Kenyon is staring out the window. You aren’t even certain she was paying attention just now. Without turning, she says, “It’s an idea.”
“So you’d try?” Saralinda prompts. “Because you’d have to be the one to go see him. You’re family.”
“Let me think about it, okay?”
You’re relieved at the delay—which makes you angry. At yourself. “Tell us tomorrow, Kenyon,” you say. “Meanwhile, we can think about other options.”
Kenyon doesn’t answer. Without saying good-bye, she gets up and walks out. This is normal for her these days. Saralinda scrambles to her feet, nods at you, and heads after her.
This too is normal these days.
You bury your head in your hands for a minute, thinking about your father and what you have just implicitly promised.
You look over at the book you recently took out of the school library. It’s Dracula.
You will read another chapter and then you will think of options, of ideas that you can run by Saralinda. You will.
You will, you will.
Chapter 56. Saralinda
Once upon a time, I wanted to live in a dorm room at Rockland Academy with Kenyon as my roommate. Also I wanted a boyfriend even though I didn’t know then who I wanted it to be. I wanted friends too and badly, and I wanted to live a regular teenager life. Finally I wanted freedom from my overprotective mom. I believed that all these things were out of my reach, but I dreamed about them and schemed about how I might get them if I was clever and if my mother and my obstructionist fairy godmother relented.
That Saralinda is gone now and I miss her—she was vivid in a way that I am not anymore. The strange thing is that the Saralinda I am now has everything the old Saralinda dreamed of except the boyfriend and normalcy. Regarding the boyfriend, I am emotionally sort of numb these days except for being scared and wanting Caleb and Kenyon close by. I am uneasy when they are not there.
Also sometimes I am angry and then I feel more like myself. The old Saralinda was angry although she repressed it a lot.
At the same time I am truly grateful for what I do have because it is all precious—life is precious, breath is precious, friends are precious, love is precious and so is freedom. But the price has been high, and I don’t think the Saralinda I used to be would have chosen to pay that price.
If she’d had any choice which she didn’t.
I chalk it all up to my fairy godmother, who it turned out was obstructionist in more bizarre ways than I could ever have imagined. Not that I ever believed in her except that in a funny double-think way maybe I did. At this point I would count her as among the dead. Not that I am counting.
That is a lie. I do count.
Antoine has been dead for twenty-five days.
Evangeline has been dead for twenty-three days.
So has my mother. So has Mrs. Dubois.
I am alive and an orphan, a Dickensian thing to be. My circumstances are better than Dickensian orphans, Dr. Lee will be assigned by the court to be my guardian along with his wife. They volunteered and they are kind to me and it was good of them, I am grateful.
Plus Georgia is with me.
These things are not nothing.
Fear is supposed to fade over time and maybe that will happen or maybe I will get used to living with it like Caleb has. Or maybe we really will think of something we can do. I go in and out of believing that is possible.
For Evangeline’s eighteenth birthday I buy Cheetos, and at midnight in our dorm room the three of us eat them. I carefully measure my insulin to account for it. Kenyon gets hysterical crying and laughing uncontrollably and the girl in the room next door bangs on the wall to get her to shut up but at first Kenyon just can’t.
She also says she absolutely cannot talk to her grandfather, not yet anyway, and I cannot talk her into it, it is frustrating but how can I push her?
Dead ends everywhere.
Chapter 57. Caleb
You go with your mother to visit her divorce lawyer in a Midtown high-rise. The lawyer comes out to greet her with a wide smile and both hands outstretched.
“Good morning, Veronica. Lots of boring paperwork, but then we’ll be done. Let’s get right to it, shall we?”
Your mother squeezes your arm and then takes his, with a half-doubtful, half-happy look over her shoulder at you. As they walk down the hall, you hear the lawyer say, “This may be the best divorce settlement I’ve ever negotiated. It was certainly the fastest and easiest. Your soon-to-be-ex-husband said yes to almost everything.”
You accept coffee from the receptionist, and slump into a corner chair of the waiting area.
You’re happy for your mother. Really you are. Or at least, you would be if it were possible to be happy. If you weren’t so conscious of the price paid for your mother’s freedom.
You’re not sure how much your mother herself understands. You haven’t discussed Evangeline with her. There’s no point in burdening her; she’s not responsible for what happened. That she is benefitting is merely a byproduct.
These last weeks, your mother has been super-cautious about what she says. She practically hasn’t breathed without asking her lawyer first. You get it. She wants what is happening. Wants a life. She says she might try for art school, her dream when she was your age.
One thing’s for sure, though: Your father is not being generous with Veronica for the sake of generosity. Or because he will soon have his new wife’s money. He surely has other reasons. Are you being bribed, you wonder. Bribed with the possibility of freedom? Or are you being lulled into complacency?
Your mother said something the other day. A little thing, not important, yet annoyingly, it keeps drifting back into your mind. It happened after your mother showed you your father’s engagement announcement. You looked at the side-by-side pictures, your father and Spencer Merriman Song. “So?” you asked. And your mother said, “It’s just . . . poor girl. She has no idea what her life will be like.”
A memory comes to you of your mother and father. It’s the kind of thing you never let yourself remember, before. In the memory, she begs him to let her eat a hard-boiled egg from the refrigerator. He says no. He says she must wait until morning because she has eaten enough that day and she mustn’t get fat.
The refrigerator wasn’t locked or anything. But your mother had retreated, hungry.
Of course, Veronica was a penniless immigrant, with no green card and no money. Spencer Merriman Song is an entirely different sort of person. Also she is a murderer. In short, she’s not anybody’s poor girl, and your mother is—she’s wrong.
You slump down deeper in your chair and take out your phone. You have a video to watch: your father’s interview with Monica Baker from FOX News, from last night. Self-assigned homework. Maybe there will be something in there, a clue of some kind, that will help you figure out how to trap him.
At first you watch with the volume off, noting the play of expression on your father’s flexible face. Sadness, regret, dismay, and from time to time, guilt—a nice touch. It’s best to know what he’s saying, though, so you plug in your headphones.
MONICA BAKER: I’m here in the studio with Dr. Caleb Colchester, the psychiatrist, mental health expert, and distinguished author. Dr. Colchester is a critical piece of this strange story we’re all following with such interest and horror, about two mothers and a grandfather who schemed together to murder their own teenage children. They succeeded in killing two seventeen-year-olds before their plot was ultimately revealed about a week ago—then two of the parents committed suicide—
YOUR FATHER: Actually, Monica, it’s been two weeks. Two very long weeks, and believe me, I’ve counted every day, every hour.
MONICA BAKER: Yes, two weeks. I apologize. Now, the third parent, Lieutenant Stewart Kelly of the New York State Police—actually a grandfather—is suspended from his job and under investigat
ion. Dr. Colchester, this conspiracy first formed in your very own office, during a group therapy session. Can you tell us more about what happened? Give us some background?
YOUR FATHER: I certainly can, although it’s difficult for me, Monica, because I have to reveal how, with all my education and experience, I somehow reached my late forties still capable of being very badly deluded by my own patients. I understood the rage these people felt against their children. But I never dreamed they would do anything about it, and I’m afraid my group therapy session was key to pushing them over that line.
MONICA BAKER: There’s an element of mental illness involved, surely?
YOUR FATHER: Yes, there is. But I have to take personal responsibility too, Monica. Not only did I initiate this parents’ group, but my motivation for it was not—well, I had more than one motive in starting the group. I wasn’t paying the attention that I should have.
MONICA BAKER: Interesting. Go on. When you imply you were distracted, that has to do with Mrs. Spencer Song, the stepmother of the young victim Evangeline Song, correct? By the way, if the name Song sounds familiar to our viewers, I should mention that Mrs. Song’s husband and Evangeline’s father was the late real estate developer Kevin Song. I should also mention that Mrs. Song is not suspected of being involved in the conspiracy. She is in seclusion as she mourns her stepdaughter, I understand. That’s all correct, Dr. Colchester?
YOUR FATHER: Yes. Yes, it is. Spencer is away. But before I talk any more about her, I should provide some background. This goes to my marriage. My wife, Veronica—she’s not a bad person. But at the time I met Spencer, my wife was depressed and dependent on medication, and our marriage hadn’t been a real one for many years. Possibly the worst part of that was how it affected our son, Caleb. He withdrew from both of us. He became—to be blunt—a sullen, isolated teenager with bad grades, no ambition, and zero interest in figuring out his future.
MONICA BAKER: In short, a fairly typical teenage boy?
YOUR FATHER: That’s a valid point, Monica. But wouldn’t you find parenting such a child to be frustrating? Okay, see, you’re nodding. Well, so did I, and so did Veronica. I believe he contributed to her clinical depression. From childhood, our son had a—a very disturbing pattern of strange and violent behavior. I won’t go into detail, but there were some serious incidents that gave rise to—to concern. There were small animals involved.
MONICA BAKER: Oh! Oh, that’s terrible. But at the same time, this is the boy who saved the lives of his four friends in the carriage house collapse, and who videotaped the important evidence against one of the mothers in the case, isn’t that right?
YOUR FATHER: At this point, I have only pride in him. He has matured. But last spring, when I met Mrs. Song, I was seriously worried.
MONICA BAKER: I can understand that.
YOUR FATHER: It all began at a Rockland Academy fund-raising dinner, which as usual I attended without my wife. By chance, I sat next to Mrs. Song.
MONICA BAKER: (Leans forward. Nods.)
YOUR FATHER: We fell into an intimate conversation. Spencer manifested a sadness and vulnerability that found an immediate echo in myself. She confided in me—people do tend to do that, Monica—that although she missed her husband, her unhappiness each day was now rooted in her difficult relationship with her stepdaughter, Evangeline.
MONICA BAKER: To remind our viewers, that’s Evangeline Song, seventeen, who was poisoned by one of the other parents, Mrs. Gabrielle Dubois. The coroner has released autopsy reports on both Evangeline and Gabrielle Dubois. They both drank—Gabrielle Dubois on purpose, and Evangeline because she was murdered—a green smoothie. The recipe contained avocado, spinach, kale, cucumber, peach, apple, and last but not least, a few leaves of deadly nightshade. I did my research, and it is seriously toxic stuff, which can easily be grown in an ordinary garden. That’s very frightening! Personally? I may never drink a kale smoothie again.
YOUR FATHER: Nor will I.
MONICA BAKER: Another point that I should make clear on behalf of our viewers: Gabrielle Dubois was the mother of the very first victim, Antoine Dubois, whose car was allegedly sabotaged by Lieutenant Kelly. So, Dr. Colchester, the idea of the conspiracy was that the parents would take care of killing each other’s children?
YOUR FATHER: That’s what they came up with, yes. That idea—I would assume—came to them after their first attempt to kill all of our children, together, failed.
MONICA BAKER: That would be the carriage house implosion.
YOUR FATHER: Yes. I understand that Rockland Academy has managed to find videotape of the three accused parents on the roof.
MONICA BAKER: My god! Really? That’s news—I didn’t know that! But there’s a lot here, and if our viewers are anything like me, they’ll need a scorecard to keep track of this story! Anyway, please go on, Dr. Colchester. So you met Mrs. Song, and she confided in you about her relationship with her stepdaughter, Evangeline?
YOUR FATHER: Yes. The relationship was not good. Spencer felt that Evangeline hated her for having married Kevin. For her part, Evangeline was constantly, viciously mean to Spencer. I’m sorry to speak ill of Evangeline. She’s a victim here, an intelligent young woman who should have had a long and useful life. Young people’s characters and personalities are very much in flux during their teen years—we discussed that very point, didn’t we? About my son. So I’m sure that in time Evangeline would have grown into maturity and kindness. But the Evangeline that Spencer lived with had not reached that point, and the little—the very little—that Spencer told me upon our first meeting pressed a chord of sympathy deep inside me. I told her about my son. Then I went home to my wife.
Only I couldn’t stop thinking about Spencer. So, while not letting myself be fully aware of my motives, I formed the idea of the parents’ support therapy group. From the parents and perspective parents at Rockland Academy, I chose three others who it seemed to me—and it’s my job to be good at reading people—were concerned for various reasons about their teenagers. But my true motive was to invite Mrs. Song, so that I could see her again.
MONICA BAKER: So the conspiracy came together somehow during these meetings?
YOUR FATHER: Yes, that is now clear. Let me explain. The group met a few times, in the summer before the new school year began. I provided my therapeutic services free of charge, telling them that we were on equal ground and that we would help and support one another. But I was distracted by Spencer’s presence. I didn’t pay enough attention to the character and psychology of the other parents. Then, at our final session, all five of us discussed how it would be if our children were to die. We—we laughed. To my shame, I have to admit that it all felt tremendously freeing. In my case, there would be no worry about the small animals my son killed in his youth and what that might mean about him. No worry about what I would do when he was inevitably expelled from school. And I would no longer secretly blame him for the failure of my marriage.
MONICA BAKER: I am—I’m shocked! And yet—and yet—
YOUR FATHER: I know what you’re thinking, Monica. This is the dirty little secret of most or maybe all parents, isn’t it? We love our children, we would never see them hurt. But sometimes, in times of deep frustration—and we all have those times—we think: What if? What if they were just—gone?
MONICA BAKER: Oh, my.
YOUR FATHER: You have children, right?
MONICA BAKER: (Embarrassed laughter.) Twin boys who are eleven, and a daughter who’s fourteen. So, uh. Um. I absolutely adore them. Then what happened?
YOUR FATHER: That was that, or so I thought. I disbanded the group, and Spencer and I—we began to get to know each other better. Very soon I realized that the time had come to ask my wife for a divorce. Which she has agreed to, by the way. Veronica and I are parting on very amicable terms, and in fact, the divorce will be final in a few days.
But what I did not know was that the other three parents were continuing to meet. You mentioned mental illness bef
ore, Monica. They believed that Spencer and I, even though we were not participating explicitly, would be glad if they took care of our children for us. I wouldn’t be surprised if they deluded themselves into thinking that I actually said as much. Delusions are so powerful.
MONICA BAKER: It’s all extraordinary.
YOUR FATHER: It’s insane, Monica. Let’s say that flat out. Also, it would take insanity for anyone to think they could get away with something like this! It’s unbelievable!
MONICA BAKER: I have to agree! I was saying to my husband, okay, so one parent might think they could get away with killing their kid, but how could three people possibly think they could do it together? They’d have to be out of their minds.
YOUR FATHER: Which they were. But my point is that there’s blood on my hands morally, Monica. I knew nothing about what was going on—but there is a degree of moral responsibility because I allowed them the fantasy.
MONICA BAKER: Yes. I understand how you feel. Sadly—because there is so much more we could explore here—our time is about up. We’ll continue to follow developments here at the station for our viewers, and we certainly appreciate your coming to talk with us today, Dr. Colchester. Do you have any last comments?
YOUR FATHER: Thank you, Monica. May I say something directly to my son? He won’t talk to me in person or on the phone these days.
MONICA BAKER: Oh! Of course.
YOUR FATHER: Caleb? If you’re out there, if you’re watching, I love you. I am sorry. We’ve messed up here—I messed up, I understand that—and your friends are dead. But I hope that someday, when your wounds and mine have had time to heal, that you’ll find yourself open to talking. That we can find each other again, and resume our relationship.