"Why not?"

Martin took another swallow of coffee. "Because it's too late."

"What do you mean?"

He set the coffee down and cracked his knuckles. "I mean that it's been over twenty years since I last set foot in a cla.s.sroom, and I don't relish the idea of going back now and having to sit in a room with a bunch of kids who are less than half my age. I mean it takes years-sometimes decades-to build a decent writing career. Yeah, I've got a file cabinet filled with short stories and half-finished novels, but I'm guessing a quarter of the people in the world have the same thing-and odds are they're doing something with their stuff."

"So what's stopping you?-and please don't waste our time by going back to that 'It's too late' argument, all right?"

"Look at me, will you? I'm a forty-four year old glorified janitor! I have touched no one; I have moved no one; I have helped no one, not really, not judging from the results-and I've got a pair of matching headstones I can show you to back up that last point. More of my life is behind me than ahead, and I'd rather not spend whatever years I have left working my a.s.s off to fail at something else." Even to himself, it sounded like whining, and he was sorry now he'd ever started talking.

"What have you failed at before?"

"I should have . . ." He stopped himself.

"You should have what, Martin?"

He shook his head. "I hear it in my head and it sounds so stupid that I'm too embarra.s.sed to actually say it."

"I'm not going to laugh at or make fun of you."

"I should think not. People don't bring piping hot cafe mochas that can easily be thrown in the face to someone they're planning to mock. That wasn't a threat or anything."

"I know. But I'd still like an answer to my question. You should have . . . what?"

"I was going to say, 'I should have been able to save them,' but even back then whenever I thought that, I knew it was stupid. Nothing could save them after a certain point; cancer comes back, its spreads and metastasizes and all you can do is pump someone full of pain killers to keep them comfortable; bad hearts give out, regardless of the catheterizations and stents and bypa.s.ses and nitro tablets. I don't think I actually believed I could save them, but . . ."

"But maybe what you were feeling was something close to that?"

Martin ran a hand over his face, exhaling loudly, becoming irritated with the tears. "I should have been able to do more to help them."

"But from the sound of it, you did more than anyone had the right to expect."

"I could've found the money to buy her a G.o.dd.a.m.n dishwasher."

Dr. Hayes tilted her head slightly. "Beg pardon?"

"Mom. I could have . . . look, this isn't getting us anywhere. I could sit here and come up with shoulda-woulda-coulda's until we're both old enough to retire."

"Since I've got all the letters after my name and several degrees hanging in expensive frames on my office walls, could you let me be the judge of that?"

"Do you talk to all of your patients this way?"

"Only those I watch vomit and buy cafe mochas for."

"You're quick."

"And you're good at evasion."

"It's a gift."

"So is compa.s.sion, so is intelligence, and so is the desire and ability to create. Let me ask you something, Martin: why is it that someone of your intelligence-and I had a friend check into your records at OSU, I saw your grades, saw that you'd won three separate scholarships, one of them for creative writing, so I know you're smart, and I know you're talented-why is it that you never went back to school? Why is it you chose to stay in a profession that-while a good and honorable job-doesn't challenge you or require any use of your talents?"

He stared at her for a few moments, sat back, and rubbed his eyes. "Because I'm scared."

"Of what? About what?"

"Of being rejected-and I'm not talking about just the writing, okay? I'm scared of being be rejected by people, possible friends, lovers, all of it."

"Why?"

"How the f.u.c.k should I know? Sorry, sorry . . . I didn't mean to raise my voice."

"That's all right."

"It all sounds so . . . so whiny when I say it out loud."

"No one's judging you. And, no, it doesn't."

"Look . . . I've had friends, and I've had girlfriends, and for a while it's all good, but eventually they all start to drift away. I used to think it was something I did-maybe I wasn't open enough, or honest enough, or affectionate enough-but that didn't hold up. Maybe in individual instances it might apply, but when the pattern kept repeating over and over . . . it took me a while, but I finally figured it out: I am just not an exciting person. I'm not the life of the party-and, no, I never wanted to be the life of the party. I am not one of the happy people, okay? I realized a long time ago that whatever mechanism it is that enables people to embrace and trust happiness is just not part of my make-up. I don't get upset about it, I don't sit around and cry and do the 'Poor-poor-pitiful-me' routine, I just accept it and try to get on with things."

"But you're not getting on with things, Martin; otherwise, you wouldn't have planned your suicide so thoroughly."

"Oh, and it would've worked, too."

Dr. Hayes nodded. "Yes. Based on the recipe you had written down and the dosages of the various medications and how you planned on ingesting them, there was no room for error. You'd be dead right now if you hadn't walked through that door last night. Why does that make you smile?"

"Because it's nice to know I got it right."

"And you're proud of that?"

"Not particularly. Not now, anyway."

"Does it scare you, that you almost succeeded?"

Martin thought it over for a few moments. "No . . . and I know it should. What's that say about my frame of mind?"

"You tell me."

Martin sighed and rose to his feet. "I'm really grateful for all the trouble you've gone through to help me, Dr. Hayes, but I don't feel like talking to you any more."

She pointed at Martin's chair. "You don't get to make that call, not in here. If this were my private practice and you made that declaration, I wouldn't push it, I'd just smile and say, 'See you next week' and then charge you my three-figure fee for the full hour, anyway. In here, you're done when I say you're done. I have tentatively recommended you for a 4-day stay; that can be either increased or decreased, depending on how much you cooperate in our trying to help you. Just because this place is considered the fast-food franchise of mental health doesn't mean we don't try our best. Now please sit down and let's finish this."

Martin complied. "I'm only doing this because you bought an extra coffee for me."

"And providing you don't p.i.s.s me off, I'll buy an extra one for you tomorrow, as well." Her tone was light but her eyes were serious. "Listen to me, Martin; it has been my experience that most people who seriously attempt suicide don't do it because their spirit has been crushed in some single, ma.s.sive, cataclysmic blow, but rather because it has bled to death from thousands of small scratches they weren't even aware of. You're right to insist that dealing with the death of your parents and the incredible hole it left in your life isn't what drove you toward your decision; it was however, I think-and excuse my resorting to a tired cliche-the straw that broke the camel's back. If it hadn't been that, it would have been something else-a really bad night at work, a flat tire, burning your dinner, an obnoxious telemarketer, who knows? It's not necessarily the thing itself-it's everything that has led up its suddenly taking on this profound, symbolic significance that you'd never attribute to it under everyday circ.u.mstances. Do you understand?"

"You're pretty good at this. Ever think of doing it professionally?"

Dr. Hayes sat back. "Does that mean you agree?"

"Yeah . . . yeah, it does."

"Good. Now I'll make a deal with you. I've got a really busy day waiting for me when I walk out that door, and I could use an extra half-hour, so I'll meet you halfway about your not feeling like talking to me anymore: if you will tell me, to the best of your recollection, where you were and what you were doing when you first made the decision to start planning your own death, we'll call it a day and take up at that point tomorrow, all right?"

"What're you going to do with that extra half-hour, just out of curiosity?"

"Nothing. I am going to do nothing. I am going to sit in my car and listen to a cla.s.sic rock station while eating something that's bad for me that I plan on picking up at the first choke-burger drive-thru joint I pa.s.s on the way. And I will love Every. Minute. Of. It."

"d.a.m.n, that sounds great."

"It will be."

"Far be it from me to keep a person from a higher cholesterol count."

Dr. Hayes smiled, put down her pen (she'd filled both sides of the file cover with notes, anyway), folded her hands, and said: "So, what were you doing?"

Martin thought about, then answered her question, surprised at how easily and quickly it came out, surprised even more with how much he realized while telling it to her, and found that he actually felt a little better once he finished. Dr. Hayes seemed equally pleased, and promised to bring a croissant along with the coffee tomorrow morning before she thanked him for a good session and went on her way.

It was ten-thirty. He had ninety minutes to himself. What to do, what to do?

He leaned forward to turn on the television, remembered what he'd seen the last time he tried to watch something, and decided to take a stroll around the gym, instead.

The stroll took all of ten minutes and lost its appeal in a hurry; the gym itself was less than half the size of a standard basketball court, and had only one window, a single basketball hoop, several folded risers, and a bunch of folded tables. Even though Martin had turned on the lights before entering (almost falling down the four stairs, which he'd forgotten about), the place was still awfully dim. It was the middle of the morning; there ought to be more light. Maybe it would look brighter at night. He could come back this evening and check.

Something to look forward to.

He went back to the main area and browsed through the movie selection, found a copy of The Best Years of Our Lives (Dad's favorite movie), and was getting ready to put it in the VCR when he noticed a watercolor painting that was hanging on the wall among the children's drawings.

It was a painting of a large, dark, Richardsonian-Romanesque gothic building-an old school, perhaps- complete with turrets and a belfry.

Two things immediately registered: he'd seen this building before, and recently, and d.a.m.ned if it didn't look like it had been painted by the same guy who'd done the watercolor he owned.

Looking over at the nurses' station to make sure no one was watching him, Martin took the watercolor from the wall and went back to his room. True to her word, Amber had returned his painting, leaning it on the desktop. Martin grabbed it and sat down, holding the two paintings side by side.

It didn't take an expert to recognize that the style of both paintings was exactly the same-all you had to do was look at the signature in the lower right-hand corner: R.J. Nyman.

Martin Tyler was not a man who put a lot of stock in meaningful coincidence, having experienced so little of it during his lifetime, and anytime he did encounter something that might be chalked up to it, he did then what he did now: shook his head and came up with a reasonable explanation: Okay, so the same guy painted both of these; so what? It doesn't mean anything. The guy told you that he made part of his living doing this, painting watercolors of local landmarks and buildings. Stands to reason that he'd do a lot of them, and that one of them would end up here.

This almost worked, until it dawned on him where he'd seen this other gothic nightmare of a building.

Rising to his feet, he walked over to the only window in his room and looked out through the streaked gla.s.s and wire mesh to the building across the street, whose sign declared it to be Miller Middle School, a building that would be right at home in a Boris Karloff, Vincent Price, or Bela Lugosi fright-fest.

Martin would have dismissed this as another so what? had it not been for the things standing at various spots across the length of the roof; near the edge, atop the turrets, above and even inside the belfry, at least a dozen of the camera-creatures similar to the one from the other night milled about, hopping to and fro, beaks and wings working furiously, all of them turning in his direction at once and freezing as if challenging him to a stare-down.

Martin backed away, not looking away from the sight until he nearly fell over the chair.

It's the drugs, he told himself. That has to be it; you're still wonky from the meds and your brain is just dredging up this same weird c.r.a.p like it did last night.

Setting the watercolors on the desk, he took a deep breath, released it slowly, and looked back.

The camera-creatures were still staring at him, only now their bra.s.s eyes were opening, and from each set emerged a bright golden light, the beams crisscrossing until it appeared the top of the school was encased in a giant, shimmering web of gold.

Easy there, sport, he told himself. There's an quick way to prove that you're still hallucinating.

Opening the door of his room, Martin leaned out into the hallway and called, "Bernard?"

The attendant came out of the nurses' station right away. "Something wrong? You okay there, bud?"

"Could you come in here for a minute, please?"

Bernard approached him slowly. "What's going on, Martin?"

Ethel and Amber stood at the door, watching.

Think fast, sport; don't make this any worse. "I was just wondering about this building across the street."

"The school?" asked Bernard.

"Yeah . . . I was wondering if it's the same building in this picture I found hanging on the wall out there."

Bernard came into the room. Martin handed him the watercolor. "It looks like this is the same building. Is it?"

Bernard looked out the window, as did Martin.

The creatures were still there, but if Bernard saw them, he gave no indication.

"Oh, yeah, it's the same place. The guy who did this, he's got stuff all over town. You ever been inside the Sparta or the L&K restaurant? They got watercolors he did of their places hanging in there. He did one of the courthouse, the old Savings & Loan . . . h.e.l.l, you can't go into a restaurant or city building and not see one of his watercolors." Bernard looked at the painting. "'R.J. Nyman'. So that's his name. Huh."

Martin realized that he could just ask Bernard if he saw the things on the roof-at least that way he'd have his answer-but he suddenly didn't want to know; if Bernard said yes, then reality as Martin knew it had wandered off the highway; if Bernard said no, he'd follow it up with a lot of questions-Why, what do you see? Camera-creatures, you say? With wings and wolf's legs and bra.s.s eyes? A giant golden web, you say? Hang on a second, I think Ethel might have another cup of pills for you . . . .

Better to stay quiet.

"I thought something about this painting you brought with you looked familiar," said Bernard, holding the watercolors side by side. "You buy this off him, did you?"

"A few years back. I gave him fifty dollars for it."

"I'll bet he appreciated that. Huh-small world, isn't it? You having a painting of his."

"I guess so."

Bernard handed them back. "I wonder whatever happened to that guy."

"Yeah."

Bernard stared at him for a moment, then asked: "Was that all you wanted?"

Martin nodded. "Just making sure that I wasn't seeing or imagining things."