Suffer the Children

by John Saul

  “Looks like a flea collar,” the housekeeper said. “Same kind we put on Cecil.” Her eyes caught sight of the stain. “Here, what’s this?”

  “I’m not sure,” Rose said, hoping Mrs. Goodrich would offer an alternative.

  “Why, it’s blood,” the woman said. “Well, if that don’t beat all. Where’d this come from?”

  “Sarah,” Rose said vaguely. “Sarah put it on my ankle.”

  “Well, that’s a peculiar thing to do,” the old woman said. “Where do you suppose she got it from?”

  “I’m not sure,” Rose said. “I don’t have any idea at all, really.”

  “Well, if she got it off that cat, I wish she’d tell us where the cat is.” She sniffed the air. “I smell my pies.” She bustled away, and Rose listened to her footsteps fade down the hall.

  “Sarah?” Rose said. The child crept a little way out from under the desk. “Sarah, darling, it’s all right,” Rose said, not knowing if it was all right or not. “Come out from under there.”

  She reached down and gently pulled her daughter the rest of the way out, then picked her up and carried her upstairs. She set Sarah on the bed and covered her with a comforter. “Take a little nap,” she said, and bent down to kiss her gently on the forehead. She was behaving with a calm that she did not feel.

  She heard Jack’s car coming up the drive as she went back down the stairs, and waited for him at the front door.

  “Hi,” he said, but the smile faded from his face when he saw how pale she was. “What’s wrong?” he asked. “Has something happened?”

  “I don’t know,” Rose said quietly. “Let’s go into the study. I’ll be with you in a minute.”

  She stepped into her office and picked up the bracelet and the collar. Then she followed Jack down the hall.

  “Why don’t you pour us both a drink,” she said, closing the door behind her. Jack looked at her curiously.

  “You sound upset,” he said. “What’s been going on around here?”

  She told him what had happened and showed him the two objects. He examined the collar briefly, then turned his attention to the bracelet.

  “This looks familiar,” he said slowly. “I’d swear I’ve seen it before, but I can’t remember where.”

  “The picture,” Rose said.

  “Picture?” Then he looked to where she was pointing, and his eyes found the bracelet on the little girl’s wrist. “Good Lord,” he breathed. “Are you sure it’s the same one?”

  “I haven’t compared them yet, but yes, I’m sure,” Rose said. “And the strangest thing is that earlier, before Sarah put it on my ankle, I was looking at the bracelet in the picture. I was almost sure I’d seen it somewhere before, other than in the picture.”

  “Has Sarah been wearing it?” Jack asked.

  “I don’t know, If she has, I hadn’t noticed it consciously. But I suppose she must have been.”

  Jack moved to the picture and held the bracelet up next to its representation in the portrait. It was the same bracelet.

  “It’s the collar that worries me more,” Rose said, taking a long swallow from her drink.

  “The collar?”

  “Well, where do you suppose she got that? And how do you suppose the blood got on it?”

  “You mean Cecil?” There was clear disbelief in his voice.

  “What else could it be?”

  “Oh, now, come on, Rose. Sarah loves that cat.”

  “I know,” Rose said miserably. “But put it all together. The cat’s gone, Sarah was apparently trying to get at the knives just this morning, then she got upset at pictures of cats this afternoon. And now that.” She pointed to the bloody collar.

  “You think she’s killed Cecil.”

  The words hit Rose, and she recoiled almost visibly. She realized that that was exactly what she thought; she had merely refused to put words to it. She nodded dumbly.

  “I don’t believe it,” Jack said. “I just don’t believe it.”

  “Then where did she get that collar? And the bracelet, too, for that matter.”

  “I don’t know,” Jack said. “But I don’t believe she killed Cecil. She wouldn’t do a thing like that.”

  “How do we know she wouldn’t, Jack? How do we know what she would do or wouldn’t do?” She was on the verge of tears, and Jack reached out to comfort her, but she turned away.

  “What do you think we ought to do?” Jack said.

  “Call the school, I suppose,” Rose said. “Talk to Dr. Belter. He wanted to know if anything unusual happened. And God knows this is unusual.”

  “What axe we going to tell him?” Jack said uneasily. “That Sarah found a couple of things and we think she killed the cat?”

  “I don’t know,” Rose replied. “I’ll just tell him exactly what happened and see what he thinks about it.”

  “When are you going to call him?” A note of belligerence had crept into his voice.

  “Right now,” Rose replied, moving to the phone. She dialed the telephone, and was connected to the doctor a couple of minutes later. He listened to her story, and when she finished he asked some questions.

  “How is she now?” he wanted to know.

  “Sarah? I guess she’s all right. She doesn’t seem to be upset, if that’s what you mean. She’s upstairs, sleeping.”

  Dr. Belter considered, then spoke again.

  “Why don’t you both come to the school on Monday? You and your husband? Then we can talk about it Can it wait until then?”

  “Well, I suppose so,” Rose said, but she wasn’t sure it could. Dr. Belter heard the uneasiness in her voice.

  “I’ll tell you what. If anything else happens, you call me, and I’ll be right out there. Otherwise, I’ll see you on Monday.”

  “All right,” Rose agreed. “I suppose that’ll be fine. Thank you, Doctor.” She hung up the phone, and was about to tell Jack what had been arranged when she saw his eyes move from her own to a spot behind her and the blood drain from his face. She whirled around, not knowing what to expect.

  It was Elizabeth, and she was a mess. The dress that had been so clean when she left the house was now filthy, covered with mud, and the muck was streaked over her face as well.

  “My God,” Rose said. “What happened?”

  “I’m sorry,” Elizabeth said, and it was the voice of a small girl. “I was out by the quarry. I slipped in the mud.”

  “What were you doing out there?” Jack demanded. “You could have killed yourself.”

  Elizabeth seemed on the verge of tears. “I said I was sorry,” she repeated. “I’m all right It’s—it’s only mud.”

  “That dress,” Rose snapped. “You’ve ruined that dress. Get it off immediately and give it to Mrs. Goodrich. Maybe she can save it.”

  Elizabeth burst into tears and fled from the room. Rose watched her go, and doubted that Mrs. Goodrich would be able to save the dress. It looked to be as ruined as the afternoon. Rose, too, felt like crying.

  “Oh, shit,” she said miserably.

  “It’s only a dress,” Jack said soothingly.

  “No it’s not,” Rose said. “It’s everything.” She felt the hopelessness sweep over her.

  13

  “And that’s where we are as of now,” Dr. Ciarles Belter concluded, closing the file in front of him. He glanced around the room, noting that Marie Montgomery looked unhappy and Josephine Wells looked annoyed. The three of them were waiting for Jack and Rose Conger, and Josephine Wells had suggested that it would be a good idea to review the entire file before their arrival. The mind of a bureaucrat, Dr. Belter had thought, but he had complied. Now he looked at Josephine Wells. “Any questions?”

  “It strikes me,” Josie Wells said, and Dr. Belter noted to himself that things invariably “struck” Josie Wells, “that there must be a lot more going on here than we know about.”

  Dr. Belter tried to keep his face straight, and did his best to nod gravely. “Go on,” he said, knowing that she would
anyway.

  “It strikes me,” Miss Wells said again, and this time Charles Belter had to fight down an impulse to do exactly that, “that we should be looking beyond Sarah as an individual, and trying, rather, to fathom the greater socio-psychological factors involved within the structure of the prime unit.”

  “If you mean we should talk to her family,” Dr. Belter remarked drily, “that’s exactly what we’re about to do. If they ever get here.” He glanced at his watch and noted that it was still five minutes until the time the Congers were due. He braced himself to tolerate further pontificating from the social worker.

  “What I’m trying to say,” Miss Wells said, tapping her front teeth with the end of the Pentel she always carried, apparently for no other purpose, since she rarely took notes, “is that what we seem to have here is a clear case of regression.” Miss Wells, who felt that her Master of Social Welfare degree qualified her as a psychologist, a sociologist, and a sage, leaned back and looked pleased with herself.

  “And?” Dr. Belter prompted.

  “And therefore it strikes me that we should be trying to find out toward what she is regressing.”

  Dr. Belter shot a glance to Mrs. Montgomery, but the teacher’s face was a bland mask of innocence. Marie Montgomery had discovered long ago that with Josie Wells it was best to sit quietly and listen. Any response was all too likely to carry Miss Wells further into the mazes of gobbledygpok that she mistook for erudition. Marie caught Dr. Belter’s glance, and wondered how he was planning to deal with the social worker’s impossible idea.

  “I think you’re absolutely right,” Dr. Belter said gravely. “I suggest that you have copies made of the entire file immediately, and begin comparing common factors between the prenatal experience of Sarah and the postpartum depression futeriundus of her mother.” The doctor was pleased to see Josie Well’s Pentel scribble a word. He wondered how many books she would search before she finally decided there was no such word as “futeriundus.” Then it struck him that it was more likely she would simply attach a meaning to the word, and proceed to carry out his instructions. He sighed to himself and cursed the necessity of having a social worker in his midst. When he saw the Congers driving up to the building, his sigh became audible. He braced himself and put on a broad smile as they were ushered into his office, so that neither of them was aware that he was, while greeting them, examining them minutely.

  He noted the obvious strain in Rose’s face, the strain that had been growing there for a year. It didn’t seem any worse than the last time he had seen her, but there were other signs now, signs that her composure was wearing thin. Her hair, usually perfectly set, was beginning to show the first signs of disarray. Not that it was messy—not by any means; it simply wasn’t as perfect as usual. And there was a tiny spot on the jacket of her pants suit, a spot that most people would never notice but nevertheless a spot that Dr. Belter knew Rose Conger would not normally tolerate.

  Jack, on the other hand, seemed totally unchanged. It should be showing, Dr. Belter thought. Unless he’s some sort of monster. But Charles Belter did not believe people were monsters, so he looked more closely. He found what he was looking for in Jack’s fingernails: He was beginning to chew cm them. Not enough so they looked chewed, but just slightly uneven, as if he would chew one, then smooth it out with a file, leaving it shorter than the others.

  “Sit down,” Dr. Belter said warmly. “We’ve just been discussing Sarah. Since you didn’t call again, I gather yesterday was quiet?”

  “Well,” Rose said, “I’m not sure what quiet is any more. If you mean nothing happened, nothing out of the ordinary, I suppose you could say nothing happened. But I’m afraid I have to say that I think she’s getting worse.”

  “Rose!” Jack said. “I don’t think that’s fair.”

  “No,” Rose said tiredly. “I know you don’t think it’s fair. And it may not be. I will grant you that I’m not a psychologist, and I will grant you that I have no training in the sort of disorders Sarah has. But I’m a mother, and I know how I feel And I feel worn out, and I feel sick, and I feel my daughter isn’t getting any better—”

  “That’s a lot different from getting worse,” Jack interjected.

  “All right, maybe I’m wrong. You tell us,” she appealed to the doctor. Then she recounted the events of Saturday, leaving out none of the details. Dr. Belter listened carefully, as did the teacher and the social worker. When Rose was finished, he leaned back in his chair, closed his eyes, and seemed to be considering something. No one in the room spoke, and it passed through Jack’s mind that the doctor looked just like Santa Claus. Had he known of the thought, Dr. Belter would have been pleased.

  Eventually he opened his eyes again, and turned to Marie Montgomery. “Any ideas?”

  She shook her head. “Not at the moment Frankly, it doesn’t sound to me like Sarah’s getting worse.”

  Jack’s eyes lit up. “No?” he said eagerly.

  “Well,” Marie Montgomery said carefully, “it seems to me that the fact that she was able to concentrate on something as long as she did in order to get that collar onto your ankle indicates that she may be getting a little better. Granted, it was a macabre thing for her to do—at least, it seems so to us, but it may not have been macabre to her at all. It may have been something else entirely.” She reviewed the incident with the magazine and Sarah’s reaction to the pictures of cats. “She may have been trying to tell you something.”

  “Such as?” Rose asked.

  The teacher shrugged. “That’s the hard part. You have to remember that Sarah’s mind isn’t working the same way as yours and mine. There’s really no way for us to know what she was trying to communicate. But whatever it was, it must have been important She doesn’t normally spend that much time doing anything, let alone anything that takes the dexterity of fastening one of those plastic collars. They’re tricky.”

  Dr. Belter nodded his head in agreement, and seemed to come to a decision in his own mind. He spoke to his colleagues. “I think I’d better talk to the Congers alone, if you don’t mind.”

  Josephine Wells started to protest, but Mrs. Montgomery was already on her feet “Of course,” she said, over the social worker’s voice. “If you need us, page us.” Before Josie could say anything, Marie Montgomery was pulling her out of the office. Dr. Belter waited until the door was closed before he spoke.

  “You two are having a rough time of it, aren’t you?” he said at last Rose and Jade stared at him, each waiting for the other to speak. The silence lengthened, until Rose broke it.

  “Yes,” she said, barely audibly. “We are. And it isn’t all Sarah.”

  Dr. Belter’s head bobbed. “Not directly, anyway. Do you want to tell me what’s going on at your house?”

  Rose waited for Jack to speak, but when he didn’t she began talking about their problems. As she talked she became aware of a strange detachment, as though she were talking about two other people, not herself and her husband. She recounted the fights and the cruelties they had inflicted on each other, and was surprised to discover that she was being Mr; she was presenting Jack’s side of things as well as her own. When she was finished, Dr. Belter turned to Jack.

  “You want to add anything?”

  “No,” Jack said. He smiled at his wife. “I have to hand it to you—I couldn’t have been that fair.”

  “Mrs. Conger,” Dr. Belter said, “has it occurred to you that maybe you should be in therapy too?”

  “What do you mean?” Rose said defensively.

  Dr. Belter smiled easily. “Well, let’s face it Generally speaking, I consider emotional problems to be a communicable disease. If one person in a family is having problems, others usually are too, if for no other reason than that it is difficult to live with someone who is mentally ill. It is quite easy for someone with no particularly severe problems to develop some severe problems simply because of the extra pressure involved in living with a person as disturbed as Sarah.”

&nb
sp; “And you think I’m developing some severe problems?”

  “Are you?” Dr. Belter tossed the question back to her.

  Her initial impulse was to deny it, but Rose realized that she couldn’t, not if she was honest She remembered the moments of panic she was having, the tight feelings in her stomach, the sudden flashes of anger she felt, the way she had begun to overreact. An image came to her mind of Elizabeth fleeing from the study in tears, simply because Rose had yelled at her about getting her clothes dirty.

  “You’re suggesting that I could use some therapy too?” she asked noncommittally.

  “I’m suggesting that both of you could use some therapy. You don’t seem to be handling your problems very well, either of you, which is understandable, considering the circumstances. All I’m suggesting is that you both could use some help.”

  “Maybe we should throw in Elizabeth, too, and qualify for a family discount,” Jack said. When the chuckle died away, Dr. Belter’s face took on a serious cast.

  “What about Elizabeth?” he said.

  “She’s incredible,” Rose said. “Other than when I yelled at her on Saturday for getting her dress dirty, she’s been an angel. She’s patient with Sarah, takes care of herself. Sometimes I wonder what I’d do without her.”

  “She must be an amazing child,” Dr. Belter mused. “Generally, a child her age, with a sibling like Sarah, would show at least intermittent hostility toward the sick brother or sister. It’s because of the extra attention the sick one gets, of course, and it’s perfectly natural.”

  “Well,” Rose said, “we’ve had none of that sort of thing.”

  Jack grinned. “I guess Elizabeth is the only one of us who’s immune to the family curse.” He laughed, but his laughter faded when he noticed that the doctor had not joined him.

  “Ah, yes,” Dr. Belter said, leaning back once more and closing his eyes. “The Conger family curse.”

  “You’ve heard about it?” Jack said.

  “Around Port Arbello, who hasn’t? As a matter of fact, I probably know more about your family curse than you do.”

  “Oh?” Jack said guardedly. “How so?”