Alex hesitated, then shrugged. “How should I know?”
“Well, none of us knows,” Lisa replied. “But what do you think?”
Suddenly Alex remembered his dream from the night Kate’s mother had died.
“I don’t think he did it,” he said. “I think someone else did it.” He hesitated. “And I think it’s going to happen again.”
Lisa stared at him, then stood up. “That’s an awful thing to say,” she whispered, her eyes furious. “If you’re trying to convince me you’re nuts, you’ve just done it. Nobody but a crazy person would say something like that!” Picking up her books and her bag, she hurried out into the street, letting the door slam shut behind her.
Alex, his eyes empty, watched her go.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Ellen listened quietly as her husband once again recited the terms of the release they’d signed before Alex’s operation. Even after more than an hour’s discussion, she was still certain he was overreacting. “Marsh, you’re being absolutely paranoid,” she said when he at last fell silent. “I don’t care what you think Raymond Torres is up to, because you’re wrong. Raymond isn’t up to anything. He’s Alex’s doctor, and whatever he’s doing is in Alex’s best interests.”
“Then why won’t he let us see the records?” Marsh demanded, and Ellen could only shake her head wearily.
“I don’t know. But I’m sure there’s an explanation, and it seems to me the person you should be talking to is Raymond, not me.”
Marsh had been standing next to the fireplace, leaning on the mantel, but now he wheeled around to face his wife. He hadn’t gotten through to her at all. No matter what he told her — about the wall of secrecy Torres had erected around Alex’s case, about the terms of the release, in which they’d given Torres full legal custody of Alex — she still remained steadfast in her defense of the man. To her, it came down to only one thing — Torres had saved Alex’s life.
“Besides, what does it matter?” he heard her asking. “Why are the records so important? The point is that whatever he did, it worked!” Suddenly the calm façade she had been maintaining slipped, and her voice took on a bitter edge. “I should think you’d be grateful! You always said Alex was brilliant — gifted, even — and now Raymond’s proved it.”
“But there’s more to it than that. For Christ’s sake, Ellen. Don’t you even see Alex anymore? He’s like a machine! He doesn’t feel anything. Not for anyone or anything. He’s … well, in some ways he’s just like your precious Raymond Torres. And it’s not changing.”
Ellen’s eyes flashed with sudden anger. Though she knew that what she was about to say would only widen the chasm between them, she didn’t try to hold the words back. “So that’s what it’s all about! I knew it! I knew when this whole thing started that it had nothing to do with the release. It’s Raymond, isn’t it? In the end, it all comes down to the same thing. You’re jealous, Marsh. He did what you couldn’t do, and you can’t stand it.”
Marsh stood silently for a moment, then nodded briefly. “It started out that way,” he admitted, moving away from the fireplace to flop into his favorite easy chair. “I’m not going to pretend it didn’t. But something’s wrong, Ellen. The more I think about it, the less I understand it. How is it possible that Alex could have made such a phenomenal recovery intellectually, and physically, and show no progress at all emotionally?”
“I’m sure there’s an explanation—” Ellen began.
“Oh, there is!” Marsh interrupted. He rose to his feet again and began nervously pacing the room. “And it’s all in the records that Torres won’t let us see.”
Ellen sighed and stood up. “This is getting us nowhere. All we’re doing is going in circles. I’m sure Raymond has his reasons for keeping the records closed, and I’m sure they’re valid. As for the rest of it — the terms of the release …” She hesitated, then plunged on. “Well, I’m afraid that’s a problem you’re going to have to deal with yourself.”
“You mean you can accept those terms?” Marsh asked, his voice heavy with disbelief.
Ellen nodded. “I’m sure they’re there to protect Alex, and I’m sure Raymond will explain them to me. In fact, he started to the other day.”
“The other day?” Marsh asked. “What are you talking about?”
“I talked to him,” Ellen replied. “When you were going to pull Alex out of school and send him down to Stanford, I talked to Raymond about it. I was … well, I was afraid you might ignore his advice. At any rate, he assured me that I had nothing to worry about. He said … well, he said that if you tried to do something, he could deal with you.”
Marsh felt dazed. “Deal with me? He actually said that?”
Ellen nodded, but said nothing.
“And that didn’t faze you at all, that as far as he’s concerned, I’m simply someone to be dealt with?”
Ellen was silent for several long seconds. “No,” she said at last. “In fact, it made me feel relieved.”
The words struck Marsh with the force of a physical blow. He sank back into his chair as Ellen rose and quietly left the room.
Alex had long since stopped listening to the argument that was going on downstairs, tuning out his parents’ voices as he immersed himself in the book he’d picked up at the library after he left Jake’s.
When he’d come in for the second time, Arlette Pringle had immediately turned to the locked case, but Alex had stopped her.
“I need some medical books,” he’d told her.
“Medical books? But doesn’t your father have any?”
“I need new ones,” Alex went on. “I need something about the brain.”
“The human brain?”
Alex nodded. “Do you have anything?”
Arlette Pringle removed her glasses and thoughtfully chewed on an earpiece while she ran over the library’s medical collection in her mind. “Not much that’s really technical,” she said at last. “But there’s one new one we just got in.” She rose from her desk and went to the small shelf labeled “Current Nonfiction.”
“Here it is. The Brain. Think that’s specialized enough for you?”
Alex thumbed through the book, nodding. “I think so,” he replied. “I’ll tell you tomorrow. Can I check this out?”
Arlette led him back to the desk and showed him the process of checking out a book. “If this doesn’t seem familiar,” she said dryly, “I can tell you why. You were never much of a one for books.”
“Then I guess that’s something different about me, too,” Alex replied, thinking: And maybe the reason why is in here.
Since dinner, while his parents had been arguing, he’d scanned the entire book, and reread Chapter 7, the chapter dealing with learning and memory, two more times. And the more he read, the more puzzled he became.
From what he’d read, what was happening to him seemed to be impossible.
He was about to begin the chapter for the third time, sure that he must have missed something, when there was a soft tap at the door. A second later his mother stuck her head in.
“Hi.”
“Hi, Mom.” He glanced up from the book. “You and Dad still fighting?”
Ellen studied her son carefully, searching for any sign that the angry words she and Marsh had just exchanged might have upset Alex, but his expression was as bland as always, and his question had been asked in the same tone he might have used had he been interested in the time of day. “No,” she said. “But it wasn’t really a fight, honey. We were just discussing Dr. Torres, that’s all.”