What little Kara had eaten of the huge breakfast Ellen's cook had served—waffles for Jill, eggs Benedict for her—weighed heavily in her stomach. She'd left Jill at Ellen's, following the cat from room to room.
Finally Dr. Gates lowered his hands. His tantalizingly accented voice took on a lecturing tone.
"I wish to emphasize, Miss Wade, that asking you here was not an easy decision for me. A psychiatrist deals with the most intimate details of his patients' lives, details they keep from their friends, their spouses, even their internists and gynecologists. Because of this intimate knowledge, a psychiatrist must be the most rigorous of all physicians in preserving the confidentiality of his patient records."
"I appreciate that," Kara said, and meant it.
"Good. But there are details of your sister's case that are extraordinary, details I assumed that you, as her twin, would know. However, it occurred to me yesterday after our conversation—or more properly, your tirade—that you appeared completely unaware of what your sib has been through. That raised the possibility that you might share her diagnosis."
Kara shook her head in bewilderment. "I don't understand."
"You will by the time I am finished. But you may not like hearing what I have to say. It is not pleasant. It will make you angry and you will probably resist accepting it. But let me start at the beginning."
"Please do," Kara said. Her throat had gone dry.
Dr. Gates leaned back in his chair and picked up a pair of keys on a ring. As he had yesterday, he began twirling the ring on his index finger.
"Your sister first came to me sixteen months ago complaining of insomnia and poor concentration. I'm a consultant at St. Vincent's and I occasionally treat some of the nursing staff there on a courtesy basis. The precipitating event in her life appeared to be the break-up of an affair in which she felt her trust had been betrayed by her lover."
That would have been Tom, Kara thought. The lying, married bastard from Long Island.
"But as therapy progressed, I began to suspect that your sister was suffering from a disorder far more serious and complex than a simple reactive anxiety-depression syndrome. She wanted to continue therapy. As I probed deeper, I became alarmed. Finally, we tried hypnosis. It was then that I confirmed my presumptive diagnosis."
He paused, and Kara found that she was gripping the arms of her chair so hard it hurt. What was he waiting for?
"Well?"
"Your twin, Kelly Wade, suffered from multiple personality disorder."
Kara blinked and relaxed her grip on the chair arms. Multiple personality disorder. She'd heard of that.
"You mean like in Sybil and Three Faces of Eve?
He nodded. "Precisely."
"How… how many did she have?"
"Two that I know of. The Kelly Wade personality you and everybody knew, and one other."
Kara leaned back, shocked. Two personalities? Weird, but it could have been worse. She could accept this. It wasn't so hard. She wasn't angry.
But another Kelly inside her twin? How come she had never guessed?
"Did this other personality ever come out?"
"Yes. Many times. Right here, when Kelly was under hypnosis."
This was fascinating—disturbing, but somehow fascinating too.
"What was she like?"
"Quite different from Kelly. The second person called herself Ingrid, by the way."
The name electrified Kara. She sprang from her seat.
"Ingrid? Ingrid? Kelly signed into the Plaza under that name! That means it was… was 'Ingrid'—the other Kelly—who was picking up those men!"
In a way it was an enormous relief. Kelly hadn't changed—it had been that other personality taking her over and doing those crazy awful things!
"I imagine so," Dr. Gates said, still cool and clinical. "Ingrid was, ah, rather promiscuous."
"And the clothes!" Kara said, still on a roll. "That's why they were hidden! Kelly wasn't hiding them from anyone! It was Ingrid hiding them from Kelly! Now I understand!"
Kara turned away and fought the tears that sprang into her eyes. It was so good to understand. And poor Kelly. What she must have been going through.
She sat down again.
"God, it's so bizarre! What could cause something like that to happen?"
"It is almost always severe trauma." His eyes bored into hers. "Childhood trauma."
"Kelly had no childhood trauma. Neither of us did. We were 'the Wade twins.' Everyone loved us. If anything, our childhood was uneventful—blissful and uneventful."
"Ingrid has a different story."
A chill tiptoed down Kara's spine.
"What… what did Ingrid say?"
Dr. Gates leaned forward and stared at her.
"Do you truly have no idea what I'm talking about?"
Kara met his gaze and tried to override the growing fear that he was going to say something awful, that here was the part she couldn't accept.
"No. Not the faintest."
He leaned back and rubbed his eyes, then leaned forward again. He took a deep breath.
"Very well. I'll say it flat out: According to Ingrid, she was sexually abused on a regular basis between the ages of five and nine."
"No! That's crazy! By whom?"
"Your father."
Kara felt her body go numb. The room swung around and the lights seemed to dim for a few seconds. She fought for focus and managed a single word:
"What?"
"That is what Ingrid told me, and she was quite detailed."
"My father! Never!"
"It fits, Miss Wade. It's that type of abuse, that degree of trauma that incites the formation of a second personality."
Kara was on her feet again, shaking with revulsion.
"Listen to me, Dr. Gates! Nothing like that ever happened! So get this straight, and get it straight now: My father never committed incest! It never even crossed his mind! If it had, I'd have known about it!"
Gates leaned back again, twirling that damn key ring.
"I told you that you would resist the facts. Your sister went through a period of denial too."
Kara's revulsion was now turning to anger.
"I will not have my father defamed! He was a good man who's been dead a dozen years and can't defend himself! Besides, Kelly would have told me!"
"Kelly didn't know."
That brought Kara up short. She stared at Dr. Gates without speaking.
"Listen," he said, "and perhaps you will understand why I asked you here. The regularly repeated trauma of such magnitude can cause a child's mind to create a second personality as a defense mechanism. The second personality takes over during the times of recurrent trauma. There is no communication between the personalities. The secondary personality shields the primary personality, forming a barrier between it and an intolerable reality, thus allowing the child to go about her everyday life as if nothing happened. And in a sense, nothing does happen to the primary personality—the second personality absorbs all the trauma."
"it never happened!" Kara said.
"When the trauma stops, the second personality is no longer needed. But it doesn't dissolve, it doesn't go away, it merely becomes dormant, ready to leap to the surface should the first personality be traumatized again. I believe that the traumatic break-up of Kelly's last relationship—the lies she had believed, the betrayal she felt—awakened Ingrid. Kelly managed to handle the emotional trauma in a mature manner, but Ingrid was awake. And Ingrid wanted out. It was that tug of war going on in her subconscious, and the unexplained lapses in memory when Ingrid managed to take over, that eventually brought Kelly to me."