by Joy Fielding
Jane swayed, afraid she might faint. “Did he …” She stopped. Could she really be considering asking the next question? What further obscenities did she have to hear? “Did Daddy ever do anything else to you?”
Emily shook her head.
“Did he ever hurt you?”
“No.”
Jane closed her eyes. Thank God.
“He made me promise not to tell you, and now he’ll be mad at me because I broke my promise.”
“Don’t you worry. I’ll take care of Daddy,” Jane heard herself say, wondering exactly what she meant. “Listen, sweetheart, I’m going to go home now and pack a few things, and then I’ll come back after school and pick you up, and we’ll go away for a little holiday, just the two of us. Would you like that?”
“Not Daddy?”
“Not this time, no.” Was she really saying these things? “This time it’ll just be you and me. A girls’ holiday. Okay?”
Emily nodded her head, wiping her tears away with the back of her hand. “Don’t forget my blanket.”
“How could I forget your blanket? Don’t worry, darling, I’ll take care of everything.” Jane paused, not sure she could move without collapsing. “In the meantime, you play and have a good time, and know that I love you. I love you very much.”
“I love you too, Mommy.”
Jane showered her daughter’s cheeks with kisses. “And Daddy will never touch you like that again. Okay? I promise, sweetheart.”
Emily said nothing. Jane understood that the child loved her father, felt she was the one who had betrayed him.
“You did the right thing, honey. You did the right thing by telling me. Now, you go on back downstairs and finish your lunch, and I’ll be here when school gets out this afternoon.”
She watched Emily race down the hall and disappear down the flight of steps.
“Did she tell you anything?” Pat Rutherford asked, coming up behind Jane.
Jane started walking down the hall. “I’ll take care of it,” she said, not bothering to look back, her pace breaking into a run.
TWENTY-EIGHT
“GODDAMNIT, you son of a bitch! I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you, damnit!” Jane brought her fists down sharply on the steering wheel, her screams ricocheting off the closed windows of her car. “How could you do it, you miserable bastard? How could you do that to your daughter? How could you do it?”
Jane sat in the school parking lot, wondering what to do next. She had barely made it to her car before the screams she had been suppressing burst forth, her body no longer able to contain her outrage. It had been essential to get away from Emily. She couldn’t allow the child to see the extent of her fury. She needed time to cool off, a few hours to get a grip on her emotions, put a lid on her anger, formulate a plan, decide what she had to do.
Should she confront him? Should she simply storm into Michael’s office and make public Emily’s accusations, rip the face off his respectable career, his spotless reputation, announce that this protector of little children was really a child molester?
Was it possible that he had molested other children as well? Certainly, he had ample opportunities. His business was tending to the sick and vulnerable. Who was more vulnerable than a sick child? And here was the saintly Dr. Michael Whittaker, in a position of absolute power and trust. He was revered, loved, idolized. Could this same man, this warm and gentle lover, be hiding a heart as dark as any nightmare could invent?
And what did that say about her? How could she have lived with such a man for over eleven years and never once suspected? What did it say about her that she had been so deceived? It was one thing to fool one’s colleagues, one’s friends and associates, one’s patients and one’s employees, but none of these people lived with the man, none of them spent every night in his bed, sleeping in his arms.
Jane pictured those arms around her now, then imagined them around her seven-year-old daughter. She immediately felt her lunch rise up in protest, and pushed open the car door, throwing up on the black concrete of the school parking lot. “Goddamn you, you miserable son of a bitch!” she shouted, fighting for some control, losing, slamming down on the horn in desperation. “What am I supposed to do now?”
She wiped her mouth with a tissue she found in her coat pocket, then discarded it on the ground. Polluting the environment, she thought with appropriate irony, deciding against confronting Michael directly. She’d let her lawyers do that once she and Emily were safely away. Right now, she had to sublimate her fury long enough to get organized. She had to go home, pack her things, pack Emily’s things, not a lot, just enough, and decide where they were going to go. Downtown Boston, she decided. Check into a hotel for a couple of days, maybe the Lennox Hotel. She’d always liked the Lennox. She could get in touch with her friends from there, get them to recommend a good lawyer.
First she’d need some money. She’d have to go to the bank. They had nine, maybe ten thousand dollars in their joint checking account. It required only one signature to make a withdrawal. That’s what she’d do, she decided, closing the car door and starting the engine, pulling into the street. She’d withdraw all their money, let Michael find out about it later, as she had learned about his duplicitous acts—later. By that time, she and Emily would be long gone. The only contact she would have to endure with Michael again would be through their respective attorneys. That was undoubtedly the best solution for all concerned, since if she saw him she would probably kill him.
She drove fast, reaching Center Street in less then ten minutes, parking the car under a no-parking sign directly in front of the bank. She almost knocked over an elderly white-haired woman as she raced to get a place in line, hearing the old lady swear under her breath. Jane was only mildly surprised. How could she be surprised by anything anymore?
It was a small bank, one she visited frequently. She knew all the tellers by name, and they probably thought they knew her. Jane laughed out loud, felt all eyes turn toward her, then lowered her head, wiping away an unexpected tear. How long was she going to have to wait? How slow could people move?
“Is something wrong, Mrs. Whittaker?” the teller asked when it was finally her turn.
Jane stared at the young black woman whose name was Samantha. She said nothing, helpless tears falling the length of her cheek.
“Can I get you anything, Mrs. Whittaker?”
“I want to close out this account.” Jane reached into her overstuffed purse and pulled out her bank book, pushing it across the counter.
Samantha studied the balance. “Would you like me to transfer it into another of your accounts?”
“No. I want the cash.”
“There’s almost ten thousand dollars here.”
“Yes, I know. I need it.” Jane wiped at her nose with the back of her hand. Damn these tears!
“Mrs. Whittaker, I know it’s none of my business, but you seem very upset, and—”
For the second time in as many minutes, Jane laughed out loud. Now everyone was looking at her, including Trudy Caplan, the manager of the bank. Jane ignored their worried stares. “I just want my money.”
“Mrs. Whittaker,” Trudy Caplan said, taking over from Samantha. “Maybe you’d like to come into my office and have a cup of coffee.” Trudy Caplan was tall and top-heavy, her streaked blond hair pulled into an old-fashioned bun.
“I don’t need any coffee. I need my money. And I’m in a bit of a hurry, so I’d like it quickly, if you don’t mind.” Why was she asking if they minded? It was her money!
“If you’re not happy about something we’ve done—” the manager began.
Why did women always assume they were part of the problem? “It’s nothing you’ve done,” Jane assured her quickly. “A friend of mine is in trouble, and I told her I’d do whatever I could to help, that’s all. Hopefully, I’ll be able to put the money back in a day or two.”
That seemed to satisfy Trudy Caplan, who returned her to Samantha’s care before heading back to her offic
e.
“We just have to fill out a few forms,” Samantha told her.
“Why?”
“Whenever you close out an account—”
“I don’t have time to fill out forms. How much money do I have to leave in to keep it open?”
“Five dollars.”
“Fine. Leave five dollars.”
“And you want the rest in cash?”
“Yes.”
“Will hundreds be all right?”
“Sure.”
Jane watched as Samantha retreated to the vault and returned with the appropriate number of hundred-dollar bills, which she counted out in front of Jane and then clipped securely into neat little packets. “And seventy-four dollars and twenty-three cents.” She dropped the loose bills into Jane’s hand and shoved the packets of hundred-dollar bills across the counter.
Jane carelessly stuffed the money into the deep pockets of her trench coat, bitterly offering silent thanks to Michael for suggesting she wear it. Her purse was already too crowded. This was much simpler, at least for the time being. When she got home, she’d change purses, select something larger, more appropriate for transporting all this cumbersome cash.
There was a parking ticket on the window of Jane’s car. She tore it up and let the pieces fall to the road. More pollution. Another lost cause, she thought, just as she was a lost cause. A failure as a wife, a lover, a woman. Why else would Michael seek the comfort of a child? Was she so inadequate, so deficient in these areas that she had driven him into the arms of their daughter? Dear God, was it somehow her fault?
She drove home, her tears so copious that she could barely see to drive, her chest heaving, her stomach cramping against the weight of her despair. She had failed everyone she had ever loved, she thought, pulling into her driveway and pushing herself out of the car. She had failed to protect her father from the heart attack that killed him when she was barely thirteen; she had failed to protect her mother, who would no doubt be alive today had Jane only forgone her meeting at Emily’s school and accompanied her into Boston; she had failed to satisfy her husband, to be the wife he expected and deserved; and she had failed to look out for her only child, the one person she had made it her life’s work to protect.
“I’m a total failure,” she mumbled, slamming the car door shut, aware of someone at her elbow. “I’m useless. Worse than useless.”
“Jane? Jane, what are you muttering about? Are you all right?”
“What?” Jane found herself staring into Carole’s concerned face.
“What’s the matter? Are you crying?”
“I don’t have time for this!” Jane yelled, pushing past Carole and into her house. She couldn’t be bothered trying to explain. There weren’t enough minutes, enough hours in the day, to convince Carole that Michael had molested Emily. Who would believe it? No, right now she had to pack her things and get out. She would explain everything later.
Jane dropped her purse on the floor in the front hall and ran up the stairs toward her bedroom, feeling as if she had invaded a stranger’s space. Had she really ever lived here? Was it possible she had ever been happy here? Could she really have shared this room, this bed, with a man she had obviously never known?
She caught sight of her reflection in the mirrored wall of closet doors. Her face was swollen and streaked with tears. No wonder everyone looked at her with frightened eyes. She was a scary sight.
Knowing that she couldn’t allow Emily to see her this way, Jane headed for the bathroom, where she washed her face free of makeup and tears and pressed a cold washcloth against her eyes to bring down the swelling. Then she returned to the bedroom and pulled open the closet doors. “Is this why you always insisted on buying me these stupid little-girl dresses?” she screamed, pulling them off their hangers and stomping them under her feet. “Is that why you liked me in buttons and bows?”
She quickly retrieved two black suitcases from the closet of the guest bedroom. One suitcase for her, one for Emily. She’d only take a few things, and if she needed more, well, she had almost ten thousand dollars in her pockets. It was best to start fresh. Wipe away the past. Wipe the slate clean.
She packed only what she considered essential, then collapsed on the bed, the bed she had shared with Michael all these years, feeling his presence encircle her in a tight embrace until she could barely breathe. She felt his lips on the side of her neck, his hands at her breasts, his tongue tracing an imaginary line down her belly. His essence was behind her, on top of her, inside her, until every orifice was filled with Michael, his scent, his touch, his being. I’ve been a part of you for almost a dozen years, his image whispered tantalizingly in her ear. I’m part of you now.
“No!” Jane exclaimed, jumping off the bed and knocking over her suitcase, watching its contents spill out across the mint-green carpet. “I won’t let you be part of me! I won’t.” She quickly got down on her hands and knees and pushed the clothing back inside the valise, zipping the bag up and locking it, dragging it and the other, still empty bag, to Emily’s room.
She left the packed valise in the doorway, carting the other to Emily’s bed, then started with the dresser drawers, lifting out Emily’s underwear and socks, her pajamas and nightgowns, her T-shirts and shorts. Next she headed for the closet, throwing in as many outfits as she could find, selecting the few dresses Michael hadn’t purchased, choosing only those things she had bought on her own. She would take nothing that would remind them of Michael, nothing that attested to his ownership of them, that he had ever been a part of their lives.
I’ve been a part of you for almost a dozen years, she heard him say again. I’m part of you now.
“No!” she shouted, desperate to get out of the house, to rid herself of the lie in which she had been living. She checked her watch, realized half an hour had passed. God, how much time had she wasted in pointless reveries? She had to get moving, get going, get out.
She pulled the suitcase off the bed and ran with it to the doorway, scooping up the other bag, about to leave the room when she remembered Emily’s favorite blanket, the one she had slept with since infancy. It was the only thing Emily had asked for. She couldn’t leave it behind.
Jane dropped the bags to the floor and ran to the bed, pulling down the bedspread, searching under the covers for the small white wool blanket with the delicate blue flowers and fuzzy fringe that Emily used to tickle her nose. Where had she put it when she made the bed this morning? “I don’t have the patience for this,” she cried, locating the blanket under the pillow, suddenly aware that someone was watching her.
“Jane, what’s going on here?”
At the sound of Michael’s voice, Jane froze, too stunned to react. What was he doing home at this hour?
“Jane, what’s happening? I got a very peculiar call from the bank, telling me you all but closed out our checking account, and then a few minutes later I got a frantic call from Carole, telling me you’re hysterical, that something is obviously wrong but that you won’t talk about it. Needless to say, I got right in my car. I probably broke the sound barrier getting here so fast. Jane … are you listening to me? Can you hear me?”
Jane spun around, cold fury escaping from her eyes, no more need for tears. “I hear you.”
“Jane, are you in some kind of trouble?”
“Trouble?”
“What happened? You slug another guy in the subway?” He almost laughed. “What is it, honey? What kind of mess have you gotten yourself into now?”
“You bastard!” Jane shrieked, lunging at him, her fingers tearing at his hair, straining for his eyes.
Michael grabbed her hands, locking his fingers around her wrists, keeping her at bay. “For God’s sake, Jane, what the hell is going on?”
“Goddamn you, you son of a bitch. How could you do it?”
“Do what? Jane, what are you talking about?”
“I went to see Emily’s teacher today, Michael. She’s been concerned about Emily’s recent behavior.”
Jane stopped struggling, became very still. Michael looked at her expectantly. “She said she thought there was the possibility that Emily might have been sexually abused.”
The look of horror that crossed his face seemed genuine. Was it horror for what had been done to Emily or horror at having been discovered? “What?! By whom? Did she have any idea who it might be?”
“Don’t play games with me, Michael,” Jane said, her voice cold, unmoved. “It’s too late. It won’t work.”
“Dear God, you think that I—”
“It’s no use, Michael. I spoke to Emily. She told me.”
There was a moment’s silence before Michael spoke. “Somebody’s obviously been putting words in her mouth.”
“Nobody told her anything, you bastard!” Once again Jane renewed her attempted assault. Once again Michael managed to keep her at bay. “You miserable rotten bastard. How could you do it? How could you molest your own child? How could you rob her of her childhood?”
Jane kicked at him with her feet and he pulled back, suddenly dropping her wrists, as if the mere touch of her filled him with disgust. Jane brought her hands to her face, trying to cover up the horror she was seeing. Inside the dark cup of her hands, her wedding band mocked her. She grabbed at it with the fingers of her other hand, pulling it roughly over her knuckle and hurling it across the room. It bounced against the far wall and landed in a corner.
“Christ, Jane, what are you doing?”
“I’m trying not to kill you, goddamnit.”
“You’re crazy, Jane. I love you, but I’ve been thinking for a long time now that you’re losing your mind.” Jane stood rooted to the spot, thinking if she moved again, she would kill him.
“I’m crazy?!”
“Listen to yourself. Listen to what you’re saying. Do you really believe I’m capable of molesting my own daughter?”
“I believe Emily.”
“She’s a child. Children have active imaginations.”
“Emily would never say anything like that unless it were true.”
“Why? Are you saying that children don’t tell lies?”