An Act of Love

by Nancy Thayer

  “Thanks,” he muttered when she poured juice into a glass and set it before him.

  “You look better,” she told him.

  He shrugged, not looking at her. He had not looked at her directly yet this morning.

  “We saw Lorimer,” Owen told her as they sat around the table. “We’re going to keep him informed as things develop. He needs to consult with the trustees and with the executive committee, but of course everyone’s scattered now with the holidays. So at the moment the school is taking no official action.”

  “That’s good, I guess,” Linda said.

  “I can’t go back there anyway,” Bruce said bitterly.

  “Yeah, and why is that, Bruce?” Owen asked, his voice suddenly harsh.

  “Let him eat,” Linda said in a low voice.

  “I’m not hungry,” Bruce snarled. “I just want to go home.” Tossing his half-eaten bagel on the plate, he went into the living room, found the remote control, and turned on the television.

  “He needs a kick in the ass,” Owen murmured angrily, but his eyes were despairing.

  “He needs therapy,” Linda said.

  “We all need therapy.”

  “But he needs it the most. The most urgently.”

  “This will be in the Basingstoke paper,” Owen muttered. “Everyone will know.”

  “That’s the least of our problems,” Linda said. “It doesn’t matter what people think of Bruce. It only matters that Bruce get over this, this … compulsion of his. We’ve got to help him recover the good young man we know is there. We’ve got to work with him.”

  “You keep saying we.”

  “I mean it. I must somehow be part of the problem. I want to be part of the solution.”

  “Does this mean you’ll move back home?”

  “No. Emily won’t be ready yet. And while Bruce is so … volatile, I don’t think it would be a good idea. We would only be setting up some sort of disaster. But I’ll see a therapist with you. With you and Bruce. And I’ll come to the farm when I can. I’ll spend time with you, and with Bruce.”

  They looked into the living room where her stepson sprawled on the sofa, his face adamantine and grim.

  “I don’t think he’ll be pleasant to be around,” Owen warned her.

  Linda laughed briefly. “Oh, really?” But she nodded her head, determined. “I don’t care if he’s pleasant or not. I’m his stepmother. He can’t get rid of me.”

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Emily was playing Scrabble with Keith when a nurse entered the ward living room and said, “Emily? Dr. Travis would like to see you a moment.”

  “What’s up?” Emily asked, but the nurse only shrugged and bustled away.

  “Now what have you done?” Keith scolded and Emily mumbled, “What could I have done in this place?”

  She was startled to see her mother sitting in Dr. Travis’s office, which now, only five days before Christmas, was cheerfully chaotic with red-and-white poinsettias and cardboard cut-outs of Santa Claus, Frosty the Snowman, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.

  Dr. Travis, for a change, was in a dull mode, wearing all black, with a gold necklace and earrings. Probably, Emily thought, she had some kind of board meeting today.

  “Hey, Mom,” Emily said, crossing the room to kiss her. “What are you doing here?”

  “Sit down a moment,” Dr. Travis directed. “We have something to tell you.”

  “Don’t look so worried.” Linda smiled. “It’s not bad news.” She added, “Well, it’s not good news, either.”

  Emily sank onto the sofa. Automatically one hand found the other and began to tear at the skin around the nail.

  “Shall I …?” Linda asked Dr. Travis, who nodded. “Emily. Emily, Bruce was arrested last night. For raping Alison Cartwright.”

  Emily could only stare.

  “Go on,” Dr. Travis said.

  “Alison is in the hospital.”

  “Is she okay?” Emily asked.

  “She’s not badly injured. She … she was bruised on her neck and face, and I guess, I guess there was some tearing in the vaginal area.” Linda’s eyes welled with tears. She looked at Dr. Travis. “I don’t know why this is so hard to say.”

  “It happened last night?” Emily asked.

  “Yes. At the school. In the music room.”

  The three women sat in a somber silence while the circuits of Emily’s brain raced with this new information.

  Then Emily said, “It’s all my fault.”

  “What?” Linda was startled. “Honey—”

  Emily was tearing at her hands again, her hands that had begun to heal. “It’s really all my fault. I hate myself.”

  “Emily, how can it possible be—”

  “If I had made you believe me, you would have stopped him. I did it all wrong, I acted crazy, I should have been calm, I should have made you believe me, then he wouldn’t have done it again.”

  “Em, no, honey, that doesn’t make any sense.”

  “It makes emotional sense,” Dr. Travis interjected. “It makes sense to a woman who has been raped. This is not an uncommon reaction.”

  “But don’t you see,” Linda pressed, “now everyone knows the truth!”

  Emily nodded. She was working on her hands, digging in the flesh, digging, digging.

  “Now Owen knows the truth,” Linda said. “He knows, he can’t refuse to know, that Bruce raped you.”

  Something welled inside Emily, bubbles surfacing, bursting in her chest, space opening up around her heart. She had more room to breathe. She looked at Dr. Travis. “That’s right. Now Owen knows. Now you know. You know I was telling the truth.”

  “I always believed you,” Dr. Travis said.

  “And I can tell Zodiac, and Cordelia, and Ming Chu.”

  “Yes, Emily,” Linda said. “Now there is no doubt.”

  Emily frowned, trying to make sense of the sensations surging within her. Relief. She was relieved, she felt bizarrely, desperately glad that now there was no doubt, now everyone knew she had not been lying. She was not a liar. Yet something was struggling against the rising lightness, something strung of anguish and horror was caught on the effervescence of her relief, clawing it, weighing it down.

  “Mommy,” Emily cried suddenly, “Mommy, what will happen to Bruce now?”

  Linda cleared her throat. “Your father and I, Owen and I, we’ve just spent the morning with a lawyer, Bruce’s lawyer, and we’ve been in court. Bruce is out on bail. The trial is set for January fifteenth. We don’t know what will happen. He could go to jail.”

  Emily burst into a rage of tears. “What is wrong with him! How could he be so stupid? So fucking fucking stupid!” She stood up. She thought she would wrench the chair off the floor and throw it through the window. She thought she would claw the paint off the walls. Slam her head against the door.

  Linda stood up and grabbed Emily against her. “Baby, baby, it’s okay.”

  “It’s not okay, Mommy,” Emily cried. “I don’t want Bruce to go to jail. Oh, Jesus Christ, I hate Bruce. I hate him.”

  “I know, Emmie, I know, honey,” Linda said. “My heart is breaking, too.”

  The next day, Friday afternoon, Emily sat with her group around a table in the living area. From here she could see through the glass walls to the swinging doors through which Linda would come when she arrived to take Emily home. Keith, Arnold, Cynthia, Bill, even Emily, all were miserable. Bill was so upset he wouldn’t even sit with them, but sulked in a chair on the other side of the room.

  “I’ll call you guys,” Emily said. “I’ll come visit you, Arnold.”

  “No, you won’t,” he replied gloomily. “Your mother won’t want you hanging out with an old addict.”

  “You’re not old,” Keith said.

  “Arnold’s right,” Cynthia said. “It all changes once you leave. You say you’ll keep in touch, but you don’t. I know. I’ve been in and out of hospitals enough times.”

  “Yeah, but we�
�re different,” Keith protested. “We’re a really cool group.”

  “It’s true,” Emily agreed. “You guys are … I’m going to really miss you.”

  Yesterday she had enjoyed a moment of confused and somehow guilty satisfaction when she told them about Bruce’s arrest. She’d been surprised, touched, by their obvious delight, their congratulations, as if she had just won an award. They were all so much on her side. Totally. When she confessed her sense of guilt, they’d laughed at her: What’s the matter with you, are you crazy? Dr. Travis had told her the guilt was normal, she could learn to understand it, she could live with it. When she told them how sad she was for her stepbrother, they had all clamored in disagreement: Don’t be ridiculous! Don’t waste a moment’s thought on the guy. Remember what he did to you!

  He’s not all bad! Emily had wanted to say. Give him a break! These emotions were normal, Dr. Travis had told her. Another reason to see a therapist regularly after she left the hospital.

  Now Keith said, “It would be too cruel of you not to let us know what happens with the gorgeous Jorge.”

  “Yeah, and I want to hear about your party,” Emily told him.

  “I’m going to be the only one of the group left in here,” Arnold said.

  “You know Dr. Travis would let you go home for Christmas.”

  “Yeah, well, you’ve seen Mom. You’ve heard her. The only way I’m going to stay sober through the holidays is locked in here.”

  “I’ll probably be back on Christmas Day,” Cynthia said.

  “Nonsense, child!” Keith admonished. “Don’t be so pessimistic. You’ve got great drugs. You’ve got a good shrink in the outside world.”

  “Yeah, but I hate the outside world.”

  The outside world. In the past week Emily had made forays into it, more adventurous each time, once to dinner with her mother, then to a shopping mall, then with her mother to pack up all her things from her room in Shipley Hall.

  On their way to the dorm, Emily and Linda had stopped at Tuttle Hall to talk with Dean Lorimer. He was sorry, he told them, that Emily had to leave Hedden, but he understood the financial constraints of a two-household family. Several parents had had to make that difficult choice for one reason or another. They had enjoyed Emily at the school and wished her well in the future.

  Emily had listened with a mixture of impatience and sadness, a terrible welling sadness that filled her skin and the membranes of her heart so that it ached with the pressure. She only wanted to pack and get out of there. It made her sad to leave Hedden. She had loved it there. But there was no choice, she knew. She had to go forward into her new life.

  Her new life. She knew it would take all of her courage and self-reliance to function. She had not told her mother, though she’d discussed it with Dr. Travis, how the few times she’d been out, waiting in line at the movie theater or walking down the street toward a restaurant, the sudden presence of a single man coming toward her would set off danger alarms ringing throughout her body. Her heart would race. Her lips would go cold, her fingertips numb.

  The terror will stop, Dr. Travis had promised.

  But it was an awful thing, that irrational, gripping fear. It made her feel genuinely crazy. A few evenings ago Keith had wrapped his arm around Emily as they stood in the living room singing Christmas carols. He’d smiled at her and hugged her against him. It had been a purely friendly hug. Keith cared for her. He had become her dear friend. He was gay, for heaven’s sake. All these things Emily reminded herself as she was captured in Keith’s embrace, and still as he continued to hold her against him she felt trapped, threatened, desperate to shove him aside, to escape.

  She hadn’t told Keith; it would have hurt his feelings. She had told Dr. Travis, who said, This will pass. This is one of the things that only can change with the passing of time.

  She wanted it to pass quickly. She wanted to be whole and strong by the time Jorge returned in January. That might be rushing it, Dr. Travis cautioned her. Sometimes Emily felt like she contained tornadoes inside her skin.

  Now Dr. Travis entered the room, looking exceptionally festive in a multitude of floating red panels. In her ears were the red-bowtied silver jingle bells Linda had given her.

  “Are you ready to go, Emily?”

  Emily nodded. “All packed. My suitcases are on my bed.”

  Dr. Travis sank into a chair at the table. “Excited?”

  “Yeah. Kind of. Kind of scared.” They had talked about this for the past two days, how patients often felt nervous about leaving the safety of the hospital.

  “Remember,” Dr. Travis told her, “it will help if you establish a routine as soon as possible. Routines give us a sense of security. And you must remember the various problem-solving skills you’ve learned here. They will help you.”

  Emily nodded. “I know.”

  “There’s your mother,” Cynthia said. “God, she’s pretty.”

  Through the glass window Emily saw her mother approaching. She was wearing jeans, a black turtleneck, and a black blazer, and her face glowed the way it did when she was especially happy: at birthday parties, at Christmas, when she got good news from her agent on the phone. She’s happy because I’m coming out, Emily thought, and affection flooded her chest.

  “Hi, Mom.” Emily rose and went to the living room door.

  Linda gave her a quick hug, then stepped into the living room. “Hello, everyone!” She had a bag in her arm, and she approached the table and began to pull out brightly wrapped packages. “I brought little presents for you all. Nothing fabulous, just little things; you all have been so great to Emily.”

  “Does it matter who gets which package?” Cynthia asked suspiciously.

  “Oh, yes, of course. There are cards.”

  “Can we open them now?” Keith asked. “Pleeeeeeze?”

  “Absolutely not. You have to wait till Christmas morning.”

  Bill rose out of his chair like some kind of hulking monster and plodded toward the table. He was kind of growling, the way he did when he was upset, and Emily moved toward her mother protectively. He might get violent if there was no present for him. But Linda picked up a package and handed it to him.

  “This is for you, Bill.”

  He didn’t say thank you. He said nothing. But he took the package and returned to his chair and held the present against his chest like a baby.

  “We just need you to sign one more piece of paper,” Dr. Travis told Linda.

  “Fine. Well, good-bye, everyone.”

  Suddenly Emily found herself hugging everyone, Keith and Arnold and Cynthia. She approached Bill, who didn’t show any signs of noticing her, and leaning over, pecked a sisterly kiss on the top of his head. He did not respond.

  Then her mother took her arm and led her from the room, chatting all the way.

  “I was going to make a reservation at the Academy Inn for a celebratory dinner, but then I thought you probably don’t want to sit in some stuffy old-fart place this evening, so I thought we’d go to Luigi’s Pizza and then to a movie. What do you think? Good idea?”

  “Cool.”

  Emily heaved her duffel bag and backpack over her shoulders and Linda picked up the suitcase.

  As they walked to the nurses’ station, Emily said, “I can’t wait to see our apartment.”

  “Oh, you’ll love it!” Linda exclaimed. “It’s so clean, and the bathtub and sink and everything is all brand new and sparkling.” She knew how much Emily had hated the stained, faded appearance of the farm’s appliances and bathrooms.

  “Sign here, please,” Dr. Travis said. Then she turned to Emily.

  “You’re a wonderful young woman, Emily. I know you’ll do just fine.”

  “Thank you.”

  “And I know you’ll like Dr. Srivastava,” Dr. Travis said, naming the shrink Emily would see twice a week for the next few months. “She’s the best there is.”

  “Thank you,” Emily said again.

  “Thank you,” Linda ech
oed. “We can’t say it enough, can we?”

  Dr. Travis hugged Emily and shook Linda’s hand and then Emily and Linda walked to the ward doors and left the psych ward together.

  Their new apartment was too small for much of a Christmas tree. All the lights and ornaments were at the farm, in boxes in the attic, Owen’s ornaments and Linda’s so mingled over the past seven years that it would be hard to claim ownership of any one item. So Saturday Linda and Emily went out to buy a compact little evergreen and a new stand and tiny twinkling lights, and Sunday they sat watching television movies and stringing popcorn and cranberries to ornament the tiny evergreen they’d managed to wedge into a corner of the apartment. They were going to spend Christmas Eve and Christmas at Janet’s house, but they both loved the sight and smell of a tree. It made them feel at home.

  They had just finished decorating the tree and were congratulating themselves when the phone rang.

  “Linda,” Owen said. “I’ve had a call from the Cartwrights’ lawyer. They want to meet with us tomorrow afternoon.”

  “Why?”

  “Larson says they might consider dropping the charges against Bruce.”

  “I’ll be there. What time?”

  They sat in a large conference room, uneasily looking at one another, Linda and Owen and Bruce and Paul Larson on one side of the mahogany table, Bert Cartwright and Donna Sylvester, the prosecuting attorney from the district attorney’s office, on the other. Alison was not present.

  Bert Cartwright was handsome, wealthy, impatient. He wore his gleaming black hair cut close and his skin glowed with a tan of someone who had just spent a week skiing. His suit was beautiful and expensive, and cut to flatter his full chest and shoulders. His blue eyes flicked over Linda with an appraiser’s ruthless skill. I wouldn’t want to be married to this man, Linda thought.

  Cartwright looked at Bruce and then at Owen with clear, steady, direct contempt. Owen sat between Linda and Bruce; she could feel the tension in Owen’s body.

  Ms. Sylvester spoke first. “I’ve called this meeting at the behest of the Cartwrights. I want to say in advance that I have tried to prevent them from taking this action, and I think they are making the decision in haste. They, acting on the wishes of their daughter, have asked the Commonwealth not to prosecute Bruce.”