Praying for Sleep Read online

  "Ronnie, are you feeling better?"

  "I'm okay," the young heavyset man snapped. "So what? I mean, what're you going to do about it? Honestly. "

  Dr. Richard Kohler felt the cheap bedsprings bouncing beneath Ronnie's weight as the patient scooted away from him, moving all the way to the headboard, as if Kohler were a molester. Ronnie's eyes flicked up and down suspiciously as he examined the man who'd been his father, brother, friend, tutor and physician for the past six months. He carefully studied the doctor's curly fringe of thinning hair, his bony face, narrow shoulders and thirty-one-inch waist. He seemed to be memorizing these features so he might have a good description in mind when he reported Kohler to the police.

  "Are you uncomfortable, Ronnie?"

  "I can't do it, I can't do it, Doctor. I get too scared." He whined like a wrongly accused child. Then suddenly growing reasonable he said conversationally, "It's the can opener mostly."

  "Was it the kitchen? All the work in the kitchen?"

  "No no no," he whined. "The can opener. It's too much. I don't see why you don't understand it."

  Kohler's body was racked by a yawn. He felt a painful longing for sleep. He'd been awake since 3:00 a.m. and had been here, at the halfway house, since 9:00. Kohler had helped the patients make breakfast and do the dishes. At 10:00 he shuttled four of them to part-time jobs, conferring with employers about his patients and mediating little disputes on their behalf.

  The rest of the day he spent with the remaining five patients, who weren't employed or who had today, Sunday, off. The young men and women each had a psychotherapy session with Kohler and then returned to the mundane chores of running a household. They divided up into project groups that did what to healthy people were absurdly simple tasks: peeling potatoes and washing lettuce for dinner, cleaning windows and bathrooms, separating trash for recycling, reading aloud to each other. Some lowered their heads and completed their assignments with furrowed-brow determination. Others chewed their lips or plucked out eyebrows or cried or came close to hyperventilating from the challenge. Eventually the work got done.

  Then, catastrophe.

  Just before dinner, Ronnie had his attack. A patient standing beside him opened a can of tuna with the electric opener, and Ronnie fled screaming from the kitchen, triggering a chain reaction of hysteria in several other patients. Kohler had finally restored order and they sat down to dinner, Kohler with them. The food was eaten, dishes washed, the house straightened, games played, television programs hashed out (a Cheers rerun was the majority selection of the evening and the M*A*S*H minority abided grudgingly by the decision). Then meds were taken with juice, or the orange-flavored liquid Thorazine was chugged, and it was bedtime.

  Kohler had found Ronnie hiding in the corner of his room.

  "What would you like to do about the noise?" Kohler now asked.

  "I don't know!" The patient's voice was dull as he chewed his tongue--an attempt to moisten a mouth painfully dry from his Proketazine.

  Adaptation causes stress--the hardest thing for schizophrenics to cope with--and, Kohler reflected, Ronnie had plenty to adapt to here in the halfway house. He had to make decisions. To consider the likes and dislikes of the other people living with him. He had to plan ahead. The safety of the hospital was gone. Here he was confronted daily with these matters, and a downhearted Kohler could see the young man was losing the battle.

  Outside, vaguely visible in the darkness, was a lawn that had been kept perfectly mowed by the patients all summer long and was now hand-stripped of every leaf that made the mistake of falling upon it. Kohler focused on the window and saw his haggard face in the black reflection, his eyes socketlike, his chin too narrow. He thought, for the thousandth time that year, about growing a beard to flesh out his features.

  "Tomorrow," Kohler said to his unhappy patient, "we'll do something about it."

  "Tomorrow? That's just great. I could be dead tomorrow, and so could you, mister. Don't forget it," snapped the patient--sneering at the man to whom he owed not only such peace of mind as he possessed but probably his life as well.

  Even before he'd decided to attend medical school, Richard Kohler had learned not to take personal offense at anything schizophrenic patients said or did. If Ronnie's words troubled him at all, it was only because they offered a measure of the patient's relapse.

  This was one of Kohler's clinical errors. The patient, involuntarily committed at Marsden State hospital, had responded well to his treatment there. After many trials to find a suitable medication and dosage Kohler began treating him with psychotherapy. He made excellent progress. When one of the halfway-house patients had improved enough to move into an apartment of her own, Kohler placed Ronnie here. Immediately, though, the stresses accompanying communal living had brought out the worst of Ronnie's illness and he'd regressed, growing sullen and defensive and paranoid.

  "I don't trust you," Ronnie barked. "It's pretty fucking clear what's going on here and I don't like it one bit. And there's going to be a storm tonight. Electric storm; electric can opener. Get it? I mean, you tell me I can do this, I can do that. Well, it's bullshit!"

  Into his perfect memory Kohler inserted a brief mental notation about Ronnie's use of the verb "can" and the source of his panic attack tonight. It was too late in the evening to do anything with this observation now but he'd review the young man's file tomorrow in his office at Marsden and write up a report then. He stretched and heard a deep bone pop. "Would you like to go back to the hospital, Ronnie?" he asked, though the doctor had already made this decision.

  "That's what I'm getting at. There isn't that racket there."

  "No, it's quieter."

  "I think I'd like to go back, Doctor. I have to go back," Ronnie said as if he were losing the argument. "There are reasons too numerous to list."

  "We'll do it then. Tuesday. You get some sleep now."

  Ronnie, still dressed, curled up on his side. Kohler insisted that he put on his pajamas and climb under the blankets properly, which he did without comment. He ordered Kohler to leave the light on, and did not say good night when the doctor left his room.

  Kohler walked through the ground floor of the house, saying good night to the patients who were still awake and chatting with the night orderly who sat in the living room, watching television.

  A breeze came through the open window and, enticed by it, Kohler stepped outside. The night was oddly warm for November. It reminded him of a particular fall evening during his last year of medical school at Duke. He recalled walking along the tarmac from the stairs of the United 737. That year the trip between La Guardia and Raleigh-Durham airports had been like a commute for him; he'd logged tens of thousands of miles between the two cities. The night he was thinking of was his return from New York after Thanksgiving vacation. He'd spent most of the holiday itself at Murray Hill Psychiatric Hospital in Manhattan and the Friday after it in his father's office, listening to the old man argue persuasively, then insist belligerently, that his son take up internal medicine--going so far as to condition his continuing financial support of the young man's education on his choice of specialty.

  The next day, young Richard Kohler thanked his father for his hospitality, took an evening flight back to college and when school resumed on Monday was in the Bursar's Office at 9:00 a.m., applying for a student loan to allow him to continue his study of psychiatry.

  Kohler again yawned painfully, picturing his home--a condominium a half hour from here. This was a rural area, where he could have afforded a very big house and plenty of property. But Kohler's goal had been to forsake land for convenience. No lawn mowing or landscaping or painting for him. He wanted a place to which he might escape, small and contained. Two bedrooms, two baths and a deck. Not that it didn't have elements of opulence--the condo contained one of the few cedar hot tubs in this part of the state, several Kostabi and Hockney canvases and what was described as a "designer" kitchen ("But aren't all kitchens," he had slyly asked the real-estate b
roker, "designed by somebody?" and enjoyed her sycophantic laughter). The condo, which was on a hilltop and looked out over miles and miles of patchwork woods and farm-land during the day and the sparkling lights of Boyleston at night, was--quite literally--Kohler's island of sanity in a most insane world.

  Yet tonight he made his way back into the halfway house and climbed the creaking stairs to a room that measured ten by twelve feet and was outfitted only with a cot, a dresser and a metal mirror bolted to the wall.

  He stripped off his suit jacket and loosened his tie then lay on the cot, kicking off his shoes. He looked out the window at a dull spray of stars then, lowering his eyes, saw a ridge of clouds in the west slicing the sky in half. The storm. He'd heard it was supposed to be a bad one. Although he himself liked the rain, he hoped there wouldn't be any thunder, which would terrify many of his patients. But this concern passed immediately from his mind as he closed his eyes. Sleep was all he could think of now. He could taste it. He felt the fatigue ache in his legs. He yawned cold tears into his eyes. And in less than sixty seconds he was asleep.

  3

  They signed their names a dozen times and became millionaires.

  A hundred sheets of paper, filled with scrolly writing, peppered with words like whereas and hereby, sat on the desk before the two women. Affidavits, receipts, tax returns, releases, powers of attorney. Owen, stern and looking very much the lawyer, circulated each document and said, "Duly executed," every time a signature was scratched upon a sheet. He'd squeeze his notarial seal and sign his own name with a Mont Blanc and then check off another item on his closing sheet. Portia seemed amused at his severity and on the verge of needling him about it. Lis on the other hand--after six years of marriage--had grown used to her husband's playing Rumpole and paid little attention to his gravity.

  "I feel," she said, "like a president signing a treaty."

  The three of them were in the den, encircling the massive black mahogany desk that Lis's father had bought in Barcelona in the sixties. For this occasion--the closing of his estate--Lis had unearthed a shellacked decoupage poster that she herself had made ten years ago. It had been a decoration for the party following the sale of her father's business and his retirement. On the left side of the canvas was pasted a photograph of his company's very first sign, a small hand-painted rectangle from the early fifties, which read, L'Auberget et Fils Ltd. Next to it was a glossy photo of the huge billboard that crowned the company when it was sold: L'Auberget Liquor Importing, Inc. Around the border was Lis's own diligent, stiff rendering of vines and grapes, done in purple and green marker. The years had turned the shellac coating a deep, sickly yellow.

  Although the old man had never discussed the company with his daughters (there was no male heir; the fils was strictly for image), Lis--as executrix of the estate--had learned what an astonishing businessman her father had been. She knew from his frequent absences throughout her childhood that he'd been addicted to his job. But she'd never guessed, until their mother died and the money passed to her and Portia, exactly how much that hard work had amassed: nine million, plus this house, the Fifth Avenue co-op and a cottage outside of Lisbon.

  Owen gathered up papers and put them into tidy bundles, labeling each with a yellow Post-it tag marked with his boxy writing.

  "I'll have copies made for you, Portia."

  "Keep them safe," Lis warned.

  Portia tightened her mouth at the motherly tone and Lis winced, looking for a way to apologize. But before she could find the words, Owen lifted a bottle of champagne to the desk and opened it. He poured three glasses.

  "Here's to . . ." Lis began and noticed the others gazing at her expectantly. She said the first thing into her mind. "Father and Mother."

  Glasses chimed together.

  "Practically speaking," Owen explained, "that's the end of the estate. Most of the transfers and disbursements've been made. We have one account still open. That's for the outstanding fees--the executrix, law firm and accountant. Oh, and for that other little matter." He looked at Lis. "Did you tell her?"

  Lis shook her head.

  Portia kept her eyes on Owen. "Tell me what?"

  "We just got notice on Friday. You're going to be sued."

  "What?"

  "A challenge to the bequests."

  "No! Who?"

  "That problem with your father's will."

  "What problem? There a fuck-up someplace?" Portia looked at Owen with amused suspicion.

  "Not from me there wasn't. I didn't draft it. I'm talking about the problem with his school. Doesn't this ring a bell?"

  Portia shook her head and Owen continued, explaining that when Andrew L'Auberget passed away he'd left his entire estate in trust for his wife. When she died the money went to the daughters, with a small bequest going to his alma mater, a private college in Massachusetts.

  "Oh, bless me, for I have sinned," Portia whispered sarcastically and crossed herself. Their father had often reminisced--reverently and at great length--about his days at Kensington College.

  "The bequest was for a thousand."

  "So what? Let 'em have it."

  Owen laughed. "Oh, but they don't want that. They want the million he was going to leave them originally."

  "A million?"

  "About a year before he died," Lis continued, "the school started admitting women. That was bad enough. But it also adopted a resolution banning gender and sexual-orientation discrimination. You must know all this, Portia." She turned to her husband. "Didn't you send her copies of the correspondence?"

  "Please, Lis, a little credit. She's a beneficiary. She had to be copied."

  "I probably got it. But, you know, if it's got a lawyer's letterhead on it and there's no check inside, who pays any attention?"

  Lis started to speak but remained silent. Owen continued, "Your father did a codicil to his will, cutting his bequest to the school to a thousand. In protest."

  "The old shit."

  "Portia!"

  "When he wrote the chancellor telling him about the change, he said he wasn't, I'm pretty much quoting, he wasn't against women and deviates. He was simply for tradition."

  "I repeat, what a shit."

  "The school's challenging the codicil."

  "What do we do?"

  "Basically, all we have to do is keep an amount equal to their original bequest in the estate account until it's settled. You don't have to worry. We'll win. But we still have to go through the formalities."

  "Not worry?" Portia blurted. "It's a million dollars."

  "Oh, they'll lose," Owen announced. "He did execute the codicil during that spell when he was taking Percodan pretty regularly and Lis was spending a lot of time at the house. That's what the school's lawyer's going to argue. Lack of capacity and undue influence by one of the other beneficiaries."

  "Why do you say they won't win?"

  Grim-faced, Lis sipped her champagne. "I don't want to hear this again."

  Her husband smiled.

  "I'm serious, Owen."

  He said to his sister-in-law, "The lawyer for the school? I did a little investigating. Turns out he's been negotiating contracts on behalf of the school with a company his wife's got a major interest in. Big conflict of interest. And a felony, by the way. I'm going to offer him four or five to settle."

  Lis said to Portia, "He makes it sound like a legal tactic. To me, it's blackmail."

  "Of course it's blackmail," Portia said. "So? But you think this lawyer'll talk the school into settling?"

  "He'll be . . . persuasive, I'm sure," Owen said. "Unless he wants an address change to the Bridewell Men's Colony."

  "So basically, he's fucked." Portia laughed. She held up her glass. "Good job, Attorney."

  Owen tapped his glass to hers.

  Portia drained her champagne and let Owen pour her more. To her sister she said, "I wouldn't get on this boy's bad side, Lis. He might do to you what he does unto others."

  Owen's stony facade slipped and he
laughed briefly.

  Lis said, "I guess I just feel insulted. I didn't even know the school was getting any money in the will. I mean, can you imagine Father even talking to me about it? Undue influence? I say let them sue."

  "Well, I say let our lawyer handle it." With her working-girl hair rimmed by the black lace headband Portia seemed miraculously transported back to six or seven--the age at which it first was clear that the sisters would be such different people. This process seemed to continue, by inches and miles, Lis sensed, even tonight.

  Owen poured more Moet. "Never would've been a problem if your father'd kept his money to himself and his mouth shut. That's the moral: no good deed goes unpunished."

  "Your services expensive, Owen?" Portia asked wryly.

  "Never. At least not for beautiful women. It's in my retainer agreement."

  Lis stepped between these two people, bound to her one by blood and one by law, and put her arms around Owen. "See why he's such a rainmaker?"

  "Can't make much rain if he doesn't charge."

  "I didn't say I'm free." Owen looked at Portia. "I just said I'm not expensive. You always have to pay for quality."

  Lis walked to the stairway. "Portia, come here. I want to show you something."

  The sisters left Owen stacking the papers and climbed upstairs. The silence again grew thick and Lis realized that it was her husband's presence that had made conversation possible between the sisters.

  "Here we go." She stepped in front of Portia and then pushed open the door to a small bedroom, sweeping on the overhead light. "Voila."

  Portia was nodding as she studied the recently decorated room. Lis had spent a month on the place, making dozens of trips to Ralph Lauren and Laura Ashley for fabrics and wallpaper, to antique stores for furniture. She'd managed to find an old canopy bed that was virtually identical to the one that had been Portia's when this was her room years ago.

  "What do you think?"

  "Taking up interior decorating, are we?"

  "That's the same curtain material. Amazing that I found it. Maybe a little yellower is all. Remember when we helped Mother sew them? I was, what, fourteen? You were nine."

  "I don't remember. Probably."

  Lis looked at the woman's eyes.