The Affliction

  “Even you?”

  Marcia didn’t follow.

  “Does Jesse even try to drive you away?”

  Marcia hesitated. She looked at her hands, and said, “I’m his mother. He knows it’s safe to lash out at me.”

  “I’ve been told that Florence liked to adopt the young,” Maggie said carefully.

  “She does. Did. She was very kind.”

  “How did she and Jesse find each other?”

  Marcia said, “I have another son. Eric. All the things that are hard for Jesse come easily to Eric. Eric was always sunny and happy, an easy baby, a happy little boy. Jesse was the opposite. Touchy, intense. He feels things very strongly, he was born like that. He had terrible tantrums when he was small. I think he may have had pain he couldn’t describe—stomach, headaches, something. But doctors couldn’t tell what, and neither could I, and by the time he had language it was just part of him, the screaming. Eric didn’t like it. My husband hated it. He thought since Eric was so easy that all children should be easy. He’s always treated Jesse as if there’s something wrong with him. So Eric does too. And of course, that’s a perfect way to make sure there is something wrong with him.”

  They sat together quietly for a minute. Eventually Maggie said, “And you?”

  “It’s been hard.”

  “I can imagine.”

  “You just have to love them. There are difficult people in the world. It’s a fact. Loving them can help, and not loving them certainly doesn’t.”

  “Your husband disagrees?”

  After a long pause, Marcia said, “Yes. He disagrees.” There was another pause and then she added, “We’re separated.”

  “I see,” said Maggie. “Is that recent? Forgive me, it’s none of my business, but I remember you were upset the day we met.”

  Tears started in Marcia’s eyes. She said, “Todd moved out Tuesday. I didn’t think he’d go.” She looked in her bag for a packet of tissues and found it.

  “And Eric?”

  “Eric’s in college.”

  “Does he know about the separation?”

  “He does now. When he comes home—I don’t know if he’ll come to me, or go to Todd, or stay away from all of us. And I don’t know what to hope for. I love Eric, but when he’s home, Jesse’s worse.”

  Maggie could well imagine it. She thought about how she would counsel this family, if they were her problem. “I assume,” she said, “that Jesse’s been evaluated?”

  “Endlessly. He’s normal, he’s not normal, he’ll grow out of it, he’s got this syndrome or that disorder. When he was in fifth grade his school insisted on some drug, and I wasn’t allowed to give it to him, the school nurse had to do it when he got to school. I took him his lunch one day and found him so doped up he was practically drooling.”

  Maggie could hear in this litany an undertone of anger at the people who hadn’t helped, or hadn’t loved.

  “What happened?”

  “I took him out of there, of course. My husband wanted to send him to a psychiatric school of some kind. Just to get him away, so things would be normal for Eric. I don’t know how he thought we were going to pay for that, and how can you do that anyway, sacrifice one child for another? I mean, Eric will be fine, no matter what.”

  “What happened?”

  “I homeschooled. We live close to campus. It hasn’t been ideal. I’m not a specialist and Jesse has reading issues, and he’s alone too much. But it’s better for him than being bullied, or having a drug lobotomy.”

  Maggie was thoughtful. The two women sat side by side in the bright afternoon, thinking their very different thoughts. Then Maggie noticed that a blue-and-gray Smart car had stopped at the streetlight that protected the crossing where the girls went back and forth from the upper to lower campus. Her view of it was blocked by a parked car, but when the light turned green and the car moved forward, she saw that it was driven by Ray Meagher.

  The phone was ringing as Ray Meagher walked into his house. He had to go to the john something wicked, so he let it ring. In his own good time he went into the kitchen, popped the top on a lite beer, sat down at the kitchen counter, and dialed his voice mail code into the phone. The mechanical woman said in her quacking voice You have . . . fifty . . . three . . . new messages . . .

  There were seven hang-ups before he got a live one. It was from Christina Liggett. She said, “Ray, please call me when you get this message. It’s urgent. I’ll keep trying you.” He called the school without listening to the rest.

  He finally got through the wall of busy signals and said, “Sharon, it’s Ray Meagher.”

  She said, “Oh god—where are you?”

  “Home. I just got back.”

  “Have you talked to anyone?”

  “No. What is it?”

  She said, “I think you better come down here.”

  “Can it wait at all? I need to charge my phone and check my e-mail. Is Florence back?”

  Sharon said, “Could you come down now? Please.” He guessed it wasn’t really a request.

  * * *

  In days to come, Maggie and Hope would recount their impressions of that meeting many times, to many people. They were with Christina when Ray walked into her office. He was wearing slacks and a sweatshirt and looked liverish, as if he’d drunk too much or slept too little.

  When Christina told him about Florence, he put his hand to his mouth and dropped into a chair. Then he covered his whole face with his hands and barked a sob. Maggie had an instinctive reaction, that he’d accepted it too fast. He should have been more surprised. He sat with his face in his hands for a long stretch until Hope crossed the room and handed him a handful of tissues. He carefully wiped his eyes and nose, then looked up at Christina.

  “I don’t understand what happened.”

  “She was found in the pool at seven this morning,” Christina repeated.

  “Did she—I mean she was a strong swimmer, what was she . . . did she have a heart attack? A stroke or something?”

  Hope was diligently writing her squiggles in her notebook in the corner, slightly behind his line of vision.

  “No,” said Christina. “She hadn’t gone swimming. She was dressed.”

  Ray gawped, as if he couldn’t make his mouth work right.

  “You mean . . . somebody . . . ?”

  “The police assume so. We’ve been trying to reach you all day. Where have you been?”

  “I should call the police, shouldn’t I?”

  “Sharon has called them. They’ll meet you here.”

  Then there was a silence. Ray looked at Christina, who looked steadily back at him. Then he looked at Maggie and at Hope. They watched him.

  Christina said, “I’m very sorry for your loss, Ray.”

  “Yes, I’m—I’m sorry for yours too. I mean . . . we all loved her.” He looked as if he was going to cry again.

  “It’s been a very hard day,” said Christina.

  The silence stretched. After a while, Ray said, “I had theater tickets. I was going to surprise her. Then when she went off to her sister’s, and wouldn’t answer my calls, I thought, ‘I’ll just go anyway.’”

  Maggie spoke for the first time. “So you were in New York last night? At the theater?”

  “Yes,” said Ray, as if appealing to them to see the pity in it. There he was, not suspecting a thing while his wife was in trouble, and he would never see her again. Maggie thought, this was a man who was used to playing the poor helpless soul who needs to be comforted and rescued. Just Florence’s type.

  “What did you see?”

  “Jersey Boys. Floro loves the music, she plays it all the time.”

  “Was this for her birthday or something?”

  “No, it was. . . .” Ray made a gesture of appeal with his hands. “Just a present. You know. We’d had a little rough patch and I wanted to give her a treat. Then when she went off in a snit, I . . .”

  “Did you go by yourself?”

  ??
?No, I took a buddy from my air marshal days. Happened to be in the city.”

  “Name?”

  “Guy Thompson. He called, so.” Hope scribbled. Christina and Maggie sat quietly, eyes on Ray. He grew uncomfortable with the silence and went on. “There’s a hotel way over on the West Side that’s clean and cheap, the Clinton. I used to go there when I was flying, I flew out of Newark. I was based in Florida before I met Floro. I checked in there and met Guy for dinner and then I tried one more time to call her—that’s when I realized my phone was out of juice.”

  “And what time was that?” Maggie asked. Ray looked at her, suddenly sharp, but couldn’t find the harm in the question. “About ten of eight. Something like that. We were walking toward the theater. It was such a pretty night . . .”

  “Where was it you had dinner?”

  “Little place on Ninth Avenue. I don’t remember the name. Red something.”

  “And how was the show?”

  “She would have loved it.” He looked down at his hands, his face a mask of bewilderment and sorrow.

  “I love that opening number,” said Maggie.

  “Yes,” said Ray. “It was great. Florence used to—”

  The phone buzzed and after a word from Sharon, Christina said to Ray, “The police are here.”

  The two White Plains detectives were shown in. They introduced themselves around the room. Charles Bark, the lead, was short and grizzled, with a large nose and a pitted face. He had small sharp eyes, brown verging on black. His partner was younger, a thickset blonde named Evelyne Phillips.

  “Could you come with us, please? We have some questions,” Bark said to Ray.

  “Now? I just got home. There are things I have to . . .” He trailed off, looking from one of the officers to the other. He was used to being the muscle in the room himself. “Or could we do it here? I’m just trying to digest . . .”

  “I know it’s a difficult moment,” said Bark. “We can go with you to your house, if there are things you need to do. But then we’d like you to come with us.”

  “For how long?”

  “That depends.”

  “What about my . . . my car’s out back, should I . . . ?”

  “Detective Phillips will ride with you. I’ll follow.”

  After a beat Ray said, “Okay, then. Yes. Sure.”

  “Lead on,” said Phillips, and the three went out.

  Maggie, Hope, and Christina, who had stood to greet the newcomers, sat back down and looked at each other. “Does he have pets of any kind?” Maggie asked Christina. “Goldfish? A cat? Anything that needs to be fed?”

  “I don’t know,” said Christina. “Why?”

  “I don’t think he’ll be home tonight.”

  “Why not?”

  “Curtain for Jersey Boys is at seven on Thursdays.”

  * * *

  Mattias Benes was in the back of his store on Friday afternoon, reading a fat book of essays by Clive James, when the bell over his shop door signaled arrivals. It was the suddenly ubiquitous Mrs. Detweiler and an urbane blonde he hadn’t yet met. He offered tea, which they accepted. While he fussed over the electric kettle, Maggie said, “I expect the village knows all about what’s happened up at the school.”

  “We think we do,” Mattias conceded, “though I’m sure we’ve got it slightly wrong in the details. The word down here was that the Hollister girl was in the pool when she noticed the body. And so forth.” Then he held up the book he’d been reading. “I just found such a good sentence. Here, I’ll read it to you. ‘The true political monster insists that, apart from a few hand-picked satraps, there shall be no individuals but himself.’ Isn’t that good?”

  “Brilliant,” said Maggie. “Kim Jong Il to the life.”

  “He was writing about Hitler, but yes, you make his point.”

  Hope said, “He could just as well have been writing about my ex-husband.”

  Mattias turned from where he was arranging the teacups and saucers and gave her a look. “Exactly,” he said.

  “So. Ray Meagher?”

  “All happy tyrants are alike.”

  Maggie looked at Hope and said, “What on earth made you think he was talking about Ray Meagher?”

  “Isn’t he what we’re all talking about?”

  “Were you?” Maggie said to Mattias, who shrugged.

  “The shoe fits.”

  “Ray is not your favorite?” Hope pressed.

  “Let’s just say we were not destined by nature for a warm personal friendship.”

  “Well, I’m not talking about Ray,” said Maggie. “I have a pure and open mind and Ray wasn’t the only person angry at Florence. So, speaking of unhappy families, we’d be interested to meet Todd Goldsmith. I assume you know him?”

  Mattias handed teacups around and produced a pint carton of milk from a tiny fridge under his counter.

  “Of course. Why, may I ask?”

  “I’ve met his wife and one of his sons, and way leads on to way.”

  “Which son?”

  “Jesse.”

  “Ah. Well you won’t find it hard to locate Todd. He seems to be more or less living in his office at the moment. It’s right down the street, River Realty. If he’s not there, ask in the Wooly Bear. When things are slow he likes to chew the fat with Kate Curtin.”

  They found Todd Goldsmith in his office. He was a tall man with messy gray curls, wearing a jacket and tie and a crisp white shirt. Maggie noticed that he wore a thick wedding band on his left hand. She was about to introduce herself when Hope stepped forward and said, “I’ve just discovered your charming town. Beautiful views, right on the train line—how many minutes into the city?”

  “Fifty,” said Todd, smiling his salesman smile.

  “If I wanted to see a house with a view, at least three bedrooms, in walking distance of the station, what could you show me?”

  “Well! That would depend on your price range, of course . . .”

  “What about that Colonial?”

  She waved in the direction of the photographs that crowded the front window.

  “It’s a little far for walking to the station, but that’s a beautiful home . . .”

  “Does it have a garden?”

  “Not as such, but it has a big yard and plenty of room to put one in.”

  “Can you show it to me?”

  “Certainly. When would you like to . . .”

  “How about now?”

  After a moment of pleased surprise, he said, “I’d be happy to.” He rooted around in a desk drawer, came out with a set of keys with a big orange label on the ring tag, and stood. “The owners work in the city, but the dog knows me. You won’t mind if it isn’t neat as a pin, will you? They usually get some notice before a showing.”

  “Couldn’t care less,” said Hope.

  “Will your friend . . . ?”

  “Thanks, but I have errands,” said Maggie, improvising.

  To Maggie, Hope said over her shoulder as she followed him out, “That Bistro place. One hour.”

  Maggie pushed open the door of the Wooly Bear and found the shop empty. She tapped a little round bell on the counter, and the woman with the cat’s-eye glasses emerged from a back room with a toothbrush in her hand. She waved at Maggie and held up a finger, meaning I’ll be with you in a second. And she was.

  “Sorry about that. I was just getting ready to fold my tent and go home. I had chili for lunch and it was loaded with garlic. Ellie says she can tell all the way down the hall if I had garlic for lunch.”

  “It’s very good for you, though.”

  “I know, but she’s sensitive. Born that way. Anyway. Welcome back, are you planning a purling project?”

  “You know—why not? I might even branch out into knitting.”

  “I like to start people with socks. They don’t take forever, and just when you get bored doing one thing, like ribbing, it’s time to do something else, like turning a heel.”

  “That does sound like fun
,” Maggie said. “I’m Maggie, by the way.”

  “Kate.” The two then spent some time looking at pattern books and perusing different colors and weights of yarn. When Maggie had made her selections, Kate offered to help her wind the skeins into balls, showing her how to do it without stretching the yarn. This led them, as Maggie had hoped, into the age-old occupation of women sitting together doing handwork.

  “The girls told me what happened up at the school this morning. Terrible,” said Kate.

  “Terrible. Did Ellie have classes with Florence?”

  “No but her friend Alison does. Did. She used to—” Kate interrupted herself. Maggie mentally finished the sentence: she used to do a great imitation of The Affliction. Knowing Alison, Maggie could bet she did.

  “How are the girls taking it?”

  “Shocked. But fascinated. Ellie’s never even seen a dead body.”

  “She didn’t actually see the body, did she?”

  “No, but Steph Ruhlman is a friend. They’ve made her tell the story over and over.”

  “Girls sort of like being horrified.”

  “They do.”

  A silence as the wool wound swiftly.

  “I ran into young Alison yesterday,” said Maggie. “She told me about Eric Goldsmith. I gather he’s a heartthrob. Do you know him?”

  “Since he was a toddler. Both those boys. His father and I are colleagues, of course, on the village Merchant’s Guild. I know Marcia too, but not as well.”

  “Marcia seems quite broken up over the separation.”

  “Yes,” said Kate drily. “Well.”

  “I’m sure there are two sides.”

  “Marcia thinks it’s all about Jesse. But really, it’s her. Jesse is what he is. No one can change that. But she can’t accept it. And in the meantime, she’s got another son, and a husband who . . .” Kate shrugged, as if the rest of the sentence was too obvious to utter. Maggie made a mental note. Todd seeking consolation elsewhere? Here?

  “Marcia told me that Florence Meagher was very good to Jesse.”