Founder, Installment 14

Chapters 27 and 28

Chapter 27

Frayed Ends, November 2021

As his train rumbles south from Mission Gate station toward Campus Augustus, Hugh feels a headache coming on. When he left for the metro station this morning, he found a cold front had moved in, and as he made his way along the mews and up Stanfield Street, a cold wind tugged at his jacket. He made himself some coffee before he left, and, though his appetite had all but abandoned him, managed to eat a protein bar. He called the hospital shortly after speaking to Dory, but the woman who answered told him the doctor was unavailable and to leave a message. So, having called in sick to work, and determined to occupy his anxious mind, he decided to go to the hospital and check on the old man.

Before leaving the flat, he sent text messages to his friends Louise Gergits and Charlie Nult, warning them to keep their eyes open and promising to explain later.

As the train heads south, he tries to nap but cannot chase away the images of Maggie’s bruised and bleeding face. So he sits and thinks and worries. When at last he reaches the North Toran station, he walks the half kilometer to the Great Easton Road Hospital. He paid no attention to the hospital’s exterior last night, but sees now that it’s an ugly brute of a building—a dour Victorian edifice of yellow brick. Last night he read on a mural in the hallway that the hospital was constructed as an asylum for the mentally ill. The patients would have all been feegies, of course; founders wouldn’t have been caught dead in a place like that.

At the main desk, a receptionist checks Hugh in and directs him down a long hallway, through an automatic double door, to the nurse’s station. There, Hugh presents himself to a heavy-set woman who consults her computer and informs him that his uncle is in surgery.

“I called for an update this morning and nobody called me back,” complains Hugh. “Can someone at least tell me how he’s doing?”
Again, the woman checks her computer. “I’m going to ask if one of the doctors on duty can see you,” she says.

She places a phone call and speaks with someone in hushed tones.

“Dr. Charlton said she’ll be available in a few minutes,” says the woman. “You can take a seat over there.”

So Hugh sits and waits and sorts through the frayed ends of his life while smooth jazz plays on the Muzak system. His patience has nearly reached its limit when a doctor appears at the nurse’s station. Seeing Hugh rise, she comes over and offers her hand. She’s young, maybe 35, with small, alert eyes and a confident manner.

“I saw your uncle on my rounds this morning, Mr. Warding,” she explains. “He was still groggy from the pain meds but doing well, considering the circumstances. The CT scan of his head came back clear. He’s got a lot of bruising on his ribs, but we’re not seeing any organ damage or internal bleeding. So that’s all good. Your uncle is a tough customer.”

“The nurse said he’s in surgery,” Hugh says. “What’s that for?”

“His hands,” replies the doctor. “Some of his fingers required surgery. Your uncle will have a little hardware in his hands now, and he’s got some physical therapy ahead of him, for sure. I can’t speak for the surgeon, but I imagine they’ll have him moving those fingers as soon as possible to restore his range of movement.”

“He’s an artist…” begins Hugh.

“Yes, I saw that on his chart.”

“Will he still be able to paint?”

The doctor considers his question. “That’s a question for the surgeon,” she says. “But based on what I know, I would expect he’ll do fine with painting. He might have some arthritis in the future, but most people his age do.” After a brief pause, she amends her response. “But I don’t know much about the fine motor skills required for painting. I doubt anyone could anticipate all the effects of multiple fractures like his.”

“Right.”

Now the doctor’s focus shifts to him, her small, sharp eyes fixed on Hugh. “It must be difficult to see your uncle so badly beaten…”

Hugh begins to speak but finds his voice catches in his throat and his eyes begin to well. Instead, he nods.

“Did they catch who did it?” she asks.

“Nah,” says Hugh. “I doubt they ever will.”

At this, the doctor touches him lightly on the arm and adds, “These sorts of things are very difficult. Just remember to look after yourself, too. Sometimes caregivers forget to do that…”

After the doctor leaves, Hugh draws a deep breath and goes in search of coffee. In the cafeteria, he buys himself an almond milk latte and finds an empty booth where he can sit and think. He has a powerful urge to call Callista F. right now and tell her he’s dropping the claim, then to track Rint down at Propago and tell him he’ll back off as long as they don’t hurt anyone else. He quells the urge, though; he’s too shaky to make such an important decision. Instead, he decides to text Dory, updating him in a burst of short messages.

maggie’s in surgery for his hands

won’t be able to see him until after 4

doc said he’s doing well

He continues to stare at his screen, then adds a final note.

we should talk about Rint and what to do

Next he considers Silvia and her message this morning telling him to take care. She could’ve been feeling awkward about last night, of course, which might explain the tone. Or maybe she was running late to class. Texts sometimes come out strange in those sorts of circumstances. But still…

Giving her the benefit of the doubt, he taps out a straightforward message.

hoping we can talk today, about maggie and everything else…

Then he deletes the text and begins again, this time mimicking Silvia’s aloofness.

maggie’s in surgery for hands

ring me and ill catch you up

Several minutes later, after his phone has remained ominously quiet, he sends Dory a follow-up.

you at the studio? i’ll swing by.

When no reply comes to this message either, he goes in search of the hospital exit, dropping his coffee cup and nametag in a rubbish bin by the door. Once outside, he strikes out along Great Easton Road heading toward the metro station. It’s not unusual for Silvia to reply slowly—she hates texting and sometimes turns off her notifications for long stretches. But Dory is a different situation. He’s a maniac when it comes to his mobile, almost always responding quickly with a thumbs up emoji or a smiley face. Increasingly rattled by this silence, Hugh decides to phone his friend directly but, after four rings, is directed to voicemail.

When he reaches the North Toran station, Hugh boards the train back to Gloven. For several minutes he loses his cellular signal, which forces him not to check his phone every minute or so. He shifts his focus now to getting some relief from the anvil pressing on his sternum, maintaining steady, slow breathing. He even tries visualizing himself in a hammock on the beach, until the black Peugeot shows up out of nowhere. After arriving at Bonner-City station and feeling no better at all, he hurries out onto the sidewalk and checks his mobile. Two new messages have come in, one from Louis Gergits, who wants more details about Hugh’s warning; and one from Charlie Nult, who sent an emoji of a head exploding.

Dory’s studio on Danby Close is a short walk from the metro station, in a cul-de-sac bounded on both sides by retail shops. Spalding Body Transformations occupies the third building on the right, a two-story red brick townhouse with large black-framed windows. When Hugh peeks in the front door he sees that the lights are off and the studio is empty. Thinking maybe Dory’s taking a break or in the toilet, he knocks loudly on the door but sees no movement inside.

He steps back and looks at the other buildings along the close—to see if there’s been a power outage—but the lights are on at the tailor shop next door.

Now he texts Dory again.

hey, im at the studio. where r u?

Increasingly agitated, he retraces his path back down Danby Close to Moore Avenue, walking slowly in case Dory texts to say he’s back at the studio now. But no such message arrives, and by the time Hugh has passed The Spotted Pig and turned onto Morton Mews, the muscles in his neck are tightening into knots. He rummages in his pocket for a Gauloises, lights it, and draws deeply. As he approaches his building, he reviews his phone calls from earlier in the day and calculates that he hasn’t heard from Dory in four hours.

Back at the flat, Hugh forces himself to eat a leftover tuna wrap, then settles on the couch with his phone. It is nearly 3:00 now, and his thoughts are ricocheting haphazardly between Eason Rint, Dory, and Silvia’s strange text.

You take care.

They never actually spoke when Silvia came into his room last night. Then, she disappeared just as silently as she entered, when he was still asleep. Now that absence of verbal communication has him analyzing her nine-word text message as if it were encrypted code. Whenever they argued in the past, Hugh could rely on Silvia’s cues for how and when to reconcile. She’d send a text message from school or give him a conciliatory look over her coffee—but now he’s flying blind. And there’s so much to unpack about last night—unpack, that’s a Silvia phrase, as if life were a series of over-full suitcases in need of sorting through. It’s a useful phrase, he’s found, particularly for someone like him who needs time to process the nuances of a situation.

Looking back, it’s amazing how little he and Silvia talked about their relationship (even using the word relationship felt strange and overreaching). They could spend hours analyzing everything from episodes of Naked Attraction, to comments from law school professors, to texts from Tullia—the whole time acting as if the phenomenon called Silvia and Hugh would happily bob along like a football on a stream. It’s obvious now that they both recognized the unanswered question between them, but neither was in a hurry to address it. Not when things were going so well. In the meantime, if one of them dated, well, that was fine because their unspoken rule held that nothing outside the bubble could burst it.

When Silvia finally came clean about her feelings, she forced Hugh to acknowledge the question. And he, in classic Hugh Warding mode, blew it by having a full-scale panic attack. So, when she came into his room last night, he assumed she was taking matters into her own hands, sidestepping his tendency to over-complicate things and trusting human nature to take its course. As far as he was concerned, the tactic worked perfectly. But her text this morning implies she now wants some distance—maybe to process what she began, or to sort out the situation with Tommy. If she wants space, he decides at last, he’ll give her space. It’s not like he doesn’t have plenty to worry about.

Still on the couch, he decides to lie down now, swinging his feet up and using Silvia’s throw as a pillow. The tuna wrap he ate left his stomach feeling sour and rumbly, and, as his thoughts turn from Silvia to Eason Rint, his heart begins to race. Images, both remembered and imagined, race through his mind—Maggie in his hospital bed, Dory unconscious on his studio floor, Silvia being followed by a faceless figure. Before he can stop himself from reviewing these terrors, his solar plexus tightens up so that he cannot draw a full breath, and his vision narrows, as if he were seeing the living room through the wrong end of a telescope. Frantic, he sits bolt upright again.

No, no, no.

Panic has him in its clutches now; his eyes fill with tears as the room closes in on him.

Alone.

Again.

He races down the hallway to the bathroom where he shakes out one, then two Linotril tablets and swallows them with water from the faucet. Then, still frantic, he goes to the hallway and paces for nearly 20 minutes until, at last, the warm drowsiness of clonazepam spreads over his body, and he can breathe once again.

The worst of his panic attack having passed, he goes to his nightstand, removes the washcloth, and takes out the pistol. He looks it over carefully, then removes the ten-round magazine, checks that the chamber is empty, and reinserts the magazine. His hands are still trembling, and where his palms have touched the grips, the polymer is dark with sweat. Shifting the gun from hand to hand, he rises and goes to where his backpack hangs on the bedroom door. He opens the pack and places the pistol carefully inside.

Chapter 28

Healing, November 2021

It has been four days since Hugh last talked to Dory—four blustery autumn days when a bitter wind swept up from the river, and the mercury struggled to top 10 degrees celsius. Four days during which his state of mind moved between panic attacks, self-pity, and virulent anger. He’s on the train again today, en route to Great Easton Hospital to pay Maggie a visit. With his earphones in, he sits back to listen to music and stare blankly out the window.

He stopped trying to reach Dory two days ago. He actually forced himself not to send text messages because each one he sent set in motion an agony of waiting. Eventually he decided his mental health couldn’t take any more. After Dory disappeared, he debated whether to report him as missing to the Sikstand, but then decided there was obvious risk in exposing him to Sikstand scrutiny. He even tried to find the number for Dory’s B-Opp comrade, Bruce, but nothing turned up online, which came as no real surprise. Eventually he decided to call Dory’s father, thinking, of all people, the senior Spalding would know where his son is.

He had no reason to think he’d be greeted with anything but warmth. Hugh met Mr. Spalding, a few years earlier, at Dory’s studio, and the old man struck him as perfectly nice—on the reserved side, but kind, and sweetly protective of his son. Hugh easily found Mr. Spalding’s number on Google; and, when Dory’s father answered the telephone, he sounded friendly. But when Hugh identified himself and asked if Mr. Spalding had seen Dory, the old man turned hostile.

“Why’re you lookin’ for him?” he asked.

“I’m worried about him,” said Hugh. “I just want to make sure he’s okay.”

“Worried why?”

“Some people beat up my uncle,” Hugh replied. “I think they might come after Dory, too.”

“And why would they do that?” Mr. Spalding asked, though the way he posed the question suggested he knew more than he let on.

“‘Cause I’m his friend.”

At this Mr. Spalding chuckled cynically. “Seems like he’d be better off without friends like that…”

“Have you seen him?” asked Hugh, trying to shake off the insult.

“None of your business if I have,” said Mr. Spalding. “And if he’s in trouble ‘cause of you, you think I’m gonna tell you anything?”

Hugh was about to ask where all this anger was coming from, when the old man hung up.

Didn’t see that coming.

As unexpected as Mr. Spalding’s hostility was, Hugh decided it might be a good sign. Maybe Dory contacted his father when he learned of the threat from Rint—told him how Hugh’s claim started the whole mess. Then he swore the old man to secrecy about his whereabouts and went into hiding. What other reason could Mr. Spalding have to be angry with Hugh?

At this point, Hugh is out of options for finding Dory. Charlie and Louis are keeping their distance now, which Hugh doesn’t blame them for; and Silvia continues to stay away, as well. All this has him feeling unusually vulnerable and isolated.

Turning from the window, Hugh glances at his backpack on the seat beside him.

The first time he went to Great Easton Road hospital with the Glock in his pack, he found himself watching out for security guards, as if they could tell he was armed by the overly cautious way he carried the pack. Of course, nobody noticed. Now he’s almost grown used to having a gun in his pack—forgets it’s even there at times.

A lot can change in a few days.

After a train ride he hardly took note of, and a short walk through Campus Augustus, Hugh arrives at the hospital at just past 10. When he enters Maggie’s room, he sets his backpack in the far corner, then goes over and sits on a recliner by the bed. Maggie is just finishing a late breakfast, clumsily spooning yogurt from a plastic cup into his mouth. His hands are bound with gauze; several fingers are splinted, the others are exposed from the middle knuckle to the fingertip, the flesh purplish in hue. His face is less swollen now, and the bruising around his cheeks and jaw has turned from livid red to a dull purple-brown. The row of stitches above his right eye bristles like a wooly worm; the wound on his lower lip has faded from a jagged black furrow to a dark crimson slash two centimeters long.

“Look at you, eating on your own,” laughs Hugh.

Maggie glances up at him but says nothing.

“How’s your mouth feel?”

“Sore,” says Maggie. “Can’t do much chewin’ but I ain’t on liquids, at least...”

“Yeah, right,” replies Hugh. “That’s good, yeah?”

“And they let me have some wine with dinner last night.”

Hugh laughs and shakes his head.

Maggie finishes his yogurt and sets down the cup and spoon. On his tray, half a croissant sits beside an empty plastic cup. He eyes the tray briefly, then picks up the croissant and bites off an end, chewing tentatively. “You hear anythin’ from Dory?” he asks.

“Nah.”

Maggie nods, then runs a moistened finger tip over his plate and licks off the crumbs. Studying his finger with a furrowed brow, he says, “I figure Dory’s lyin’ low until the smoke clears.” He pauses for a moment. “When you drop the claim, he’ll probably show up again…”

“I never said I was dropping the claim,” protests Hugh.

Maggie frowns at his food tray. “No?”

“I mean, I probably will. I just haven’t done anything yet.”

“Ah.”

“I guess I was waiting for something to happen? So I’d know that dropping it accomplished something. But that’s probably stupid…”

“Well,” replies Maggie. “Way I see it, the sooner you drop the thing, the sooner everyone’s gonna be safe.”

Hugh reaches down and adjusts the recliner so that he’s nearly supine.

“I get that,” he says, staring at the ceiling. “But then part of me still wants to ram this claim down their yazzer throats…”

Maggie nods.

“But that’s easy for me to say,” Hugh continues. “I’m not the one with the busted hands.”

“No,” says the old man. “But don’t drop it just for me, Hugh Boy.”

“You’re probably right,” says Hugh. “It’s probably the best way forward”

Maggie nods.

There doesn’t actually seem to be a best way forward. Dropping the claim might take away the immediate risk, but the rest of his life changed the minute he found Gaius Willsom. That discovery made him feel briefly heroic, not because a successful claim could set him up for life, but because he’d achieved something improbable. Wardings weren’t known for taking chances; and he appeared to have won this bet, long odds and everything. Now, if he abandons the claim, he’ll go back to the tattered remains of his former life.

“What about Silvia?” asks Maggie after a moment. “You hear from her?”

Hugh nods. “Every now and then. She’s super busy with classes.” He hasn’t told Maggie about the night with Silvia or how she’s withdrawn since then.

“Well,” replies Maggie. “At least she hasn’t disappeared on you.” He eyes his food tray a moment, then asks, “You think the Sikkies will do anything with my case?”

“Doubt it,” says Hugh. “Just like with Mum and Dad. Lots of lip service and then nothing.”

Maggie eases back against his pillows and looks at the ceiling. “I been thinkin’ about your parents lately,” he says.

Hugh looks up, his eyebrows raised.

“You said you thought Propago mighta got wind of Amelia’s search too, yeah?”

Hugh nods.

“I shoulda said somethin’ to the Sikkies at the time. ‘Cause I had a sense ‘bout that second car. None of it smelled right to me…”

“They wouldn’t have done anything, old man,” Hugh reassures him. “You’d have just gotten yourself in trouble.”

Maggie purses his lips. “I shoulda said something anyhow.”

Now Hugh adjusts his recliner forward again and asks, as cheerfully as he can , “What’re they telling you about going home?”

“Maybe the middle of next week, but then I’m goin’ to have a nurse checkin’ in on me for a few weeks until I can use my hands better. And there’s gonna be occupational therapy and all that to get the hands workin’ again…if they do.” He looks at his bandaged hands and shakes his head glumly.

“They will,” insists Hugh.

Maggie sighs, then pushes himself up on his elbows, wriggling his hips from side to side to gain purchase. “You get that paperwork sorted out for my disability?”

“It’s all done,” says Hugh. “Your caseworker did most of it.”

Maggie grunts and turns his attention to a game show on the television; Hugh picks up a copy of Hello! magazine and begins flipping through it. After ten minutes or so, he rises and goes to retrieve his backpack.

“I’m gonna get going,” he says, coming to the side of the bed.

Maggie nods without taking his eyes off the television.

Hugh is about to step away when he pauses, bends over, and kisses Maggie on the forehead, above the left eye where the skin is smooth and unbruised. Maggie lifts his bandaged hand and pats him gently on the forearm.

“Stay outta trouble,” the old man says.