“Well,” he said. “What’s new, honey?”
“Nothing much.”
“School coming okay?”
“Sure.”
He put an arm around her and she snuggled her head to his shoulder. He felt a rush of warmth to his chest not unlike the sensation he obtained from swallowing a generous measure of brandy. His voice suddenly husky, he said, “Then everything’s okay with you?”
“Everything’s fine.”
“You like it here, don’t you?”
“Sure.”
“Better than our other house?”
“Tons better. I love this house.”
“How about your school?”
“It’s better.”
“Better teachers?”
“They’re about the same. The kids are better, though.”
“And you’ve got a best friend.”
“Erskine.”
“I haven’t really met him yet.”
“Well, he’s shy around grownups.”
“I was the same way when I was a kid.”
“You? Honest?”
“Honest.” He gave her shoulder a squeeze. “Something I wanted to talk about with you,” he said. “Your mommy’s going through a hard time lately. I suppose you’ve been able to sense that yourself.”
She didn’t say anything.
“It’s the shock of what happened to your brother,” he went on. “She’s having trouble getting over it. It’s given her bad feelings about this house and—”
“Are we going to move?”
“I don’t think so. You don’t want to move, do you, honey?”
“No!”
He smiled at the determination in her tone. “Neither do I,” he admitted. “And I don’t really think it’ll come to that. It’s just something your mother has to go through right now, and we have to go through it with her. She’s been short-tempered with me and probably with you, too. She’s under a lot of emotional stress and it’s very difficult for her.”
“How can I help?”
“Just be understanding.”
“Okay.”
“And if you’ve got problems of your own, don’t keep them bottled up inside you. Bring ’em to me, hear?”
“Sure.”
He gave her another hug. “I love you so much,” he said “Your mother and I both love you. You know that, don’t you?”
“Sure.”
He glanced at his watch. “Rhoda’s going on in a minute,” he said. “Want to watch it with me?”
“Okay, sure.”
“You go ahead downstairs,” he said. “I’ll be down in minute.”
He walked into the upstairs bathroom while she hurried downstairs. What Roberta had said was true, he noticed— the stairs made no sound when Ariel used them. She weighed less, he thought, and walked lightly.
He didn’t really have to use the bathroom. He just wanted a moment alone, so he rinsed his hands and dried them and stood for a moment in thought.
“Your mother and I both love you. You know that, don’t you?”
Did Ariel believe it?
Was it true?
He loved her, certainly. And never more than he did tonight.
But Roberta?
He left the bathroom, walked the length of the hallway to the closed door of Caleb’s room.
And remembered.
Roberta at the hospital right after she’d had the baby. They were wheeling her to the recovery room and she was still delirious from the anesthetic. People always said crazy things when they were coming out from under anesthesia. It didn’t necessarily mean anything.
“David? David, there’s something you have to do.” And, when he’d leaned forward to catch her words, she’d whispered, “Get rid of Ariel, okay? We have a real baby now so we don’t need her anymore. Okay? You get rid of her. You take her back where she came from and I’ll bring the real baby home from the hospital. Okay, David?”
It didn’t mean anything. That’s what he told himself now and what he had assured himself at the time. People said crazy things under such conditions, and she was delirious and had no idea what she was saying.
“Your mother and I both love you. You know that, don’t you?”
He stopped to pour a glass of brandy and fill a pipe, then joined Ariel in front of the television set. They were still watching Rhoda when Roberta returned, barely acknowledging their greetings. She brushed past them into the kitchen, set down a bag of groceries, then swept past them to carry the rest of her purchases upstairs. The two of them went on watching television. David was on the point of saying something to Ariel, something about having to understand her mother’s behavior, but he couldn’t find a sentence that would improve the situation. He took a small sip of brandy instead and drew contemplatively on his pipe. It was perhaps ten minutes later that they heard Roberta scream.
FIFTEEN
She managed to get hold of Erskine in the morning before the first bell rang. “Listen,” she said, “you have to tell me something.”
“What’s the matter?”
“Just tell me one thing. You remember when you were over at my house?”
“Which time?”
“The first time. When we found the picture.”
“So?”
“And you went into Caleb’s room.”
“So?”
“What did you do in there?”
“Nothing. Why?”
“What did you do?”
“Nothing, I said. I didn’t even go inside, I just looked from the doorway. Maybe I went in a step. Why?”
“Did you touch anything?”
“No.”
“Swear it.”
“Ariel, what’s the matter?”
She wanted to hit him. “Swear it,” she said. “This is important. Did you touch anything or didn’t you?”
“Jesus,” he said. “I solemnly swear I did not touch a thing in that room. Is that okay or do you want me to hunt for a Bible?”
She relaxed. “You really didn’t.”
“I just said I didn’t. What’s going on?”
“I’ll tell you later.”
“Hey, wait a minute.” He grabbed at her coat. “What’s it all about, Jardell? Hang on.”
But she wrenched free from his grasp. “Later,” she said. “After school.”
Several times in the course of the day he tried to get her to explain but each time she put him off. She wanted to wait until there was more time. As they walked from school to his house he was elaborately casual, not even deigning to refer to the incident. They talked about other things. Then, when they were in his room, while he recovered his breath from his headlong charge up the attic stairs, she explained.
“Somebody did something in Caleb’s room.”
“Did what?”
“I don’t know exactly. It was hard to understand because she was so excited. Took his fish mobile down. Pulled some of his decorations off the walls. You absolutely swear you didn’t touch anything?”
“How many times do I have to swear? Don’t you take my word all of a sudden?”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “But she came home last night and I guess she went into his room and she gave out with a scream like the world was coming to an end and then she tore downstairs and started yelling. She wanted to know why I’d been in his room and I said I hadn’t been in there, which was true, the last time I went in Caleb’s room was ages ago. Before the time you went in there.”
“You weren’t in there since?”
She hesitated for an instant, then shook her head. “No, not since the time you opened the door. Remember I didn’t even want to look inside?”
“I remember. You turned your head away.”
“Right. I haven’t been in there since. I’ll stand outside the door once in a while but that’s all. Listen. I just thought of something. Was the fish mobile hanging over his bed when you were there?”
“How do I know?”
“I thought maybe you wo
uld remember one way or the other.”
“I barely remember what the room looked like, for God’s sake.” He shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “I wasn’t really interested in looking at anything. I just wanted to get an idea what it felt like. You know, standing there and looking at the crib where it happened.”
“Where what happened?”
“You know, where he died. That’s all. But I didn’t notice anything, really.”
“Some of the wall decorations were on the floor. And the mobile was all broken. You would have noticed things like that, wouldn’t you?”
“Maybe. I suppose so.”
“She thought I did it. She was screaming like an insane person. If David hadn’t been there I think she would have tried to kill me or something.”
“What did you say?”
“I told her I didn’t do it. What else could I say? I don’t think she believed me. She had to pretend to but I don’t think she really believed me.”
“Weird.” He chewed on a knuckle. “What do you figure happened? You didn’t really think I did it, did you?”
“I didn’t know. I thought maybe you would fool around like that not knowing it would cause her to have a fit. But if you say you didn’t—”
“I swear I didn’t, Ariel.”
“I believe you. Maybe she did it herself. I’ll tell you something, I think she’s crazy enough.”
“Why would she do it?”
“Why do crazy people do things? I don’t know.”
“Maybe David did it.”
“Sure. He’s just the type. Maybe the bogeyman did it.”
“That’s a good idea,” he said. “I should have thought of that myself. Maybe the bogeyman did it.”
“Always a possibility.”
“Maybe Graham Littlefield did it. He strained himself tearing the room apart and that’s how he ruptured his spleen. Then the Funeral Man hit him with the car as a punishment.”
“We’ll have to tell that to Roberta … Maybe Veronica did it.”
He shook his head. “Not Veronica. Maybe Aunt Rhoda did it.”
“You mean Aunt Rhody.”
“Right, Aunt Rhody. Maybe the old gray goose did it”
“No, the goose is dead.”
“That’s the way it goes. And maybe the fucking wind did it, did anybody have the brains to think of that?”
“That’s what David said. But it couldn’t have happened that way. Everything was tossed around, the way Roberta described it. It would have taken a hurricane. No, somebody actually went and did it. Roberta thinks it’s me and if it wasn’t me it must have been the house.”
“Huh?”
“I told you she’s crazy. ’The house is evil and it makes things happen.’ Quote unquote. You wouldn’t believe how crazy she is. Your parents are a pain in the ass—”
“No kidding.”
“—but they’re not crazy the way she is.”
“Well, maybe she’s right. Maybe the house did it.”
“Sure … Maybe—“
“Maybe what?”
She squeezed her hands together. “Maybe I did it,” she said softly.
“You … ?”
“Maybe in a dream,” she said. “Maybe in my sleep.”
“I don’t think that makes any sense, Ariel.”
“Don’t you? I don’t know if it does or not. Sometimes I do things in my sleep that are weird.”
“You mean in a dream?”
“Not exactly.”
“Then how?”
“I can’t explain it.”
“Well, what kind of things do you do?”
“I don’t want to say.”
“Great.”
“I just don’t want to say, all right? Nothing worth talking about. Just weird things that I do during the night.”
“Now I’m really getting interested.”
“Well, don’t. And I have strange dreams. I don’t know. Maybe I got up one night to go to the bathroom and I went into Caleb’s room and did something and then went back to bed without knowing it. And when I woke up in the morning I didn’t remember anything about it. That’s possible, isn’t it?”
“I suppose so. But why would you do that?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then—”
“Well, somebody did it. Roberta said—”
“Maybe she did it herself,” he suggested.
“Who, Roberta?”
“Why not, if she’s as crazy as you say. You just said it was possible. And that makes as much sense as maybe you did it in your sleep. Maybe she did it in her sleep.”
“Yeah.”
“Let’s see what’s on the radio, huh? I’m getting a headache from this conversation.”
“Okay,” she said …
And later she said, “Channing, the Funeral Man. Remember how we thought he was a detective?”
“Before I found out he was a lawyer.”
“I thought he was investigating me for murdering Caleb. I don’t know if I really thought that. But she thinks I killed him. She really thinks that.”
“Well?”
“Well what?" “
He cocked his head, interested. “Well? Did you?”
“What?”
“Did you do it?” he said patiently. “Ariel Jardell, you have sworn to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Did you, Ariel Jardell, murder your innocent baby brother?”
“Oh, sure,” she said. “I did it in my sleep.” They looked at each other for a moment, and then they both began to laugh.
SIXTEEN
In Dr. Reuben Gintzler’s office one sat on neither couch nor chair. The diminutive psychiatrist provided his patients with a tufted yellow chaise lounge, an uncomfortable piece of furniture on which one could not quite sit and not quite lie down. Roberta had occasionally entertained the thought that this was all according to the man’s master plan—he wanted to keep you off-balance. At other times she decided he was not so much calculating as he was oblivious to such matters.
She was on the chaise now, had been on it for half an hour. She’d been guarded at first, her monolog punctuated by long silences, but then her guard had slipped some and she’d let herself run off in several directions at once, talking about the state of her marriage and the death of her son, about Jeff and Ariel and the picture from the attic and the mysterious attack upon Caleb’s room. She found herself tugging at a conversational thread, drawing it out until it hit a snag, then switching abruptly to another and repeating the process.
She became silent now, her eyes lowered and half-lidded. There was no sound in the room but the ticking of Gintzler’s wall clock, a Regulator pendulum-type in an unvarnished oak case. Clocks like that had hung in schoolrooms when Roberta was a girl, and she wondered if they were there still. Perhaps they had all been rescued to tick out their lives in shrinks’ offices, letting neurotics know when their fifty minutes were up.
“Mrs. Jardell?”
She turned to look at Gintzler. He was poking at a pipe with a wire cleaner, running it through the stem and shank. He never smoked the pipes, only played with them incessantly.
“You are very scattered today,” he said. “Your thoughts run all over the place. Your son, your daughter, your husband, your lover. You came here as if you were at a crisis, and indeed you behave as though this were so, but instead you discuss a great many areas of concern without touching on any crisis. I wonder why.”
She shrugged, said nothing.
“I wonder what really bothers you, Mrs. Jardell.”
“All of the things I’ve been talking about.”
“Oh? I wonder if this is really so. You have mentioned so many unrealistic concerns. Ghosts which form in the corners of rooms. An old black woman who mutters occult secrets in dialect. A painting which seems to have some arcane significance. A mysterious spirit which haunts your gas range and extinguishes its burners. A flute which evidently is not to your liking musically. A curious force, no do
ubt a poltergeist, which rearranges articles in your dead son’s room. Stairs which creak, windowpanes which rattle. It would seem—”
“It would seem as though I’m crazy,” she said. “So I guess I’m in the right place.”
“It would seem as though you are using all of these phenomena to mask what is really bothering you.”
“And what would that be?”
“Can’t you tell me, Mrs. Jardell?”
And then she was talking about Ariel again, talking about Jeff’s attempt to learn more about her parentage, defending her desire to know Ariel’s ancestry. “Environment isn’t everything, is it?” she demanded. “Don’t genes count for anything? They determine what a person looks like. Why shouldn’t they have a lot to do with what’s on the inside?”
“This is a recent concern, Mrs. Jardell?”
“I don’t think so.”
“I have never heard you allude to it before.”
“No.”
“But now your natural son has died and you react by showing increased concern for your daughter. You mask this concern by saying it is for her character. You are afraid to worry about Ariel’s possibly dying because that is unthinkable. To think it might cause it to happen. We do not speak the word cancer because that might cause us to have it, and so it is with other unmentionable topics. So your mind rejects the notion that Ariel might die as your son died, and instead you worry that there is something wrong with her, just as perhaps you worry now that something was wrong with your son, that some genetic flaw you passed on to him led to his being taken from you. You are shaking your head. Are you so certain what I suggest is unsupported by the facts?"
“Yes.”
“There is guilt involved, you know. You betrayed your husband with another man. That guilt was always present, even though you have never permitted yourself to experience it, to deal with it. Perhaps there is a belief within you that your son was conceived in guilt, that his magical death was your punishment for adultery.”
“That’s crazy.”
“Perhaps it is illogical. What we believe is not always what we ought to believe. Perhaps you feel guilt over Caleb’s death—’”
“No, I don’t!”
“You feel you should have been able to prevent it—”
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