Impulse by Frederick Ramsay Page A

could do for her was write prescriptions for pain killers and set up a hospice program. They gave her three months to live.”
    “The report didn’t say anything about that.”
    “I didn’t mention it to anyone.”
    “Your children?”
    “No. She wanted to hold off as long as possible. There was nothing anyone could do about it. She said they should be called at the end, but only then. She wanted them to remember her as she used to be, not the doped up, gray scarecrow she would become. You didn’t know her. She could fill a room with sunlight. She moved like a swan. She had all this energy. I never knew anyone who could tackle so many different things at once. Even on the day she disappeared, she went for her daily walk—only this time she didn’t return. I thought…I called hospitals thinking she might have collapsed.” He paused, closed his eyes, and took several controlled breaths.
    “She enjoyed life so much…and then…suddenly, she found herself worn out by noon. It was like watching ice melt.”
    Rosemary’s eyes filled with tears. “I don’t think I want you to say anything more, Frank. I don’t need to know the rest.”
    “I’d better go,” he said, but didn’t move. She upended her purse on the table in search of a Kleenex. He handed her his pocket handkerchief.
    “Stay,” she whispered.
    ***
    “Do you think your man Meredith is hopping in the sack with the fabulous Mrs. Mitchell tonight?” Judith Stark leaned in the doorway. She had a hair brush in her hand poised in midair.
    “Judith,” Stark protested, “what a thing to say. They’re pushing seventy. I expect they’re sitting around drinking hot chocolate and reminiscing about old TV shows or life on the campus in the fifties.”
    “You think? Well, I don’t have any intention of giving up sex until I die. So consider yourself put on notice, sweetheart.”
    He blushed. His wife could be embarrassing in public and private. Not that this particular threat bothered him. On the contrary, it might signal an end to their spat. He looked up but she turned her back and left the room.
    “I’m in the guestroom tonight,” she said over her shoulder. He heard the door click shut. He sighed and pulled on the green paisley robe she hated.
    The master bedroom boasted a tiny balcony. He stepped out onto it. He shivered in the chill May air, reached into his pocket and extracted a pack of cigarettes. He did not smoke often. Judith did not let him smoke in the house, but when he felt the world closing in on him he’d sometimes go outside and light up. And at that moment the world weighed heavily on him. He lit the cigarette and watched as the smoke curled upward. At the eaves, it dashed away, caught in an invisible air current. The land fell away from the back of the house. A long, shallow hillside that ended at the state road. He could just make out the streak of white concrete shining in the moonlight. Beyond it Old Oak Woods. He closed his eyes to shut it out, but the boys came out to dance for him anyway.
    “Leave me alone!”
    “Okay, if you insist,” Judith said from the bed, “but I started feeling horny and thought better of my decision to sleep alone. And I hoped you’d be in the mood for some atoning.” She could not see the expression on his face in the dark. Had she, she would not have been quite so flippant.
    ***
    The police put Dexter Light in the drunk tank for the night. They’d found him wandering around the Owings Mills Mall. He seemed harmless enough but clearly in no condition to navigate his way back to Baltimore.
    “Who’s your daddy?” he asked. “Who’s your daddy?” Then he burst into laughter. “That’s what I want to know, Officer. Can’t be Marvin, that’s for sure, so, who?” He collapsed on the steel bunk and passed out.
    “I swear this is the same guy we get every year from Scott. Let’s see….” The cop, a veteran of nearly twenty years, rifled through Dexter’s wallet. “Driver’s license,