Perfect Match (22 page)

I rerun my actions at the grocery store like the loop of a security cam-era's video-what I did, what I should have done. I might have appointed mysel f to be Nathaniel's protector, but today I did not do a crackerjack job of it . I assumed that talking to Peter was harmless . . . and instead that one act ion might have set Nathaniel back by leaps and bounds.

A few feet away, in Adrienne's cell, sparks dance like fireflies. Things aren 't always what they seem.

For example, I have always believed I know what is best for Nathaniel. But what if it turns out I've been wrong?

“I put in some hot chocolate to go with your whipped cream,” Caleb says, a lame joke, as he sets the mug down on Nathaniel's nightstand. Nathaniel doe sn't even turn to him. He faces the wall, wrapped like a cocoon, his eyes s o red from crying that he does not look like himself.

Caleb pulls off his shoes and gets right onto Nathaniel's bed, then wraps his arms tight around the boy. “Nathaniel, it's okay.”

He feels that tiny head shake once. Coming up on an elbow, Caleb gently tur ns his son onto his back. He grins, trying so hard to pretend that this is entirely ordinary, that Nathaniel's whole world has not become a snow globe , waved intermittently every time things begin to settle. "What do you say?

You want some of this cocoa?"

Nathaniel sits up slowly. He brings his hands out from underneath the cove rs and curls them into his body. Then he raises his palm, fingers outstret ched, and sets his thumb on his chin. Want Mommy.

Caleb's whole body goes still. Nathaniel hasn't been very forthcoming sinc e Peter brought him home, except for the crying. He stopped sobbing someti me between when Caleb bathed him and got him into his pajamas. But surely he can talk, if he wants to. “Nathaniel, can you tell me what you want?” That hand sign, again. And a third time.

“Can you say it, buddy? I know you want Mommy. Say it for me.” Nathaniel's eyes shine, and the tears spill over. Caleb grabs the boy's hand.

“Say it,” he begs. “Please, Nathaniel.”

But Nathaniel doesn't utter a word.

“Okay,” Caleb murmurs, releasing Nathaniel's hand into his lap. “It's okay.” He smiles as best he can, and gets off the bed. “I'm going to be right back. In the meantime, you can start on that hot chocolate, all right?” In his own bedroom, Caleb picks up the phone. Dials a number from a card in his wallet. Pages Dr. Robichaud, the child psychiatrist. Then he hangs up, b alls his hand into a fist, and punches a hole in the wall.

Nathaniel knows this is all his fault. Peter said it wasn't, but he was lyin g, the way grown-ups do in the middle of the night to make you stop thinking about something awful living under the bed. They'd taken the bagel out of t he store without letting the machine ring up its numbers; they'd driven to h is house without his car seat; even just now, his dad had brought cocoa to t he bedroom when no food was ever allowed upstairs. His mother was gone, all the rules were getting broken, and it was because of Nathaniel. He had seen Peter and said hi, which turned out to be a bad thing. A very, ve ry bad thing.

This is what Nathaniel knows: He talked, and the bad man grabbed his mothe r's arm. He talked, and the police came. He talked, and his mother got tak en away.

So he will never talk again.

By Saturday morning, they have fixed the heat. They've fixed it so well that it is nearly eighty degrees inside the jail. When I am brought to the confere nce room to meet Fisher, I'm wearing a camisole and scrub pants, and sweating . Fisher, of course, looks perfectly cool, even in his suit and tie. “The ear liest I can even get to a judge for a revocation hearing is Monday,” he says.

“I need to see my son.”

Fisher's face remains impassive. He is just as angry as I would be, in his sh oes-I have just complicated my case irreparably. “Visiting hours are from ten to twelve today.”

“Call Caleb. Please, Fisher. Please, do whatever you have to do to make him bring Nathaniel down here.” I sink into the chair across from him. “He is fi ve years old, and he saw me being taken away by the police. Now he has to se e that I'm all right, even in here.”

Fisher promises nothing. “I don't have to tell you that your bail is going to be revoked. Think about what you want me to say to the judge, Nin a, because you don't have any chances left.”

I wait until he meets my eye. “Will you call home for me?”

“Will you admit that I'm in charge?”

For a long moment, neither of us blinks, but I break first. I stare at my lap u ntil I hear Fisher close the door behind him.

Adrienne knows I'm anxious as visiting hours come to an end-nearly noon, and still I have not been called to see anyone. She lies on her stomach, painti ng her nails fluorescent orange. In honor of hunting season, she said. As th e correctional officer walks past for his quarter-hour check, I stand up. “A re you sure no one's come yet?”

He shakes his head, moves on. Adrienne blows on her fingers to dry the polish . “I got extra,” she says, holding up the bottle. “You want me to roll it acr oss?”

“I don't have any nails. I bite mine.”

“Now, that is a travesty. Some of us just don't have the sense to make the m ost of what God gives us.”

I laugh. “You're one to talk.”

“In my case, honey, when it came to passing out the right stuff, God was ha ving a senior moment.” She sits down on her lower bunk and takes off her te nnis shoes. Last night, she did her toenails, tiny American flags. “Well, f uck me,” Adrienne says. “I smudged.”

The clock has not moved. Not even a second, I'd swear it.

“Tell me about your son,” Adrienne says when she sees me looking down the hallway again. “I always wanted to have me one of them. ”

“I would have figured you'd want a girl.”

“Honey, us ladies, we're high maintenance. A boy, you know exactly what yo u're getting.”

I try to think of the best way to describe Nathaniel. It is like trying to hold the ocean in a paper cup. How do I explain a boy who eats his food col or by color; who wakes me in the middle of the night with a burning need to know why we breathe oxygen instead of water; who took apart a microcassett e recorder to find his voice, trapped inside? I know my son so well, I surp rise myself-there are too many words to choose from.

“Sometimes when I hold his hand,” I answer slowly, finally, “it's like it doe sn't fit anymore. I mean, he's only five, you know? But I can feel what's com ing. Sometimes his palm's just a little too wide, or his fingers are too stro ng.” Glancing at Adrienne, I shrug. “Each time I do it, I think this may be t he last time I hold his hand. That next time, he may be holding mine.” She smiles softly at me. “Honey, he ain't coming today.” It is 12:46 P.M., and I have to turn away, because Adrienne is right. The CO wakes me up in the late afternoon. “Come on,” he mutters, and slides open the door of my cell. I scramble upright, rubbing the sleep from my ey es. He leads me down a hallway to a part of the jail I have not yet visited . A row of small rooms, mini-prisons, are on my left. The guard opens one a nd guides me inside.

It is no bigger than a broom closet. Inside, a stool faces a Plexiglas window. A telephone receiver is mounted to the wall at its side. And on the other sid e of the glass, in a twin of a room, sits Caleb.

“Oh!” The word comes on a cry, and I lurch for the telephone, picking it up and holding it to my ear. “Caleb,” I say, knowing he can see my face, read m y words. “Please, please, pick up the phone.” I pantomime over and over. But his face is chiseled and hard; his arms crossed tight on his chest. He will not give me this one thing.

Defeated, I sink onto the stool and rest my forehead against the Plexiglas. Caleb bends down to pick something up, and I realize that Nathaniel has been there all along, beneath the counter where I could not see him. He kneels o n the stool, eyes wide and wary. He hesitantly touches the glass, as if he n eeds to know that I am not a trick of the light.

At the beach once, we found a hermit crab. I turned it over so that Nathaniel could see its jointed legs scrambling. Put him on your palm, I said, and he'

ll crawl, Nathaniel had held out his hand, but every time I went to set the c rab on it, he jerked away. He wanted to touch it, and he was terrified to tou ch it, in equal proportions.

So I wave. I smile. I fill my little cubicle with the sound of his name. As I did with Caleb, I pick up the telephone receiver. “You too,” I mouth, a nd I do it again, so Nathaniel can see how. But he shakes his head, and inst ead raises his hand to his chin. Mommy, he signs.

The receiver falls out of my hand, a snake that strikes the wall beside it. I d o not even need to look at Caleb for verification; just like that, I know. So with tears running down my face, I hold up my right hand, the l-L-Y combi nation that means / love you. I catch my breath as Nathaniel raises one smal l fist, unfurls the fingers like signal flags to match mine. Then, a peace s ign, the number two handshape. I love you, too.

By now, Nathaniel is crying. Caleb says something to him that I cannot hear , and he shakes his head. Behind them, the guard opens the door. Oh, God, I am losing him.

I rap on the glass to get his attention. Push my face up against it, then poin t to Nathaniel and nod. He does what I've asked, turning his cheek so that it touches the transparent wall.

I lean close, kiss the barrier between us, and pretend it isn't there. Even aft er Caleb's carried him from the visiting room, I sit with my temple pressed to the glass, convincing myself I can still feel Nathaniel on the other side. It didn't happen just that once. Two Sundays afterward, when Nathaniel's fa mily went to Mass, the priest came into the little room where Miss Fiore wa s reading everyone a story about a guy with a slingshot who took down a gia nt. “I need a volunteer,” he said, and even though all the hands went up, h e looked right at Nathaniel.

“You know,” he said in the office, “Esme missed you.”

“She did?”

“Oh, absolutely. She's been saying your name for days now.” Nathaniel laughed. “She has not.”

“Listen.” He cupped his ear, leaned in to the cat on the couch. “There you go .”

Nathaniel listened, but only heard a faint mew.

“Maybe you have to get closer,” the priest said. “Climb up here.” For just a moment, Nathaniel hesitated, remembered. His mother had told him a bout going off alone with strangers. But this wasn't really a stranger, was i t? He sat down in the priest's lap, and pressed his ear right against the bel ly of the cat. “That's a good boy.”

The man shifted his legs, the way Nathaniel's father sometimes did when he was sitting on his knee and his foot fell asleep. “I could move,” Na thaniel suggested.

“No, no.” The priest's hand slipped down Nathaniel's back, over his bottom, to rest in his own lap. “This is fine.”

But then Nathaniel felt his shirt being untucked. Felt the long fingers of t he priest, hot and damp, against his spine. Nathaniel did not know how to te ll him no. His head was filled with a memory: a fly caught in the car one da y when they were driving, which kept slamming itself into the windows in a d esperate effort to get out. “Father?” Nathaniel whispered.

“I'm just blessing you,” he replied. “A special helper deserves that. I want God to know that every time He sees you.” His fingers stilled. “You do want t hat, don't you?”

A blessing was a good thing, and for God to keep an extra eye on him-well, it was what his mother and father would want, Nathaniel was sure of it. He turned his attention back to the lazy cat, and that was when he heard it-ju st a puff of breath-Esme, or maybe not Esme, sighing his name. The second time I am called out by a correctional officer is Sunday aftern oon. He takes me upstairs to the conference rooms, where inmates meet priv ately with their attorneys. Maybe Fisher has come to see how I am holding up. Maybe he wants to discuss tomorrow's hearing.

But to my surprise, when the door is unlocked, Patrick is waiting inside. Sp read out on the conference table are six containers of take-out Chinese food . “I got everything you like,” he says. “General Tso's chicken, vegetable lo mein, beef with broccoli, Lake Tung Ting shrimp, and steamed dumplings. Oh, and that crap that tastes like rubber.”

“Bean curd.” I lift my chin a notch, challenging him. “I thought you didn't w ant to talk to me.”

“I don't. I want to eat with you.”

“Are you sure? Think of all the things I could say while your mouth is full, before you have a chance to-”

“Nina.” Patrick's blue eyes seem faded, weary. “Shut up.” But even as he scolds me, he holds out his hand. It rests on the table, exten ded, an offering more tantalizing than anything else before me. I sit across from him and grab on. Immediately, Patrick squeezes, and that's my undoing. I lay my cheek on the cold, scarred table, and Patrick strokes my hair. “I rigged your fortune cookie,” he confesses. “It says you'll be acqui tted.”

“What does yours say?”

“That you'll be acquitted.” Patrick smiles. “I didn't know which one you'd pi ck.”

My eyes drift shut as I let down my guard. “It's okay,” Patrick tells me, an d I believe him. I place his palm against my burning face, as if shame is so mething he might carry in the cup of his hand, fling someplace far away. When you call someone on the prison pay phone, they know it. Every thirty s econds a voice gets on the line, informing the person on the other end that this transmission is taking place from the Alfred County Jail. I use the f ifty cents Patrick gave me that afternoon, and make the call on my way to t he shower. “Listen,” I say, the minute I reach Fisher at his home number. “ You wanted me to tell you what to say on Monday morning.”

“Nina?” In the background I hear the laughter of a woman. The sound of glass es, or china, in a sink.

“I need to talk to you.”

“You've caught us in the middle of dinner.”

“Well, for God's sake, Fisher.” I turn my back as a line of men straggles in from the outside courtyard. “Why don't I just call back then when it's more c onvenient for you, because I'm sure I'll have another opportunity, in, oh, th ree or four days.”

I hear the distant noise growing more faint; the click of a door. “All right. Wh at is it?”