All Is Not Forgotten

by Wendy Walker

  My point is this: Julie had brought this up because she wanted to make sure I would protect our son the way that this family had protected theirs. She wanted to make sure I would do that even if we came to believe he had raped my patient. Even if he turned out to be a sociopath. She was reassured by my conviction. And I was disturbed by her assumptions.

  I used to wonder about that family. I used to wonder if they knew he was guilty and didn’t care. Or if they clung to every piece of conflicting evidence, convinced themselves the victims were just regretful sluts, so they could believe in his innocence and justify their actions. I admit as well, to acknowledging to myself, in a somewhat whimsical manner, that I would be extremely adept at justifications, given my deep arsenal of psychological knowledge. I did not have to answer those questions or put my theory about myself to the test. I did not share my wife’s ambivalence toward our son.

  I walked in front of the television and blocked his view. He tried to operate around me, looking left, then right, his fingers clicking away on the remote. Finally he looked at my face and knew the time had come for the talk his mother had told him was coming—the reason he was not out already on this weekend night.

  I gotta go, he said to his friends. He clicked more buttons, then put down the remote. His avatar disappeared. I turned off the television.

  I won’t bore you with the details of what each of us said. I will simply say that I told him about Cruz Demarco. The man in the blue Civic. I told him that he saw a person in a blue hoodie with a red bird go into the woods right at the time of the rape. I laid out the facts that would make him a suspect if they were ever known. The shaving. The bleach. The sweatshirt. It was the last one we could do something about.

  I could see him processing the information. I could see his mother’s brain and not mine inside his skull.

  “Do you see what I’m saying? They will question you again.”

  I know that. They’re bringing in the whole swim team.

  “Let’s get one thing straight,” I said. “I know you didn’t do anything to hurt Jenny Kramer.”

  I didn’t! I could hear the fear in his voice.

  “I know. But you can see how this will look. They will ask you if you shaved—not just your legs, but everywhere. And they will ask about the sweatshirt.”

  He didn’t say anything then, and that’s when I knew. He had shaved everywhere. He had worn that sweatshirt to the party.

  “Jason. You couldn’t possibly remember that far back, could you?”

  He looked at me strangely, but then he started to understand. I gave him my speech about the world being unfair. I told him the things that would be used against him, and I could see that he knew what had to be done. We discussed morality and the very few times it was acceptable to cross the line, to be an animal. Self-preservation was one of them.

  “You are innocent and you deserve to be treated as an innocent. That’s the bottom line.”

  Okay, Dad.

  “Now. I just want to know one thing about that night so we can make sure we have thought of everything. I need to know what you were doing in those woods.”

  My son lied. He looked me square in the eye as he did it. He thought he could deceive me. I am underestimated in my own home.

  I wasn’t near the woods. I never left the house.

  “Jason. Please. You were seen.”

  I wasn’t there! I swear!

  “And there’s not one person except that drug dealer who will say otherwise?”

  No! I swear!

  “And the sweatshirt. Why was it on the floor of your closet?”

  I don’t know. My room’s a mess. I throw stuff in the closet when I get home sometimes.

  I was again struck by the power of my bond to this weak, mediocre liar. I was disgusted by him in that moment. And yet I still persisted in my plan to protect him at all cost. At very dear cost. I could feel self-loathing creep into my bones. And I could not bear to think about the effort it would require to forgive myself one day. So I did not.

  We agreed on what had to be done. He went to his room to delete any photos of himself in that sweatshirt that might be on any social media anywhere. He seemed to understand the boundaries I had set. The limits on my willingness to lie for him and cover for him. The fact that I was doing this only because I believed him to be innocent of the rape. I did not tell him it would not have mattered. Or that his mother did not share my conviction.

  He left an hour later to meet his friends. I don’t know what came over me, but I had a large glass of scotch and then I took my wife upstairs and fucked her like Bob Sullivan fucked that secretary.

  We did not linger in bed. My wife kissed me and smiled, then got up to shower. Blood was surging through my veins and I pleaded with it to bring me the thought that I knew was hiding inside me. Torturing me. Fucking my wife like an animal had not chased it away.

  I closed my eyes and let it emerge from the shadows. All this time I had been worried about my son being in those woods because he might be accused of being the rapist.

  My son was in those woods. My son was in those woods with the rapist.

  I let out a loud gasp.

  Dear God, I thought.

  My son could have been the victim.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  The weekend was awkward and emotionally painful. My wife cried several times, mostly in the bathroom with the water running. She would come out with a red face, red eyes. My son was unusually quiet and spent most of his time training at the pool and then going out with his friends. He did not want to be around us.

  As for me, I wrangled my fear and put it in a box on a shelf the way my wife does. My son had not been raped, and it was a waste of my mental resources to dwell on what might have been. I focused my concern on what was still posing a threat to him.

  The time I had to reset my brain was productive. When Sean Logan arrived Monday for his session, I had concocted another aspect of my plan.

  Sean had been stuck at that red door. In spite of our dedication to the process, no more memories had been recovered. I had begun to move from frustration to acceptance. Sean had been just off from the center of the blast. It was his colleague, Hector Valancia, who had taken it straight on. The investigative report put him standing over it, like maybe he was looking down at an IED. Still, Sean had lost consciousness. It is quite possible the memories from the time around the blast never got filed at all.

  He came in with a smile on his face, and he seemed uncharacteristically relaxed.

  “How are you? How was your weekend?” I asked.

  Sean sat down and patted his knees. Pretty good, Doc. Pretty solid.

  “That’s good to hear. Anything in particular?”

  I dunno. The weather’s starting to turn.

  “Yes. The snow is finally all gone, isn’t it? Took a while this year.”

  Sure did. Got to sixty degrees on Saturday. Sun was shining. Took my kid to a Bluefish game. Might as well have been the World Series, he was so excited.

  “That sounds really nice. And Tammy?”

  You know. She’s hanging in there.

  “Any outbursts?”

  Nope. Not a one. Guess the meds are finally doing their job.

  “It’s not just the medication, Sean. You’ve been on the same regimen for over a year. It’s the work you’re doing.”

  Sean was the most humble, modest man I have ever known. In spite of our stalled progress recovering his memories, he had been fighting like hell to control his behavior, to recognize his emotions, his “ghosts,” and order them to retreat before he punched more walls in his home. He had never hit his wife or his son. He would put a bullet in his own head before doing that. Still, it was terrifying to be around him when he lost control. When the ghosts won the fight.

  He shrugged and looked down at the carpet.

  “You need to own your success, Sean. What do you think has been helping you?”

  I knew the answer. I was curious as to whether
he would say it out loud.

  I dunno.

  “Can you describe one thing, maybe how you felt with your son at the baseball game? In the past, you were just going through the motions. Pretending to enjoy him so he wouldn’t feel rejected. Did it feel like that on Saturday?”

  No. Not at all. There was this moment. Our team had bases loaded. I nudged him and said, “This is it, big guy! The bases are loaded!” And he got all wide eyed … stood up and grabbed the rail and started bouncing up and down. He started saying, “Oh boy! Oh boy!” And I was like, “Yeah, buddy! This is it, right?” He didn’t really know what that meant. I don’t think he understands anything that’s going on, really. But then he looked at me and he was still so overflowing with joy and he … he just couldn’t contain himself, like he was about to explode with joy … Sean’s voice started to tremble.

  “It’s all right, Sean.” I said.

  And with that permission, he teared up a little. Just a little, mind you. Uhhhh, Doc, I’m sorry. It’s just … it just overwhelmed me. I can still feel it.

  “That’s really good, Sean. It’s good to feel things. I know we spend a lot of time trying not to feel things—the things that don’t belong inside you. But this does. This overwhelming joy belongs very much.”

  Aw, man. Damn. I guess.

  “What did Philip do then, after jumping up and down with joy?”

  Sean grinned from ear to ear. He looked at me and he said … Aw, man … hold on a second.… Okay … he said … “Daddy! I just love you!”

  A few more tears fell. I handed him a tissue. It was so beautiful. Even after my twisted weekend, the corruption of my very soul, I was still moved by the sight of this enormous, powerful man completely decimated by the love of his child.

  “Sean,” I said. “What you’re feeling right now. This is good! This is love. You felt, and you still feel, love for your son. What else?”

  I’m grateful, you know? Just so fucking grateful. This little guy, this little life living in this crazy-ass world, and somehow I managed to fill him with joy. Just by driving an hour to Bridgeport and buying him a hot dog.

  “Ah, but it wasn’t just that! Don’t you see? He felt your love for him and your desire to be with him, and that’s what filled him with joy! That connection. In this crazy-ass world, there is a big strong man who loves him, and so he knows he’ll be safe. He knows he’ll have a home—not walls and windows, but a home in another person’s heart. That is what it means to be human!”

  Sean looked at me strangely, and I realized I had become far more emotional than I normally allow. I took a breath to contain myself. My nerves were frayed and now my guts were spilling out all over the room.

  “The feelings you just had when you recalled this memory—do you see how our emotions and memories are connected?” I shifted gears quickly and with admirable precision.

  Oh yeah. I’m sorry I lost it. Shit. I never cry, Doc. Never.

  “And can you imagine just having that powerful feeling and not knowing why?”

  Sean laughed. Yeah. I’d probably think I was in love with you or something, right, Doc?

  I joined him in his laugh. “Indeed. Or a stranger on the street, perhaps. That would be very awkward.”

  Yeah, I get it. I wouldn’t mind if this were one of the ghosts. This ghost could stick around.

  “We could all use a little more spontaneous joy, I suppose. Do you want to work more on the memory recall?”

  Yeah. Let’s do it.

  I got up and walked to my desk to grab my laptop. We always worked with the simulation playing. “Okay. Can I ask you first … are you coming to group this week?”

  I watched his face carefully. Group was where he saw Jenny. Neither of them had missed a session in the months since she joined.

  Sure, yeah.

  He was conspicuously nonchalant.

  I had suspected they were growing closer. Not to disregard my efficacy, but there had been a drastic change in both their moods that did not correlate with the progress, or lack thereof, of the memory work. I had asked Jenny about him. Too often, I feared. She had started to wonder if what they were doing was wrong. I could hear the hesitation in her voice.

  It wasn’t wrong. How could it be when it was helping them both? But they had progressed from texting and Skype to coffee and long walks. Sean was working odd jobs. Jenny was not in school. She rode her bike to town, and they were meeting there, in Fairview, then driving to places where they wouldn’t be recognized. Charlotte thought she was shopping or meeting friends. She was eager to see Jenny leave the house. She’d told me that Jenny seemed happy, truly happy, when she was going to town, so she never worried about her then. She was always back home in a couple of hours.

  Jenny had confided these secret meetings to me, and I felt obligated to keep her confidence. Still, Sean was twenty-five. He was married. Jenny was sixteen. It was one of those dilemmas that sits in the back of your mind, like a small crack in the ceiling. You forget about it in the midst of everything else going on. But once in a while, your eye catches it and you think, has it gotten worse? Is it time to fix it? I would not let their relationship become sexual. I would not let the ceiling collapse entirely. But then, we never know when the crack will finally give way, do we? We can’t see behind the plaster.

  Sean was feeling love for his son because of his connection with Jenny. Jenny and Sean shared something unique, an understanding, that went beyond the empathy that I and the other people in their lives could provide. And within this understanding came a connection. And that connection gave Jenny a home, a safe place to be. And it gave Sean power.

  When Sean called Jenny in the middle of the night, his rage tearing through him, his hand in a fist, she knew what he was feeling. She didn’t have to say anything to him. She just had to listen. Sean did the same for her. Before she recalled that one small memory of her rape, she had told me what it was like to be with him.

  I think about it for hours. I close my eyes and I picture us sitting at the diner or walking by the lake. I can see his face and I go through everything I want to tell him. Like I’m rehearsing for a play or something. I can’t think about the homework I have to do for the tutor or my mother’s schedule or anything at all. I imagine that I’m taking all the bad feelings and putting them in a garbage bag, like a giant black plastic bag. One by one, the burning in my stomach, the pounding in my chest, the fear of everything and nothing, that feeling that nothing is what it seems, the disorientation—everything we talk about in here and everything that made me so crazy I tried to kill myself—I start shoving it all into a bag. And then I carry that bag on the back of my bike and then I see his car and he gets out and then right away, in a second, he takes the bag and puts it in his trunk and then it’s just gone the whole time we’re together. It’s really, really gone! And whatever happens, whether we just talk about stupid stuff or I cry the whole time or he goes off on things that made him angry that week—it doesn’t matter at all, because the bag of garbage is locked in his trunk.

  “And what happens when you go back to town and he parks his car and you get out and unlock your bike? Does he give you back the garbage bag?” I asked her. I usually know the answers to my questions. This time I did not.

  He doesn’t give it back to me. He would never do that. But there’s always more garbage.

  “I’m sorry, Jenny. That must be very hard to know it’s not gone forever when he drives away with it.”

  But the thing is, I know that in a week or ten days or whatever it is, I can give him the bag and for that small amount of time, I’ll be free of it. So when it comes, I just imagine I’m putting it in the bag. And then more comes, and I put that in the bag. I just fill that bag up and then put it on my bike and carry it to him.

  I cannot hold the bag for Jenny. Nor can her parents or her friends or the other members of the group. Only Sean. Can you imagine having that power?

  Sean does not give his garbage bag to Jenny. I have not asked him
about this, or about Jenny at all, because this decent man does not need one more ounce of guilt. But I know. Sean would not take any pleasure in passing along his burdens. His pleasure, his joy, lies within the power he has to hold hers. He takes her garbage bag and she gives him purpose, a reason to get up every day. A reason to keep fighting. A reason to live.

  Yes, Sean loved his son. I did not know yet whether he loved his wife or just felt obligated to her. They had never shared one peaceful day. Regardless, he loved Philip, and his love was set free by what he had with Jenny. She had found a wormhole through his guilt and around the ghosts. They could not touch the power she gave him. And that power was like an invisible force field around his love, protecting it, making it feel safe to come out of hiding.

  I feel frustrated. I am mixing so many metaphors. How I struggle to explain things to you.

  Can we at least agree that they shared something very special?

  The trouble is this: He is a man and she is a woman—young, yes, but still a woman. And when there is a connection this strong, it wants to go to the ends of the earth. And the ends of the earth for a man and woman involves sex. Not sometimes. Not maybe. Always.

  I sat down at the table between myself and Sean. I was moving slowly because the phone call came five minutes later than I had requested earlier that morning.

  “Oh, I’m so sorry, Sean. I have to take this. Do you mind waiting?”

  It’s all good, Doc, he said.

  I took my cell phone in the small chamber between my office and the bathroom. I closed the door, not all the way.

  “Detective Parsons. Thank you for calling back,” I said. I stood very close to the opening in the door. I did not lower my voice.

  No problem. You said you had something for me to look into? Has something happened with Jenny? Another memory?

  “Something like that. Listen, though. This cannot go further than you and me, do you understand? When I tell you, you will for sure.”

  You definitely have my attention, Alan. What is it?

  My heart was pounding wildly. I felt corrupted. I had been so filled with goodness that morning with Sean. Hearing about his moment with Philip. Sharing his tears. It felt pure and sacred. And now I was about to continue down my evil path.