“Well,” I said dismissively, “people say that all the time, don’t they? Just this morning, I yelled at my dog and said something like that. ‘I’m going to kill that dog!’ Right? People say it, but they don’t really mean it. It’s an expression.”
No. You don’t understand. He said that he pictures Mr. Sullivan like one of the terrorists he was sent in to kill. He says he feels that way about him, like he has to die for what he’s done and so he doesn’t do it again. And then he said … he said he pictures Mr. Sullivan holding that stick and carving my skin with it. He just, like, sits there and lets himself imagine it, like an obsession. He said he has a gun. Said he knows how to fire it with his left arm. Like he’s been practicing.
“Really? When did he get this gun?”
I don’t know. He just said he would kill Bob Sullivan if he wasn’t brought to justice. He said he had a gun now and he would just do it. I told him I would rather die myself than see him get in trouble like that. And he just … he just held me really tight and …
Jenny was crying again. Oh, my twisted emotions! Crying was what she needed to do. She needed to keep feeling anything and everything. Can you see how this works? The feelings had found one memory and attached to it. Now we could use them to lead us to the others; we could follow them back to where that memory was hiding and see what else was hiding there. It was just a theory. But I believed in it.
And yet, the agony for my poor soldier! The fact that this was weighing so heavily upon him broke my heart. He was identifying these facts with what had happened the night he lost his arm. The terrorist behind the red door, needing to be brought to justice. To be killed. I was suddenly anxious to get him in for a session.
And then there were other concerns.
“Jenny,” I said in a steady voice, “when you say he held you, what do you mean?”
He just holds me sometimes. It’s not like anything bad. He says I’m like his sister, but also like one of his soldiers, you know, the ones who are under him. The rookies. He says he will die protecting me. Fighting for me.
“I see. That’s a relief, actually. I was afraid that your friendship might become something else, and that would not be good for either of you.”
But I still love him. He’s the only thing I look forward to now.
“Well, we are going to change that.” I leaned forward and took hold of her hands in mine. “We are going to finish what we started. You will remember everything from that night. We will put all the ghosts back to bed, and then you will get on with your life. Do you hear me?”
Jenny looked at me, a little surprised. I had never touched her before, or spoken to her with any emotion. I had not lost control. Rather, I was giving her a small dose of what she got from Sean.
“Do you hear me?”
Yes.
“Do you believe me?”
I don’t know. I’m scared to hope for that. I’m scared to find it. I feel like I’m poison, and if I can just keep myself away from people, I won’t hurt anyone.
“No, Jenny,” I said. “You are not the poison. You are the cure.”
Chapter Thirty
I would not see Sean again before this story ends. I had not realized this at the time. Too many spinning plates. Too many puppets to manage.
Detective Parsons reluctantly pursuing the lead on Bob Sullivan. Bob lying about his alibi to Parsons and Charlotte. Charlotte beginning to think he was guilty. Bob’s wife covering for him. The lawyer protecting him. Jenny and I resuming our work to keep her from slipping away from us. And Sean seeing Bob carving his sweet Jenny with a stick while he viciously rapes her. That leaves Tom. And my son.
First things first. I had become very intolerant of Tom and his obsession with the blue sweatshirt. I had not come to disdain or dislike the man. Quite the contrary. I looked at him like a petulant child, my petulant child, who would not obey my instructions.
I just don’t understand why they don’t have every forensic guy looking into this picture! Tom was holding the photo of my son from a yearbook. You could not see his face.
“This is from a lacrosse game? At the school?”
Yes! The spring Jenny was raped.
“And what do you think they will be able to tell with more forensics? This is a medium-sized teenage boy, nondescript body, a Fairview High School cap. I’m sure you’ve looked at it with a magnifying glass. Every inch, right?”
Tom stared at the photo. Yes. I have. I just … Look, I can identify one of the girls standing behind him, and one of the boys next to her. If they showed this to everyone who went to that game, surely someone would remember!
“Maybe. I’m sure that’s the problem. They’re talking to all the kids at the party again. Maybe they’re afraid to have this thing start looking like a witch hunt. They don’t have to come in for questioning, you know. Under the law. Right now, it’s all voluntary. That could change if people got the wrong sense of what this has become.”