“Sounds pretty hectic.”
“It was wonderful,” she said, without a trace of smile. “Those were wonderful years.”
She removed her glasses, set her hands flat on the desk.
“So,” she said. “What are we to make of Mrs. Ramp’s disappearance?”
“I thought you could cue me in.”
“I’d like to take advantage of the fact that you saw her more recently than I did.”
“I thought you saw her every day.”
She shook her head. “Not for some time. We’ve cut our individual sessions to two to four times a week, depending upon her needs. The last time I saw her was Tuesday— the day you called. She was doing quite well. That’s why I felt it was acceptable for you to speak with her. What happened with Melissa that upset her so?”
“She was trying to let Melissa know she was fine, that it was perfectly okay for her to go away to Harvard. Melissa got angry, ran out of the room, and her mother had an anxiety attack. But she handled it— inhaled a drug she described as a muscle relaxant and worked on her breathing until she’d recovered.”
She nodded. “Tranquizone. It shows great promise. My husband and I are among the first to use it clinically. The major advantage is that it’s very focused— works directly on the sympathetic nervous system and doesn’t appear to impact the thalamus or the limbic system. In fact, so far no one’s found any CNS impact at all. Which means the addictive potential is lower— none of the problems you get with Valium or Xanax. And respiratory administration means you get improved breathing quickly, which generalizes to the entire anxiety syndrome. The only drawback is that the effects are very short-lived.”
“It worked for her. She calmed down pretty quickly, felt good about handling the attack.”
“That’s what we work on,” she said. “Self-esteem. Using the drug as a springboard for cognitive restructuring. We give them a success experience, then train them to see themselves in a power role— see the attack as a challenge, not a tragedy. To zero in on small victories and build from there.”
“It was definitely a victory for her. After she calmed down, she realized the issue with Melissa was still unresolved. That upset her, but the anxiety didn’t recur.”
“How did she react to being upset?”
“She went looking for Melissa.”
“Good, good,” she said. “Action-orientation.”
“Unfortunately, Melissa was gone— had left the house with a friend of hers. I sat with Mrs. Ramp for about half an hour, waiting for her to come back. That’s the last I saw of her.”
“What was Mrs. Ramp’s demeanor while you waited?”
“Subdued. Worried about how she’d work things out with Melissa. But no panic— actually, she seemed quite calm.”
“When did Melissa finally show up?”
I realized I didn’t know and said so.
“Well,” she said, “the whole thing must have affected Gina more than she let on. Even to me. She called me this morning and said there’d been a confrontation. Sounded tense but insisted she was all right. The ability to perceive herself as masterful is so essential to the treatment that I didn’t argue with her. But I knew we had to talk. I offered her the choice of an individual session or discussing it in group. She said she’d try group— the next one was today— and if that didn’t resolve things for her, maybe she would stay late and talk one-on-one. That’s why I was especially surprised when she didn’t show up— I’d expected it to be an important session for her. When the group took its midsession break at four, I called her at home, spoke to her husband, and found out she’d left for group at two-thirty. I didn’t want to alarm him but I did suggest he call the police. Before the sentence was out of my mouth, I heard screaming in the background.”
She paused, pressed forward so that her breasts rested atop the desk. “Apparently Melissa had come into the room— hovering— asked her stepfather what was going on,found out, and gone hysterical.”
Another pause. The breasts remained there, like an offering.
I said, “You don’t seem to like Melissa very much.”
She lifted her shoulders, moved back against the chair. “That’s hardly the issue, is it?”
“Guess not.”
Tugging, now, at her hemline. Pulling harder when it didn’t yield.
“All right,” she said. “You’re her advocate. I know child people get into that kind of thing all the time— perhaps sometimes it’s necessary. But that’s totally irrelevant to the issue at hand. We’ve got a crisis situation here. A severely phobic woman— one of the most impaired patients I’ve ever treated, and I’ve treated lots. We’ve got her out on her own, dealing with stimuli she’s totally unprepared for, having broken her treatment regimen— taken steps she wasn’t ready for, due to pressure exerted by her relationship with an extremely neurotic teenage girl. And that’s where my advocacy comes in. I have to think about my patient. Surely you can see that the relationship between the two of them is pathological.”
Blinking hard several times. Real color deepening the rouge on her cheeks.
I said, “Maybe. But Melissa didn’t invent the relationship. She was made, not born, so why blame the victim?”
“I assure you—”
“I also don’t see why you feel the need to pin the disappearance on mother-daughter conflict. Gina Ramp never let Melissa get in the way of her pathology before.”
She wheeled her chair back several inches, never breaking eye contact. “Now who’s blaming the victim?”
“All right,” I said. “This isn’t productive.”
“No, it isn’t. Have you any other information for me?”
“I assume you’re familiar with the circumstances leading up to her phobia— the acid attack?”
Barely moving her lips, she said, “You assume correctly.”
“The man who did it— Joel McCloskey— is back in town.”
Her mouth formed an O. No sound came out. She uncrossed her legs, pressed her knees together.
“Oh, shit,” she said. “When did this happen?”
“Six months ago, but he hasn’t called or harassed the family. There’s no evidence he has anything to do with this. The police questioned him and he had an alibi, so they released him. And if he wanted to cause trouble, he’s had plenty of time— been out of prison for six years. Never contacted her or anyone else in the family.”
“Six years!”
“Six years since his release from prison. He spent most of it out of state.”
“She never said a thing.”
“She didn’t know.”
“Then how do you know?”
“Melissa found out recently and told me.”
Her nostrils widened. “And she didn’t tell her mother?”
“She didn’t want to alarm her. Planned to hire a private investigator to check McCloskey out.”
“Brilliant. Just brilliant.” Shaking her head. “In light of what’s happened, do you concur with that judgment?”
“At the time it seemed reasonable not to traumatize Mrs. Ramp. If the detective learned McCloskey was a threat, it would have been communicated.”
“How did Melissa find out McCloskey was back?”
I repeated what I’d been told.
She said, “Unbelievable. Well, the child has initiative, I’ll grant her that. But her meddling is—”
“It was a judgment call and it’s still far from clear that it was wrong. Can you say for sure you would have told Mrs. Ramp?”
“It would have been nice to have had the choice.”
She looked more hurt than angry.
Part of me wanted to apologize. The other wanted to lecture her about proper communication with the patient’s family.
She said, “All this time I’ve been working on showing her the world’s a safe place, and he’s been out there.”
I said, “Look, there really is no reason to believe anything ominous has happened. She could have had car trou
ble. Or just decided to stretch her wings a bit— the fact that she chose to drive over here by herself may indicate she was yearning to stretch.”
“This man’s being back doesn’t bother you at all? The possibility that he might have been stalking her for six months?”
“You were at that house frequently. When you walked around the block with her did you ever notice him— or anyone else?”
“No, but I wouldn’t have. I was focusing on her.”
“Even so,” I said. “San Labrador’s the last place you could stalk anybody and get away with it. No people, no cars— making intruders conspicuous is exactly why they do it. And the police function as private guards. Keeping an eye out for strangers is their specialty.”
“Granted,” she said. “But what if he didn’t sit around and make himself obvious? What if he just drove around— not every day, just once in a while? Different times of day. Hoping to grab a glimpse of her? And today he succeeded— spotted her leaving the house alone and went after her. Or maybe it wasn’t him at all— he hired someone to hurt her once, could have done it again. So the fact that he has an alibi is meaningless as far as I’m concerned. What about the man who actually attacked her— the one McCloskey paid? Maybe he’s back in town, too.”
“Melvin Findlay,” I said. “Not the man I’d choose for the job.”
“What do you mean?”
“A black man driving around San Labrador without a good reason wouldn’t last two minutes. And Findlay served hard time in prison for being hired help. It’s hard to believe he’d be stupid enough to go after her again.”
“Maybe,” she said. “I hope you’re right. But I’ve studied the criminal mind, and I long ago gave up assuming anything about human intelligence.”
“Speaking of the criminal mind, did Mrs. Ramp ever say what McCloskey had against her?”
She took off her glasses, drummed her fingers, picked a piece of lint from the desk, and flicked it away. “No, she didn’t. Because she didn’t know. Had no idea why he hated her so much. There’d once been a romance, but they’d parted as friends. She was truly baffled. It made it even more difficult for her— not knowing, not understanding. I spent a long time working on that.”
She drummed some more. “This is totally uncharacteristic of her. She was always a good patient, never deviated from plan. Even if it is nothing more than car trouble, I have an image of her stranded somewhere, panicking and going out of control.”
“Does she carry medication with her?”
“She should— her instructions are to have her Tranquizone with her at all times.”
“From what I saw, she knows how to use it.”
She stared at me, gave a close-lipped smile that tightened her jawline. “You’re quite the optimist, Dr. Delaware.”
I smiled back. “Gets me through the night.”
Her face softened. For a moment I thought she might actually show me some teeth. Then she grimaced and said, “Excuse me. I’m feeling a real lack of closure— have to deal with it.”
She reached for the phone, punched 911. When the operator came on the line, she identified herself as Gina Ramp’s doctor and asked to be put through to the chief of police.
As she waited I said, “His name is Chickering.”
She nodded, held up an index finger, and said, “Chief Chickering? This is Dr. Ursula Cunningham-Gabney, Gina Ramp’s physician. . . . No, I haven’t. . . . Nothing . . . Yes, of course . . . Yes, she did. Three o’clock this afternoon . . . No, she didn’t, and I haven’t . . . No, there’s nothing. . . . No, not in the least.” Look of exasperation. “Chief Chickering, I assure you she was in full possession of her faculties. Absolutely . . . No, not at all . . . I don’t feel that would be prudent or necessary. . . . No, I assure you, she was totally rational. . . . Yes. Yes, I understand. . . . Excuse me, sir, there is one thing I thought you might want to consider. The man who attacked her . . . No, not him. The one who actually threw the acid. Findlay. Melvin Findlay— has he been located? . . . Oh. Oh, I see. . . . Yes, of course. Thank you, Chief.”
She hung up and shook her head. “Findlay’s dead. Died in prison several years ago. Chickering was offended that I even asked— seems to think I’m casting aspersions on his professional abilities.”
“It sounded as if he’s questioning Gina’s mental stability.”
She gave a look of distaste. “He wanted to know if she was “all there’— how’s that for a choice of words?” Rolling her eyes. “I actually think he wanted me to tell him she was crazy. As if that would make it acceptable for her to be missing.”
“Make it acceptable if he didn’t find her,” I said. “Who can be responsible for the actions of a crazy person?”
She blinked several more times. Gazed down at the desk top and let all the severity drop from her face. I was willing to bet her beauty had bloomed late. For a moment I saw her as a myopic little girl. Growing up smarter than her peers. Unable to relate. Sitting up in her room, reading and wondering if she’d ever fit in anywhere.
“We’re responsible,” she said. “We’ve taken on the responsibility to care for them. And here we sit, ineffectual.”
Frustration on her face. My eyes drifted to the Cassatt print.
She noticed and appeared to grow even more tense. “Wonderful, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it is.”
“Cassatt was a genius. The expressiveness, particularly the way she brought out the essence of children.”
“I’ve heard she didn’t like children.”
“Oh, really?”
“Have you had the print for a long time?”
“A while.” She touched her hair. Another locked-jaw smile. “You didn’t come here to discuss art. Is there anything else I can do for you?”
“Can you think of any other psychological factors that might explain Gina’s disappearance?”
“Such as?”
“Dissociative episodes— amnesia, fugue. Could she have had some sort of break, be out there wandering, unaware of who she is?”
She thought for a while. “There’s nothing like that in her history. Her ego was intact— remarkably so, considering everything she’s been through. In fact I always thought of her as one of my most rational agoraphobics. In terms of the origin of her symptoms. With some of them, you never know how it starts— there’s no trauma you can put your finger on. But in her case the symptoms manifested following a tremendous amount of physical and emotional stress. Multiple surgeries, prolonged stretches of time when she was ordered to remain in bed so that her face could heal— medically prescribed agoraphobia, if you will. Combine that with the fact that the assault took place when she stepped out of her home and it would be almost irrational for her not to behave the way she did. Maybe even in a biological sense— data are coming out showing actual structural change in the midbrain following trauma.”
“Makes sense,” I said. “I suppose even after she turns up, we may never know what happened.”
“What do you mean?”
“The life she leads— the insularity. In her own way she’s quite self-sufficient. That can lead a person to treasure secrecy. Even luxuriate in it. Back when I treated Melissa, I remember thinking that for this family, secrets were the coin of the realm. That an outsider would never really know what was going on. Gina may have stockpiled plenty of coins.”
“That’s the goal of therapy,” she said. “To break into that stockpile. Her progress has been remarkable.”
“I’m sure it has. All I’m saying is that she still may decide to hold on to a private reserve.”
Her face tightened as she prepared to defend against that. But she waited until she’d calmed before speaking. “I suppose you’re right. We all hold on to something, don’t we? The private gardens we choose to water and feed.” Turning away from me. “ “Gardens brimming with iron flowers. Iron roots and stems and petals.’ A paranoid schizophrenic once told me that, and I do believe it’s an apt image. Not even the deepest probi
ng can uproot iron flowers when they don’t want to be dug up, can it?”
She faced me again. Looking hurt once more.
“No, it can’t,” I said. “Still, if she does choose to dig them up, you’ll probably be the one she hands the bouquet.”
Weak smile. Teeth. White and straight and gleaming. “Are you patronizing me, Dr. Delaware?”
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