He couldn’t help chuckling.
“Right now, he’s cranky and not at his best, but he needs you more than ever. All you can do is keep showing up; and someday, he’ll be over the flu.”
Raising his eyebrows, he nodded and uncrossed his arms. “That sounds doable.”
“And if you’re there anyway, try to make the time as enjoyable as possible.” She pointed at the tickets. “Make it a goal to carve out new good memories whenever you can, to compensate for the not-so-good days.”
He relaxed. His scruple about accepting the tickets vanished.
“Thank you, Joy. He’ll be very happy.”
She seemed relieved. “No, thank you.” Her hand reached for his as it rested on the desk. “Have a great time. Prove to Ray that there are still many things you can enjoy together. And prove to yourself that your little boy hasn’t gone anywhere; he’s there. His body might have changed, but his soul is exactly the same. The same soul you felt when carrying that baby in your arms and watching him sleep.”
Richard’s only answer was a smile. He saw no point in following a woman he was now convinced was innocent; but at that moment, holding her soft hand and looking at her lovely smiling face, he felt in no hurry to leave.
Her cell phone rang, startling them both. She answered.
“Hello, Donna, what’s up?” Her smile vanished and a frown darkened her expression. “Let me see what I can do. I’ll call you right back.”
“What happened?” Richard asked as she was disconnecting the call.
“Donna, my nanny, was picking up Arthur from early dismissal, and now the minivan won’t start. She’s stuck there, waiting for a tow truck with my three kids and the little friend carpooling with them today.”
Pressing her hand to her forehead, she got up from her chair. “This is going to throw off my whole day. Now I have to drop everything I’m doing and go get them. Wait! There’s not enough room in my car for two car seats and two other children. I need to find a taxi company that has vans or buses. What a mess!”
This was the opportunity Richard had been looking for to talk to the nanny.
“There’s enough room in my SUV. It has a third row of seats. Just call your nanny and tell her I’m on my way.”
* * *
The role of knight in shining armor rescuing the lady in distress had always been Richard’s favorite. It felt good to be doing Joy a favor. Yet the timing was also perfect for his purposes. He’d rescue the nanny, earning her good faith; and then, while driving, he’d leisurely have a chance to ask her questions about O’Hara.
Easy. Right?
An hour later, Richard realized he’d underestimated the task.
Richard and Donna strolled down the aisles of a nearby toy store, each of them pushing a shopping cart with a twin toddler sitting in the basket. Six-year-old Arthur lay inside the front of Richard’s cart, crying, screaming, and kicking, while his little friend walked next to Donna.
Arthur had forgotten his inseparable Spiderman plush toy in the van, now long towed away. Unable to tolerate his eardrum-piercing screams, Donna had dragged Richard and the kids to the nearby toy store with the hope of finding a similar toy to give Arthur instead.
How did I end up here? Richard asked himself while pushing the cart. The plan had started well. Donna had been charmed with his willingness to entertain the kids while she tended to paperwork with AAA. Arthur and his friend had been delighted to talk to “a real policeman” after he showed them his fake police badge. Even the toddler twins had been so curious to see him that they’d behaved in an exemplary way.
And now, one hour of screaming later, Richard was ready to shoot himself.
They looked in the action figures aisle, the stuffed animal aisle, in the Marvel heroes aisle, in the baby toys aisle. They found nothing like what Arthur wanted.
“My Spiderman, my Spiderman!” cried Arthur nonstop. Scared of Arthur’s screaming, the twins were now crying too. Transferring his twin to the front of Donna’s cart, Richard sent her ahead to the car while he stayed, taking a last, desperate look around a pile of toys in clearance. Arthur showed no signs of getting tired and kept screaming inside the shopping cart, hardly taking a pause to breathe.
“My Spiderman, my Spiderman!”
Pushing the cart out of the store, Richard counted to ten, trying to calm down his frustration. It didn’t work.
Stopping the cart abruptly, he yelled, “STOP IT! Arthur, you’re not a two-year-old like your brothers! You’re a freaking six-year-old! Stop it RIGHT NOW!”
To his surprise, Arthur stopped crying. The chubby, brunette boy looked at him with terror in his green eyes. His voice was defiant as he said, “My mommy says crying is good for the psychological health!”
Richard’s voice was equally loud and defiant, “Your mommy needs a life! And a boyfriend!”
He had no idea why he’d said that to a six-year-old.
Arthur’s lower lip quivered. Richard yelled again, “I said stop! Don’t forget that I’m a policeman!”
“You told me you don’t have your gun here!”
Oh, yes I do, little brat. Don’t make me want to use it. “I can get it in five minutes! My house is not that far!”
Arthur started crying again. Richard felt like strangling him. This time the kid said, “My Spiderman is gone. It’s gone forever! Just like Daddy.”
Richard froze. Looking at the boy sobbing, tears running down his cheeks, a feeling of deep sadness he couldn’t explain invaded him. He felt as if a thick layer of ice started melting away in his heart.
Picking up the weeping boy, Richard hugged him. Arthur cried on his shoulder, dampening the neck of his shirt. Strangely, Richard didn’t feel angry anymore.
He carried Arthur back to the SUV and sat in the back seat. Still holding him, he clicked the seatbelt around both of them.
“Donna, please drive us to Joy, and then you can keep my car for the rest of the day.”
* * *
Richard’s arrival at her office, carrying a sobbing Arthur, took Joy aback. Getting down from Richard’s arms, Arthur ran to her, crying, “Mommy! My Spiderman’s gone!”
Her gesture was a mixture of compassion, anger, and fatigue. Her voice was calm but firm. “Arthur! You promised not to throw tantrums about that toy anymore.”
“But, Mommy, my Spiderman.”
“I feel so angry right now. I can’t believe you caused Donna and Mr. Feilds so much trouble.”
The boy resumed wailing. Reaching down to the bottom drawer of her desk, she extracted a stuffed Spiderman toy and handed it to him. Hugging it tightly, Arthur stopped crying immediately.
Joy said, “We had a deal, and you broke it. Do you know what that means?”
“I’m grounded.”
“Yes, until Sunday. Now go with Sue and Ava.”
Arthur left, looking annoyed, but there were no signs of tears anymore. Joy dropped into her chair, hiding her face in her hands.
“You have a secret stash of Spiderman stuffed toys . . . in your office?” Richard asked.
“I also have one hidden in my pantry. When he loses that toy, he goes crazy. The only way to calm him down until I find it is by letting him have one of the replacements.”
“Joy. This isn’t normal.”
Joy stood up from her chair, still hiding her face in her hands, mortified.
“I know. I’m so sorry. Ever since Michael died, it’s as if Arthur transferred all his feelings to that toy. Sometimes I think he’s a little brat throwing a tantrum to manipulate me; and then I immediately start wondering, ‘What if in his little mind this is as traumatic as when he lost his dad?’ I’m a mess.”
Richard realized she was about to cry. In a strange way, it was a relief to see her humanized, out of the role of the powerful doctor. On an impulse, he walked toward her and took her into his arms.
“It’s okay.”
Her body shook in a repressed sob. Hugging her and stroking her back, he could feel the energy flowing from him
to her, lifting her up. Strangely, he didn’t feel weakened. Infusing her with energy felt almost as delicious as receiving the energy from her.
“I’m a joke of a psychiatrist and the worst mother in the world,” he heard her mumble.
He laughed. “No, you’re not. All children throw tantrums from time to time. It all gets better, I promise.”
She lifted her head off his chest to look at him eagerly. “Does it really get better? Because I’m exhausted. This kid is six years old. This should be better by now, shouldn’t it?”
“It will get better; I promise. Ray was terrible when he was six. Then after he turned seven, it was as if a switch had gone off in his brain. You’ll see. You’ll be laughing about this and teasing him in front of his girlfriend ten years from now.”
She hugged him again. “Thank you. I needed to hear that there’s hope.”
As she discretely wiped away tears with the back of her hand, she slowly let go of him. “I still have to go to the CeMeSH.”
“Let’s go. At the end of the day, I’ll ride with you to your home to get my car.”
They walked to the main lobby. Arthur had transformed back into his charming self and was surrounded by a group of elderly volunteers and patients. They all seemed delighted by his stories, and he was enjoying the attention.
“Oh, Dr. Clayton,” said one of the patients. “Your boy is so smart and well-behaved; you must be very proud of him.”
“Thank you.” Joy’s voice didn’t sound convinced. She turned to the boy. “Arthur, I have to go to my other office. Sue will take you upstairs with the other kids in the daycare. Please behave until Donna or I come to pick you up!”
“Deal!”
She bent down to kiss his head and whispered, “I love you.”
Joy was walking back toward Richard when Arthur’s voice called again. “Mommy!”
“Yes, dear?” She stopped.
Arthur looked at Richard with a malicious expression. “Mr. Feilds told me you need a boyfriend.”
Everyone in the room laughed, except Richard and Joy.
Richard glared at the boy and then squinted. “You are so going to jail.”
They left, hearing the “Awws” of the elderly ladies.
* * *
The minute Richard arrived at the Masden Center, Richard rushed into Carl Andrews’s room. He didn’t try to restart their conversation about the Lords of the Universe or the book of teachings. He felt an urgency to talk about Arthur that he couldn’t explain.
“One minute I was ready to strangle the kid; and the next, I don’t know what came over me. When he told me that he’d never see his toy again, like his dad . . . I can’t explain why . . . it felt so painful.”
“So, when you realized that this little boy was crying for the father who had died, who had left him, that touched you.”
Richard nodded. A long silence fell.
Andrews spoke. “Richard, I think all this is a fortunate event.”
Barely catching that he’d switched to his first name, Richard looked at Andrews, confused. “What do you mean?”
“First, Richard, remember that everything happens for a reason. Why did you have to witness this kid’s breakdown? Maybe you have a message to deliver to his mother about this. Maybe she’s stuck in the situation, can’t see a way out and needs your insight.”
The words sounded unreasonable. How could he give Joy any insight about her own son when she was the psychiatrist?
“But there’s an even more important reason why this is worth celebrating,” Andrews said.
“What?”
Andrews made a long pause before answering. “It triggered feelings. You’d told me some time ago how numb and dead you felt inside. I admit that, next to your lack of belief in the existence of the soul, that’s the sign I’ve seen that you’re not ready for my teachings.”
This surprised Richard.
“This episode proves to you that it’s not true that you’re dead inside. That numbness that you described is an indicator of how you were forbidden to express your feelings years ago and ended up shutting them down until it became a habit. Until that habit is broken, you won’t be able to listen to your inner voice, and you won’t be able to live life at its fullest.”
Richard shook his head. “I don’t get it.”
“It’s simple. If seeing that little boy cry for his father touched you in such a deep way, it means there’s unfinished business about your own childhood. You should start writing everything you can remember about the time of your life when you were that kid’s age.”
Richard’s sigh was both exasperation and fatigue. “You and Joy are determined to psychoanalyze me. Leave me alone!”
Richard stood up and walked to the door. As he was about to pass through it, he heard Andrews’s calm voice one more time. “Don’t run away from the pain. Only when you relearn to acknowledge the feelings will you get rid of the block that’s not letting you listen to yourself, your inner guidance. Only after you’ve mastered that will you be ready for the next step.”
* * *
Joy’s neighborhood was the typical gated community, full of young, light-colored concrete houses with sloping tile roofs. The houses had a uniformity strictly supervised by the neighborhood association’s rules. In the front stood a double garage, green grass, and palm trees. In the back was a large fenced backyard with more green lawn. Beside the hibiscus trees stood a playground, the less common alternative to a swimming pool. A screened porch connected the yard to the house through sliding glass doors.
Richard felt strange to be in the house he’d seen many times before in the videos. Especially when he knew the hidden cameras were recording everything going on right at that moment.
He realized he needed to say something to look natural. “You have a beautiful house. How long have you guys been here?”
“About eighteen months. We moved here from the beach side a few months after Michael died.”
As she answered, Joy walked to the kitchen, picked up Richard’s car keys from the counter, and gave them to him. She then walked him back to his SUV still parked in front of the house. It was the golden hour before sunset.
“Thank you for everything, Richard; and again, I’m sorry for all the trouble with my kids.”
Richard wasn’t sure where the idea he wanted to express had come from, but he felt an urgency to share it. “Joy, I know this isn’t my business; but I’ve been thinking about it, and I have a theory about the way Arthur reacted today.”
Joy’s eyes, which had been avoiding his until now, looked at him with curiosity. Richard hesitated. He felt like a medium translating into words what somebody else was telling him to say.
“I think he’s acting like that because he’s following his mom’s lead. Arthur’s having a hard time letting go of his father, because you haven’t let go of him yet.”
There was a silence. “What makes you say that?”
“Joy, look at your hands.”
She looked at her long fingers. He softly said, “You’re still wearing his ring.”
Joy blinked rapidly. “I . . . I guess I’ve never gotten around to taking it off.”
“It’s been almost two years. Don’t you think that it’s time now?”
Stillness enveloped them. Staring at her left hand, Joy whispered, “I guess you really were sent into my life to deliver messages.”
She tried pulling the ring off her finger, but it was stuck. She struggled until it started sliding off. She removed it slowly and then looked at her naked finger. The mark of a lighter band, where the ring had prevented the sun from tanning the skin, showed that it had been a long time since it was put on.
She sighed. “It feels so strange.”
“Good night, Joy.”
Richard got in his car and drove away.
Chapter 13
The team in charge had reassured Richard that no suspicious activity had happened in Joy’s house the day before. Yet for some reason, he felt a
n urge to review the videos himself.
In the monitor room, he fast-forwarded to the moment when he saw himself coming into Joy’s house with her and Arthur. He saw her give him the car keys and walk him back out. He heard the conversation they’d had and heard the noise of his car when he left.
A long time passed by until Joy returned to the house. She still held the ring tight in her fist and looked disturbed.
He saw Donna say goodbye and Joy shake herself back to reality. Leaving the ring on top of the kitchen counter, she put on an apron and went through cabinets, looking for cooking pans.
Then she stopped. She stood still, a blank expression on her face, her eyes lost, as if her spirit had left her body.
Jolting, she rushed back to where she’d left the ring. Richard felt a wave of disappointment, sure she was heading to put it back on. To his surprise, she picked up the ring with a gesture of rage and threw it against the wall with a grunt. She then hid her face in her hands, sat on the floor, her back against the wall and her knees up to her chest, and cried quietly.
What was that? He rewound to watch the scene again in slow motion, to make sure he hadn’t misinterpreted what he saw. The expression of anger on her face was unmistakable. That had not been an accident.
He mulled over it. Was she crying out of nostalgic feelings? Or was it resentment against the dead husband? Could it be that there was more to that “perfect marriage” than he knew?
Richard walked out of the monitor room toward the building exit while texting on his disposable cell.
Good morning, Joy. Something’s come up, and I’ll be running late. See you soon.
He walked to the parking lot. If he wanted to find out more about the real O’Hara family, he needed to talk to Donna. He knew she’d welcome him like a friend after the incident they’d shared the day before, and he knew exactly what to say to get her talking. All he needed was the excuse to visit her, and he’d been a father for long enough to know where to find it.
He opened the back door of his SUV and climbed in. He searched with his hand on the floor under the third row of seats. It didn’t take him long. Under the seat, he found not one but two excuses, a squeaky toy and a baby shoe.
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