by Jodi Picoult
"Of course. I would have told him myself, but ..." My voice trails off.
"That's my job," she finishes, saving me from speaking the truth: Now that I have forgiven Caleb, I do not know if he will forgive me.
I busy myself with the dishes--rinsing our mugs, squeezing dry the tea bags and putting them into the trash. I have specifically tried to focus on Nathaniel since leaving Dr. Robichaud's office--not only because it is the right thing to do, but because I am a terrible coward at heart. What will Caleb say, do?
Monica's hand touches my forearm. "You were protecting Nathaniel."
I look directly at her. No wonder there is a need for social workers; the relationships between people knot so easily, there needs to be a person skilled at working free the threads. Sometimes, though, the only way to extricate a tangle is to cut it out and start fresh.
She reads my mind. "Nina. In your shoes, he would have reached the same conclusions."
A knock on the door captures our attention. Patrick lets himself in, nods to Monica. "I'm just on my way out," she explains. "If you want to reach me later, I'll be in my office."
This is directed to both Patrick and me. Patrick will need her, presumably, to be kept abreast of the case. I will need her, presumably, for moral support. As soon as the door closes behind Monica, Patrick steps forward. "Nathaniel?"
"He's in his room. He's okay." A sob hops the length of my throat. "Oh, my God, Patrick. I should have known. What did I do? What did I do?"
"You did what you had to," he says simply.
I nod, trying to believe him. But Patrick knows it isn't working. "Hey." He leads me to one of the stools in the kitchen, sits me down. "Remember when we were kids, and we used to play Clue?"
I wipe my nose with my sleeve. "No."
"That's because I always trounced you. You'd pick Mr. Mustard every time, no matter what the evidence said."
"I must have let you win."
"Good. Because if you've done it before, Nina, it's not going to be that hard to do it again." He puts his hands on my shoulders. "Give over. I know this game, Nina, and I'm good at it. If you let me do what I have to, without messing yourself up in the process, we can't lose." Suddenly he takes a step away from me, stuffs his hands into his pockets. "And you've got other things to work on, now."
"Other things?"
Patrick turns, meets my eye. "Caleb?"
It's like that old contest: Who will blink first? This time, I can't bear it; I am the one to look away. "Then go lock him up, Patrick. It's Father Szyszynski. I know it, and you know it. How many priests have been convicted of doing just this--shit!" I wince, my own mistake hammering back. "I talked to Father Szyszynski about Nathaniel during confession."
"You what? What were you thinking?"
"That he was my priest." Then I glance up. "Wait. He thinks it's Caleb. That's what I thought, then. That's good, right? He doesn't know that he's the suspect."
"What's important is whether Nathaniel knows it."
"Isn't that crystal clear?"
"Unfortunately, it's not. Apparently, there's more than one way to interpret the word father. And by the same logic, there's a whole country full of priests out there." He looks at me soberly. "You're the prosecutor. You know this case can't afford another mistake."
"God, Patrick, he's only five. He signed priest. Szyszynski is the only priest he even knows, the only priest who has any contact with him on a regular basis. Go ahead and ask Nathaniel if that's who he meant."
"That's not going to stand up in court, Nina."
Suddenly I realize that Patrick has not come only for Nathaniel; he has also come for me. To remind me that while I'm being a mother, I still have to think like a prosecutor now. We cannot name the accuser for Nathaniel; he has to do it himself. Otherwise, there is no chance of a conviction.
My mouth is dry. "He isn't ready to talk yet."
Patrick holds out his hand to me. "Then let's just see what he can tell us today."
Nathaniel is on the top bunk, sorting his daddy's old collection of baseball cards into piles. He likes the feel of their frayed edges, and the way they smell gray. His dad says to be careful, that one day these could pay for college, but Nathaniel couldn't care less. Right now he likes touching them, staring at all the funny faces, and thinking that his dad used to do the same thing.
There's a knock, and his mom comes in with Patrick. Without hesitation, Patrick climbs up the ladder--all six-feet-two inches of him squashing into the small space between ceiling and mattress. It makes Nathaniel smile a little. "Hey, Weed." Patrick thumps the bed with a fist. "This is comfy. Gotta get me one of these." He sits up, pretends to crack his head on the ceiling. "What do you think? Should I ask your mom to buy me a bed like this too?"
Nathaniel shakes his head and hands Patrick a card. "Is this for me?" Patrick asks, then reads the name and smiles broadly. "Mike Schmidt, rookie. I'm sure your dad will be thrilled you've been so generous." He tucks it into his pocket and takes out a pad and pen at the same time. "Nathaniel, you think it would be all right if I asked you some questions?"
Well. He is tired of questions. He is tired, period. But Patrick climbed all the way up here. Nathaniel jerks his head, yes.
Patrick touches the boy's knee, slowly, so slowly that it doesn't even make Nathaniel jump, although these days everything does. "Will you tell me the truth, Weed?" he asks softly.
Slower this time, Nathaniel nods.
"Did your daddy hurt you?"
Nathaniel looks at Patrick, then at his mother, and emphatically shakes his head. He feels something open up in his chest, making it easier to breathe.
"Did somebody else hurt you?"
Yes.
"Do you know who it was?"
Yes.
Patrick's gaze is locked with Nathaniel's. He won't let him turn away, no matter how badly Nathaniel wants to. "Was it a boy or a girl?"
Nathaniel is trying to remember--how is it said again? He looks at his mother, but Patrick shakes his head, and he knows that, now, it is all up to him. Tentatively, his hand comes up to his head. He touches his brow, as if there is a baseball cap there. "Boy," he hears his mother translate.
"Was it a grown-up, or a kid?"
Nathaniel blinks at him. He cannot sign those words.
"Well, was he big like me, or little like you?"
Nathaniel's hand hovers between his own body, and Patrick's. Then falls, deliberately, in the middle.
That makes Patrick grin. "Okay, it was a medium guy, and it was someone you know?"
Yes.
"Can you tell me who?"
Nathaniel feels his whole face tighten, muscles bunching. He squeezes his eyes shut. Please please please, he thinks. Let me. "Patrick," his mother says, and she takes a step forward, but Patrick holds out a hand and she stops.
"Nathaniel, if I brought you a bunch of pictures"--he points to the baseball cards--"like these ... do you think you could show me who this person was?"
Nathaniel's hands flutter over the piles, bumblebees choosing a place to light. He looks from one card to the other. He cannot read, he cannot speak, but he knows that Rollie Fingers had a handlebar moustache, Al Hrabosky looked like a grizzly bear. Once something sticks in his head, it stays there; it's just a matter of getting it back out again.
Nathaniel looks up at Patrick; and he nods. This, this he can do.
Monica has been in accommodations far worse than the efficiency suite where she finds Caleb Frost, but this is almost more jarring, and she thinks it is because she has seen the sort of home where he is supposed to be. The minute Caleb recognizes her face through the keyhole of the door, he throws it open. "What's the matter with Nathaniel?" he asks, true fear washing over his features.
"Nothing. Nothing at all. He's made another disclosure. A new ID."
"I don't understand."
"It means you're no longer a suspect, Mr. Frost," Monica says quietly.
Questions rise in him like a bonfire. "Who," Caleb m
anages, the word tasting of ash.
"I think you should go home and speak to your wife about it," she answers, then turns briskly and walks away, her purse tucked primly beneath her arm.
"Wait," Caleb calls out. He takes a deep breath. "Is ... is Nina okay with that?"
Monica smiles, lets the light reach her eyes. "Who do you think asked me to come?"
Peter agrees to meet me at the district court, where I'm going to have the restraining order vacated. The process takes all of ten minutes, a rubber stamp, with the judge asking only one question: How is Nathaniel?
By the time I come into the lobby, Peter is racing through the front door. He immediately comes toward me, concern drawing down the corners of his mouth. "I got here as soon as I could," he says breathlessly. His eyes dart to Nathaniel, holding my hand.
He thinks I need him to twist the letter of the law for me, squeeze blood from the stone heart of a judge, do something to stack the scales of justice in my favor. Suddenly I am embarrassed by the reason I called him.
"What is it?" Peter demands. "Anything, Nina."
I slip my hands in my coat pockets. "I really just wanted to get a cup of coffee," I admit. "I wanted to feel, for five minutes, like everything was back the way it used to be."
Peter's gaze is a spotlight; it sees down to my soul. "I can do that too," he says, and loops his arm through mine.
Although there are no seats left at the bar at Tequila Mockingbird by the time Patrick arrives, the bartender takes one look at him and hints strongly to a visiting businessman that he take his drink to a booth in the back. Patrick wraps his black mood around him like a parka, hops onto the vacant stool, and signals to Stuyvesant. The bartender comes over pouring his usual, Glenfiddich. But he hands Patrick the bottle, and keeps the glass of scotch behind the bar. "Just in case someone else here wants a shot," Stuyv explains.
Patrick looks at the bottle, at the bartender. He tosses his car keys on the counter, a fair trade, and takes a long swig of the liquor.
By now, Nina has been to the court and back. Maybe Caleb has made it home in time for dinner. Maybe they've gotten Nathaniel to bed early, and are even now lying in the dark next to each other.
Patrick picks up his bottle again. He has been in their bedroom before. Big king-size bed. If he was married to her, they'd sleep on a narrow cot, that's how close to her he would be.
He'd been married himself for three years, because he believed that if you wanted to get rid of a hole, you filled it. He had not realized at the time that there were all sorts of fillers that took up space, but had no substance. That made you feel just as empty.
Patrick pitches forward as a blond woman hits him hard on the shoulder. "You pervert!"
"What the hell?"
She narrows her eyes. They are green, and caked with too much mascara. "Did you just touch my ass?"
"No."
Suddenly, she grins, insinuating herself between Patrick and the elderly man on his right. "Well, damn. How many times will I have to walk by before you do?"
Sliding her drink beside Patrick's bottle, she holds out her hand. Manicured. He hates manicured hands. "I'm Xenia. And you are?"
"Really not interested." Patrick smiles tightly, turns back to the bar.
"My mom didn't raise a quitter," Xenia says. "What do you do for a living?"
"I'm a funeral director."
"No, really."
Patrick sighs. "I'm on the vice squad."
"No, really."
He faces her again. "Really. I'm a police officer."
Her eyes widen. "Does that mean I'm busted?"
"Depends. Did you break any laws?"
Xenia's gaze travels the length of his body. "Not yet." Dipping a finger in her drink--something pink and frothy--she touches her shirt, and then his. "Wanna go to my place and get out of these wet clothes?"
He blushes, then tries to pretend it didn't happen. "Don't think so."
She props her chin on her fist. "Guess you better just buy me a drink."
He starts to turn her down again, then hesitates. "All right. What are you having?"
"An Orgasm."
"Of course," Patrick says, hiding a smile. It would be so easy--to go home with this girl, waste a condom and a few hours' sleep, get the itch out of his blood. Chances are, he could fuck her without ever telling her his name. And in return, for just a few hours, he would feel like someone wanted him. He would be, for a night, someone's first choice.
Except this particular someone would not be his first choice.
Xenia trails her nails along the nape of Patrick's neck. "I'm just going to carve our initials in the door of the ladies' room," she murmurs, backing away.
"You don't know my initials."
"I'll make them up." She gives a little wave, then disappears into the crowd.
Patrick calls over Stuyvesant and pays for Xenia's second drink. He leaves it sweating on a cocktail napkin for her. Then he walks out of Tequila Mockingbird stone sober, facing the fact that Nina has ruined him for anyone else.
*
Nathaniel lies on the lower bunk while I read him a book before bedtime. Suddenly, he jackknifes upright and fairly flies across the room, to the doorway where Caleb stands. "You're home," I say, the obvious, but he doesn't hear. He is lost in this moment.
Seeing them together, I want to kick myself again. How could I ever have believed that Caleb was at fault?
The room is suddenly too small to hold all three of us. I back out of it, closing the door behind me. Downstairs, I wash the silverware that sits on the drying rack, already clean. I pick Nathaniel's toys up from the floor. I sit down on the living room couch; then, restless, stand up and arrange the cushions.
"He's asleep."
Caleb's voice cuts to the quick. I turn, my arms crossed over my chest. Does that look too defensive? I settle them at my sides, instead. "I'm ... I'm glad you're home."
"Are you?"
His face gives nothing away. Coming out of the shadows, Caleb walks toward me. He stops two feet away, but there might as well be a universe between us.
I know every line of his face. The one that was carved the first year of our marriage, by laughing so often. The one that was born of worries the year he left the contracting company to go into business for himself. The one that developed from focusing hard on Nathaniel as he took his first steps, said his first word. My throat closes tight as a vise, and all the apologies sit bitter in my stomach. We had been naive enough to believe that we were invincible; that we could run blind through the hairpin turns of life at treacherous speeds and never crash. "Oh, Caleb," I say finally, through the tears, "these things, they weren't supposed to happen to us."
Then he is crying too, and we cling to each other, fitting our pain into each other's hollows and breaks. "He did this. He did this to our baby."
Caleb holds my face in his hands. "We're going to get through it. We're going to make Nathaniel get better." But his sentences turn up at the ends, like small animals begging. "There are three of us in this, Nina," he whispers. "And we're all in it together."
"Together," I repeat, and press my open mouth against his neck. "Caleb, I'm so sorry."
"Ssh."
"I am, no, I am--"
He cuts me off with a kiss. The action arrests me; it is not what I have been expecting. But then I grab him by the collar of his shirt and kiss him back. I kiss him from the bottom of my soul, I kiss him until he can taste the copper edge of sorrow. Together.
We undress each other with brutality, ripping fabric and popping buttons that roll under the couch like secrets. This is the anger overflowing: anger that this has happened to our son, that we cannot turn back time. For the first time in days I can get rid of the rage; I pour it into Caleb, only to realize that he is doing the same to me. We scratch, we bite, but then Caleb lays me down with the softest touch. Our eyes lock when he moves inside me; neither one of us would dare to blink. My body remembers: This is what it is to be filled by love,
instead of despair.
The last case I worked on with Monica LaFlamme had not been a success. She sent me a report, stating that a Mrs. Grady had called her. Apparently, while drying her seven-year-old off after a bath, Eli grabbed the Mickey Mouse towel and began to simulate sexual thrusting, then named his stepfather as the perp. The child was taken to Maine Medical Center, but there were no physical findings. Oh, and Eli suffered from something called oppositional defiance disorder.
We met at my office, in the room we use to assess children for competency exams. On the other side of a one-way mirror was a small table, tiny chairs, a few toys, and a rainbow painted on the wall. Monica and I watched Eli run around like a hellion, literally climbing the curtains. "Well," I said. "This should be fun."
In the adjoining room, Mrs. Grady ordered her son to stop. "You need to calm down, Eli," she said. But that just made him scream more, run more.
I turned to Monica. "What's oppositional defiance disorder, anyway?"
The social worker shrugged. "My guess?" she said, gesturing toward Eli. "That. He does the opposite of what you ask him to do."
I gaped at her. "It's a real psychiatric diagnosis? I mean, it's not just the definition of being seven years old?"
"Go figure."
"What about forensic evidence?" I unrolled a grocery bag, and pulled out a neatly folded towel. Mickey's face leered up at me. The big ears, the sideways grin--it was creepy on its own merits, I thought.
"The mother washed it after the bath that night."
"Of course she did."
Monica sighed as I handed the towel to her. "Mrs. Grady's intent on going to trial."
"It's not her decision." But I smiled as Eli's mother took a spot beside me and the police officer who was investigating the case. I gave her my spiel, about seeing what information Ms. LaFlamme could get out of Eli, for the record.
We watched through the mirror as Monica asked Eli to sit down.
"No," he said, and started running laps.
"I need you to come sit down in this chair. Can you do that, please?"
Eli picked up the chair and threw it in the corner. With supreme patience, Monica retrieved it and set it down beside her own. "Eli, I need you to come sit in this chair for a little while, and then we'll go get Mommy."
"I want my mommy now. I don't want to be here." But then he sat down.
Monica pointed to the rainbow. "Can you tell me what color this is, Eli?"