Until I Find You

“Behave yourself, William,” Dr. Krauer-Poppe said.

William turned and winked at Jack. Dr. Horvath had dressed Jack’s father in a long-sleeved black silk shirt; because William’s arms were long, but his body was small, every shirt looked too big on him. His silver shoulder- length hair, which was the same glinting shade of gray as Dr. von Rohr’s electric streak, added to the feminine aspect of his handsomeness—as did the copper bracelets and his gloves. His “evening” gloves, as William called them, were a thin black calfskin. The way his father bounced on the balls of his feet reminded Jack of Mr. Ramsey. As Heather had put it, William Burns was a youthful-looking sixty-four.

“Ruth, alas, is no fan of Billy Rainbow, Jack,” William said, as they were being seated.

“Alas, she told me,” Jack said, smiling at Dr. von Rohr, who smiled back at him.

“Even so,” Jack’s father said, clearing his throat, “I gotta say we’re with the two best-looking broads in the place.” (He really did have Billy Rainbow down pat.)

“You’re such a flatterer, William,” Dr. von Rohr told him.

“Have you had a look at Ruth’s purse?” Jack’s dad asked him, indicating Dr. von Rohr’s rather large handbag; it was too big to fit under her chair. “More like a suitcase, if you ask me—more like an overnight bag,” William said, winking at Jack. His father was outrageously suggesting that Dr. von Rohr had prepared herself for the possibility of spending the night at the Hotel zum Storchen with Jack!

“It’s not every day you meet a man who compliments a woman’s accessories,” Dr. von Rohr told Jack, smiling.

Dr. Krauer-Poppe didn’t look so sure, nor was she smiling; despite her supermodel attire, Dr. Krauer-Poppe’s dominant personality trait radiated medication.

Jack also knew that Dr. Krauer-Poppe was married, and she had young children, which was why his father had focused his embarrassing zeal for matchmaking on Jack and Dr. von Rohr. (She was no longer married but had been, Heather had said; she was a divorced woman with no children.)

“Jack’s been seeing a psychiatrist—for longer than I’ve known you two ladies,” William announced. “How’s that been going, Jack?”

“I don’t know if there’s a professional name for the kind of therapy I’ve been receiving,” Jack told them. “A psychiatric term, I mean.”

“It doesn’t need to have a psychiatric term,” Dr. Krauer-Poppe said. “Just describe it.”

“Well, Dr. Garcia—she’s this truly wonderful woman in her early sixties, with all these children and grandchildren. She lost her husband some years ago—”

“Aren’t most of her patients women, Jack?” his dad interrupted. “I had that impression from one of those articles I read about the Lucy business—you remember that episode, the girl in the backseat of Jack’s car?” William asked his doctors. “Both she and her mother were seeing the same psychiatrist Jack was seeing! From the sound of it, you’d think there was a shortage of psychiatrists in southern California!”

“William, let Jack describe his therapy for us,” Dr. von Rohr said.

“Oh,” his father responded; it gave Jack a chill that his dad said, “Oh,” exactly the way Jack did.

“Well, Dr. Garcia makes me tell her everything in chronological order,” Jack explained. Both doctors were nodding their heads, but William suddenly looked anxious.

“What things?” Jack’s father asked.

“Everything that ever made me laugh, or made me cry, or made me feel angry—just those things,” Jack told him.

Dr. Krauer-Poppe and Dr. von Rohr weren’t nodding their heads anymore; they were both observing William closely. The idea of what might have made his son laugh, or cry, or feel angry seemed to be affecting him.

His dad had moved his right hand to his heart, but his hand hadn’t come to rest there. He appeared to be inching his fingers over the upper-left side of his rib cage—as if feeling for something under his shirt, or under his skin. He knew exactly where to find it, without looking. As for what might have made William Burns laugh or cry, her name was Karin Ringhof—the commandant’s daughter. As for what might have made him cry and made him feel angry, that would have been what happened to her little brother.

“It sounds as if this therapy could be quite a lengthy endeavor,” Dr. Krauer-Poppe said to Jack, but she’d not taken her eyes from William’s gloved hand—black-on-black against his shirt, touching the tattoo she knew as well as Jack did.

The commandant’s daughter; her little brother

From the pained expression on his father’s face, Jack could tell that William had his index finger perfectly in place on the semicolon—the first (and probably the last) semicolon Doc Forest had tattooed on anyone.

“Your therapy sounds positively book-length,” Dr. von Rohr said to Jack, but her eyes—like those of her colleague—had never strayed from his father.

“You’re putting in chronological order everything that ever made you laugh, or made you cry, or made you feel angry,” his dad said, grimacing in pain—as if every word he spoke were a tattoo on his rib cage, or in the area of his kidneys, or on the tops of his feet, where Jack had seen his own name and his sister’s. All those places where Jack knew it hurt like Hell to be tattooed, yet William Burns had been tattooed there—he’d been marked for life everywhere it hurt, except for his penis.

“And has this therapy helped?” Dr. von Rohr asked Jack doubtfully.

“Yes, I think it has—at least I feel better than when I first went to see Dr. Garcia,” he told them.

“And you think it’s the chronological-order part that has helped?” Dr. Krauer-Poppe asked. (In her view, Jack could tell, putting the highs and lows of your life in chronological order was not as reliable as taking medication.)

“Yes, I think so …” Jack started to say, but his father interrupted him.

“It’s barbaric!” William shouted. “It sounds like torture to me! The very idea of imposing chronological order on everything that ever made you laugh or cry or feel angry—why, that’s the most masochistic thing I’ve ever heard of! You must be crazy!”

“I think it’s working, Pop. The chronological-order part keeps me calm.”

“My son is obviously deluded,” William said to his doctors.

“Jack’s not the one in an institution, William,” Dr. von Rohr reminded him.

Dr. Krauer-Poppe covered her pretty face with her hands; for a moment, Jack was afraid that the word institution might have been a trigger. The Doc Forest tattoo on the upper-left side of his father’s rib cage was clearly a trigger, but a stoppable one—or so it appeared. Jack’s dad had returned both his hands to the table.

Just then their waiter materialized—a short man bouncing on the balls of his feet, as vigorously as William or Mr. Ramsey ever had, although the waiter was fat. He had a small mouth and an overlarge mustache, which seemed to tickle his nose when he spoke. “Was darf ich Ihnen zu Trinken bringen?” he inquired. (It sounded as if “What may I bring you to drink?” were all one word.)

“Fortuitous,” Jack’s father said, meaning the timely appearance of the waiter, but the waiter thought that William had ordered something.

“Bitte?” the waiter asked.

“Ein Bier,” Jack said—pointing to himself, to avoid further confusion. (“A beer.”)

“I didn’t know you drank!” his dad said with sudden concern.

“I don’t. You can watch me. I won’t finish one beer,” Jack told him.

“Noch ein Bier!” his father told the waiter, pointing to himself. (“Another beer!”)

“William, you don’t drink—not even half a beer,” Dr. von Rohr reminded him.

“I can have what Jack has,” William said, acting like a child.

“Not with the antidepressants. You shouldn’t,” Dr. Krauer-Poppe said.

“I can unorder the beer,” Jack suggested. “Das macht nichts.”

“Jack’s German will improve over time,” William said to his doctors.