Now I really study him, hunting for any betrayal. Michael blinks at me a few times. He frowns. “Who’s Tom Bishop?”
I give the house a glance, sensing we’re being watched. Indeed, a silhouette stands behind the screen door. Joni. I take Michael by the arm — gently, so as not to alarm him — and move him farther down the driveway. Passing the garage, we trigger a motion sensor and a light snaps on. The sharp scents of wood varnish and turpentine waft out of the open bay. I push us farther, beyond the reach of the light, back into darkness.
“I don’t want to upset you,” I say. Some of my steam has blown off, but I’m still determined. I decide to back it up a step and take a new approach. “I’m in a dilemma, and I need your help.”
“Um, okay. Absolutely. What can I do?”
“You know I’m a therapist.”
“Of course. Yes.”
I swallow, tasting remnants of dinner — we had salmon, rice, asparagus — and the white wine. Am I a little drunk? I cut myself off at two glasses. “One of the things I’ve done as a therapist, though not anymore, was to work with police. You, Michael, look exactly like the older version of a boy I was asked to evaluate during the course of a death investigation. A murder.”
I stop walking to gauge his reaction. It’s the same, open and inquisitive, devoid of any fear or anger. “That boy was named Tom Bishop,” I repeat his name. “He was a key witness in the case.” I pause after each sentence, still scanning for signs of recognition, deceit. Anything. “The victim was his father. The suspect, eventually convicted, was his mother. None of this rings any bells?”
A mosquito whines near my ear. I wave it away, keeping a close watch on Michael. He looks back at me with that guileless expression, but then something passes over his features. A moment later, he lowers his head.
“Michael? What is it?”
He gradually raises his eyes to me. His face is lit from the side by the garage light back twenty yards. “I lied,” he says.
My body temperature drops. Another mosquito sinks its needle into the skin of my bare arm, but I barely notice. “Okay,” I say. “Tell me.”
“My parents didn’t die when I was a junior in high school.”
“Okay . . .” There’s a resignation in my voice. Relief.
“I was much younger when things happened.”
“That’s right,” I say.
He takes a deep breath. This is going to change everything. But if he tells Joni about it, then it’s no longer my burden. Michael can be the one to broach the subject to the family and set the tone for how little or how much he wants everyone to know. I’ll suggest full disclosure to Joni, his future wife, but other than that, it’s whatever he wants.
With emotion in his voice, Michael says, “The whole thing is fucked up. Sorry for the language.”
“I hear it all the time.” Just as I take his hand in mine, the area light blinks off, plunging us into full darkness. The bugs are starting to frenzy. Maybe we can conclude this back inside the house . . .
“My aunt and uncle . . .” he says. “They’re . . . they made some bad choices.”
I wait.
Michael says, “They spent the inheritance. They squandered it, really. And the whole thing had kind of a reverse effect. They didn’t have much. And when I came to live with them, they ended up buying this big expensive house — they said it was better for me, growing up. Better for us as a family. But they were overleveraged. They were up to their eyes in debt even though on paper — you know, when you fill out those financial aid forms — it looked like they had a lot of money. I didn’t get any grants, and they had barely anything they could give me. It was scholarship or nothing. So, that’s who I was just talking to. A friend at Colgate. I need to get back there. I need to finish.”
My head is spinning. It’s not exactly the confession I’d been anticipating. I need to pick it apart. “You’re saying both your parents died?”
“In a car wreck, yeah.”
It’s time to stick or move, as my own late father would say. I can’t keep waffling. If I’m going to get past this, I have to go through it. I have to try.
“Michael, your father was murdered.”
He gives a polite shake of his head. “No. He wasn’t.”
“Your mother went to prison for it.”
More head-shaking. “Dr. Lindman . . . you have me confused with someone else.”
“You remember everything? Their car accident? That whole period in your life . . . I don’t think you really even remember it, Michael.”
He makes no reply at first. I can hear his phone vibrating in his pocket, see the light of its screen showing through the fabric. Then he admits it: “Honestly, it is a hard time to remember. But that doesn’t mean it’s not what happened. People have talked to me about it my whole life. My aunt and uncle. My cousin. Family friends. It’s my life. It’s what happened.”
“What if — and listen, please, I’m not trying to upset you — like I said, I need your help. What if, as an alternative theory, what happened is what I remember? Because of how heinous things were, how painful, certain people took it upon themselves to construct a new reality for you? Something that was less painful, that explained the loss of your parents, but . . .”
I stop myself. For one thing, Michael looks a shade whiter, his face floating before me like a ghost. I’m doing exactly what a therapist is trained to not do: dump massive, life-changing insight onto a patient. It could overload his system. To have your entire reality, your identity, exposed as a lie? Some people can’t handle that. Most people can’t handle that. Especially if it’s not done right.
“All right, let’s take a breath. Let me just propose this to you — you have a past that’s a bit uncertain, even to you. Leaving aside what other people have told you, you just admitted your memory is hazy. I have a belief — one that only grows with each passing moment I’m with you, as much as I’ve tried to rationalize it or put it out of my mind — you’re the boy I knew. And let me try to prove it to you. The boy, Tom Bishop, had a scar on his upper thigh. When he was six, walking along a guard rail, balancing, he fell. The sharp edge of the angle iron caught the inside of his leg and tore it open. He had fifteen stitches.”
“I’ve been in my bathing suit,” Michael says quickly. There’s an edge in his tone — his defenses are up. His phone chimes, as if with a text. It’s probably Joni.
“I haven’t been with you, or near you, swimming,” I say. “And even standard swimming trunks could hide it. Unless you’ve been swimming in a Speedo—”
Michael starts for the house, his feet crunching.
“Michael . . .” I follow him.
He turns abruptly and walks past me in the other direction. “I’ve got to get ready,” he mutters. “I’m not even ready.”
I hurry to catch him. The farther we venture from the house, the deeper the inky blackness becomes. “Ready for what? Michael — it’s pitch black out here. You can’t even see . . .”
He clicks on the light from his phone.