by M. J. Cates
Optimism infused her with energy, and she made plans to visit those former patients who had been found to live reasonably nearby. She had purchased a road map of New Jersey, and as she settled into her seat on the train, she consulted it to find out how far away were such places as Rahway, Haddon, and Fort Lee.
There was no dining car on the train, but a steward came around with a basket of sandwiches and cold drinks, and in any case she was too excited about heading home to eat very much. In the face of Carl’s apology, she began to feel a little guilty about her own anger toward him. Surely he hadn’t deserved it; he was far more understanding than most men. She thought, too, of his brilliance in the lab, how he was making a big name for himself—and the Phipps—by helping to turn psychology into a real science instead of a branch of philosophy. She thought of his laugh, which was frequent, loud, and contagious, and his love of play, which made him so popular with the twins. She couldn’t wait to be home again.
She arrived in Baltimore still basking in that glow. The taxi was thick with the smoke of the previous occupant’s cigar, and she opened the window, leaning her head out, letting the night breezes of Baltimore wash over her. It was nearly eleven o’clock. The streets were quiet in a way that the streets of her native Chicago never were. But over the past near-decade those once-foreign scents of magnolia, tea olive, and salt water had come to smell like home. The night was much warmer than the day had been in Trenton, and she undid the buttons of her fall coat.
The house on Dukeland Street was dark. It was a banal little structure compared with the house she had grown up in, and housed two other tenants, but even so she approached it with affection. Home. She slotted her key in the lock and turned it as quietly as possible. It opened with a clunk that made her jump but was probably not loud enough to disturb the slumbers of husband and children.
She stepped inside and set her overnight case by the front closet. The air was redolent of the beef stew she had prepared in advance for Carl to eat while she was away. She opened the case and took out her nightgown. Then, feeling quite shameless, she took off her clothes in a shaft of moonlight that made her skin glow platinum. She draped everything over the back of a living room armchair and walked barefoot across cool linoleum. The door to the master bedroom (grandiose term for a room roughly half the size of her girlhood refuge) was closed. She and Carl rarely closed it unless they needed privacy from the twins, but Carl sometimes shut it when the house was feeling drafty. She gripped the knob and turned it and pushed the door open. The room was pitch-black, the heavy curtains drawn. Her side of the bed was the near side, however, so she was confident of reaching it without tripping on anything.
She reached out in the blackness for the covers. But instead of the covers she clutched instead a woman’s breast. Imogen jumped back with a gasp and knocked over a bedside lamp. It hit the floor, and a woman let out a cry.
“What—what’s going on?” Carl’s voice was thick as he fumbled for his own bedside lamp.
“Someone grabbed me! Charlotte, sweetheart, was that you?”
The light came on and Cynthia Bee covered her face with her hands. “Oh, dear God.”
Carl, his face puffy with sleep, stared at his wife as if she were a horrific accident.
“Imogen. Imogen—what are you doing here?”
Imogen backed away from the bed until she bumped against the closet.
“I thought you were coming home tomorrow,” Carl went on stupidly. “I got home late, and…”
In treating her patients, and especially in dealing with their families, Imogen had often heard people describe their emotional reactions to a life-changing moment—a murder, a suicide, a train wreck—moments of terrible shock, world-destroying heartbreak, catastrophes of fear or loss. Commonly they said things such as “my head was all in a whirl,” “I was such a jumble of emotions,” “I couldn’t speak, I was in such a turmoil.” She found that all of these were true.
Imogen the Observer hovered somewhere behind and above Imogen the woman, able to witness it all, to witness and take note of Carl’s face, distorted with shock and shame, of Cynthia’s mortified blush. Imogen the Observer could hear what they were saying (Cynthia: I’m sorry, Imogen. I’m so sorry. You didn’t deserve this. Carl: I think we’d best call a taxi for Cynthia. Maybe you could step out, Imogen, so she can get dressed).
Imogen the Observer could even think of biting replies to their every word, could see the resemblances they all bore to figures out of drama, out of myth, and most of all out of farce. Didn’t Charlie Chaplin have a scene somewhere where he wakes up beside some hulking slob, dreaming it’s a beautiful woman? The mistaken identity, the slapstick crash of the lamp, the blinding revelation—all the stuff of comedy. How unjust that the deceived person must always look ridiculous, no matter how much his or her misery might be contrived by other persons.
Imogen the Observer could also note the similarity of her stunned present-day self to the twelve-year-old girl wobbling away on her bicycle down a leafy Chicago street having just discovered that while she had only one father, that father had a secret daughter.
Imogen the Observer noted all these things but Imogen the wife, the lover, and the mother had no words at all, and even if she had they could not have escaped her throat. This Imogen turned from the two people who had done this to her with a pang of envy. They did not feel as she did. They might feel embarrassment, perhaps even guilt, but they did not feel this infinity of emptiness.
As she left the room, she trailed a finger across the closet door, the bedroom wall, the bedroom door, and all along the wall of the corridor, like an invalid uncertain of her balance. She scooped up her clothes from the living room chair and carried them to the bathroom. There, an automaton engineered to carry out only the simplest motions, she dressed herself.
She closed the lid of the toilet and sat down, gripping her face in her hands and rocking back and forth in the manner of a chronic psychotic, and perhaps for the same reason: the body’s effort to provide comfort to a tormented soul. Now her mind did begin to whirl. Black bolts of thought flashed and ricocheted across the confines of her skull. Why did I get dressed just now? Is she gone? Why did Cynthia do this to me? Have I been hateful to her? To Carl? In my bed. With my children just across the hall. What was their plan for the morning? Good morning, children—I’m your mother’s replacement. Why did I get dressed just now? Has she gone? I should get up, I should go to the living room, I should scream at them. Where can I sleep? I should go to a hotel. I’m exhausted, this is my house, why did I get dressed?
A timid knocking rattled the bathroom door.
“Imogen? Imogen, I need the bathroom.”
“Get out of my house, whore.”
“What? I didn’t hear you. I need the bathroom.”
Imogen jumped up and opened the door.
“I said get out of my house, you whore.”
“Imogen, I’m sorry—really, truly—but—”
“I trusted you with my children. My husband.”
“I know. I’m sorry. But I need the bathroom.”
“Frankly, I wouldn’t care if you were bleeding to death.”
She closed the door and locked it and sat back down, rocking and now weeping, rocking and weeping.
Then Carl’s muffled voice. His “rational” voice. His words were indistinct, but the low register, the measured flow of the syllables was exactly the tone he adopted whenever he wanted to, as he put it, “talk sense.” She heard the front door open, and close, and the house went quiet. Who can I run to? Imogen was thirty-one. Did thirty-one-year-old women run home with their broken hearts to their mothers? Their fathers? No doubt some did. No doubt some even found comfort there. But not from her mother. And certainly not from her father.
Voices again. Cynthia’s. Carl’s. And then the sound of a motor car driving away. The front door closed, and Carl’s footsteps came down the hall.
“Imogen?”
“Go away.”
&nb
sp; “Imogen, I don’t want to shout through the door—we’ll wake up the children.”
“Oh, yes. You’re so concerned about the children.” She stood up and opened the door. “Fucking your whore not ten feet away from where they sleep.”
Carl’s face registered shock at her choice of words. Imogen never used such words, even though he had often encouraged her to do so in bed. She pushed past him and went to the living room. She sat in the armchair that faced a small bookcase and the fireplace that did not work. On the mantel, the family portrait photograph made her stomach churn; it looked to her like a historical photograph, a picture of people from long ago—happy, by all appearances, but people she did not know.
“It’s my fault,” Carl said, coming into the room. He had got dressed too, she noticed, the two of them now in their armour. “There’s no need to be harsh with Cynthia.”
“Harsh. You think I’m harsh.”
“Petty, then—about the bathroom. She had to go outside in the backyard.”
“The poor creature. How tragic.”
“Shall I make us some tea?”
“I don’t feel like having tea with you for some reason.”
Carl went down on one knee and reached for Imogen’s hand. She snatched it away. He let out a sigh and got up and went over to the other armchair. They didn’t have a sofa; the room was too small.
“I’m sorry, Imogen. I truly am. This was not a regular occurrence.”
“I don’t believe you. Inviting her into my bed? It implies a level of comfort and familiarity.”
“It was not the first time, but it was not a regular occurrence, I swear. It was just—I had to work late, and she was looking after the twins, and I was so lonely without you.”
“I am sleeping in the criminal wing of a lunatic asylum and you’re lonely.”
“All right, all right, I know. It’s my fault and I’m sorry. Truly, Imogen. I never wanted to hurt you.”
“That can’t possibly be true. The first time we’re apart for more than a day or two you have sex with someone in our bed—a student, for God’s sake. How was that not supposed to hurt me?”
“I wasn’t thinking, Imogen. I’m so sorry.”
Imogen got up and picked up her case.
“I’m never sleeping in that bed again—in fact, you can burn it. I’ll sleep with the twins for now.”
“Don’t do that, sweetheart. I’ll change the sheets.”
Imogen went to the bathroom and took her nightgown from the hook and slung it over her arm. She went to the children’s room and once more got undressed. As Imogen climbed into the narrow bed, Charlotte groaned and curled up in a tighter ball.
Carl slipped out early in the morning, before anyone was up. Imogen, stunned and numb, made the twins’ breakfast and walked them to kindergarten where Myra would pick them up later. By nine-thirty she was in Ganz’s office, bringing him up to date on her progress at Trenton. Dr. Ganz sat behind his desk with his chair at an angle to her, apparently having learned over the years that his gaze was unnerving even when he didn’t intend it to be. But his posture, and his intermittent murmurs of approval or annoyance (Imogen had long ago learned to distinguish one from the other), indicated serious attention.
“But how disgraceful,” he said, looking up at the ceiling. “If you cannot trust Trenton staff to follow up with in-home visits, what will you do? Some of the former patients must live quite far afield, no?”
“They do. I’ll have to purchase an automobile. It will be less expensive than renting, in these circumstances.”
She could hear the dryness in her throat. Anguish, already high, was rising in her chest.
Ganz looked at her with concern.
“Still. A considerable expense.”
“Fords have come way down in the past year or so. And you can purchase on time, which should make it manageable, if not ideal.”
A thin vibrato had set up on the edges of her voice, the sound of barely controlled panic. She could feel her mouth moving and her hands gesturing, but they seemed disconnected from her. She was talking of Mrs. Boxer and the files, of Trenton and motor cars, but all she could see in her mind’s eye were the flashing bodies of Carl and Cynthia—kissing, hugging, licking, sucking—her husband and his student engaged in the sweet, shivery things she had thought were for her and Carl only. Overnight, she had been transformed into one of his little white rats, pink paws frantic as it swims for its life.
“Dr. Lang? Imogen?”
“Sorry,” she said. “What were you saying?”
“You’re very pale. Are you feeling all right?”
“I didn’t sleep well last night. The train, you know…”
She hadn’t slept at all. She lay curled beside Charlotte with her back to the door, tensed for the sound of it opening and Carl coming in. He did not come, but her eyes remained open, staring into her daughter’s curls that smelled of shampoo. She could not imagine ever sleeping again, not in this agony. She pressed a palm to her chest. Amazing that there was no blood, no physical evidence.
She draped an arm over Charlotte’s hip, and tried to be calmed by the world-filling love she felt for this person so miniature and flawless and yet the product of so disastrous a union. For she had no doubt now that her marriage to Carl was a catastrophe on the same level as her discovery of her father’s duplicity. As she lay there listening to her child’s oblivious breathing, possible futures unreeled before her. She could leave Carl—God knows, it was certainly her immediate impulse—but it would mean penury, ignominy, failure; a divorced woman was a pathetic woman. And to take the twins away from the man they adored, to destroy their faith in the world at such a tender age, no matter how misplaced that faith might be? Unthinkable.
The brightest future she could imagine was one in which Carl merely pretended to love and to care and she merely pretended to forgive and forget. They would become two actors endlessly acting, two puppeteers never allowed to address each other directly. Not only would their true selves never connect, they would never again be unified, integrated persons within themselves.
Hours passed and the twins’ room slowly began to lighten. The covers, the bedposts, her children’s sleeping forms gradually took on shape and colour. Charlotte, without waking, stirred and turned over, draping a hot arm across Imogen’s waist. Five-fifteen. Five-thirty. She tensed at the sounds of Carl getting up and leaving the apartment. Soon the children would wake, and the entire day would scratch and scrape at nerves already raw from sleeplessness and humiliation. And that would be Day One.
She would go along with it; Imogen knew herself well enough to know that. She would go along with it for the children’s sake. She would accept that hers would be a life in which happiness played no part.
“Mumma!”
Charlotte’s wide blue eyes took in her mother with wonder, and so the charade began.
* * *
—
But what was Dr. Ganz saying to her? Are you feeling all right?
Imogen opened her mouth to speak, although she had no idea what she was about to say. What emerged was scarcely a word at all. Her throat opened to say the word “I,” which until this day, this moment, had been an unproblematic word. But now, in this world of falsehood, there was no longer an I. The person whose talents and weaknesses and history had formed a coherent enough whole to merit the first person singular was now no longer “singular” but in pieces.
Her throat emitted a sound like a hiccup. She tried again to speak but some muscle round about the diaphragm let go and she collapsed forward in convulsions of grief.
Dr. Ganz was taken aback. Over her wails, she heard him approaching from around his desk.
“My goodness,” he said, “my poor girl. Whatever is it? What has got you in such a state?”
At that moment, even with mortar shells of misery bursting inside her, Imogen loved him. She heard in his words and his worry that he was not being the psychiatrist at this moment, he was being the fatherly, eve
n motherly, person he was behind the Swiss correctness and the ice-chip eyes. He came near enough that she could smell his signature cigar-and-bay-rum scent. She felt the lightest touch on her shoulder, a butterfly alighting for a moment, then nothing. His instinct had been to physically comfort her, but no doubt remembering himself he stepped back.
He let her cry—neither of them had any choice about that. Eventually the torrent of tears began to subside and Imogen accepted, yet again, the crisply pressed white handkerchief he waggled before her tear-blinded eyes.
“Well, well,” he said. “A good ventilation, I would say. Clearly you were in need of it.”
Imogen blew her nose and wiped her eyes. “Dear God.”
“It grieves me to see you in such pain, Imogen. We’ve known each other a long time. You arrived when I was still quite new at this job, the Phipps was still new, and you were the girl with three brains—you remember?”
His gentleness alone would have been enough to bring on fresh tears, but it was his use of her first name—and that “girl”—that pricked her heart afresh. She wept a little longer.
“Dear God,” she said again.
Dr. Ganz went to his office door and told Mr. Penn to cancel something or other. He went back around his desk and seated himself at his former angle.
“By all means tell me if I’m wrong, but I think these tears have not much to do with Trenton State Hospital. Only love could be the cause of such pain. Perhaps only a husband.”
“A husband who—” Her voice caught once more but she took a moment to steel herself. Dr. Ganz waited. “A husband who hates me.”
“Hate is a strong word.”
“It’s quite true. Although I’m not sure Carl knows it himself.”
“Interesting.” Dr. Ganz, making the transition back to psychiatrist, though not, bless him, to employer, lifted the lid from his desktop humidor and extracted a cigar.