The Double Bind

“What did you do there?”

  He shrugged. “I ran rides.”

  “Is there anything you want to add to that, Dan?” asked his therapist. “Is there anything more you wish to tell Ms. Estabrook?”

  “It was just a job,” he said to Brian. “Paid me a little money.”

  “Tell Ms. Estabrook.”

  He turned to face her across the broad circle. “It was nothing special. No big deal. Just work.”

  “Thank you,” she said.

  “No prob.”

  “And your father. What was his name?”

  “I see you got his pictures.”

  “I…do.” She spoke slowly, haltingly. She felt immediate relief that Bobbie’s son was this man, not Russell Richard Hagen. She also experienced a deep and satisfying rush of optimism: In the coming moments—in this very room—she was about to learn all that she needed to convince the doubters around her that she was right and they were wrong. That her mind was sound.

  Of course, this also meant that she was going to have to inform him that his father had died, and she wasn’t sure how he would respond.

  “I didn’t really know him,” Corbett continued. “He showed up three, maybe four times in my life. He went by Bobbie.”

  “I have something to tell you about him.”

  “And that is?”

  “He passed away. A stroke. I’m sorry, Mr. Corbett.”

  “That why you came here?” he asked. There wasn’t even a trace of grief in his tone.

  “Partly.”

  “He mighta been my dad, but he was no father. I had no bones to pick with him at the end. But, oh, no, he was never my father.”

  “How did he find you in Vermont?”

  “We’d just run into each other at a shelter in Boston. He recognized me. I said I was goin’ to Burlington. You know, ’cause of the fair. I was meeting up with Russ Hagen, and I told him so. Russ had been a carny, too. But then he got a real job at that fitness place.”

  All morning Laurel had endured an ever-thickening cloud bank of dread; she had felt her nerves thrumming inside her. Now the mere mention of Hagen’s name—there it was, out there in the room like a thunderhead—was causing her to tremble. Little electric spasms moved through her like hummingbird wings. She felt Margot Ann’s hand on her forearm.

  “You want some water, Laurel?” Margot Ann asked.

  She shook her head no and continued. “Did he give you anything when he came here? A picture? A box?”

  “Bobbie? No way. That man didn’t have a pot to piss in.”

  “He had his photographs.”

  “And he never let those out of his sight.”

  “Did you ever frighten him?”

  “Bobbie? When I was on drugs, I probably scared everyone.” He seemed to take pride in this, and Brian whispered something to Corbett she couldn’t quite hear. Then, after they had pulled apart, Corbett added, “Yes. I scared him the day we hurt you.”

  “How?”

  “I was outta control.”

  “Did he see what happened?”

  “What happened?” Corbett asked, and once more Brian looked over at the inmate. This time he didn’t have to prod him verbally. Corbett went on, “I don’t think so. He heard. We were all pretty noisy. But he didn’t see. I think he got there before those other bicyclists did. The lawyers.”

  “Before?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Was he in the van with you when you drove out there?”

  “No, a course not. Remember, he was this crazy old man! He—”

  “He was your father!” She snapped at him, and instantly the room went quiet. Margot Ann’s hand was still on her forearm, stroking her skin through the sleeve of her shirt.

  “I don’t have to be here,” Dan Corbett said to no one in particular. “I do not have to be here.”

  “No, you don’t,” said Brian. “But we’re all glad you are. I think Ms. Estabrook was more surprised than angry. Is that correct?”

  “Yes. That’s correct.”

  The prisoner filled his cheeks with air as if he were a chipmunk and then exhaled audibly. A balloon that’s been untied. “He was stayin’ with us, he knew ’bout that road. Liked to take his pictures on it. But he didn’t know you were goin’ to be there that day. He didn’t know me and Hagen were, either. But Hagen knew you would be around. He knew where you parked. He’d followed you, like, two times. Maybe three. I don’t know. Anyway, Bobbie just walked out there from Hagen’s place. It wasn’t that far. Well, maybe to a guy in his seventies it was. But not really. We didn’t even know he had been out there till just before the cops came to the trailer. And then he split just before they arrived.”

  “You never told the police.”

  “They didn’t ask,” he said, and for the first time she heard a low rumble of evil in his voice. “And I wasn’t about to give them another witness. That wouldn’t a made much sense. And neither was Hagen.”

  She looked down at the pictures before her, and held up for him the large print of the Buchanan estate in East Egg. “Do you recognize this house?”

  “Nope.”

  “But you knew your father took the picture, right?”

  “I guess. But I don’t assume nothin’ with Bobbie.”

  “Did you ever meet your grandfather?”

  “Sure. I knew ’em both.”

  She sat back in her chair. “Tell me about them. Please.”

  “What do you wanna know?”

  “Whatever you can remember.”

  “Well, let’s see. My momma’s daddy was a jazz musician. Played trumpet. He lived in the Bronx.”

  “And your father’s?”

  “You mean the man who raised me? The fellow my momma married? Or Bobbie’s?”

  “Bobbie’s.”

  “I figured.”

  “Please,” said Laurel.

  “Bobbie’s daddy lived out on Long Island.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “He was a conductor on the Long Island Railroad. He—”

  “A conductor?”

  “A conductor. That’s right. You know, on a train? His momma was a schoolteacher. First grade, second grade. Something like that. Bobbie used to take pictures of the train platforms out there sometimes. Out on Long Island. I guess ’cause of his old man. And the nice houses out there: He took pictures of them, too. Truth is, I saw Bobbie’s parents more than I saw my momma’s. And I saw them all more than the parents of the man momma finally married.”

  Laurel had thought it possible that Corbett wouldn’t have any idea who Bobbie’s parents were. Likewise, she had imagined he might have known his grandmother was Daisy Fay Buchanan and thought mistakenly that his grandfather was Tom. But she had never for a moment entertained the notion that he could be so profoundly misinformed—that he would have it all so wrong.

  “A train conductor?” she asked. “And a schoolteacher? Why would you think that?”

  “Because that’s who they were, lady. I spent serious time with them as a boy. For a while, my momma thought she could handle Bobbie’s craziness better than his own parents, specially after she let him knock her up good—”

  “This is your mother you’re talking about,” said Brian.

  “My momma weren’t no different from—”

  “Tread lightly,” Brian cautioned the inmate. “Remember—”

  Corbett put up both hands in a gesture of resignation. “Fine. ’Nuff said.”

  “Is your mother still living?” Laurel asked.

  “No. She died a long time ago.”

  “Do you have any siblings?”

  “That word sounds like a venereal disease,” said Corbett, leering. “Siblings. Siblings. Let me ask you: Do you have siblings, Ms. Estabrook?”

  Margot Ann turned to Laurel and looked her squarely in the eye. “Would you like to leave?”

  “No.” Then, to Corbett, she rephrased her question: “Do you have any brothers or sisters?”

  “I do not.”

  “W
hat about the name Buchanan? Does that ring a bell?”

  “Nope.”

  “Daisy?”

  “Like a flower?”

  “Like your grandmother.”

  “My grandmother was not named after no flower. I had one named Alice and I had one named Cecilia. Bobbie’s momma, the teacher? She was Alice.”

  “No,” Laurel said. “She was Daisy. She was married to Tom Buchanan. That was their house in the photo I showed you. And in 1922, in the summer, she had an affair with a bootlegger named Jay Gatsby. Gatsby—”

  “As in the novel?” This was Brian. Laurel saw that everyone in the room was staring at her.

  “He was Dan Corbett’s grandfather: Bobbie Crocker’s father. That’s who Jay Gatsby was!” Had she raised her voice? She hoped that she hadn’t. But the exchange had happened so quickly and she had been unprepared for this prisoner’s recalcitrance and denial. For his bizarre fabrication. A train conductor? A schoolteacher? She could only presume he had made up such a story to torment her. Torture her further.

  There again was that voice. His voice. A recollection: Liqueur Snatch.

  “Laurel?” She turned. It was Margot Ann. Otherwise, the room was silent. The drumbeat in her head was the only other noise she could hear. “Laurel?” Margot Ann said again.

  “Yes?”

  “Would you like a break? Mr. Corbett isn’t going anywhere. But we can leave.”

  She heard someone in the room sniff. Realized it was herself.

  “May I still hear the letter?” she asked.

  “Still? Of course you may,” said Margot Ann. “If you want to.”

  Corbett looked away, glared at the clock on the wall. Brian tapped the tips of his fingers gently together, and the inmate looked at his therapist—a trained dog, she thought—and then at her.

  “Do I just read this out loud?” he asked.

  “Just like we did in the group. Just like you did with me,” said Brian. Then, to Laurel, he added, “He’s becoming accountable for his actions.” Laurel thought it was as if he were speaking about an ill-behaved child.

  Margot Ann asked her once more if she really wanted to hear this, and she heard herself saying she did. She did. She…did. She didn’t believe she had repeated herself, but she feared that she might have.

  And then, just after that, Corbett started to read. His voice was at once sycophantic and condescending. He wanted, she decided, to demean her while somehow garnering the approval of his therapist. She knew this was an impossible task, and it dawned on her that if he couldn’t have both he would choose to make her suffer. That, perhaps, was for him his moment of arousal.

  “Dear Ms. Estabrook,” he began, holding the paper before him with both hands, as if it were a hardcover novel. “I am writing you this letter to say I am sorry for what me and Russ Hagen did to you seven years ago. I was on drugs, but that’s no excuse. I left home early, but that’s no excuse neither. Neither is the time I spent just drifting around. I take full responsibility for what I did. And that means I take full responsibility for hurting you. These are hard words for me to write because they are so evil. Sodomy. Rape. Mutilation. But they say the truth will set you free and I will not mince words. And so while I don’t remember everything, I remember enough. And I know what came out in the investigation. It’s all true, I know. That means that first of all I am sorry for the ways we broke your collarbone and your fingers and your foot. And I am sorry for holding you down while Russ raped you in those two places. I am sorry I raped you there, too. And I am sorry that we forced you to have oral sex on us. And most of all I am sorry that I held you by your arms while Russ Hagen cut you so badly. I do not believe that he really planned to cut out your heart, and I did not really believe it then. But I know I was scared you would be able to figure out who we were, and so I think a part of me was hoping Russ really would kill you when he cut off your breast. And so much of you was bleeding so badly when we left, I thought you really might die back there in the woods. But I was glad then and I am glad now that those men on the bicycles found you and you are alive. I am sorry about your breast and the other scars. I wish I could make it up to you. I wish I could go back in time and not do those awful things to you. But I can’t. And so all I can do, Ms. Estabrook, is say that I am sorry. Sincerely, Dan Corbett. P. S. I will never do this sort of thing to another person. I promise.” When he finished, he glanced over at Brian. “Do I give this to her?”

  “You stay seated. We’ll give it to her,” the therapist said.

  Beside her, Margot Ann’s eyes were closed. She was, Laurel realized, fighting back tears. Brian was staring down at the floor. There was again the pulse of her heart in her head and she felt herself sweating. She felt oddly, unaccountably naked. And she wondered why this inmate had been allowed to fabricate so much in what was supposed to be a letter of clarification.

  PATIENT 29873

  …patient showed me a copy of The Great Gatsby, the paperback with the deep blue cover and the flapper with the nymphs in her eyes, and yet continued to dispute that it was a work of fiction. Referred to it as a memoir, a true story. Little reaction when shown the publisher’s page with author, publishing date, fiction disclaimer, etc.

  The diagnostic problem has been referred to before. Regarding stressors preceding this episode (whatever it’s an episode of), there are photographs of a young woman on a dirt road on a bicycle in the collection that appear to have been taken near the spot seven years ago where the rape and mutilation occurred. It is beyond current knowledge to determine whether it would cause the delusions by being found among images of the childhood swim club, i.e., suggesting to the patient a biographic or even karmic connection…

  From the notes of Kenneth Pierce,

  attending psychiatrist,

  Vermont State Hospital, Waterbury, Vermont

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  PAMELA HAD NEVER told anyone what she had seen, not even her confidant and attorney, T. J. Leckbruge. Partly, this was because she sometimes wondered if she really had seen anything at all. It might have been a memory that in point of fact she had conjured completely. Still, it was vivid, crisp, altogether cinematic in her mind.

  One excruciatingly hot summer afternoon, James Gatz was at her parents’ home, and her nanny, the young Irish girl with the hair as red as a crayon, was going to walk her down to the cove so she could dip her young charge’s pudgy legs into the water. Tom Buchanan was gone somewhere for the day. Gatz was wearing a suit as sparkling white as Pamela’s little smock dress, and sitting in a chair opposite her mother, his legs crossed. Daisy Buchanan was draped languidly across the couch as if she were a model who was about to be painted. They both had drinks in tall glasses resting on the coffee table, but the ice had long melted and there was condensation running along the sides and actually puddling atop the coasters. Daisy looked especially enervated, her body seeming to melt into the cushions of the couch.

  The nanny had waded into the water with Pamela, holding her fingers as she lifted the child in and out of the surf, dipping her up to her waist, then her shoulders. The day was so steamy that even the cove had reminded Pamela of a tepid bath, and neither she nor her nanny had been especially refreshed by the dunking. Moreover, they had neglected to bring either her small floating boat or her toy seal because the plan had never been to submerge themselves completely—to go for a real swim—and so she had quickly grown bored.

  Fortunately, her nanny had brought a stale baguette, and she broke off little pieces for Pamela to feed to the seagulls they’d seen from the house. There may have been a dozen of them, maybe more. The birds swooped down around the child’s ankles and at first Pamela had been afraid, but once she understood that all they wanted was the bread she had a delightful time and felt like a circus performer with a flock of trained animals around her.

  And then, all too soon, the bread was gone and once more she was aware only of the oppressive heat of the afternoon. She would guess later that the bread had lasted barely
five minutes when they returned to the house.

  They entered through the living room, one of the many rooms that overlooked the bay, slipping through the French doors that were slightly ajar. They were both still so hot and tired—they were, perhaps, even more uncomfortable than when they had left because the long walk up the hill to the house had been completely in the sun—that they hadn’t spoken since they had emerged from the water, and they moved almost noiselessly across the terrace.

  In the living room, Pamela noticed instantly that Gatz was no longer on the chair. He, too, was on the couch. And he was hovering over her mother, lifting his head from hers as if they had been…telling secrets. That was how close his face had been to Daisy’s. Abruptly her mother bolted upright so she was sitting beside Gatz, rather than lying beneath him, the pencil-thin straps of her crepe dress dangling close to her elbows instead of slung tight over her shoulders. She looked more flushed than before they had left as she sheepishly tried to adjust the straps, while—and here was a part that led Pamela to wonder if she were embellishing the details much later in her mind—covering her bare breasts with her forearms as she worked to compose herself.

  Sometimes the image was fuzzy, as if it were only a dream Pamela had concocted as an adolescent; other times, however, it was as clear in her mind as if it were happening that very moment. Eventually, she would begin to recall (or, perhaps, to imagine) that she had actually seen James Gatz’s hand emerge from underneath her mother’s dress. In college, when she would think back upon that afternoon, she would even begin to conjecture that her half brother had been conceived that very day. It was possible. She was immediately taken upstairs for her nap. Her father didn’t return home until after dinner.

  And the nurse? Soon, very soon, after that she was replaced. This, Pamela knew, was not a detail that was subject to the frailties and vagaries of memory. That nurse had disappeared completely from her life.

  MARISSA WAS TRYING to do her homework in the bedroom, but Cindy was watching television in the living room with their aunt and her dad’s condo just wasn’t that big. This was the third day their aunt had been with them, and it had grown painfully clear to Marissa that the woman had spent way too much time at rock concerts when she was young, because her hearing seemed worse than their grandfather’s. Almost as if it were a ballet, her sister—still beaten up from her fall off the swing—would climb off the couch to turn the volume down on the movie they were watching, and then their aunt would go and get something from the kitchen and turn it back up so the TV was loud enough to drown out a jet engine.