Chapter Nineteen
A therapist who specializes in post-traumatic stress arrived early the second week and spent a couple of hours. Doctor Cartwell is a restrained white-haired gentleman in a neatly pressed suit and tie. He speaks with a soothing tone and deserves his reputation for successfully treating victims of crime. Officer Thomas, who doesn’t particularly believe in therapists, and who comes from the just-get-over-it-school-of-mental-illness, gave them Cartwell’s number when Hank asked. The police department has recommended him for years. Hank and Jimmy found him easy to talk to and genuine. Doctor Cartwell felt good about the things Jimmy had to say and advised Hank that Jimmy should return to school and his usual routine immediately as the best course of therapy, but that he should let Jimmy pick the day. He found Hank already looking for ways to put it behind him, and felt that moving on was the best therapy for him as well. Then, he approached Alison.
Alison sits upstairs in the flowered lounge chair where she usually enjoys reading by the morning light on weekends. This morning the bedroom is dark because the news crews outside have forced her to keep the drapes shut. A book sits opened in her lap but she is not reading. She just sits. Doctor Cartwell knocks.
“Mrs. Kraft?” She looks over. “May I come in?” She shrugs. He enters and takes a seat on the edge of the bed facing her. “I’m Doctor Simon Cartwell. I spent some time this morning with your husband and your son and I do think they’re doing okay. They are, however, both worried about you and so I thought perhaps we could talk?”
“About what?”
“About how you’re feeling, about the experience, just work through it a bit together.”
“Why would I want to do that?”
“It’s been my experience with victims of violence it is a first step toward healing.”
“I’m not just a victim. I’m a perpetrator.”
“Is that how you see it?”
“That’s the fact.”
“We both know it’s not that simple.”
“I killed three men.”
“And in doing that saved yourself, your family, and a number of other innocent folks.”
“I let one get away.”
“You didn’t let him get away. It is the police’s job to find him.”
“He will kill us all now.”
“Why do you say that?”
“I know him.”
“Mrs. Kraft, may I call you Alison?”
“You can call me Shirley; I really don’t care.”
“I’ll go with Alison. Alison, with all due respect to the horrendous experience you’ve had, you do not know this man.” Alison turns her head away and stares at the photograph she has hung on the wall of Jimmy when he was a toddler. She drifts into it. Doctor Cartwell feels her leave the room and he waits. He knows this drifting in and out process thoroughly. It is a coping mechanism he sees often. He rises from the bed and walks over to the photograph. He looks at Alison pushing Jimmy on a swing. Jimmy looks about three years old; his hair is blown back, and his face is brilliant with glee.
“He’s a beautiful boy.”
“Yes” she whispers. “He is.”
Cartwell takes the little chair that is pushed under the delicate wood writing desk against the wall. He pulls it out and places it closer, but not too close, to where she is sitting on the lounge. He reaches into her with skilled intimacy. “Alison, I’ve read the police reports about what happened, but I’d like to hear it from you. You’re the only one who really knows.”
“If you read the reports then you know the details.”
“I don’t know what it was like for you.” Cartwell is only a few feet away from her and it is possible for her to whisper, so she does. He leans in and listens very intently.
“It was a progression,” she tells him.
“How so?”
“The first one, it was mostly an accident. He was chasing me…” she breaks off. Her throat closes.
“Alison, sometimes it helps to tell it in third person. Try that. Let’s try that.”
“The first one was chasing her. He slipped. Slid off a cliff. He was almost an accident. She knew the cliff was there. She led him there. There was a moment when she could have saved him. She didn’t. She thought about it, but then she didn’t. She watched him fall. She heard him break. The next one, she planned it and she killed him. But it was from a distance. She didn’t get her hands dirty. It was not up close. He was a good eight or nine feet away from her. But that third one was…” She falls back into first person, “that third one was in my face, bloody and gory all over me. I felt him die on top of me. I was wet with his blood. And then, the worst one got away.”
“I see.”
“No, you don’t, you can’t.”
“You’re probably right about that. Doesn’t sound like something a person could imagine.”
“Look, Doctor, you seem like a nice man and you can come and talk to Jimmy and Hank all you want, but unless you can call in the Marines to protect my family you really can’t help me.”
“Perhaps next time I come you will meet with me downstairs.”
She let her gaze go back to the photographs on the wall. She falls into them. They are a sweet place for her to be.
At the bottom of the staircase, Hank crosses quickly to Doctor Cartwell and asks. “What do you think?”
“She’s traumatized. It’s going to take a while.”
“Okay.” Hank focuses with sharp intensity. He wants frantically to do all the right things. “What should I do?”
“Anything that feels normal.”
Hank’s head shakes, “Doctor, nothing feels normal.”
“I understand. But anything that can be tied to what was normal before will help her reconnect with herself.”
“Okay” Hank says. “Yeah, okay.”
Abruptly on Wednesday at 1:30 p.m., the media siege ended: some teenager across town shot his friend two times in the chest and Hank regretted he lived in a world where for them that spelled relief. The news vans packed up and split in seconds. Hank was positive that now things would begin to fall into place. But the departure of the media had unexpected consequences. While the house was surrounded by cameras, Alison felt a limited safety, but when the media left, it became very quiet, very quickly. Then, she knew - he was coming.
* * *