PRESENT TENSE
Chapter Thirty-Two

Thursday, July 10, 2003

Rose sat up in bed as the alarm went off, signaling the beginning of a new day. She hadn’t slept well the night before. The nagging worries at the back of her mind wouldn’t go away, but she still couldn’t identify exactly what was worrying her. Her dreams had been plagued with frightening images, but she could never remember quite what they were afterwards. She only knew that something was bothering her.

She climbed out of bed, trying to shrug it off. Maybe she was just upset that Jack had walked away from her so abruptly the night before. She saw the portfolio sitting on the table where she had left it and went to take a look.

She had fallen asleep before she’d had a chance to look at it the previous night, but now she opened it, wondering what Jack had been working on. She hadn’t noticed him doing much art recently, but he must have been drawing something when she wasn’t looking.

Most of the drawings were old, from before the earthquake. Only three had been done more recently—one of the unpleasant nurse in the hospital, one of the earthquake-torn town, and one of her. The picture of her was the most recent one, completed only two days earlier. It showed her sitting in her car, ready to go to work, waving to someone—Rose didn’t know who. Jack must have completed it when she wasn’t looking.

She looked through the rest of the portfolio. All of the extra paper and art supplies were still there—he had given her everything. Rose frowned, confused. Why had he given her this? Her art skills, at least with this sort of art, were meager at best, and the portfolio had been Jack’s most prized possession. Was it just that he had lost interest?

Rose set the portfolio down, anxious but unsure why, and hurried to get ready for the day.

*****

Rose came out to the kitchen about half an hour later. Helga was on her way out the door, and Tommy sat at the table, drinking coffee and reading the sports page. Jack was nowhere in sight.

"Where’s Jack?" Rose asked, reaching for some cereal. Tommy glanced up at her.

"He left early. Said he had something to do at work."

"That’s odd. He usually leaves at the last minute."

"I guess he’s falling behind on things, and wants to finish up a project or something. I didn’t ask."

Rose shook her head. "He gave me his portfolio last night."

"His portfolio? Have you decided to take up art or something?"

"No. That’s the strange thing. I’m not much of an artist, and he knows it, but he gave it to me anyway."

"That’s his most prized possession."

"I know. That’s what makes it so strange."

"Maybe he’s trying to make up for hitting you last week."

"Maybe." Rose sat down to eat, still not convinced.

*****

Jack put the finishing touches on his drawing and looked at the clock. It was almost 12:30. He signed the drawing and stood up, looking around to make sure that everything was in order. It was almost time for him to leave, and he wouldn’t be coming back.

He had decided against telling his boss that this would be his last day. It’s better, he thought, to make it a clean break, not let him try to talk me out of it. They would find someone to replace him, and he would be forgotten soon enough.

He picked up the drawing and headed for his boss’s cubicle, nodding to people who greeted him along the way. His heart was pounding. Did he have the nerve to do this?

"Mr. Messner?" Jack peered around the corner of the cubicle.

"Mr. Dawson. What can I do for you?"

Jack handed him the drawing, an advertisement for an upcoming street fair in Southland. "I finished this."

Messner took it, looking it over. "Much better. Your work has improved over the last week."

Jack just nodded. "Uh...Mr. Messner...I was wondering if I could take the rest of the afternoon off? I don’t feel so good. I think I’m coming down with something."

"Something new, or the same old thing that’s been bothering you for weeks?"

Jack shifted uncomfortably. He had tried to hide what was happening from the others at his workplace, but hadn’t always been successful. "I’m not sure what you’re referring to."

Messner sighed. "Go on. Get out of here."

"Thank you." Jack hurried away. He didn’t like deceiving his boss—Messner had been very tolerant—but there wasn’t much choice. He had to do what needed to be done.

*****

Rose sat at the front desk of the mental health clinic. It had been a busy day—four doctors and three therapists were working today, as well as the substance abuse counselor. The phone had been ringing off the hook, but at last things seemed to have settled down.

She glanced at the clock. It was ten minutes to one, when she usually took her lunch. Looking out at the waiting room, Rose settled back in her chair, enjoying the brief respite from the clamor.

It was all too short. The phone rang and Rose leaned forward to answer it.

"Masline Mental Health. How can I help you?"

The woman on the phone was crying so hard that Rose couldn’t understand her at first. She waited patiently. This was not the first client who had called with a crisis.

"Would you like me to call a crisis counselor for you?"

The person on the end calmed down a little. "Yes. Please." Rose reached for the transfer button, but the woman went on. "I really need to talk to someone. I’m not usually like this. Please believe me. I’m just having a really hard time. My son...my son committed suicide last week. I never even saw it coming. I should have. He’d been really unhappy, and then all of a sudden he seemed a lot happier, and I thought everything was fine. Then he started giving away his things, the things that he liked best. I should have known that something was wrong, but I didn’t pay attention. When I came home from work the next day, he was hanging from a rafter in the garage. It was too late for me to do anything."

Rose listened until the woman stopped talking. "Ma’am, I’m going to transfer you to Ted. He’s the crisis counselor today, and he can help you with this. Okay?"

"All right." The caller was trying not to cry anymore.

Rose transferred the call, and sat back, shaken. She hated getting calls like that, but it was part of the job. Most calls were easy enough to handle, with clients calling to about appointments, or wanting to talk to a particular person. But some calls were like this one, with a very upset person on the other end of the line. Rose didn’t criticize them—she couldn’t help but remember the night eight months earlier when she had been so upset that she had tried to jump into the sub-basement at the library at Elias University. If I’d known there were people I could talk to, she thought, it might not have come to that. But then I wouldn’t have met Jack…I wouldn’t be where I am now. I was lucky that someone was there to pull me back. Too many people don’t have that.

Something about this call was particularly disturbing. Absently, Rose handed the sign-in sheet to another client, trying to figure out why.

She had dealt with crises before, and none of them had bothered her as much as this one. The woman’s words kept echoing in her mind.

"...all of a sudden he seemed a lot happier...he started giving away his things, the things he liked best...I should have known that something was wrong..."

The nagging worries were suddenly brought into the forefront of Rose’s mind. Suddenly a lot happier? Giving favorite possessions away? She could have been describing Jack.

Rose shook her head at the thought. It was ridiculous. Jack would never take his own life.

And he would never hit you, either, her conscience nagged her, or give away his portfolio to someone with no talent for art.

Rose felt as though she were choking. The room seemed to be closing in on her. Oh, God, oh, God, oh, God! her mind screamed. I have to get out of here. I have to stop him. But she didn’t even know for sure that that was what Jack had planned.

"Rose?"

Rose jumped, startled, as her supervisor, Maggie, came up behind her. Maggie always took her place when Rose went to lunch.

"Are you okay?" Maggie asked her. "You look like you’ve seen a ghost."

"I...I..." Rose stammered, not knowing what to say.

"Rough morning?"

Rose nodded. "I...I’m going to take lunch now."

"You usually do."

Rose got to her feet, almost pushing her supervisor out of the way. "I’ll be back at two." She rushed out, her heart in her throat.

Rose hurried outside and pulled her cell phone from her purse, dialing Jack’s number. There was no answer. She tried the Messner Agency, only to be informed that he had gone home sick half an hour earlier. She quickly calculated how long it would take him to drive home—about half an hour. Quickly, she called home, but there was no answer.

Jack, where are you? What are you doing? her mind shouted. Please don’t do anything stupid.

Digging her keys from her purse, Rose dashed to her car, nearly knocking over one client who was coming from the parking lot. Apologizing, she raced on, her heart pounding with fear. She knew that she had to get home immediately.

*****

Jack walked slowly into the house. It was warm inside, but not as hot as outside. He closed and locked the front door behind him, then walked slowly through the house, looking at everything, before finally going to his room. The phone rang, but he ignored it.

Digging into the bottom drawer of his desk, he found the knife that he had hidden there a week earlier—the same one that Rose had gone after him with. It’s only fitting, he thought, that this be the one I use.

Taking it out, he walked slowly from the room, closing the door firmly behind him, and headed for the back door. He already knew where he was going to do this.

Jack made his way through the yard, toward a spot in the very back between an old olive tree and an orange tree. Turning to face the fence, he lifted the paring knife, watching the sunlight reflect off of it. His hands were shaking, but he couldn’t stop. He had gone too far to stop now.

He looked around one last time, then brought the knife down and slashed his left wrist.

*****

Rose drove through the traffic as fast as she could, running one red light and narrowly missing hitting another car. The driver honked at her, but she paid no attention.

In half the time that it usually took her to drive home, she was there. She pulled into her usual parking space across the street from the house and leaped from the car, looking around.

Jack’s car was there, parked across the street in front of the house. It was parked crookedly, as though he hadn’t been paying attention to what he was doing.

Rose ran for the door, her heart pounding. Maybe there was nothing to worry about. Maybe he had just gone home sick for the day. But she couldn’t take that chance. Not with what she suspected.

The front door was locked. Rose swore under her breath as she fumbled with the key, finally getting the door open.

Everything was quiet inside, but the back door was open. She headed for it, her feet pounding on the thin carpet in the living room.

Frantically, Rose looked around the yard. Where was he?

At last, she saw him. He was standing in the farthest corner, between two trees, his back to her. She saw the glint of sunlight on metal and rushed toward him.

"Jack!" she shouted, tearing across the yard.

Jack turned, startled, as Rose shouted his name, almost losing his grip on the knife. He held it in his blood-slicked left hand, and had been about to slash his right wrist when Rose had interrupted him.

"Jack!" she shouted again, coming to a stop a few feet from him. "My God, what are you doing?"

He stepped back from her. "Nothing you need to be concerned with, Rose. Just go back to work."

"No!" She stepped closer. "You’re trying to kill yourself!" She looked at the blood running from his slashed wrist and soaking into the dirt. He would succeed if something wasn’t done soon. "Jack, please, don’t do this. Give me the knife. I’ll take you to the emergency room."

"No, Rose. Just...go. Get out of here. This is for the best."

"No, it isn’t!" Rose was becoming frantic. "I don’t know what the problem is, but this isn’t the way to solve it. I learned that myself months ago, when you talked me out of jumping." She took a deep breath. "Jack, please. You helped me then. Let me help you now."

She could see the indecision in his eyes. He wasn’t sure about doing this, but he felt that he had no choice. Rose was about to make a grab for the knife, despite the risk of injury to herself, when Jack slowly held it out to her.

Rose took the blood-stained knife quickly, before he could change his mind. "Come on!" she told him, grabbing his hand when he hesitated.

Rose clamped her hand around the injured wrist, trying to slow the bleeding, as she hurried Jack into the house. She pulled him into the kitchen, ignoring the blood that dripped on the living room carpet, and pulled a couple of dish towels from a drawer, handing them to Jack.

"Wrap these around your wrist. Hurry!" she told him, grabbing a plastic bag and filling it with ice cubes from the freezer. Handing it to him, she told him, "Put this on the cut. It will help slow the bleeding." Rose was no expert, but she did know that much.

"Let’s go," she said, grabbing her keys and heading for the door. She gave Jack a shove when he hesitated again. "Move! We don’t have much time."

They headed out the front door to Rose’s car. Rose got Jack into the passenger seat, checking to be sure the ice was on the injury, and headed for Southland, the nearest place with medical facilities.

*****

They made the trip in twenty minutes, much more quickly than usual. Rose broke every speed limit around, and was grateful that she didn’t come across any cops.

They finally arrived at the emergency room at Memorial Hospital, and Rose rushed Jack inside. He was still walking, but he was beginning to get pale and dizzy from blood loss, even with the first aid Rose had applied. The nurse at the front desk took one look at the blood-soaked towels and had him sent in immediately.

Rose took her cell phone outside to tell her boss that an emergency had come up and she wouldn’t be back that day, then paced around the waiting room, her thoughts whirling. Will he be all right? Did I get him here in time to save him? Or will he die here, in the emergency room?

Other thoughts went through her mind. Why did he do it? He was always one of the most lively, optimistic people I know, up until he got the head injury in the earthquake. Is the head injury the cause of his strange behavior, or is it something else? Am I responsible, in some way, for his suicide attempt? She had recognized the knife he had used, the same one that she had chased him with the week before.

Rose finally sat down, her hands clutching the arms of the chair anxiously, another emotion beginning to make itself known—anger. Why did he do it? she wondered. Didn’t he even think about how this would the rest of us—how upset we would be, how much we would miss him? The decision hadn’t been impulsive, unlike hers. She knew that there was something wrong, but why had he chosen to take this way out, instead of talking to one of them, or seeing a doctor?

As she sat waiting, that one question kept repeating itself—why?

*****

Jack was released from the emergency room around 3:30. His severed blood vessels had been reconnected and he was free to go.

Rose looked up in surprise as Jack came up to her. "You ready to go?" he asked her.

She looked at him. His wrist was thickly bandaged where he had cut it and he still looked a little pale, but not like someone who was about to die. It was his demeanor that alarmed her.

Physically, he was all right—she had gotten him to the emergency room in time to save his life—but she recognized the far-off, depressed look that he had had so often in the past weeks. What if he tried it again?

"Excuse me," she told him, heading for the front desk. The doctor who had treated Jack was there, talking to the nurse. Rose walked up, glaring at him.

"Doctor?" She interrupted the conversation. "I have a quick question."

He gave her an annoyed look. "What is it?"

"I’m with that patient you just released—the one who tried slit his wrists—and I was wondering why you didn’t admit him on a 51-50 hold. You know," she elaborated, "admit him to the psychiatric ward. I’ve been given to understand that that is the usual procedure for patients who seem to be a danger to themselves or others."

"I don’t think he’s a danger to himself."

Rose stared at him, open-mouthed. "He tried to commit suicide. He’s obviously a danger to himself."

"Look, young lady, I see this all the time. Frequently, these aren’t real suicide attempts. They’re a way of getting attention…especially in cutters, which he has assured me he is. They’ll cut too deeply, either accidentally or on purpose. He may need psychiatric help, but not emergency help, and I can’t admit him without reasonable suspicion that he’s actually a danger to himself. Frankly, my job is too save lives, not take care of attention-seekers who deliberately hurt themselves."

“But Jack’s not…” Rose stopped when she saw that the doctor wasn’t listening, then turned to glare at Jack, realizing that he was still trying to avoid the problem. "Goddamnit!" she muttered under her breath. She turned back to Jack. "Let’s go," she told him, stalking out the door.

As they made their way to the car, Rose realized that she would have to find out for herself why Jack was acting like he was. It wouldn’t be pleasant, but she had to find out. Something had to be done.

Chapter Thirty-Three
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