Outside the Lines: A Novel

The sunshine in San Francisco was not as plentiful as David thought it would be. Still, during the six years he lived there most days it was warmer than Seattle and definitely easier to find patrons who wanted their portrait done. He’d set up a stool and easel at the wharf a few mornings each week, displaying some of his work to catch a customer’s eye. Tourists from all over the world asked him to capture their image on the page, etching in charcoal the outlines of their faces, the telling wrinkles around their eyes. He kept his rate low and only worked until he had enough for a bottle and a bed, which usually didn’t take very long. He set the easel and folding stool in a locker at the bus station and got on with his day. Food was easy enough to find most days. People threw away so much.

When he wasn’t at the wharf, David made his way to Golden Gate Park, either by foot or bus. He still stayed awake for days at a time, especially when his fractured, twisted thoughts had their way with him. But it was easier now that he didn’t fight to quiet them so much. The alcohol he drank merely kept them sleepy. Some days, there was nothing he could do to keep them silent. When that happened, he just let them come. He let the thoughts whirl inside his head and make him dizzy. He paced the sidewalks and muttered beneath his breath. He didn’t have to pretend he was normal. There were crazier people than him on the street. He felt at home with them, like he’d finally found a place where he fit. He napped when he was tired, and on better days, he talked to people he passed by. Sometimes, they even had a conversation with him.

One afternoon a man sat down next to David on a park bench. He looked like he might be about David’s age and wore a blue pin-striped business suit. He had a brown paper sack that carried his lunch and the first thing he did was offer David half of a ham and cheese sandwich, which David accepted gratefully. They sat back against the bench and stared out at the vibrant blue water. The fog had lifted early that day and the air was clean enough to see for miles.

“Beautiful out there,” the man commented.

David agreed. “Yes, it is.”

“Where’re you from?” the man asked.

“Seattle,” David said, munching on the sandwich. He lifted it up a bit, so the man would see. “This is good. Thank you.”

The man nodded in acknowledgment and took a bite of his own half. “Do you have family up there?”

“A daughter.” David’s heart skipped a beat thinking of Eden. How old would she be now? Twenty? A woman. Older than he was when he married Lydia. Had she forgotten him completely? Did her mother make sure of that?

“Do you talk with her?” the man asked.

David shook his head and popped the last bite of sandwich into his mouth. The man handed him a bottle of water, which David accepted with gratitude, as he had the sandwich. People’s generosity never failed to surprise him. Especially to someone like him.

“My wife and I can’t have children,” the man said. “She’s heartbroken.”

“That’s terrible,” David said. “My daughter is the best thing I ever did.”

The man looked at him sideways. “So why don’t you go see her?”

“Look at me,” David said, gesturing down his body with a wide sweep of his arm. He wore holey jeans and a torn-up T-shirt. His shoes were good, but only because the shelter he’d stayed at the week before had a rack of used clothing that happened to have a pair of old hiking boots that fit his feet. He was clean, for the most part, thanks to the shower in the motel room he paid for a few nights before, but both his hair and beard were long and unkempt. Anyone looking at him with his ratty stuffed backpack would guess he didn’t have a home.

“So?” the man said. “Can’t you clean up and go see her?”

He said it like it was the easiest thing in the world. He didn’t understand what David had done. He didn’t know about the blood. He didn’t know about the monsters that screamed in his head. David knew how to quiet them. He knew the shelters would send him to the hospital if he wanted to go. He could get back on his meds. He could go back to Seattle and find his daughter. He wouldn’t just send a letter; he would track her down and make her listen to his apologies. If she was still there.

“You know,” David said to the man, “I might just do exactly that.”

The wait to get into the psych ward for treatment was long in San Francisco. David asked the social workers at the shelter if there was anywhere up in Seattle he could go and they found a bed at a facility in Tacoma. A Greyhound bus ride later, David was back in the cool white halls of a hospital. The demons screeched at him for his heresy. Hadn’t they lived in peace together for the most part over the past decade? Hadn’t they worked out a deal?

David silenced them as best he could, welcoming the first shots of sedatives that flowed through his veins. Once they started him on lithium again, he knew he’d be numb, but wouldn’t having Eden in his life again make it all worth it? He was determined to be well enough to be welcomed back into her life. He knew how to play the game. He talked with the doctors about life plans and therapy. They promised him if he stayed on the mood stabilizer, he could have a happy and productive life. More than anything, David wanted to believe them.

Two months later, he was stable enough to move into a studio apartment on Capitol Hill. The social workers at the hospital helped him get a dishwashing position at a downtown café and his landlady, Wanda, was a sweet old soul whom David bonded with immediately.

“You’re the grandmother I never had,” David told her. He had a grandmother, but she was nothing like Wanda.

“Oh, hush now,” Wanda said, blushing. “Go on.”

David told her stories about Eden, and Wanda let him use her computer to search for information about his daughter. The Internet was a new concept for him, so Wanda helped him figure out how it all worked. All he found was an address for her apartment in North Seattle and an announcement from a culinary school. Eden West was listed at the top of her graduating class. There was a picture of the students in their tall, white chef hats—the kind that Eden always proclaimed she’d wear. And there, standing in the middle of the photo, was his daughter. She was taller, of course, but it was without a doubt her narrow face, her vibrant blue eyes and dark, long hair. She was smiling ear to ear and holding her diploma up like a trophy, above the heads of the other students. She had become what she always knew she would. She was a chef.

“Look,” he said to Wanda. “That’s her.”

Wanda leaned over his shoulder and peered at the screen. “She’s a lovely girl. You should call the school.”

“She’s already graduated. I found her address, though.”

“Then go see her!” Wanda said. “What are you waiting for?”

Hesitation played at the edges of his cloudy thoughts. He was numb again. He had nothing to offer her. Her life was already bigger than his had ever been. Would she even want to see him? Was she ashamed?

“I think I’ll write her a letter first,” he told Wanda, who shrugged her shoulders and told him to suit himself.

That night, David sat down to write. He told Eden how sorry he was to be out of touch for so long. He told her about living on the streets, but that he was back on his meds and was even holding down a job. He asked whether he could see her. He told her how much he missed her every day.

Weeks passed before he sent another letter. He never heard back from his daughter and the second letter was the last one he sent. It had been too long; too much damage had been done. Gradually, David fell off his meds. He picked up his painting again, furiously trying to capture as much as he could remember about his life with his daughter. He worked long and hard on a series of the Garden of Eden. His thoughts spun; his drinking began again. The days grew darker and the splintered, raging voices in his head grew loud until finally, a year after coming back to Seattle, David abandoned his job and his apartment and went to the streets. He kept his eyes forward, leaving all hopes for a new life behind him. This time, he didn’t look back.