The Fifth Rule of Ten Read online

  ALSO BY GAY HENDRICKS AND TINKER LINDSAY

  The First Rule of Ten

  The Second Rule of Ten

  The Broken Rules of Ten

  The Third Rule of Ten

  The Fourth Rule of Ten

  All of the above are available at your local bookstore, or may be ordered by visiting:

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  Hay House Australia: www.hayhouse.com.au

  Hay House UK: www.hayhouse.co.uk

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  Copyright © 2016 by Gay Hendricks and Tinker Lindsay

  Published and distributed in the United States by: Hay House, Inc.: www.hayhouse.com® • Published and distributed in Australia by: Hay House Australia Pty. Ltd.: www.hayhouse.com.au • Published and distributed in the United Kingdom by: Hay House UK, Ltd.: www.hayhouse.co.uk • Published and distributed in the Republic of South Africa by: Hay House SA (Pty), Ltd.: [email protected] • Distributed in Canada by: Raincoast Books: www.raincoast.com • Published in India by: Hay House Publishers India: www.hayhouse.co.in

  Cover design: Charles McStravick • Interior design: Pamela Homan

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced by any mechanical, photographic, or electronic process, or in the form of a phonographic recording; nor may it be stored in a retrieval system, transmitted, or otherwise be copied for public or private use—other than for “fair use” as brief quotations embodied in articles and reviews—without prior written permission of the publisher.

  The authors of this book do not dispense medical advice or prescribe the use of any technique as a form of treatment for physical, emotional, or medical problems without the advice of a physician, either directly or indirectly. The intent of the authors is only to offer information of a general nature to help you in your quest for emotional and spiritual well-being. In the event you use any of the information in this book for yourself, the authors and the publisher assume no responsibility for your actions.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales, or persons living or deceased, is strictly coincidental.

  Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress.

  Tradepaper ISBN: 978-1-4019-4867-2

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  1st edition, August 2016

  Printed in the United States of America

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  CHAPTER 39

  CHAPTER 40

  CHAPTER 41

  CHAPTER 42

  CHAPTER 43

  CHAPTER 44

  CHAPTER 45

  CHAPTER 46

  CHAPTER 47

  CHAPTER 48

  CHAPTER 49

  CHAPTER 50

  CHAPTER 51

  CHAPTER 52

  CHAPTER 53

  CHAPTER 54

  CHAPTER 55

  CHAPTER 56

  CHAPTER 57

  CHAPTER 58

  CHAPTER 59

  CHAPTER 60

  CHAPTER 61

  CHAPTER 62

  CHAPTER 63

  CHAPTER 64

  CHAPTER 65

  CHAPTER 66

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHORS

  CHAPTER 1

  My heart was a fist, pounding against its cage of ribs.

  Let me out, let me out, let me out.

  Easy, Ten. There’s enough oxygen, especially out here on the deck. All those trees? That’s their only job, to make oxygen.

  I would never take breathing for granted again. I’d always assumed it was automatic. And it was.

  Until the day came when it wasn’t.

  I fumbled for the only weapon that made sense, given the circumstances.

  A pen.

  CHAPTER 2

  I pulled the yellow legal pad close, a flickering candle my only source of light, unless you counted the sickle of moon. My hand glided across the paper.

  Topanga Canyon, Calif.

  June 2, Year of the Wooden Horse

  Geshe Lobsang and Geshe Yeshe

  Dorje Yidam Monastery

  Dharamshala, India

  Venerable brothers,

  I will never mail this letter.

  You will never read it.

  But my mind has become my enemy. Once again, I turn to you for clarity.

  I am alone on my deck overlooking the gloomy canyon and you are somewhere far above, hurtling closer with every hour. You come to offer wisdom, to affirm your lifelong commitment to the Buddha’s teachings.

  And so, of course, my pen brings me to the subject I most want to avoid. Commitment.

  Commitment has always seemed risky to me, a notion that can serve right action, but also its reverse. Here they call such a thing a double-edged sword. But to me, commitment is more like our ceremonial phurba, the dagger with its three blades. Triple-edged, like the Buddha’s teachings on the three potential responses of the mind: Attraction. Aversion. Neutrality.

  I am once again pinned between the first two.

  Yeshe and Lobsang, you know this about me. You saw me plunge into our Gelugpa tradition as a child, when we were novices at Dorje Yidam. I was so fervent, so sure. We all were, remember? We took refuge in the Three Jewels and vowed to keep the Five Precepts.

  A decade later you watched the teenage me flee from the monastery as if my life depended on it.

  I did the same with the Los Angeles Police Department. At my academy graduation I made a solemn commitment to protect and serve. No LAPD rookie was more dedicated. No homicide detective put in longer hours. And then, one day, I was done. I had to get out. I was suffocating.

  You have always accepted this contradiction in me: How deeply I’m drawn to the idea of commitment. How fiercely I push against it.

  And of course I know, at least intellectually, that somewhere in between the pull and push is a third choice. Equanimity. The middle way. I long for it, for the supple strength of the willow; roots grounded in the Buddha’s teaching, trunk sturdy yet flexible, branches bending and swaying through sunshine and storm. A man like that feels compassion for all, touches and tastes spacious liberation while staying true to his commitments. A man like that is worthy of trust.

  I feel so very far from that man, as I sit here in the darkness.

  Be specific, Ten.

  Okay. The truth: I am suffering from a painful case of commitment backlash.

  Julie is amazing. Smart. Funny. Strong. Vulnerable. She’s creative, and self-reliant, and her lovemaking is passionate and inventive. (I would apologize for that detail, Lobsan
g, but as I said before, you will never read this.) There are moments I feel like the most fortunate man in the world, when I am awash in gratitude.

  And then there are times like tonight, when I didn’t so much wake up as claw my way to the surface of consciousness. When her warm body, usually a source of comfort, smothered me to the point of suffocation. I had to practice great restraint not to shove her away as I leapt out of bed, gasping.

  How can I tell her this? That at times my skin burns with unease, as if she were toxic? How could she possibly understand such a thing when I don’t understand it myself? And yet I must tell her, because I also know how secrets destroy.

  The thought of losing her forever stops my heart. The thought of staying with her forever stops my breath.

  I can hear you, Yeshe: Tenzing, this is not about Julie. This is an ancient karmic resistance, the bitter fruit of many lifetimes of suffering and ignorance . . .

  Maybe so. But I’d very much like to be done with this particular hindrance in this particular lifetime. My friend Jean likes to say the first step toward solution is admitting the problem. It worked for her with drugs and alcohol. Maybe it will work for me with love.

  I admit it. I’m terrified of making this commitment. And I’m equally terrified of being a man who cannot commit, of living and dying alone, not to mention coming back for another maddening round of this particular struggle.

  There is more to admit: this particular turmoil is like an emotional vise, squeezing out other pockets of darkness. Blank places where memories should be. The gnawing sense that I am both chasing and being chased by a ghost. I don’t want to bolt again.

  I feel the need to set myself another guideline. To write down a new rule, so that maybe I can actually live it. Just to be clear, this is not an expectation—I’ve been easing up on those, with some success—but more a deep intention: May I be mindful both making and keeping commitments that they be springboards to liberation, instead of suffering, for all sentient beings.

  Including this one.

  Huh. My jaw no longer feels clamped to the point of breaking. The in-and-out breaths are easier. Even the horizon is now streaked with rose and gold. Across the canyon, the dark mist dissolves and a lone star winks at me.

  Your plane grows nearer.

  I can’t wait to see you.

  Ten

  CHAPTER 3

  Kim’s body, normally stiff, was rigid as a plank. She reached for her pierced right eyebrow. Her finger and thumb found the metal stud and twisted it back and forth like a stubborn key.

  Why was she here in my house? In my office? I had given her two weeks off. Yeshe and Lobsang were landing at LAX with their Buddhist entourage in a few hours, and whether I persuaded them to actually sleep here or not, they’d be in and out of my tiny abode. The thought of adding my odd assistant to a fiancée, dog, cat, and herd of monks made my head want to explode.

  “I brought you something, Mr. Norbu.” Kim rummaged through her backpack and produced a photograph. “I keep it in the drawer next to my bed. I look at it every night before I go to sleep.”

  For a young woman whose fashion choices included enough body piercings to repair a steel bridge and a short, spiky Mohawk that was weapons-grade stiff, she remained strangely formal with me. Kim’s doctors claimed that she placed somewhere toward the middle on the autism spectrum, but I found her quirks to be no more extreme than most people’s—she just displayed hers more publicly.

  I tried to keep my voice gentle. “I’m sorry, why are you . . . ?”

  “This is my brother. This is Bobby.” Kim handed me the three-by-five photo. “Our last Christmas together. Bobby was nine and I was four.”

  Bobby. Kim’s missing brother.

  The colors were faded, the emulsion cracked from prolonged exposure to sunlight and scrutiny. The two children were in pajamas. His were mottled green and gray, a camouflage print, while Kim wore festive red-and-white stripes.

  Bobby had a protective arm around his younger sister, and he aimed a slight scowl at the camera. His other hand clutched a toy rifle. A green plastic helmet, far too big for his head, tipped low across his brow.

  The young Kim’s hair was light brown, feather soft, and shaped like a bowl, a far cry from her current crown of black thorns. She stared straight ahead with a blank look, her arms stiff, her hands curled into half fists. I recognized the ramrod stance: she adopted it three mornings a week when she reported here for work and awaited her daily assignments.

  “He took me on adventures,” Kim said. “He always shared his food with me. We both liked Cheetos the best.”

  “Cheetos?”

  “They are puffy and cheesy and bright orange. They are delicious. Shall I buy you some?”

  “Maybe not,” I said.

  I glanced at my watch. Julie would be back any minute. “Kim, I’m happy to see this photograph, but . . .”

  “I never felt scared when I was with Bobby.” Kim’s voice rose as she took back the picture and held it close to her eyes as if searching for clues. “I loved that Christmas, at least the morning part. Bobby got a G.I. Joe footlocker, and I got a Cut and Style Barbie with detachable hair. I still have it. It is the only Barbie I ever got.”

  She set the photo on my desk, an abrupt move.

  “Kim . . .”

  “But I also hated that Christmas because my mother and father started shouting at each other when we were eating our dinner, macaroni and cheese and peas and carrots, and the next morning . . .” Kim blinked. “Mr. Norbu, my mouth wants to stop talking.” She blinked again, twice. “Now my stomach is starting to hurt.”

  I waited. Kim’s therapist had given her two specific behaviors for dealing with her heightened response to the world. Whenever she felt overwhelmed, he suggested she first express a truth about her response that was unarguable: “My mouth wants to stop talking,” for example. And second, he advised her to feel what was happening with her body.

  I’d come to appreciate these two techniques myself as almost foolproof tools for safe passage through situations fraught with emotion.

  “I may have to cry, Mr. Norbu.”

  “I understand,” I said. “Please, cry if you want to.” Allowing Kim to feel her feelings was the quickest route to the other side of turmoil.

  Kim stood frowning, her vision turning inward. Then her face cleared. She nodded twice. “Yes. I am okay now.”

  I gestured to the picture. “Why did you bring me this, Kim?”

  She stared, as if it were obvious. “You said you would help me find him. For my birthday present. You promised, remember?”

  I scoured my brain. Yes, there had been a moment, a few weeks back. She’d mentioned that her birthday was coming up.

  “What do you want for your birthday?” I’d asked.

  “Bobby,” she’d answered. “All I want is Bobby.”

  “I’ll help you,” I’d replied. “As soon as I have time. I promise.”

  And then I’d gotten the e-mail from Yeshe and Lobsang, and everything else flew from my head.

  My stomach tightened up a notch. “When is it again? Your birthday?”

  “This Thursday, Mr. Norbu. I told you before.” A series of tics rippled across her face. Her fingers twitched.

  Today was Monday. I calculated rapidly. My friends would need at least one day to rest and recover from the brutally long journey from Dharamshala, and probably another to prepare for the sand mandala ceremony. This just might work.

  “Okay, Kim. Here’s what I can do. I can work on finding Bobby for a couple of days. I may not find him, but I’ll try my hardest.”

  Kim’s face smoothed. “Thank you, Mr. Norbu. I knew you would keep your promise.”

  I grabbed a legal pad from the desk and flipped past the predawn letter to Yeshe and Lobsang, the one where I pledged to keep my commitments. A small sigh escaped. That was the problem with setting a new intention: it was invariably, immediately put to the test.

  “Can you tell me what happ
ened that morning, the morning after Christmas?”

  “My father took my brother and drove away. I never saw Bobby or my father again.”

  “What about your mother? Did she keep in touch with them?”

  “She told me they were gone. Gone for good.” Kim’s mouth twisted. “But Bobby leaving wasn’t good for me, was it, Mr. Norbu?”

  “No. No, it wasn’t.”

  “I kept asking her about him until my mother said if I bothered her one more time about Bobby, she would be gone for good, too. So I stopped.”

  “What does she say now?”

  Kim swallowed hard. I waited. Tank had wandered over to my desk area. He moved to Kim’s legs and nudged at one ankle. Kim scooped 17 pounds of Persian blue into her arms and hugged him close. Normally Tank would not tolerate such impertinence, but for Kim he made an exception, as if he sensed her need.

  His dense animal nature seemed to calm her. “My mother is dead, Mr. Norbu. Cancer, five years ago. I did try one more time to find out about Bobby, right before she died, but she told me to let sleeping dogs lie. Why would she say that? She never let me have a dog. She hated them. Just like she hated everything else. My mother was a very angry person.”

  Julie and I needed to leave for the airport within the hour. But pushing Kim harder would only shut her down, and I needed to learn what I could. I took my cue from Tank, who lay still in her arms.

  Another minute passed.

  “I tried to find Bobby on Facebook, Mr. Norbu,” Kim said. “That was after I Googled him. As ‘Bobby,’ and also as ‘Robert.’” She again reached up to the small metal post bisecting one eyebrow and twisted it between her thumb and forefinger. “I looked at five hundred and thirty-six pictures before I gave up. And anyway I have no idea what he looks like now or where he lives. There are thousands of Robert Smiths, dead and alive.”

  “Wait a minute. Robert Smith? I thought your last name was Nordquist?”

  “My mother changed our name back to Nordquist after my father left with Bobby. She said my father could take his name and shove it where the sun does not shine.”

  Robert Nordquist was a relatively unique name. Robert Smith was going to be an absolute nightmare to track down, unless I could narrow the field.