Page 92 of A Better World

The door opened. In came smiling Sally Claus and Cyrus Galani, both with guns holstered. Their smiles didn’t waver at the sight of Linda. It was as if no one had anything to hide, and Linda had all the reason in the world to be in this house, saying good-bye to Gal, who was begging at her feet.

“Ready to go?” Sally asked.

“No,” Gal said. Linda helped her up, lifting her by the tender underarms. Then she took the fabric of Gal’s coat in her hands. She aligned the slider and zipped her up. The gesture felt so intimate that Linda couldn’t look at her as she did it.

Sally and Cyrus each took a suitcase.

“I’ll burn this whole town down if I don’t get to see my kids again. I’ll murder every one of you,” Gal said, flat and disconsolate.

Then they were out the door, headed for the gate.

Back in the car, Linda started the engine. “Don’t panic,” she whispered to herself, hands on the wheel, heart beating unevenly, like a gunshot victim who’s bleeding out.

She didn’t let herself think about it, or the fact that it was still early in the morning. She programmed Chernin’s name into the GPS.

He lived in a tidy brick colonial on the north side of town. A nurse answered the door and led her into the kitchen, where Chernin and Louis were having morning tea, Louis through a straw. Chernin sported a two- or three-day gray stubble beard and wore a ratty bathrobe; Louis was neatly clad in crisp pajamas. Though the latter was the one in the wheelchair, Chernin looked sick. His hair was unkempt, the wrinkle crevices along the sides of his mouth stained with tea, his eyes bloodshot.

“Dr. Farmer, hello!” he said with real warmth, then introduced her to the nurse and to Louis, who nodded without looking away from his screenie. The program was puerile, a fast-paced cartoon with cats and dogs shooting guns and blowing up dynamite. Chernin acknowledged the strangeness of this to Linda with a shrug.

“To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“I have a question about Katie and Sebbie Parker.”

The air popped with sudden static. Very slowly, Louis looked up.

“The Parker children, yes? Yes, yes, what’s your question?” Chernin asked.

“Where are they?”

“Palo Alto,” he said, scratching his dry cheek, where white flakes pulled away from his skin. “I released them to their mother. Yes, yes. Clean bills of health. I suspect they’re still there.”

Her unease built like bubbles in shaken carbonation. More, faster panting. “I saw them last night at the Parson Mansion.”

“You did?” he asked with exaggerated surprise.

“Is there something special about idiopathic leukemia?”

“What’s that?” He made direct eye contact for the first time since she’d known him. The look was a warning.

Still standing, she held the back of an empty breakfast chair and squeezed. “Their cancer. That’s their diagnosis. I asked you about it. You treated them for it so you must have heard of it. You’d prescribed them a chemotherapeutic drug and I asked if that was best practice and you never answered.”

“I never answered?” he asked with mock innocence. He wasn’t looking at her anymore. He was looking at his slippered feet.

“No,” she said. Her head was hurting. A dull throb all along her temples. The room smelled like toast and medicine.

Slowly, holding on to the table, with the sounds of popping knee joints, Chernin stood. “It’s very early. Yes, an unreasonable time for a visit.”

“I know.”

“Those parties at the Parson Mansion go on. You’ve exerted yourself. Did you drink the wine?”

“I’m not confused, Dr. Chernin.”

“Yes. I believe you are. Linda, I’m going to do you a favor and forget this happened. It’s time you went home and slept this off.”

Frail and slow, he showed her to the door. When they got there, away from Louis and the nurse, he leaned in close, the skin along hisuneven beard thin as the bunched membrane inside an eggshell. He put his mouth to her ear.

“It’s not your problem,” he whispered, the sound tickling her skin. “Yes. Yes. I’m trying to stop it. I’m fixing it from the inside.”

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