Ask Again, Yes

by Mary Beth Keane

  “You heading all the way back up there tonight?” George asked.

  Kate and Peter exchanged panicked glances. If she were any other guest, this would be the moment to invite her to stay. But Anne said no, she’d struck a deal at the motor lodge on Jericho Turnpike to stay for a little while.

  “Oh,” Kate said, and carefully set down the platter she was holding. “How long is a little while?”

  “A week or two, maybe.”

  “Didn’t you say you have a job upstate?” Kate asked. “An apartment?”

  “Kate,” Peter said.

  “I took some time off. I had vacation days saved up.” She didn’t tell them that she’d never once taken a vacation day before.

  Peter could see that Kate was thinking carefully about how to say whatever was coming next. So he spoke first.

  “That sounds nice. Time off is good.” He signaled Kate to say they’d discuss it later.

  This is my fault, Kate thought. I invited her here. How could I have believed she’d see him just once and be on her way? But then she watched Anne cross the patio to the cooler of waters, settle into the seat beside Peter. She was an old woman now. Frail. Bent. Nervous around her son and his family.

  “Here,” Kate said, getting up to get her a pillow. The chair she’d chosen beside Peter was the least comfortable.

  “Thanks,” Anne said, and as Kate watched her tuck it behind her, she thought, She has no power over us.

  * * *

  Anne stayed until the mosquitoes came out and the kids paraded down in their pj’s, their breath minty sweet. One by one they went around the patio, throwing their arms around George, then Peter, then Kate, and then Anne. “Good night,” they said, and by turns the boy and the girl pressed their hot faces to hers. Molly extended her hand for an extra shake and wished Anne a nice trip back to wherever she’d come from.

  “Molly!” Peter admonished.

  Immediately, Anne liked the girl best.

  Peter, getting up to light the citronella torches, thought, I can’t expect it to be like this if we see her again. I can’t assume she’s always like this now. I’ll take today and enjoy it—so far, so good—but I won’t hope for more. She’s interested today but maybe won’t be tomorrow. He wondered if after all that time she was disappointed when she saw him again. She used to lie on his bed and name all the cities she wanted to visit with him. San Francisco. Shanghai. Brussels. Mumbai. But he’d never seen those places and neither had she. If they unfolded and unfolded the largest map they could find, where he started and where he ended up would be two small dots on that map, side by side.

  nineteen

  BENNY COULD WAIT WITH Peter up until the last moment, but when they called him, he’d have to go in the room alone. Benny went over once again the things they’d probably cover, and the best answers Peter could offer while not saying too much, but Peter was only half paying attention. That morning, twelve weeks after accidentally discharging his weapon, he’d sat on the edge of Kate’s side of the bed and told her she might be right, that he might have a problem, but if she could just bear with him for a little longer he was determined to get better. He told her he’d been thinking about it for a while, about a thing she’d said a few weeks back: that not all problems looked the same, but that didn’t mean they weren’t problems. The things she’d been saying to him, the warnings she’d been giving him, it was possible she was right. It was still possible she was wrong, but it was also possible she was right. Ever since his mother’s visit, he’d been trying to go up to bed earlier, and his latest trick was setting an alarm for midnight. The moment it went off he had to march himself upstairs. If he was holding a drink, he had to pour it down the sink. It had worked for a week, and then he kept pressing snooze, and then he just stopped setting it altogether. After that, he made a rule that he could only drink beer, no liquor. That only lasted for three days.

  The thing was, he’d promised himself the night before that he’d only have two drinks. But then he’d had another. Then another. It was like running too fast down a steep hill, his legs flying out in front of him. He could not stop. That surprised him. He wasn’t sure he’d ever tried before.

  She’d looked up at him from her pillow, and for a second he thought she was going to say she was done, that it was too late.

  But then she sat up and braced him by the shoulders. She tipped forward until her forehead touched his. “Thank God,” she said. “Let’s get through today, okay?” she said. “And then talk later? What time do you have to be there?”

  * * *

  The hearing was set to begin at nine sharp but at eight fifty-five the clerk came out and said they had to push it to ten. Bathrooms were down the hall. Vending machines were in the lobby.

  Benny was going on about the pension hearing, the step after this one, if it turned out that they were going to force him to retire, whether it would be with disability.

  “You think that’s what’ll happen?” Peter asked. “They might see this is all a big mistake and reinstate me at full duty.”

  “Yeah, they could, they could,” Benny said. He’d never seen it happen, personally.

  Waiting side by side with Benny on the most uncomfortable bench in five boroughs, Peter tried to think of the most damning things he’d said in therapy. Benny confirmed they’d have his psychologist’s notes in front of them, the conclusions he’d drawn. It didn’t seem legal. Benny agreed, but it was pointless to think about that because here they were. He wished Peter had told him that he’d signed away his privacy rights, he could have warned Peter to be more guarded during sessions, but Peter hadn’t understood that they’d use those notes against him. He stood up and swore and tried to recollect what the psychologist’s admin had told him: that they were gathering longitudinal data for the department. Also, if he didn’t sign, his commanding officer told him, they’d consider taking his pension. He was a wreck before that first session and didn’t even remember reading the papers he’d signed. What could he do? Benny understood both sides. Since Peter was also a commanding officer, they had to protect the people who worked under him. What if it happened again but instead of firing into a cinderblock wall, Peter hit a person?

  “Do you think the department could take the storm that would come? They have enough bad cops to deal with,” Benny said.

  “I’m not a bad cop.”

  “I know that, Peter. But I don’t think they’ll risk putting an unstable cop back on the job.”

  Peter flinched. “I’m not unstable. They don’t really think that.”

  “You know that’s just the language, Interim Order Number Nine. That’s part of the phrasing.” Benny seemed to think carefully about what he’d say next. “There’s just that one Command Discipline in your file. My sense is, internally, they think you’re smart as hell, but they believe you’re hiding something.”

  Peter remembered once again what he’d said to Kate that morning, how he wished he could climb into bed beside her and stay there until he figured out how he’d gotten there, and how to get out.

  “Pete, between us, I haven’t said a word to anyone about the favor you asked me to do at the hospital, but it’s possible they know about that, too. There were too many people in and out and I know at least one nurse overheard. Had you been drinking that day?”

  What was considered that day? Kate had worked overnight in the lab, so she was at home. She’d set herself up at the kitchen table with a pile of textbooks and index cards filled out with different-colored Sharpies. The irony was he remembered thinking life was pretty good in that moment. The weather was perfect, the garage smelled like sawdust, there was a game on the radio, he found a partial growler of IPA at the back of his beer fridge. He reported for duty at four. Technically, he had had a few drinks that day, but Benny should know as well as Peter did that time worked differently for people who work the midnight tour. Anytime Peter drove away from home and to the station house marked for him the end of one day and the beginning of the next.
He left his house around three o’clock, and none of that happened until around nine o’clock at night. Agreeing that he’d been drinking that day would be implying something that wasn’t true.

  “Actually, don’t answer that.”

  * * *

  The doctors on the panel were two orthopedists and one psychiatrist. The orthopedists were there for the patrolmen who’d been on modified duty for broken legs, ruptured discs. The psychiatrist was there for him.

  They began pleasantly. One of the orthopedists asked him how he’d been feeling lately, if he was sleeping well, eating right. When his answer came in too short, they asked him to elaborate. Was he still seeing his therapist? Did he feel he was making progress? And how were things at home? Things with his kids? His wife? How was his wife handling everything, in Peter’s view? Peter reminded them—it must have been somewhere in their notes—that Kate also worked for the department, that she was second in seniority only to the director of the crime lab. They waited for him to say more. The psychiatrist referred to a note.

  “And your drinking. Has it gotten worse since you were moved to restricted duty? We have a statement from a hospital employee that says you tried to get your union rep to bring you alcohol that evening? While you were being evaluated? You couldn’t wait until you were cleared? Another hour, maybe? Two hours?”

  Peter pressed hard on his thighs to keep his hands steady. He said the words he’d practiced. “It had been a very emotional night and I think I was in shock. But what happened had nothing to do with drinking. Still, if it makes the department feel more comfortable, I’m willing to enter a rehabilitation program if the department sees fit.”

  “Were you intoxicated when you discharged your weapon, Peter?”

  “No.”

  “Do you believe it’s possible to do your job while intoxicated?”

  “No. Absolutely not.”

  They seemed to consider this but said nothing.

  “And what about your parents? Your father, he was on the job, correct? You told Dr. Elias that you haven’t seen your father in twenty-five years? And that your mother spent over a decade in a state mental institution as part of a plea deal?”

  It was annoying to be asked questions that everyone in the room already knew the answers to.

  “Can you describe what happened? The incident when you were fourteen?”

  Peter had expected the question but now that they’d asked it, he couldn’t think of a way to frame his answer. They had all the details in their pile of papers anyway. Why make him say it?

  “Twenty-four years. It’s been twenty-four years since I last saw my father. Not twenty-five.”

  “And your mother. It was a violent charge, yes? She shot your neighbor? You told Dr. Elias she had paranoid delusions. At one point she was considered schizophrenic but that might have been a misdiagnosis? How familiar are you with her diagnoses and treatments?”

  “Yes,” Peter.

  “Yes what?” the psychiatrist asked.

  “Yes it was a violent charge.”

  “And are you in touch with her? Is she still in treatment?”

  “I saw her recently and she’s much better. The medications now are much better than they were back then.”

  “Peter,” the psychiatrist said, “you have to answer all of our questions. You can’t pick and choose.”

  Peter sighed. “What happened then, the incident you refer to, it was terrible, yes, but my mother was ill and she wasn’t getting sufficient support at home. I was a kid so I didn’t know anything but my father, he should have known she needed treatment. But anyway, we’ve all moved on, even my father-in-law, and if he’s moved on I don’t see why it’s relevant to these proceedings.”

  “Your father-in-law? What’s his connection to that event?”

  Peter sat way back. Had he never mentioned that detail? In twelve weeks of struggling to fill those therapy slots with talking, had he never mentioned that part? He figured they already knew. He thought quickly and felt them leaning closer, their ears perked up to receive his answer.

  “My wife’s father. He was the neighbor. He’s the one my mother shot.” They all leaned over their notebooks and wrote something down.

  * * *

  In the end, they didn’t even bother to send him out of the room while they deliberated. He’d retire immediately. They’d continue paying him until the end of the year.

  As soon as he stepped out of the room, there was Benny. And sitting on the bench next to him was Francis Gleeson.

  “What are you doing here?” Peter asked. Francis had called the house several times to find out how things were going, what was happening. Peter didn’t know if Kate called him back.

  “I wanted to be here,” Francis said. He was wearing his usual tweed flat cap pulled low over his forehead. He was the only man in the building who had not removed his hat when he came indoors. “How’d it go?”

  Benny didn’t need to ask because he already knew. “You’ll appeal,” Benny said.

  Peter strode past both men to the elevator bank. He punched the button, but then made for the stairs.

  “Did you tell them you’d go to the farm?” Benny called into the stairwell. “You said all that?”

  * * *

  Outside smelled like autumn, finally. His favorite season. The first sign of cooler weather always made him crave a stack of fresh notebooks, made him want to eat an apple and then run a 10K as fast as he could. Cross-country weather, those glorious perfect weeks between the oppressive heat of summer and the first bitter wind of winter.

  Benny hurried to catch up with Peter in the parking lot. Francis wasn’t far behind.

  “Think about it for a week,” Benny said. “If you don’t want to appeal, I’ll have them schedule a pension hearing.” He tilted his head and put a hand on Peter’s shoulder. “You good? You okay?”

  “I think so, yeah. Actually, I feel fine.”

  “Peter!” Francis shouted from across the lot. Peter could see he was moving as fast as he could. Peter leaned against the bumper of his car to wait for him.

  Benny excused himself, left father- and son-in-law alone.

  “You need a lift somewhere, Francis?”

  “No. My buddy drove me. I just wanted to say—”

  “What?”

  Francis held a hand up to shade his eyes, get a better look at Peter.

  “Take it easy, okay? I’m on your side.”

  “You’re on Kate’s side, you mean.”

  “Yeah,” Francis said. “That’s right. I’m on Kate’s side. But as far as I understand you two are on the same side.”

  “Why are you here?”

  Francis looked around the parking lot. “I just wanted to tell you it’ll be okay. You’re a young man. This seems like the end of everything but it’s not. I know what it’s like to have to stop early.”

  Peter pulled off his tie and balled it in his fist.

  “I’m a good cop.”

  “I know that.”

  “It was an accident. It happens pretty often, actually, you’d be surprised. Benny had statistics, specifics from other cases. As long as no one gets hurt, as far as I know, no one gets forced out.”

  Francis seemed to be considering his responses.

  “That may be true but is that why you’re out? Because you fired your gun at a wall?”

  Peter turned away, fished for his keys in his pants pocket, walked around the car to the driver’s side.

  “I’m also here because . . .”

  “Because?” Peter paused.

  “I wanted to say you should still go to the farm. I’ll help pay for it if they won’t. If you guys can’t. You and Kate. Or we can keep it between us. You and me.”

  “I don’t keep things from Kate.”

  “No?” Francis asked over his shoulder as he shuffled away.

  * * *

  Kate had gone off to work that morning but when Peter pulled up to their house, her car was in the driveway. The kids were at sch
ool. When he went inside she was sitting at the kitchen table with a mug of tea clasped between her hands. Silently, he sat down across from her. She searched his face.

  “They’ll pay me through December,” he said. “Someone will come around tomorrow for the car. Benny is going to work on the pension stuff.”

  She let out a slow exhalation. “Okay,” she said. “At least it’s over.” She put her hand on top of his, warm from the hot mug.

  “There are lots of things I can’t do. Part of me thought I might pivot to security somewhere. But no security firm would ever hire a cop whose guns got taken.”

  He could see that Kate hadn’t thought about that, that some paths would be barred now.

  “I don’t think you have to worry about that today, do you?” she said. “That can wait until tomorrow. In the meantime, I got you something.” She went to the fridge and brought out a mini key lime pie from his favorite bakery. She placed it in front of him. As she stood beside him, he circled his hands around her waist, rested his head against her ribs.

  “I trashed the hospital room,” he whispered. “I got so frustrated. I just, I don’t know. They cleared the room and gave me a psych exam. They brought in restraints.”

  Instantly, Kate felt a latch lifting, an edge of light spread across the whole night. It finally made sense. She remembered his missing boat from so many years ago, how he’d told her, later, that his mother had smashed it to smithereens, and a feeling had come over him that made him want to smash things, too.

  “Did they use them? The restraints?”

  “No,” Peter said, and held her tighter.

  “Good. Okay. That’s good.”

  “I could still go away for a while,” he said, and immediately felt her body tense up. “For a little while until I get a hold of this thing.”

  “Rehab,” she said, just to make completely certain they were talking about the same thing. She put her hands in his hair.