The footage also included a gum-smacking Culpepper, who asked anyone with information about the thefts or Ivy Mortuary to contact KPD.
The anchorman ended the story with a dramatic flair Grease himself might have envied — or might, I realized, have suggested: “Police investigators and the colorful attorney say they won’t rest in peace until those responsible for the skullduggery have been brought to justice.”
CHAPTER 20
Among the viewing audience for WBIR’s grave-robbing robbing story was my new therapist, Dr. Hoover. I learned this the morning after the newscast, when I arrived for my nine o’clock appointment.
“Fascinating,” said Dr. Hoover. “Life and death, crime and punishment, justice and injustice — your work really does wrestle with the Big Questions, doesn’t it?”
I allowed as how perhaps it did, but that my own personal wrestling match had taken the limelight, especially since my talk with Jeff had ended so abruptly and painfully.
“Any thoughts on why he walked out on you?”
Dr. Hoover’s hands were clasped in his lap, his elbows resting on the arms of the wingback chair. He seemed relaxed but intent, focused on taking in whatever meaning I could put into words. His openness and attention seemed to wick word and thought out of me; it made me think of osmosis and the way a difference in pressure allows nutrients to flow through a cell’s membrane.
“I think he was surprised,” I began. “No — shocked.”
“What would have been shocking to him?”
“Maybe the idea that he might be about to acquire a half brother or half sister thirty years younger than he is. Or maybe the idea that his dad could be so incredibly irresponsible as to impregnate a virtual stranger.”
“Is that what you were? Incredibly irresponsible?”
“That seems pretty obvious, doesn’t it?”
He shrugged. “‘Irresponsible’ is one word you could use. What are some others?”
“I don’t know. ‘Foolish’? ‘Immature’? ‘Naïve’?”
He bowed his head slightly, a gesture that was becoming familiar to me; it meant that he’d heard what I’d said but didn’t necessarily agree with it. “I’m remembering the recording you brought me a couple of sessions ago, the one where you described the night that Isabella came to your house.” He opened a manila file that had been tucked into the chair beside him. Flipping through it, he pulled out a page. “This is a transcript of the recording. May I read you a few of the things you said?”
I nodded, and his eyes scanned down the page.
“You said, ‘She was beautiful.’ You said, ‘Our lives intersected, powerfully but briefly.’ You said, ‘She opened her arms and her body and her desire to me.’ Do you remember saying those things?”
“I do.”
“Were you telling the truth when you said them?”
“I was.”
“So what kind of man, Bill, might make love to a beautiful woman whose life has just intersected with his in a powerful way? What kind of man might make love to a beautiful, intelligent woman who offers him her body and her desire? Can you think of any other words? Words that might be less harsh, less judgmental?”
I tried to summon other adjectives, but without success.
“How about ‘passionate,’ Bill? How about ‘appreciative’?”
I looked up into his eyes and felt them drawing me into a space of kindness.
“How about ‘lonely,’ Bill?”
I felt myself take a quick, ragged breath, and I realized that I was crying.
“How about ‘imperfect’? How about ‘human,’ Bill?”
We sat without speaking for a while, tears pouring from my eyes, compassion or acceptance or understanding emanating from his. My nose began to drip, and I pulled a sheaf of tissues from the box on the table beside me. I mopped my face, then blew my nose, messily and loudly. “God, what should I do about this mess?”
“Which mess?”
I laughed through the tears. The word “mess” could apply with equal aptness to the accidental baby in Isabella’s womb, the unresolved tension with Jeff, or the wad of snotty tissues in my hand. “Well, this one here’s pretty easy to deal with,” I said, plopping the tissues into the wastebasket beside my chair, “but what should I do about the others?”
Hoover smiled. “Instead of talking about what you should do, Bill, can you think about what you want to do, what you choose to do, as the intelligent and kind person that you are?”
“What’s the difference? Isn’t doing the right thing all that really counts?”
“Doing the thing right also matters,” he said. “When you do something because you ‘should,’ there’s a way in which you’re not doing it wholeheartedly, a way in which you’re not completely owning it. There’s a little bit of martyrdom in it, a smidgen of resentment or grudge — sort of ‘Look what you made me do; look how you’re making me suffer.’ I had a client once who went to his wife’s family’s Thanksgiving dinner every year, not because he wanted to but because he ‘should’—because that’s what a good husband has to do, right? And every Thanksgiving he felt trapped and resentful, and so his relatives felt a lot of discomfort around him, because who likes to spend Thanksgiving with somebody who’s pissed off? Finally one year his wife sat him down and said, ‘You’re not invited this year. You radiate resentment the whole time, and that spoils it for everyone else. Do us all a favor by spending the day at home or hunting or hiking, doing something you’d rather be doing.’ Complicated story — they had other issues to work on, not surprisingly — but eventually, once she’d let him off the hook, he decided that he actually wanted to go. And for the first time ever, he had a good time. He discovered interesting things about his in-laws; they discovered that he was a nicer guy than the grouchy husband who’d suffered through all those turkey dinners. What made the difference was that he wanted to go, he chose to go. He went out of ‘get to,’ not out of ‘have to.’ Does that make sense?”
I nodded.
“So as you think about yourself, and your life, and the people you care about, and these things that are swirling around all of you — these messes, if you wish to call them that — what do you want to do, Bill? What do you choose to do, and why?”
I drew one deep breath and then another. “Isabella, that one’s complicated,” I said. “I’m concerned about her.”
“Do you still care about her?”
“Yes.” I was surprised how deeply true the word rang. “I do, but most of that situation is out of my control. As Miranda said, there’s not much I can do, besides wait for the other shoe to drop.” I grimaced. “The baby shoe. My baby shoe.”
“Are you sure it wasn’t another man who got her pregnant?”
“No, not a hundred percent sure. But I am a hundred percent sure that I might have gotten her pregnant. That information is relevant to the FBI investigation. That’s why I had to disclose it. No, wait — that’s why I chose to disclose it.”
He smiled. “That does seem the sort of disclosure a responsible man would make.” He cocked his head slightly to one side. “Why do you think your son is so angry with you?”
“Maybe his feelings are hurt,” I suggested.
“Hurt? Why? Because you didn’t consult him before going to bed with a beautiful woman?”