Loss of Innocence

by Richard North Patterson

  Her mother sprang up, face contracted, hand raised to slap her daughter—less out of rage, Whitney sensed, than the visceral need to silence her. Whitney grasped her wrist in midair, their faces close. “Do you think shutting me up will erase all the damage to Janine? Then go ahead—hit me.”

  Whitney released her mother’s wrist. Slowly, the fury in Anne’s eyes was replaced by shame; as though by its own volition, her hand fell to her side. Heart racing, Whitney told her, “She’s become a walking Barbie doll, with no one home inside, who lives to be who you imagine because she’s got nothing else but her looks and your approval and the desperate need for a man to complete her. But it hasn’t quite worked for you, Mother, and Janine isn’t half as strong as you are. She’s not ‘too strong’ for men; she’s pathetically needy and insecure, and once they see past that electric first impression they use her for awhile and then run from her like the plague . . .”

  “How can you know this?”

  “How can you not? Anyone could read the pattern who wasn’t invested in a fantasy of their own creation.” Whitney paused, considering her next words. “The human wreckage I found was the result of an affair with a man who treated her like garbage. You don’t need to know the details—for once, please don’t pump Janine. She can tell you what she wants, and it’s not important now.

  “What matters is that you and Dad accept the truth: she’s not your society-page ingénue, but a fragile, damaged woman who depends on alcohol, drugs, and falsehoods to keep her going. You need to send her somewhere where she can get help, away from this family and the world she’s been drowning in. Then you can start trying to love whoever you get back.”

  Listening, Anne recovered a semblance of poise. “So suddenly our twenty-one-year-old daughter is the head of our family, the great authority on all our faults.”

  Having said so much, Whitney felt too exhausted to defend herself. “I just want you to be a real family for Janine. All I’ve got left is to tell you what I see. Whether Janine destroys herself is up to you.”

  All at once, her mother seemed deflated. “Your father is flying in tomorrow morning with Peter. He’ll know what to do.”

  The thought of seeing Charles, or Peter, was more than Whitney could bear—she had already passed the moment, with her mother, which had been as far ahead as she could see. Then she remembered Ben and wondered if the light was on in his guesthouse. But she could not run to him, let alone imagine what she would say if she did.

  “Get some sleep,” she told her mother. “I’ll stay with Janine.” She paused, then added in a reflex of politeness, “Good night, Mom.”

  Janine slept in the darkened bedroom, her breathing shallow but even. Whitney settled in an overstuffed chair, uncertain of whose needs she was serving, her sister’s or her own. Like Janine, part of her wished to fall asleep and never wake up or, if she must, to awaken to the life she had before, still innocent.

  Six

  The next morning, Whitney prepared herself to meet Charles and Peter at the airport.

  Dressed in a sweater and jeans, she watched the plane taxi to a stop, her nerves jangling from the coffee she had gulped to fight against exhaustion. Her father and her fiancé climbed down the metal stairs in the sunlight of a bright morning, the air heavy with what promised to be a hot, humid day. Edgy and apprehensive, she did not kiss either man, hoping that they would think her distracted by worry about Janine. As they hurried to the car, Charles asked, “How is she?”

  “Still sleeping. I guess Mom told you how I found her.”

  “Hungover, apparently. To be honest, your mother wondered if you were being a tad melodramatic.”

  Whitney felt her jaw tense. She climbed into the driver’s seat, waiting for the two men to slide into the car. Driving from the parking lot, she told her father, “Before you see either one of them, we need to talk.”

  Charles turned to her with a look of irritation. “Don’t you think that can wait?”

  “No.”

  Glancing in the rear view mirror, Whitney saw Peter’s worried expression, as though he sensed a danger he could not identify. “I’ll drop Peter at the house,” she told her father.

  The quiet command in her voice, an attempt to conceal her nervousness, so resembled Charles’s at such moments that it startled her. He scrutinized her more closely, choosing to say nothing.

  Reaching the house, she stopped at the head of the driveway, silent, until Peter took his cue to get out. She turned the car around and headed toward the Lucy Vincent Beach.

  “Let’s hear it,” Charles demanded.

  Irresolute, Whitney struggled to arrange her thoughts. “Let’s wait until we get there,” she temporized.

  The parking lot was near-empty. Still quiet, they took the catwalk through the sea grass to the beach, white-capped waves spilling onto pristine white sand. Near the water the air was a little cooler, the last mist of morning dissipating over sparkling blue ocean. A few fly fishermen had waded out into the surf, and an early scattering of sunbathers had arranged themselves over several hundred feet of sand and driftwood, watching the sea like sentinels. Hands shoved into the pockets of his blue sport coat, Charles walked beside his youngest daughter, regarding the scene with narrowed eyes before he turned to her.

  “And so?”

  She stopped to face him, digging her tennis shoes into the sand. “I told Mom how I found her,” she finally said. “I didn’t say Janine had just gone through an abortion, after an affair with a married guy who dumped her once she got pregnant . . .”

  “Who is this man?”

  “Forget him. The important thing is that she could have died. If Janine hadn’t become his victim, she’d be someone else’s. I think men have started using her for sex. What I know for sure is that she was fired by her agency because she’s addicted to alcohol and pills.” Whitney felt a rising anger strengthen her resolve. “I’ve seen it for awhile—take away her bright, frenetic manner and she looks like a cadaver. But Mom kept clinging to her false image of Janine, trying to compensate for what’s missing in her own life. You’ve sacrificed Janine to pacify her, so you could go on living as you pleased.”

  To Whitney’s surprise, her father looked less angry than startled. “They’ve always been close,” he protested. “They’re mother and daughter, who share things men can’t really understand . . .”

  “Are women really that mysterious? Doesn’t a string of failed relationships tell you anything about your own daughter? What about how jittery she is or how much she drinks? Did you really think she was just ‘vivacious’?” Whitney’s speech quickened. “Suppose she’d killed herself yesterday. What would you have told yourself and all your friends? Not the truth, I’m pretty sure. Any more than you’ve told the truth about your marriage—even to each other.”

  Her father’s blue eyes turned hard. “Meaning?”

  Whitney steeled herself. Voice trembling, she said, “I know about Clarice.”

  Charles folded his arms, regarding her with a fair show of calm. “What is it that you think you know?”

  “I came to the apartment yesterday.” Drawing a breath, she quoted her closest friend. “‘I enjoy it, too. But maybe I’ll torture you a little.’”

  Astonishment moved through her father’s eyes, quickly followed by comprehension. A stain of red appeared on his face, unleashing Whitney’s rage. “She was my best friend, Dad. You took us to the beach when we were little. I still remember the day you spent hours helping us build a sand castle, and all the dinners at our house when Clarice and I were growing up together, you with your indulgent smile for me and your quasi-daughter.” She paused, then added with quiet fury, “That special dinner to celebrate my engagement, with her watching while you went on and on about your wonderful marriage and how you wished me the same for Peter and me. The errand boy who loaned you and Clarice our bed . . .”

  “That’s not fair,” Charles cut in angrily.

  “To whom? The three of you knew, and Mom and I
sat there like fools. How could you do that to us—to her?”

  Charles grimaced. In a lower voice, he said. “It hadn’t started with Clarice.”

  Whitney gave him a look of contempt. “So when did you find each other, Dad?”

  “Early in July.” Charles turned away. “We went to lunch, as we often did when she was in New York. But this time . . . “

  “She seduced you,” Whitney said scornfully.

  “I’m not saying that, Whitney. I’ll spare you the details . . .”

  Whitney laughed harshly. “A little late, I’d say. But thank you.”

  Charles gazed past her, his eyes filling with shame. “I’d never imagined Clarice felt that way, or ever could.”

  Silent, Whitney reprised Clarice’s admiration for Charles; her questions about the Danes’ marriage and Anne’s insecurity; her worries about her own father’s finances. More quietly, she said, “Don’t flatter yourself, Dad. Clarice is worried that her father’s going broke, so now she’s hoping you’ll secure her future. And you couldn’t resist a twenty-two-year-old who was crazy with desire for you.”

  Charles winced, then spoke in a quieter voice, as though repeating what he had told himself. “Whatever you think, I love your mother. This was the first time I’ve been unfaithful. But I was never really young. Your generation has all this freedom to do whatever you want. My life was duty, going from one rung to the next—school, the war, succeeding at your grandfather’s firm. Doing everything I needed . . .”

  “So Mom should pay for all this virtue you’ve been practicing and preaching.”

  “Not at all. But in this brave new spirit of honesty, there’s one more ‘truth’ about our marriage. Your mother lost interest in intimacy with her change of life—not that she had much before.” Her father’s tone became insistent. “Of all the things she told you about womanhood or marriage, did she ever suggest that making love was a good thing for its own sake? Or did she present it as a marital obligation?”

  The sound of her father’s excuses reignited Whitney’s loathing. “I don’t care what happened with you and Mom. You asked my fiancé to cover for you, and you slept with my closest friend. That’s more than selfish. You need to dominate everyone around you.” She stopped, then continued in a calm, bitter voice. “You want full credit for making others who they are, so you can look at them and see yourself. I don’t think we’re even real to you . . .”

  “You’ve always been real to me,” Charles broke in. “I knew that you envied your sister. I knew you wanted Peter, and how much happier and more confident you were since he came into your life. I could see how much you wanted to have that feeling forever. So I did my damnedest to help you . . .”

  “Then how could you use him like this, and how could he let you?”

  Charles shook his head. “Peter didn’t know . . .”

  “I don’t believe you,” Whitney snapped. “You were afraid of being seen at a hotel. But you needed to know we wouldn’t be there when you met Clarice, so Peter needed to know when you would be.”

  She stared at him until he finally nodded. “All I told him, Whitney, is that I needed the apartment from time to time. I never told him why.”

  Whitney felt a wave of sadness overtake her. “You didn’t have to. This was a manly arrangement between men, though certainly not equals.” Her voice filled with disdain and pity. “Poor Peter. What could he do, after all? You’d given him a job and kept him out of the draft. All he had to do in return is keep your secrets and marry your daughter.”

  Her father shook his head. “I was unfair to him, I admit that. But you shouldn’t be. He loves you and, more than that, respects you. The two of you are an excellent match.”

  Whitney’s voice turned cold. “And you won’t let anyone get in the way of that, will you.”

  Charles stared at her. With a kind of fascination, she watched him decide that it was better not to speak. “The subject now is Ben. You pulled strings to have him drafted, in return for keeping a Jewish family out of West Chop.”

  Charles looked stunned. He exercised power so reflexively, she thought, that he had forgotten what Janine might have overheard. Hastily, he answered, “I thought that he’d ruin your life. You’re my daughter, and I was looking out for you. When you’re defending your child, you’ll kill to protect her happiness.”

  “Maybe you have,” Whitney said with lethal softness. “If Ben dies in Vietnam, I’ll never speak to you again . . .”

  “You can’t mean that.”

  “I do, believe me.” Her voice lowered. “Get him out, Dad. You got him in, so get him out.”

  “It doesn’t work that way, Whitney. All I did was have them move Ben Blaine to the top of the pile. Now he’s caught in the machinery and there’s nothing I can do . . .”

  “I despise you,” Whitney burst out.

  Charles turned from her, gazing at the water. “Are you going to marry Clarice?” she asked.

  “Of course not.”

  “No, of course not. You have bigger plans—a cabinet position.” Pausing, Whitney faltered, struggling against the instinct to give in to this man, the central figure in her life since her first conscious thought. “So you’ll have to cut her off. As for me, I’ll never speak to Clarice Barkley again.”

  “How will you explain that to your mother?”

  “That’s your problem, isn’t it?” Pausing, Whitney groped for a tenuous calm. “One last thing. If Clarice’s father’s business is failing, and she comes to you for help, you’re going to refuse her.”

  Turning, Charles looked into her face, his eyes probing. “I don’t believe you’d tell your mother about Clarice. You could never be that cruel.”

  Whitney felt a lump in her throat—if he chose to disbelieve her, she did not know if she could persist. “How do you define cruel?” she willed herself to ask. “Is it me telling Mom the truth? Or helping you deceive her about a marriage that she’s begun to sense is empty? Because if I stay quiet, that’s what I’ll be doing. Just like Peter.”

  “Use your head,” Charles admonished harshly. “Beneath the surface, your mother’s very fragile.”

  “I agree. But not as fragile as Janine, who you’ve let Mom swallow whole. So tell me how you’re going to help my sister.”

  Charles’s face became a rigid mask. “Is this your final demand, Whitney?”

  “Yes.”

  Facing the water again, her father frowned in thought. Tense, Whitney watched him consider his choices. “There’s a place called McLean,” he said at length, “near Boston. One of my partners sent his daughter there when she got too deeply into drugs. I gather they’re careful to protect a family’s privacy . . .”

  “Maybe they’ll even help Janine,” Whitney interjected caustically. “So don’t let Mom interfere. You want to run your family’s lives, so do some good with it for once. And keep Peter in his job. God knows he’s earned it.”

  Charles shot her a look of doubt and curiosity. “What do you mean to say to him?”

  “That’s between the two of us. I don’t want you telling him anything about this. We’re none of your business, for once.”

  Turning from him abruptly, she walked back to the car, afraid that he might see her crumble.

  They returned to the house in silence. Drained and weary, Whitney felt years older, an alien to herself.

  Seven

  Whitney found Peter in the guesthouse, unpacking his clothes with the distracted air of someone at loose ends. He looked up from his suitcase, his appraisal of Whitney cautious, then sat on the bed with his hands folded, looking, for once, less like an athlete than someone who felt awkward in his own body—or, she amended sadly, in his life.

  “What’s happening, Whit?”

  She sat across from him, underscoring the distance she felt. “I know about the apartment,” she told him, “and what you’ve let my father use it for. How could you do that to us, Peter?”

  Peter’s gaze was shamed but steady. “Because
he asked me.” He paused, touching the bridge of his nose. “I didn’t like knowing, and it didn’t feel good to see him differently. But it was something he trusted me with.”

  Whitney felt comprehension overtaking her. “Like a father trusts a son.”

  Briefly, his gaze flickered. “I wouldn’t have wanted to know that about my own dad. But, yeah, maybe a little.” He paused, looking at her directly. “I still believe he loves your mom. I just had to accept that he isn’t perfect, and that there were things I couldn’t understand.”

  “But what about me, Peter? And us?”

  “I did think about you,” he said with a trace of anger. “A lot. But what was I supposed to tell you, Whitney? Do you feel better knowing that your dad has been cheating on your mom?”

  Heartsick, Whitney considered his question. “I don’t know,” she finally answered. “But I wish you’d told him ‘no.’ For my sake, and yours.”

  Peter’s throat worked, “I couldn’t, Whit. I wanted to, and I couldn’t.”

  The weight of this sounded crushing. It was beyond Whitney to be angry when she felt so sad for them both. “I don’t even know who she was,” he said. “Do you?”

  “Yes.” Feeling her own solitude, Whitney wished she could reach out to him. “My father and I will never be the same, Peter. None of us will.”

  For a moment, he looked like he wanted to stand, closing the distance between them. Watching her face, he stayed where he was, gazing at her pleadingly. “What about us, Whitney? I still love you, and I don’t want to live my life without you. I’ll find a teaching job, if that’s what you want. Anything.”

  Whitney felt her throat constrict. “But what do you want, Peter?”

  “You, Whitney.” He got up, kneeling by her chair to take her hand in his. “A life with you. Nothing means more to me.”