The Perfect Son

by Barbara Claypole White

  “No, I’ll tell you what’s simple,” Felix said with a calm he didn’t know he possessed. “My son needs me, and you are in my way. That gives you two choices. Either you step aside, or I will break your jaw.”

  “But—but . . .” Robert flushed scarlet from the collar of his shirt up to his receding hairline.

  “And now I’m going to ask you very politely to leave my office.” Felix selected Katherine’s number on his mobile. “While I make arrangements concerning my critically ill wife.”

  “You’re going to reimburse me for that flight with interest,” Robert said as he marched out.

  “Fine,” Felix said, and slammed the door.

  Katherine answered on the first ring. “Hey.”

  “Are you sitting with Ella?”

  “I certainly am,” she said. “Do you want to speak to her?”

  “No. Just listen and don’t react. Harry’s had an accident. He has a concussion, and I need to fly up to Boston.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Good, Katherine understood.

  “Tell Ella I have to pull an all-nighter at the office. She won’t be suspicious.”

  “Uh-huh.” Katherine varied the pitch of her voice slightly.

  “When I know what’s going on, I’ll call you, and we can decide what to tell Ella.”

  “Excellent plan,” Katherine said cheerfully.

  “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to put you in the middle again, but I don’t how she’s going to take this news, and there’s no point upsetting her when I don’t have the information.”

  “Oh, don’t worry about us. We’ll rack up your bill on pay-per-view. Don’t work too hard.”

  And she hung up.

  He typed a text.

  Thank you.

  Bring our boy home safe. Don’t worry about Ella. I’ve got it covered.

  Felix opened his door. “Nora Mae?”

  She was tapping away on her computer. “No seats on the JetBlue flight, but I’m working on something else. Go to the airport. I’ll text you the flight details.”

  Then she shooed him away without raising her head from the screen.

  As he ran to the car, he called Ella’s friends in Boston and explained he would come by tomorrow to pick up the boys’ belongings. Then he broke every speed limit between his office and the airport.

  Felix paced the overlit, overheated terminal that was strangely devoid of people. Not a peep from Max since a two-word text with the hospital name: Mount Auburn. Felix had never heard of it.

  A little boy with a metal airplane that was not even remotely age-appropriate toddled up to join him at the window, and Felix glanced around the gate. Was the child unaccompanied?

  “Look, Mommy!” A pudgy finger pointed at a jet landing on a distant runway.

  “I see,” a young woman said, and resumed her phone conversation. How could she not be on high alert in a public place? How could she be so careless with her son’s safety? Felix watched over the child until he returned to his mother’s side, but even so, glanced back periodically to make sure he’d stayed put.

  His mobile finally rang. “What have you got for me, Max?”

  “Hang on, Dad,” Max said with heavy emphasis on Dad.

  There was some mumbling and scuffling.

  “This is Dr. Ramirez. Your rather insistent son won’t let me treat your other son until I’ve spoken with you.”

  “Felix Fitzwilliam, Harry’s father. Harry is seventeen, has Tourette syndrome, ADHD, and anxiety that includes a phobia of hospitals and everything medical, which can lead to panic attacks. He takes Concerta and Ritalin for his ADHD and Klonopin as needed—up to two a day—for anxiety. How is he?”

  “Other than a nasty bump to his head, I would say he’s doing well.”

  “What’s his prognosis?”

  “We’re assuming he has a concussion, but since he vomited and is having double vision, I would like to run a CT scan to make sure there’s no bleeding around the brain.”

  “Is that possible?”

  “Anything’s possible with a concussion.”

  “I’m not sure how he’ll handle a CT scan. He’s claustrophobic. Can you delay it for three hours until I can get there?”

  “No. That would not be wise.”

  The airline employee at the gate called first-class boarding. Felix dashed forward, waving his boarding pass. “Can Max, his—um—brother, go in with him? Talk him through?”

  “Of course.”

  “Can I speak to Harry?” Felix said.

  “Of course.” The guy was all business.

  Felix walked onto the jet bridge. It seemed to sway as the vibrations of his footsteps filled the narrow space.

  “Dad?” Harry’s voice sounded a long way off.

  “Hey.” Felix swallowed. “How are you feeling?”

  “Killer headache.”

  “I’m boarding, so I’ll have to turn off my phone for a few hours. I haven’t figured out where the hospital is yet, but I should be there by nine. The doctor tells me you need a CT scan, but Max can go with you—do a song-and-dance routine to keep you amused.”

  “’Kay. I’m really sorry. Is Mom, you know . . . ?”

  “She doesn’t know, Harry. One thing at a time, okay?”

  “’Kay.”

  “Hazza?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I love you.”

  “Love you too, Dad.”

  Felix hung up. He would not cry, not here in public with two flight attendants welcoming him onto the plane.

  He began to cry.

  THIRTY-NINE

  Flying—definitely on a par with an unmedicated root canal. Silently, Felix cursed the Wright brothers and anyone else involved in the invention of flying. Man was not meant to leave the ground. And flying at night was the worst. Unless it was the overnight flight to England, and you could see dawn streaking out of the blackness, bringing the hope of morning. Felix glanced around the businesswoman in the window seat next to him. There was nothing but solid night outside the window. No city lights below, no lights from the plane. They were suspended in darkness.

  He finished his whisky in one gulp, but even the warm buzz couldn’t obliterate the image of an underpaid cop manhandling Harry. Felix sank back into his seat, heart pounding faster than Ella’s defective one.

  Could the plane not speed up?

  He’d paid to use the Internet, not something he usually did, but he needed to stay connected. If nothing else, he could research the hospital, make sure the staff was competent. He scrolled through his email: one from Robert with no subject. Felix ignored it.

  Could the plane not speed up?

  What if Harry had brain damage? The British actress Natasha Richardson had barely bumped her head during a skiing lesson, had seemed fine, and then had died of an epidural hematoma. He logged onto the Web and started a Google search: CT scan + brain. Then he closed his laptop and flagged down the flight attendant for a second whisky. First class had its perks, provided you chose not to think about cost.

  Felix raked his fingers through his hair, and his neighbor turned toward him. He closed his eyes on her. Don’t even think about asking what’s wrong.

  Mount Auburn. He needed to figure out the location of the hospital. He sat up, flipped open his laptop, typed, and read.

  “Mount Auburn Hospital is a vibrant regional teaching hospital closely affiliated with the Harvard Medical School.” Harvard Medical School? He clicked on “About Us” for the address. Mount Auburn was in Cambridge? Why had Harry been sent to a hospital in Cambridge? Did he need special care? Or had the boys been in Cambridge when the incident occurred? Today was their down day, a day to sightsee around Boston. Clearly, they had decided to go into Cambridge. A flashback to Harry’s apology for calling him a Nazi. Felix had said, “My experience is that people normally speak the truth when they’re angry.” Angry or upset.

  What exactly had Max said earlier? Slowly, Felix replayed their conversation.

  Ma
x had mentioned a campus cop. Cambridge plus a campus cop added up to one thing—Harvard. The boys were at Harvard. Harry was on a college visit and he had included Harvard. But why? Why fight the idea every step of the way, and then go to Harvard in secret? Harry didn’t have a devious bone in his body. What the hell was he up to?

  The flight attendant came back with his drink, and Felix forgot to say thank you. He’d just lost the one good thing to come out of his childhood: perfect manners.

  Harry’s at Harvard; Harry’s in trouble.

  Everything that had happened between them since Ella’s heart attack had boiled down to his own bullishness about Harvard. Why could he not get his mind off Harvard? Was it merely socioeconomic programming, the belief in the old school tie network and the do-what’s-expected-of-you model that had been bashed into him during his formative years? Even now, was he still acting in ways that would have gained Pater’s approval? Pater had sent him to hell, and still young Felix would have walked across broken glass barefoot if he’d thought it would have made the old man happy. All he’d ever wanted was to be the perfect son. Nothing he did was ever good enough for Pater; nothing Harry did was ever good enough for him.

  Had Harry visited Harvard for the same reason Felix had gone to Oxford—to make his father happy? Felix thumped his head back into his headrest and stared at the airplane ceiling. Why could he not be proud of his son? A straight-A student who would likely graduate valedictorian. A straight-A student who was a good kid. A kid who just wanted to make his father proud. And where had it led him? To the ER.

  Max’s parents didn’t care that Max looked like Marilyn Manson on a bad hair day. Why should he care that his son had Tourette syndrome and couldn’t sit still through a movie? Why should he care that his son was messy and chaotic and an indiscriminate hugger? Why should he care that his son was not perfect?

  Felix returned to his laptop, typed in perfectionism, and hit “Enter.” He paused on the fourth listing: “Perfectionism—Personality Disorder.”

  Personality disorder? Like Pater? Tom had said once, “I don’t know whether he’s a psychopath, a sociopath, or he just has a personality disorder, but our father is not of sound mind.”

  Like father, like son?

  Swirls danced across his laptop screen—a generic pattern he’d never customized.

  His head spun; his heart spun; his stomach spun somewhere up near his throat. The ringing in his ears blocked out the sound of everything but his thoughts. Harry had accused him of being fucked up. What if his son had been right? What if he was stark raving mad? A genuine, certifiable lunatic?

  No. Felix took a deep breath. He would be calm; he would be rational. He would be in control. He flexed his fingers and hit the “Return” key. The screen came back to life. He scrolled down. A book was listed: Too Perfect: When Being in Control Gets Out of Control.

  He clicked on the reviews. One said, “Best book on OCPD out there.”

  What the hell was OCPD? A form of OCD? But shouldn’t he know if he had obtrusive, unwanted thoughts? Wasn’t that what defined OCD—you were a slave to thoughts you didn’t want and couldn’t control? He had no problem with order and control. It was everyone else who had the problem.

  He read on: “OCPD is not OCD.”

  Oh.

  Felix huddled forward and angled his laptop round so his neighbor couldn’t see. He started a new search: obsessive-compulsive personality disorder. He swallowed hard. Personality disorder was the deepest, darkest level of insanity, a whole separate level from barmy, which was the polite British way of saying you belonged in a loony bin. Did he have a personality disorder? Did that make him a danger to society—someone who belonged in the Bates Motel?

  Felix downed his drink.

  “Can I get you anything else, sir?” The flight attendant took away his empty glass.

  Alcohol—the coward’s way out. Felix shook his head, shook off the fug of two whiskies. He wasn’t a big drinker, didn’t like to lose control. Control. His whole life, until Ella’s heart attack, had been about maintaining control.

  When being in control gets out of control.

  He started to read online articles. Everything he could find. He read until the plane began its descent into Logan International Airport. And then he closed his eyes and tried to process the information.

  OCPD was nothing he’d ever heard of and everything that was familiar. He had memorized the list of characteristics from the International OCD Foundation’s website:

  “Rigid adherence to rules and regulations.” Check.

  “An overwhelming need for order.” Check.

  “Unwillingness to yield or give responsibilities to others.” Check.

  “A sense of righteousness about the way things ‘should be done.’” Check.

  “Excessive devotion to work that impairs family activities.” Check.

  A long explanation followed about why OCPD wasn’t obsessive-compulsive disorder. He imagined some exasperated person typing, For the umpteenth time, no. OCPD is not OCD. The bottom line appeared to be this: people with OCD knew they were crazy; people with OCPD didn’t. People with OCD wanted to change; people with OCPD didn’t.

  He found information about hoarding and frugality, which he preferred to ignore, and a link to Tourette syndrome. All those years wasted looking for answers, for the root cause of Harry’s tics, and everything led back to Felix, to the Fitzwilliam DNA.

  His midair research had also revealed that most OCPD went untreated. Sufferers were too convinced of their own rightness to believe they needed help. Apparently those who did seek treatment did so only because desperate family members had issued ultimatums: get help or we walk.

  Had he driven his family to desperation—caused his wife’s heart to fail from the stress of living with him; pushed Harry into an action that had endangered his life? Was his desire for control out of control?

  He was not losing his family; he was not losing Harry. Their relationship was just beginning—a new chapter, a new day in his life. He would not be Pater, who had died estranged from his sons. He would do whatever it took to be a good father—not a perfect father, but the best he could be. He would be there for his son today, tomorrow, and every day after that. And he’d read that psychotherapy held much promise for people motivated to change. Damn right, he was motivated to change. He was going to hire professional help—the best.

  Felix barely noticed the landing, barely noticed the bracing roar of the airbrakes. His attention was fixed on the seat belt sign. The moment it dinged off, Felix was in the aisle with his laptop and his briefcase. He stood first in line to deplane and powered his phone back on. He was going to rescue his son, and nothing would stand in his way.

  FORTY

  To hell with squirrels in his linen closet—there was a troupe of them cartwheeling through his mind. Felix jostled around in the back of the town car. Anxiety, outrage, terror, shame—which was stronger? How could you mend a broken personality? Wasn’t that the core of your being? Did it mean that inside he was defective and contaminated? Rotting away?

  And there had been no update from Max about the CT scan. Felix needed those results. He needed to know Harry was okay.

  The moment the taxi pulled up alongside the hospital, Felix had to stop himself from opening the door to vomit in the gutter. His hands shook as he paid the cabbie and texted Max.

  I’m here.

  Max responded with a smiley face that seemed slightly deranged.

  Where are you? Felix typed.

  Some room off the ER.

  Not exactly helpful, but it told him enough. Felix catapulted into an emergency department for the third time in six weeks.

  “My son, Harry Fitzwilliam—” He started talking before he reached the check-in desk. Or rather, yelling. He stopped in front of the counter and took a breath. “My son, Harry Fitzwilliam, was brought in five hours ago with a concussion, and I’ve just flown here from North Carolina.” He paused to catch his breath; the bug-eyed
receptionist smiled but did and said nothing. He flipped open his wallet, pulled out his driver’s license, and pointed at his name. “I need to see Harry Fitzwilliam. Right now. He’s a minor. You’re treating a minor and I’m his father and I need to see him. Right now.”

  “Yes, sir.” She consulted her clipboard. “Love the accent. Are you from Great Britain or Australia?”

  “London. Where’s my son?”

  More consultation of the clipboard. “I’m saving up for a trip to England. I hear it’s very expensive, and I want to see the whole country.” She glanced up, her index finger marking a spot on her list. “I think five days should be long enough, don’t you?”

  Good God.

  “Did my son come in with anyone?”

  “Another kid. I believe he’s still here.”

  “How about a campus cop?” Felix clenched his right fist. “And a female student?”

  “Not that I’m aware of, sir. Do you have any recommendations for restaurants in London? Decent food, not too expensive.”

  “No. Is he through here?” Felix walked toward a door.

  She leaned over her counter. “Hold on, there! I need to buzz you in first. Then turn right, and it’s the third door on the left. How about hotel—”

  Felix ran.

  He opened the door without knocking. Max was sitting in a chair pulled up close to the bed, watching Harry sleep. A very pale Harry.

  “Is he okay?” Felix whispered.

  “Just dozed off, but I’m timing him. If he’s not awake in”—Max glanced at his phone—“another ten minutes, I get to slap life back into him.” Max grinned. Even when he smiled, Max was one ugly mongrel, and Harry was blessed, so blessed, to have him as a best friend.

  Felix put his briefcase down quietly on the floor, yanked off his tie, and shoved it in his pocket. Then he tugged off his coat and dropped it onto the other chair. Since when had the lining been ripped? Ella had been pressuring him for years to donate the coat to Goodwill, to splurge and buy a new one, and he’d always argued it had years of wear left. Was this a marker of OCPD frugality? Would he suddenly question everything he did, search constantly for flaws in his behavior? Not now, Felix. Shelve the thought. He stretched out his neck.