Now Lorraine Has Gone Read online

  NOW LORRAINE HAS GONE

  JEFF LOWDER

  ROCKHAMPTON PRESS

  Copyright © 2020 Jeffrey D. Lowder

  All rights reserved

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  ISBN-13: 9781234567890

  ISBN-10: 1477123456

  Cover design by: Scott Perry

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2018675309

  Printed in the United States of America

  No marriage is perfect,” Ash said, “but the happy couples I know are best friends—who like to get it on once in a while.”

  Chapter 1

  “Thought I’d never see you naked again, Lorraine, and I damn sure didn’t expect to find you dead.”

  With stark white walls and low-wattage floor lamps, the room could be part of a chain hotel anywhere. This one happens to be in St. George, Utah.

  It’s three in the morning and my wife—I think she’s still my wife—is on her back, lifeless in a jumble of bedding and cast-off clothing, augmented breasts on full display.

  “What’s that, Daniel?” asks a fat guy in a wrinkled suit. The Washington County coroner and I have never crossed professional paths, but we’ve met.

  “Sorry, Jed. I just—”

  “Can you affirm this is Lorraine Horvath?”

  “Yes.” My voice is thick, unfamiliar.

  He pulls up the bedsheet and my wife disappears forever. The sobs catch me by surprise. Lorraine, my partner of fifteen years, is gone.

  But wasn’t she gone the day she filed for divorce?

  Maybe I could have saved our marriage, if I’d—

  But she was sleeping around, not me.

  Lorraine was set to take away my 401(k) and any hope of retirement.

  But she died two days before the bitter divorce was final.

  “Jed,” I say, “what happened?”

  He speaks without looking up from his clipboard. “Sudden cardiac arrest. They attempted CPR, but— So sorry, Daniel.”

  “They?”

  “Excuse us, coming through.” A couple of Sunday-suited guys maneuver a gurney stenciled Nimitz Brothers Mortuary through the narrow bathroom hall. They wiggle and wedge alongside the bed, then one asks, “You the husband?” I nod, and he hands me a pre-filled form. “Just sign at the bottom.”

  Still in shock, I make a scribble, split by the dotted line.

  With practiced efficiency, they zip her lifeless form into a black rubber bag then load it onto the cart. “We’re very sorry for your loss, Mr. Horvath,” one recites. “Here’s a card with the number and address of the mortuary.” Then Wiggle and Wedge…and Lorraine make their way out.

  The coroner attempts to follow, but I stop him with, “So, Jed, you mentioned CPR. Who called the paramedics?”

  He lowers his head, shakes it. “The uh, the attempted resuscitation was administered by, uh, Dr. Silberg.”

  “Colin Silberg? The plastic surgeon?”

  He affirms with a nod.

  My jaw goes slack, mouth drops open. “What was…why was my boss in a hotel room with my wife?”

  Jed gives me a look I read as, You can’t possibly be that slow. You graduated med school, for God’s sake.

  “That’s really all I know, Daniel. Sorry, gotta go.” I allow him out of the room with a backhanded wave and the hotel door closes behind him with a heavy thunk.

  Sorrow? Relief? Something in between? It feels like I’m being torn apart by rival emotions battling inside me, wrenching my soul in opposite directions. Time ticks by, allowing the conflict its moment in my mind. Ten seconds seems appropriate.

  I bury my face in my hands. “Rest in peace, darling Lorraine.”

  Then I scream into my palms, “Free at last, free at last, free at last.”

  Chapter 2

  My buddy Ash and I coast our full-suspension mountain bikes down a sandy hill east of I-15, then pedal into the corrugated steel culvert that runs under the freeway.

  “Watch out for baby heads,” he yells.

  Likely washed in by a recent flash flood, softball-sized rocks form a slalom course the length of the giant pipe. Visibility is poor—literally a glaring light at the end of a dark tunnel. I pull off sunglasses, clamp the temples in my teeth, and manage to make it through to the other side without tacoing my front rim on a bike-wrecker stone.

  Eight minutes later, I’m gasping for my very life. One more crank, next breath…one more crank, next breath…I finally reach the peak of an enormous rock slab that looms west of the interstate and struggle out of the saddle. Once I’ve laid the bike safely on its side, I bend at the waist, propping myself up with hands on knees.

  The slickrock is countless shades of gray, mottled with dark desert lichen. At the bottom of the monolith the Navajo sandstone gives way to endless desert floor, russet dust dotted with pale green Great Basin sage. God, it’s beautiful. God, it’s taking a long time for my heart rate to drop below the mid-100s.

  “You okay, Danny?” Ash asks. “It’s only been a day since, you know.”

  Ashan Bakri is a brilliant gastroenterologist and half owner of the clinic that has employed me for the past two decades. He’s almost fifteen years my senior, but no one would guess it. At just over six feet, Ash is lanky and fit, with olive skin that does not seem to age. My late wife called us Mutt and Jeff. I’m barely five-eight with skin so pale I get a mild burn if someone mentions the sun. Where Ash is a graceful aspen, I’m more pine stump, thick muscles hiding under twenty—or so—extra pounds. Point is, in a side-by-side comparison, most people would say I lose. Hell, even his English is a little better than mine. “Not bad for an immigrant,” he likes to say. This immigrant was born in Vancouver, BC and came to the US fifty years ago.

  Ninety more breathless seconds expire before I’m able to answer him.

  “I…really…needed…this.”

  Ash looks confused. “This?”

  “To…clear my head…somewhere…I absolutely can’t…have… a single thought but…my next breath.”

  “So no Lorraine talk?”

  “Not today.”

  “Got it,” Ash says. “But on a somewhat related note, I’d steer well clear of Jane if I were you.”

  I feign indignity. “Jane? We see the same patients, I’m just—”

  “Not sure why she keeps coming on to you, but it’s sure as hell not because she thinks you’re a long lost Hemsworth brother. And now that Lorraine is, you know—” Ash launches himself down the back of the hill, hollering over his shoulder, “Catch me if you can, Mutt.”

  After the descent and another long climb, I finally do—catch up to him, that is.

  We stop for a standing rest, and when my heart approaches normal, I say. “So how are things with you, Ash?”

  He shrugs. “Eh.”

  “Eh what?”

  “Got a notice from doppel yesterday.”

  It takes me a moment to realize he’s talking about D-O-P-L, the Utah Division of Occupational and Professional Licensing.

  “What the fuck?” I blurt.

  “Woman claims I molested her.”

  “Did you?” Probably shouldn’t have said that.

  Ash shoots me a squinty look. “Don’t be a dick.”

  “Anything happen she might have been confused about?”

  “Other than sticking a camera up her hiney? Nah. Says I fondled her seventy-year-old breasts, but I was now
here in the vicinity.”

  “Of the room?”

  “Of her boobs.”

  “Some kind of nutcase, then?”

  He shrugs. “Don’t have much interaction with the talking end of my colonoscopy patients. And I use Propofol for twilight sedation, so most don’t remember anything afterwards.”

  “Nothing?”

  “A few hallucinate. Hell, I had one guy come out of it and ask where Jennifer Lawrence was. Wanted to thank her for the hand job.”

  “Guessing he didn’t complain.”

  “He did, actually. Couldn’t wait five years for his next—air quotes—procedure.” My breathing’s mostly recovered, and we share a good laugh. “This is going to sound weird,” Ash says, “but I feel like somehow Silberg’s behind it. Think he’d do anything to squeeze me out.” Then Ash pedals off.

  §

  The setting sun reaches through my west-facing windows, painting stretched orange trapezoids on the kitchen floor beneath me. I’m putting in a ridiculously small load of dishes, singing along with the syncopated vocals of Johnny Nash’s “I Can See Clearly Now,” freestyling the first line to include “Lorraine.”

  Our duet is suddenly overlaid with the pulsating chorus of “Another Brick in the Wall”—my ringtone.

  “Alexa, pause.”

  The number on the screen is from area 503. Got to be a robocall, so I decline. But before I can set the phone down, Pink Floyd is back. I answer with, “Leave me the hell alone, or I’ll—"

  “Danny, don’t hang up. It’s me, Rhonda.” Long silence, then, “Rhonda Horvath, your cousin.” The voice is nothing like the tentative, high-pitched tone from our teen years. She sounds calm and confident, almost sultry. Her call is a surprise, a big one. We’re first cousins; Bernie, my dad, and her father, Deloy, were brothers. But I haven’t spoken to Rhonda since I was seventeen. We’re not estranged exactly, our lives just took different trajectories. And we have a, well, a history we’ve yet to work out. Or even talk about.

  “How are you holding up?” she asks.

  The hell? “I’m doing okay, I guess. It’s, um, it’s really good to hear your voice.” After nearly thirty years? “What’s up with you, Rhonda?”

  “I saw a post on Facebook. Lorraine Horvath’s Untimely Death. I’m so sorry.”

  Facebook should mind its own damn business. “I’m fine, really.”

  “Even so, I’m coming down.”

  She pauses, probably waiting for me to respond. I got nothin’.

  “From Tillamook,” she says.

  “Tilla—?”

  “Tillamook. Oregon.”

  “Appreciate that,” I say. “I really do. But you don’t need to come all the way from Timmalook.”

  “Tillamook, like the cheese.”

  Cheese?

  “You need family at your side. I’m at the Salt Lake airport, about to board the commuter to Saint George.”

  What the hell, Rhonda? “I, er, can I pick you up…or something?”

  “Nah. Already scheduled an Uber. Should be at your door by eight o’clock.”

  My heart rate spikes. “Okay. Can’t wait to see you.” I’m not being polite. This is totally unexpected, weird actually, but I really can’t wait.

  §

  I whip the door open before she has a chance to ring the bell. Rhonda’s six minutes late, but who’s counting.

  “Danny! Or is it Daniel now? Or Dr. Horvath?”

  “Danny’ll do.”

  Her hair is not quite shoulder length, chestnut color streaked with enough gray to confirm it’s natural. Faded jeans and a flannel shirt suggest a kind of aging grunge vibe. It’s good to see her after all this time. Really good. My last mental picture was of a gangly sixteen-year-old, braces accentuating her wide smile. She’s an adult now. Hell, at forty-five she’s just one year my junior, and her adult face is even prettier than that too-thin teenager’s. Rhonda’s irises are still the gold-flecked green I remember. There are wrinkles, of course, but mostly at the corners of her eyes, giving the impression of a permanent smile. Lorraine’s description of me as “a pound or twenty past ideal” might apply here, but a little curvier looks just right on Rhonda.

  She parks her roller bag and we share an A-frame hug with pats to backs. Then Rhonda pulls a red bandanna from the pocket of her jeans and wipes beading sweat from her eyes and forehead. “God, it’s hot. It’s September and I feel like I’ve died and gone to— Oh, shit, Danny. I’m so sorry.”

  “It’s totally all right. Everyone around here complains about the heat.”

  “That’s not what I was apologizing for.”

  “I know.” We exchange cautious smiles. “Don’t worry about it,” I say. “For me, it’s as much relief as it is grief.”

  Her eyes and mouth register surprise. “That sounds like a tale needs telling.”

  “Let me show you to the guest room,” I say. “Take as long as you need to settle in. If you still want to hear them, I’ll tell tales till you nod off from sheer tedium.”

  I stare at the bedroom door closing behind her. It seems beyond peculiar for Rhonda to show up on my doorstep after all these years. But I am happy to see her.

  Thirty minutes later, Rhonda steps into the kitchen-family room, hair wet, wearing red basketball shorts and a gray Gonzaga Law T-shirt.

  “How’d you even find me?” I ask.

  “Searched for ‘Dr. Daniel Horvath,’ and your St. George clinic popped up. You should Google yourself sometime.”

  No thanks.

  I glance at the shirt. “You’re a lawyer, Rhonda?”

  “Since 1998.”

  “Makes sense, I never could win an argument with you.”

  Not sure what makes me think I can read her mood—she’s a virtual stranger. But somehow Rhonda seems more than just relaxed. Maybe safe is the word.

  “Better after the shower?” I ask.

  “Yup. I feel like a new woman.”

  “Me too.” I grin. “But more about that later.” I must be a little nervous, I mean, that old joke?

  “Can I get you anything, iced tea, soda, or—”

  “This an alcohol-friendly household?”

  “Lorraine made sure we were always well stocked.”

  “That supply include the makings for a Jack and Coke?”

  “Depends,” I deadpan. “What’s in it?”

  §

  “Alexa, play ‘Reelin’ In the Years,’” I order.

  Rhonda looks up from her drink, grinning like a kid with candy. “Steely Dan! You still groovin’ on our dads’ old music?”

  Groovin’. There’s a word I haven’t heard in a few decades. “You like the old stuff?”

  “Yup,” Rhonda says. “There’s a reason they call it classic rock. But we also loved our grunge bands, as I recall. I still listen to Nirvana and Foo Fighters. How about you?”

  “Yeah,” I say with a lazy shrug.

  Thirty seconds of silence ensue, born, perhaps, out of respect for old and really old rock and roll.

  “If it’s not too painful, Danny, how did your wife die? That was not on Facebook.”

  “Heart stopped. In bed. In a hotel. With my boss.”

  “Oh, my God.” Rhonda pauses for a moment, then, “Foul play?”

  “Nope,” I say, with a headshake. “Did Facebook tell you Lorraine filed for divorce shortly before she died?”

  “That explain the For Sale sign out front?”

  “Yeah, she’s taking half the proceeds from the house sale…and my entire 401(k).”

  “Was the divorce finalized?”

  “Nope.

  “She’s not getting anything now.”

  I can’t help an irreverent smile. “No, I guess she isn’t.”

  “You do something to drive her away?” An impish grin says she meant it as a joke, but try as I might, I can’t ignore a little tingle of self-doubt.

  Ten minutes later, Rhonda is still nursing the drink, nodding and uh-huhing convincingly while I vent about my
spiteful, serial adulteress of a late wife.

  “It didn’t matter what I did, what I ordered at a restaurant, which tie I chose, I was always wrong.”

  “In fairness,” she says, “at least fifty percent of the time you probably were.”

  “Nah. More like sixty-forty in my favor. Anyway, you don’t know me well enough to—”

  “Danny, here’s something that hasn’t changed in all these years—I can laugh at almost anything.”

  “Even my dead wife?”

  “That cheater? The hell with her, right?”

  Could it be the whiskey that’s got me giggling about my two-days-gone Lorraine? In any case, it’s astonishing how easily we’re sliding back into the pattern of our teenage years, matching each other smartass remark for smartass remark. Maybe matching is not the right word—I’ve always been a beat or two behind.

  Rhonda sips and listens while I recount more memories of my lousy marriage.

  Once I’m vented out, I tell Alexa, “Shuffle Doctor Dan’s Favs,” a playlist that for me bridges time and emotion from The Beachboys to Jane’s Addiction. She (it?) randomly selects “Here Comes the Sun,” and the two of us listen in a silence as comfortable as too-big jeans. George finally sings the last line and the iconic outro wraps the greatest Beatles song of all time. Don’t know about Rhonda, but for me the music is a time machine back to those precious years before puberty fucked everything up.

  Barenaked Ladies are next: “Grade Nine.” It’s been a lot of years since I escaped ninth grade. The lyrics still make me cringe, but I let it play to the end.

  “Wow.” Rhonda’s voice quavers. Is she a little bit choked up? “Hearing that, I’m suddenly at one of those awkward junior high dances, boys against one wall, girls lining the other.”

  “Still remember when you came over and asked me to dance,” I said.

  “Thanks a lot, Danny. I’ve been trying to forget that moment for more than three decades.” She allows herself a little giggle, as sweet and innocent as that thirteen-year-old at the fifth-period Valentine’s party. “You refused to dance, just left me hanging. The walk back to the girls’ side of the gym seemed like five humiliating miles. So, yeah, I remember.”