“Would there be any records of those conferences?”
“No. I demanded they destroy them. I’m in the information business. I know how records can come back to haunt. They tried to protest- some stupid regulation- but I prevailed. Sheer force of personality. They were such a weak-willed bunch, so dull themselves. Endless talk, no action. I realized early on that I was on my own; any meaningful remediation would have to take place at home. So I washed my hands of them. It’s the same way I feel about that policeman Frisk. That’s why I took the initiative to call you. I know you’re different.”
The second negative reference he’d made to the school. I said, “Did you discuss your feelings about the school with Holly?”
He gave me a long stare. Searching. Illuminated by unwelcome insight.
“Doctor, are you trying to say I planted hatred in her mind?”
“I’m trying to get a picture of how she felt about the school.”
“She hated it. She must have. It represented failure to her. All those years of incompetence and insensitivity. How else could she have felt? But she wasn’t about to kill anyone because of that.”
He gave a derisive laugh.
I said, “What kinds of remedial things did you do?”
“Gave her my personal attention- when she’d accept it. Sat down with her every evening after dinner and walked her through her homework. Tried to get her to concentrate, tried to bribe her- what you’d call operant conditioning. That didn’t work, because she really didn’t want anything. Eventually I did get her reading skills and math levels to a point where she could function in the real world- simple instructions and computations, road signs. She wasn’t interested in- or capable of- any higher abstractions.”
“How was her attention span?”
“Just fine for things she was interested in- cleaning and straightening, listening to pop music on her radio and dancing to it when she thought no one was looking. Nonexistent for things she didn’t care about. But isn’t that true of anyone?”
“Dancing,” I said, trying to picture it. “So her physical coordination was okay?”
“Adequate. Which is all anyone needs for the dances they do today.” He flapped his arms and made a grotesque face. “Betty and I used to dance seriously. Long-forgotten baroque and classical terpsichore- gavottes, minuets. Steps that really required virtuosity. We were quite a pair.”
Drifting back, inevitably, to self-congratulation. Feeling as if I needed a thick rope to tug things back to Holly, I said, “Did you ever consider medication- Ritalin or something similar?”
“Not after I read up on the effects of long-term amphetamine usage. Stunted growth. Anorexia. Possible brain damage. The last thing Holly needed was more brain damage. Besides, she wasn’t hyperactive- more on the lethargic side, actually. Preferred to sleep late, loll in bed. I’m an early riser.”
“Did she have periods of emotional depression?”
He dismissed that with a wave. “Her mood was fine. She just lacked energy. At first I thought it might be nutritional- something to do with blood sugar or her thyroid. But all her blood tests were normal.”
Blood tests. Half-expecting him to answer that he’d punctured her vein himself, I said, “Did your family doctor have any suggestions when he gave you the results?”
“Never had a family doctor. Never needed one. I took both of them, Howard and Holly, to the Public Health Service for their blood work. For their immunizations too. Told the civil servants there that I suspected some kind of contagious infection. It’s their responsibility to check that kind of thing, so they were forced to do it. I figured I might as well get something back for my tax dollars.”
Genuine glee at dissembling. How much of what he told me about anything could be believed?
“Who managed their childhood diseases? Where did you take them when they had fevers and needed antibiotics?”
“They were very healthy children, rarely ran high fevers. The few times they did, I brought it down with aspirin, fluids- exactly what a doctor would tell me to do. The couple of times they needed penicillin, they got it from the Health Service. Measles passed them by. Chicken pox and mumps I managed according to the books- genuine medical books. The Physician’s Desk Reference. I can read instructions as well as any doctor.”
“Self-sufficiency,” I said.
“Exactly. In some quarters, that’s still considered worth-while.”
Trumpeting his achievements had made his Mr. Peepers persona fade completely. He looked belligerent, flushed, somehow bigger, huskier. A bantam cock swelling as he scanned the barnyard for rivals.
Changing the subject, I said, “There’s quite an age difference between Holly and Howard.”
“Eleven years. And yes, she was an unplanned child. But not an unwanted one. When Betty learned she was pregnant, she was surprised but happy. And that’s saying a lot, because she wasn’t a healthy woman- bleeding ulcers, irritable bowel syndrome. I don’t know if you’re familiar with that, but she suffered from problem flatulence, very bad chronic pain. Nevertheless, she carried on like a trooper, nursed Holly for eleven months- exactly the time we’d allotted to Howard. She was an excellent mother, very patient.”
“How was Holly affected by her death?”
“Quite severely, I’d assume.”
“Assume?”
“Assume. With Holly there was no way of knowing how she really felt about anything, because she didn’t talk, didn’t express herself very well.”
“Did she attend the funeral?”
“Yes, she did. I had one of the mortuary attendants watch over her in a room off the chapel during the service and when we went out to the grave. Afterwards I sat down with her and explained what had happened. She stared at me, didn’t say anything, cried just a bit, and then walked away. Out to the lawn. To sit. Spin her fantasies. I let her do it for a while, then took her home. A couple of times I heard her crying at night, but when I went in she stopped and rolled away and refused to discuss it with me.”
“How did you explain to her what had happened?”
“I told her her mother had been very sick. She knew that- she’d seen Betty take to bed. I said she’d gone into the hospital to be treated for her stomachaches but that the doctors had been stupid and made mistakes and they’d killed her with their stupidity and we’d have to go on without her and be strong. That we were still a family and would carry on as a family.”
“Your wife’s death was due to medical malpractice?”
He looked at me as if I were in the “dull normal” range. “The woman had a nonfatal condition, Doctor. She bled to death on the operating table, in the presence of a full surgical team.”
“Did you pursue it legally?”
He gave a sharp, mocking laugh. “I talked to a couple of attorneys, but they wouldn’t take the case. Supposedly it wasn’t cut and dried enough, given her prior medical history. The truth was, they had more than their share of whiplashes. They didn’t want to bet their contingency fees on something that required some real research. I suppose I could have found some ambulance chaser to take it on, but at the time I had other things on my mind. Two children to raise, a business to run- I was doing all direct-mailing back then, still building up my lists. Much more labor-intensive than it is today. So I needed all my energy for that.”
“It must have been a difficult time for you.
“Not really. I attacked it systematically, kept everything organized. Howard stayed on the straight-A track.” He stopped. “Still, I suppose the way Holly turned out was partly my fault.”
“Why do you say that?”
“I have an impressive array of intellectual skills and talents but I wasn’t successful in communicating them to her- in getting her going on some sort of goal-oriented program. She persistently shut me out and I allowed it, because I didn’t want to be cruel. So perhaps I was too kind.” He shrugged. “Of course hindsight is always twenty-twenty, isn’t it?”