She thought of telling him that the affair wasn’t going all that well, that she and Jeff seemed to be more bound up in compulsion than carried away with passion.
“Tell me about Ariel, Mrs. Jardell.”
“Tell you what? I’ve told you everything about her.”
“Tell me why you are afraid of her.”
“Because I think she’s dangerous.”
“To whom?”
“To me.”
“Do you really believe she killed your son?”
She closed her eyes, sighed heavily, opened them again. “No,” she said. “No, of course not.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s impossible. Because she loved Caleb. She used to go into his room and play with him. She played that horrible flute for him. That might have driven him crazy but it couldn’t have harmed him, could it?”
He said nothing.
“No, of course not,” she said, answering her own question. “Then why is it so easy for me to see her as a murderess? What is there about her that makes me want to put her in that role?”
“Is it something in her?”
“Do you mean it’s something in myself?”
“Do you think that might be what I mean?”
“How do I know what you mean?”
Again he let the silence build around her. She felt very weak now, very tender and vulnerable. Was it all her inner problem, something that came from within her own mind? Was it her fault for worrying that everything was her fault? Was it ultimately that simple, and that ridiculous?
He said, “You see, Mrs. Jardell, it is not a simple matter of taking an aspirin for a headache. This is part of something that has been manifesting itself in various ways in your mind for as long as I have known you. From time to time you rush to me as if for emotional first aid, and always it is the same underlying problem. You cannot take an aspirin for it, you cannot put a bandaid on it. It is involved in your feeling for your own parents, rooted in some childhood experiences of your own we have barely gotten a hint of.”
“I barely remember my childhood, doctor.”
“And do you suppose that what you fail to remember no longer exists? We deal with things by forgetting them, but it does not work as well for us as we might like.” He seized a pipe, twisted it apart. “Of course you can go on this way. You can come to me once or twice a year, when your mind drives you here. I can chat with you for an hour, skimming the surface of your anxiety, and I can give you an occasional prescription for Valium.”
“Or?”
“But you know the answer, Mrs. Jardell.”
“Therapy.”
He nodded. “A regular program of regular appointments which you will keep and which will become part of your schedule. A program dealing not with the intermittent manifestations of your problem but with the problem itself, the problem that lies deep in you.”
“How long would it go on?”
“Two years. Perhaps longer.”
“And how often?”
“Twice a week. Once a week is possible, but twice is better.”
“Twice a week for two years.”
“Very likely.”
“But it might run longer.”
“That is possible, yes.”
Her eyes challenged him. “And what’ll it do for me? There are no money-back guarantees in this sort of thing, are there? You can’t sue a shrink for malpractice.”
He did not answer.
She lit a fresh cigarette, filled her lungs with smoke and thought involuntarily of her own mother. Her mother’s hands, grotesque with signs of age. Her mother’s body, wasted in the last stages of her disease.
She took another drag on her cigarette.
“I just don’t know,” she said.
“I suggest you think about this, Mrs. Jardell.”
“Oh, I’m sure I will.”
“It is true there are no guarantees. But I can give you a negative guarantee. This problem will not vanish of its own accord. There has been some deterioration since I last saw you. Your problem is getting worse, not better.”
“I’ve been under a strain.”
“Yes.”
She thought of Jeff. The two of them in his Buick, speeding west on a section of the Interstate. Just leaving everything behind.
But you couldn’t run away from things. They tagged along after you like old shoes tied to a honeymoon couple’s rear bumper—
“The time, Mrs. Jardell.”
His words brought her around. They never lost sight of the time, did they? They always knew when your hour was up.
She got to her feet.
“If I could have some Valium,” she said. He looked at her for a moment, then nodded and reached for the prescription pad.
Seventeen
Etta Jellin had been in the real estate business for half a century. She’d gone to work fresh out of high school as a secretary to an up-and-coming young realtor. Within three years she’d become his wife, and a couple of years after that she had her broker’s license and worked as his partner. For the dozen years of her widowhood she’d gone on operating the King Street office herself, managing the rental properties Sam had left her and specializing as always in downtown residential property.
“Why, David Jardell!” she said. “How nice. You’re looking well.”
He thanked her and returned the compliment, thinking that she was indeed looking well. But then she always did. In all the years he’d known her, Etta Jellin had remained the same, fat and saucy and always possessed of a good humor and a shrewd glint in her eye.
“Have a seat,” she said. “I don’t believe I’ve seen you since you lost your son. I was awfully sorry to hear about that.”
“Yes,” he said. “Thank you.”
“I didn’t go to the funeral. Last one I went to was my husband’s. The day I buried Roy I said, by God, I’m not going to another of these affairs till I go to my own. Which some folk doubtless feel is long overdue. Well, I’m sure we can find a fitter subject for conversation. How’s that house I sold you? Bricks still staying one on top of the other?”
“Oh, it’s in good shape.”
“Would I sell you a bad one? Those old homes will outlive us all, my friend. They were built in saner times than our own. I swear I’d hate to hold mortgage paper on some of what’s being built nowadays. The banks’ll write thirty-year paper on some of these cardboard boxes, and you just know the houses won’t last the thirty years. House’ll be long gone before the mortgage is anywhere near paid off.”
“It’s true.”
“But don’t shed tears for the bankers,” she went on. “Inflation the way it is, land prices rising the way they are, they’ll be able to foreclose on the empty lots and come out ahead of the game.” She leaned back in her swivel chair. “Lazy old afternoon,” she said. “What brings you here, David?”
“I wanted to get the benefit of your professional expertise.”
“Oh?”
“Let’s suppose I wanted to sell the house,” he said. “What could I figure on netting for it?”
She looked him over carefully, her dark eyes narrowing. “You didn’t move in but less than a year ago.”
“I know.”
“They go and transfer you? Or did you find something else out of town?”
“Nothing like that, Etta.”
“Then why in tarnation would you want to sell the house?”
He forced a smile. “I’m not saying I want to,” he said. “I just wanted to know what it would amount to in dollars.”
“If you’re looking for cash, I know some awfully good sources of second-mortgage money, David. It’s none of my business to pry and I’m not prying, but if that’s what it is don’t be ashamed to say so, for the Lord’s sake. You shouldn’t ever sell real estate because you need cash, not unless you’re in the business and that’s what you do for a living. Always borrow on it if you can. Every year the dollars get cheaper and the man who’s in debt is that much ahead of the game.”