“Oddly, the pandemic reminds me of that time in my life. First Zachary was gone and, before we had time to mourn that loss, June was in the hospital. Then of course June passed very quickly. A blessing, but also a shock.” He explained, “How I compare it to now is, at this moment we are all living through, everyone on earth is experiencing a suspension of loss. Over half a million people dead in the United States alone. The number is too overwhelming to accept, so we go on with our lives and we do what we can but, in the end, the staggering loss will be waiting for us. It always catches up to you, doesn’t it?”
Callie took more animal crackers when he offered her the box.
He said, “You don’t look well, my friend.”
She couldn’t disagree with him, so she did not try.
He said, “I had the strangest dream a while ago. It was about a heroin addict. Have you ever met one?”
Callie’s heart dropped. She didn’t belong in one of his funny stories.
“They live in the darkest, loneliest places, which is very sad, because they are universally known to be wonderfully caring creatures.” He cupped his hand to his mouth as if to convey a confidence. “Especially the ladies.”
Callie held back a sob. She didn’t deserve this.
“Did I mention they have a particular affinity for cats? Not as dinner, but rather as dining companions.” Dr. Jerry held up his hands. “And oh, but they are notoriously loveable. It’s almost impossible to not love them. You would have to have a very hard-hearted individual to resist the compunction.”
Callie shook her head. She couldn’t let him redeem her.
“Also, they are legendary for their munificence!” Dr. Jerry looked delighted by the word. “They have been known to leave hundreds of dollars in the cash box for the benefit of other, more vulnerable creatures.”
Callie’s nose was running so badly that she couldn’t keep up.
Dr. Jerry took his handkerchief out of his back pocket and offered it to her.
Callie blew her nose. She thought about his hanger-on, dissolving fish dream and the rats who stored toxin in their needly fur story and considered for the first time that maybe Dr. Jerry wasn’t a metaphor guy after all.
He said, “The thing about addicts is, once you open your heart to one of these rascals, you will never, ever stop loving them. No matter what.”
She shook her head, again because she didn’t deserve his love.
He asked, “Pulmonary cachexia?”
Callie blew her nose to give her hands something to do. She had been so damn transparent this entire time. “I didn’t know you knew people-doctor things, too.”
He sat back in his chair, arms crossed over his chest. “You are using more calories to breathe than you are taking in through food. That’s why you’re losing so much weight. Cachexia is a wasting disease. But you know that, don’t you?”
Callie nodded again, because another doctor had already explained this to her. She had to eat more, but not too much protein because her kidneys were shot, and not too much processed food because her liver was barely functioning. Then there were the crackles he could hear in her lungs and the white ground glass opacity that appeared in her X-rays, and the disintegrating vertebrae in her neck, and the precocious arthritis in her knee, and there was more but by that time she had stopped listening.
Dr. Jerry asked , “It’s not much longer, is it? Not if you continue down this path.”
Callie chewed her lip until she tasted blood again. She thought about chasing the high in the shooting gallery, the dawning realization that she had plateaued to a point where heroin alone wasn’t going to take away the pain.
He said, “My oldest son, my only remaining son, wants me to live with him.”
“In Oregon?”
“He’s been asking since the mini-strokes. I told him I was worried if I moved to Portland, Antifa would force me to stop eating gluten, but …” He let out a long sigh. “May I tell you something in confidence?”
“Of course.”
“I’ve been here since you left yesterday afternoon. Meowma Cass has enjoyed the attention, but …” He shrugged. “I forgot my way home.”
Callie bit down on her lip. She had left three days ago. “I can write it down for you.”
“I looked it up on my phone. Did you know you can do that?”
“No,” she said. “That’s amazing.”
“Indeed. It gives directions and everything, but I find it very troubling that people are so easy to find. I miss anonymity. People have a right to disappear if they want to. It’s a personal decision, isn’t it? Everyone should have autonomy. We owe it to them as fellow human beings to support their decisions, even if we do not agree with them.”