Obsession (8 page)

“Where, please?”

I pointed at the wastebasket. She dropped the pieces in, one by one, watched them drop, returned to the table.

“So you want to break your habits.”

Nod.

“You and Mommy agree on that.”

“Yup.”

“You and Mommy are a team.”

That seemed to puzzle her.

“You and Mommy agree most of the time.”

“We love each other.”

“Loving means agreeing.”

“Yup.”

She drew a pair of circles, one twice the diameter of the other. Squinted and hunched and added primitive features.

“Lumpy again,” she pronounced. Another trip to the trash can.

“You really don’t like lumpy,” I said.

“I like it to be
good
.”

Selecting a third piece of paper, she put the pencil down and traced circles with her finger. Looked up at the ceiling. Tapped the fingers of one hand, then the other.

“What kinds of things do you and Mommy do together?”

She retrieved the pencil. Twirled it. “There was a mother when I was a baby. She was too weak and Mommy wanted to take care of me…she was Mommy’s sister.”

“The other mother.”

“She was called Lydia. She died in a accident. Mommy and I get sad when we think about her.”

“Do you think about her a lot?”

Flicking the paper stack, she selected a female figurine, placed it in the house’s living room. “We also have a fish.”

“At home?”

“In the kitchen.”

“In a tank?”

“Uh-uh a bowl.”

“A goldfish?”

“Uh-uh goldfish are too dirty, the man said.”

“What man is that?”

“From the fish store. Mr. Stan Park.”

“What kind of fish did Mr. Park sell you?”

“A guppy. Real small.”

“Does the guppy have a name?”

“We thought it was a girl but it got color on the tail.”

“So it’s a boy.”

“We changed the name.”

“From a girl name to a boy name?”

“He was Charlotte, now he’s Charlie.”

“How does Charlie feel about being a boy instead of a girl?”

“He’s a
fish
. He doesn’t
think
.”

“He never thinks about anything? Like ‘I wonder when Tanya will change my water?’”

“His brain is too little for words.”

“So he just swims back and forth and doesn’t worry about anything,” I said.

Silence.

“Do you worry?”

“Fish also don’t have stomachs,” she said. “Food goes in and out so don’t feed them too much.”

“You know a lot about fish.”

“I read a book.” Tiny hands drifted to the stack of paper, squared the corners.

“I have some fish, too.”

“Guppies?”

“No, they’re called koi. Kind of like giant goldfish but all different colors.”

Skeptical stare. “Where?”

“Outside in a pond. Want to see?”

“If Mommy lets me.”

We walked out to the van. Patty looked up from her newspaper. “So soon?”

“He has giant fish, Mommy.” Tanya’s arms spread.

“Really.”

“Outside in a giant pond.”

“We’re going to feed them,” I said. “Want to come along?”

“Hmm,” said Patty. “No, I’ll just let the two of you get to know each other.”

At Beverwil and Pico, less than a mile from Tanya’s house, my service beeped in.

“It’s Flora, Doctor. Detective Sturgis called. He’ll be out for a while but you can try him in a couple of hours.”

“Did he say what it was about?”

“No, Doctor. It was just him being him.”

“Meaning?”

“You know,” she said. “The way he always is, Mr. Jokey. He told me with my voice I should be on the radio selling beachfront condos in Colorado.”

“You do have a nice voice, Flora.”

“I used to,” she said. “If only I could quit smoking. He sounds kind of cute. Is he?”

“Depends on your perspective.”

Canfield Avenue was narrow and dark and quiet, but no sign of anything remotely ominous.

No reason for there to be. I’d slipped into thinking this was real.

Point me at a puzzle and aim.

Years ago, I’d been the perfect therapist for Patty and Tanya. They hadn’t known the real reason why, never would.

Alexander is very bright but he seems to feel a need for absolute perfection that can lead to some emotion in the classroom. I rarely label a child overly conscientious but that may apply, here.

Alexander needs to understand that not everyone in 3rd grade learns as quickly as he does and that making mistakes is acceptable.

Alexander is doing well in junior high but he needs to work on exhibiting more self-control when projects don’t go as planned.

Alex is an excellent student, particularly in science, but he doesn’t seem to endorse the concept of group work. Hopefully high school will teach him to accept himself as a member of a team…

Year after year of well-meaning teachers, leaving conferences with my parents, convinced their insights were beneficial.

He’s so hard on himself, Mr. and Mrs. Delaware.

Dad responding with the jovial, knowing grin. Mom at his side, docile, silent, ladylike in a clean dress and the one pair of shoes with heels.

How could any of those teachers have known that when Dad
wasn’t
feeling jovial, imperfection could result in rages as predictable as snakebites.

That falling short meant a beefy workingman’s belt scourging a child’s narrow back, next day’s welts and bruises concealed by shirts and sweaters and silence.

No way for the teachers to grasp that when too much discussion filled the house, Mom had been known to lock herself in her bedroom for days. Leaving Dad, banished, fuming, reeking of beer-and-shots, lurching through the four remaining rooms of the house in search of someone to blame.

My sister, Em, the sib I hadn’t spoken to in years, had been quick to sniff the air and get away, an ace escape artist. I’d thought her selfish because the rules made her safe: You didn’t hit girls, at least not with a strap.

Boys were another matter…

Enough nostalgia, mawkish fellow, self-pity’s a lousy aperitif.

Besides, I’d put it all behind me, courtesy of the training therapy required by my doctoral program.

A stroke of good luck: random assignment to a kind, wise woman. The mandatory six months stretching to a year, then two. Then three.

The changes I saw in myself reaffirmed my career choice: If you knew what you were doing, this psychotherapy stuff worked.

By my final year of grad school, the cognitive starbursts and compulsive corrections were gone. Farewell, also, to rituals, invisible or otherwise.

Death of the near-religious belief that symmetry was all.

Which wasn’t to say vestiges didn’t crop up from time to time.

The occasional bout of insomnia, the sudden stabs of inexplicable tension.

Preoccupation that led nowhere.

Therapy taught me to accept all that as proof of my humanness, and when I chatted with my parents over the phone I was able to hang up without fingernail crescents bloodying my palms.

The best tonic was taking care of other people. I started off hoping that no parent who stepped into my office saw me as anyone other than the amiable, calm,
understanding
fellow with whom they entrusted their children’s psyches.

Several years of success made me believe I’d pulled it off.

Sometimes I allowed myself a bit of leeway. Like following through on Patty Bigelow’s museum wax suggestion. Because that was a housekeeping issue, nothing wrong with a bit of geometry, right?

My patients’ faith kept me up at night, devising treatment plans.

Patty Bigelow’s faith had endured and I wasn’t sure I’d earned it.

Now she was dead and her child was depending on me and I was making a house call.

A bit involved.

The duplex was Spanish Revival, not dissimilar from the building on Fourth Street. Peach-toned stucco, mullioned windows inset with stained-glass bluebirds, flat lawn instead of a car park; a young paper birch weeping dead center.

Alarm company sign staked to the left. Lights on in the second story. The stairs were whitened by high-voltage floodlights.

Tanya opened the door before I finished climbing. Loose hair shawled her shoulders. She looked exhausted.

“Thank God I’m not late,” she said.

“Tough study session?”

“Tough, but it was all good. Please. Come in.”

The living room was oak-floored, barrel-ceilinged, pale pink. Cream-colored tiles painted with lilies fronted the fireplace. A lilac chintz sofa faced the curtained picture window and two matching chairs. In between was a bleached wood coffee table with gilded rococo legs.

Patty had talked about being butch but she’d chosen delicate décor.

Above the couch, a dozen photographs were set low on the wall, framed identically in faux-driftwood.

The Story of Tanya from toddler to teen. Predictable shifts in hair-style, clothing, and makeup as Cute Tyke grew to Pretty Girl, but style-wise no signs of adolescent rebellion.

Patty made no appearance until the final photo: Tanya in a crimson cap and gown, her mother in a navy jacket and white turtleneck, holding up a diploma and beaming.

Tanya said, “Here’s one I just found,” and pointed to the sole photo on the coffee table. Black-framed portrait of a broad-faced young woman in a white uniform.

Patty’s upward gaze was solemn, so contrived it was almost comical. I pictured some hack photographer clicking away and uttering rote instructions.
Think of your new career, dear…chin higher
—
higher
—
even higher—
there
you go. Next
!

“She looks so hopeful,” said Tanya. “Please make yourself comfortable, I’ll get the coffee.”

She returned bearing a black plastic tray silk-screened to look like lacquer. Five Oreos were stacked on a plate like a miniature silo. Between a pair of mugs bearing the U.’s insignia a ramekin held packets of nondairy creamer, sugar, and sweetener, wedged tightly, like tiny brochures.

“Cream and sugar?”

“Black’s fine,” I said.

I sat in one of the chairs and she chose the sofa. “I don’t know anyone who drinks it black. My friends think coffee’s dessert.”

“Semi-blended soy mocha-java frappes with extra chocolate?”

She managed a tired smile, opened three sugars, dropped them into her cup. “Cookie?”

“No, thanks.”

“Mostly, I drink tea, but coffee’s good for long study nights.” She scooted toward the front edge of the sofa. “Sure you don’t want an Oreo?”

“Positive.”

“I guess I’ll have one. You hear a lot about prying them apart but lots of people like the sandwich effect and I’m one of them.” Talking fast. Nibbling fast.

“So,” she said.

“I drove by each of the addresses on your list. It’s quite a mix.”

“The mansion as opposed to all those apartments?” she said. “Actually, we only lived in one room of the mansion. I remember thinking it was strange, such a gigantic house but we had less space than in the apartment. I used to worry about rolling off in the middle of the night on top of Mommy.”

“Did that ever happen?”

“No,” she said. “Sometimes she’d hold me. It felt safe.” She put the cookie down. “Sometimes she’d snore.”

Her eyes got wet. “They let us use the pool when Mommy had spare time and the gardens were beautiful, lots of big trees. I’d find places to hide, pretend I was in a forest somewhere.”

“Who owned the house?”

“The Bedard family,” she said. “The only one living there was the grandfather—Colonel Bedard. The family came by once in a while, but they lived far away. They wanted Mommy there to take care of him at night, after the day nurse went home.”

“An old man,” I said.

“Ancient. All bent over, extremely thin. He had filmy eyes—probably blue originally but now they were milky gray. No hair on his head. There was a huge library in the house and that’s where he sat all day. I remember him smelling of paper. Not gross, just a little stale, the way old people get.”

“Was he nice to you?”

“He really didn’t say or do much, just sat in that library with a blanket over his lap and a book in his hand. His face was kind of stiff—he must’ve had a stroke—so when he tried to smile nothing much happened. At first I was scared of him but then Mommy told me he was nice.”

“Did she move there to make more money?”

“That’s what I assume. Like I said, Dr. Delaware, financial security was important to her. Even in her spare time.”

“Reading financial books.”

“Want to see?”

A bedroom at the end of the hall had been converted to a no-nonsense office. U-build Swedish bookshelves and desk, black swivel chair, white file cabinets, desktop computer and printer.

“I’ve been through her files, it’s all money stuff.” She pointed to shelves stacked with back issues of
Forbes, Barron’s, Money
. A collection of investment guides ranged from reasoned strategy to improbable hucksterism. The lowest shelf held a pile of thin, glossy magazines. The top issue featured a close-up head-shot of an actress who’d lost her husband to another actress.

Tormented eyes. Perfect hair and makeup.

“The fan rags,” said Tanya. “The hospital boxed them up with her personal effects. Getting them back was a complete hassle. Some form I hadn’t filled out. I could see the box, right there behind the counter, but the woman in charge was being a real beeyotch, said I had to go somewhere else to get the forms and they were closed. When I started crying, she got on the phone, made a personal call, gossiping away as if I didn’t exist. I beeped Dr. Silverman and he just went behind the desk and got it. At the bottom of the box were Mommy’s armband and her reading glasses and the clothes she had on when she was admitted and this.”

She opened a desk drawer, held up a broken plastic band. “Should we go back and finish our coffee?”

Two sips later, I said, “So when you lived on Hudson, she was working two jobs.”