Delirious - Daniel James Palmer

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seabirds catching drafts of warming air off the cool, choppy waters below and took stock of what little life he had left. Lifting his feet ever so slightly, until he was standing on his toes, Eddie began to push against the rail to hoist himself up and over the chord.

      He closed his eyes tightly. Thirty-two years of his life darted past his mind’s eye, so vivid that they felt real—vignettes played in rapid succession.

      The pony ride at his fifth birthday party. Weeping beside the graves of his parents. Seven years old, still in shock, sitting at the trial next to the sheriff who had apprehended the drunk driver. The orphanage, then the endless chain of foster homes. Studying, alone in his room, so much reading. Then college. His graduation. How he wished his parents had been there to see him. The business. A start-up. The energy and hours. The first sale. The euphoria was fleeting; the sting from his partner’s betrayal would never subside.

      He took a deep breath and lifted himself even higher. A part of him, the most secret and hidden part, was awash in a terrible, heavy sadness. It was overwhelmingly disappointing to him that he hadn’t had the courage to do what needed to be done. It would be his dying regret.

      With an assuredness that seemed born of much practice, he pushed himself up and over the thin railing that ran the length of the chord. The moment his feet left the bridge, Eddie regretted the jump. He hovered for an instant in midair, as though he were suspended above the water by strings. The depth seemed infinite. Sun glinted off the rippling water, shining like thousands of tiny daggers. His eyes widened in horror. Was there still time to turn around and grab hold? He twisted his body hard to the right. And then he fell.

      The acceleration took Eddie’s breath away. The pit of his stomach knotted with a sickening combination of gravity and fear. His light wind jacket flapped with the whipping sound of a sail catching a new breeze. The instinct for self-preservation was as powerful as it was futile. His eyes closed, unwilling to bear witness to his death.

      Pitching forward, his arms flailed above his head, clawing for something to grab. His legs pumped against the air. Two seconds into the fall. Two more to go. He could no longer see color, shapes, light, or shadow. Mother, please forgive me, he thought. A barge he had seen in the distance before the jump faded from view. The sun vanished, casting everything around him into blackness. He could hear his own terrified scream, and nothing else. Time passed.

      Two…then…one…

      His body tensed as he hit, his feet connecting first, then his backside, and last his head. The agony was greater than he had imagined it could be. The sounds of his bones cracking reverberated in his ears. He felt his organs loosen and shift about as though they had been ripped from the cartilage that held them in place. Pain exploded through him.

      For a moment he had never felt more alive.

      Water shot up his nose, cold and numbing. He gagged on it as it filled his throat. A violent cough to expel the seawater set off more jolts of agony from his broken ribs.

      Facedown, he lay motionless as he began to sink. From the blackness below something glowed brightly, shimmering in the abyss. He couldn’t see it clearly but wanted to swim to it. It rose to meet him.

      It was his parents. They smiled up at him, beaming with ghostly white eyes and beckoning for him to join them.

      Chapter 1

      Monte eased himself out of his cozy bed, stretched while yawning, then crawled from underneath the expansive oak desk and lazily made his way over to Charlie. Charlie, leash in hand, looked down at his tricolored beagle and couldn’t resist a smile.

      “Who heard me getting his leash, huh?” Charlie asked, scratching Monte in his favorite place behind his ears.

      With his tail wagging full speed, Monte looked longingly up at Charlie, his inky eyes pleading for a quick start to their morning walk. Charlie, who didn’t even own a plant before he brought Monte home from the breeder, now couldn’t imagine life without his faithful friend. Named after jazz guitar great Wes Montgomery, and in honor of his lifelong passion for the art form, Monte wouldn’t have come to be had Charlie not been such a lousy boyfriend. It was Gwen, his last in a string of short-lived relationships, who suggested that Charlie’s rigid routines and dislike of, as she put it, “messy emotions” made him a better candidate for a dog than a girlfriend. She packed up what few things she kept at his loft apartment, and on one rainy Saturday morning she was gone.

      Charlie, who had left as many girlfriends as had left him, wasn’t one to dwell on the past or wallow in self-pity. Instead, intrigued by her suggestion, Charlie spent the next several hours researching dog breeds on the Web, until he finally settled on the beagle. It was a good-size dog for an apartment, he reasoned. Short hair meant less shedding, tipping the scale away from the Labrador breed. He briefly contemplated a poodle, with its hair coat and cunning intellect, but couldn’t get the image of the groomed poodle pouf out of his mind. He found a breeder only a few miles down the road, made a quick call, and minutes later was surrounded by a litter of feisty beagle puppies, each yipping for his attention.

      Monte was an older dog and seemed to be above the attention-getting tactics of the young pups. He sat quietly in a corner of the breeder’s living room while Charlie picked up and put down puppy after puppy.

      “What about that one?” Charlie asked, pointing to the quiet dog in the corner.

      “Him?” the breeder replied, somewhat incredulous. “I rescued that little one from the pound. They warned me he liked to chew on things, but I never figured he’d gnaw enough of my shoes to fill up a Dumpster. Still, he’s been a good dog. You can tell by the eyes sometimes. The good ones, that is. We always hoped somebody would want to give him a home, but most of our clients are interested in the pups. Then again…” Her voice trailed off.

      “What?” Charlie asked.

      “Well, I’m guessing that you’re single, or you’d be here with somebody making this decision. And if you’re single, you’re probably working, maybe a lot. And I can see that you keep in shape, so I’m guessing you take good care of yourself and that takes time. Perhaps you’re not really a puppy guy, after all. I mean, they are loads of extra work.”

      Charlie nodded as he took it all in. He wore his sandy brown hair in nearly a military crop, and his ice blue eyes were framed by oval, matte silver wire-rimmed glasses. Nothing about Charlie’s appearance suggested he had the easygoing personality of a puppy man.

      “Perhaps,” was all he said.

      “And if you’re single and busy,” the breeder continued, “an older dog might actually be best. He’s only three, but that’s a good age for a beagle, long past pup. Look, if you want that dog, he’s yours. In fact, you’d be doing me a favor. He’s a good boy, just a bit unruly is all.”

      Charlie glanced over at Monte, who, as if knowing their destinies were somehow linked, rose, walked over to him, and lay quietly at Charlie’s feet. Charlie bent down to pet his new dog.

      “Seems gentle enough to me,” Charlie offered. Fifteen minutes, a modest fee, and a few signed papers later, Charlie and the soon-to-be-named Monte went outside for their first walk as guy and dog. Gwen would have been proud, impressed even, at Charlie’s capacity to love and care for something other than Charlie. Monte’s shedding turned out to be more endearing than it was annoying. It was a gentle reminder that he was sharing his life with another living being.

      If anything, Monte taught Charlie that his capacity to love was far deeper than he had known, and if Gwen were at all interested in trying again, she might find a very different and a far more fulfilling relationship. But she had moved on, and Charlie had yet to find another woman who compared.

      In the three years since adopting him, the only consistent part of Charlie’s life had been Monte. His start-up electronics company had continued to grow at a frenetic pace until, after much courting, it was finally acquired by electronics giant SoluCent. As part of the acquisition deal, Charlie became a senior director at SoluCent and was then forced to shutter his office and move all operations east.

      Both

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