Necessary Lives

By Jerold Kreisman

As a husband, William Cooper is trying to understand how to save his failing marriage. As a psychiatrist, Dr. Cooper is trying to understand how to save his patients. After his wife is killed in a mysterious hit-and-run accident, Cooper diverts his self-questioning to his patients. How does mental illness transform into mental wellness?
Cooper’s encounters with professional colleagues only uncovers their own struggles. He decides to interview patients from his distant past, who completed treatment, in order to determine the “curative” elements of their therapy. Cooper becomes romantically involved with one ex-patient, Claire Duval, an attorney in the municipal prosecutor’s office. Claire uncovers evidence of racketeering among police, business leaders, and politicians that may rise to the level of the Governor—her step-father. After her boss is murdered and she is threatened, Claire disappears. Cooper’s attempt to find and help her endangers them both and leads him to uncover dark secrets that solve the mystery of his wife’s death.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Archway Publishing
• Release date: Oct 26, 2023
• ISBN: 9781665751902

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Copyright © 2023 Jerold Kreisman.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

Archway Publishing

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

ISBN: 978-1-6657-5189-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6657-5190-2 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2023919719

Archway Publishing rev. date: 10/25/2023

Life itself remains a very effective therapist.

— Karen Horney

For my teachers and my patients, who have

taught me what I’ve needed to know.

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

Part I – Matters of Death and Life

Chapter 1     Cooper

Chapter 2     Good Mourning

Chapter 3     Hiram

Chapter 4     Shiva Sitting

Chapter 5     Losing Loving

Chapter 6     Back to Abnormal

Chapter 7     Hi, Hi

Chapter 8     Patients and Patience

Chapter 9     Dr. Fox

Chapter 10   Time and Tamar

Chapter 11   Back Home

Chapter 12   Going Meshugeh

Chapter 13   Claire

Chapter 14   Servants of the People

Chapter 15   Shared Tragedies

Part II – Moral and Other Hazards

Chapter 16   Alice and Brad

Chapter 17   AA With Vicky A

Chapter 18   Date Night

Chapter 19   Office Call

Chapter 20   Moving Day

Chapter 21   Necessary Sins

Chapter 22   Wilde Sex

Chapter 23   Odds and Ends

Chapter 24   Dinner with Friends

Chapter 25   Claire and Rod

Chapter 26   Drugs and Slurpees

Chapter 27   Ravioli at Riccardo’s

Chapter 28   Knee Jerks

Chapter 29   Fun at the Fundraiser

Chapter 30   Attacks of the Heart

Chapter 31   Original Sin

Chapter 32   Coffee with Scarlett

Chapter 33   Greetings from the Weiss’s

Chapter 34   The Investigation

Part III – Necessary Sins, Insufficient Lies

Chapter 35   Navigating in Mud

Chapter 36   Claire’s Scared

Chapter 37   A Day at the Movies

Chapter 38   Where’s Claire

Chapter 39   The Road to Nowhere

Chapter 40   Discomfort at the Comfort Inn

Chapter 41   The Accident

Chapter 42   Mother’s Shrink

Chapter 43   Mackenzie or McKenzie

Chapter 44   A Meeting to Stay and a Beer to Go

Chapter 45   Claire’s Midnight Run

Chapter 46   Go Ask Alice

Chapter 47   A Shot in the Dark

Chapter 48   All the News that Fits

Chapter 49   Michael is Resigned

Chapter 50   The Maiden and the River

Chapter 51   Closure Encounters

Chapter 52   Vicky

Chapter 53   Home Visit

Chapter 54   Mourning Exercise

Chapter 55   Hi Holidays

Chapter 56   Bad Cop

Chapter 57   Loose Ends

Chapter 58   No Schtupping

Chapter 59   Revenge Served Luke-Warm

Chapter 60   Mother of Mercy

Chapter 61   Settling Home

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

None of this frail work would have been achievable without the constant support of my family and friends, the patient forbearance of my so-forgiving wife, Judy, or the enforced solitude of the pandemic. I required the professional editing direction of popular author, Caroline Leavitt, to maintain my direction and to discard some distracting darlings. Lorry Blath, Judy Grand, and Dr. Debra Rosenthal offered invaluable consultations. My attempt to conjure an original piece of work requires many beneficent midwives. I am grateful to all my assisting birthers.

PART I

MATTERS OF DEATH AND LIFE

CHAPTER 1

COOPER

I t had been a long Tuesday for Dr. William Cooper. 5:25 in the dark, damp January evening. About five minutes left in the session. He looked out the window. Through the trees outside the parking lot, he sympathized with the weary stars dripping from the goo of a half-moon. They seemed to share the fatigue of lingering, bedraggled holiday lights.

I’m sorry I jump around so much, she said. I can’t put my feelings in some chronological order. That’s not the way they come. I carry them in one big lump.

Cooper’s eyes blurred on Mrs. Gladstone. He was staring past her at the wall. It was as if his eyes were receding back through his head. The wallpaper had a beige-on-beige squiggly design. The pattern seemed to writhe along the wall, bouncing to the rhythm of Mrs. Gladstone’s words. It reminded him of focusing, as if through a tunnel, at the black and white checkerboard bathroom tile in his childhood home. There he would sit on the commode, fixating on the tile groupings as his eyes rearranged the squares into wriggling trapezoids and rectangles.

Mrs. Gladstone’s lump revealed how much better she was feeling. The medicine had lifted her depression. Her energy was restored. Still, when she talked about her marriage, her smile disappeared and she became tearful. Her husband was irritable and hypercritical. Why did she keep trying with him, Cooper wondered, when he made her feel so bad. Did she really love him, as she professed, or was his presence necessary for her perception of what was supposed to be? Maybe, with all the mixed feelings he had toward Tamar, this applied to his own marriage as well. Maybe it even applied to his treatment of Mrs. Gladstone. Was her life really better, or were they sharing the illusion that his treatment was helping?

The phone buzzed. Susan, the office receptionist, understood not to interrupt an appointment. The only other time was fourteen years ago, when he had first joined the practice. You ate Doctor Fox’s lunch, she had shrieked at him. She never really apologized then, but she learned never to interrupt again. This time her voice was a lot softer than usual. There are police here to see you.

Dr. Cooper felt justified to end the session a little early since he had gone over time with Mrs. Gladstone plenty of times before. He waited until she took a breath, then wrapped up by endorsing her previous statement, asked about other medicines, and then renewed her antidepressant.

As he ushered her out the door, Mrs. Gladstone glanced at the two police officers in the hallway, who were cradling their hats nervously. Then she looked back at Cooper. When she turned to Susan’s desk, Cooper beckoned the officers with a head nod into his office. When police had come to the office once before, a patient was in legal trouble. What was it this time?

After closing the door, Cooper sat and observed the officers who remained standing. Officer Wilkens was a tall, powerfully built Black man. He stared grimly at Cooper. Officer Haley was a white female, seemingly half his size. An attractive face was perched disagreeably atop a square, muscular body, her waist spilling over her belt. Husky was the word that came to Cooper’s mind as he looked away from Wilkens and at her. Husky was the area in the department store where his mother took him to shop for his pants. A demure way of saying, fat little kid. But Haley wouldn’t be described as fat, nor would Cooper anymore.

Mr. Cooper, regretfully, we are bringing you tragic news, Wilkens said, maintaining his gaze.

What?…

We’re very sorry, Dr. Cooper, Haley took over. Your wife was struck by a hit-and-run driver.

Cooper’s body went numb. Oh My God! Is she okay? I mean, how bad? Is she in the hospital? His thoughts scurried, then clicked into professional mode. I hope it’s Mercy, that’s closest to the office. I’ll have to get Susan to cancel the rest of the evening. Probably tomorrow too. I’ll need to bring things to the hospital for her.

I’m afraid she was killed at the scene, Haley responded.

Killed? Cooper could hardly speak. He had been absorbing it all cooly, objectively, like he did when his patients described traumatic experiences. But now his emotions were taking over. He couldn’t think.

We need you to come with us to identify her, Wilkens said.

Cooper squinted grimly at Susan as he accompanied the officers out of the office.

I don’t understand. What happened? Cooper asked as they walked to the patrol car.

Your wife, Ms. Weiss, was apparently crossing the street talking on her cell when a car rounded the corner and struck her, Wilkens replied. Then it kept going. Someone called 911, but the responding ambulance crew were unable to resuscitate her. We’re investigating.

Cooper floated, senseless in the police car. The ride back and all before it were wrapped neatly in a mist and secreted away in some dark brain crevice.

Somehow, Cooper arrived home with a bundle of Tamar’s effects—purse, coat, keys. Police kept the shattered cell phone for the investigation. He opened the door with the bundle and the day’s mail under his arm, dropped it all on the kitchen table, went into the bedroom, and fell into a dreamless state on the bed.

CHAPTER 2

GOOD MOURNING

O n the most boring stretch of highway I-55, between Lexington and El Paso, Illinois, there is a battered, rusted tower. It is near the old railroad tracks, with nothing else nearby. No farmhouse. No barn. There is no exit for miles. The nearest rest area is Funk’s Grove, nine miles south. But everyone who drives the highway between St. Louis and Chicago passes that crumbling tower. No one knows what it was, and no one knows why, in its fragile state, it hasn’t fallen down. For years William Cooper passed that tower every time he drove to Chicago. And every time he passed it, he felt depressed. Cooper always thought it was because passing the tower meant he was only half-way between the two cities. But now he understood it was because he felt like that old, rusted tower.

He couldn’t bear another long drive. He decided to fly to Chicago for the funeral. As he boarded the plane, a fly slipped in through the opening in the jetway and followed him to his middle seat in row 26. As it buzzed away, Cooper began considering what was ahead. The last funeral Cooper attended years ago in 2020 had to be virtual on Zoom because of the virus. A Catholic priest spouted homilies to anonymous boxes on a computer screen. Well, Cooper thought at the time, if God is virtually virtual, memorializing a soul rising to Jesus might as well be virtual too.

He thought about what others would be saying when he got to Chicago: What a loss! A terrible tragedy! This must be so hard for you and her parents! She was a wonderful woman! All true. But there was much more they couldn’t know.

Somehow, the fly found him again as he disembarked and followed him out into the terminal. Cooper wondered if Chicago insects would welcome a new immigrant. Did they buzz with a different accent? Would it have to convert to Chicagoism? He and the fly were both entering alien territory now.

Sarah, Tamar’s younger sister, picked him up at the airport with a hug. She had always been accepting and friendly despite her parents’ coldness. I know this has been horrible for you, Bill, as it’s been for me and mom and dad. How are you dealing with it?

Cooper could only shrug in response.

After the cemetery, we’ll go to mom and dad’s. We’re doing just one day of shiva. They didn’t want more. They’re taking it pretty hard. I guess we all are.

How long will you be in town? Cooper asked.

I’ll stay a few more days. Then I’ll get back to David and the kids. David is a rock, and the kids are great. We have great supportive friends in Phoenix. What about you, Bill? Who’s your support group?

Friends, neighbors, Cooper lied. He suddenly realized he really didn’t have a ‘support group.’ How are Mel and Frieda coping?

They’re close to the rabbi and synagogue friends, Sarah answered. They’re all supportive. Mom and dad always get more religious when there’s a crisis. Remember years ago when they both got Covid? Before the vaccines? They got real observant then. They’ll start going back to services more now. They were a lot more devout when we were born, you know. They named us for biblical characters. I believe if we had had a brother, they would have called him Nebuchadnezzar. My little brother, Nebbie! She looked over at him with a satisfied grin when she saw him smile.

Remnants of a light snow and reality of a freezing temperature greeted Cooper at the cemetery. In the front row under the tent, Cooper found his seat next to an older uncle, three chairs down from Tamar’s parents. Frieda acknowledged him with her usual tight grimace that could pass for either a smile or a rebuke—cheeks elevated, clenched teeth covered by thin, horizontal lips. The rictus in her face would make botox envious. Mel, like always, made no eye contact. He was sobbing uncontrollably.

Mel and Frieda Weiss, Tamar’s parents, never accepted Cooper. They wanted their daughter to marry a nice Jewish boy, have two children, and settle near them in Highland Park. Cooper’s family had never embraced religion. He figured he was Christian by default. Before Tamar, the closest he had been to Judaism was learning to drive on an enormous but usually empty temple parking lot. Although he completed the conversion process to Judaism for Tamar’s sake, her parents still considered him a gentile. They blamed Cooper for Tamar’s wish to pursue her teaching career in St. Louis and procrastination about having children.

"What’s sechal? Cooper had once asked Tamar, looking over her shoulder at an email her mother sent her. And what does she mean, I don’t have any?"

No, it’s not ‘ch’ like in channel, Tamar responded to his mispronunciation. "It’s ‘ch’ like in Chanukah; emphasize the ‘chchch.’ Sechal means, like, social sense, tact. And that’s just mom. Don’t worry about it. I love her to death, but she’s just being a bitch."

After tearful declarations by friends and some family, the rabbi began Hebrew prayers—Cooper could recognize some of it—yisgadal v’yiska-something. Cooper was captured by the mournful chants he didn’t understand. They had a musical rhythm—Y’hey shmay rabbah m’varach…Though spoken, they had a cadence, a pulse like a song. They soothed him.

Cooper observed the process in a daze. He wanted to cry. He was sad enough to cry. But he remained immobilized. This was the push-pull conflict of feelings he had been wrestling with for some time. He would feel the rush of love for Tamar, but then sense she was withdrawing; and then he would need to try to gather up and hold back his affection. It was like trying to grab back the rain.

As the rabbi and cemetery officials, formally clothed in dark suits, stepped away, they were replaced by the gravesite technicians, in baseball caps, sweatshirts, and work boots. These men removed the green cloths and the long steel supports, attached the rotating crank handle, and gently lowered the casket into the ground. Participants lined up to add a shovel of earth into the chasm. Cooper stood back in the line, behind some cousins and a few friends. Despite Frieda’s disapproving glance, he added dirt over the now disappearing wooden box. Then all marched solemnly to their cars. They would reconvene later for shiva.

CHAPTER 3

HIRAM

H iram Halladay didn’t usually linger in cemeteries. He sent people there. Or to some subterranean equivalent. After depositing Mr. Weiss, Hiram pulled his car around and parked. Progressing to a distant, shielding tree, he observed the people beginning to huddle around the funeral tent. Pockets of snow swiss-cheesed the ground. A clawing wind scratched his face. He could hear a mournful humming and distant words. In the gray, cold, signature winter afternoon outside Chicago Hiram felt sad for Mel Weiss—an unusual feeling.

Hiram had recently performed a small service for Mr. Weiss. No one got hurt. No one died. Weiss’s ex-partner in their jewelry business, Sam Millbank, had been threatening Mel. Years after the buy-out, Sam’s pawnbroker business had tanked. He started harassing Mel, complaining his stake in their jewelry business was unfairly calculated. He demanded more money. Sam proclaimed his intent to contact the IRS and whistle blow about unreported income they had hidden over the years in cash transactions. Worse, he threatened to call Mel’s wife, Frieda, and tell her about Mel’s past dalliances on their buying trips and his current long-term affair with a supplier.

Mel offered a hygienic version of his dilemma to his attorney and asked if there were a legal remedy for Sam’s threats. The attorney counselled Mel that a costly lawsuit would possibly reveal embarrassing information and whispered an option for a less expensive, simpler alternative. The lawyer knew someone who knew someone who knew people who might be able to initiate a vigorous conversation with Sam, and, armed with a small tribute, convince him to desist.

Hiram immediately liked Mr. Weiss. With his wire glasses and hunched shoulders, Mel Weiss appeared as someone always about to apologize. He seemed like a kind, friendly man, easily intimidated and in constant need of protection. He reminded Hiram of his best friend in high school. Carter Morgan was the only person Hiram ever truly connected with. After all these years, Hiram still felt he owed him one.

As they retired to the back of the store, Mel offered Hiram half of the sandwich he had just started. Mel described the history of the partnership, how he had to rein in some of Sam’s questionable dealings, and how hard he had worked to make his jewelry business a success. He showed Hiram pictures of his wife and daughters. The daughters were beautiful. The wife stood straighter, taller, and intimidating. Mel seemed sincerely interested when asking Hiram about his family, although Hiram didn’t say much.

Mel was surprised by Hiram’s demeanor. Expecting a gruff, primitive man, Mel mistook Hiram for a customer. Handsome, dressed in a suit and tie, Hiram spoke in a soft, respectful tone, punctuated by occasional slurping noises as he sucked on a gum ball. Despite Hiram’s mild manner, Mel detected an underlying fury that, if awakened, would be fearsome. They agreed that Sam would be offered a tidy subsidy and a promise that any further contacts would generate an extreme and punishing response.

The encounter with Sam was satisfactory. Sam was a small, trembly man. His spinal curvature and squinting eyes set too close together peering above the glasses hanging low on his nose reminded Hiram of a cartoon rodent. Sam gratefully accepted the cash and agreed further contacts would be detrimental to all parties. He announced he was shortly leaving Chicago to live with his daughter in Virginia.

When Hiram returned to the store the next week, a helper solemnly pointed him to the back. There, he found Mel hunched on the floor crying uncontrollably. Between gasps Mel explained that he was about to meet his family and others at the cemetery for the funeral of his older daughter. She had recently been killed in St. Louis. He had stoically arranged for transport of the body back to Chicago and for the funeral preparation, but now that he was about to attend the burial, he was overwhelmed and paralyzed.

Hiram was touched. He helped Mel to his feet and offered to drive him to the cemetery. Mel held tightly onto Hiram as he rose, head down soaking his glasses. As they exited the room, Mel turned and pulled out a drawer. He gave Hiram a paper bag of cash.

In the car Hiram described his encounter with Sam and added that his services included a money-back guarantee that applied if Sam ever bothered him again. As they pulled up, Mel removed the Rolex watch from his wrist.

This is for you and for your kindness, Mel said handing it to Hiram as he exited. I’m glad and a bit sorry we won’t be meeting again.

As he walked back to his car, Hiram realized he