One Last Scream

him to the rest home to see his old buddy. Then she’d walk or wheel her dad outside, and Rufus would go nuts, pawing and poking at her father’s leg, licking his hand. The visits with Rufus always cheered up her dad.

She thought about how much freedom her father would lose if they changed his routine and his medication. She replayed in her mind kissing him good-bye about twenty-five minutes ago. It was strange, seeing that young woman who looked so much like Amelia in the hallway, outside her father’s door.

“I can’t believe Amelia isn’t here,” Karen muttered. “She was so anxious to see me. I told her to wait.”

“Did she say what it was about?” Jessie asked, toiling away on the candelabra.

“Something horrible happened. That’s all I know. And that’s all I can say without breaking patient-therapist confidentiality.”

“Oh, yeah, like I have a direct line to Tom Brokaw. Who am I going to tell?” Jessie grinned at her. “You worry about her more than all your other patients. That Amelia is a sweet girl. The way she counts on you-and looks up to you. Three guesses who she reminds me of.”

Karen just nodded. Amelia and Haley were alike in so many other ways, too: the drinking problems, the low self-esteem, and a penchant for blaming themselves for just about everything.

She remembered a discussion she’d once had with Haley, in which the fifteen-year-old blamed herself for her parents’ breakup. “Hey, honey,” Karen had told her, with a nudge. “If anyone’s getting blamed for your parents’ breakup, it’s me.”

That wasn’t quite true. When Karen had first met Haley’s father four years ago, he’d already separated from his wife. Karen had come to loathe her go-nowhere counseling job at Group Health. Her dad had just started to show early warning signs of something wrong with little episodes of depression and forgetfulness. Karen had recently fired his housekeeper, who had been robbing him blind for months. She’d moved back home temporarily to look after him and take him to his barrage of doctor appointments. As for Karen’s love life, it was nonexistent.

It seemed like the only time she had for herself was the hour between returning home from work and cooking dinner for her dad. He was always glued to the TV and Law and Order, so she’d change into her sweats, jog to Volunteer Park, then run laps around the reservoir. That section of the park had a sweeping view of downtown Seattle, the Space Needle, and the Olympic Mountains. At sunset, it was gorgeous, and she could almost convince herself that she wasn’t so bad off. There were always a few handsome men doing laps, too. Most of them were probably gay, but she still got an occasional, flirtatious smile from a fellow jogger. Hell, something like that could make her night.

And sometimes it could make her stumble and skin her knee. The jogger whose smile had caught her eye and tangled her feet on that warm September evening was about forty years old. He had brown hair that was receding badly, but the rest of him was awfully nice: dark eyes, a swarthy complexion, sexy smile, and a toned, sinewy body.

As soon as she hit the asphalt, Karen felt the searing pain in her knee. She also felt utterly humiliated. The handsome jogger swiveled around and ran to her aid. He kept saying he was sorry he’d distracted her. It was all his fault.

“Oh, no, it’s okay,” Karen babbled. “I’m fine. I-it really doesn’t hurt.”

The hell it didn’t. But something left over from her tomboy period was putting up a brave, tearless front.

“Jesus, that’s gotta smart,” he said. “Look, you’ve got pebbles embedded in there-”

“Really, it’s nothing.” But then she took a look at all the blood, and suddenly felt a little woozy.

“I have a first-aid kit in my car,” she heard him say. “Stay put. I’ll be right back.”

When he returned, he helped her to a park bench, sat her down, and went to work on her knee. The blood had trickled down to her ankle. He squatted in front of her and meticulously cleaned it up. He also recommended she put some ice on her knee once she got home. Karen tried not to wince while he picked out a few pebbles and applied the Neosporin.

“So, are you a doctor?” she asked, once she got past the pain. “You’re really good at this.”

“No, I’m an attorney. But I have a thirteen-year-old daughter who thinks she can outrun, out-throw, and out-dare any boy in her class. So I’ve tended to a lot of scrapes and cuts.”

Karen looked for a wedding ring on his hand. There wasn’t one.

“Her mother and I have been separated for seven months,” he said, apparently reading her mind. But he seemed focused on her knee as he put a large Band-Aid over the wound. “You know, I should take another look at this knee in a couple of nights and see how it’s healing. Are you free Saturday night?”

Karen hesitated. His slick yet corny approach took her totally by surprise.

He looked up at her and grinned.

Yes, she thought, a very sexy smile.

His name was Kurt Lombard. They had a great first date: dinner at the Pink Door, and a heavy make-out session afterward. Then he didn’t call. After eight days, she finally phoned him. She was so relieved and grateful when he asked her out again that she ignored all the signs. Looking back on it, she could see Kurt had immediately established a pattern in their relationship. She’d fallen hard for a ruggedly handsome commitment-phobic charmer. Every time he showed he cared about her, it was intermittent reinforcement. He was like a bad slot machine that paid off just often enough to keep her hooked.

Karen had dated him off and on for three months before working up the nerve to ask how he felt about her. And was he ever planning to divorce his wife? Kurt couldn’t even commit to un- commit.

When she had patients in unbalanced relationships like this, Karen always advised them to stand up for themselves or get the hell out. But she stuck with Kurt. Eventually, he did divorce his wife, and Karen was relieved he didn’t take his new freedom to the limit by dumping her, too. More positive intermittent reinforcement came when he wanted her to meet his daughter, Haley. By then she was fourteen, and out of her tomboy phase. She’d already been arrested once, and rushed to the hospital twice for alcohol poisoning. On their first meeting-dinner at the 5-Spot Cafe-Kurt had dropped them off in front of the restaurant, and then went to park the car. Standing on the curb in front of the cafe, Karen found herself alone for the first time with Haley. The oversized army fatigue jacket limply hung on the girl’s slouched, emaciated frame. She had a blue streak in her stringy brown hair. And she might have been pretty if not for her perpetual sneer. “So-you’re the girlfriend,” Haley said.

Playing along, Karen grinned. “And you’re the daughter.”

“Y’know, my mother’s a lot prettier than you,” Haley said.

“Yeah? Well, my mother can beat up your mother.” Karen shot back.

Staring at her for a moment, Haley twirled a strand of hair around her finger. Finally, she burst out laughing.

Karen realized she had no problem standing up to the daughter-just the dad. She and Haley weren’t exactly bosom buddies, but they got along all right. By the time Haley was fifteen, Karen and Kurt were living together in a two-bedroom house in Seattle’s Queen Anne district.

Karen’s dad was doing better, thanks partly to his new medication, but even more to his new housekeeper, Jessie. She doted on him, but kept him in line, too.

Kurt was a hit with Karen’s dad-and with her siblings, Frank and Sheila, when they came to Seattle on vacation with their families. Her friends liked him, too. But when Karen asked Jessie what she thought of Kurt, the housekeeper just smiled cryptically and said, “He’s very charming.”

“That’s it?” Karen asked.

“He’s very charming,” Jessie repeated. “But he should pay more attention to the women in his life, namely you and his daughter, the poor thing.”

Three weeks after Jessie had made that comment, a terrified Haley confided in Karen that she thought she had syphilis or gonorrhea. Karen made an appointment for her at Group Health, and went with her to the doctor’s office. It turned out Haley had a mild yeast infection.

“I won’t say anything to your folks about this,” Karen told her as they left the office together. “And I’m not going to tell you how stupid it is for someone your age to be having sex-”

“Oops, I think you just did,” Haley interjected.

Karen nodded. “Yeah, well, at least be smart enough to take some precautions, okay?”

“Thanks, Karen.”

The following weekend, Haley bought her a coffee mug. It had a cartoon of a Garfield-like smiling cat with sunglasses, and said “KAREN is a Cool Cat!” She and Haley had a good laugh over how tacky it was. At first, Karen