Charlotte sighed heavily. Thank you! Oh … thank you thank you.
“But, Charlotte, you have to know one thing. I’m not going to tell Jenny that she’s wrong. I don’t know that for sure. I mean, I certainly respect your opinion. But it would be unethical for me to discount her memory entirely without absolutely knowing. What I will try to do, is see if I can help her find the misconnection—in other words, track this voice memory back to a place that isn’t the rape. I doubt she’ll place it anywhere, because of the circumstances. This is very problematic, indeed. And I’m walking a fine line. I have to maintain the integrity of the treatment.”
As long as you get her to realize this voice memory she has is not from the rape. Remind her how many times she’s met Bob and heard his commercials. Maybe she heard it in the car driving to the party? Who knows? Something. Anything! I can’t have Bob accused of rape! And I can’t tell my husband what I’ve been doing. I just can’t. Not with everything going on. He’ll break. Or he’ll leave me. And I’ll be the one who did it.
What a horrible dilemma for Charlotte. She had been making such progress on this front. We had started discussing her dissatisfaction with Bob, and she had been toying with the idea of ending things with him. I had not yet introduced the rest of my plan for her—to tell Tom about her childhood, to integrate the two Charlottes. To eradicate bad Charlotte once and for all. I knew Tom could handle the truth. In fact, knocking Charlotte off her pedestal, seeing her as the beautiful but flawed woman she really was, would give him back a piece of his manhood. There was so much work to be done. And now this terrible interruption.
Charlotte left. I considered the fire that had indeed started to burn from my little match. Sean had told Jenny about Bob being a suspect. Jenny had obsessed about Bob and immersed herself in his image and his voice until she created a false memory. Just like those subjects in the shopping mall experiment who had never really been lost. I felt like a character in a novel, the brilliant but evil professor. Dr. Frankenstein. I felt slightly pleased with myself. I had succeeded in creating a straw man to deflect the attention from my son. I could imagine it all playing out, and I drifted away in a fantasy: Bob would never be charged, but his notoriety, the race for the state legislature—all of it would lead to a media feeding frenzy. And when he was vindicated, there would be hell to pay. Lawsuits would be filed. Parsons would be reprimanded. The investigation would come to a screeching halt. No more questioning of innocent boys. No more “witch” hunts for blue sweatshirts.
When I was done with this disgusting self-indulgence, I lied to myself about what this would mean for Jenny and for Sean and for my work with them. I told myself that they would continue on with the treatment. I turned my fantasy to miraculous moments in my office. Sean jumping up from the sofa, screaming out into the universe, I remember! I know what happened at the red door! Then going home to his wife and his son and living in peace. And for Jenny, I could barely let myself think it. It was like dreaming that I’d cured cancer or brokered world peace. It was too much to allow into my fantasy. I let it come as a flash, and nothing more. I did not dwell in the elation of giving her back that night, that worst nightmare.
I keep returning to the same thought as I reflected on that week. The child with the matches, thinking he was old enough to handle it. I lit the match and let it fly. My fire had started. I could not possibly have predicted the strong wind that would blow in, giving it life, and a power I would not be able to contain.
Chapter Twenty-five
When I saw Jenny later that day, I kept my promise to Charlotte. I did not need to be the advocate anymore. I needed to do what I would have done had I been a disinterested party.
Jenny knew her mother had told me about her memory. About Bob Sullivan. I asked her point-blank how this idea got into her head in the first place.
I don’t want to tell you.
I respected her honesty. And I was grateful for it. What would I have said if she had told me the truth? That Sean had told her what he’d heard in my office? I had only two options to explain why I was discussing Bob Sullivan with Detective Parsons. One was to let Sullivan off the hook. Sean misunderstood.… Sean heard incorrectly.… The second was to offer an explanation as to why I suspected him, which did not exist. Jenny spared me with her refusal to come clean.
“Okay. I won’t make you tell me.”