There came a morning when she just couldn’t do it anymore. Couldn’t stand the thought of spending one more day in a state of such perpetual fear.
She’d crawled into the tub. She’d gotten out a razor. She’d started to slice her paper-thin skin. And the phone rang. Without giving it a second thought, she’d crawled out of the tub to answer it. Ironically enough, it had been a telemarketer. Someone asking her if she wanted to buy life insurance, which had made her laugh, and that had made her cry, and while she’d stood there, sobbing hysterically into the ear of a very flustered salesperson, she’d seen the ad flash across her TV screen.
Feeling alone? Feeling like there is no way out? Feeling like no one cares?
A suicide hotline number had scrolled across the screen and, driven by a survival instinct she didn’t even know she had, she’d slammed the phone down on the telemarketer, then dialed the number.
Thirty seconds later, she was listening to the calmest male voice she’d ever heard. Deep, soothing, funny. She had curled up on the floor and listened to him talk for an hour.
That’s how she’d met Jimmy, though she hadn’t known it then. Hotlines had protocols. Handlers were not to give out too much personal information. But they could ask questions, encourage their troubled callers to talk. So he did, and so she did, about her dead-end job, her apartment, her mother.
It wasn’t the next day, that would’ve been too obvious, or even the day after that.
But Jimmy came to the department store where she worked. He found her, he flirted with her, he wooed her. And she found herself strangely moved by this charming young man with his incredibly calm voice. He’d asked her out. Much to her own surprise, she’d said yes.
It wasn’t until months later that he admitted to her what he’d done. That he’d been so moved by her call, he’d felt compelled to find her in person. Please don’t tell anyone, he begged prettily. Oh, she could get him in so much trouble.…
At the time, she’d found it romantic. This man had moved heaven and earth to find her. Surely it was a sign. Surely it meant he loved her. Her life was finally looking up.
It was only later, after they were married, maybe that one Monday evening when she’d commented on his drinking and he’d shocked her by slapping her across the face, that she’d started to wonder. What kind of man used a suicide hotline to pick up girls? What did that say about what he was looking for in a prospective mate?
Like his father, Jimmy had liked power. He’d liked to remind her that she’d be nothing without him. He’d liked to tell her that he’d scooped her out of the gutter, and he could damn well throw her back.
Sometimes, when Jimmy spoke, she actually pictured Richard Umbrio, standing way above her, haloed by daylight as one arm held up the wooden cover that would soon be sealing her in. “Better make my next welcome even more exciting,” he’d tell her gleefully. “Because otherwise, you never know when I might decide not to visit. I’ve given you this much, Cat. You never know when I might take it all away.”
Jimmy had never wanted to save Catherine. He’d simply wanted to extend her programming.
Well, she now thought matter-of-factly, she had shown him.
In Nathan’s room, she snapped on the overhead light. Two sixty-watt bulbs blazed from the ceiling. It wasn’t enough, however. For her, for Nathan, it would never be enough.
“Cowboy,” Nathan murmured sleepily against her shoulder. Obediently, she went to that night-light first. Snap.
Nothing.
She frowned, tried it again. No light magically illuminated the cowboy’s cheery face. Bulb must be burnt out. She went to the night-light beneath it, the traditional clam. Click.
Still nothing.
Maybe a blown fuse? The police with all their spotlights and recorders, maybe they’d overloaded the system. She crossed to the dresser, Nathan’s weight growing heavy in her arms. Two table lamps. One had a cactus as its stem, the other a bucking bronco. She tried both, fingers shaking slightly, breathing accelerated.
Nothing. Nothing.
Okay, lots of options. Plenty of options. What was the point of having a neurosis if you didn’t do it properly? Nathan’s room offered six night-lights, three table lights, and two standing lamps. The overhead light worked, which meant there had to be electricity to at least part of the room. She just had to find those outlets, get those lights humming.
She moved quicker now. Nathan was lifting his head from her shoulder, as if sensing her agitation.
“Mommy, lights!”
“I know, sweetheart. I know.”
The damn bear lamp didn’t work. Two hundred bucks, she’d found it in Denver and mailed it home as a gift. The antique brass desk light, five hundred dollars from a tiny little shop on Charles Street, also out of commission. She moved to the standing lamps, halogen bulbs, the kind that illuminated the entire ceiling.
Nothing.
More night-lights now. Small little specks of radiance, topped with stained-glass images, or a red plastic Elmo, or a beaming Winnie-the-Pooh. They had to work. At least one or two or three. Dear God, something in the monstrous room had to break up the dark.
She was breathing too hard, panting really. Nathan pushed rigidly away from her body, arching his spine in growing distress.
“Light, light, light!”
“I know, I know, I know.”
Fuck the room. It was too big, too vast. What did two people need with a space this huge? She cradled her son close and bolted for his adjoining bath. Quick flick of the finger and she snapped on the overhead light, waiting for the white-tiled space to come brilliantly into view.
Nothing.
She clicked again. Then again. Hysteria was coming now. She could feel it bubbling up in her throat.
Nathan kicked in her arms. “Mommy, Mommy, Mommy, where are the lights? I want light!”
“I know. Shhh, baby, shhh.”
It came to her. His closet. The small walk-in space boasted two more sixty-watt bulbs. They could curl up on the floor, taking refuge in a puddle of illumination. It would get them through the night.
“Nathan, love, we’re going to have an adventure.”
She rubbed his back, trying to calm him, as she whirled out of the bathroom and bolted for the closet. She rolled back the mirror-paneled door, reached in her hand, and found the switch. Click.
Light. Bright, brilliant, wondrous light. It flooded the scene, reaching glowing tendrils to each dark corner, shoving back the shadows. Lovely, lovely light.
Catherine took one look inside the closet, then she stuffed her hand in her mouth to muffle the scream.
They were there, in the middle of the floor, right where she would see them: every single bulb, from every single light. They’d been taken out, then arranged into one simple, three-letter word.
BOO
Catherine forced her son’s face back down into her neck. She stumbled away from the closet. She careened down the hall, clambered down the stairs. In the foyer, she grabbed her coat, her purse, her car keys. Didn’t look at the uniformed officer. Didn’t bother to talk.
She burst out of the front door of the townhouse. “Light, light, light,” Nathan was sobbing.
But there was no light. She understood it better than anyone. Now it was just her and Nathan, alone in the dark.
Chapter
30
“You told me you and your father had made a pact about drinking,” Elizabeth said. “I believe you mentioned an incident with him driving under the influence and that scaring him into sobriety.”
“I lied.”
“Do you lie often?”
Bobby shrugged. “For certain things, you need a ready explanation. Saying my father attacked my brother with a knife isn’t an explanation I feel like giving. Besides, the DUI incident happened. It was one of my father’s relapses—sobriety wasn’t exactly a one-step plan for him. More like one step forward, two steps back. And around that time, I was having my own issues. So yeah, we made the pact.??
?
“I see. So you lied to me, but in your own mind, it was a lie containing the truth.”
“Something like that.”
“Uh-huh. And as a child, every time you had a bruise, I imagine you had an ‘explanation’ for that. And every time your father couldn’t attend a school function or embarrassed you in front of your friends, another ‘explanation,’ which may or may not have contained a kernel of truth?”
“Yeah, okay. I see your point.”
“You say your father is better, but it seems to me that thirty years later you’re engaged in the same old patterns, including telling lies.”
He didn’t answer right away. She thought he was working on a good line of defense, but then he surprised her by announcing quietly, “My father would agree with you.”
“He would?”
“He joined AA eight years ago, and for him, it’s been like discovering religion. He’s big on atonement. Wants to acknowledge what he did. Wants to talk about the old days, ask for forgiveness. My brother, George, won’t take his calls. As for me … I just want to forget. My father was who he was, and now he is who he is. I don’t see the point of dwelling on it.”
“Bobby, aren’t there times when you are very, very angry? Angrier than you probably should be?”
“I guess.”
“Aren’t there times when you look at the future, and you feel an overwhelming sense of hopelessness?”
“Maybe.”
“And aren’t there times when you feel as if everything is out of your control?”
He looked at her, clearly captivated. “Okay.”
“That’s why you need to talk to your father, Bobby. That’s why your father needs to talk to you. Your family has changed, but it hasn’t healed. Part of forgiving your father is also giving yourself permission to hate him for what he did. Until you do that, you’re not going to move forward, and you’re not honestly going to love him for who he is now.”
Bobby smiled, a wan expression in his tired face. “I hate my mom, isn’t that enough?”
“Your mom’s the easy target, Bobby. Once she left, you had to love your father; he was the only caretaker you had. But you also feared and loathed him for how he treated you. Hating your mother resolved the conflict. If what happened to you was her fault, then it was okay to love your dad. It’s called displaced rage. Thirty years later, you have a great deal of it.”
“Is that why I point guns at people I’ve never met?” he asked dryly.
“I don’t know, Bobby. Only you can answer that question.”
Bobby steepled his fingers, splaying his fingertips against one another. He said abruptly, “Susan said I was angry.”
“Susan?”
“My girlfriend. My ex-girlfriend. When we were talking tonight … she said I deliberately shortchanged my life. That I held on to my anger. That I needed it.”
“What do you think?”
“I’m driven.” His voice picking up, he said almost hotly, “Is that such a bad thing? The world needs police officers. The world needs guys like me, perched on rooftops with high-powered rifles. Without me, Catherine Gagnon and her son might be dead. Doesn’t that count for anything?”
Elizabeth didn’t say anything.
“The rest of the world expects us to be all-knowing. But I’m just a guy, okay? I’m doing the best I can. I got called out to a scene. No, I didn’t remember the Gagnons, and even if I did, what the hell do I know about them and their marriage? All I could do was react to what I saw, and what I saw was a man pointing a gun at his wife and child. I’m not a murderer, dammit. I had to kill him!”
Elizabeth still didn’t say anything.
“What if I’d delayed? What if I’d watched it and done nothing? He could’ve shot his wife. He could’ve shot his son. And that would’ve been my fault, too, you know. If you shoot, you’re screwed; if you don’t shoot, you’re also screwed. How am I supposed to win? How the hell am I supposed to know what to do?
“He was pointing his gun. He had his wife in point-blank range. And then he got that look on his face. I’ve seen that look. Oh my God, I’ve seen that look too many times, and I’m so tired of other people getting hurt. You can’t believe the blood.… You can’t believe …”
Bobby’s voice broke. His shoulders were moving, giant, dry sobs, and then he was twisting away from her, mortified by his own outburst, seeking the back of the chair with his hand, clinging to it for support.
Elizabeth didn’t move. She didn’t go to him. She sat there and let emotion heave through him in raw, violent waves. He needed this. After thirty-six years, a little emotional outburst was long overdue.
He wiped at his face now, hastily drying his cheeks with the back of his hands.
“I’m tired,” he said roughly, half apology, half excuse.
“I know.”
“I need to get some sleep.”
“You do.”
“I got a big day tomorrow.”
She said bluntly, “This is not a good time in your life to be making major decisions.”
He laughed. “You think Judge Gagnon cares about that?”
“Can you get away from the situation, Bobby? Take a little break?”
“Not with the DA’s office conducting a formal investigation. Besides, there’s too much going on.”
“All right, Bobby. Then sit down again. Because there’s one more topic we need to cover before you go. We need to talk, honestly, about Catherine Gagnon.”
Catherine and Nathan were in the lobby at the Ritz. She knew they must look odd. A woman, a small child, no bags, checking into a hotel at this hour. She didn’t care. Nathan was literally shaking in her arms, his distress apparent in his pale, wide-eyed face. Pancreatitis, she was already thinking again. Or an infection, or chest pains, or God knows what. His health always deteriorated when he was under stress.
She fumbled with her purse, trying to get it on the counter while still holding Nathan in her arms. A hotel clerk finally appeared, looking surprised to see someone at this hour.
“Ma’am?”
“I’d like a room, please. Nonsmoking. Anything you’ve got.”
The man raised a brow, but didn’t comment.
A few clicks of the keyboard and he announced they did have a room available. King-sized bed, nonsmoking. Would she like a crib?
She passed on the crib, but asked for a toothbrush and toothpaste, as well as three extra lamps. The lights didn’t have to be anything fancy, they’d take whatever they got.
Catherine produced a credit card. The hotel clerk swiped it through the machine.
“Ummm, could I see some ID?”
Catherine was stroking Nathan’s back, trying to soothe his trembling. “Pardon?”
“ID. Driver’s license perhaps. For security purposes.”
Catherine was perplexed, but obediently dug into her purse. She produced her license, and for the longest time the hotel clerk gazed at the photo on the ID, then back at her.
“Ma’am, are you aware that this credit card has been reported stolen?”
“What?”
“Ma’am, I can’t take this card.”
Catherine stared at him as if she’d never heard English. She wanted a room. She wanted a beautiful room in a fancy hotel where bad things couldn’t happen. Surely if you were surrounded by silk drapes and down pillows, monsters couldn’t find you.
“Perhaps your husband …” the hotel clerk suggested kindly.
“Yes, yes, that’s right,” she murmured. “He lost his card not that long ago. I didn’t realize the company would cancel both.”
She knew this wasn’t Jimmy’s doing, however. He’d never possessed this level of finesse. This was her father-in-law. This was James. “Things for you are only going to get much, much worse.…”
“Do you have another card?” the man asked.
“Umm … let me look.” She opened her wallet, staring blankly at her collection of plastic. She had an Amex and two more platinum cards
. She could hand them over, but she thought she already knew the results. James was thorough. And the more cards that were rejected, the more reason the hotel clerk would have to be suspicious.
She checked her cash instead. One hundred and fifty dollars. Not enough for the Ritz.
She gave it one last try, hoping her voice didn’t sound as desperate as she felt. “As you can see from the address on my driver’s license, I live just around the corner. Unfortunately, there’s been a terrible incident this evening and my son can’t sleep in our home. We just need a place to crash for a few hours. I don’t have another credit card, but tomorrow, I swear to you, I’ll bring a check.”
“Ma’am, we need a credit card to release a room.”
“Please,” she murmured.
“I have so much power.… You have no idea …”
“I’m sorry, ma’am.”
“He’s only four years old.”
“I’m sorry, ma’am. Surely you have some family that could help you?”
She turned away. She didn’t want this stranger to see her cry.
Walking across the lobby, she saw an ATM. Fatalistically, she got out her bank card. Inserted it. Entered her PIN.
A message flashed across the screen: “Please contact your nearest bank branch. Thank you.”
The machine spat her bank card back out, and that was it. No cash, no plastic. She’d been trying to stay one step ahead, but still her father-in-law had outmaneuvered her. How far could she get on one hundred and fifty dollars in cash?
Catherine took a deep breath. For one instant, she heard the weak little voice in the back of her mind. Just hand over Nathan. If she played her cards right, she bet she could get James to write her a check. No, scratch that—she’d get cash. Or better yet, a wire transfer. How much was a son worth? One hundred thousand, two hundred thousand, a million?
She wasn’t a good mother. The authorities weren’t as wrong as she would’ve liked. She didn’t know how to love the way other people loved. She didn’t know how to feel the way other people felt. She had gone into a hole a happy little girl; she’d emerged a hollowed-out shell of a human being. She was not normal; she merely did her best to imitate the normalcy she sensed in others.