Blameless

by B. A. Shapiro

  As Diana poured herself a cup of coffee, she briefly described Risa’s phone call to Craig, downplaying the conversation, hoping not to worry him before his big presentation.

  “Do you think we should call a lawyer?” he asked as he stood up and put his mug in the dishwasher, worry creasing his face despite her best efforts. “I don’t want you upset by this.”

  “I’m not upset,” she assured him, wishing she could also assure herself. “And it’s just not worth the time—it’s all too stupid to be believable.”

  “But what’s the harm of calling? Of getting some information?” he pressed. “It’d be covered by your malpractice insurance, wouldn’t it?”

  “That’s not the point,” Diana said, standing and giving him a hug. “You’re the one who’s always telling me not to worry—so let’s take your advice and wait to worry until there’s something to worry about.”

  Craig let her change the subject to the party they were invited to that weekend. But Diana could feel his eyes on her as she ate her breakfast. And he gave her an extra-long hug before he went out the door.

  After Craig left, she bustled around the house, throwing in a load of laundry, making the bed, reviewing her lecture notes. But no matter how busy she kept herself, every once in a while a voice would call from the back of her mind: You’ll be sorry … You’ll be sorry … Diana pushed it away, reminding herself that there was no way she could be held legally responsible for James’s suicide. That Risa was right—as unprofessional as it might be for Diana to agree. Jill was a crackpot. A crackpot with no case.

  But the haunting voice wouldn’t stay away, and the same thing kept happening at Ticknor. She would be busy, happy, going through her professor motions: gossiping with the department secretaries; giving an amusing and informative lecture on the difference between narcissistic and antisocial personality disorders; meeting with her teaching assistants to plan this week’s discussion sections; explaining to a student why his excuse of an “unexpected wedding”—on a Thursday, no less—would not change the F he’d received on the exam. And then it would be there, striking her like a slap in the face: the voice. You’ll be sorry … You’ll be sorry …

  For about the fifth time she told the voice to shut up and raced home for her two o’clock appointment: another extra session with Sandy Pierson. Diana had been worried about Sandy before James’s death, but now, after yet another abandonment in her life—no matter how unplanned—Sandy’s precarious grip on reality could easily slip. Diana knew that Gail would reprimand her for giving Sandy so many free appointments, that Gail would say she was too “enmeshed” for her own, or for Sandy’s, good. But Diana also knew that Sandy needed her, and, despite being a bit over their heads on the house, it wasn’t as if she and Craig were desperate for money.

  As she pulled into the alley, it occurred to her that there might be a message from Risa waiting for her. A message telling her it was all a mistake—or a message verifying the worst. When she walked through the small waiting room and pushed open the door to her office, she didn’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed: The red light on her answering machine was still. There had been no calls.

  But as she sat, trying to focus Sandy away from James and toward her father—the real source of her abandonment—the machine began to click, indicating an incoming call. Two more times it clicked. Three calls. Blink. Blink. Blink. Diana glanced at the clock mounted discreetly on the shelf behind Sandy’s head. Fifteen more minutes.

  “There’s not much there, Dr. Marcus,” Sandy was saying softly. “It’s mostly a big blank. A curtain.”

  Diana leaned forward, putting her elbows on her knees. “Can you see anything nudging the curtain?” Blink. Blink. Blink. The red light burst into her line of vision as she bent toward Sandy; Diana leaned back in her chair. “Anything trying to come out from behind it?”

  “No,” Sandy said, opening and closing the latch on her day-timer.

  “Any shadows you can discern through the curtain?”

  Sandy stared out the window behind Diana, her eyes focused much farther away than the perpendicular shadows cast by the fire escape on the brick wall across the alley. “Red Sox,” she croaked.

  Diana thought she misheard. “Red Sox?”

  Sandy burst into tears. “He took me to a Red Sox game,” she said between sobs.

  “It’s okay,” Diana said softly, handing Sandy a tissue. “It’s hard to remember hurtful things. It’s okay to feel sad.” Blink. Blink. Blink. Diana squared her shoulders and sat straight in her chair, furious with herself for her lack of concentration. “It’s okay,” she repeated, forcing all her attention on the sobbing woman. “It’s often the things you’re afraid to feel that keep you from getting well.”

  Sandy shook her head, tears sprinkling her blue jeans. “We …” she started, then took a deep breath. “We had a wonderful time.”

  “Pleasant times lost can be hard to remember too.” Diana flashed on the day she and James had sat barefoot and cross-legged at the Public Gardens, eating turkey sandwiches and laughing over a “Saturday Night Live” sketch they had both seen the previous weekend. She and James had met unexpectedly at the Boston Public Library and, although she knew some of her colleagues might think it inappropriate, she had impulsively acquiesced to his suggestion that they share lunch and the summer day. The jab of grief that the memory evoked emphasized the truth in the words she had spoken to Sandy. Diana looked down at her hands for a moment, then looked up, allowing Sandy to see her pain. “Things are very rarely all good or all bad.”

  Sandy’s sorrowful eyes locked onto Diana’s, then they lightened with understanding. “People either,” she said, her voice barely a whisper.

  Diana smiled sadly. “It’s a thin line.” When she glanced away, she caught sight of the clock: The hour had passed. Slowly she closed her notebook.

  Sandy blew her nose and stood. “Next week, same time?” She flipped open her day-timer and raised her pen expectantly.

  “Let’s see how you’re doing before we schedule another individual appointment,” Diana said gently, congratulating herself on her cautiousness and thinking of how Gail would approve. “You’ll be here on Monday for group.”

  Sandy’s face paled and the pen in her hand trembled slightly. “But I know I’ll need to see you—”

  “If you need to see me before Monday,” Diana interrupted, “you will.” As Diana rose, the blinking light caught her eye. She turned her back on the machine and walked the troubled woman through the waiting room and down the hallway to the back door.

  Sandy closed her book and slipped it into her oversized shoulder bag, an expression of gratitude crossing her beautiful face. “Thanks,” she whispered as she stepped out into the alley.

  Diana walked back into her office and punched the button on the answering machine. Three messages. As the tape rewound, she watched Sandy climb into the battered sports car that was parked next to their equally battered jeep. Sandy angrily wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her coat as she turned the key in the ignition. Then she threw the car in reverse and sped out of the alley.

  The machine set itself to replay, and Diana turned her attention to the messages. She didn’t realize she had been holding her breath until the recording played itself out and the air escaped from her lungs in a rush. Risa hadn’t called. There was only a cancellation, a referral, and a staticky message from her missing patient, Ethan, telling her that he was holed up in Provincetown.

  Diana dropped into her chair and swiveled it so she was looking out the window. A blanket-clad figure was huddled on the fire escape across the alley. For a moment it seemed to Diana as if he or she was staring at her, watching her, waiting to do her harm. As Diana snapped the blinds closed, she decided that they were just going to have to find the money to fix the alarm system. She shivered and briskly rubbed her arms, futilely trying to depress the goose bumps the sight of the shrouded figure had raised.

  Craig was a rock. During every crisis
of their eight-year marriage, he had remained resolute and unshakable in his contention that until the worst is verified, there is no point in assuming it will occur. His calm optimism had gotten Diana through her father’s heart surgery, her ectopic pregnancy, and their years of infertility. In every case, Craig had been right: The worst had never materialized.

  Despite the fact that she hadn’t heard from Risa—or maybe because of it—by the time Craig got home, Diana was feeling pretty jittery. As they sat over a dinner of cheese omelets and salad, they rehashed her conversation with Risa Getty.

  His unflappability was soothing. “This whole wrongful death thing is nuts,” he said. “Malpractice is one thing—and she doesn’t even have a case there—but wrongful death.” He shook his head. “Don’t even bother worrying about it.”

  Diana played with the salad on her plate. “We’ve got to face it,” she said. “There is a death involved.”

  “This isn’t just ‘a death’—this is a suicide,” Craig disagreed. “When therapists start being held responsible for their patients’ suicides, no one’s going to be able to practice. It can’t happen.”

  “That’s just what I told the reporter,” Diana said. “But isn’t that what malpractice is all about? That a doctor is responsible for the health and safety of his or her patients? For providing quality care?”

  “Fine,” Craig said. “Let’s go from that premise.” He put his fork down and crossed his arms in imitation of a television lawyer. “Would you say, Dr. Marcus, that you used standard procedures in treating James Hutchins?”

  Diana smiled at him and then sobered, thinking of how poorly she had navigated the line between sticking close and remaining distant. “I don’t know, Craig. There really are no ‘standard procedures,’ perse. There are …” She paused, looking at him, begging him to make her feel better. “There are theories, acceptable practices …”

  “And did you follow these ‘acceptable practices,’ Dr. Marcus?” Craig boomed, waving his finger in her face. “Do you have notes? Professionals who can verify that your therapy was appropriate?”

  Diana thought of her incredibly complete files, the ones Gail and Marc always laughed at, calling her a perfectionist-obsessive; she must have hundreds of pages on James alone. “Yes, Mr. Prosecutor.” She grabbed his finger and stuck her tongue out at him. “And I’ll be glad to give the court copies of every note I ever took on James Hutchins—if you’ve all got a spare month or two.”

  “See?” he said, coming over and kneeling next to Diana’s chair. “She’s fishing. There’s no substance.” He wrapped his arms around her. “There’s nothing there.”

  Diana snuggled into him, feeling better for his words, for his arms, for his love. “I just worry because Jill isn’t your usual person. She’s quirky. Volatile.” Diana played with the top button of his shirt. “She runs hot and cold. She did to James. She did to me.” Diana shook her head. “I just don’t think we can count on her to see things as they really are—or to do the reasonable thing …”

  “Honey,” Craig said, raising her chin. “Don’t you see, it doesn’t matter. She doesn’t have anything to go on—reasonable or unreasonable. This is a matter of law. There is no case.”

  Diana nodded and dropped her head onto his shoulder. He was right. Of course he was right. She took one of his hands and placed it on her stomach. They sat in quiet contact. The voice was finally still.

  Through their silence, Diana heard the street suddenly come alive: brakes squealed; car doors slammed; voices were raised in excitement. Another frat party. Didn’t those guys ever study? Diana wondered, listening to the intensifying street noises as the dining room windows glowed from the approaching headlights. “Thanks,” she said.

  “I love you.” He rubbed her stomach. “Both of—” Craig was cut off by the chime of the bell. He looked questioningly at Diana; she shrugged. They both stood and, their arms still around each other, walked to the entryway. Diana stepped to the side as Craig pulled the heavy oak door toward him.

  The door swung open, and they were hit by a blaze of lights so bright that it might have been noon. Diana stood frozen, like a rabbit caught on the highway, the sinking feeling in her stomach registering the catastrophic significance of what she saw before her befuddled brain could fully assess the scene.

  “Ned Holt. Channel 5 News,” declared a short man with the manufactured look of a doll, his face painted the color of Mercurochrome. He stuck a microphone under Diana’s nose. “Is it true that James Hutchins’s family is holding you responsible for his death, Dr. Marcus? Do you have any comment on the family’s allegations?” he added before she could even comprehend his first question.

  Dr. Marcus. Dr. Marcus. Her mind was whirling. How did they even know it was she? “I, ah, I—” She blinked into the intense light, trying to discern what was out there, trying to find a place to run. “I don’t really know,” she finally said, groping for Craig.

  “But this isn’t the first you’ve heard of it?” Holt was demanding, waving his hand for a squat heavyset boy with a camera on his shoulder to climb the steps. “You were aware that a suit was filed? Charging you with malpractice and wrongful death?”

  Before she could answer, another reporter came from behind a van with “Channel 7 News” lettered on its side in diagonal black graphic. “You did know that you were the beneficiary of James Hutchins’s will?” asked a vaguely familiar woman.

  Diana gripped the wrought iron railing. Once again she was at 33 rpm, separated from these frenetic plastic-looking people, not of the same world as everyone else. She was only peripherally aware of Craig’s hands gripping her shoulders as the memory that had eluded her that morning came flooding back. “Without you I’d be nothing—you’ve saved my life,” James had told her after his promotion at Fidelity. “And to show you my gratitude, I’m going to change my will so that you’re my sole beneficiary. When I die, you’ll be a rich woman.” She had dismissed the whole thing as another one of his meaningless grandiose gestures, forgetting the incident completely. Until now.

  “We deny everything,” Craig boomed in a strong, angry voice, coming around to stand in front of Diana, blocking her from view. “This is completely trumped up and ridiculous.”

  “Do you deny that your wife is the beneficiary of James. Hutchins’s considerable estate? We have information from a source in Hutchins’s lawyer’s office …”

  “No one has contacted us.” Craig hesitated, his voice not nearly as confident as before. “We have seen no documents.” He turned and propelled Diana toward the open door. “We have nothing else to say.”

  As they slipped into the foyer the woman called out. “What about the sexual abuse charge?”

  Diana and Craig stopped and turned as if one. “What?!”

  “Jill Hutchins charges that Dr. Marcus was having sexual relations with her brother,” Holt said. “She claims he told her the whole story. Told another psychiatrist too.” The microphone once again rose up in front of Diana’s face. “Do you have any comment, Dr. Marcus?”

  “That’s completely insane,” sputtered Craig, shoving the microphone away from Diana and pulling it toward himself. “It’s a complete and total lie!”

  “If you knew anything about people suffering from borderline personality disorder,” Diana said, “you would know that—”

  “Don’t say anything else,” Craig hissed at Diana, just about pushing her into the house. “We’ll countersue,” he said into the microphone. “For defamation of character,” he called over his shoulder before he shut the door.

  Diana leaned back against the cold plaster wall, her eyes locked onto Craig’s; he appeared as shaken as she. Jill’s words reverberated through her brain. You used him for your own perverse pleasures … James told me everything … You two had a real sicko thing going … I even have proof … Diana reached out for Craig’s hand. He pulled her to him and held her tight.

  7

  DIANA TOOK HER LECTURE NOTES FROM THE FILE AND spre
ad them before her on the desk. Although she was quite familiar with the material, she liked to spend at least half an hour reviewing her notes before each class. This allowed her to speak without consulting the pages, giving her lectures a more extemporaneous feel and, as she told Craig, bamboozling the students into thinking she knew what she was talking about.

  Bipolar disorder with psychotic features, she read, although the words might have been engineering jargon rather than psychological nomenclature for all the sense they made to her at the moment. Schizoaffective schizophrenia. Mania.

  How was she going to pull this off? she wondered as her eyes skidded down the paper. By just doing it. She started at the top of the page again, forcing herself to concentrate. Bipolar disorder with psychotic features.

  Yesterday she had hid in the house, studying her picture in the Boston Globe. She was unable to grasp that the stunned, obviously pregnant woman standing on the stoop, her hair blown backward off her high forehead, was really she—that Diana Marcus was the center of this media circus. No one could possibly believe this nonsense. Not her friends. Not her colleagues. Not those who knew her. But what of all the others? They would believe it; it was in the newspaper, ergo, it must be true. What else could they think? As she stared at the picture, her horror grew. They could think she was pregnant with James’s baby.

  TICKNOR PSYCHOLOGIST CHARGED WITH WRONGFUL DEATH IN PATIENT SUICIDE, read the front-page headline. The subtitle of the article noted the malpractice and sexual abuse charges in thick black letters. Ned Holt’s eleven o’clock news story had been tame compared to the Globe.

  The paper had focused almost entirely on Jill’s allegations: James’s tales that Diana had shared her erotic fantasies with him; a postcard Diana had sent him from vacation on the Cape; Jill’s contention that, prior to his contact with Diana, James had been completely normal. Craig called to tell her that the Inquirer was even worse. SEX DOC SAYS SHE’S NO MURDERER, the tabloid headline screamed.