And so — then what? He comes to visit, and he has to suspect I’ll recognize him. But he plays ignorant? Does he really think he’ll get away with the lie?
Or is this whole “hazy memory” part of a new deception? Maybe it’s a way for him to safely return to the truth without looking like a liar — in my eyes or, more importantly for him, in Joni’s eyes.
Instead of coming clean in one fell swoop, he’s admitted that his past remains enshrouded. He’s asked me to be the one who helps tease out more of his memory. Once we get back to full recall — meaning, once he playacts his way back — he’s in the clear. He can be the boy I remember and be Michael, too. His lie to Joni can get explained away by having caregivers implant it when he was young. That, and, having gone through such a traumatic experience, he did some heavy compartmentalizing.
But . . .
But it leaves a few things on the table. Like the proximity to Laura Bishop’s prison and the timing of her parole.
Enough. I pick up my own dishes and put them in the sink. The kitchen is a mess. I left for Mooney’s in a bit of a hurry, and food was prepared in my absence. The ketchup is still out. Crumbs on the tile countertop. Knives caked with peanut butter. Only my son would have ketchup and peanut butter in the same meal.
Thinking of Sean pierces my heart with grief. He was making himself a sandwich — or something — then he took his sister’s fiancé sailing, and then . . .
And now he’s . . .
I don’t know what he is. Or where he is. I know where his body is, but his consciousness seems lost to me. I can’t feel it.
I miss him already.
The sudden and gripping sadness soon curdles into anger.
Maybe if I want to get to the bottom of things, I really should call the police right now, explain everything. Maybe it’s time. What do I have to be worried about? If it turns out this is truly linked to the past, anyone can see it’s a case of police corruption. Coercions and cover-ups. Using a respected therapist to legitimize their case.
Talk about throwing my life into chaos. It’s been chaotic before; I’m not sure I could handle it again. There would be media following us around. Nightly news segments about “the case from fifteen years ago.”
I just don’t know if I could handle it all right now. Cops here, Joni stabbing me with her eyes, Michael nervous but trying to cooperate.
And now I’ve been treating him? Using my tools as a psychotherapist to uncover a past I myself was a part of? The cops would have a field day with me, given such a conflict of interest, such an ethical breach.
My career would be over.
It dawns on me then, as I go through the kitchen, sweeping crumbs into my palm, wiping down the countertops, that I’ve got to see this through on my own. If Michael is faking to save face — pretending he can’t remember to subvert the humiliating truth of his lie — maybe I can help him with that. If, on the other hand, he’s part of some grander deceit, I’ll be more in control of it than I am now, just waiting for the other shoe to drop.
By the time I’ve finally worked all this out in my head, I’m already at the top of the stairs. Moving down the hallway, I stop in front of Joni’s door.
“Come in,” Michael says when I knock. He’s on the bed, looking at his phone. He sets it aside and stands up. “Everything okay?”
I pull a slow, easy breath. Looking deeply into those green eyes, I say, “Let’s try again.”
CHAPTER FORTY
“I really love your daughter,” Michael says from the bed in Joni’s room. “I think she’s amazing.”
“She is amazing,” I say. “She’s come through a lot.”
He gazes up at the ceiling, contemplative. I drag a chair into the corner. It’s the chair from Sean’s room. We used his room last night, but I couldn’t bear to be in there right now. It’s all I can do just to keep my head clear.
Of course, that’s impossible. Sean is my son. My firstborn. And he’s lying in a hospital bed with a machine breathing for him.
But he’s going to wake up. He’s going to come back to you. Because he’s strong. Sean has always been strong . . .
“Joni says you and Paul were a little bit . . . I don’t know. Kind of wild? Back in the day?”
Michael’s question catches me off guard. I slowly sit down in the chair. “What did she say?”
“Just that you guys used to throw big parties. You know, Fourth of July, that kind of a thing . . .”
“I don’t know that I’d call them ‘big parties.’ We had some families over from the neighborhood for holidays. It was hardly all the time.”
“. . . Joni says she had her first drink at one of those parties.”
I place my hands in my lap. “I remember.”
“Sorry, I’m just a little nervous.”
“Nothing to worry about. I’m right here, and you’re safe.” The words sound flat to my ears. I always have my patients’ best interests at heart, but it sounds less than genuine coming out of my mouth.
Leave it. Call it off right now.
“What else did Joni say?”
“Just that you stopped. No more parties.”
“People move on. Families get older, you lose touch.”
“Yeah . . .”
His disbelief gets under my skin. Is he playing some sort of game? I play a different hand.
“What about growing up in the Bleeker home?” I haven’t used this name yet and want to see how he reacts. “Maybe we can start there. Did they have people over for the holidays?”
“My uncle is a bit of a loner. Maybe an introvert. Very smart guy. He writes technical manuals, plus he’s published a few of his own books. And my aunt was a college professor. She worked almost right up until she died.”
Michael’s answer seems genuine. And the depiction of his aunt reminds me of Rebecca Mooney for a moment, looking dark and desiccated in her bed, the rain spitting against the windows.
I ask, “And how was it having a sister? Do you still keep in touch with Candace?” It’s another dig for information.
“Not really. When Aunt Alice died, it kind of broke up the family.”
“I’m sorry. The whole thing is very sad.” I’m sliding back toward sympathy. Michael once again seems guileless. A man who’s grown up in the long shadow of a terrible family tragedy.
But it could all be a trick. I need to keep reminding myself of that.
“We saw each other through the funeral and everything,” he says, meaning Candace. “I’d been at Colgate for a year. I mean, we talk every once in a while . . .”
“She has a husband?”
“Yeah. Greg. He has a trucking company or something.”
It checks out with what I already know.
But there are things Michael doesn’t know. And so I tell him about visiting his Uncle Arnold, and how Candace showed up, and that her husband Greg grabbed me. How they thought I was harassing their father.
Michael absorbs it all, at first looking shocked, but recovering quickly. “Yeah, she’s a little high strung. A little fussy. She used to clean all those pigs her mother collected, dust them all off. Pigs everywhere in that house. So . . . you were checking up on me, huh?” A smile edges his mouth.
“I was. I’m probably still checking up on you. This isn’t therapy. Not in any clinical sense.”