was always very afraid of. It was an infection caused by her catheter that had killed McKale.

  A little before noon, I was taken by wheelchair for an MRI. On my way down the hall I saw myself in the reflection of a window. In addition to being bald, my head was swollen and I had a long row of staples in my scalp, with a deep indentation along the line of the incision. I looked like a monster.

  Later in the afternoon I was moved into a private room. Dr. Schlozman came in to see me shortly after lunch.

  “I’ve got great news,” he said.

  “You got the tumor?” my father asked.

  “That too,” Dr. Schlozman said. “But my good news is that my new book came out today and it’s a bestseller on Amazon.com.”

  I was still a little foggy and wasn’t sure I was hearing him right. “You wrote a book?”

  “It’s called The Zombie Autopsies. It’s a medical journal about the origin of the zombie virus.”

  “You wrote a book about zombies?” Nicole asked.

  “Yes, and it’s currently number fifty-seven on Amazon. Right between David Baldacci and Nicholas Sparks.”

  My father looked annoyed. “But my son’s okay, right?”

  Dr. Schlozman waved him off. “He’s fine, we got it all. Every crumb of it.”

  “Thank goodness,” Nicole said.

  “I still feel crummy,” I said.

  Dr. Schlozman smiled. “I guess we can’t have everything, can we?”

  The next morning the nurses prepared for my discharge. They gave my father prescriptions for pain medications and a sheet of instructions for caring for my incision. I just wanted to lie quietly without distractions—no talk, television or reading. It was as if words and sounds pricked my brain.

  Around noon an orderly wheeled me out of the hospital and helped me into my father’s car. Frankly, I didn’t feel a whole lot better and I felt more tired than I had the day before. I felt overstimulated by everything around me. More than anything, I wanted to be left alone.

  Through it all Nicole was helpful and kind, but she also seemed sad. It was nearly a week before I found out why.

  Six days after my surgery I was lying in bed when Nicole came into my room. Her eyes were red and swollen from crying.

  I sat up. “What’s wrong?”

  She hesitated a moment, then said, “I’m going back to Spokane.”

  “I thought you were staying longer.”

  She avoided eye contact. “I was going to, but I think I should be going.”

  “Did I do something wrong?”

  “It’s not your fault.” She took another deep breath. “When you were in recovery, you kept asking for Falene. At the time I told myself it was the anesthesia . . .” She looked me in the eyes. “You love her, don’t you?”

  I looked down for a moment, then back at her. “I don’t know. I suppose I don’t know how deep the waters go, since I wasn’t really fishing.”

  She was quiet for a moment, then said, “I love you. Not just because you saved me, but . . .” She took a deep breath. “I’m sorry. I’m just making this more difficult.” She took my hand. “I’ll go.” She leaned over and kissed me on the cheek. “Thank you for all you’ve been to me. I’ll always love you.”

  “Nicole . . .”

  She looked at me, but I had no idea what to say. After a moment she said, “It’s okay, Alan.” She walked out of my room.

  Now I’d lost her too.

  CHAPTER

  Nine

  I have become an expert at chasing those I love out of my life.

  Alan Christoffersen’s diary

  Early the next morning my father drove Nicole to the airport. After he returned, he came into my room.

  “Is she okay?” I asked.

  “She’s hurting. Unrequited love is a painful thing.”

  “I didn’t mean to hurt her. I do love her.”

  “I know.”

  I sighed. “Now what do I do?”

  He leaned against my wall. “What do you want to do?”

  “Since when has that mattered?”

  “It’s always mattered. It doesn’t mean you’ll get what you want, but what you want always matters. That’s what defines you.”

  “I want my life back.”

  “Your life or wife?”

  “They’re the same thing.”

  “No, they’re not,” he said, frowning. “What do you want for your life that’s within the realm of possibility?”

  “I want to figure out my feelings. I need to talk to Falene. But I don’t even know where she is.”

  “Someone knows where she is.”

  “That’s not helpful,” I said.

  My father thought a moment, then said, “I have a client who’s a private investigator. A few years ago he fell on hard times, and I did his taxes for free. He keeps saying, ‘Let me do something for you.’ That’s his expertise, hunting down people—child support dodgers, bail jumpers, corporate embezzlers. He’s darn good, too. I bet he could find Falene.”

  “What’s your friend’s name?”

  “Carroll Albo.”

  “Let’s give him a call.”

  That afternoon I spoke with my father’s friend Carroll. He didn’t sound like I expected him to, though, admittedly, my perception of private investigators was largely shaped by Columbo and Magnum, P.I. reruns. This man sounded squeaky and timid, more fit for accounting than man-hunting and intrigue.

  I told him everything I knew about Falene, which wasn’t especially helpful. Her past had little to help us in the present.

  “You say she got a job with a modeling agency in New York?”

  “Yes.”

  “There’s probably a couple hundred of them. At least. We could start looking. What about friends or family? Old boyfriends?”

  “Her old boyfriends were all bad news, so she wouldn’t have told any of them where she was going. She didn’t really have any girlfriends that she hung out with.”

  “Family?”

  “She has an aunt. I’ve never met her, but she owns a furniture consignment store.”

  “Do you know her name?”

  “No, but I know the store. It’s called the Fifth Avenue Consigner. It’s in Seattle.”

  He paused as
he wrote it down. “Anyone else?”

  “She has a brother. But he’s MIA. She doesn’t even know where he is.”

  “Why is that?”

  “He was in a gang and messed up with drugs.”

  “That’s not a bad thing,” Carroll said. “I mean, it’s horrible for him, but for our purposes, it’s not bad. What’s his name?”

  “Deron Angelis.”

  “Spell it.”

  “D-e-r-o-n A-n-g-e-l-i-s.”

  “Got it. Do you know where he spends his time? What city?”

  “He used to live with Falene.”

  “In Seattle?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll be back with you as soon as I have something.”

  Carroll called just three days later. Truthfully, I hadn’t expected to hear from him so soon. A part of me didn’t expect to hear from him at all.

  “Her aunt’s name is Chloe Adamson,” Carroll said. “But she doesn’t know where Falene is. Or if she does, she’s not telling. But I found her brother. Deron Angelis, twenty-three years old, born January 20, 1989, in San Joaquin County.”

  “How did you find him?”

  “Hunting drug addicts and gang members isn’t hard. Eventually they end up in one of three places: hospital, jail or the morgue.”

  “Which one was it?”

  “He’s in the King County jail.”

  “King County?”

  “In Seattle. He was caught in possession of meth and was sentenced to prison for several years, but had the sentence suspended. He has to serve a county jail sentence for six months, then when he’s released, he’ll be on probation for a couple of years.”

  “I can see him there?”

  “Visiting hours are determined by inmate location. I checked on it for you. He’s assigned Sundays from noon to one-thirty and Tuesdays from five-thirty to seven.”

  I wrote down the information.

  “In the meantime I’ll keep hunting your girl. My secretary has called at least fifty modeling agencies so far, but only found one Falene, and she’s from Brazil. Your friend didn’t go by a different professional name, did she? You know, like movie stars sometimes do if they don’t have a fancy enough name?”