Chapter Seventy-one

Rick has decided that twenty-two is enough. One makes him feel good. Two make him drowsy. Surely, now that he’s half the man he used to be, twenty-two should be more than enough. The trick isn’t to swallow them all at once, but parcel them out over fifteen minutes, not long enough to fall asleep before the deed is done, but long enough between pills that he won’t throw them up. Oh yes. He’s thought a lot about this.

The pills are lined up on his tray table like a row of ammunition. His bedside lamp is on, casting a cheery yellow warmth to the white tablets. He’s said good night to everyone. Francesca didn’t understand that his kiss good night was the final farewell; the lingering sweetness of her surprised response to his kiss is almost enough in itself to make him step back from this ledge. And when Keller popped his head in to say good night on his way to the garage, Rick smiled and maybe confused him a little when he said, “Good night. And thanks. For everything.” Keller just said “Sleep well” and left. Rick heard the kitchen light snap off and the sound of the connecting door being opened.

The prompt to this being the night was so simple. Johnny Antonelli, at age eighteen, had become a starting pitcher for the Boston Braves. Eighteen. The age of cannon fodder not long ago. Kid would have been a schoolboy during the war. The age when your body seems invulnerable. At twenty-eight, Rick was already ten years older than Antonelli when he got what should have been his big break. And even then he was already icing a sore pitching arm after every practice. This kid can probably pitch a whole game and then go play tennis. Even if he had come back whole and been put back on the Braves roster, a kid like this would have shown up sooner or later and shoved Rick out. Traded probably, or rarely played. It seems so unfair. Rick knows that this is crazy thinking, but it’s been enough to get him to empty out the pouch and line up the pills. Rick has assiduously avoided the sports page, refuses to listen to games, but even he heard about this player, this paragon. This upstart wearing his number.

The pills are lined up on the tray table. Pretty little things.

He just can’t go on this way. The darkness always there, the weight of his sin; the sharp point of his professional disappointment. His utter failure as a husband, unable to give his wife a child.

Keller will take care of Francesca, take care of Pax. He, too, is wearing Rick’s number.

Rick swallows the first pill. Pax is suddenly there, his eyes fixed on him with a stare that is a thin degree from hostile. He should have known the dog would be in as soon as he stirred from the sleep he’d been feigning. Rick has spent the night tallying up his grievances, weighing out his justification, letting the pain in his phantom limb keep him awake. He’s not sure if he wants the dog to be there for this final sleep, to be a silent witness to his cowardice, because, yes, Rick knows that he’s taking the coward’s way out, but that’s okay. Rather a dead coward than a live fool.

“Go to bed.”

Instead of going to his basket, the dog stands beside Rick, chucks his nose under Rick’s hand to get a pat. That first pill has relaxed him, the pain in his phantom limb throbbing with less intensity. Rick spends a long time stroking the dog, whispering things into his tattooed ear that he’ll never say again. Telling him that he needs to be a good dog. “You’re a lucky dog, Pax. You have good people to keep loving you.”

Pax doesn’t wriggle with pleasure; he stiffens instead, the same kind of immobility he displays when a squirrel comes along. The same kind of immobility that Keller speaks of when talking about Pax’s years as an army scout dog. A dog for defense. The silent alert to danger. It’s almost enough to make Rick look up to see if there is an intruder. The dog’s body is rock solid with tension. His eyes aren’t on some distant mark, but looking right at Rick. As if he is the intruder. He backs away and lowers his head, eyes fixed on Rick’s. He growls, a soft inquiring sound.

“It’s all right. Go to bed.” The last thing Rick wants is for the dog to alert Keller.

Pax remains where he is.

“So be it.” Rick reaches for a pill, picks up the glass, washes it down. Sets the glass down, reaches for another pill. The dog’s nostrils twitch, as if he can smell it and is repulsed by the odor of the morphine. Rick takes another. And another. Ten go down. He’s got to be careful; he’s swallowed nearly half the glass of water that Keller has left for him should he get thirsty in the night. He’s not sure he could manage to chew his way through the remaining collection of pills.

Rick sets the glass down to gather up the rest of the pills for one last swallow. As he does, Pax suddenly leaps up onto the bed, knocking the tray table over, scattering the remaining morphine pills to all four corners of the room. And he commences barking an alert, a warning as vital as any alarm he made during the war.

Rick doesn’t hear the dog or feel the weight of him standing on his chest. Rick gives in to the weight of the morphine as it pulls him down and down.