The health and well-being of my patient will be my first consideration.
I will respect the autonomy and dignity of my patient.
I will respect the secrets that are confided in me, even after the patient has died.
I watch him turn away from me defeated. I can’t let him kill himself. But I don’t want to make his life worse.Do no harm.
And who has he harmed in all this really? What would be gained by making Matthew be Stephen?I will respect the secrets that are confided in me.Perhaps we can let Stephen disappear and Matthew can just take his place.
“MATTHEW!” I call out now loud over the wind. “There’s another option!” I shout. “If you’ll trust me there is another option.” And I say it with such surety I almost convince myself.
42
THE MAN
DAY 13—BEST LAID PLANS
She explains her plan to me as we walk back toward the car. She hasn’t asked yet how I got here, but as we round the path back to the car park the question answers itself.
“It’s Rhoda’s,” I say as she throws me a look, her forehead creased with concern. “She doesn’t know I took it,” I clarify. “I didn’t ask.”
I’m not surprised at her concern because her plan is risky. Very risky—but I always knew she’d help me, that she’d be this way: brave, strong. That’s why I chose her, because she’d try to help no matter the cost to herself.
I wish in a way I’d found her years ago. Things might have been different.
They might have been. They might be yet.
Her plan is simple. I’m going to disappear. Her patient Matthew will disappear. She’ll pretend she never found me on the beach today, she’ll pretend she never heard the name Stephen McNabb, she’ll keep my secret and I can just disappear. All I have to do is promise I won’t hurt myself. She wants me to take her to my mother’s house. She wants to make sure I have everything I’ll need in order to leave—money, documents. She’s not sure yet she can trust me not to hurt myself the moment she turns her back. It’s reassuring but she couldn’t be further from the truth.
I like her. For all her damage there’s a clarity to her, a courage. I knew there would be. I knew she’d understand.
I pull Rhoda’s car into the drive of the little wood-framed beachfront house. The house that belonged to the late Lillian Merriman.
A compact well-tended garden, lace curtains hanging in the well-proportioned windows, sun-faded paint peeling off the woodwork. Quaint, homey.
I lead Emma up the path and stop at the front door, reaching overhead to lift a key from inside a hanging basket. My elbow brushes against her hair as I do and she moves aside for me, her cheeks flushed. I slide the key into the lock.
Inside it’s dim, the curtains drawn, I flick on the lights and a warm glow floods the open-plan space. Bohemian and disheveled. Stacks of magazines, piles of books. Old photographs pinned directly into the wood of the walls. A treasure trove of curios, antique furniture, all slightly faded, slightly broken down.
I watch Emma’s face as she drinks it all in. A glimpse into a history, a life. If there’s one thing to be said about Lillian, it’s that she had great taste. And somehow the ferns and potted plants that litter the room have stayed alive un-watered for weeks. Their fronds still plump and green in the chink of sunlight peeking through the curtained French doors. She pulls their fabric back and winter sunlight floods the room from the beach beyond the glass. She peers out at the waves, the bank of snow-sprinkled dunes. We’re only a twenty-minute walk from where I was found.
“It’s beautiful,” she remarks, the light from outside throwing her features into relief.
“It is,” I agree as she turns back to me.
“Will you miss it?” she asks.
I look around the lived-in room; it’s been good to me. “Some of it, I suppose.” She’s studying my face. Wondering at what thoughts might be buzzing around beneath. I wonder what she sees.
“I suppose I should get my things together, then?” I say, breaking the tension. It’s what we agreed. I’ll gather enough clothes to last a few days, I’ll gather Stephen McNabb’s passport, license, wallet, and other information, and then I’ll disappear. I’ll take Rhoda’s car and dump it somewhere along the way. Matthew will simply vanish. And I’ll go on to live the rest of my life somewhere else.
It’s a nice idea.
She nods and I head through the doorway into the connecting bedroom, leaving her to look around. I know it won’t be long until she notices, so I sit down on the edge of the bed and wait. My hands quiver as I look at them. So much rides on what happens next. I look up at the bedroom wall in front of me. Research. Months of work. Months of planning. News clippings, plans, logistics to get Emma here, alone, now. Not that I can remember doing most of it. A small article has fallen to the floor, a clipping about an Afro-Caribbean nurse attacked in a park. I stand and pin it back up next to the photo of Rhoda on the board. Alongside it, old articles on Marni Beaufort. The Charles Beaufort inquiry. Sixteen-year-old Marni in paparazzi pictures, her fingers bandaged on her left hand.
In the beginning, I’d only been looking into Dr. Emma Lewis—it’s her I need—but Dr. Lewis’s history only went back so far. But I had resources, I dug deeper, I’ve gotten good at that over the years. And in Dr. Lewis’s past I found Marni Beaufort. With her burnt fingers and her dead dad.
I scan the wall, my wall, so many faces, faces from the hospital, snippets of their lives, little memories stored deep inside my mind. The first time I saw this wall, after the phone brought me here three days ago, I studied it and things started to come together. I realized how I knew half of what I knew. My research, clues I’d left myself. The extent of what I might have done wakening inside me.
