For the tenth time that week, I wished Gloria was around. So I called her at home.
“Hi, this is Peter,” I said, knowing it wasn't Gloria who answered the phone. “Rachel?”
“Hey, Peter. Calling to check up on the patient?”
“Patient. Not exactly a word I'd associate with Gloria. How is she?”
“She's a royal pain in the butt. She's supposed to be resting and instead she's up and down like a jumping bean.”
“Yeah, well, she's so used to taking care of everyone else.”
“Absolutely. Doesn't know how to be taken care of herself. Tell her she doesn't have to rush back.” There was a pause. “Will you get back in bed?” she shouted. “All right, all right. I'll bring you the phone already.”
“How are you feeling?” I asked when Gloria got on.
“Ducky. Just ducky. I'd be a whole lot better if I didn't have to stay cooped up here.”
“You know they're just being cautious. Concussions take time.”
“Doctors, what do they know? I hate being sick!”
“You got the flowers we sent?” I asked.
“Yeah, very funny.”
“What funny?”
“They arrived in a hard hat.”
“Appropriate, don't you think. That was Kwan's idea. And how is the â head?”
“The
hard
head, as you were about to say, is just fine. It only hurts when the roses make me sneeze.”
“You're welcome. We miss you.”
Gloria laughed. “Ouch! Don't make me laugh.”
“Maria Whitson's been asking about you. She still thinks your fall was her fault.”
“She wasn't anywhere near me. I ran into the room. Then I slipped. I must have caught the corner of the bed going down. It was an accident.”
There it was again â the “a” word. In the last few weeks, in fact ever since I'd gotten myself mixed up with the Jackson case, that word seemed to crop up every other day. But how could this accident be connected to the others?
“She met with her parents today,” I said.
“I know. I really wanted to be there. How'd it go?”
“I talked with them at some length. Then they saw Maria.”
“What are they like?”
“Bottom line? Concerned parents. Screwed up, of course.”
“Who isn't?”
“Absolutely. Of course they're confused and angry. But they seem to care deeply about their daughter.”
“Wish I'd been there,” Gloria said. “Did she feel safe?”
“Yes, I think she did. So much so that when her mother offered to stay, Maria agreed. Her mother had a photograph album.”
Gloria was quiet for a moment before asking, “You think Baldridge planted these memories of abuse, don't you?”
“I'm not so sure Dr. Baldridge is as open to other possible explanations as he should be. Today, Maria remembered an entirely new scenario. Says she walked in on her uncle having sex with his girlfriend. And this memory was triggered by a photograph she says was taken on the same day her uncle raped her.”
“So why is this memory any more real than the other one?”
“Good question. Maybe a memory of abuse is less terrible for
her than the real memory it's screening, a memory she can't deal with. Seeing her uncle having sex with his girlfriend doesn't seem like such a big deal to an adult. But for a five-year-old, it must have been devastating. She adored her uncle. And even though it was inadvertent, he violated her trust. She didn't understand what was happening, but she knew it was naughty and very exciting. It was even more confusing to her because she couldn't stop watching. On one level, she blamed herself. On another level, she blamed her uncle and her parents. And it forever changed their relationship. Her parents didn't realize how much it troubled her, so she never got it out in the open.”
“Oh God. Now what? If she's convinced that her uncle didn't abuse her, and she accused him, told everyone what he'd done, with him dead ⦠You've got her on suicide watch?”
“Of course.”
“Good.”
“Gloria, please get well and get back in here.”
“I'm working on it.”
I SLEPT badly the night before I was scheduled to testify. I got to bed early enough but I kept waking up. First, I dreamed that I arrived at the courthouse in pajamas, the navy and green plaid ones I wore when I was a kid. Then I dreamed that I was testifying and Kate was cross-examining me. My mother was sitting in the jury box weeping while I tried to explain, “I was in the kitchen. I didn't know what was happening ⦔
“Why didn't you know? Why didn't you do something to save me?” Kate asked me.
“I didn't realize ⦠I didn't hear ⦠I didn't know ⦠.”
Back and forth we went. Then Kate reached into her pocket and took out a ringing cell phone. She talked into it, flipped it closed, and started all over. “Why didn't you get home earlier? Why didn't you come upstairs?”
Again I tried to answer and again, Kate reached into her pocket for the ringing phone.
She looked at me sadly. “It's about ego, isn't it. Your ego. Even now, you still can't stop yourself.”
“Objection, Your Honor,” Chip called from the courtroom door.
I turned to the judge and found myself staring up into the calm, smiling baby face of Ralston Bridges. “Objection overruled,” he sneered.
I woke up with a jolt, drenched in sweat. I got out of bed, threw open the window, and stood there shivering, looking out on the deserted street. It was four in the morning. Another couple of hours and I'd have to get dressed. Why
was
I doing this again? Was it ego? And why hadn't I known Kate was in danger?
I'd gone through it in my head hundreds of times. How could I have stood in my kitchen, boiling hot water for tea, unaware that Bridges was already in my house? How could I have been oblivious to him creeping around in my bedroom, then upstairs into Kate's studio? Why didn't I go up to see her when I got home? Why didn't I sense something was wrong? I was there. I could have saved her. Or would both of us be dead? Maybe that would have been preferable to the reality of the past two years.
He never admitted to killing her. Insisted, all the way through the trial and sentencing, that I'd been the one. A suspicious, jealous husband, I'd come home to check up on my wife and found her with him.
He was right about one thing. It was very unusual for me to be home in the middle of the day. But the explanation was simple. I'd spent the morning in Boston, and on my way to the Pearce, stopped at home to surprise Kate with a quick lunch. It was dumb luck that at the same moment, Ralston Bridges had decided to end his stakeout and act. The police theorized that he'd spent days watching us, learning our habits. He knew Kate would be in her studio and he expected me to be at work.
I heard the scuffle, Kate's scream, then a thud. I raced upstairs, but by then it was already too late. He was shirtless, his pants halfway down. Kate was on the floor in a pool of blood.
I reached out blindly and grabbed a metal rod from Kate's workbench and swung. I could still feel the sound as the rod cracked against his skull. He went down and lay on his back, whimpering, holding his arms over his face. I went to Kate and
held her. She was already gone. There was so much blood. Her throat was slit.
I heard Bridges dragging himself along the floor. He was reaching for the knife. I kicked away his hand and must have kept on kicking â the next thing I remember is “Peter! Stop!” my mother's scream penetrating the rage. She stood in the open doorway, her hands over her mouth. For the first time I realized I was covered in blood. Kate's blood. Bridges's blood. In a few more moments. I'd have killed him.
“Kate?” my mother whispered.
I could only shake my head. She walked over to the body and picked up Kate's hand and pressed it to her lips.
I turned numb. I went down to my bedroom and called the police. Then I leaned against a wall and closed my eyes. I listened to the sound of emptiness, punctuated only by the sound of my own labored breathing and the muffled sound of the teapot screaming from the kitchen.
It was while we were waiting for the police to arrive that I realized Bridges was wearing my clothes. My pants, my shirt, even a pair of my gloves lay discarded in a corner. The knife was from a drawer in our kitchen. He was going to kill my wife and leave behind evidence that I'd done it.
It had happened so fast. One moment I had everything I could have wanted and I didn't know it. The next, it was ripped from me. The loss was like a great, empty hole that I tried to pretend wasn't there. I'd never even had a chance to say goodbye.
Now I ran a shower, as hot as I could stand. I stood under the pulsing water, my eyes closed, trying to clear my head. I shaved. Later, I went to my closet to get out a suit. I still had a few of Kate's things hanging in the back â the smock she wore when she worked, her bathrobe. I reached for the robe and buried my face in it. It still had her smell.
Then I took out clothes for the day, clothes I hadn't worn since the last time I'd testified as an expert witness. I lined up
the pieces on my bed. I put on a freshly laundered shirt, feeling its stiff starchiness scratch my skin. I buttoned the sleeves. I pulled on the gray suit pants. They were looser than I'd remembered. I threaded and fastened a black leather belt. Carefully, I adjusted and knotted a dark red silk tie. The vest buttoned easily across my middle. I shrugged on the jacket.
My reflection in the mirror stared calmly back at me. Satisfied, I went downstairs and checked through my briefcase to be sure I had everything I'd need. As I prepared to leave, there was a shave-and-a-haircut rap at my door. I opened the door.
My mother beamed at me, but I knew she was forcing it. “How handsome you look! I just came over to say good luck.” I hadn't talked to my mother about the trial, but I knew she'd be anxious about it, glad it was nearly over. “You have a big day ahead of you. You should eat. Here!” She thrust a little bag into my hand.
The bag was warm. I peaked inside. She'd actually driven to Chinatown to get my favorite pork buns, something I know she cannot tolerate even the smell of.
“Oh, Mom,” I said, and gave her a hug and a peck on the cheek. Then I stopped, stepped back, and pulled my mother inside into the light. Her eyes were bloodshot and there were dark circles underneath. “Are you all right?”
“What do you mean, am I all right? Of course I'm all right. Why shouldn't I be all right?”
“You look like I feel. Exhausted.”
“I'm an old lady. This is how old ladies look.”
“Give me a little credit at least. This is not how
this
old lady looks. What's going on?”
She looked at her feet, then at me, tilting her head to one side like some white tufted woodpecker deciding whether to attack an ant. “I didn't want you to worry.”
“If you don't tell me what's wrong, I'll really worry.”
“I've been having trouble sleeping,” she said.
“What kind of trouble?”
“My phone's been ringing at all hours. I pick it up and there's no one there. I don't pick it up and it rings and rings.”
“The other night â when I got beeped. Your phone was keeping you up that night, too?”
My mother pursed her lips and peered up at me. “You thought I was up in the middle of the night for my health?”
That explained the telephones in my nightmares. My bedroom shares a wall with my mother's bedroom.
“Why didn't you say something?”
“I didn't want you to” â we finished the sentence in unison â “worry.”
“If you had an answering machine, you could set it to pick up your calls.”
“Don't be ridiculous.” It was ridiculous. My mother had a terrible time with everything electronic â the VCR being a major exception to the rule.
“You should unplug the phone,” I said.
“What if someone's trying to reach me?”
“Who could be trying to reach you in the middle of the night?”
“Your brother. Uncle Milt.”
“Anyone like that who's trying to reach you will have my number. Anyone else, you don't want to talk to at three in the morning anyway.”
My mother gave a little shiver. “So, Dr. Smartypants,” she said, pulling her sweater around her shoulders, “go in that courtroom and knock 'em dead. And don't forget to eat something.” Then she scuttled out.
A little while later, Kwan pulled up in his Saab and beeped the horn. On the way to the Pearce, he said, “I don't know what it is, but you've got something edible on you.”
“Can you believe it, my mother went into Chinatown and picked up some pork buns. She wanted to be sure I ate well before I had to testify.”
“So are we going to eat them or just talk about them?”
I opened the bag and handed Kwan one of the little round pastries stuck to a square of wax paper. He sniffed at it, took a bite, and sighed. “Any time you have these, I'll be happy to drive you. When do you think you'll get your car back?”
“Sometime in the middle of next week, or so they say.”
“How is your mother these days, anyway?”
“Fine. Usually. Actually, this morning she looked like death warmed over.”
Kwan gave me a sidelong look. “Actually, you don't look so great yourself.”
I ignored it. “What kind of person gets his kicks making voiceless phone calls to an old woman in the middle of the night?”
“Probably just kids with nothing better to do. She should take her phone off the hook.”
“That's what I told her. But she's a person who anticipates disaster around every corner. She might miss one if she didn't get her after-midnight calls. As if she could do anything if she got bad news in the middle of the night instead of in the morning.”
“It's not rational, but when life feels out of control, disconnecting the phone can make you feel even more adrift.”
It was true enough. And bad news did tend to come at odd times. My father had died an hour before dawn. It was a fact that haunted my mother. Not that he died. But that he died alone.
Then something occurred to me. After my father's death, my mother couldn't stand seeing his name riding in, over and over again, on the incoming mail. It was one more reminder in days filled with reminders of her loss. She made a big deal about changing all their subscriptions, charge cards, and accounts to her own name. That's when she changed their phone listing to P. Zak. My phone number is unlisted, so, occasionally, someone trying to find me ends up calling my mother. It seemed a whole lot more likely that the late-night caller was trying to disrupt my sleep, not my mother's. And on the night before I was scheduled to testify in a murder trial.