She brought her hand to her lips and squeezed her eyes shut tightly, as if closing them against the memory of what had awaited her in that room on that day last September. I waited. I thought she might begin crying. She seemed to be gathering the courage to go on with the story. When at last she opened her eyes, she focused them on the bay, looking out over the water, and began speaking as if I were no longer there, her voice very low.
“She... was standing naked in the bathroom. The dress she’d been wearing was on the floor, the bathroom floor, in a heap on the floor with her undergarments and sandals. A yellow dress, I remember. She was holding a razor blade in her right hand. There was blood on her left wrist — three narrow lines of blood, what Dr. Helsinger later identified as hesitation cuts. I’d come home just in the nick of time, you see. Five minutes later, perhaps only a minute later, she might have mustered the full courage to really open her wrist. Her hesitation — and my arrival — saved her.”
“Dr. Helsinger told me the cuts were superficial. Did they seem—”
“Oh yes. But terrifying nonetheless. You come into your daughter’s room, you find her with blood on her wrist and a razor blade in her hand...” She shook her head. Still staring out over the water, she said, “Sarah looked at me, her eyes wide, the razor blade trembling in her hand, and I... I said, I said very gently, ‘Sarah, are you all right?’ and she said, ‘I went looking for her.’ I had no idea who she meant at the time. I simply nodded and said, ‘Sarah, don’t you want to give me that razor?’ and she said, ‘I have to punish myself,’ and I said, ‘Whatever for? Please give me the razor, Sarah.’ I don’t know how long we stood that way, looking at each other, not three feet apart from each other, Sarah standing just inside the bathroom door, I in the bedroom, the razor blade still in her hand. A drop of blood oozed from her wrist onto the white tile floor. She looked down as if in surprise, and then said, ‘So much blood,’ and I said, ‘Please give me the razor, darling,’ and she handed it to me.”
“What happened to that razor blade, Mrs. Whittaker?”
She turned her eyes from the bay.
“What?” she said.
“The razor blade. What did you do with it?”
“What an odd question,” she said.
“Do you remember what you did with it after she handed it to you?”
“I have no idea. Mr. Hope, my daughter was bleeding—”
“But not seriously—”
“It seemed serious to me at the time. My only concern was to administer to her, take care of her. I’m sure that once that razor blade was out of her hand, I didn’t give it a second thought.”
“What did you do?”
“I examined her wrist, that was the first thing. I’d done some Red Cross work during the war — World War II–I knew how to fashion a tourniquet if one was needed. But I saw at once that the cuts — there were three of them, parallel cuts on her left wrist, none of them deep, rather more like scratches, except for the one oozing blood. Even that one was superficial. There was no need for a tourniquet. I simply wiped her wrist with a cotton swab and put a Band-Aid on it.”
“Then what did you do?”
“I took her with me to my bedroom — I didn’t want to let her out of my sight, although she seemed very calm, too calm, in fact. I can’t describe the... the... I don’t even know what to call it. A coldness. A withdrawal. A feeling of... it was as if she had completely isolated herself from me — or even from herself. I’m sorry I can’t explain it more intelligently. I had never seen anything like it before, and I hope I never have to see it again. She became... a zombie, Mr. Hope. I was holding her hand as I led her down the corridor to my bedroom, but the hand in mine was lifeless, and her eyes were glazed and there was an expression of such terrible anguish and pain on her face... it had nothing to do with the cuts on her wrist, they were not what caused the pain. It was pain such as I’ve never seen on the face of a human being. It shattered me, that pain. It broke my heart.” She paused. She took a deep breath. “There was a bottle of Valium in my bathroom medicine cabinet. I took two from the bottle, and then I filled a glass of water from the tap and I said, ‘Take these, Sarah.’ She said, ‘I’m Snow White.’ I said, ‘Yes, darling, please take these.’ ”
“Did she accept them?”
“Yes. She swallowed both tablets, and then she said, ‘Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.’ It made no sense to me at the time. We’re not Catholics, Mr. Hope — that’s what Catholics say to a priest when they go to confession. I realized later, after I’d talked to Dr. Helsinger, that this was a part of her delusion, the... the belief that she had offered herself to Horace. To her father. Offered herself sexually. And was asking his forgiveness for it. ‘Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.’ ”
“What happened after she took the Valium?”
“She fell asleep. It took hold in about twenty minutes, I should say.”
“Fell asleep where?”
“In her own bedroom. I took her back there, I made certain she was comfortable.”
“What time was this? When you put her to bed?”
“Five, five-thirty? I’m not certain.”
“What did you do then?”
“I called Nathan. Dr. Helsinger, that is.”
“A psychiatrist.”
“Yes.”
“And a friend of the family.”
“Yes.”
“Not a general practitioner.”
“No. My daughter had just attempted suicide. I felt a psychiatrist was needed.”
“And he came to examine her, did he?”
“Yes.”
“Was she asleep when he got here?”
“Yes.”
“He awakened her?”
“Yes. And she immediately began ranting. Talking about the Harlot Witch and... oh God, it was dreadful. Accusing her father of the most horrible things, telling Dr. Helsinger that she herself had... had asked her father to... I can’t repeat this, Mr. Hope, it was all too terribly awful. We realized at once, of course — Dr. Helsinger and I — that she, that Sarah, was... that she’d lost her... that she was very sick, Mr. Hope, mentally ill, Mr. Hope. That was when Dr. Helsinger advised me to seek emergency commitment under the Baker Act.”
“And came back later that night, did he? With the signed certificate and a police officer?”
“Yes.”
“Mrs. Whittaker, I’m not doubting your memory,” I said. “But the police officer told me he saw no razor blade.”
“I had probably thrown it away by then.”
“Then you do remember what you did with it.”
“I’m sure I threw it away.”
“Officer Ruderman didn’t see any blood, either.”
“There wasn’t much to begin with. As I told you, these were only hesitation cuts.”
“You mentioned a drop of blood oozing onto the—”
“Yes, that.”
“Only that single drop of blood?”
“Well, perhaps several. But all from that one cut. The third cut on her wrist. The lowest of the three. But even that was nothing more than a scratch. As I told you, a Band-Aid—”
“Did Dr. Helsinger look at these cuts, scratches, on her wrist?”
“Yes, he did.”
“And agreed they were superficial?”
“Yes, he was the one who told me they were hesitation cuts. Common in that type of suicide attempt.”
“But there was blood on the bathroom floor.”
“I’m sure I wiped it up before the police officer arrived.”
“Was there any blood on her clothing, Mrs. Whittaker?”