We had a lovely first evening. My mother was there, of course. We ordered pizzas, opened a bottle of chardonnay. Even my son seemed happy, charming and social, being so helpful, attentive to the girls. My mother and I exchanged looks: What’s he up to? But eventually we relaxed.
I think it was when he realized how enamored I was of my younger niece. What a bright light she was, so funny and silly. She had such a warm, sweet way about her. She wasn’t talking much, and my sister was worried about it. I even envied her that, the small worry that her younger was less vocal than she should be at two. She’s fine, I told her. She’s perfect.
I was feeding her pasta shells in butter with a spoon.
“Self!” she said with a defiant little frown. I handed her the spoon.
“No!” she said. “You!”
“Silly,” I answered.
And it was a game we played for a while. The game of the normal two-year-old, the internal struggle between wanting to do things for herself and wanting them done for her. I was, weirdly, in heaven, basking in the glow of normalcy. And so I didn’t notice at first. But then it was like the sun moved behind the clouds, and I felt a chill come over me.
He was dressed for bed, as I’d asked him to do, standing in the darkened kitchen. My sister had taken her older for a bath. I was supposed to bring the baby when she was done eating.
“Grandma helped me with my pajamas,” he said. He sounded like a jilted lover.
“You’re a big boy,” I said. He was six going on seven, big enough to do things for himself. The teacher at his new school and his psychiatrist had both indicated, albeit subtly, that I was doing too much for him. “You shouldn’t need help with your pajamas.”
“There was an old woman in my room,” he said. “She told me you didn’t love me anymore.”
“That’s silly, darling,” I said. I fought to keep my voice light. Too often I was sharp and angry with him lately, stretched as I was to my limit with his visions, fantasies, and lies. “Go to bed. I’ll be there in a minute to read your story, after your cousin is done eating.”
He was quiet. Then, “Is Dad coming home tonight?”
“No,” I said. “He’ll be home on Saturday.”
I realized that my whole body was tense. And the baby started to fuss, as though she sensed the shift in energy.
“All done?” I said.
“All done,” she confirmed. “Bath.”
“That’s right,” I said. I gave her a kiss on the forehead and tousled her hair. She had piles and piles of hair. “Oh, I love those golden curls.”
I brought her to my sister, and left them in the bathroom. I heard the music of their voices as I walked down the dim hall. High and low, singsong, then stern, then laughing. They brought laughter with them; something that we had far too little of in our house.
I lay beside him on his bed, and started reading. He touched my shoulder lightly and I turned to look at him.
“She’s not your baby,” he said to me. “You’ll never have another baby.”
I was so immune to him that his words didn’t even hurt me.
“I know,” I said. “I never wanted anyone but you.”
I had hoped that would appease him. I should have known better.
In the early, dark morning the sound of my sister screaming tore me from sleep. The run I made across the house felt like the longest distance I’ve ever crossed in my life. I was already praying before I even knew what was happening.
I burst into my sister’s room and the scene revealed itself to me in bursts. She was holding the baby, cradling her as the child wailed. The child’s hair was shorn, cut ragged, with patches bald to the skull. On the ground around my sister’s feet were those golden curls I’d so admired, confetti from a party. And glinting in the lamplight a long, silver pair of kitchen shears.
16
I managed to get myself back to the kitchen and behind my laptop before Luke let himself into the house, bringing the cold air with him. He looked flushed and expectant, dropped his bag by the large standing vase by the door, and walked toward me. I pretended to be engrossed in my schoolwork.
“Were you upstairs?” he asked, standing in the kitchen doorway.
“Hmm?” I said, pretending not to have heard. Then, looking at him with a welcoming smile, “Upstairs? No,” I said.
“I thought I saw a shadow,” he said.
“Trick of the light, maybe,” I said. “Would you like a snack?”
“Yes, please,” he said. He shed his jacket, hung it neatly in the hall closet. He was a tidy little boy when he wanted to be, precise and orderly. He came to sit across from me, and I closed the lid on my laptop.
“How was your day?” I asked.
“Horrible,” he said mildly. “Just like every day there.”
I went over to the refrigerator, took out a bowl of green apples, a block of white cheddar cheese, and some of the hard black bread that I knew he liked.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I know it’s not always easy there.”
We’d talked about how unruly the classes were, how challenging were lunch and recess. He and some of the better-behaved, more intelligent children were removed in the afternoons for lessons. But that only made them targets for some of the more aggressive children. Even among misfits, Luke was a misfit.
“So,” he said. “Did you figure out the clue?”
“I did,” I said. I told him how I’d searched and found The Hollows Historical Society site, and actually went to the building. “Very clever,” I said. I tried to be as patronizing as possible.
He tried to hide it by looking down at the table, but I saw him frown, saw his disappointment at my answer. I brought him over his plate, along with a glass of milk and a checkered cloth napkin.
“Did you discover his secret?” he asked. He took a bite of apple. There was a twinkle of mischief in his eye. I thought about what Langdon said. Was he trying to tell me something about himself ?
“Yes,” I said. He frowned again.
“You did?” he asked. He was getting agitated. And I would be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy it. “How?”
“How does anyone find out anything these days? Online,” I said. He could smell the lie, and we locked eyes.
“So you know he was a pervert?”
I didn’t say anything, just took a bite of the apple I had sliced for myself. Let the patient talk, Therapy 101. They will tell you what is wrong, and they may also already know how to fix it. A good therapist just opens the line of communication, and lets the patient lead the session.
“That he molested children,” said Luke. “That he touched little boys. Exposed himself.” He was looking to shock me, unsettle me. But he didn’t know how hard that actually was. Nearly impossible, I’d say. I knew how ugly was the world, how we harm one another.
“I know he was accused of that,” I said. “Yes.”
Did he not know about the cross-dressing? Was that not the secret? I wasn’t going to toss it out there.
“Why else would he kill himself?” said Luke. “If he wasn’t guilty.”
It was comforting to realize that he had a child’s way of looking at the world, all black and white, no understanding of the nuances of depression and despair, all the varied layers and textures of unhappiness. How it can bury you until your world is so dark that death actually looks like an escape hatch.
“People who kill themselves generally suffer from severe clinical depression,” I said. “Their reasons for choosing suicide are not always rational. It’s often a chemical imbalance that leads them to the choice.”
Luke put a slice of cheddar on top of an apple slice and chewed thoughtfully. He was like a little machine, ingesting nourishment, processing information. He looked like he wanted to say something but didn’t.