by Wendy Walker
“Stealing money and even thinking about buying drugs!”
Jason slumped back into the couch. He really had no idea about anything.
“Why don’t you go to your room. Take the Xbox with you. I’m sorry I broke the TV.”
Am I grounded?
“Yes. Until next weekend.”
Jason got up, unplugged the Xbox, and grabbed all the wires and controllers and games. He skulked away to the stairs and then up to his room.
Julie fell into my arms and we both laughed. The fear was gone. The box on the shelf empty. It did not lift the darkness. It did not clean the stain. But I was resigned to live dirty, under this shadow for the flawed but wonderful creature we had created.
Chapter Twenty-seven
I went forth with conviction. With purpose. It is not that I needed proof that my son had not raped Jenny. It was that I needed to see his innocence, his goodness again. He had been lying to us about that night, and now he had confessed. And in his confession, the way it was told, the words and tone and expression, was the innocence.
This is my son. My child. He is my legacy in this world. He is an extension of me. I came to see their pursuit of him as a pursuit of myself. I felt it inside my gut like nothing I had ever felt before. It was primal. I went forth like a lion protecting his cub.
I did not let go of my own desires. With my head clear, I constructed more of my plan. I believed I had found a way to not only keep my son from being dragged into the investigation, but get Jenny back on track, too. I became two men. The first was the doctor curing his patients. The second was the puppeteer, holding his wooden sticks, making his subjects dance to the tune of his will.
I saw Charlotte two days later. She was irate. You told the police! About Bob and the voice. You told them!
“Calm down, Charlotte. I didn’t say anything to them about Jenny’s memory. Why don’t you tell me what’s happened.”
Charlotte found her composure and studied my face. I told you, I was steadfast in my conviction. A rock. The doubt and anger she’d been carrying for over sixteen hours were gone in a second. My power seemed to have no end.
He asked to see me. Bob. I met him at the house, but he didn’t touch me. Not even a kiss hello. He was upset. Worried. So of course, I asked him what was wrong. I tried to hide my fears. I pretended that I didn’t know anything. I don’t know … I think he believed me.
“I’m sure he did. It was the truth, after all. You could not have known what had him so upset.”
I suppose. It felt like a lie. I felt guilty pretending.
“Did you tell him?”
No. I let him tell me. Detective Parsons paid him a casual visit. Bob said he was nice as could be, and very apologetic. He said he’d gotten a hold of some record from a million years ago. College. Bob went to Skidmore.
“College?” I asked.
Yeah. He said some girl he was with on spring break lied about her age and then cried to her friends the next day. They told their parents and their parents told the girl’s parents and the police had to get involved because the girl was underage. Nothing happened from it. Bob said he was worried it might be found. You know, because of the election, he said he thought it wouldn’t happen until years from now, when he runs for a national office. I guess it’s always been in the back of his mind that someone might dig it up.
“And what does that have to do with the matter at hand? With Jenny?”
Obviously, it’s a sexual offense or complaint or whatever. Detective Parsons said he had to just do a quick follow-up to cover his bases and then he could close the file.
“So he wanted an alibi?”
Yeah.
“And did Bob have one to provide?”
He said he couldn’t remember. He said he would call back after checking his wife’s calendar and speaking with her. So Parsons left and Bob said he did that—called his wife. She reminded him they were at a club function. The spring wine-tasting dinner. I had wanted to go to that, but we had dinner plans instead.
“I remember. You said you quarreled with Tom in the car over that.”
Yes. Anyway, Bob called Parsons back and told him.
“I see. So that’s that. He has an alibi?” In all honesty, I had not considered this possibility. I don’t know why, but I had assumed Bob would say he was with his wife somewhere and then they would not be able to prove it or disprove it. A wife was never a good alibi. But a club dinner would have a record. And many witnesses. Still, I did not lose my focus.
“I do think it’s odd that he didn’t remember where he was. I think everyone in this town remembers where they were that night. The news of the assault was shocking to us all.”
Christ! I don’t know what to think. I really don’t.
“About what? This should be good news.”
It would be if Bob had been at that dinner. Or if he had said he was somewhere else.
“Wait. Are you saying he wasn’t there? How do you know that?”
Because I know. She was there, his wife. Fran. Uh … this is humiliating. My friend from the club who went to the dinner was filling me in on the gossip. It was weeks later. She was trying to get my mind off Jenny. Bob never showed up. Fran sat with my friend and her husband and made excuses for his not being with her. If it had been anyone else, I wouldn’t have cared or remembered. But it was Bob, and I hadn’t seen him, you know really seen him, since that night. I got this ache in my gut. I was worried that he was seeing another woman.
And the wind kept blowing.
“I see. Did you tell Bob you knew this?”
Of course. I mean, I didn’t tell him that I was worried. But I reminded him that Fran had been alone that night and had sat with my friend. He looked surprised, like he really didn’t remember where he was. Like you said—that’s strange, right?
“It is to me. But you never know. Did he have any other explanation for where he was?”
No. In fact, he just kept telling me I was wrong, that Fran had already confirmed he was with her. Parsons believed it. Case closed.
“Then you should feel relieved.”
But Charlotte was not relieved. I could not be entirely sure whether she was starting to doubt her own lover’s innocence with regard to the rape of her daughter. Or whether she was feeding her suspicions that he had been with another woman that night. I watched her body, her face, the way her knee bounced beneath the leg that was folded on top of it, causing her foot to dance in the air. She was not horrified. She was anxious. I concluded her distress was from the latter.
He stopped talking then. He reached for my waist. We had sex. We left. I went home to my family and pretended to be good Charlotte.
“You are just Charlotte. You are winning this battle. Can’t you feel it?” The doctor had returned. Charlotte had adopted my language, the “good Charlotte” and “bad Charlotte” paradigms that I knew would begin to resonate within her. She had been feeling less attached to bad Charlotte and less deserving of good Charlotte. My hope, my dream for her, was that she would let go of both of them.
I know I have used many metaphors. Pick the one you like best—the roller coaster barreling down the hill, the cars heading for a collision, the strands of sugar winding their way into a perfect cone—the end of the story. This is the part where everything accelerated.
Charlotte and I worked on her internal struggles. The doctor was brilliant that day. The timing, the words, the way he led her to the truth within herself. She left feeling sick inside, disgusted by her behavior. Bad Charlotte was losing ground. I worked on dismantling good Charlotte. We talked about her connection with Jenny, how good Charlotte, perfect Charlotte, would never have been able to understand her daughter’s pain, how she’d felt that night when her will was taken from her. She understood. The thoughts were in her head, and they were starting to take hold.
Before she left, she told me this one last thing:
Oh … I almost forgot. When you see Tom this week, just be prepared. He found
a picture in the yearbook—a kid with that sweatshirt. You can’t see his face, because it’s from behind and he’s standing in a crowd, I think it was at a football game. He’s obsessed with it now. I don’t know how he found it, honestly. He must have gone over every picture with a magnifying glass.
“I’m sure he’ll tell me all about it. Has he given the yearbook to Detective Parsons?”
Called him at six in the morning. Can you imagine? He’s out of control. I’m so tired of it.
I smiled. Charlotte left. I was perfectly calm.
“Detective Parsons?” I had him on the phone the moment I heard the door close.
I will not recount the conversation. Let’s just say that I betrayed my patient’s confidence and suggested Parsons confirm Bob’s alibi with the country club. He did not press me for details. Nor was he pleased that the case was not closed. Between my call and Tom with that cursed sweatshirt, I’m sure Detective Parsons was having a very bad day. That was not my concern.
Have you ever seen one of those acrobats who can walk a tightrope while spinning plates on two sticks?
Sean Logan came in later that afternoon. He was agitated.
“Has something happened? You seem upset.”
Nah. I’m all good, Doc. His tone was sarcastic.
“Sean. I know this is crossing some boundaries. And boundaries are important in the work we’re doing. But I feel I would be negligent if I did not address the things of which I am aware and which I believe have been bothering you for several days.”
Sean looked at me with the face of an irreverent teenager. Then he shrugged. Even just one day earlier, this would have made me feel sick. Physically sick. Seeing my patient, my beautiful wounded soldier, without his smile and his humor and his affection for me, well, it would have hurt me deeply. But today I was the rock. And I knew he would come back to me.
“Sean—I know you are very close with Jenny. I also know that she is in a bad place right now because of something she has remembered. Or thinks she remembered. And because she’s frustrated that I am worried about that memory being real.”
Sean started to heave in and out. He was still so quick to anger, all that guilt, the ghosts, roaming inside him.
Doc, I gotta tell you. I don’t know why this fucking monster isn’t behind bars. I don’t see how you can sit there, knowing what you know and what you’re not telling me you know with all your fancy bullshit talk, and not have that man arrested and locked away with the rest of the scum on this planet. Is there anything inside you besides this bullshit? Is there one fucking emotion about what this poor kid went through?
I sat back in my chair, my heart beating just a bit faster. His anger was finding something to attach to, something not innocent like his wife and young son. Something that would not cause him to move heaven and earth to contain it.
“I do have emotions, Sean. I work very hard to keep them from interfering with my work, with my patients. With you. With Jenny.”
I let out a sigh and looked away. A pained expression washed across my face, the kind I have seen so many times, it is now second nature to me.
“And I have Jenny’s best interests at heart. In my heart,” I said through my pained face. “This memory and the person in the memory who is being investigated—I won’t say more than that, because it’s not my place—but my job is to make damned sure it gets done correctly. He’s not going anywhere. There’s no harm in taking the time to do things correctly so that if, and it is still a big ‘if,’ he does turn out to be the perpetrator, then he will not walk away on bad evidence.”
Sean looked up at me again, this time with a softer expression.
“You know how easy it would be to corrupt your memories of that dreadful day in Iraq, right? Think about how careful we are when we reconstruct the events, the surroundings. When your brain starts to pull out the file—that process is so precarious. So vulnerable. I fear Jenny’s memory has been corrupted that way.”
She doesn’t think so. She’s pretty certain.
“And yet when she thinks about this person, have you noticed? There is no fear or rage or sadness. There’s just a bland, flat intellectual response.”
Sean considered this. He knew I was right. I could see it. He exhaled loudly. His body relaxed against the cushions. Fuck.
“You want it to be this man, don’t you?”
Fuck yeah! She needs this to be over. You know that. She needs to move on. To live in the future.
“She needs to remember. That’s the only way the ghosts will leave. And so do you. Should we get to work?”
I worked with Sean for two hours. We went back to the desert. We went back to the mission, the radio calls as his comrades were murdered one by one on the streets of that village. Valancia at his side. Seeing the red door, the locals who had not fled to safety. Women and children. An old man. His anger was deeper than usual. Jenny was in his head. And worse—she was in his heart. I believed he was calmer when he left. I believed I knew the extent of his anger and the power he had to control it. He was not a violent man by nature. But as much as I never forget he was a soldier, I somehow managed not to remember.
Chapter Twenty-eight
Somers, the winter before Jenny’s rape, was not the last time and place I saw Glenn Shelby before he died. My parents raised me to be generous. They raised me to be charitable. And they raised me to help those in need.
I mention this now because I went to see Glenn that evening after my session with Sean. He had been on my mind since he left the prison, well over a year before. So much about him had found its way into my conscience, and it had become acute to the point of distraction. I located him quite easily through his parole officer. He was working from his studio apartment, doing data inputting for some sleazy Web marketing firm—the kind that captures your data and sends you crap you then have to delete. His aunt in Boston got him the job. She had also kept the apartment for him in Cranston for many years, paid the rent and utilities. The money came from the small estate of his dead parents. His aunt was an elderly woman, and she had little interest in him other than her duties as trustee, for which I imagine she received a token salary. I do not think she knew of his latest imprisonment, though she was aware of his other transgressions against the law. He had two priors for stalking.
Before this job, which kept him at home day and night, Glenn had been employed by a property maintenance company. As was the case in any situation that required social interaction, Glenn was let go within a few months. This had left him bitter. He liked the soil, the smell of the grass, and mostly the interaction with other people. Every new person was a chance for intimacy. Unfortunately, he had pushed too far with one of the clients, a buttoned-up suburban mother whose politeness had been misinterpreted as genuine interest in Glenn and his life philosophies.
Glenn Shelby was a pitiful creature. I have already told you two things. First, he was a master at teasing stories from his targets, personal stories that are usually revealed only to close friends and lovers. It has always bothered me that some of his stories came from our sessions, came from me. And second, that he is the one patient I could not save.
I went to his apartment that night. It was very troubling to be there with him, if I must admit it. The apartment was in a complex that is arranged like a motel, with the front door opening to the outside, the way a house does. But inside, it was just one room. The cars were all parked outside. They were mostly shitty cars, old and uncared for. There was a swimming pool in the center of a courtyard, which was plagued by the indifference of the residents and, in all honesty, reminded me of an open cesspool. It was a mere step up from a homeless shelter. Many of the residents were criminals or, like Glenn, surviving on the goodwill of relatives. They had told Glenn their stories, and Glenn had told me during our sessions at Somers. I remembered them well.
He came to the door in neat khakis and a button-down shirt, like he was about to leave for an office job. The smell from inside was quite strong, a conc
oction of cleaning products and curry. The company Glenn worked for employed a disproportionate number of Indians, actually in India—no surprise to anyone who has recently called a customer support line. They were frequently on training calls together, or coordinating their data entry, virtual coworkers. Their culture had rubbed off on Glenn, and he apparently had an obsession with Indian takeout.
Glenn was shaking, though he wore an indignant smile. Well, well, well. Look who’s here.
“Hello, Glenn. May I come in?”
He stepped aside and showed me to a small sofa in the corner of the room.
“How have you been?” I asked him as I sat down.
The apartment was meticulously tidy. Dishes were neatly stored in glass cabinets. Papers sat in small piles on the kitchen table, each one the same distance from the next. Each one lined up at the top and bottom. Small porcelain knickknacks adorned his dresser. Obsessive cleanliness is a stereotype of patients with this degree of psychosis. Ironically, so is filth.
Glenn shrugged. He sat down adjacent to me on a wood chair, crossing his legs before finally coming to look at me. I’m quite well, Alan.
“I hope it’s okay that I came to see you. It’s not normal for doctors to do this, but I have been worried about you for a long time.”
Glenn sat back. The indignation began to give way to his profound need to reconnect with me. It was remarkable how quickly this happened. I was wondering how long it would take for you to find me.
I smiled at him. His eyes grew wide, and I was suddenly back in time to our sessions at Somers. Sessions I had to terminate because of the boundaries he would not respect. And the boundaries I had foolishly allowed to be crossed in my efforts to help him.
“Glenn, I should have come sooner. I know that. I was informed that you stopped seeing Dr. Westcott. I ran into him at the prison last week, and he told me things didn’t go well once you got out. Do you want to tell me what happened?” All of that was true. Once boundaries have been breached, they cannot be rebuilt. They are not walls made of plaster or brick. They exist in the mind, like words that cannot be unsaid. I had asked that Glenn be reassigned to another volunteer therapist, Dr. Daniel Westcott, and upon Glenn’s release, Westcott had agreed to continue his therapy. It was more supervision than treatment, making sure he was not allowing himself to become too obsessed with someone. Making sure he didn’t lose control again.