Dr. Salinger seems not at all surprised by these unwelcome thoughts that fill my head. Thoughts that, I tell him, reverberate in my skull, picking up speed until they are bouncing back and forth like atoms reaching a critical mass.
“Yes,” he says. “I see. I see.” I tell him I cannot see. I have been struck blind.
TWELVE
Rachel’s father, Benjamin Lawson, my employer, dies suddenly and unexpectedly of a stroke a year later. His entire estate is left to Rachel. We are rich. The death strikes yet another blow to Rachel’s fragile world. She deteriorates rapidly. She refuses to leave the house. Any suggestion of venturing outside is met with hostility. Her doctor, who must come to the house to see his patient, prescribes yet another antidepressant, but if the drug has an effect, I cannot see it. Her drinking escalates. Rather than blur her scrutiny of me, the alcohol intensifies it. I am her world.
Years pass and nothing changes. Occasionally I make gestures of fortitude, to gauge if her vehemence has lessened or if my weakness has improved. One day, I find her in Albert’s room. The room is still decorated with children’s furniture, finger paintings Scotch-taped to the wall. Rachel sits beside the bed in a rocking chair. An overflowing ashtray rests on the bedspread that is bright with cartoon figures. A cigarette smolders between her fingers, a glass of raw scotch nestled between her legs. The rocking of the chair threatens to spill the scotch. She pulls at her hair. Twirls long strands of it. I see small bald spots and crusty scabs in her scalp.
I do not like it when she brings her sickness into Albert’s room, mourning for a son who is not dead but may as well be. I open with a mild accusation. “This place smells like a barroom.”
“That’s because I’m drinking and smoking.”
“You’re not supposed to drink with Prozac.”
Rachel thrusts her hand into her pocket. Pulls out a prescription bottle. She dumps the pale green pills into her drink. She waves the glass at me in a bitter toast and swills the mixture down. She spills most of it. She picks soggy pills off her blouse and inserts them in her mouth. “Fuck it.”
“Look what you’ve become.”
“‘Look what you’ve become.’ I haven’t become. This is what has been done to me. I miss Albert. I want to see him.”
“Why don’t you go see him, then?”
“Fuck you. I can’t, you know I can’t.”
“How long has it been since you’ve left this house?”
“I repeat: Fuck you. Bring my boy to me.”
“Not with you like this.”
Somehow, I’ve struck a chord. Rachel lowers her head in acquiescence. She sobs. “Go see him. Tell him his mother loves him. Please, Adam, go see him for me.”
THIRTEEN
I go to see Albert. Alone. There is some secret, I think, that he is withholding from me. I do not know what it is, only that it is vital.
His room is, appropriately, on the bottom level of the institution. I do not alert the staff to my presence, but go straight to his room. Outside his door, I hesitate. What am I doing here? What are these thoughts of secrets, of solutions? What can this visit bring except pain for me and confusion for Albert? On the door is pasted a piece of poster board with Albert’s name finger-painted on it in a deep mauve color. Rachel taught him how to do that, I remember.
From inside the room, I can hear Albert’s deep-throated moans. I push the door ever so lightly, and it swings silently inward. Albert lies on his bed, a prone giant. He is naked with the bedcovers pulled down just below his waist. An attendant-not a nurse, but a nurse’s helper-stands over his prone body. She is an attractive girl, the attendant. Straight black hair falls over her eyes. I look down and see that her hand moves rhythmically back and forth over Albert’s groin. She holds Albert’s sex organ in her small, pale hand. It is engorged with blood and angrily red. Just as I allow myself to comprehend what it is she is doing to him, a loud gasp escapes Albert’s throat, and then the girl is wiping the viscous fluid from her hand and from Albert’s belly with a clean white towel. She looks up at me and smiles. There is no sense of shame in her expression. No sense of having been caught doing something wrong.
“Can I help you?” she asks.
“I’m Albert’s father.” I can think of nothing else to say.
“Really! Well, it’s nice to meet you.” She offers her hand to me. “I’m Violet.” I stare at her hand. “Oh, I guess I should wash up first.” I couldn’t believe this was happening. My mind couldn’t process the information quick enough. I had just caught this girl molesting my son, yet nothing seemed wrong.
“What were you doing?”
“Oh. Well. It helps him sleep. See?” Indeed, Albert was sleeping soundly. “He doesn’t know how to do it himself, and it doesn’t seem right that he should have to go his whole life without… you know. Does it bother you?”
“No. No, it doesn’t bother me.”
“Plus, you know how Albert can get agitated sometimes? Well, this helps him with that, too. A lot of the other attendants are scared to work with him because of what he did.”
She was referring to the suitemate Albert had killed.
“How long have you been working with Albert?”
“Not long. I hope you’re not mad.”
“No, not at all. I understand. I’d like to talk with you about Albert.”
“Gee, I don’t know if I could today. I’m getting off in a few minutes. Maybe you should talk to the head nurse.”
“No. I want to talk with you. The nurses don’t even come down here, do they?”
She shook her head.
“You would know more about Albert than any of them would. Let me buy you dinner, and in exchange, you can tell me about Albert, about his life here. A nice dinner.”
Violet looked uncertain, then nodded her head.
FOURTEEN
“So it really didn’t bother you, what I did?”
“At first, but now I understand. How did you think of something like that?”
“My mother.”
“Your mother?”
“Yeah. She told me that when my little brother was a baby, and he would cry for hours, that’s what she did to get him to stop.”
I had taken her to the nicest restaurant I could afford without using a credit card or writing a check. It was in the same town as the Hendrix Institute, but I didn’t worry about being seen with her. My home was in another county.
Violet was impressed with the food and the opulent-to her-atmosphere. After the meal, we talked. At first, our conversation was stilted-we were from different worlds, after all-but we soon picked up a comfortable rhythm.
“That’s incredible,” I said. “What do you feel when you do it? Is it like any other duty, or do you feel something?”
“I’m not sure what you mean.”
All of this, of course, was crazy. I had no business here with this girl. She looked cheap and unintelligent, but all the same, I was drawn to her. And seeing what I had seen had aroused me. It had aroused me deeply. I realized now that I had never been attracted to Rachel. We had sex, and I performed adequately, but I was only playing a role. Doing what I knew was expected of me. Doing, in the end, what I had to do in the institution of my marriage.
“I mean, do you get any satisfaction from it?”
She stared at me for a long time. I was sure she was going to get up, walk out. But she didn’t. She drank from her water glass. “Sometimes.”
Later, in the car, Violet wrapped her pale fingers around me. I could feel each of the gaudy rings she wore as she moved her hand over me. She cupped her mouth over mine. As I exhaled, she inhaled. We were as a single unit, our air circulating as one. And her hands were not human to me. They were beyond that. Something beautiful and strange working over me. My climax was the most intense I’d ever known. It erupted like a fountain of light. The semen went everywhere, and I thought, Not this one, Rachel. This is mine. You’ll never steal it from me. This time, I win.