The Stormchasers: A Novel Read online

  “Okay,” says Karena, “I’ll let you go. Just checking in.”

  “Wait,” says Tiff. “Hold on.” There is a swishing sound as though she’s in a washing machine, which probably means she’s walking, and then she says, “Okay, I’m hiding in the pantry. How are you? Happy birthday, by the way.”

  “Thank you,” says Karena. “I’m fine. Missing Charles a little, but—”

  “Well, it’s time you got over that bullshit,” Tiff says pertly. There has never been any love lost between Tiff and Charles. Then she says, “No. NO. How many times do I have to tell you? That’s it. Stand in the corner. GET IN THE CORNER—I’ve gotta go,” she says to Karena.

  “Good luck,” Karena says and hangs up.

  She is in a much better mood driving back to the Cities, and by the time she reaches her little house in Edina, she is humming. She enters through the back door and kicks her work heels into the corner of the kitchen with a flourish. The day has gone as well as can be expected, and now it is almost over. Karena has time for a short run before dinner, which she has decided will be wine and a take-out croque monsieur from Le P’tit Lapin. She changes into her jogging shorts and U of MN T-shirt, then scrubs up in the bathroom off the kitchen. Washing one’s face, Karena believes, is one of the great joys of life, especially after a long day’s work or being in the car. She plunges her face into water as cold as it will go and emerges sputtering like a horse, and it’s then that her phone rings, her landline in the den.

  “Crap,” Karena says, dripping. She keeps forgetting to cancel that service. She likes the concept of retaining the landline for emergencies, but in reality it’s a nuisance, since the only people who ever call on it are telemarketers and her dad’s new wife, the Widow. It’s probably the Widow now, in fact, since as soon as the phone stops ringing, it starts up again. Like many of her generation in New Heidelburg, the Widow hasn’t quite caught on to the concept of voice mail, and she’ll be wanting to fulfill her obligation of wishing Karena a happy birthday from her dad Frank, since Frank can no longer speak for himself.

  Karena would dearly love to ignore the phone. But when it continues to ring, Karena says, “Oh, fine,” and runs into her den to pick it up, whacking her shoulder on the door frame in her hurry.

  “Ow,” she mutters, rubbing it. “Hello?”

  “Is this Miss Karena Jorge?”

  It is a telemarketer. Karena narrows her eyes.

  “Yes, this is she,” she says, “but I’m just on my way out, so can you please call back another time?”

  “Miss Jorge, my name is Gail Nelson, and I’m calling from the Wichita Medical Center Mental Health Clinic in Wichita, Kansas. Miss Jorge, do you have a brother Charles Hallingdahl?”

  Karena’s whole body flushes hot, then cold. She sits on the edge of her desk and looks around the little white room, as if somebody else is there to confirm that yes, this is it. The call. The call she’s been expecting, rehearsing for, dreading for twenty years.

  “Yes, I have a brother Charles,” she says. “He’s my twin. Is everything all right?”

  Then she curses, because of course everything is not all right. If it were, this woman would not be calling her.

  “I mean, what’s wrong with him?” she asks. Suicide attempt, she is thinking. Or psychotic episode? Maybe both, but at least suicide attempt.

  “I’m not really qualified to answer that, Miss Jorge,” says the nurse. “I’m really only a patient liaison. It’s best if you speak directly to the doctor about Charles’s condition. I can tell you that he’s here with us and he gave your name as his closest relative.”

  “That’s right,” says Karena, “I am.” There’s also their dad, Frank, but he doesn’t count anymore, poor guy. Karena scrabbles on her desk for a steno pad and Sharpie. Her hands are shaking badly and she knocks a stapler to the carpet, but the familiar actions soothe her somewhat.

  “Miss—Nelson, is it?” she says, writing. “Can you at least tell me if Charles is physically harmed in any way? And what his condition was when he came in? Was he agitated, manic? Was he hallucinating?”

  “Again, I’m just a liaison, ma’am,” says the nurse. “You’d have to talk to Dr. Brewster about specifics. I can page her and have her call you back.”

  “Yes, please do,” says Karena, “and I appreciate your position, but please. Please. Any information you can give me would be helpful. Just so I know what I’m dealing with.”

  When the nurse speaks again, her voice is less formal. “I really shouldn’t be saying this,” she says, “and it’s just a guess, mind you. But if Charles were physically injured, he’d be in a different part of our hospital. This is the psychiatric ward.”

  “All right,” says Karena, “thank you so much. Now, can you please remind me, what’s the doctor’s name?”

  She takes down this information, as well as the location of the hospital and the clinic’s direct number, then repeats it back to the nurse along with her own cell number. Karena knows better than to trust herself at this point. Her thoughts have become very clear and cold and slow, as if she has gone into deep freeze, but she knows in this state she is perfectly capable of thinking herself just fine and then running out to the car without packing, finding her keys in the refrigerator. It’s shock. Karena recognizes shock. She has been here before.

  “Thank you,” she says to the nurse when they are done. “Please have Dr. Brewster call me as soon as possible, okay? Anytime, day or night. I’ll be waiting to hear from her.”

  When she hangs up Karena turns on her computer, then looks wonderingly around her den. She is surprised to find the little white room, which she sometimes likes to imagine as being the inside of a marshmallow, looking as serene as it did when she entered it. It occurs to Karena that she got what she wished for earlier: For the first time in twenty years, she knows where her twin is spending their birthday.

  “Jesus, Charles,” Karena says under her breath, in the way she has become accustomed to talking to Charles when she is alone. She opens a travel website. “Just hold on, brothah, I’ll be there as soon as I can,” and she starts scrolling through flights.

  3

  By eleven the following morning Karena is sitting in the reception area of the Wichita Medical Center Mental Health Clinic, awaiting Charles’s doctor. Much has changed since the last time Karena visited her brother in a psychiatric ward. This one is sleek and beige, with comfortable couches and a pop machine, a far cry from the Black Wing Asylum’s cracked green walls and barred windows. Here there is even a flat-screen TV. What hasn’t changed, at least for Karena, is her feeling of almost painful alertness, as though she is trying to take in everything about this environment, a place about which she knows nothing but that contains all the secrets to helping her brother. She sits up very straight, her nostrils flaring at the scent of rubbing alcohol. Memory is a trapdoor.

  Karena is trying to check her e-mail while she waits, but she can’t stop glancing at the door to the ward. Any second now the doctor will come through it and take Karena to Charles, and then—what? What do you say to somebody after twenty years? Karena has tried and tried to envision it, but all she gets is a dark blank spot like the center of an eclipse. What does Charles even look like now? In their adolescence he was gorgeous, golden-haired, with big brown eyes and honey-colored skin—Rum Raisin and Vanilla, their uncle Carroll nicknamed them. Some Sioux in that one, Grandmother Hallingdahl always said darkly about Charles.

  But twenty years is a long time. Charles’s movie-star waves may have thinned, his waistline thickened. He may no longer have hair at all. He may have a handlebar mustache, tattoos, scars, a limp for all Karena knows. He could weigh three hundred pounds. Every few minutes Karena slides her one photo of Charles out of its plastic wallet sleeve. It is a snapshot taken on their front lawn in New Heidelburg the night of their senior prom, to which Charles brought Marie Hauser, the slowest girl in their class, because he knew nobody else would. The only dance Marie knew was the polka, a
nd Karena retains a clear memory of her brother hopping solemnly around the gym floor with his date to that year’s theme, Peter Cetera’s “Glory of Love.” In the photo Charles is standing next to their dad’s Austin Healey, which he will wreck the following month. He is grinning sideways down at the grass—that big white smile one characteristic the twins do share—and wearing a baby blue tuxedo with ruffled shirtfront. His hair is short on the sides, long in back, teased so high in front that the sun shines through it in rays. At least he won’t still have that mullet—Karena hopes.

  She is smiling over this when the ward door opens and a small woman emerges—the doctor, Karena presumes, for she wears a white lab coat and carries a clipboard. She hurries across the waiting area with her hand out, sneakers squeaking.

  “I’m Dr. Brewster,” she says, “sorry to keep you waiting. You must be Charles Hallingdahl’s sister. I can see the resemblance.”

  Karena hastily puts the photo away, claps her laptop shut, and stands up. “Karena Jorge,” she says, shaking the doctor’s hand. “I’m Charles’s twin. You’re good. Most people don’t see it right away.”

  “The smile,” says the doctor, “and something about the eyes.” She is striking, with an auburn bob and a bright blue gaze, a pleasantly husky voice. Yet there is about her an air of professional watchfulness, a menthol-cool calm like a force field. Karena smiles at Dr. Brewster with the automatic respect she holds for any member of the medical profession, along with a more personal interest. The doctor is about Karena’s age, and once upon a time, before Charles’s illness and other factors dissuaded her, Karena considered becoming a doctor herself.

  “Should we talk out here?” the doctor asks. “Or would you be more comfortable in my office?”

  Karena looks again toward the ward door.

  “I’m sorry,” she says, “I’m confused. Aren’t we going to see Charles first?”

  “Didn’t they tell you?” Dr. Brewster asks. She glances behind her at the RN on desk, then says, “Your brother was released earlier this morning.”

  “What?” Karena exclaims.

  “Yes, at—” Dr. Brewster consults her clipboard. “Eight thirty A.M. I discharged him myself.”

  “Oh no,” Karena says, “I can’t believe it,” and much to her embarrassment, she starts to cry.

  Dr. Brewster hands her a squishy pack of tissues from the pocket of her lab coat and guides Karena to one of the couches. “I guess we’d better sit,” she says.

  She waits until Karena finishes daubing her eyes, blowing her nose as quietly as she can.

  “I’m sorry,” Karena says. “I didn’t mean to make a scene.”

  Dr. Brewster raises her eyebrows, as if to say, We’re in a psychiatric ward. “I’ve seen worse,” she says, a little wryly.

  “I’m just so disappointed,” Karena says. “I’ve been looking for Charles for twenty years, and now this—So close and yet so far.”

  She checks her watch. How far can Charles have gotten in about three hours? Pretty far. Karena deflates with a sigh, then looks up.

  “Please, can you tell me why he was released?” she asks. “I thought he was suicidal, or had at least had a psychotic break . . .”

  Dr. Brewster doesn’t move, but her gaze sharpens further.

  “We don’t usually hold people for panic attacks,” she says. “What makes you say suicidal?”

  “Panic attack?” says Karena.

  “That’s what we treated Charles for,” says Dr. Brewster. “But it seems I’m missing something.”

  Karena shakes her head. “He didn’t tell you,” she says.

  “Tell me what,” the doctor says.

  “My brother is bipolar,” says Karena. She sighs and recites: “Bipolar One, but rapid cycling and with the occasional psychotic episode. A real mixed bag. He was diagnosed in 1984, by Dr. Amit Hazan at the Mayo Clinic. Later he was an inpatient at a longer-term facility called Black Wing Asylum, from 1988 until . . . sorry, I don’t know exactly. There was a fire at Black Wing in the late nineties and they lost all their records. But the Mayo would still have them, I’m pretty sure.”

  Dr. Brewster is making rapid notations on her clipboard. Karena can hear the pock of her ballpoint pen.

  “Why was Charles institutionalized?” she asks.

  “That was the suicide attempt,” says Karena.

  “Any attempts after that?”

  “Not that I’m aware of,” says Karena. She shivers and rubs her goose-bumped arms. The air-conditioning is high in here. “I’d like to think I’d feel it if he were in that much distress, since we’re twins, but . . . I just don’t know.”

  The doctor looks up briefly. “You mentioned psychosis,” she says. “Charles sees and hears things that aren’t there?”

  “Yes,” says Karena. “Sometimes. He didn’t mention anything like that when he came in, did he? A particular hallucination? Anything about stormchasing?”

  The doctor peruses her notes, flipping back a page, and shakes her head. Karena sags against the couch, then makes herself sit up straight.

  “What’s the stormchasing connection?” the doctor asks.

  “That’s what Charles does,” says Karena. “And he likes to chase when he’s manic. At least, he did. As you can imagine, it’s kind of an unholy combination.”

  “Interesting,” the doctor says, almost under her breath. “Okay, one last question: Any reason you can think of that Charles didn’t tell me any of this?”

  “I’m fairly sure Charles doesn’t think he is bipolar,” says Karena. “He never accepted the diagnosis. He used to say he was just smarter than everyone else.”

  “Sure,” Dr. Brewster says, “sounds like mania.” She sets the clipboard on her lap.

  “Well, Miss Jorge, here’s where we are,” she says. “Charles didn’t disclose any of this to us. When he came to the ER, he thought he was having a stroke.”

  “Oh jeez,” Karena murmurs. “Wait, can you hold on, please?”

  She takes out her steno pad and Sharpie and smiles at the doctor. “Do you mind if I take notes?” she asks. “I can’t remember a thing unless I write it down. Professional hazard.”

  “No, that’s fine,” says Dr. Brewster, though her glance at the notebook is a little wary. “They checked him out, ran the standard tests—blood work, tox screen, head CT, and when everything came back clean, they turned him over to us, figuring it was a panic attack. And Charles was presenting with shortness of breath, heart palpitations, dizziness, et cetera. Your brother’s in fine physical shape, Miss Jorge,” she adds, “but it took us a while to convince him a healthy young man wouldn’t suffer a sudden cerebral accident. Charles was certain he was going to die—he was quite dramatic about it, actually.”

  “I’m sure he was,” Karena says, thinking, Oh, Charles. “So what’d you do?”

  “We had him breathe into a paper bag,” the doctor says with a little smile. “And suggested he stay overnight for observation. By this morning, when I met with him again, he’d done a total about-face and was demanding to be released. This is when I’d decide whether to impose a seventy-two-hour hold, which happens if I feel the patient is at high risk for endangering himself or others. But there was absolutely nothing to make me think Charles belonged in this category—in fact, that he was anything other than a young man with mild panic disorder. I talked to him for a while about possible causes and how to manage it, then wrote him a ’scrip and let him go.”

  Karena’s pen stops. “What did he say about the causes?” she asks.

  “That he had felt unusually stressed lately,” the doctor says, “and that he often feels this way around his birthday. Maybe because the two of you are separated?” she adds, smiling kindly.

  “Maybe,” Karena says. There are other, excellent reasons why Charles would be feeling anxious on their birthday, but she can’t disclose them. She tucks her hair behind her ears and scans her notes, exhaling.

  “Okay,” she says. “Goodness. I don’t suppose ther
e’s any way of tracking him? He didn’t have to be released into somebody’s care?”

  “Not for an overnight,” says Dr. Brewster. “Not for anxiety.”

  Karena rubs the third-eye spot on her forehead. “How about when he came in?” she asks. “Did he have to give an address to admitting?”

  “You’d have to check with administrative,” the doctor says, and Karena nods. She will, but she also knows what Charles will have told them: the location of a motel, or a P.O. box, or an entirely fictional house. NFA, as Karena’s ex-husband used to say. No Forwarding Address.

  “Miss Jorge,” the doctor says gently, and Karena looks up. “I hate to put more pressure on you, but if there’s any way you can, it’s important that you do bring Charles back in as soon as possible. Or if not here, to another medical facility. Given what you’ve told me, he needs an entirely different set of evaluations. And although I’m probably preaching to the choir here, Charles needs to be on medication and monitored.”

  “I know,” says Karena. “I’ll try.”

  “Also,” says Dr. Brewster, “since I didn’t know about Charles’s disorder, the prescription I wrote him was for Paxil. It’s mild as antidepressants go, but if Charles is pre-manic, it could push him over the edge.”

  Great, Karena thinks, but she says, “I understand. Thank you for telling me.”

  Dr. Brewster is standing now, so Karena puts her pad away, gathers her belongings, and rises too.

  “Thank you, Doctor,” she says. “I appreciate your taking the time.”

  The doctor walks Karena toward the exit, soles creaking. At the door they exchange business cards, Dr. Brewster scribbling on hers first.

  “My home number’s on the back,” she says. “Please call if you find him, day or night.”

  Karena knows what a concession this is. “Thank you,” she repeats and means it.

  “Hey,” says Dr. Brewster as she opens the door for Karena, “is your brother really a stormchaser? He chases tornadoes? Like the guys on the Discovery Channel?”