ASHER BLUM

Asher couldn’t sleep. He hadn’t slept more than two hours at a time since Iris left. Was that only yesterday? How could that be? Perhaps he would never sleep again. He considered staying in bed, but if he was awake, he might as well do some work. He struggled into his bathrobe and opened his bedroom door. The house was dark and quiet. It was quiet in the guest bedroom; Lexi must be able to sleep. He tiptoed past her door into the living room for a glass of water. A small envelope, the size that might hold a sympathy card or thank you note, had been shoved through the mail slot and stared at him from the floor.

Not a greeting card, nor a thank you note. A single piece of lined paper, ripped from a notebook, with only three short sentences: Thirty-five years ago, a doctor raped me at your precious hospital. You did nothing. You deserve all the pain I hope you’re feeling today.

His eyes closed. His body slumped against the wall. He felt the weight of his ninety-four years. The decades were boulders on his shoulders, sharp burrs under his pajamas, fire ants crawling up his bare ankles. He had made so many mistakes.

The note must have come from his next-door neighbor, Evelyn. He knew that she hated him, and he remembered the incident. The doctor who assaulted her was young and stupid and probably deserved to have his residency ended. It wasn’t actually Asher’s call; the medical education director made the decision not to destroy the guy’s career. There was outcry from some staff, but Asher felt sorry for the young doctor and let the decision stand. The hospital was already under public scrutiny. The overcrowding was severe, funding was terribly inadequate, the consent decree had been established, and the closing of the hospital was already in the works. What good would firing one psychiatrist-in-training do? He remembered asking his best social worker, Roberta Somebody, to help Evelyn. Then he had put the incident out of his mind.

Clearly a mistake. One of many, apparently. But this note made him uncomfortable. He felt threatened. Evelyn had a reputation for being quick tempered and mean, in addition to not minding her own business. Could she somehow be involved in Iris’s disappearance? Should he call that detective and let her know?

No, that was being paranoid. He tucked the angry words deep into Iris’s knitting basket and walked to the back door. Standing in the open doorway, he wrapped his bathrobe tighter and looked into the chilly dark of his yard. Next door, the blue spruce Eric’s children planted one Christmas was haloed by a streetlight. The tangy smell of evergreen always sent him reeling back to the forest, back to his sister and the yelling of the soldiers who found her. She was gone—his sister and his parents and brother. Everyone gone.

Now his Iris was gone too. He was alone and all the things he had done to protect himself and his family were ganging up on him. Were those actions wrong? Was he wrong? Had he made the wrong choices?

How was a man supposed to know these things?