Pieces of a Whole

by: Betsy J. Bennett

CHAPTER 12

The days turned into weeks, the weeks into months, and Kimble kept returning to the clinic where he worked his long shifts and was content. If he felt true happiness was eluding him, he was content with feeling content. He was getting to know his patients, not just their medical problems but their families and their habits and their problems.

The four stair-step kids appeared at least once a month with Raggs, none the worse for her experience, tugging on her rope leash, her long ears flapping nearly to the ground. The puppies eventually found homes. Raggs had been a champion mother, and was apparently something of a flirt. There were bound to be more puppies soon.

She loved her ears scratched and had a particularly silly grin. He was starting to grow particularly fond of dogs.

He kept his distance from Olivia, treating her as a trusted colleague and nothing more. It was killing him as he watched her, as he realized desire and need and desperation that had nothing to do with running for his life. She had built invisible walls around her, ‘this far and no further’ that he understood and respected, even if every few days he would abandon another candy bar on her desk. Whatever had been bothering Maggi and Dora Ann disappeared as if it never existed.

The clinic was home, more than his room would ever be, and with exoneration, he realized what he wanted was a place he could work without looking over his shoulder, a place he could set down roots, make friends, go through a day without nightmares. It had been so long since he had felt safe. Even at Donna’s there was the underlying fear that tragedy could strike at any minute, that the stillness could be shattered with murder. Here, in miserable, desperate downtown Detroit a city marred by gun violence, drug cultures and massive civil unrest, oddly enough here he felt he could stop running.

“Doc,” said Olivia as he appeared in the reception area, after the last patient had left for the evening. They were all there, waiting.

“I told you not to call me that,” mouthed Maggi, Olivia, Dora-Ann, and Mr. Moslee, a black man they had hired to be another orderly, in the exact tone Richard used.

“We’re celebrating.”

She had taken off the lab coat, a rare occurrence, and wore Capri pants, in a brilliant shade of yellow, offset by a print blouse that looked crisp and fresh and would have been appropriate for the beach at Cape Cod. She couldn’t have worn the outfit all day long. He wasn’t blind, or dead. Certainly he would have noticed. Oddly enough Olivia had put on a pink lipstick. It was a mistake that he noticed, for now he was going out of his mind with the idea that he’d like to kiss her. He wasn’t sure the doctor ever wore lipstick before, at least not while he had been working here. His mouth felt dry, his brain fuzzy. Maybe he was working too hard. “What are we celebrating?”

Olivia’s smile lit up the room. “Another healthy baby. I figure if we can’t celebrate that, what can we celebrate? We’re going up on the roof and having us a party. We’ve got beer on ice, and a grill I splurged on, so we can cook some burgers and hot dogs. Thankfully the clinic is closed tomorrow for the 4^th, so that will give us all a chance to sleep in.”

“If this keeps up, we’re going to have to buy a baby scale and put in a stock of diapers,” Kimble said. There was a list of equipment he wanted as he wished their budget was padded enough to indulge in.

“That last one was no preemie. He must have weighed ten pounds,” Maggi commented. Maggi had a fondness for infants. Olivia had kept her distance. Kimble wondered if she’d even seen this latest new member of their growing family. She had mentioned she stayed away from pediatrics and obstetrics, what she considered ‘women’s medicine’ for she had not wanted to be defined by her gender, and liked emergency medicine, car accidents and drive-by shootings, the occasional ruptured appendix.

“That was my estimate although he might have weighed in at twelve pounds, I wouldn’t be surprised. That kid was a tank. I’m watching the mother. At the very least, she is pre-diabetic. I’d like to get a better medical history on her, and check her sugar levels.”

“So will you join us for the party?” Olivia asked. She had hiked herself up on the counter, crossed her legs.

“Sure, why not?”

Mr. Moslee couldn’t join them, being a family man himself, so Richard, Olivia, Maggi and Dora Ann took the back staircase and went up on the roof.

The clinic was housed in a two story building and it had a basement that was basically ignored. The roof was flat and if a park or a lakeshore wasn’t available, it could substitute for a perfect place for a mid-summer picnic. Someone had brought half a dozen folding chairs and a small charcoal grill. They must have been planning this for days, if not weeks. He had no idea.

Olivia, who had grabbed the twenty-five pound bag of charcoal briquettes, let Richard take it from her. He started piling charcoal in the new grill while she supervised.

“I always wanted to cook out here. I have pleasant memories as a child of campfires on the beach, eating quahogs and blue crabs. We’d have a great time. I only wish the sun set over the Atlantic.”

“It does,” Richard said. “But not this side of the pond.”

“How about you? Any cook-outs in your dark and gloomy past?”

“Yeah, my family would have cookouts.” A long time ago. “My mom would make potato salad and coleslaw and jello, while dad cooked. My past isn’t all bad. I had a great childhood.”

Maggi started emptying coolers and bags, coming up with paper plates and cups, napkins, and plastic silverware. Somehow they had gotten a table up here, probably from the storage room. Maggi put a tablecloth on it, red, white and blue. He’d basically forgotten there was a holiday.

“Look what I found,” Olivia said. “Charles Chips. See, these are classic. The best potato chips ever made. And for those of you who are good, I’ve got marshmallows. This isn’t quite a bonfire on the sand, but we’ll make do.”

Richard squirted lighter fluid, dropped a match, stood back as the whoosh of flame exploded upwards.

“Look,” Olivia said, “I’ve decided to join the 60’s.”

“It’s about time,” said Maggi. “And what exactly did you do to join the Sixties? Do you have some boots made for walking? No? Going to grow your hair long and become a hippy?”

“I bought a transistor radio.”

Richard laughed. “Everyone should have one.”

She turned it on, listened to The Lion sleeps Tonight.

“I like this music. I could dance to it. I haven’t been to a dance since high school prom. Come, Richard, put your hands in mine. We’re going to dance.”

“I’m no good at dancing.”

“Every man has to say that. It’s part of the man-code. Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, let’s dance.”

The song changed to Elvis, It’s now or never.” He took her hand and they both tried, quite unsuccessfully to do the gyrations of modern dance that might or might not have been dancing. “God, I’m horrible at this,” he said laughing.

Maggi and Dora Ann shared a conspiratorial look.

“What was that all about?” Olivia asked.

“What?”

“The look.”

“We’d never seen Richard laugh, had decided he never would. And here, ten seconds into our party he does.”

“In case you’re wondering, I used to laugh, and I used to dance, but that was a long time ago.”

“Let’s practice some more,” Olivia insisted. “We have to get better.”

“I doubt we could get much worse.”

The music changed, Righteous Brothers, a slow dance. Without thinking of consequences, Richard settled his hand on the small of her back, her other hand he cupped in his own, and together they stepped into the rhythm of couples as old as time. They moved together, smoothly, no longer two people, but one pair: one heart, one love. He stopped laughing, only felt her movements, her life, the power of promises he wanted and had refused to acknowledge. There was nothing but Olivia. No city skyline, no picnic with coworkers he liked and trusted, no past, no future.

Only Olivia.

She dropped her head on his shoulder, their bodies touching, their feet only making the pretense of dancing. He closed his eyes, his heart throbbing as he felt the flush of blood taking away all thoughts. Leaving only need.

She raised her head, and met his gaze, her eyes dreamy, unfocused, and there was an opening there that he recognized and understood. He stared at her mouth, the invitation she offered and he would not ignore. He inched closer, for there was very little separating them now, and prepared to rest his lips against hers, gently, and perhaps inevitably.

“While you two kids,” said Maggi, indicating Richard and Olivia, “are fooling around, I’ll watch the coals.”

And just like that, the mood shattered. The music changed to a Beach Boys song, about Daddy taking the T-bird away, and she regained her hand and stepped back, embarrassed. “That was fun,” she said, conscripting a thought from the song, and now there was enough distance between them that the past could intrude. Kimble dropped his hands to his sides, and they felt awkward, as if now that he was no longer touching her, he didn’t know what to do with them. He felt hollow inside, as if something had started to fill all the empty, missing pieces of him, but that somehow the action had stopped, long before it could be completed.

For years he had been someone else, had found adopting aliases freeing, as if in denying his own name he could deny the ugliness attached to him. Now he recognized what Donna meant. He needed to be Richard Kimble to be whole. Here, in downtown Detroit, on the Eve of a national holiday, he was starting to accept who he was, a far cry from liking it, but a step in the right direction. A single step, but that’s how journeys started, one step at a time, one foot in front of the other.

He watched Olivia, she grazed at the food table, eating potato chips, laughing with Dora Ann, straightening things that didn’t need straightening, in the way that women have. For a person without an ounce of fat on her, she liked her greasy food.

Without thinking, without knowing what he would do if he got there, he stepped forward, thinking to go to her, perhaps touch her again. It occurred to him that maybe he couldn’t fill those empty spots inside himself, that only another person could do that. Only Olivia.

“Do you want to be in charge of grilling?” Maggi asked him. The question stopped him in his tracks. Dora Ann and Olivia looked up at him. He felt the fool, wanting something he wasn’t certain he should have. There was so much ugliness in his life he didn’t want it touching Olivia.

“No,” Richard answered, feeling edgy and more than a bit frustrated, but also in an odd juxtaposition, lighter and freer than he had in decades. If he whispered, “I’m free. I’m free,” his mantra now, it would not be healing, for it felt like a confession, that he was alone, and likely to remain alone.

“Any butcher can grill. I’m a surgeon. You should see me on Thanksgiving with a turkey.”

Maggi threw back her head and laughed. The more he got to know her, the more he realized she was a woman with a fine sense of the ridiculous. It was no wonder she got along so well with Olivia. “I’m sure it’s a work of art, you carving the turkey.”

His hands were restless, and he wasn’t honest enough with himself to realize it was frustration. He shoved them in his pockets. Thank heavens for pockets. “Once I got married, I never really did the backyard barbeque thing. Mostly Helen liked the country club on weekends, and during the week I was rarely home for dinner.” For the first time he realized that was probably a lie—there were definitely times when he stayed late, but they were few and far between. The office closed at five. He did rounds, when he had patients in the hospital, in the morning. He was home for dinner almost every night. Sometimes they ate out, favorite restaurants or with other couples they considered friends, and sometimes after dinner they went out, the movies, a high school football game, dancing, miniature golf, shopping. Why then had he forgotten that? Why had he blocked so much of his time with his wife from his memory? Why was it important that he remember?

Still, speaking of Helen for the first time didn’t hurt, but in front of this woman, and what had almost happened between them, it was probably exactly the wrong thing to say.

He recognized the faux pas as Olivia stepped back, literally, figuratively. “So are there fireworks tomorrow?” he asked, as a cover for the blunder.

“No.” It was Maggi who answered, for Olivia shifted away, was rooting in the paper bags for something that she perhaps no longer had, her back to them, her shoulders rounded in what might be dejection.

“Oh, the locals will light some up, and probably just as many tonight, but the city does their fireworks in June.”

“June? Isn’t that un-American?” He was here in June. After all, all things considered, June was only the week before. He hadn’t noticed fireworks, had gone to his hovel and hid with the cockroaches. He really did need a better circle of friends.

“Fireworks go off over the Detroit River, in conjunction with Windsor, Canada. It’s half way between their independence day and ours. So, how does everyone like their burgers?”

Talk was friendly as they ate hot dogs and hamburgers, and potato salad bought from the deli, and chocolate chip cookies Dora Ann had made specifically for this barbeque, all washed down with beer.

Olivia leaned back and moaned. “Oh, I’m stuffed. We may have to save the marshmallows for another time.”

The talk had been friendly all evening, revolving around their favorite patients, including on how Richard knew Sister Veronica.

“Wait a minute,” Olivia interrupted, “you’re telling me you’re Nick Walker?”

“For a few days I was.”

“I never made the connection. Once she stayed here the entire afternoon and I drove her back to the convent. She told me all about Nick Walker, how he was wanted by the law, and how he gave her her faith back.”

“She was a special lady. Around her there were miracles.”

“She said the same thing about you.”

“I’m sorry she died, but I did get to speak with her for a few seconds at the end, and I spoke at the funeral.”

“So what else did you do with Sister Veronica?”

He told them what he thought they wanted, leaving out his desperation to find the one-armed man that had failed only by a few hours and the miserable night he had spent trying to avoid the police by climbing around the roof. Mostly he spoke of her faith, and that cantankerous old car that miraculously made the trip where at the end, she had not renounced her vows.

The sun set, the night cooled rapidly. They put more coals on the fire, for warmth this time. Stars popped out, although not the brilliant stars he witnessed and felt he could almost touch in Montana and Colorado. When Olivia got cold, she allowed him to wrap his jacket around her, leaving him with the feeling that went well past content. He was pleased, and oddly unsettled, to see her in his jacket, although why, he probably couldn’t have said.

Commenting there weren’t enough jackets to go around, Maggi went downstairs and came up with some blankets, so the group, as they continued their conversation, were cozy. The moon shone bright, ebbing from full, causing the conversation to veer naturally to Apollo and the coming moon missions, still years in the future. They chatted for a while, of manned space flight, the stunning Earth photographs taken by the crew of Apollo 8 and of Kennedy’s vow to reach the moon before the end of the decade.

“So, do you remember where you were when President Kennedy died?” Dora Ann asked.

Olivia nodded. “We were here, Maggi and I. Someone came in, crying, saying the president had been shot. Someone else brought in a radio. I couldn’t believe it. I’m not much for politics and I certainly never follow the news, but I liked Kennedy, his youth, his enthusiasm, his plans for the country.”

“So, how about you, Dora Ann?”

“I was working for another med-clinic in Dearborn. Everyone was shocked. The office manager shut the place down and we all went home. I couldn’t believe it.”

“And how about you, Doc.”

Richard shifted, suddenly uncomfortable. “You don’t want to hear what I remember.”

“Yes, we do. We all told you where we were.”

He got up to get another beer although one was traditionally his limit. The wind had picked up and he shivered, felt exposed. He looked away from the group, toward the fireworks sporadically appearing in the evening sky. There were things exploding around him, loud banging noises that sounded like bombs. While they didn’t sound like bullets,  that’s the impression brought up from past nightmares.

He turned around, faced them, wished he had never agreed to come. He could have stayed alone with his memories and his pains. “How about I make up a friendly lie that we all pretend to believe?”

“How about you tell us the truth?” Olivia asked. “And don’t say you don’t remember.”

“I remember.” He sat down in the folding chair, set his beer down as he remembered shackles and fear. “November 21, 1963 was a Thursday. It was the day I lost my last appeal. I was moved from the general prison population to a private section where I could prepare for transfer to what was known as the Death House, for those scheduled to die in the electric chair.”

“What?” Olivia leaned over, her mouth hanging open.

Maggi and Dora Ann said nothing while he continued.

“The trial was over, about six, eight weeks before. I’d already been found guilty. The jury took six days to come to the decision that I was guilty, three of them held out that long thinking me innocent. Of course I didn’t know that until a few months ago. After a guilty verdict, there is a waiting period, then you go to the penalty phase. I thought it happened at the same time, but it doesn’t. My lawyer tried to be optimistic. It’s your first crime. It was a crime of passion. You’re no danger to anyone else, things he was sure would keep the penalty limited to a few years, as if I should be grateful. Obviously nothing I said or the evidence the defense presented made a difference. Honestly, the prosecution didn’t have any proof either, only circumstantial evidence and a few outright lies the jury lapped up. I’d been incarcerated almost two years by then, spent time in a small cell thinking there had to be a mistake. I was a doctor. I healed people. And I’d lost my wife. We had been a couple, did things together and now nothing in my life made any sense. I had been arrested forty-eight hours after police responded to my call about Helen’s murder. Then the DA announced he was going for the death penalty. I was considered a flight risk during the trial, so they kept me where they could see me. Evidence to the contrary, I doubt I would have run. I kept thinking the whole thing was a joke. I was innocent. This couldn’t be happening to me. With the guilty verdict, it all seemed real or perhaps surreal, for the first time. I don’t mean to imply that I didn’t think the trial was real, I did, but until that last appeal failed, I believed in the law and I knew I was innocent. I kept expecting at any minute for someone to jump up in the back of the courtroom and say “There’s been a mistake! You’ve got the wrong guy!” I kept thinking my lawyer would show up with Fred Johnson with blood on his hand and a signed confession. It wasn’t a good time, and I wasn’t thinking clearly. I kept shouting about the one-armed man, and the judge reprimanded me, stating that meant I refused to take responsibility for my own actions, which meant I was non-repentant, and a threat to society. I suppose that’s why the first appeal went down in flames. And so did the second.

“So, the day President Kennedy was shot, I was in jail, anticipating a one-way trip to the death house. A preacher had come early that morning, trying to help me get my affairs in order, to confess or to take last rights. He was sympathetic, and kind, and I think I cried. Hope was gone. There would be no more appeals. I didn’t know then, but my father bought a gravesite, was told to buy a casket. The people at the prison told them when my body would be released to them, what to expect. I got the same talk myself. I had less than a week to live. Not much time.

“I didn’t get television, trust me, there weren’t a lot of luxuries there. A sink, a toilet, a cot, a towel. No phone privileges. I’d been writing to my family, but time was running out on that too. I thought prison had been bad. Trust me, nothing compares to some gray preacher coming to talk about a better world that’s not promised to murderers.”

“They really were going to kill you?” Olivia asked.

“That was the plan. So I was in prison when a guard told me. He said something along the lines of I was on suicide watch, and President Kennedy had been assassinated, as if had I killed myself, some great form of karma would have spared the president’s life. And without a doubt, he was willing to kill me himself. He had a nightstick. Trust me, he would have killed me himself.”

“And were you suicidal?” Maggi asked.

“No. Honestly I didn’t think of it. Oh, I thought about death constantly, how could I not, but never taking my own life. I still kept expecting exoneration. I wanted desperately to live. This was a nightmare, and you wake up from nightmares.”

“Not that one,” Olivia said, her voice was quiet.

“No, not that one. Then, a few days later, the train derailed. I had been handcuffed to the lieutenant who first arrested me, and he fell, was unconscious. I checked, he was breathing, wasn’t bleeding too badly, then I went through his pockets and found the handcuff keys. It was crazy. People hurt, screaming, and some creep tries to be a hero and stop me, so I crawled out a window and started running. I’ve been on a lot of trains since then, rarely as a paying passenger, I might add, and every time, I think kindly of that train derailment.”

“Richard—“ Olivia started, but not having the words, let the sentence drop off.

“That’s why I ran. I knew they were keeping the electric chair available for me. It was never far from my mind. I get caught, and I am strapped down, wrists, chest and ankles while a dozen people watch as 2,000 volts of electricity forces my heart into ventricular fibrillation. No more appeals, no more chance for a second train derailment.”

Then, without a word, Olivia stood, moved over to him, and kissed him gently on the lips.

“What was that for?”

She smiled, looked down, as if she were ashamed, then met his gaze with the straightforwardness he had come to expect from her. She cleared her throat. She didn’t know why, but it felt something ugly had taken root in her esophagus. “It’s a kiss, to make it better,” she said.

“Is that your best medical treatment?” He tried to make it make the statement flippant, to downplay what he already understood was significant.

“Yes. It’s an apology too, for making you share what you so obviously didn’t want to. And Richard, you kiss a child to make a boo boo better, and it does. A kiss, just knowing someone cares, heals. I know you’re not a child, but I don’t have anything else to offer you. I was a fool and I don’t like to be foolish. I thought your life sounded exciting, being a fugitive, on the run, outsmarting all the best lawmen in the country. I didn’t realize the pain involved before you ran, how inconceivable your fears must have been. I want you to know I care. I hope if I’d known you then, I would have been able to help you, while you were running, and if I can help you now, you’ve only to ask me.”

A kiss. That was what did it. A simple kiss to make him feel better and he fell head over heels in love. Just like that. He was beginning to think he was incapable of love, that every time he kissed a woman he would not look back when he had to leave her. His heart had never been involved.

Until that second, or maybe it had been months before and he was now realizing it.

Olivia Olivetti, compassionate doctor, was the first woman to touch him since his wife’s murder, and she had touched him, deep within his soul where there had only been coldness, and self-doubt, and constant throbbing fear. And he recognized the feeling soaring through his bloodstream as love, and had no idea what he was going to do about it.

“Listen, it’s late. I’m for home,” Maggi said, her attention locked on the two people now sitting together who had been coworkers, and now were a couple. “Any more beer and I won’t be fit to drive.”

“I didn’t want to be the first to leave, but I’ll follow ya’ll out,” Dora Ann said. “Nice party. We should get together more often.”

Kimble shuffled his feet, prepared to stand. Love isn’t always wonderful, giddy laughter, popping champagne corks and dancing in the rain. Sometimes love could be terrifying, especially when he had no idea what to do about it. “I should go too.”

“Richard, stay a few more minutes.”

Although whispered, her words were an imperative he could not ignore. Other than to live, was there ever anything he wanted more? Additional firecrackers exploded from the neighborhood, sparks of brightly colored lights soaring into the sky. In the distance he could see a couple of young kids twirling in dizzying spirals with sparklers. He didn’t want to run. He rubbed his lips where seconds before there had been a gentle, healing kiss. For the first time in a very long time, he wanted to be exactly where he was. “If you want.”

The transistor radio was still playing silently in the background, modern songs with a Detroit flair, Stop in the Name of Love, I heard it through the Grapevine, I second that Emotion. “Have you dated? Since your wife died, I mean.”

For years he had fought the understanding of what he wanted and what he could have. As a free man, he expected life would be easier, that little would be denied him, so her question caught him off guard.

He felt restless, and deep within, Kimble embraced an emotion he hadn’t felt in a long time. Sitting beside her, small buds of happiness started to germinate, and to help them, or perhaps, perversely, to strangle them, he had to be honest. “I don’t know how to answer that. While I was on the run, I couldn’t do anything as normal as dating. If there was a woman, I couldn’t take her to the movies. We couldn’t have a quiet dinner out or go to the beach with her friends, not without me keeping at least half of my attention on strangers, wondering who would recognize me, if there were policemen closing in. I would get so lonely I would take the chance sometimes. But I couldn’t offer them what they wanted. It was safer in the dark corners, and not getting too close to people. I knew this. They didn’t. For the most part, they only saw a drifter, a man perhaps they could convince to settle down. I was never the person they thought I was, even when I told them about the trial, about being a fugitive, they couldn’t understand. Olivia, I tried very hard not to hurt the people who helped me. Obviously I didn’t succeed, but I want you to know I tried.”

She cleared her throat again. “Did you love any of those women?”

“Love? I’m sure I knew the meaning of that word once. Now it’s all kind of twisted.” Love, how he wanted to do more than understand it. He wanted to embrace it. He recognized the symptoms, how he felt lighter in her presence, happier, how his pulse skipped, in a good way when she asked his medical opinion on something bothering her. How every time he saw her, he could only think of kissing her, of finally having the courage, and the right, to stop running, put down some solid roots and make a family.

“You can’t mean that.”

Mean that? He almost asked, that I want to kiss you until we’re both senseless?

Link to Chapter 13