The Law of Similars

  "Barbie Elizabeth loves picnics, too, you know," Abby said.

  "I'm glad."

  I'd thought of that final family picnic together often the summer Elizabeth died, and, occasionally, in the two summers since. It had been one of those fantasy days that was absolutely wondrous at the time, but managed, somehow, to grow even better with age.

  "Does Carissa--real Carissa--like picnics?" Abby asked.

  "I don't know. Why don't you ask her someday?" I smiled, if only to repress the whine that sometimes overwhelmed me: After all I had lost and all I'd endured, was it asking too much to be picnic-happy again?

  Happy the way I'd been with Elizabeth?

  When I'd been one-third of a family? One-half of a couple?

  I looked at my daughter, aware that she was saying something to me.

  "I'm sorry, sweetheart," I said, "I think I was in a fog."

  "Pensive?" she asked, a word I'd recently taught her when she'd thought I was mad. No, I'd explained, just pensive.

  "Yes. Pensive."

  "Can we read this one?" she said, handing me another book.

  "Of course we can," I said as she climbed into my lap. I wrapped my arms around her, pressing her tight against my chest. "Forgive me when I'm pensive," I said. "I love you."

  "I know."

  "I love you like crazy."

  "I know."

  I sighed, and tried to press my guilt from my mind. Forgive yourself. You're entitled to be tired.

  "Daddy?"

  "Yes, sweetheart?" You're entitled to be selfish. You're entitled to try and snag a bit of happiness with Carissa Lake. You're entitled--

  "Have you known Carissa a long time?"

  "No. Not long at all. We only met a few weeks before Christmas. How come?"

  "Kelly asked."

  I felt a rush of dizziness surround me like a cloud, and then the peripheries of my vision grew dim. I leaned back against the wall by Abby's bed and willed myself not to faint. In my head I heard the two words of my daughter's small sentence once more, Kelly asked, and it sounded now like she'd been speaking underwater. In slow motion. In a nightmare voice.

  "Why?" I mumbled.

  "I don't know."

  "Were you talking about Carissa with Kelly?"

  "No. I was just playing Barbies," she said, and then I realized instantly what had happened. Kelly had heard little Abby Fowler calling one of her new Christmas dolls Elizabeth and the other one Carissa, and understood at once that the child's dad was now dating that homeopath. The one with the stars on her ceiling. The one with the weird painting on the wall. The one who--and Kelly might or might not have heard this part, it depended entirely upon whether she'd heard the latest gossip that day--might or might not have put Richard Emmons in a coma.

  "Was that okay?" she asked, and I could see she could tell she'd upset me. She looked almost alarmed.

  "Oh, it's fine." I saw I was shaking, and locked my hands together so Abby couldn't see the spasms in my fingers, and then pulled her against me once more. "You use any names you want with your Barbies," I said. "You call them anything your beautiful heart desires."

  I recalled praying alone at night in the church at least a dozen times when my mother was dying of cancer and Elizabeth's accident was still years away. I'd fall to my knees before the altar and pray, "Lord, please give my mother a miracle. Do for her, please, what we can't."

  Whenever I prayed alone, I knelt. On Sundays, the congregation always prayed standing up or sitting down, and I missed the submissiveness that I felt on my knees. The sense of absolute deference. Humility. Obedience.

  Before I climbed into bed that night, I fell to the floor and prayed, "Lord, please forgive me if what I have done is wrong." Almost instantly I opened my eyes and shook my head. Even in prayer I was hedging. And so I started again, this time trying to be clear that I knew I had made a mistake: "Lord, please forgive me. Please forgive Carissa. And please, somehow, heal Richard Emmons."

  That, I decided, was what I really wanted: I prayed that God would open Richard's eyes and the fellow would abruptly sit up in his hospital bed. I prayed that Richard would get better. I prayed, almost as I'd prayed for my mother, that the Lord would do for the man in the coma what mere mortals could not.

  Outside I heard the wind gusting against the sides of the house, the sound a low rumble against the clapboard walls of my home. I stood up, listened to make sure the gale had not frightened my daughter, and then turned out the light in my room.

  Once, I kept a square tube of Halls in the nightstand beside my bed, and now it was a vial of arsenic.

  In the night I awoke and I reached for the container, and I shook a tablet into my hand. Then I sucked on the minuscule pill, and within moments I had fallen back into a deep and dreamless sleep.

  Chapter 16.

  Arsenicum Album

  WHITE ARSENIC

  When I have done with the wiseacre, who ridicules the small doses of Homeopathy as a nonentity, as effecting nothing, and who never consults experience, I hear on the other side the hypocritical stickler for caution...inveigh against the danger of even the small doses used in homeopathic practice.

  Dr. Samuel Hahnemann,

  The Chronic Diseases, 1839

  In the morning, before waking my daughter, I checked my computer to see if there was an E-mail from Carissa. I'd fantasized briefly there would be--I knew she was on the Internet, too--but I also feared I'd have a heart attack in my chair if this particular fantasy came true. Though Carissa and I had not specifically discussed E-mail, I assumed she was smart enough to avoid it. These days, it was almost easier to build a case with E-mail than with phone records, because the actual contents of an E-mail message remained in existence for months on a main server's computer: Not only did you have proof of contact, you had the details of the exchange.

  And so I was relieved when I saw that the only message I had was a post-Christmas greeting from my friend the medical examiner.

  But still I was desperate to know how Carissa was doing. I shut down my computer and went to the kitchen for a banana, and stared longingly at the coffee machine as I passed it. I hadn't had coffee in weeks, and though I'd had powerful cravings, it didn't make sense to me that I'd be having one now: I'd certainly given myself a pretty solid arsenic booster in the last eighteen hours.

  Or maybe I hadn't. Maybe taking them one or two at a time was worthless, and any relief I'd felt had just been that placebo effect. Maybe I needed to take them four or five--Or was it five or six?--at a time, the way I had when Carissa administered the remedy almost a month ago in her office.

  I finished my banana, washed the mushy fruit off my hands, and went back upstairs to see if Abby was starting to wake up. I thought I might also glance through the little book on homeopathy Carissa had lent me. Maybe the book would offer a clue about dosage.

  I did not actually vomit. I had been sure that I would, but I didn't, and eventually the nausea subsided. I stood up and leaned against the side of the truck, aware that the sand and salt from the road that stuck to the pickup would wind up all over the back of my navy blue overcoat, but I didn't care: At least I no longer felt sick.

  I took a breath and looked around. This had been a thousand times worse than the car sickness I'd felt two days ago while driving to work. This time, indeed, I'd had to pull over. I'd had to swing my truck to the side of the road--oblivious to where I was stopping--and practically jump from the driver's seat to the pavement. I'd had to scurry around to the far side of the vehicle, where I'd leaned over and stared into a drift of brown snow the plows had created the night before, prepared to puke for the first time in years.

  And then the sensation had passed. It had taken a moment. But it had passed.

  I saw I had stopped by a Morgan horse farm just north of Hinesburg. If one had to pull over and vomit, it wasn't a bad spot. There were no houses nearby, though I could see the peaks of the horse barns in the distance through the rows of leafless trees. With their foliag
e gone but their branches glazed over with ice, those trees--mostly maple and birch and ash--looked for a moment like elegant black and crystal sculptures. Each was a willowy raven-dark frame, layered with a luminous sky-blown glass.

  I stood for a few more minutes, breathing in the crisp air, and then walked in a few yards from the road to press a clean handful of snow to my mouth.

  I could use some sun, I decided, staring up at the overcast skies. I returned to the road and started the truck, and then pulled a glove off with my teeth and felt my forehead. It didn't feel like I had a fever, but then I'd just spent five or ten minutes doubled over a snowbank in fifteen-degree weather. Of course it felt cool.

  I wanted to attribute my queasiness to a virus or bug. Perhaps even the flu. Even the flu would be better than guilt heaves. But aside from that brief bout with nausea, I hadn't felt sick. I wasn't coming down with something, much as I might wish that I were.

  No, it was clear to me that I'd almost retched up a banana, a muffin, and whatever remained of herb tea over guilt. Anxiety. Fear. And it wasn't simply what I had done that was making me worry, it was the fact that I had brought Carissa along with me.

  Or, to be precise, down with me.

  Moreover, I'd begun to realize I'd been kidding myself when I'd thought our story wouldn't unravel. What if I was wrong and someone had seen me holding hands with Carissa at the church Christmas Eve? It was certainly a packed sanctuary; it was certainly possible someone had taken his eyes off a candle for a brief moment.

  Or what if that Patsy person at the health-food store was aware that Carissa had been shopping for Leland Fowler--chief deputy state's attorney--that very night? What if Whitney had already said something to Patsy about her aunt's new beau before Carissa could get to her? Or what if Whitney was simply incapable of keeping a secret?

  The possibilities were endless: What if one of Carissa's neighbors had noticed my truck at the homeopath's house the morning after Christmas? Or near the Octagon the day after that? What if someone official--someone in my own office, perhaps, or someone with the state police--decided to speak with local day-care owner Kelly McDonough, and Kelly mentioned the names little Abby had given her new Christmas Barbies?

  What if someone checked the phone records and saw the toll calls I'd made to Carissa from my office, or the cell phone call I'd made Christmas Day?

  I felt a strange shudder in my chest--not exactly a pain, but not a pleasant sensation, either--and I realized my heart was starting to race. It wasn't a heart attack: There were no shooting pains down my left arm, and the flutter behind my ribs certainly wasn't the agony that I'd always heard would come with a heart attack. But my heart was definitely...palpitating. That was the word. I was giving myself heart palpitations.

  I was pretty sure one little arsenic pill would restore my confidence and calm me down--they'd certainly gotten me through the last day--but I wanted to postpone taking another pellet for as long as possible. I'd discovered that morning when I'd gone upstairs to skim the homeopathy book that I'd already gone through at least a quarter of a tube. The vial had been half-full when I'd taken it, and now there was only a quarter remaining. Yet it wasn't how much I'd taken that mattered to me, it was how much I had left. I knew I might have to make what was there last a very long time. Days, certainly. Maybe weeks. Perhaps even a month or more.

  And that would mean rationing the twenty-five or thirty pills that remained.

  Unfortunately, the book hadn't said anything helpful about arsenic and dosage. The book was an introduction to homeopathy for laypeople, not a guide to treatment. I found one reference to arsenic application, but it was simply presented as an example so a patient could understand the way a homeopath might prescribe a cure: "One dose of Arsenicum album 200c, to relieve anxiety with restlessness."

  Nevertheless, I'd immediately looked at the tube on my nightstand to see if there was a reference to the potency of the arsenic I'd swiped. There wasn't. At least there wasn't one I could read: Carissa had pressed a small sticker with the date she'd received the pills over a part of the manufacturer's label, and she'd placed it right on top of the potency and warning. When I tried to peel the sticker away, I merely ripped the label. There was just no way I was going to be able to determine whether each pill was six or sixty or--for all I knew--two hundred c.

  Whatever that meant. I realized I didn't even know what a c was.

  The one thing the book had done was reassure me that I wasn't going to make myself sick with the arsenic. I'd reread the whole section on "potentization" and "successive dilution," and come away with the faith that my remedy had been diluted and shaken so many times that in reality I was ingesting virtually no arsenic. Zip. Zero. Nada.

  Well, almost zip. In theory, there might be a trace left. But not enough to make me sick.

  Still, I was actually relieved it was only arsenic. I was glad Carissa hadn't cured me with something from one of those other vials I'd spied in a little corner on the bottom shelf of her cabinet: Tuberculinum. Vipera. Syphilinum.

  I don't even want to know where they get Syphilinum, I had thought.

  As I pulled into the parking garage by the courthouse, it dawned on me that I hadn't thought once about work during my drive in. Real work, anyway. I hadn't thought about the depositions, arraignments, and felony status conferences that would pepper my day. This was rare. And I hadn't even noticed the gas station where as recently as a month ago I would stop daily for my cough drops and coffee.

  Maybe the arsenic I'd taken before leaving home was finally kicking in. Maybe I really had nothing to worry about.

  I imagine these are the thoughts Jennifer Emmons dreaded but had frequently in the days after Christmas: She could always return to work full-time at the animal hospital. Technically, they didn't need another full-time vet. But how could they deny her the job now? Her husband was in a coma!

  Of course they would give her more work. And benefits.

  And she didn't need to worry about Kate after school; Kate was way too old to be latchkey. But Timmy? The one day a week she was not home for him now, Thursday, he usually played at his friend Isaac's house. Or at J.J.'s. Or Brad's.

  The boy would do fine when she went back to work; the local parents would be sure to help out.

  And there was insurance, of course. Richard's life insurance. She couldn't imagine the policy wouldn't take effect if her husband was in a coma, but she made a mental note to call their agent. You never knew.

  Perhaps she had even reached into her purse for a pen to make an actual note.

  She and the kids would stay in their house, they definitely would not move. This was the only home Timmy had ever known, and the one Kate had lived in since she was three. She would make sure her children had that stability: Same bedrooms, same schools, same friends. Same views from their windows, same spots for a toy chest, a bureau, a bookcase, a bed.

  That's what I had done, after all, when Elizabeth died. I'd tried to keep things as stable as possible for my Abby.

  And, for two and a half years, I had succeeded.

  "You know her!" Margaret was saying when I returned from court late that morning, intercepting me as I passed her office on the way to mine. I couldn't decide if she was raising her voice because she was angry or shocked or because she thought she had to shout to be heard as I raced by in the hallway. "Why didn't you tell me?" she went on, following me into my office, and I wondered if she was actually hurt.

  "Yes, I know her," I said.

  "Why didn't you tell me?"

  "I wanted to tell Phil first."

  She leaned against the radiator, and her face grew soft. "This doesn't look good, does it? But you realize that, don't you?"

  I nodded. "That's why I thought I should tell Phil first. It may not look good...but it isn't bad. That's the thing."

  "You're not in trouble, are you?" she asked, and her concern surprised and depressed me at once. Sometimes I lost sight of the fact that we were friends. "You know you coul
d tell me? Right?"

  "Everything's fine, Margaret. Really. Fine."

  She fiddled for a moment with one of the dials on the thermostat, turning it abstractedly. "She's going to give a statement to the police today," she said finally.

  I focused on the arms of my chair as I sat down, trying to ignore the sudden wobbliness in my knees, and the little surge of nausea that rippled over my stomach. This is just what we expected would happen, I reminded myself. Just what we'd planned. A statement. Carissa would inform her attorney that she wanted to clear her name, and insist on giving a statement.

  "Phil tell you?"

  "Uh-huh."

  "He's not going to tell me anything about this, is he?"