Chapter Twenty-Four
The following morning the pacing continues unabated inside Doctor Cartwell’s office. Hank walks around with such concentrated power he has created an oblong-shaped discernible path in the freshly vacuumed carpet. Inside the office, with its cushy armchairs and dark linen drapes, Hank feels it is allowable to let go. A candle burns on the shelf of the bookcase soothingly scenting the air with lavender heightening the sensation of being in a meditative space, a place where it is okay to lift the burden from his shoulders and stash it by the door until he can pick it up on the way out. Hank oscillates between anxiety and wrenching sadness, but his most pressing emotion is his mounting anger, an anger that has begun to bleed through the reinforced borders of his façade His goodness is leaking.
Doctor Cartwell says, “I want to talk about you, Hank. What you’re feeling.”
“What I’m feeling? Okay. Sure. Let’s see. I feel infuriated beyond reason. The blood in my veins is angry, the hairs on my head are angry, my skin is cracked and itching because the anger has dried me out.” His voice grows louder as he rants. “I’m mad at the streetlights, at the clock on the stove. I’m mad at the food on my plate. I’m mad at a god I don’t even believe in! I feel like shaking someone to death! Yes, to death, that’s it! That’s how I feel like I want to shake and shake until I shake the life out of something and after all that shaking I know I will still be the same joke of a man I was before all the shaking.”
“You think you’re a joke?”
“The whole time, from the first moment at the camp, I’ve been worthless as a father, as a husband, as a man. I couldn’t protect my son. I couldn’t help my wife. I can’t control anything. I can’t fix anything. I’m useless.”
“You were tied up.”
“I’m not tied up now! She’s losing it and I still can’t help. I thought after a little time things would return to normal. The guy is dead. We have proof he’s dead. I thought she would feel safe again, safe with me, but the truth is she isn’t safe with me and now she knows that - she knows that for sure.” He is shattered. “And that really hurts, you know, for the woman you love to see you in that way. Isn’t there some kind of tacit social contract, or maybe it’s a basic instinct thing that the female is protected by the male? We’ve upset some kind of natural order.”
“I don’t think she’d feel safe with anyone right now. This is really not a reflection on you, Hank.”
“I wanted to save my family. I still want to save my family. Maybe another husband, another man, could’ve done something dramatic, or heroic, or at least mildly effective.”
“You’re confusing real life for any number of fictional Bruce Willis characters. If you would have been the one left out in the cold that night at the camp you would have done as much or more than Alison.”
“I don’t know that. You didn’t see what she did.” Hank stops pacing and leans against the large desk. His voice becomes distant. Doctor Cartwell listens with great focus and lets Hank’s thoughts wander aloud. “Even though we are aware on some practical level from hearing the news every day that there is no such thing as “fair” we still function as though there is. I guess we have to. We live in this pathetic illusion that if we are good people then life will be fair. Maybe that’s the only thing that keeps us civilized. The bottom line for us all is the belief that being good will lead to some kind of cosmic fairness, maybe we all believe in that kind of karma. Maybe that’s why religions invented an afterlife: how else could you explain the unfairness except to believe there had to be more, that there must be a payoff later? And even when people say all the time, well you know life isn’t fair, of course you know that,” Hank throws up his hands, “we all know that, but we still live every day as though it is fair, and we still act surprised when it isn’t. When Mike hit the floor dead at my feet, I knew that fair thing was over for me. Life is random. Death is random. Goodness is a choice with no predictive value. Any one of us good or bad can die face down in the gutter tonight. I remember reading about this woman who had been a foster mother to like fifty kids, and who was a revered and loved woman in this poor neighborhood, and she was murdered one day on her front lawn for the four dollars in her purse. There is no balance. The lady holding the scales of justice isn’t blind so she can be fair, she’s blind so it is random, she’s blind because the facts don’t matter, the circumstances don’t matter, she’s blind because it’s a game to her, she’s like a little kid with her hands over her eyes playing f*cking hide ‘n seek with all of our lives! And, you know what, Doctor, knowing all of this is not particularly comforting.”
Cartwell waits before he speaks as a show of respect. Hank’s words have been heartfelt and revealing. Then, he says gently, “Perhaps goodness is its own payoff.”
“Resorting to platitudes, Doctor? What if people start to actually believe, believe every day the real truth, the truth that life isn’t fair, does civilized society fall apart?”
“I don’t know. But it is not that life isn’t fair all the time, it is that sometimes it’s not fair.”
“Fair is an all or nothing thing. How do I explain that to a regular guy sitting here in his expensive office playing by the rules and watching the days go by with seeming predictability, and believing that people are civilized, believing you are in control of your life, and that there’s some rationale behind things. How do I explain how helpless you actually are, how everything you’ve learned in one moment can mean nothing the next, how the person you are is completely irrelevant? You look at your life and you see you’ve been kind and lived considerately and you think that matters, and then some guy points a gun at your little boy’s face and your little boy looks to you for help and all you can do is screech like a rodent in a glue trap. I can’t explain to you what it is to be that kind of powerless. Turns out you are not a man like everyone has told you. You are worthless. This is a world full of monsters and predators and without the biggest weapon, you are just so much meat. And when you understand that then the screaming starts inside of you and it doesn’t stop. I don’t know who I am supposed to be right now. I surely don’t know who Alison is. There is no reason on earth why she should remain mentally stuck back at that camp. Maybe the screaming inside of her is too loud to get over. Maybe that’s why I can’t reach her because she can’t hear me over all the f*cking screaming?”
Doctor Cartwell is silenced by the naked despair finally flowing from Hank. He waits. A long silence rolls out between them because there are no words, because there is no answer. Hank walks to the window and looks out to the parking lot. He calms himself by looking at the parking spaces, all of those symmetrical white lines on the blacktop. There is a comforting orderliness to them, all perfectly angled, in their place, exactly the same distance apart, lines being lines, simply, plainly, not trying to be anything else, neatly placed next to each other. He begins to count them.
After a minute Doctor Cartwell says, “Hank, I am duty-bound to tell you that there are genuine risks to not getting Alison some professional help.”
“She won’t go.”
“I’m not sure she should be making that decision for herself right now.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means when people need real help they are not always the ones who see that clearly. Sometimes they need to rely on the people around them, those who love them, to step in and assist.”
“You are not suggesting I commit her?”
“A residential facility may be the perfect place for her to feel safe, get rest, and get the help she needs.”
“Is that what they call it now? A residential facility? Is that the euphemism?”
“They aren’t the horror places that folklore suggests.”
“I don’t believe in taking away her rights to herself.”
“If she hurts someone that won’t be your decision any longer.”
“She won’t.”
“I know you aren’t sure of that.”
“She would be helpless and alone in the hands of who knows who. Forget it.”
“Just think it over. If she is dangerous, or suicidal, it’s a temporary treatment to save her life.”
“There has got to be a way to prove to her that she is safe now, that it’s time to move on.”
“If she’s having breaks with reality, if she’s seeing things that aren’t there, she requires professional help and medication. There may be some tough choices ahead for you. I just want you to prepare yourself for that.”
Hank sits down in the chair and buries his face in his hands. He sits there immobile for the rest of the hour. He thinks about all of the blameless people in history who in one inconsequential moment made a simple choice: who stepped off the curb one second too soon, who sprinted to catch that doomed train, who took one wrong turn in the wilderness, who ran out for that bottle of milk they needed for the morning they never saw, and a guy who said simply to his son “wanna go fishing for your birthday.”
That night they are both up, Alison at her sentry position staring out of the bedroom window to the street, and Hank watching the clock waiting for morning. As soon as Jimmy gets picked up for school, he tells Alison to get dressed. She knows he is furious and hurt and so she doesn’t ask any questions she simply throws on her jeans and follows him.
Hank drives. Alison is antsy in the passenger seat, shifting her weight around, putting one leg under her and then the other trying to find the right configuration but always looking out and around: looking for him. She realizes after a few turns that Hank is driving her back to the police station. Maybe he’s going to have me arrested she thinks. Would he? Would he do that? That’s crazy. Well, not crazy. I don’t mean that is actually crazy. I just…and her mind shuts off so she can concentrate on the car behind them. The stress between them is like a pinball banging back and forth. She feels it physically and expects to have black and blue marks later. They don’t chance talking to each other. Hank plays his iPod through the car radio and he pretends to listen, he taps his hand to the beat on the steering wheel, but a careful observer would notice he’s just a beat off. Alison stares out the passenger window and scans the cars that pass them studying each driver.
Once they are inside Crane’s office the tension persists and the words unspoken between Hank and Alison form a messy glob of thick air in the room. Crane feels an ache of sympathy for these folks. He has witnessed years of indiscriminate violence perpetrated on good people like these. He has seen their marriages collapse and their lives ruined. He would like that not to be the case with these two, but really, he has little hope of that. Alison Kraft definitely needs help, but she is evidently resistant. Hank seems like a really good guy, devoted and caring. Maybe they’ll make it.
“Whatever we can do to help,” Crane reassures them.
Hank says, “Maybe actually seeing him dead will make the difference for her. Maybe that is what she needs.”
“Yes,” she agrees. This is a good idea and she tries to smile at her husband. That may be exactly what she needs. “I need to see it.”
Officer Thomas enters while she is talking and adds “Gotta admit ain’t nothin’ prettier than a dead Burne boy.” Crane rolls his eyes at the indecorous comment. Thomas couldn’t care less.
He holds a large envelope full of 8 x 10 photographs of the scene.
Crane turns to Alison and speaks gently, “Mrs. Kraft, just a warning: it’s pretty gruesome.”
She looks at him plainly, “I hope so.”
Thomas smiles to himself. He likes her. He can’t help it. There is something so bluntly honest about her. She’s no Pollyanna, like her husband, or political pencil pusher like Crane. She gets it. She’s tough. She’s smart. She just needs to see it. He absolutely understands that. He needed to see it for himself, too. People who have no connection with Ben Burne just can’t appreciate how sticky pure evil is - it’s real hard to get it off of you. Thomas narrates as he flips through the pictures one at a time. “This is a picture of Burne entering the cabin.” Alison lays her eyes on the figure walking up the brick stoop toward the front door of a small log cabin. It is a densely wooded area similar to the fishing camp. Woods will never be pretty to her. She will not be one of the tourists running to watch the colors change in the fall. It crosses her mind just then that perhaps they should move somewhere there are no woods at all. Perhaps a total change of environment is what they need. What about California for the ocean or New Mexico for the desert? Studying the photo, Ben’s body is purposely turned toward the shade. He is conscious of being watched, she can tell that by his body language. She can also see quite clearly that it is Ben. It is definitely him and in Canada. Thomas lays down another photo. “This is the cabin minutes later at the explosion. And here’s one seconds after the explosion.”
Okay, Alison thinks. I see it. Destruction.
Thomas continues, “And inside. This was the living room. And there,” Thomas’ voice has fallen to a quiet tone. He and Alison share these images as though they are alone. They concentrate. Thomas continues, “See, on the floor by the window, that’s him.” Hank leans over, looks, and quickly turns his eyes away from the gooey charred skeleton with the hanging eyeball. Alison reaches for the picture. She holds it in her hands. She brings is close to her face and she studies the details. They all wait for her sigh of relief because that man is dead, dead before her very eyes.
She asks, “Did you match dental records?”
“Aren’t any,” Crane answers.
“How do you know this is him?”
Detective Crane explains patiently, “We had a stake out. We have all these photographs of him entering the cabin. Then the shootout, the explosion and fire directly after.”
She studies the picture again. “But this could be anyone.”
All three men look at her.
“Mrs. Kraft, we are confident, the Canadian police are confident, the FBI, and the ATF are confident that it is Benjamin Burne.”
She looks him straight in the eye. “But there’s no proof.”
Hank starts to boil, “That’s him. Walking in. Right there in the picture. Can’t you see that?”
“Yes. I see a body there but how do we know who that is?” She points to the gelatinous glop of bones and burnt skin and blackened eyeballs.
“Alison, they are telling you they saw him inside!” The stress between them spills out into the room.
She points to the first picture. “But look. Look there, at how he’s walking. He knows they’re watching him.”
“So that doesn’t change this!” Hank points to the dead mess of a man.
She looks at Crane, “How about DNA testing?”
“The lab has a huge backlog and since there is no pressing issue here as we are all confident of the identity, the test has been shelved.”
Alison asks, “Please, do the testing. If it costs money, I’ll pay it. Whatever it takes.”
Crane shuffles his feet a little, “Let me see what I can do.”
“How long does the DNA take to do?” Hank asks.
“Once you start, five to seven days.”
Unconsciously, her foot shimmies back-and-forth vigorously, “That’s too long.”
Hank speaks over her “That would be fine.”
Crane equivocates, “Frankly, resources are tight and I can’t guarantee...”
Thomas blurts, “Hey, I think Mrs. Kraft here did society a pretty big favor and she should be able to jump the line.” She looks at Thomas and almost smiles. He may be the only person who understands her. Thomas trails off annoyed, “I mean seriously here. She wasted three of the four Burne boys.”
“But we have ongoing court cases that require evidence and…” Crane looks at her. He looks at Thomas who throws his palms out in a disbelieving gesture. Crane says, “I’ll see what I can manage.”
Hank and Alison exit the station and walk over to their car. It did not work out the way Hank had planned. He feels like he has only created more doubt for her. Or maybe she is creating her own doubt for some reason. Maybe some part of her wants him to be alive because it lessens her responsibility for wiping out an entire family. Or maybe it all just happened so quickly, the trip, the chaos, and the death, that she needs this time to slow it all down so she can get a grip on it. Or maybe she’s not going to get a grip on it. He opens the door for her. He began doing this on their first date and it is a little ritual that they both like, but today it just feels perfunctory. She slides into the passenger seat. He walks around, gets in, slams his door and starts the engine. She felt more at ease inside that police station than anywhere else so far. Maybe she should ask if she could spend the night in jail to get a good sleep, but no, because that would leave Hank and Jimmy at home and at risk. Maybe Hank would agree for all three of them to sleep a night or two in the jail. She could ask him. Jimmy might think it’s cool. Maybe…
Hank blows, “So what is it you want exactly?”
“Excuse me?”
“Finally, the best news, and you can’t even accept it!”
“Not sure I believe it.”
“Because you’re more experienced and smarter than the FBI, ATF, and the police force of two countries?”
“I’m not saying that.”
“You’re putting your feelings ahead of all their skill and knowledge.”
“When he looked at me in the woods and we both knew I’d killed his family and there was my family still okay, this, oh I don’t know, there was this thread, or electrical charge, or something that went between us - like a pact. I know it doesn’t appear to make any sense. And I know I’m hurting people around me but the alternative is worse.”
Hank confronts her derisively, “So let’s review: you know it doesn’t make any sense, you think you have some kind of deadly pact with a dead mass murderer, and you are aware you’re hurting us all.”
“I think I would feel it if he were dead.”
His words drip with sarcasm, “You’d feel it, so to the above list add you’re also psychic now? So what you need his blood on your hands to be sure?”
“What I need is to be sure.”
“The police say it’s him!”
“I just don’t see how they can be sure.”
“Why won’t you let us get back to our lives?”
“I want to.”
“I wonder.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You weren’t the only one on that island, Alison. Your son was there. Remember him? He saw Hobbs and Mike and Bruce shot dead. They had a loaded gun to Jimmy’s head! But he’s getting better. Working through it, reaching for it. I was there, too. I was there terrified and useless. Do you know what useless feels like?”
“Yes, I know.” Her voice has dropped to a whisper.
“No, you don’t. You’re the hero in this.”
“Is that what you think?”
“You killed the bad guys.”
“So this is about your ego.”
“No!” He slams his fists on the steering wheel. “It’s not. It’s not that.”
And it really isn’t that. Hank looks out the driver’s window. They are both in so much pain. When he speaks again his voice is breathy and lost.
He says, barely audibly, “It should have been me. I just wish it had been me.”
Choking back tears, “So do I.”
His expression is twisted with hurt when he turns his whole body toward her in the front seat of their car. The plea comes from the deepest part of his heart and she can feel it all the way through to her bones. “Alison, you have to let it go. He’s dead. We have our lives, our little family. We value them more than we ever could have now. Please, pull yourself back from the edge before we’re destroyed. Please.” He has reached her because beyond all of the paranoia she loves him, still loves him, wishes she could feel that love again, but she has been unable to feel anything. She gets outside of it all and considers what he is saying. He is right. Even if she doesn’t think he is right, maybe he is, and maybe she needs to try harder and it will all become all right if she pretends, maybe that is her way home.
“I love you, Hank.”
He takes her hands in his, reaches with all of his strength into her soul and pleads, “Come back to us, Alison.”
“I will.” And she did not know if she could.
They were dainty with each other for the remainder of the day: she turned on his music when they got home and he noticed. He checked the locks on the windows and on the basement door and she noticed. An air of practiced civility smoothed out their conversation at dinner and Jimmy thought they were acting weird. It felt a bit like their first married fight long ago, after which they stepped politely around each other for a solid day exchanging an excessive number of “please’s” and “thank you’s.” That first fight is disturbing because it shatters the new love spell and requires newlyweds to look plainly at one another, realize that bliss is work, and that love is not what they deserve but what they achieve. Hank learned then that love required constant maintenance and sometimes that comes in the regularity of cozy gestures. As the evening ends, Alison wrestles with her anxiety, and standing in front of the vanity in her bathroom she gulps down two sleeping pills while she thinks, really, if I let this destroy my marriage what am I saving? I’m over the edge. It would be dishonest to pretend I didn’t know that. She walks out of the bathroom and over to Hank who is hanging up his pants in the closet.
She says, “I know that my daydreams are vivid in a strange way.” He can see she has a mind full of things to say and he waits. She continues, “It’s like when I was a little girl and I had night terrors. It was right after mom died and went on for a year and I acted on them. I was reacting to things only real inside my mind. I would get out of bed while living inside the nightmare. One time I even left the house. My dad heard the front door open in the middle of the night and he ran after me. I was asleep and crying and walking around in the front yard barefoot. Maybe this is like that - the daytime equivalent of that - day-mares. Maybe I’m having day-terrors. Maybe that explains why it seems so real to me. He… (she finds she cannot say his name) he wasn’t in the school stairwell.”
“No.”
“It’s impossible.”
“Impossible.”
“He is dead in Canada.”
“Yes. He is dead in Canada.”
“Right.” She leans in and kisses him. “I’m going to sleep now.”
“That would be good.”
She spins around and walks with determination to the feather arms of her bed. She slips in under the sheets. She sinks into the mattress, which feels spongy and cool and glorious, and as the clenched fist that is every muscle in her entire body releases, she makes a tiny sound: half-sigh, half-cry, barely audible, and the most satisfying sound Hank has ever heard.
When Hank wakes, he is lying on his side and she is cuddled into the curve of his body fast asleep, skin to skin, a rush of joy and relief literally shakes him. He lies there feeling her hair soft under his chin and the subtle rise and fall of her breathing against his chest. He waits until the very last possible second before rolling over and switching off the alarm. He sneaks out of bed without disturbing her.
After he made breakfast for Jimmy, they grabbed their coats just as she came down the stairs in her bathrobe and fluffy slippers. She slept so hard that when she wakes the entire side of her face is imprinted with lines from the sheets. It was hard to get out of bed. The sleeping pills made her feel groggy.
“Hey!” She stopped them at the front door. “How are my men?”
Her smile is radiant. Hank walks over and kisses her on the mouth.
“Okay that’s gross,” Jimmy said, “really, I just ate.”
She smiles with light sarcasm, “Really, darling, he just ate.”
Hank takes her chin in his hand, her hair is clumpy and her eyes are raccoon-like with her smudged mascara, but she has never looked more beautiful to him. It all feels good. She will manhandle her thoughts. She will take back control. She will cut off all malevolent meandering, dig out a specific trail for her imagination and she will not deviate.
“Remember,” Hank tells her lovingly, “today is only about relaxing: take a bath, read a book, nap. All good stuff, yeah?”
“Definitely my plan.”
“Tomorrow back to work.”
“Deal.”
“See you later,”
“Bye Mom.”
She kisses Jimmy on the head. As they close the front door, she feels blissfully normal. Part of it she can attribute to a full night’s sleep and honestly she could go right back to bed and probably sleep for a month but, she is hungry, actually really hungry. She spins around light in her fluffy slippers and goes to the kitchen. I can do this. I can let go and do this.
Alison opens the refrigerator to get the milk for her coffee and sees two leftover casseroles. It gives her a pang the way casseroles always do. Enough, she tells herself, no more of these. She removes them from the refrigerator and puts them in the sink. She opens the cabinet and takes out her favorite cereal bowl. Isn’t it funny, she thinks, that people have favorite bowls and cups. Her dad had a cup she had made for him at a ceramic workshop. She went there for a birthday party when she was eight years old and made this ridiculous coffee cup. He used it every morning, insisted on it. I know I saved that cup, she thinks.… Why is the basement door unlocked? She stops and stares. I saw Hank lock it last night. He never goes into the basement, neither does Jimmy. No. Stop. Do not go there. Think about dinner! She will cook dinner tonight. Yes. She will make Jimmy’s favorite meal of spaghetti with butter and — a noise from the basement — with spaghetti with butter and cheese and a noise from the basement...la la la la la la…cooking really is the perfect synergy of creativity and utilitarianism. I have always liked to… another noise…always cooking liked…footsteps coming up. Damn it! She is not imagining it. Her expression darkens. Her heart pounds. The air in the room turns sour. He is in her house. She slides open the drawer in the butcher’s block and removes the carving knife. She darts to the side of the basement door. He’s so much bigger than I am. She breathes in rapid short gulps. Oh, god, oh, god; can I do this? The basement door opens slowly. This is it. End it. End it now. Her hand closes tightly around the knife in her fist. She raises the thick meat cleaver above her head. Don’t hold back - every ounce. The door gently pushes open. She leaps out! Now! Polly screams in terror! She throws the laundry basket she is holding at Alison. Polly runs out of the room. Disoriented, Alison freezes. She lowers the cleaver. Wait. What? Polly. It was Polly. Alison hears the front door slam as Polly runs for her life. Alison shuffles over to the kitchen chair and sits confused. She reworks what just happened in her mind. “Oh, shit.” But wait. I’m not imagining things. Someone really was down there. What I heard was real. “It was real…it was…Polly, but real.” Alison runs her left hand through her hair. I’m not hearing and seeing things. It is real. It is all real! I knew it was real and it is. She rubs her eyes and rests her elbows on her knees. Laundered underpants and socks are spewed all over the kitchen floor. Her eyes drop to the carving knife in her right hand. She considers it. She picks it up and turns it around in her hand. “But this is bullshit. This won’t do.” She tosses the knife on the tabletop, proceeds out of the kitchen and up the stairs to get dressed.
* * *
The room rocks at Pump Up The Volume. Hank sits in the front of the store and enjoys the harmony of Nickelback as he constructs a playlist on his computer for the weekend events. He was so excited when he got to work this morning because he could tell the guys that Alison was on the road to health, that he felt the shift last night, that he woke up with her in his arms again. The glass in the storefront window vibrates discernibly and Hank bops his body in rhythm with the music. This vibration that comes from the beat is what contentment feels like to him. It is what he feels in every cell of his body when the music is raging. The walls of the store are covered with framed posters from every era and genre of music: Joni Mitchell is next to Jethro Tull is next to Jay Z is next to Garth Brooks. Hank is pounding away at the computer keys, immersed in the music, and reveling in his thoughts. I haven’t felt this good since before. Maybe I’ve never felt this good. What if everything in life is felt only in proportion to its opposite? What if I’ve only been living on the surface and skimming emotions? What if since I’d never known fear and blood and anguish, I couldn’t access this kind of relief or joy? What if this is actually the best I’ve ever felt in my life because I never appreciated things the way I do now. Maybe that’s the positive that I can take away from all of this shit he tells himself. Maybe you can learn something from a trip to hell if you survive with your world intact. I didn’t feel how great my life was every day like I should have. I complained about piddlely little shit. He hits a few quick strokes on his iPod and Louis Armstrong’s voice crackles into the room singing “What a Wonderful World.” He smiles at the craggily voice, the sound of a life well lived. Hank sits back on the chair and lets his eyes survey the room. I will never take my life for granted again. I promise that to myself. I will never take a normal day for granted again. In fact, I vow to remember that every single ordinary day is a gift. He remembers the softness on Alison’s face when he left that morning, and he sees Jimmy’s wave as he slammed the car door and raced off to school. He feels so deeply grateful that he looks around quickly, embarrassed that the emotion is so obvious on his face, but the store is empty and Newt and Scottie are in the back stacking equipment.
Scott yells to Hank from the back storage room, “Are you working on the Silverstein bar mitzvah?”
“Haroldson wedding.”
“Okay, so, the Silversteins have requests, forty of them.”
“Why didn’t they just make their own playlist?’
“Don’t know how to work an iPod.”
“Oh,” Hank smiles and glances up to see Polly at the front door to the store. She stands ashen and wobbly looking in through the glass. Hank leaps out of his chair and rushes over opening the door and taking her by the arm. His jaw drops as he feels her trembling. He guides her in and flips off the music. The look on her face scares him.
“Polly? What?”
“She tried to stab me!”
Hank grabs her hands. “What do you mean?”
Scott and Newt come in from the back.
“Tell me what happened.”
“She almost killed me.”
“She couldn’t!”
“If I hadn’t had the laundry basket in front of me I’d be bleeding on your kitchen floor.”
Trying to convince her, not wanting to believe what she is telling him Hank insists, “She was better this morning. Good. She was good!”
“I wanted to tell you in person. I’m not going back.”
“This week?”
She pulls away her hand. “At all. I’m not going back at all, Hank.”
“Polly, please, we need you. I need you. Just a little longer. She’s so much better. When we left this morning she was so normal, really completely -”
“Look, Hank. I’m very fond of you, well, of all of you, but she needs serious help and I’m not going back. I’m sorry.” She steps toward the door. She turns, “And Hank, I’d keep her away from Jimmy if I were you.” The seriousness in her tone is like ice on his neck. “Please keep her away from Jimmy.” She leaves and closes the door. Hank whirls around as the accumulation of frustrated fury explodes. He grabs the printer from the desk and hurls it across the room and into the wall where it shatters.
“Holy shit!” Newt says.
“Hank?” Scottie grabs his shoulders before he picks up something else. “Buddy, chill.”
Hank stands shaking with rage. “I want my life back.” Scott indicates for Newt to lock the front door and he does.
“Buddy, buddy, calm down.” Scott encourages him, “You know she’s better. You said so.”
Newt adds, “That’s right. Today when you came in.”
“She pulled a knife on our housekeeper.”
Newt says, “Maybe it was like a butter knife.”
“Really, Newt?” Scott glares at him.
“But it matters, like maybe it wasn’t a real knife, but just a kind of knife that couldn’t really do any harm, that would matter, right? Like maybe she was actually buttering something, and she got startled and spun around, and it was a butter knife and Polly overreacted.”
Scott tries to shut up Newt. “I do not think the kind of knife matters, Newt.”
Hank looks up at them, “What am I supposed to do?”
“Man,” Newt says sympathetically. “I cannot imagine”
“How do I make her better?”
“You will,” Scott’s voice doesn’t sound as sure as Hank would like.
“And what if Polly’s right? What about Jimmy?”
Scottie rests his hand on Hank’s shoulder, “She just needs more time, that’s all. I mean, come on, Hank, the woman is so delicate she gets faint passing the meat case at the supermarket. Then she kills three men…cut her some slack.”
“Didn’t the therapist want to put her on some kind of meds? Maybe that would help,” Newt says. “Meds always help me.”
“She refuses to take anything because she needs to stay alert. The therapist said she was paranoid. Alison says no one who wasn’t there can understand and that’s true. All I want in the world is to put it behind us and take our lives back and she just keeps bringing it up, reliving it, looking for boogey men, keeping it all alive.”
Newt says, “Go home, man.”
“Really, Hank, we’ve got you covered here,” Scottie assures him. “Go on home.”
Hank thinks about it and then admits to his friends the sad truth, “It’s not good to show up unexpectedly.” And Hank faces what he has known: Alison is dangerous, dangerous to him, to Jimmy, to herself. He has to make the right choice here. He needs to think it calmly through and do the right thing for everyone. This must be the moment Doctor Cartwell was preparing him for. Yes, this is it. He must think very clearly, very carefully.
* * *