Bad Blood

The dice roll of genetics had landed on snake eyes for Paul Monaghan, resulting in a diagnosis that left him feeling betrayed by his own body. He had always had a general distrust of doctors, but the pain in his lower back, which he had previously chalked up to working too hard at the valve factory, had crescendoed one night in March, shortly after his forty-seventh birthday. The emergency room had run a full battery of tests, and the results had come back definitively: PKD. The slow, agonizing growth of what would become giant, belly-distending cysts that would one day strangle his kidneys to death had begun, and so had the wait for a viable transplant.

The doctors had asked about his family history, certain he would have grown up surrounded by relatives who had been cursed with the same affliction, and thus well versed in this particular dominant inevitability. But Paul had been adopted. The parents who raised him had never had contact with those who brought him into this world, and Paul himself had never had any success during his brief attempt to track them down. Now, he often found himself wondering if this was the very reason they had cast him aside.

Paul had started dialysis during daylight hours, thanks to an accommodation he’d brokered with his union rep, but all the hustle and bustle in the clinic had gotten to him. There were too many people, too many loud conversations. He’d complained about it to a nurse one day, and she had suggested he switch over to the twilight shift if he wanted some peace and quiet. It was a move Paul hadn’t regretted. Not until Kane Garver died and left him everything.

Paul liked the twilight shift. The lights were kept low so patients could sleep while the nurses sipped stale coffee at their station and kept their conversations hushed so as not to disturb them. He liked that the lobby was a ghost town this late. There was no one waiting impatiently to take his chair the moment his requisite four hours was up. And the other men and women were mostly working professionals. Instead of loud tablets and tinny speakerphone chatter, they answered emails quietly, and the tapping of keys was often the loudest sound in the room outside of the constant, rhythmic whirring of the machines.

Paul did not bring a laptop to his appointments. He had no emails to answer. He didn’t bring his phone either. Every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday from eight p.m. to midnight, Paul worked on his crossword puzzles.

He enjoyed the twisted logic of the clues, the way he had to bend his thinking around corners until the right combination of letters revealed itself and formed the perfect word. After thirty-nine rounds of treatment, he was getting pretty good at them. It was one clue in particular, though, that Paul would later wish he had never muttered aloud.

“Strips in geography class. Six letters…”

He’d been turning it over in his head so long that he hadn’t realized he’d spoken until the man in the chair beside him answered.

“Isthmi.”

Paul looked over.

The old man hadn’t opened his eyes, but he was the only person in the room who could have heard his absentminded utterance.

“Come again?”

This time, Paul watched the old man’s lips as he repeated, “Isthmi. It’s the plural of isthmus. Fits the clue.”

Paul looked back down at the puzzle. The S fit with aspirin running down, and the M finished remit across. He counted the squares once more, then carefully filled in ISTHMI.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Paul chuckled. “You some kind of geography teacher?”

“Nah,” he drawled. “But I done my fair share of crosswords over the years. After a while, you start remembering the ones that stick out like that.”

“Yeah, that’s not one I’m bound to forget anytime soon. Appreciate it.”

The old man raised his hand slightly in acknowledgement, which Paul interpreted as the end of the conversation. Dialysis was hard work, so Paul took no offense. He himself had experienced sudden drops in blood pressure while he was hooked up, and there really was no getting used to it. It was likely that the old man was just as nauseous, dizzy, and cold as he was.

Paul ran through most of the remaining puzzle after that.

Quick board meeting? Ten letters.

SPEED CHESS

Colds that last a long time. Seven letters.

ICE AGES

Group of crows. Six letters.

MURDER

Then he got stuck again.

Salmagundi. Four letters.

Paul sat silently, repeating the clue in his head. He felt like the answer was staring him in the face. His pencil eraser hit the page with a staccato drumming.

Tap.

Tap.

Tap.

“Stumped again?”

Paul ceased his tapping and looked over to the old man, who had turned his head to face him this time. He was wearing a good-natured grin set below a prominent nose and eyes the color of winter.

“Oh, sorry,” Paul chuckled again. “Yeah, salmagundi. Four letters. I feel like I should know this one, but I can’t quite put my finger on it.”

“OLIO,” he answered deftly. “Both mean something like a mixture of random things. Classic crosswordese.”

Paul checked, and once again it matched with the connecting words perfectly. “Thanks, uhh…”

“Kane,” he replied, extending the arm that didn’t have needles in it. “Kane Garver.”

Paul reached over and shook the offered hand. “Paul Monaghan. Man, you must be good enough at these to do it in pen.”

The wide smile that broke across Kane’s face at that remark smoothed the lines on his brow and made him look years younger. “I reckon I’ve used one in a pinch more than once. I used to bring a book of them things here too for a while, but these days I’m just happy to rest up a bit.”

“How long you been at this?”

“Little more than three years now. I’ll be coming here until they finally put me in the dirt.”

Paul learned that Kane had suffered from debilitating headaches most of his adult life. He had remedied them with copious amounts of ibuprofen, which had helped on a day-to-day basis but had wrecked his kidneys in the process. A recent battle with cancer had gotten him removed from the transplant list, and while it was now in remission, there was no guarantee he’d ever make it back on.

At 11:45 p.m., the nurses made their way around the room to “rinse back” the blood and pull the needles. Paul and Kane remained in their chairs, each applying pressure to their access sites, waiting to finally stop bleeding so they could go home. Kane was once again lying back with his eyes closed. He was sweating despite the chill in the air.

“You okay there, buddy?” Paul asked. “You ain’t looking so hot. You got someone waiting on you in the lot to take you home?”

“Yeah, I’ll be alright. Got a deal worked out with a taxi service. They’ve never missed a pick-up. You?”

“My wife, Becky, will be out there in a minute. You married?”

“No, was almost married once, but that fell apart and I just kept to myself after that. Never had any kids either. You got any?”

This had been a point of contention between Paul and Becky early in their marriage. He had wanted kids; she didn’t. He’d loved her enough to stay, and now he thanked God every day that he had married her. He couldn’t imagine how he’d feel knowing he’d passed along this curse to someone else, let alone his own children.

“No, not unless you count our dog, Baxter.”

“I used to breed dogs back in the day, but that’s a young man’s game. Now I just got my three girls to look after.”

“Well, at least you have some good company. What are their names?”

“Maggie, Rose, and Stella.” As he said their names, another broad grin spread across his face. “If I wasn’t falling apart at the seams, I’d have everything a man could ask for.”

As the months moved and the seasons changed, a routine formed. Kane would get there early and hold the chair next to him for Paul. They still worked on crossword puzzles, but they talked about other things too.

“I don’t know how you keep such good spirits the way you do,” Paul said as he sat shivering on the Thursday before Halloween. “I’m doing my best, but I still can’t help being a miserable prick half the time.”

“Don’t make you feel any better though, does it?”

Paul sighed. “No. And Becky’s patient, but I can see it wearing on her.”

“I know it’s hard waiting. But you’re gonna get that call someday that they got you some kidneys. And after that, you’re gonna need her more than ever. You gotta protect what you got at home.”

“I know, man. It’d be nice is all if, for a little while, I just didn’t have to care about anything else but me.”

Kane guffawed. “Now that I understand. Sometimes I think I care too much.”

With Thanksgiving falling on a Thursday, Paul invited Kane over for supper. He offered to pick him up so they could eat before dialysis and have Becky drive him home afterward, but Kane begged off. 

“Can’t leave my girls alone that long,” he chuckled. “I leave ‘em long enough on treatment days. Any more and they’d prolly chew their way out their cages.”

Instead, Becky filled a plethora of Tupperware containers with leftovers, which she handed over to him as they left the clinic that night.

“Shame you couldn’t come tonight, but we understand,” Becky said. “The least we could do is give you a late supper.”

“Gracious, woman,” Kane smiled. “This feels like enough for at least three suppers. Thank you. Thank you both.”

Kane hugged each of them in turn. He was trembling as he did it, and Paul wondered if it was from the treatment or if it had something to do with the tears that were building in his eyes. He also wondered when the last time was that anyone had done something nice for Kane Garver.

“You’re welcome,” Becky said.

“Get home safe,” Paul waved. 

The first snowfall came days later, and just like that, autumn was over. Seemingly overnight, Christmas decorations appeared on houses, street lamps, and storefronts. Paul was having one of his good days, so he went out shopping to get gifts for Becky. He was making steady progress, adding filled shopping bags to his overburdened hands, determined to make up for all the times he’d been short with her over the course of the last year.

He had taken Kane’s advice to heart and had made a concerted effort to be a better husband. He hadn’t been perfect. Bad days were still bad days, but he thought Becky knew he was trying. He was pondering this as he came across a gift he thought would be perfect for Kane. Eleven treatments later, it was Christmas Eve.

“Got you a little something,” Paul said, pulling a slender, rectangular box from his pocket. “Nothing big or anything, but I saw it and knew I had to get it for you.”

Kane took it with a shaky hand. “Ah hell, Paul. You didn’t have to do that.”

“I know,” Paul shrugged. “It just felt like the right thing to do.”

Kane opened the lid. It was a Scrivener pen, midnight blue with gold trim. The barrel was engraved.

KANE G.

Kane stared at it, then ran a finger along its length, feeling the letters with the pad of his finger as though he were reading braille.

“Figured if you’re good enough to do crosswords in pen, you ought to have a nice one.”

Kane looked up, emotion playing across his face. “You’re a good man, Paul. I was lucky to meet you.”

Paul waved a hand. “Eh, it’s nothin’. But for the record, I’m glad I met you too.”

Kane sat in silence for a beat. Then he said, “I got you something too. Didn’t bring it with me though. You’ll have to wait until Saturday.”

“Really? Well, shit. I hope you didn’t go to any trouble.”

“None at all. I’ve had it waitin’ for you for a while now.” He looked up and smiled.

Becky’s first present to Paul the following morning was letting him sleep in until he woke up on his own, no alarm, on a Friday. The rest they opened together in the living room while sipping decaf coffee. She had switched over with him when he had to make the change. Just one more reason he knew he’d found the right wife.

The next evening, Paul walked into the clinic at the same time he always did, but Kane wasn’t there. There had never been a single treatment since they had met that Kane hadn’t been waiting for him, warning others away from his chair. He wasn’t immediately concerned, though. He just figured he’d return the favor this time. But by the time he was getting hooked up and Kane had not arrived, his worry mounted.

“Hey,” he said to the nurse after she had started his machine. “Have you heard from Kane? You could set your clock by that man.”

“I’ll go see if he’s checked in yet,” she said as she walked away, returning a few minutes later with a large manila envelope.

“This was left for you, apparently. Guess he dropped it off yesterday.”

“Thank you,” he replied softly, his earlier worry intensifying.

Paul opened the envelope and pulled out a stack of papers.

Legal documents.

House and land. Bank accounts. Everything.

All signed over to Paul.

At the bottom of the stack was a torn-off sheet from a yellow legal pad, scrawled with blue ink in Kane’s handwriting.

Paul—

By the time you read this I’ll be gone. The cancer is back and I can’t go through that again. I know that’s a hell of a thing to do to somebody, but you’re also the only person left who gives a shit. Everything you need should be in these papers. The house is yours and so is everything in it. There’s enough money to keep things going for a while and I hope you do. But there’s really only one thing I need you to do for me.

Please take care of my girls.

They’re going to be scared. Probably more than usual. Don’t hold that against them. I thought about turning them loose. I really did. But I couldn’t just put them out into the wild and expect them to fend for themselves.

You’re going to find the house a little messy. Don’t mind that for now. Just go downstairs when you get there. The key is under the mat.

One more thing. Don’t tell Becky yet and don’t call nobody until you see the state of things.

You’ve been a good friend to me, Paul. You’re a good man. That’s why I picked you.

Kane

Paul put the papers back in the envelope. He sat in silence for the next four hours. He sat in near silence on the drive home too, pretending to be worn out by the treatment when, in reality, he didn’t think he could say more than a few words without letting it all come pouring out of him.

He lay in bed next to Becky until he heard the soft sounds of her gentle snoring before slipping out of bed and down to his car. It wasn’t a good idea to drive so soon after a treatment. His blood pressure could drop in an instant. Hitting a sizable bump in the road might be all it took to wake up in a ditch, if he was lucky. But he had to know, had to see what had happened to his friend.

By the time he pulled up to Kane’s property, it was 2:30 a.m. The house wasn’t much to look at, but the land it sat on was sprawling. Several acres of field surrounded by more acres of woods. Not another house in sight for miles.

The key was where Kane said it would be. He opened the front door quietly and stepped gingerly inside, easing it closed behind him. It seemed as though all the lights in the house were on. He was standing in the kitchen. Across from him sat a dining room table that looked like it had been carved from a single tree. The living space opened beyond that to the right, but Paul didn’t need to look that way to know what Kane had done. He could tell by the smell of blood in the air. 

His eyes were trained on a door in the opposite wall.

A door with three padlocks on the outside.

He glanced toward the counter at another torn-out page from what he assumed was the same yellow notepad. On it were three keys, next to each a corresponding number.

1.

2.

3.

Paul swallowed hard. He stepped toward the counter. He didn’t turn to look in the living room, but in his peripheral vision he could see a slumped figure in a chair. He was more concerned with the door and what lay beyond it.

He collected the keys, careful not to jumble them in the process, and stepped to the door. He unlocked each in sequence, removed the locks, and placed them on the counter with the care of someone adding the top level on a house of cards.

His hand hovered over the knob as he fought to control his heart rate, to control his breathing. Finally, he grasped the handle and turned.

There was no step light enough to conceal his presence on the old, creaking staircase, and as he descended, the girls started to scream.