Eyes of a Child

by Richard North Patterson

  ‘If you mean “who were they?” I have no idea.’ Chris still scanned the countryside. ‘They drank and fought and had no purpose. Their only life was in the society pages.’

  Terri realized that she had seldom imagined Chris as a child. ‘How was your life?’

  ‘It was what I knew.’ His voice was dismissive. ‘When you’re four or so and you begin to realize that your parents’ love is conditional, if it exists at all, you don’t get a condominium and a new set of parents. What you decide instead, without even knowing it, is that if your parents don’t seem to like you much, they must be onto something. Fortunately for me, they were also strong believers in boarding school.’ He paused, then added, sardonically, ‘Naturally, as an adult, I put all that behind me.’

  Terri smiled at his not-so-subtle point. ‘All right, Chris, I’ll go enlist some mental health professional. If only because I’d rather fuck you than have you for my analyst.’

  Laughing, Chris took her hand.

  Soon, Terri thought, they would be in Portofino. The end of their trip and, perhaps, of more.

  ‘I wish that we could just stay here,’ she said. ‘Hide out in Montalcino.’

  He smiled, knowing what she meant. ‘And what would we do, day after day?’

  ‘Avoid reality, of course. Or any decisions at all.’ She took his hand. ‘We could enter some sort of time warp between the thirteenth century and now, where we never get any older, and Richie’s deadline never comes.’

  ‘Too late,’ Chris said softly. ‘In the real world, where we live, it’s nearly here.’

  Chapter 20

  Portofino, on the Italian Riviera, was surrounded by steep hills that tumbled to sparkling green water. The hills were covered with palms and tall, slender evergreens, leafy boughs, and bright flowers with multicolored blossoms. Tucked amid the riot of vegetation were the iron gates of private villas and the sprawling Mediterranean hotel where Chris and Terri stayed, the Splendido.

  Chris and Terri sat at the glass table on their balcony. The view was sweeping: the orange and pink storefronts of the fishing village; the sun-blinded harbor, azure spiked with the white masts of sailboats; and across the bay, tree-shrouded hills with, rising above the green, an ancient stone fortress. On the grounds below them, the pool and patio were surrounded by palms and a garden filled with flowers imported from every continent. The only sounds were birdsongs from the surrounding hills.

  So beautiful, Terri thought, and so very painful. When she drifted to the bedroom to make her call, Chris stayed on the balcony.

  Elena was painting pictures with her grandmother. ‘Mommy,’ she exclaimed. ‘Where are you?’

  Terri found that she was smiling, as if Elena’s voice had changed something inside her. ‘In a place called Portofino, sweetheart.’ Terri did her best to describe it, and then said, ‘I wish you could see all of this.’

  ‘I can draw it for you,’ Elena answered. ‘There are palm trees outside Grandma’s house too. On Dolores Street.’

  Terri laughed a little, imagining Elena’s rendition of an Italian fishing village. ‘I’ve missed you so much, Elena.’

  ‘I miss you too, Mommy. How many more days is it?’

  Thinking of Chris, Terri felt sad again. ‘Only three,’ she said softly. ‘Then I’ll be home.’

  Elena was quiet for a moment. In a different voice, quiet and afraid, she asked, ‘Do you know where Daddy is?’

  Terri hesitated. ‘He hasn’t called you yet?’

  In the silence, Terri imagined Elena shaking her head, forgetting that her mother could not see her. ‘Do you think he had an accident, Mommy?’

  The plaintive question left a chill on Terri’s skin. ‘An accident? No, sweetheart. Your daddy’s just gone somewhere.’

  ‘But where? There was a long pause. ‘Mommy, I think ‘Daddy’s dead.’

  Terri felt a chill. ‘No, Elena,’ she said calmly. ‘Daddy’s not dead.’

  ‘He is, though. I know it.’

  Terri stopped herself from turning to Chris. ‘Why do you think that?’ she asked.

  ‘Because he’s lonely.’ Elena’s voice was frightened now. ‘Daddy wouldn’t leave me alone.’

  Terri felt herself inhale. Chris was standing in the doorway to the balcony, watching her now. ‘I think he just took a trip,’ she said firmly. ‘He told me he might.’

  ‘Promise?’

  ‘Promise. So don’t worry too much, all right? Besides, you’ve got a picture to draw for me.’

  ‘Okay, Mommy. I will.’ There was a voice in the background, and then Elena added, ‘Grandma wants to talk to you now.’

  Terri heard instructions to find crayons, and then Rosa said in a muted voice, ‘Do you want me to call the police, Tessa?’

  Terri glanced over at Chris. He had opened the refrigerator, she saw, and was making them drinks. ‘No,’ she answered quietly. ‘At least not until Elena makes you.’

  ‘As you wish. But she’s sure that something is wrong now. I don’t know how much longer I can wait.’

  Terri took the gin and tonic Chris had made her. ‘I’ll call back tomorrow,’ she said at last, and rang off.

  ‘How is she?’ Chris asked.

  Terri turned, watching his face. ‘She thinks Richie’s dead.’

  Chris’s eyes narrowed. ‘Your mother?’

  ‘Elena.’

  Chris sat on the end of the bed. ‘Does she say why?’

  ‘Only that he never came for her. It’s like she knows that Richie depends on her so much that if he’s not with her, he must be dead.’

  Chris seemed to reflect. ‘Elena’s world is pretty small,’ he said at last. ‘In the eyes of a child, everything that happens is about herself.’

  Terri walked to the balcony, looked down into the blue harbor. ‘A long time ago,’ she said finally, ‘my mother lost her belief in happy endings. Perhaps Elena has too.’

  She could feel Chris behind her. ‘And you?’ he asked.

  After dinner, they followed the stone pathways that wound through the hillsides above Portofino, the moonlit boats in its harbor like silver ghosts, and found a bench beneath an arbor. They sat in the balmy Italian night, gazing down through the boughs of trees at the lights of the Ligurian coast.

  They were too high to hear sounds from the water. Fireflies flickered in front of them; the tulips at their feet wavered in a faint wind.

  Terri leaned against him. ‘Tomorrow,’ she murmured, ‘we can talk. But not tonight.’

  They walked back to the room. Slowly, as if to remember each moment, they made love.

  Terri did not fall asleep for hours. When she did, too exhausted for worry, the nightmare broke her restless sleep.

  Until the final moment, it was the same. But this time the priest was not her father; it was Richie.

  Terri woke up with a start, heart racing.

  Chris, she saw, was sleeping at last. When he stirred, reaching out for her, Terri did not awaken him.

  Chapter 21

  Terri did not tell him of her nightmare.

  ‘If we’re trying to decide our future,’ she said in the morning, ‘let’s at least get out. I don’t want to sit around in our hotel room like two depressives in a Bergman film.’

  They took a stone path winding down through the hills to the harbor below. The water glistened with early sun; in close-up, the storefronts and the flats above them were frescoed with painted-on moldings or shutters. They bought cheese and fruit and mineral water, hired a motor launch and a gap-toothed fisherman to pilot it, and cruised from the harbor along the steep irregular line of the coast until they reached a small fishing village nestled in an inlet carved by the water from sheer cliffside. There, beside a few bars and cafés, a tiny church, a rocky beach with fishermen’s nets strewn near the water, the pilot left them.

  They sat facing each other on the sand, the food spread between them. This morning, Terri realized, Chris had hardly touched her.

  She spread her hands in a gesture o
f helplessness. ‘Where do we start, Chris? Elena, Carlo, the Senate, the hearing? How could we live with all the wreckage? And why would you even want to?’

  Chris picked up a seashell, tossed it in his hand. ‘That’s why you’re a lawyer,’ he said finally. ‘You know all the right questions.’

  ‘And none of the answers.’

  ‘Then maybe I should start. As hard as this kind of thing is for me.’ Chris looked up from the shell, into her face. ‘I love you, Terri. More than I’ve loved any woman. And more, I know, than I will again.’

  For a moment, she was too moved to answer. But this was a time for truths to be spoken. ‘I don’t believe I’m worth it, Chris. And even if you believe it now, you won’t later on. Not after your career in politics is finished and Richie has dragged Carlo through the mud.’

  ‘That’s not for you to say, Terri. Unless saving me from myself is your excuse for backing out.’

  Terri shook her head, stung. ‘I’m not a fool. You can have pretty much anyone you want – including women who don’t have crazy dreams – without turning your life inside out. I don’t know what you want for us, exactly. But how do you expect me to live, waiting for the first moment that I see you regret ever staying with me?’ Terri paused to slow the rush of feelings. ‘Maybe in a week, when Richie puts Carlo on the stand. Or perhaps in a year, if we last that long, when your chance for the Senate is gone and you’re disappointed with what your life has come to –’

  ‘As if women are interchangeable,’ Chris cut in sharply, ‘as long as I’m a senator. Just find someone who’s prettier, or more sophisticated, or perhaps has a master’s degree in art history and the freedom to travel when Carlo gets older, so that when we visit the Louvre she will know even more than I do. Jesus Christ.’ His voice filled with passion. ‘Your mother’s right about one thing – I am forty-six. Old enough to place a value on what I feel about you.

  ‘Where do you suggest I go to find you again, after I’ve thrown us away because, six years ago, you married Ricardo Arias. Someone who, when I talk to her, feels right. Someone who’s so real to me that everything she says makes sense. Someone with the character to make her own life in the face of hardships most people never knew. Someone I trust to love the people I care about. Even Carlo, in the end.’ His face softened. ‘Someone who, when I touch her, or even look at her, makes the world different. Or Just someone with whom to have a child of our own.’

  Suddenly Terri felt tears in her eyes. ‘I never knew you wanted that.’

  Chris gazed at the shell in his hand. ‘I know,’ he answered quietly. ‘Perhaps I should have said these things sooner, or not at all. But as long as you were fighting for Elena, what difference would my feelings have made? What difference should they have made?’

  Terri reached for his hand. ‘At least I’d have known what you were waiting for.’

  Chris gazed at her hand, resting on his. But he did not take it. ‘I didn’t tell you that to change things, Terri, or to make you feel for me. That’s no basis for a life, or even another week together.’

  ‘Then why are you saying all this?’

  Chris seemed to hesitate, and then his hand closed around hers. ‘Because I want to live with you, as soon as we straighten out this mess. And – if it’s as good for our children as I believe we still can make it – to never stop.’

  Terri could not trust herself to speak. Chris continued, looking away: ‘I know that it’s different for you. You’re barely thirty. Maybe for you there’s some other thirty-year-old to share what you hoped for with Richie – as many children as you want, buying a house together, having friends the same age, growing older at the same time.’ He paused, as if uncertain of her feelings. ‘I used to think that once you got custody of Elena, you could see more clearly the life I wanted for us. But you have to be able to do that now. To decide whether you would want the same things I want if somehow Richie weren’t a problem.’ Chris dropped her hand, scooped up the shell again. ‘Because if you’re not sure you want to be with me, then what Richie does, or where he is, maters not at all to us.’

  Terri touched her eyes. ‘Really, you are such an idiot.’

  The quizzical smile he gave her was the reflex of surprise: his eyes searched out her meaning. ‘So Carlo tells me,’ he responded after a time. ‘I guess that makes it unanimous.’

  ‘It does, Chris. And I’d love to have a child with you.’

  To Terri’s wonder, it seemed to startle him. She gripped both his hands. ‘What do you think is making me so sad? God, Chris, if you just eliminate Richie, being with you is more perfect a life than I ever could have imagined.’ That thought stopped her, like the discovery of something painful, and then the vehemence left her voice. ‘But that’s not how it is. If I’d known what I was bringing through your door that morning, I never would have come.’

  Chris looked at her. ‘You mean that, don’t you?’

  ‘Of course I do. Look what we get for staying together. Public charges that Carlo is a child abuser. Elena being asked to testify against him, maybe in a courtroom filled with reporters. And – whatever the truth of Richie’s claims – plenty of time after that to blame each other if either of our children is damaged or I lose Elena for good.’ She paused. ‘I listen to you, Chris, and it’s like you’ve forgotten that Richie exists.’

  Chris stood, turning away. At the water’s edge, two fishermen gathered nets into a boat; except for that, the beach was empty. Although the steep hills surrounding the inlet sheltered them from the wind, it seemed colder now; watching the deep, slow waves die in the rocky sand, Terri saw Chris fold his arms for warmth. ‘You’ll have plenty of time to blame yourself,’ he said finally, ‘if you let Richie define your choices. Or Elena’s.’

  Against her will, Terri allowed herself to imagine that Chris could help make Elena more whole than Terri herself could ever become. She caught herself, shaking her head. ‘Elena would take too much patience, Chris. It’s not just Carlo – so much of Elena is tied up in protecting Richie. I’m not sure you know how troubled she is.’

  ‘So was Carlo when he came to live with me.’ He put his hands in his pockets, gazing down at her. ‘I have another chance now, with your daughter. That would mean something to me.’

  Terri fought the impulse to go to him; the thing she must say instead – needed to say – was far too hard. ‘If Carlo did molest Elena, that would be impossible. We would be impossible.’

  ‘I know.’ Chris’s gaze was steady. ‘But that’s another reason to face down Richie.’

  ‘In public? What a burden that would place on Carlo.’

  ‘So would cowardice.’

  Looking up at him, she shook her head. ‘I don’t think that’s a decision you can make for him.’

  Chris sat across from her again. ‘It’s a decision Carlo made. Before we came to Italy.’

  Terri imagined them together, father and son. Saw Carlo decide to do this because he wished his father to be happy. ‘You’d let Carlo do that?’ she asked. ‘For us?’

  ‘For us, and for himself.’ Chris paused. ‘Elena never said that Carlo molested her – she simply refused to talk about it. Somehow, Richie floated across the idea to her that absolving Carlo was a betrayal of him. But for her to say what isn’t true would be a betrayal of Carlo. So Elena resolved it the only way a child could: by going mute. It’s sad, really.’ Chris’s voice grew firmer. ‘For both their sakes, Elena and Carlo have to be relieved of this. If we don’t stand up to Richie, that will never happen.’

  Terri touched her temples. ‘Richie thinks Scatena is his friend. If I force him to court, he’ll go. And take all of us with him. Along with your hopes for the Senate.’

  ‘Will he, I wonder? Because this time, I’ll be your lawyer.’

  Terri looked at him in astonishment. ‘You’re joking . . .’

  ‘Hardly. Scatena runs the family court like a satrap because he thinks no one’s really watching. The day I walk into his courtroom, and put Ricardo Ar
ias on the stand, everyone will be watching. And by the time I’m finished, unless Richie backs off, there won’t be enough left of him for even Scatena to scrape up. Nor,’ Chris finished softly, ‘will Scatena want to.’

  Terri’s mind felt sluggish. ‘First,’ she parried, ‘he’ll give Richie his turn with Carlo and Elena.’

  ‘I doubt that seriously. Before we left, I drafted a motion asking Scatena to defer any testimony by Carlo and Elena until after this psychologist has reported on her evaluation of Elena and the rest of us. Under the circumstances, not even an idiot like Scatena will want to be the judge who – in front of God and everyone – subjected a teenager and a six-year-old to questioning that anyone but Richie would know is better handled in private and by a professional.’

  Terri studied him. ‘You’ve thought it all through, haven’t you? Well before we came.’

  ‘Whatever made you think,’ Chris answered, ‘that I’d just wring my hands and let Richie do whatever he wanted.’ He smiled a little. ‘I love you dearly, Teresa Peralta. But a saint I’m not. Or, for that matter, a victim.’ Chris’s smile vanished. ‘The evaluation’s your job, Terri. You have to make this psychologist see Richie for who he is.’

  Terri shook her head. ‘You’re forgetting how good he can be. Even if there’s no sign at all that Carlo abused Elena, Harris may believe that Richie’s the better parent: each step of the way, he’s come out ahead. I’m going to have to take her through every neglect of Elena’s interests, every lie, every manipulation, every attempt to extort money. Right down to the night I found him in my apartment.’ Terri paused for emphasis. ‘Richie’s been very careful to ensure that there are no witnesses to any of that. Harris may not believe me.’

  ‘Maybe not. But consider the Inquisitor article and Richie’s threat to put Elena through a hearing. He did all that to keep Harris from ever looking at Elena.’ Chris’s eyes narrowed. ‘He doesn’t want this evaluation, and not just because Carlo’s innocent. On some level, Richie knows there’s something wrong with him. He’s afraid he’ll flunk the Rorschach test, Terri. He’s right to be. Because the man you married is mentally ill.’