“And because you’re Sherlock Demetriou, nobody will bother you, of course.”
None of us noticed Stefan standing in the hallway arch until he said, “What fresh hell is this?” I couldn’t decide whether to acknowledge the old Dorothy Parker reference or try to block the view of the pictures. I had been away all day. So had Jep and Stefan. Suddenly I realized this meant that someone had been watching our house. How else would they know when no one would be here? I thought of the menacing hooded figure; but every time I saw him, he kept at a distance. The unquiet yet personal nature of the attack was repugnant to me: Marking out Stefan’s eyes was to make him blind—to the truth? To the future? It was a mutilation, and not just of the pictures. Our whole psychic space was polluted by the phantom presence of someone slipping through our own landscape, inspecting and handling our own things, ordinary objects rendered sacred by the breach.
Julie gave me a hug, then left quietly. Jep and I quit picking at each other, and the three of us huddled together. Then we made some tea with lots of sugar, the way they do in those BBC mystery shows. Half-heartedly, Jep suggested Jill McCormack might be behind this, and then the three of us exchanged looks. Jill hadn’t occurred to me, but Stefan said, “It’s just that, yeah, she hates me, but this seems a little bit...”
“Over the top,” I said. “Even for Jill.”
“Do you really think that Stefan’s in danger?” Jep said. He suggested then that Stefan might want to go stay with his grandparents for a while. They were just across town. He wouldn’t have to interrupt work.
But Stefan said, “I’m not going anywhere. Unless you want me out of here, which I would respect, Dad, since you’ve put up with a lot. But I feel like I have to stand my ground. It’s like, this is my home. This is my place. Do your worst.”
I would be lying if I told you that I didn’t imagine, in that moment, what the worst could turn out to be, not ever reckoning that the worst would be beyond my imagination.
Stefan said then, “This is actually good. In some weird way, I feel like it gives me a new kind of energy. This just makes me want to send a message to the world, even more. About myself. About what I’m trying to do. With The Healing Project. Do I call Channel 15 now, or what?”
I struggled to take this in. The timing could not possibly be worse, given the threats that came earlier. What I wanted was to scream at him, Don’t you dare! How stupid are you? You can’t invite any more attention!
But I fought down my revulsion. He was pushing back, as a person should do.
It was then that I remembered the card the red-haired PBS producer had handed me months ago. All this time, it was in the small wastepaper basket next to the door: It had become stubbornly lodged in one of the wicker plaits and it never seemed worth my time to pick it free. I got it out and handed it to Stefan.
“Do you trust this lady?” he said.
“I don’t even know her. She’s just another reporter. I guess I assume that public TV people have cleaner hands, which is stupid. She could just want to crucify you, like all the rest.”
“Well, I need to try,” he said and took out his phone. He looked so sad that it was as if he’d already accepted the tragic fate that was his, and I had to turn away from the sight. “Ms. Kessler? My name is Stefan Christiansen...yes, I figured you’d know... I wanted to know if you want to do an interview or something with me...sure, my mom would do it too.”
I shook my head violently, but then closed my eyes and nodded and left the room.
My face in the hall mirror was as red as if I’d hiked uphill, and I stepped out onto the porch and hauled in lungfuls of air. As my eyes adjusted to the dim falling light of late afternoon, across the street nearer the corner, leaning against a bus stop sign, was the slight figure in the hoodie and aviator sunglasses. He raised his hand and pointed at me, making the gesture of firing a pistol. A scream beat at my throat like a trapped bird. Then the bus arrived and when it pulled away, he was gone.
7
If Stefan was seeking public attention for his cause, now he would get it.
“It will be okay. It’s about something different,” Stefan explained to me, anxiety carving his young face into sharp lines. “It’s something positive.”
I didn’t want to damage his hope, but I knew the danger here.
“I do so want you to be part of this, too,” the producer Deanie Kessler said when she called me back. “I think it will help Stefan feel more confident.”
No punch pulled, no heartstring untugged.
“What could anyone want to know about me?”
“You could explain, as Stefan’s mother, what it’s like to be you.”
“There’s no sympathy for that. For the mother of the monster.”
“Don’t be so sure, Thea. How many other people do you think have stood in your shoes?”
I started to splutter out a further objection, but she went on. “How many other people are broken because they have to live with the fact that their children have done something awful? Ordinary people, who tried to live careful lives. They always tried to do the right thing. They are terrified for their kids but also furious with them for dismantling their precious dreams. Maybe people need to see that other side. Maybe they need to understand it. Maybe they need to know they’re not alone.”
If she had given me the traditional something-good-can-come-of-this rap, I could have more easily turned my back. But now I thought of Roman Villera’s mother and the grief in that brief glance. “You can tell your side. You’re not really a woman who raised a monster. And maybe some people whose stories are even worse will feel better.”
“Whose stories could be worse?”
But I knew there were worse cases. The lawyer who represented Stefan at his arraignment had a client who was all of fourteen when he killed his mother, her sister and her parents at Thanksgiving dinner: I would never forget the man telling me that Thanksgiving was apparently a favorite setting for these kinds of massacres. He was able to get the kid released into his father’s custody after just eighteen months. I remembered, also, thinking at the time, how could his father want him?
How, indeed?
“Anyway,” Deanie Kessler went on, “Of course the big focus is on The Healing Project to consider. It’s been quite the thing, right? We talked with the Hodges and Roman Villera. Mrs. Slaney was definitely not interested! But maybe this way of focusing on it, Stefan can get credit for doing something really positive. And maybe more people will volunteer for the project. Maybe it can happen in other places.”
“Do you think people who see this will really give him credit?” I said, even as I thought, do you think some crazy will kill him?
Deanie Kessler answered, “Those who will, will, and those who won’t have their own issues. Stefan’s won’t be the only story that’s featured. The series is about the issues that face people reentering the community after incarceration. We’ll focus on four individuals over the two hours, Stefan, two young women and one very successful older man.”
The series was called In Our Times. It was about people who found themselves in the middle of hot-button social topics. Previous episodes centered around hometown racism, animal activists and the crisis facing the family farm.