Ryan spent the night in his old room, fading in and out of sleep. Mostly out.
As the only physician in town, Ryan hadn’t taken a vacation in three years. For this, however, he’d managed to clear his calendar, referring all but the most pressing emergencies to clinics in neighboring towns.
Actually, he’d spent the last seven weeks living with his folks. He and his wife were legally separated, just the crack of a judge’s gavel away from an official divorce after eight years of marriage. It was a classic case of unrealized expectations. Liz had worked as a waitress to help put him through medical school, thinking it would pay off after graduation. His friends from medical school had all moved on to mountainside homes and his-and-hers BMWs. Ryan had completed his surgery residency at Denver General Hospital and could have gone on to an equally lucrative career. He’d never been interested in pursuing the profits of “managed care,” however, where HMOs and utilization review boards rewarded doctors for not treating patients. Over Liz’s objection, he went back to his hometown to practice family medicine, the only doctor in town. Most of his patients were the real crisis in today’s health care — children of lower-income workers or self-employed farmers who earned too much to qualify for Medicaid but who still couldn’t afford health insurance. Liz eventually posted a sign in the office that said “PAYMENT DUE AT TIME OF SERVICE,” but Ryan always looked the other way whenever someone needed credit. When the uncollected accounts receivable reached well into six figures, Liz couldn’t stand it anymore. Ryan was running a charity. She filed for divorce.
So now he was home. His father dying. His wife moving to Denver. His boyhood memories staring down from the walls. With the end so near, he hadn’t the time or inclination to redecorate and dissolve the past. Posters of quarterback Roger Staubach and the Super Bowl Champion Cowboys still covered the walls, abandoned by the kid who used to dream there almost three decades ago. He wondered what had happened to the famous one of Farrah Fawcett with her feathered hair and thin red swimsuit. Gone, but not forgotten.
Innocent times, he thought. Things didn’t seem so innocent anymore.
Six A.M., and Ryan had hardly slept. He kept wondering, was it really the combination of booze and painkillers? Talk of blackmail and hordes of cash sounded like hallucination. But Dad was so damn serious.
Ryan had to check the attic.
He slipped out of bed and pulled on his jeans, sneakers and a polo shirt. The floorboards creaked beneath his feet. He stepped lightly. His mother was surely awake already, downstairs, at Dad’s bedside. The morning vigil was their time alone. No one was going to deprive her of being with her husband of forty-five years at the moment of his death.
The door creaked open. Ryan peered into the hall. Not a sound. The attic, he recalled, was accessed through a ceiling panel at the end of the upstairs hallway. Ryan skulked like a prowler past the bathroom and guest bedroom, stopping beneath the two-foot length of chain hanging from the ceiling. He pulled. The hatch fell open like a crocodile’s lower jaw. The big springs popped as the ladder unfolded. Ryan cringed at the noise, anticipating his mother’s voice. But he heard nothing. Slowly, making not another sound, he extended the ladder to the floor and locked it into place. He drew a deep breath and began his ascent.
He was sweating almost immediately, besieged by yesterday’s heat. Musty odors tickled his nostrils. A predawn glow seeped through the small east window, creating long shadows, illuminating cobwebs. Ryan tugged the string that dangled from the light socket, but the bare bulb was burned out. He waited, knowing that when his eyes adjusted, the morning light from the window would be sufficient.
Slowly, the past came into view. Ryan and his friends used to play up here, twenty-five years ago. Sarah, his older sister, always used to spy on them. She was the one who had discovered their coveted Playboy magazine. Ryan wasn’t sure if Sarah liked being a good do-bee or if she just liked to see him punished. He wondered what Miss Goody Two-shoes would think now.
Each step across the attic triggered more memories. His first stereo, complete with vinyl records that had long ago melted in the attic’s hundred-plus-degree heat. His sister’s clarinet from the high school band. Seeing all this junk reminded him that soon he would begin his task as executor of the estate, taking inventory of his father’s possessions — the simple belongings of a lifelong wage earner. A rusty set of tools. Extra fishing gear. Stacks of old clothes. Furniture his dad had never gotten around to fixing. And if this was no joke, two million dollars in tainted funds.
It had to be a joke.
Ryan stopped at the old chest of drawers his father had described to him last night. He swallowed hard; its existence confirmed that his father wasn’t completely delusional. But that didn’t mean there was actually money beneath it.
He shoved the chest once. It wouldn’t budge. He shoved harder. It moved an inch, then another. With all his strength, Ryan slid it a good two feet. He glanced at the floor. The boards it had once covered were not nailed down. Ryan knelt down and lifted the loose planks, exposing a layer of fiberglass insulation. He peeled it away. A suitcase was in plain view. Not the typical vacation suitcase. This one was metal, presumably fireproof, like the ones sold in spy shops. Ryan lifted it from the hole and laid it on the floor in front of him. It had a combination lock, but the latches weren’t fixed. Dad had apparently left the tumblers set to the combination, making it easy for his son. Ryan popped the latch and lifted the lid, his eyes bulging at the sight.
“Ho-lee shit.”
It was all there, just as his father had promised. Ryan had never seen two million dollars, but the neat stacks of hundred-dollar bills could easily total up to that much.
Lightly, Ryan raked his fingers over the bills. Although he’d never been driven by money, seeing and touching this much cash sent tingles down his spine. Last night, while lying in bed, he had tried to make himself fall asleep by pretending the money might actually be there and asking himself what he might do with it. In the realm of the hypothetical and highly unlikely, he had resolved to give it all away to charity. He wouldn’t want the fruits of a crime — even if, as Dad had said, the man deserved to be blackmailed. But with all this green staring him in the face, the issues weren’t so black and white. Had he not dedicated his career to a low-income community, he might easily have earned this much cash in a normal-paying medical practice. Maybe this was God’s way of making him whole for a life of good deeds.
Get over yourself, Duffy.
He closed up the suitcase and put it back in the hole, covering it with the insulation and loose planks, just the way he had found it. He slid the heavy chest back in place. Quickly, he retraced his steps to the ladder. He’d deal with the money later. After the funeral.
After one more talk with Dad.
Ryan climbed down the ladder, into the hall. His shirt was dirty and soaked with sweat. He ducked into the bathroom and splashed cold water on his face. He threw his shirt in the hamper, then started toward his room for a clean one. He stopped as he passed the stairwell. It sounded like his mother sobbing in the living room. He hurried down the stairs. She was alone on the couch, shoulders slumped, still wearing her robe and slippers.
“What is it, Mom?”
She looked up, and he knew.
He came to her side, took her in his arms. She’d always been petite, but never so frail.
Her body shook, her voice was quaking. “It was so… peaceful. His touch. His breath. His presence. It all just faded away.”
“It’s okay, Mom.”
“It’s like he was ready,” she said, sniffling. “As if he’d just decided it was time.”
Ryan bristled. As if he’d rather die than face his son again.
His mother shook harder in his arms, the tears flowing freely. He held her close, rocking gently. “Don’t worry,” he whispered, almost speaking to himself. “I’ll take care of everything.”