The Perfect Circle
by Arthur Davis
part 1
I couldn’t share with Kate what was happening at work; she was having her own battles with cells that seemed to multiply at will and showed no signs of giving up their stranglehold on her life and our happiness.
Both she and Davy were asleep. Davy snoring away in the back seat while Kate nodded next to me, in and out of shallow dreams.
Another hour or so and we would be there: a secluded cabin in the woods of northern Vermont that I had found online while looking for the three of us to spend a long overdue weekend together.
At just under sixty, and three years younger than I, Kate still had that flawless complexion and breathtaking cat-green eyes and a smile that had been my anchor and safety net for four decades. I was blessed. We were blessed. And I was struggling to keep it that way.
Finally, we came to the cutoff the broker had told me would lead us though a winding dirt road to the cabin. The photos I had seen online excited Kate, too. She and I both needed a rest and, when Davy offered to join us, we exploded with excitement. Family is everything to us and, except for some long-distance cousins, the three of us were it.
I loved the country, the dense stands of birch overgrown with brush and twigs through which the dirt road wound. Finally, the cabin came into view with the broad open clearing just off to the right as the sun was beginning to fade in the sky.
“Hey,” I said, gently nudging Kate awake. “We’re here.”
She cleared the exhaustion from her eyes. “Oh my God! It’s like a picture book from a travel guide. Davy, come on or you’ll miss some great photos.”
Davy jumped out of the car with his camera and George barking at his side. I drove the half-dozen yards to the space in front of the cabin while Davy continued exploring our surroundings.
Kate took a few unsteady strides up to the porch and unlocked the front door. “It’s like going back a hundred years,” she said as I brought in our luggage and supplies.
The space was barn wood and half log cabin with a vaulted ceiling. The kitchen was restrained but manageable. The floors of every room were polished and strewn with rugs that must have been original to the cabin. I inspected the bathroom and utility room. All looked newly upgraded. The place smelled of “welcoming.”
“I love it!” Davy said, finally helping with the food and setting up the kitchen with Kate.
“Where’s George?” I said.
“Last time I saw him he was down by the lake chasing ducks.”
“Some parent you’re going to make,” Kate said. “He’ll be back as soon as I put on the burgers and fries.”
“Shameless animal,” I said.
“Who do you think he takes after?” Kate asked, staring at me.
There was a massive stone fireplace and plenty of cordwood under the shed outside. I lit a fire and we had dinner on the table in an hour.
“To the best wife and, every so often the marginally best son, any father could have,” I said, lifting a glass of pinot.
We were asleep by nine and woke to a sparkling-blue, late May, Saturday sky.
Kate and I cleared the breakfast dishes and settled in for a morning of doing as little as possible.
* * *
Davy came back from a walk with George, who pranced around with delight. “You know, this doesn’t make sense.”
“You mean George, or life itself?”
“Mom, seriously. You two are sleeping in a tiny bedroom, and I’m on a cot in the dining alcove, which is actually very comfortable; but the den, or study, is twice the size of your bedroom. Why would an owner give up so much space to such inconsequential use?”
“That’s the third time you’ve used the word ‘inconsequential’ since we drove up yesterday,” Kate said.
I demurred. “But he’s right. The den is spacious with a view of the open field, and our bedroom faces a wall of trees.”
“So, I like trees!” Kate answered.
Davy grabbed the stick from George’s mouth and went out to the porch with an old copy of Huckleberry Finn he had found in the stacks of old paperbacks scattered conveniently around the cabin.
Kate and Davy lasted an hour before both fell asleep. After lunch, we went for a long hike, which in this part of the country meant mountain climbing. “Another few hours like that,” Kate said, “and you’ll have to carry me back to the cabin. Someone else make dinner while I try and recuperate.”
Later, I told her: “This morning, when I was out with George, I took pictures of the lake, and on my way back walked around the side of the field outside. The damn thing looks like a perfect circle.”
“Seems like a circle, but perfect circles don’t usually occur in nature,” Kate said as I received and ignored a text. She had taught high-school science and, at one time, worked in a pharmaceutical laboratory. Kate was seriously smart and well-read.
Davy moved his gear and clothing into the den and announced he was going to sleep on the old leather couch.
Kate and I played Scrabble after dinner. My score was almost twice hers until Davy suddenly broke up laughing. “What on earth is so funny?” Kate asked him.
“I don’t believe what’s going on. Seriously, unreal.”
“What?”
“Mom, Dad has already used two blanks and just put down a third to make ‘quirky’ while you have one in your hand.”
“Traitor, you’re out of the family will. No question about it,” I said to Davy.
“I don’t understand.”
“Mom, there are only two blanks in Scrabble.”
“So, where is he getting them from?” she asked me.
“I’m taking the fifth,” I said.
“You want to sleep on the porch tonight, sailor?”
“Okay, in my own defense, I’m taking the fifth as well as the sixth.”
“The sixth amendment to the constitution refers to the accused getting the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury. You, my nearly ex-husband, are not getting either,” Kate said and flipped over my three blanks. All three had letters on the other side. “Oh, my God, you are absolutely evil. Who cheats at Scrabble?”
“Dad, you’re the best. Really. Wait until my friends hear about this. You’re going to be a freaking legend!”
“A divorced legend.”
I apologized, though Kate or Davy didn’t believe a word of it, and we all went to bed. I apologized a second time and at least got a cuddle from Kate, which made my night.
* * *
I woke up to Kate’s scream and jumped out of bed and ran into the kitchen. Davy was on his knees, bent over, pale and nearly incoherent. He was holding a blood-soaked washcloth under his nose. Blood splatters were on his pajamas and sprinkled around where he had fallen.
Kate was at Davy’s side, arm’s clasped around him. Her face flushed in tears and terror.
Berkeley Falls is a small rural community. It was less than a dozen miles from the cabin. We were at the only hospital, really a glorified clinic, in less than a half hour.
Davy was rushed into the emergency room, barely conscious and still bleeding.
“I’m Dr. Julian Strong.”
“My God, what’s happening to our son?” Kate nearly yelled. “He’s bleeding right from sleep. We had dinner and went to bed, and now this?”
“We are running some tests right now, and I’ve called in a specialist who I know has a home up here. We are doing everything possible.”
“Should he be moved to another hospital? A bigger facility?” I asked.
“That’s always an option, but I would recommend we find out as much as we can after we stabilize him before making any decisions. Now, please, if you will, I need to get in there.”
“I think he’s in good hands,” I said to Kate, who was shaking with fear. “I called Dr. Rosen in Boston.”
We were the only ones in the waiting room, but I was impressed with the staff and how they cared and informed us about what was happening in an obviously emergency situation. Two hours later Dr. Strong came back.
“The bleeding has stopped and he is resting.”
“And?” I asked.
“And we haven’t found out where the blood was coming from.”
“So it could start again?” Kate said.
“We are running more tests. I’ve spoken to your Dr. Rosen and shared what we were doing. He was very helpful. So, for now, we are going to let Davy rest. Do you live nearby?”
“We drove up from Boston yesterday and are staying at an old cabin about ten miles north of town.”
“A cabin?” he said. “Whereabouts?”
“A few miles further than Liberty Station on Route 16.”
“At the cutoff in the tight bend on 16?”
“That’s it.”
Julian Strong was in his late fifties and looked like he stepped out of Central Casting: a little over six feet and two hundred pounds, with pepper hair and piercing blue eyes that made it clear who was the smartest guy in the room.
“I think I know the place. Anyway, has anything changed with Davy since you drove up? No medications? New foods or exposure?”
“We were out hiking yesterday. That’s all the energy we had.”
“He didn’t fall, cut himself, or get scratches from the underbrush or bitten by an insect? I’m trying to find a cause and will take any information you can give me.”
“He found out that his father cheats at Scrabble last night when we played and was laughing about it until we went to sleep.”
“You can cheat at Scrabble?” he asked me.
“I’m already in enough trouble about that and would prefer not to answer.”
* * *
We passed the rest of the afternoon at Davy’s ICU bedside, talking with nurses and waiting for lab tests and taking quick breaks walking around town.
Davy was wired, and multiple intravenous lines were set up to maintain his hydration and replace whatever blood was lost. He looked helpless. Vulnerable.
We felt more helpless and vulnerable.
Dr. Rosen called twice and spoke with Dr. Strong. I looked him up online. Strong was a world-class internist and infectious disease specialist and department head at Mass. General Hospital in Boston for two decades before he cut back on his practice and moved up here permanently with his wife.
Davy was in good hands. But we were falling apart.
“I want to call the broker,” I said and started dialing.
“What broker?” Kate asked.
After a few minutes’ conversation, I had more disturbing information. “He said the cabin had been off the market for at least thirty years since it was last occupied. He and his service went into the cabin and cleaned it up and made upgrades top to bottom. Seems his agency provides a wide range of services for unoccupied homes up here.”
“What are you getting at?”
“You said there were no perfect circles in nature, and I remember the brochure where we saw the outside of the cabin and the lawn was lush green and deep. It’s not. I noticed it after we came back from the hike. It’s littered with patches of dirt and faded green grass. It’s been photoshopped. And the only thing Davy has done alone is spend time in the den.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m looking for what we’ve done together and what we’ve done by ourselves. We ate, hiked, ate the same food, and used the bathroom, which the broker said was fully modernized or else he wouldn’t take the listing. The only thing that we haven’t done together is spend time in that room.”
“He was out with George for hours. We weren’t with him. He could just as well have been getting sick days before we drove up.”
“I know. I went through those possibilities, too.”
“Honey, do you hear what you’re saying?”
“Our son is a strapping six foot, hundred and eighty pounds, who’s been a gym rat most of his adult life, is lying in there with an illness which overcame him in his sleep and which no one has diagnosed.”
“It’s only been a half a day. Some of those tests take time,” Kate insisted, trying to calm me down.
“I’m concerned about time.”
“Okay. It’s nearly three. We can drive back to the cabin, look around, and be back before the sun goes down. We’re probably going to spend the night here anyway. Maybe more than one. And if he gets transferred to Boston, we may need to have our personal belongings ready.”
We spoke with Dr. Strong and texted Dr. Rosen and notified the ICU nurses. They agreed that there was a possibility Davy was going to wind up at a larger facility.
Early test results weren’t promising. I felt I had to do something. I just didn’t know what.
Kate paused in the hospital parking lot: “So, if I understand, according to Dr. Strong, they’ve already ruled out posterior nosebleeds, leukemia, several cancers, vasculitis and trauma, which still leaves us with list of pathogens that would take days to a week, he said, to fully diagnose.”
“It’s only a first step, hon.”
“Did you look at him? Our baby look like he has no life left in him for a second step.”
By the time we got back to the cabin, I could see Kate was fading. And I noticed she hadn’t brought her medications with her when we rushed out of the house with Davy.
She had missed a critical afternoon regimen.
* * *
We gathered up belongings, got George into the car before heading for the open field. It was still light enough to see the edges of what we guessed was a little over a half-acre clearing.
“It looks like a circle,” I said.
Kate tried to stand up straight, but the pain and the terrors that had seized us both, as well as her weakened condition, were taking their toll. She wiped her eyes dry. “I’m scared.”
“Of?”
“What if it is an exact circle?”
“Then we have another piece of the puzzle, but that doesn’t make it a reason Davy is sick.”
She looked around, taking in the open field and cabin in a single sweeping glance. “Something’s wrong here.”
I had stopped off at a hardware store before we left town. I explained why to Kate, which only heightened her fears. “Here,” I said, handing her the end of a length of string as I headed for what I thought was the center of the clearing.
Surrounded by thickets and scrub, the cabin looked so small. Kate pulled on the string I had cobbled together from two balls of heavy twine from the hardware store and started to walk counterclockwise. I shifted a few feet, but it was already obvious that her right shoulder was continuously brushing up against the edge of the stand of trees. She got halfway around, stopped, and fell to her knees. The cabin was less than twenty yards away.
I rushed to her side.
“I can’t do this!” she sobbed, shaken and confused.
“It’s okay. I can finish,” I said and gave Kate a reassuring kiss.
I scooped up a long-dead branch and walked back to where I was standing. I tied the end of the string to the large end of the branch and jammed the sharp end into the soil. It was bone dry and unusually soft.
“Okay, let’s get this done,” I said to myself and walked off the remainder of the circumference of the circle. I stopped a few yards from the cabin. I couldn’t go further. The corner of the cabin where the den stood was just within the outline of the circle.
“I knew it,” Kate said, coming up behind me and clutching my arm. “Dear God, I just knew it.”
* * *
Copyright © 2021 by Arthur Davis
