Secrets Of Eden (2010)

by Chris Bohjalian

  The world is filled with human toxins--not the darkness that we all occasionally crave, but actual people who are so unwilling to bask in the angelic light that is offered us all that they grow poisonous--and you can pray for their eventual recovery and healing. And sometimes those prayers will be answered. But sometimes these individuals have been vaccinated against goodness and against angels and they are so unwilling to give an inch to their God that often they never (and I use this expression absolutely literally) see the light. As scarred and as wounded as my sister had been by the thorns that mark our paths through this world, Stephen Drew was even more seriously damaged: Unlike Amanda, he had become a thorn himself.

  KATIE HAYWARD'S HIGH school was one of those sprawling two-story complexes that were built in the 1970s for durability, not aesthetics. It was designed to endure teenagers, not educate them, and so it was a labyrinth of cinder-block walls and windows reinforced with wire mesh. It smelled of antiseptic and--because the gymnasium and locker rooms were across a thin lobby from the front doors--adolescent sweat. Everything was painted a drab green, ostensibly to celebrate the Green Mountains, but I was left with no sense of foliage when I stood for a moment outside the sliding glass partition bearing the sign VISITORS SIGN IN HERE. Eventually an elderly secretary with a round face and a kind smile listened to my story and found Katie's guidance counselor, Joanne Degraff, and then Joanne escorted me to the cafeteria, where Katie was having lunch with her friends. I wasn't quite sure where Katie and I would speak and whether we would get to be alone, but Joanne had moonstone-blue eyes that were rich with understanding and compassion, and she suggested that Katie and I take a walk around the school. Katie seemed content with this plan. She had finished her sandwich, and it was a beautiful September afternoon. The leaves were just starting to change color in the hills to the east of the school's athletic fields, and there were thin ribbons of red and orange beginning to form along the peak of the distant ridge.

  "My friends think you're another psychiatrist or a social worker," she said to me as we started to stroll beside the oval where the track team practiced and out toward the football field with its two long walls of wooden bleachers with peeling evergreen paint. Students on the far side of those stands were playing soccer in gym class. Katie was wearing a black T-shirt with a Chihuahua sporting a studded collar on the front and blue jeans that clung to her legs. She had used mascara and eyeliner with great enthusiasm, and I thought I might have seen the edge of a tattoo where the back of her shirt collar met her left shoulder blade. But she also looked a little lost to me, and that gave me some comfort: She was needful and frightened, and I knew that eventually her angel was going to be there for her.

  "You've seen a lot of social workers?" I asked.

  "Yup. And two different counselors, though I seem to be spending the most time with a social worker named Josie Morrison. But it's, like, totally okay. I get it. I know why everyone is so worried. And I know you get it."

  "Thank you."

  "Ginny loaned me her copies of your books."

  "You read them?"

  "Uh-huh."

  "Well, thank you. I am very flattered," I told her, and I was.

  "Ginny thought they would help me."

  "Did they?"

  "Little bit. Ginny said they helped her."

  "Your mother's friend is struggling?"

  "Yeah. She is. I don't see her a ton. But I guess she's still kind of freaked. I hear Tina's mom and dad talking."

  "It's hard to lose a friend--especially in such a violent fashion. It's not as bad as losing a parent. But it is scarring. Life-altering."

  She seemed to think about this. Then: "Some of those stories about angels in your books were really out there."

  "Angel stories usually are."

  "But you don't, like, actually believe them, do you?"

  "It depends on the story. Some of them I believe. But yes, others have a significance that is more allegorical. Like a parable. That's why I include them. But I can tell you this: There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that angels are real. As real as you and me and your friend Tina. As real as Lula," I said, referring to the springer spaniel that she and her parents had gotten at the local humane society when she was younger.

  It was clear that my declaration of faith had made her a little uncomfortable, and she wasn't sure how to respond. "So how long are you here for?" she asked, what I presumed she viewed as an innocuous question--her way of changing the subject.

  "In Haverill? Just this afternoon. Maybe a little longer in Vermont. I don't know. I really don't have a schedule."

  "Are you here to see Stephen?"

  "No."

  "But you will, right?"

  "No, I probably won't."

  "Huh. I kinda thought you two were, you know, like an item."

  "For a time we were friends," I said, "but he seems to have built a wall against angels." I looked over at her, but she scrupulously avoided eye contact. The fact that we were walking and talking, I realized, made this conversation much easier for her than if we'd been sitting across from each other at one of those cafeteria tables.

  "But you knew him before my parents died, right?"

  "Nope. I met him the Tuesday after that happened. I read about it in the papers and saw the story on the news. And his aura seemed in such sad disrepair that I went to see him. I went to see you."

  "After that happened," she said, repeating the words and nodding. "Oh."

  It wasn't hard to imagine the stories this young woman had probably heard--or, in some cases, merely overheard. It broke my heart when I thought about what she was learning about her mother and Stephen through the rumor mill.

  "So, then, am I, like, the reason you're here now?" she went on.

  "You know, I think you are. Is that okay?"

  She shrugged as she walked and folded her arms in front of her chest. The sun abruptly caught the stud in her nose, and for a split second it sparkled. "I guess. Do you have a place or something in Vermont?"

  "This is so funny. I thought I would be asking you all the questions. But you seem to have turned the tables on me."

  "Oh, I'm sorry," she said, her voice rising just the tiniest bit, and for the first time she actually turned to face me. She looked a little stricken.

  "No, it's okay," I told her, and I was sure to smile. We were near enough to the gym class that we could hear the gym teacher with his whistle and occasional reprimands or shouts of encouragement. "I think it's just fine. And to answer your question, no, I don't have a place in Vermont. I live in an apartment in New York City."

  "Yeah, I think I knew that. From your second book."

  "You really have done your homework."

  "Not so much," she said. A tall boy from the gym class with a great mane of yellow hair waved at her and shouted something I didn't quite hear. She made a face at him that suggested she was disgusted and then gave him the finger, but I could tell it was meant in good fun. "Sorry about that," she said to me sheepishly. "That was kind of awkward."

  "It's fine."

  "Since I'm already, like, asking way more questions than I should, can I ask you one more?"

  "Absolutely. You can ask me as many as you like."

  "How long ... "

  "Go ahead."

  "How long does it take you to get over something like this?"

  I wasn't surprised that she would ask this particular question, because I had discovered the first time we met how frank Katie Hayward could be. But I was nonetheless impressed. "On the one hand, I don't think you ever do," I answered. "And I don't think you're meant to. It's always going to be a part of who you are. Certainly that has been my experience. But eventually it recedes into one more of the many experiences that have shaped you. It may be the most wounding. It may be the most terrifying. But you don't have to remain wounded and terrified. I mean, I haven't found myself avoiding relationships or marriage because of how my parents' lives ended. I assure you, that's not the reason I'm single.
Nor am I always thinking about how they died--what my father did to my mother and then to himself."

  "Do you dream about them? I don't sleep well these days, and it's not just because I miss my own house. But when I am asleep, I have these totally freakish dreams. Not exactly nightmares. But stuff that really, really creeps me out. Sometimes I can't even go back to sleep afterward."

  "Such as?"

  "Well, I see what Ginny must have seen when she got there the next morning."

  "Your parents' ... bodies."

  "Yeah."

  "I used to imagine my mother's body after my father shot her. And my father's after he hanged himself. Even now I try to avoid those police shows on television. They always show dead bodies, and that always sends my imagination into overdrive. Sometimes when I'm channel surfing, I remain stuck on QVC--there seem to be corpses on every other station."

  "And I know what I'm seeing in my dreams isn't quite right. Either it's bloodier than it could have been--I mean, the blood is just everywhere--or my mom is wearing clothes. But she was in her nightgown, right?"

  "So they tell me. I wasn't there."

  "And my dad's blood is all over her shirt and her jeans. I mean all over her. But it couldn't have been, right? Because they said my dad was on the couch and my mom was all the way across the room."

  "I don't think there was any blood on your mother," I told her, hoping I could put her mind at rest.

  "Did they tell you which nightgown she was wearing?"

  "No. Sorry."

  "Ginny said she didn't remember, either. When I asked Stephen--"

  "When did you ask Stephen?" I said, not meaning to cut her off. I was surprised, given the fact he was under investigation for murder and the story had been in the newspapers, that he was still counseling her. I was struck by the casual way she had used his name just now. "Was this in July or August or recently?"

  "Yesterday," she answered, and when I glanced over at her, she didn't seem unduly alarmed by the seeming urgency of my interruption. She pushed her dark hair off her face. "I saw him in Bennington yesterday afternoon. Tina drove me."

  "And you asked him about the nightgown."

  "I did, and he said he didn't quite remember, either. But the one he described was one I don't think she even owned. He said he thought it was a plaid summer nightshirt. But all her summer nightshirts had, like, flowers on them. Or they were solid colors. One was red. One was green. But plaid? One of her winter flannel nightgowns was plaid, but there was no way she was wearing that one in July. I mean, back in April she had probably stored it with her winter clothes and sweaters in these tubs she keeps way in the back of her closet. Was it possible she had a plaid summer nightshirt and I just didn't know?"

  It was possible. But it was also conceivable that Stephen knew of Alice Hayward's plaid flannel nightgown from their affair in the winter; perhaps she had worn it then, when they'd been sleeping together, and now, months later, he was confusing the images in his recollection. It was also possible that he honestly didn't remember what nightgown Alice had been wearing and yesterday had described for the girl the only one he could recall. "Yes," I said simply, "that's possible."

  "But you don't think so. I can tell from your voice."

  "What else did you two talk about?" I asked.

  "He wanted to know if I was angry at him. He knew I'd heard about the stuff that went on between him and my mom, and he wanted to apologize."

  "That was kind of him," I said, but something was gnawing at me. I felt far from angelic, and I was hoping that a little magnanimity would help clear my head. "So: Are you angry at him?"

  "No. I really don't see the big deal anymore. At first I didn't believe they were sleeping together. I was totally weirded out by the whole idea. But now I realize they were having an affair, and I'm okay with it. I mean, my mom and dad were apart, and so she and Stephen hooked up. I mean, my dad was ... "

  "Go on."

  "He was mean to Mom. I know you know that. He would hit her."

  "You heard their fights?"

  "Didn't you hear your parents'?"

  "Yes."

  "So you know how much it all just sucks," she said, and she wrinkled her nose as if she smelled something unpleasant. "So, like, what did it matter if my mom and Stephen had something? It didn't hurt anyone. It's like the two of you--who does it hurt if you two have something going on?" I considered correcting her--reminding her that have should be had. But I restrained the impulse, and she continued, "When my dad came back, things seemed to be a little better. At least for a while. They were like newlyweds for the first weeks of June. And so, maybe, my mom's ... relationship ... with Stephen had the potential to make things better between her and Dad. In the end it didn't. But maybe it could have."

  "Do you think your father knew that your mother had been involved with Stephen?"

  She turned to me, and she looked so intense that the world seemed to grow quiet. Suddenly the students at the soccer field in the distance were a television image with the volume muted. It was as if there were no birds and no breeze as we circled the perimeter of the school. "I think he found out the night they died," she said carefully. "I've thought about this a lot the last couple of days, what with all the stuff on the Internet and a conversation I had with Ginny. I sure don't think my dad knew when he came home in May. I don't think he knew at the start of the summer. I think somehow he learned what was going on when I was at the concert in Albany."

  "That Sunday night."

  "Yeah. Uh-huh. I mean, she had been baptized that day, and Dad didn't go. I know she was a little angry at him about that. A little disappointed. And so maybe that night they were talking about the baptism and she was talking about Stephen and it just, like, came up."

  I contemplated whether confessing to an affair could just, like, come up. And while that wasn't likely, I did think that Katie's instincts were sound: It seemed plausible enough that if Alice were angry at George for not attending a ritual that obviously meant so much to her--a ritual conducted by her former lover--it was conceivable that as the last fight of their lives escalated, she told him she'd been involved with her pastor. Perhaps she'd told George she'd loved this other man. Still, why hadn't he gone after Stephen if that was the case? Why hadn't he taken his gun and gone to the church or the parsonage after strangling his wife?

  "But until he found out--if he found out," I said carefully to Katie, "the reality that your mom and Stephen had discovered each other actually made things better between your mom and your dad. For a time, anyway. That's what you're suggesting, right?"

  She nodded. "For a time. Maybe because she was a little more confident. But it didn't last. I don't know. They were fighting again in July. Well, Dad was fighting."

  "How do you feel about Stephen?"

  "Now?"

  "Yes. Now."

  "That's a freaky one for me. I mean, how would you feel if you learned after your dad had killed your mom that she'd been having an affair with the minister? You might be really pissed off at the guy. You'd think, whoa--is he the reason my mom is dead? But then maybe you wouldn't go there. Maybe you'd just think how he had made your mom happy. You know, maybe your dad would have killed your mom anyway, and so you think, well, at least the minister made her happy for a while."

  "But that assumes the minister did make her happy. That he didn't break her heart."

  "Did he break yours?" We were almost back to the entrance to the school. My sense was that Katie had asked this quickly because once we were at the building and in the midst of the students and teachers, she wouldn't have dared. Still, I stopped in my tracks. Tentatively I put my arm around her shoulders, wondering how she would respond to my touch. But her body didn't tense, and she allowed her small frame to fall against me for a moment.

  "Be careful," I said simply.

  "Like, in what way? Like around Stephen?"

  "Just be careful. Please. Promise me you will always keep your heart open to angels and you will always take
care of yourself." Then I gave her my cell-phone number and told her to call me whenever she'd like.

  HOURS LATER I found myself a little nauseous. I had just left the pathologist's office in Vermont, and for a long moment I sat in the front seat of my car in the hospital parking lot. The vehicle was steaming inside from having baked in the sun with the windows rolled up, and so I opened them all and pressed hard on the button that rolled back the moonroof. It wasn't that I had seen anything especially distressing in the mortuary--the bodies on the shelves in the walk-in refrigerator were the elderly who had passed away of natural causes that day on the hospital floors high above--and their faces looked downright beatific. They looked as if they were sleeping deeply and comfortably on their backs beneath blue hospital blankets. Rather, I think I was disturbed because now I could imagine precisely how my parents' corpses had been autopsied. I saw concretely in my mind the way the medical examiner in our corner of New York had placed each of their bodies on the slanted steel table--slanted for drainage--and meticulously described aloud precisely the physical characteristics of each of my parents. I didn't know who had gone first, but I found myself envisioning my mother's corpse on the table, since I had seen her naked in the bathtub when I would keep her company as she bathed and in the changing room of the country club. Her face, in my mind, was intact, but I knew in reality that a large part of it had been obliterated completely by the bullet. And then I saw what the Vermont pathologist had described as the Y incision: a cut in the shape of a capital Y, a wishbone with the two prongs at the shoulders and the point extending from sternum to pubic bone. The incision, the pathologist had told me, was deep--you had to cut through the abdominal wall. Then all three of these great flaps of skin were pulled back.