Breaking the Silence

  Later that night, Laura and Stuart sat together in the tiny living room of the above-garage apartment. Emma was already in bed, but the door to her bedroom was open to let in some light, and Laura spoke quietly in case she could hear them.

  “I don’t think it was so much the book that made him kill himself,” she said. She was sitting next to Stuart on the love seat, facing the blue-curtained windows that looked out on her friends’ house. “I think it was me.”

  “You?” Stuart said. “He thought the sun rose and set on you, Laurie. Don’t be crazy.”

  “There was a lot going on you don’t know about.” She brushed a thread from the sleeve of her sweater. “I think that after I found the last comet, he began to feel like a failure. He kept getting rejection letters while I was getting funding for research and my picture in Newsweek and Time. I stayed at the observatory in Brazil for too long. I was very wrapped up in myself. Laura Brandon and her career. I left him alone too much.”

  “I think he understood that was part of your job. He was very proud of you.”

  “I don’t know, Stu. Right after my dad died, Ray and I had a big…well, he blew up at me.”

  “Ray?”

  “He sounded very resentful, of my job and my success. I think he must have been upset for a long time, but he’d hidden those feelings from me till then.”

  “Well, if he was hiding them from you, he was hiding them from me, too. I never heard him say anything like that.”

  The lights went on in an upstairs bedroom of her friends’ house. A family of five lived there, leading their nice, quiet, normal lives. Laura envied them.

  “Even when I was home,” she said, “I’d be up with the telescope at night. He’d tell me how he woke up at 2:00 a.m. to find me gone, and that he missed me.” She blinked back tears. “I was selfish.”

  “I don’t know,” Stuart said. “I can’t imagine Ray getting upset over your work. And definitely not over your success. He wasn’t the jealous type.”

  “Maybe not when he was feeling well, but he’d been down for a while. I don’t think I recognized it. I should have picked up on it.”

  “You’re being awfully hard on yourself, Laurie.”

  “I didn’t tell you about the note he left.”

  “You didn’t say there was a note.”

  “I just didn’t want to tell you about it on the phone.” She didn’t want to tell him about it now, either, but knew she had to.

  “What did it say?” Stuart shifted position on the love seat to see her better.

  “It read, ‘I asked you not to go.’”

  “What did he mean by that?”

  “Well, it’s complicated.” Laura rubbed her eyes with her palms. “You see, there’s an elderly woman living near here in a retirement home, and—”

  “The one your father asked you to take care of?”

  “How did you know that?”

  “Ray told me about her the last time I spoke with him on the phone. He said you were all gung ho about taking care of her, and he was very upset about it.”

  “I think his being upset was way out of proportion to the situation, probably because he was so depressed. He wasn’t thinking clearly.”

  Stuart hesitated. “It did seem an extreme reaction, I guess,” he said. “So, that’s what he was referring to in the note? That he’d asked you not to see her?”

  “That’s right. But I had to, Stuart.” She turned to face him. “My father asked me to, and—”

  “But…” Stuart interrupted her. “Your father was dead and never would have known the difference.” He spoke gently, as though he had no idea how those words would cut her. “Ray was alive. For whatever reason, he needed to know that what he thought and what he wanted mattered to you.”

  She didn’t know what to say. She’d thought Stuart would understand.

  “So you saw this woman?” he asked.

  “Yes. I still don’t know why my father wanted me to, though. She has Alzheimer’s and doesn’t remember him at all.”

  “Alzheimer’s, huh?” Stuart actually chuckled.

  “I don’t see what’s so funny.”

  “You’re right. It isn’t funny.” Stuart sobered, but it looked as if it took some effort. “Do you plan to see her again?” he asked.

  “I don’t think so.” Laura shivered at the thought. Her last visit to Sarah Tolley was linked in her mind to Ray’s death.

  “Good,” Stuart said. “Is she getting good care there?”

  “I think so.”

  “Then forget about her. You made sure she’s all right. You’ve done all you need to do. You found no meaningful link between her and your father. Leave it alone.”

  Stuart was right. Her father’s money was still in trust for Sarah, and the attorney would handle any bills that came in. There was nothing more for Laura to do. She remembered the attendant, Carolyn, telling her how much Sarah would love to be able to go for walks again and have someone to talk to, but she quickly blocked that thought from her mind.

  Stuart stood up with that same getting-to-his-feet groan Ray had always emitted when rising from a chair. “I’m going to head back to the town house,” he said, stretching. “It’s been a long day.”

  Laura stood up herself and walked him to the door, where Stuart pulled her into a brotherly embrace.

  “Ray made a lot of sacrifices for you, you know,” Stuart said.

  She nodded, her head resting on his shoulder.

  Stuart kissed her cheek, then walked out the door. Laura sat down again on the love seat.

  Ray made a lot of sacrifices for you.

  It hurt to think about all Ray had done for her. He’d given her the financial and emotional support she’d needed to further her career. He’d loved her through her successes despite his own failures.

  And he’d even taken responsibility for the child she had never meant to conceive.

  6

  LAURA WATCHED THROUGH THE TWO-WAY MIRROR AS EMMA’S new therapist, Heather Davison, drew pictures on a large sheet of paper.

  “Show me a really, really angry face,” Heather said to Emma, who sat next to her at a table in the well-stocked playroom.

  Emma obeyed, screwing up her nose and baring her teeth. Laura laughed quietly on her side of the mirror.

  “Excellent!” Heather said. She drew a reasonable facsimile of the expression on the sheet of paper. At least that’s what it looked like from where Laura was sitting.

  “Now show me a very sad face,” Heather said.

  It was now July. It had been more than six months since Ray’s death, more than six months since Emma had uttered a word. It seemed impossible. The child whose preschool teacher had called Laura to complain about her disruptive talking. The child who would follow Laura or Ray around the house with nonstop questions and pervasive chatter. It was as though she’d used up all her allotted words and suddenly could find no more.

  She had regressed in other ways, as well. She was wildly afraid of the dark, needing both a night-light and an open bedroom door to be able to fall asleep. A few nights a week, she would wet the bed, and the thumb-sucking was back in full force.

  Last month, Laura was finally able to move Emma and herself into the lake house for good. Or at least until she figured out what she should do next. She’d put her career on indefinite hold in order to devote her time to her daughter after taking Emma out of preschool. The house still needed a lot of work to be truly livable as a year-round residence, but Laura planned to do the painting and repairs while she and Emma lived there.

  The house was on Lake Ashton, a small lake near the tiny hamlet of Paris, Virginia, half an hour from Leesburg. Ray and Laura had bought the house several years ago. Ray had balked at the idea of owning two homes when many people had none, but he knew Laura needed a place in the country, where the sky was untouched by city lights, for her observations.

  There were only seven other houses on the lake, and none of them were visible from their house. The fo
rest surrounding the lake was thick, and even from the screened porch, all that could be seen was a hint of water beyond the trees. A paved path, perfect for riding bikes or walking, circled the lake. There were a playground and a small beach, and on the opposite side of the lake from the house, a rickety fishing pier.

  Laura had hoped the move to the lake would make a difference for Emma, that maybe it had been living in the tiny apartment, too close to the town house, that had left her tongue-tied and fearful. The lake house was full of happy memories for Emma. She had a friend, Cory, nearby, a little girl with whom she’d played every summer since she was a toddler. Last summer she and Cory had learned to swim, and it had been hard to drag Emma from the lake at the end of each day. But being at the lake house seemed to make no difference in Emma’s condition. In a way it was worse, because now she would not go near the water she’d enjoyed so much the year before. She was afraid of it, giving the water’s edge a wide berth when she walked along the shore.

  “Show me your happiest face,” Heather said to Emma.

  Emma tried. She really did, Laura thought, but the weak smile wouldn’t fool anyone. Still, Heather attempted to translate the expression to the paper.

  When Laura had registered with the receptionist in Heather Davison’s office, the woman could not seem to take her eyes from Emma’s face. “What a beautiful child,” she’d said. Now, though, as Laura watched her daughter through the two-way mirror, she thought that even Emma’s beauty had taken a blow during the past six months. Her skin had grown pale, made even more noticeable by her nearly black hair, and there were dark circles under her light blue eyes.

  “Okay,” Heather said to Emma. “Now we have all our faces. Can you point to the face that describes how you feel today?”

  Emma studied the faces for a moment and pointed to one of them. Laura couldn’t tell which one from where she was sitting.

  “Can you show me which face reminds you of your Mommy’s face?”

  Emma pointed, and Laura craned her neck in vain, longing to see which face she’d selected.

  Heather was Emma’s third counselor. Laura had walked out on the last one after the woman told her that she should have taken Emma to Ray’s memorial service to “help her connect with reality,” that she should have had Emma make a gift to tuck into Ray’s casket with him, and that she should have moved immediately back into the town house to show Emma it was in no way haunted by Ray’s death. “Thanks.” Laura had not been able to mask the sarcasm in her voice as she stood to leave midway through the session. “That was very helpful. I’ll be sure to remember to do all of that when my next husband dies.”

  She’d listened to the advice of friends, hearing every suggestion from punishing Emma, to hospitalizing her, to buying her a puppy. Someone finally referred her to Heather Davison, a child therapist who’d had some success dealing with mute children. Heather felt like her last hope, but she’d been disappointed when she met her. The therapist didn’t look more than thirty, and her style of speech was more like that of a teenager than a therapist. She wore jeans and a T-shirt, and her long blond hair was tied up in a ponytail. Emma took to her instantly, though, and that was what counted. And Laura liked what Heather had said to Emma at the start of this session.

  “Your daddy’s death was nobody’s fault,” she’d said. “A sickness in his mind caused him to kill himself. You don’t have that sickness, though. Your mom doesn’t have it, either. Most people don’t have it.”

  Now Heather looked at her watch and stood up. Obviously the session was over, and the miracle Laura had hoped for had not occurred. Emma had not made a sound during the half hour with the therapist.

  Laura met Heather and Emma in the hall outside the play therapy room, and Emma immediately wrapped her arms around Laura’s legs. To say that Emma had grown clingy over the last couple of months would be an understatement.

  “Hi, sweetie!” Laura said to her. “Did you have fun?”

  Emma nodded.

  Heather led them back to the reception area. “Emma,” she said, “I want to talk to your Mom for a little while in the other room. You can play here.” She pointed to a colorful play area that had attracted Emma the minute they’d walked into the waiting room forty minutes earlier. “Mrs. Quinn will keep an eye on you from her desk.”

  Emma whimpered her protest and clung more tightly to Laura.

  Laura leaned over. “I’ll just be in the next room, and we’ll only be a few minutes.” She walked Emma over to the toys and spent a few minutes getting her involved with the crayons and a coloring book.

  “I’ll be back in a minute,” she said. “You stay here and play.” She heard the firmness in her voice, employed more for Heather’s sake than for her daughter’s. What she really wanted to do was hold Emma on her lap and rock her, telling her everything would be all right. Her separation anxiety was nearly as strong as Emma’s.

  Heather guided Laura into her office, which was next to the play therapy room. The office had comfortable, adult-size chairs, and Laura sank into one of them.

  “I’m afraid she’s never going to speak again,” she said.

  “Oh, I think she will,” Heather said. “Her lack of communication makes it harder to know what’s bugging her, of course, but the truth is, children her age need to play it out—act it out—rather than talk it out. So, I’ll work with her in play therapy and we’ll see where it goes.”

  “I just don’t know how she feels about anything anymore,” Laura said.

  “I know,” Heather said. “Loss is so hard for little kids. You have friends in your world, but she just had you and her dad. She’s lost fifty percent of her support system. And if Dad can die, so can Mom. Already, I can tell she’s feeling terribly abandoned.”

  “Abandoned? By Ray—her father?”

  “I think abandoned in general,” Heather said slowly. “I think it might predate her dad’s death.”

  “But I almost always had her with me when I traveled,” Laura protested. “I’d have to leave her with sitters during the day, of course….” And during many nights as well. She shut her eyes. “She always seemed happy and well-adjusted. She’d love to stay with the sitters. In Brazil, her sitter had a daughter Emma’s age. They had a great time together. Emma was outgoing and talkative. I know that must be hard to believe—”

  “No, it’s not hard,” Heather said. “And it’s very encouraging. If she was a strong, well-adjusted little girl once, then she has resources inside her to help her through this time. The prognosis is very good.”

  Laura nodded, trying hard to believe what Heather was saying.

  “But I have to say that it’s unusual for a selectively mute child to be mute with everyone,” Heather continued. “Ordinarily, they’ll be mute at school or out in the world in general, but not at home with family. Emma’s case is distinctive in that she doesn’t talk to anyone, not even you.”

  Laura looked down at her lap, where her hands were knotted together. She must have failed Emma somehow that she didn’t even feel safe talking to her own mother.

  “You told me she was home when your husband killed himself,” Heather said quickly, obviously aware that Laura was sinking into guilt. “That alone’s enough of a trauma to bring about this sort of regression, so don’t go laying the blame on yourself.”

  Laura pursed her lips. “If you say so,” she said.

  “The other thing I picked up on is her negative feelings toward men.”

  “Really?”

  “Did you see when I asked her which face looked most like a man’s face? She picked the angry face.”

  “Well, I know she’s always favored women. But I didn’t think she had…negative feelings about men.”

  Heather shifted in her seat, ponytail bouncing, and Laura thought she knew why Emma liked the therapist: Heather probably reminded her of her Barbie dolls.

  “You haven’t told me much about Emma’s relationship with her dad,” Heather said. “With Ray.”

&nbsp
; Laura wondered where to begin. “Emma was not Ray’s natural child,” she said.

  “Oh.” Heather jotted something down on her notepad.

  “No. I had a brief relationship with another man and Emma was conceived. It was a shock to me, the pregnancy. I wasn’t—” she tried to find the words “—I wasn’t the brief relationship type. Or even the long-and-enduring relationship type.” She smiled at Heather. “I’m an astronomer. That is—was—my life. I never felt I had the time for relationships. And I was thirty-four. Old enough to know better. But anyway, I was pregnant.” She had the feeling she was giving Heather far more information than had been requested. “Ray and I were close friends, but nothing more than that. Yet he was always a very caring person. He was much older than me, and he was sort of part father, part brother, part friend. I was very upset about the pregnancy. I’d never thought I’d have children, but I knew I didn’t want an abortion. Still, I wasn’t married. So Ray offered to marry me. I accepted. I loved him very much. But we never had what you’d think of as a typical marriage. We were more friends than lovers.” She and Ray had made love perhaps twenty times in the six years of their marriage. She had wanted more, but Ray’s antidepressant medication killed any libido he might have possessed, and she was careful never to press him or make him feel inadequate. He was a good husband and he treated Emma as though she were his own, and Laura could usually make herself be satisfied with that.

  “What was his relationship like with Emma?” Heather asked, and Laura remembered that was the original question.

  “Well, there was never any doubt that he was her father. He was a wonderful father to her.”

  “Give me some examples.”

  “Well, he’d read her stories at night. He’d…he liked to drive her around the streets of Washington to educate her on the problems of the homeless.”

  Heather’s eyes were wide and disbelieving, and Laura laughed. “He was one of a kind,” she said.

  “Yeah, I can see that,” Heather said. “So what else did he do with her?”