No Cure for Death Read Free

the Old Town scene—he turned out op art paintings and sold ’em on the street and through various shops, and I clerked in a bookstore—just a couple hippies with a love child, right? Gradually we both got into drugs, him kind of heavy, me not so—I found I couldn’t let go of the idea I was supposed to be a ‘good mother’ to my child.
    “The kid was getting along fine, until one day he—by this time he was about three-and-a-half—he started acting sickly. Short of breath all the time, and complaining sometimes about chest pain. I took the kid to a doctor—and from the doctor to a specialist, and found that he had a heart condition that... that could eventually require surgery. Boy, did
I
come down quickly out of that druggie fantasy-world. I immediately started making mental lists of the changes that would have to take place in my life; that night I tried to tell my soulmate what the score was and he said, ‘No more fuckin’ hassles,’ and walked out. I haven’t seen him since.
    “The moment the door closed behind my ex, I reached for the phone and called my mother and started pouring it all out. It’d been years since I talked to her, years since I’d dropped out of college, turned runaway, moved to Old Town and had a kid and all. I’d hardly got a word out when Mom told me that Dad died three years ago. I... I slammed the receiver down and waited for the tears, but there weren’t any, so I laughed instead. The kind of laughing that doesn’t have a damn thing to do with being happy, y’know? And, after the laughter, I thought of suicide. Real seriously thought of suicide. But my kid came first, before any such luxury, so I picked the phone up again and called Mom back.”
    She stopped, and I thought for a moment she was going to break down; her one hand clutched the cup of hot chocolate, the other was on the table, trembling. My instinct was to hold that trembling hand—to give her some support. I didn’t know her well enough to do that, of course—but then we’d been through a war together, hadn’t we? A one-eyed war, so I followed my instinct and took her hand, and she gave me a quivery little smile that said she hadn’t taken my gesture the wrong way, and she got her story going again.
    “Mom said she could help me, help
us,
my kid and me, but she also said certain arrangements would be necessary and that she would call me later, after the... arrangements were made. Four hours dragged by. Then the phone rang again, and I picked it up and it was Mom. What my mother told me seemed strange to me, but I didn’t argue. I was glad for the help. Anyway, she said I wasn’t to come to Des Moines—that’s where my family always lived—but was to meet her at an address in Port City. I didn’t know she’d even ever
been
to Port City. But that was where we’d be living from here on out, according to Mom. She wouldn’t explain why, only said she’d tell me more later, after we were settled in.”
    Here she paused again, looking down into the cup of hot chocolate like she was looking for tea leaves to read.
    “What I later found out was that an ‘old friend of the family’ who lived in Port City was interested in my kid, and wanted to make sure the boy was given the ‘best possible care.’ Those words: best possible care. Only this old friend wanted to remain anonymous. I had an idea who this person was, but I thought I better not make waves... at least not when I found out my boy was to be sent to this famous clinic, in New York.
    “Still, several things were really bothering me. Mom and me were supposed to stay in Port City. We weren’t to follow the boy back east to the clinic. There was no reason given for this, it was just a... condition. And so as to stay as anonymous as possible, our benefactor
insisted
on making all his arrangements with Mom—that made me
sure
I knew who it was but Mom always denied it. I... never pressed the issue. My kid came first.”
    Now her voice started to