He studied the prongs of his fork for a moment, his long fingers tracing the lines of smooth metal, then he spoke.
“I did what I’m asking you not to do. I tormented myself with the idea that it was my fault, and that if I had only done the right thing, made the right moves, known the right spell, I might have cheated fate.” He looked at her again, the same intensity in his eyes. “Don’t you see?” he said. “That’s magical thinking. It’s like the belief in religious ritual; it’s a belief in magic, nothing more. It’s a desire to be able to control things that we actually have no control over. It has nothing to do with reality.”
He leaned back in his chair and ran his hand through his shaggy grey hair.
“You see, it took me a long time to figure this all out, and I’m trying to save you the trouble.” He smiled. “I suppose it sounds ridiculous to you. Maybe there’s only one way to learn lessons like this—the hard way, as they say.” He leaned forward again, his hands spread out on the white tablecloth. “It’s just that if they are hurt too much, people can lose their grip on reality, or become bitter and angry, and I don’t want to see that happen to you.”
I don’t want to see that happen to you. Claire played his last statement over in her mind, trying to figure out if there was any significance in it. Was it her in particular, or would he feel that way about anyone? He spoke again before she had the answer.
“You can’t imagine all the scenarios I played out after Anne’s death,” he said softly. “I wondered what would have happened if I had been in the car with her that day, or if I had gone to the bank instead of her. Then I wondered if the boy who killed her had been stalking her, and if so, how I could have stopped it. None of this did any good, of course, but thinking about it became a compulsion for me, something I couldn’t control—or thought I couldn’t. It also became a way of torturing myself over what had happened. I actually think I maintained a sense of control over the situation by inflicting this mental torture on myself—at least I was the one inflicting the pain.”
He stopped and looked at her. “Does this make any sense to you?”
“Yes,” she said, “yes, it does. I’ll try to do what you say, although you may be right that the only way to learn this lesson is the hard way. I mean, I hope that’s not true, but I have my suspicions . . .”
They both looked at the untouched food in front of them, then they laughed.
“Well, that was quite an appetite stimulator,” Jackson said.
Claire could not say that her desire for him had taken away her desire for food.
A short while later, as they stood outside the restaurant, holding their leftovers in plastic doggie bags, Claire said, “Which way are you headed?”
“I live just a few blocks away . . .”
Claire looked down at her shoes, holding her breath. Jackson cleared his throat.
“It’s funny,” he said, “people complain that most cops don’t live in the city, and actually, they’re right. A lot don’t—except me, I guess . . .”
There was a pause, and then he said the words.
“Do you want to come up for coffee?”
“Yes,” she said, trying to control the dry swelling suddenly attacking her throat, “that would be nice.”
It was nice—very nice. His long hands were as gentle as his weary voice, and he was in no hurry. Claire relaxed into the rhythm that the two of them created, and she enjoyed his pleasure even more than her own. Afterward, they lay on his bed looking out the window at the trees behind his apartment. The branches swayed in the wind, thin dark strips silhouetted against the fading light.
“You know,” she said, her hand resting on his chest, feeling the slow movement of his breath, “I just had a thought that made me feel very guilty.”
“Oh? What’s that?”
“If this all hadn’t happened, I never would have met you.”
There was a pause, and then he said, “That’s probably true, but you don’t know for certain.” He rolled over on to his side and leaned up on one elbow. “See, that’s what I was trying to say before. You can never know for sure, so there’s no point in wondering, really.”
“Right, I know. You’re right, of course. Still . . .”
Claire looked out the window, the light almost gone now, and thought of Ralph, alone in the darkening apartment, lonely and hungry, waiting for her.
“Do you like cats?’ she said, and then laughed at the ridiculousness of the question.
Who Killed Blanche DuBois? Page 25