When I wouldn’t give them to her, she lost it. She screamed something about the kids and me being better off without her, then took off on foot. What am I going to do?” Jeremy added miserably. “I can’t take care of these two little kids all by myself. I wouldn’t know where to start. What’s the matter with her, Beau? What’s going on?” He sounded utterly mystified and despairing.
“Are you saying you think she’s left you for good?” I asked.
“I have no idea,” he returned. “I told you what she said, but I don’t know what it means. Do you?”
From the sound of things, it was probably a good thing Kelly wasn’t behind the wheel of a vehicle.
“Did the two of you have a quarrel of some kind after you got home?” I asked.
“How could we argue?” Jeremy said. “She wasn’t even speaking to me.”
“Before you left Seattle then?” I asked. “Did something happen while you were here that upset her?”
“You saw how she was,” Jeremy answered. “She was upset the whole time we were there-upset and on edge. The thing is, what am I supposed to do now? Go looking for her? Let her go and hope she cools off? Call the cops?”
I hadn’t the foggiest idea of what to tell him.
“What’s going on?” Mel asked in the background.
“It’s Jeremy,” I explained. “Kelly cried all the way home from Seattle back to Ashland. Now Jeremy says she told him he and the kids would be better off without her and took off on foot.”
“Let me talk to him,” Mel said. I handed over the phone. She switched it to speaker mode. “How long ago did she leave?”
“A few minutes,” Jeremy answered. “I called as soon as she was out the door.”
“So she’s probably still in the neighborhood somewhere,” Mel said. “Take the kids with you, get in the car, and go find her.”
“But-”
“And when you do, take her straight to her doctor and tell him exactly what’s going on.”
“But what is going on?” Jeremy asked.
“Have you ever heard of postpartum depression?” Mel asked.
“Yes, but I always thought it was some kind of joke.”
Jeremy’s thinking on the matter wasn’t that far from my own. As far as I knew, postpartum depression was right up there with mother-in-law jokes as fodder for stand-up comedians.
“It’s no joke, Jeremy,” Mel told him. “It’s serious, and it can also turn deadly on occasion. If that’s what’s going on, Kelly needs to see her doctor right away so she can be diagnosed and treated.”
“She’s not crazy or something, is she?” Jeremy asked. His voice was subdued. And scared. The deadly seriousness of Mel’s demeanor had me scared, too.
There was a call-waiting alert on the phone, but Mel ignored it and so did I. “Kelly may be acting crazy,” Mel countered. “But having a baby is hard work. It probably left her internal chemistry totally out of whack. Since she’s not nursing…she isn’t, is she?”
“No.”
“Then having her doctor prescribe medication to counter that chemical imbalance shouldn’t be a problem, but you’ll have to find her first.”
“Should I call the cops?” Jeremy asked. “Tell them that she’s missing?”
There were plenty of reasons not to do that. Filing a police report could well give rise to questions about whether or not domestic violence was part of the equation. An official report might also bring Child Protective Services into the fray with questions asked about Kelly’s suitability for motherhood. The idea that someone might step in and try to take Kayla and Kyle away from them froze my heart.
Before I could say anything on that score, however, Mel said it for me.
“No,” she told him urgently. “In the long run that’ll only make things more complicated. Just go find her. What’s her doctor’s name?”
“Howell,” Jeremy answered. “Dr. Faye Howell here in Ashland.”
“I’ll call the doctor and let her know what’s going on,” Mel told him. “Once you find Kelly, call back here. I’ll tell you what the doctor says and where you should take her.”
While Mel busied herself with dialing information, I was summoned by the doorbell. I found Scott and Cherisse waiting outside in the hallway.
“The doorman tried calling to let you know we were on our way up,” Scott said as I let them into the apartment. “Is something the matter with your phone?”
I waved him to silence so I could listen to Mel. By then she had used her law enforcement officer persona to mow down whatever gatekeepers stood between Dr. Howell and her patients.
“All right, then,” Mel was saying. “As soon as Jeremy locates her, I’ll tell him to bring her directly to the hospital, that you’ll wait for them at the ER.”
Scott looked worriedly from Mel back to me. “What’s going on?” he asked.
“It’s Kelly,” I said. “She took off and left Jeremy and the kids behind. He’s frantic.”
“It’s postpartum depression, isn’t it,” Cherisse said.
Mel nodded. Cherisse turned back to Scott and poked him in the ribs. “See there?” she said. “I told you so.”
Scott and I exchanged long-suffering glances. That’s what’s so mystifying about women. Neither Mel Soames nor Cherisse Beaumont had ever had a baby themselves. Still, they somehow knew what was going on with Kelly, even though Kelly herself didn’t seem to.
I’ve long maintained that women are born knowing things it takes men a whole lifetime to figure out. This was simply one more case in point.
CHAPTER 15
Two nights earlier, Kelly’s temper tantrum had spoiled one dinner. Now, from hundreds of miles away, her situation cast a pall on this meal as well.
We were halfway through our entrees when my phone rang. I could tell it was Jeremy calling, but it was too noisy for me to hear inside the restaurant. I excused myself and went outside to stand among the crew of waiting parking valets.
“Did you find her?” I demanded.
“Yes,” he answered, relief apparent in his voice. “She was sitting on a bench down by Lithia Creek. It was cold as hell down there. She wasn’t even wearing a sweater.”
I felt as relieved as Jeremy sounded. “She’s all right, then?” I asked.
“I guess,” he said. “I did just what Mel told me to do. I took her to see Dr. Howell. She prescribed something to help her sleep. I don’t think she’s slept in days, but she’s upstairs resting right now. Dr. Howell gave her some antidepressants. I guess it’s a good thing Kelly decided against nursing.”
“I guess so,” I agreed.
“Is Mel there?” Jeremy asked.
“She’s back inside the restaurant.”
“Tell her thank you for me,” he said. “I kept thinking it was something I had done wrong, but Dr. Howell says it’s something that happens to some women after they give birth. It can happen sooner rather than later, and this is definitely sooner. Dr. Howell said it was really smart of me to figure it out and let her know, but it wasn’t me at all. It was Mel.”
“I’ll tell her,” I said. “But remember to give yourself some of the credit, too, Jeremy. You had brains enough to ask for help, and we’re lucky it just happened to be someone smart enough to know what was going on.”
A baby wailed in the background. “Gotta go,” he said.
I went back inside. I greeted Mel’s anxious glance with a thumbs-up. “Dr. Soames’s diagnosis is correct,” I announced. “The patient is back home. With the help of a sedative, she may be sleeping peacefully for the first time
