As Night Falls (17 page)

M
aking this call under Nick's direction entailed at least one or two ethical violations, but Sandy couldn't think about that right now. As if there were guidelines governing situations like this. Protecting your patient's confidentiality when a madman broke into your house.

The phone rang once in her ear, and Madeline picked up.

“Dr. Tremont! You're all right!”

Sandy looked up from the phone. Nick's gaze sat on her, heavy as rocks.

“Yes, Madeline,” she said. “I'm fine.”

“It's a good thing you called back,” the girl said cheerily.

Madeline had turned twenty last year, but Sandy persisted in thinking of her as a young girl. It was part of the countertransference she talked about in supervision. Something in Madeline pulled for a caretaking response from Sandy.

“Is it?” Sandy said. “Why?” Trying to be neutral, to conduct therapy when the man who had taken her family prisoner was sitting on the opposite side of the kitchen, was proving to be something of a challenge. Take that, Dr. Phil.

“Well, I was worried,” Madeline said. “You always call right back.”

Sandy opened her mouth to respond, then hesitated.

Nick took a few deliberate steps across the room, planting his boots in front of Sandy, so close that she could see him breathe.

“I know,” Sandy said, subduing her voice. “And I'm sorry that tonight I—”

Nick coughed, a warning rumble.

“I was about to come out to your house and check on you!” Madeline interrupted in that same high-pitched, oddly jolly tone.

Nick reached for the phone, but Sandy clutched it, shaking her head and shooting him an
I told you so
look. She tried to broadcast her thoughts.
Don't you hear the state she's in? If I can't talk her down, then we're getting a visitor.

Nick lowered his hand.

“Why don't you tell me what's going on tonight?” Sandy suggested, all the while thinking madly. Did Madeline know where she lived? It was possible. The house Ben built had been small-town news, and the hospital had a rumor network more efficient than a class of gossipy sixth graders. Good God, Sandy thought. Imagine if Madeline had walked into this. How much trauma could one young life hold before it burst like a balloon?

Madeline had been talking. Sandy swerved to catch up.

“And then she”—a retching sound, a cry—“she didn't want me to tuck her in tonight!”

Dottie. They were talking about Madeline's little girl.

Madeline was crying full-force now. “She said—oh, Dr. Tremont, she said she could do it herself!”

Something inside Sandy went quiet and still. Nick's hovering presence faded until Sandy was focused solely on her client, as if they were sitting in a private office somewhere, discussing Madeline's palpable pain.

“Okay,” Sandy said softly. “Yes. I understand.”

“You do?” Madeline cried. “Because I sure don't!”

“I know, Madeline, but you're a young mother,” Sandy said softly. “Remember? We've talked about this. How parenting is a series of stages, and you have about a second to get used to the one that you're in before the next is upon you.”

“This isn't a stage,” Madeline burst out. “My child hates me! She doesn't love me anymore, she doesn't even want me to—oh God, I don't think I can stand this—”

“Madeline,” Sandy interjected. “You can stop this before it spirals out of control, remember? Count inside your head. Practice your breathing.”

Over the speaker, the sound of shaky breaths, in and out.

“What did you do when Dottie asked to put herself to sleep?” Sandy asked, knowing the words would cause a resurgence of pain, but hoping that by hearing them spoken out loud, the event would become a little more normalized.

“What could I do?” Madeline demanded. “I let her.”

Sandy smiled. Despite everything, she felt a glimmer of pride for her client. “That's wonderful.”

“Yeah, right,” Madeline said. “It's just great that my baby is rejecting me.”

“Dottie isn't rejecting you,” Sandy said. “She's becoming a toddler. Taking stabs at independence. I know it feels bad to you, but as far as Dottie is concerned, she loves you even more now. Because you're showing her that you can let her do what she needs to.”

Sandy hoped her words would buoy the young woman. For all her youth and wounded-bird quality, Madeline was smart, and intuitive, and resourceful. She'd found her way to a spot on the organic farm, created a life for herself and her daughter out of nothing.

“Dr. Tremont?” An anxious rise in her voice.

“Yes, Madeline. I'm here.”

“I miss my mother.” A sob traveled across the line. “I miss her so much.”

The focused place Sandy had come to receded like a wave, sucked back into an endless ocean. Madeline's mother, whom therapy had revealed to be a skinty, disapproving woman, unable to give her daughter a sliver of praise for anything. Sandy took the phone from her ear. Nick's gaze seized hers, but he was the last person she could stand to look at right now. She turned around unsteadily, as if the even surface of the floor had begun to roll beneath her.

“Dr. Tremont?” Madeline said again.

Her voice seemed to come from far away. Time sloshed by in a fluid, unmarked rush.

Nick reached for the receiver, and Sandy reared back as if burned.

“It's terrible that your mother was killed,” she said at last, all but panting. “But there are other ways to lose your mother—” The sentence sheared off, and Sandy had to start again. “Sometimes your mother can be right there and you still don't have her. So try to be glad that you were so close to yours before she died.”

Silence over the phone.

Sandy bent over, spent. The line between judicious self-disclosure and too much information shared by a therapist was perhaps the vaguest and hardest to identify in the whole profession. Self-revelation could serve a therapeutic function. It could normalize, illuminate, connect. But Sandy knew that what she'd just said hadn't come out of a willingness to utilize an aspect of her own life to help a patient. Sandy had blurted those words out, hot and unexamined. Where had they been dredged up from?

Madeline's breathing was quieter now, though, and steady.

After a long moment, she said, “You're right, Dr. Tremont. I am lucky about that.”

Sandy pulled herself back to the present. It felt like it took physical effort to do so, as if she had hauled herself up over the edge of a cliff.

“I think you'll be all right tonight, Madeline,” she said. “And Dottie will, too.”

“Thank you, Doctor,” Madeline said. “I feel much better now—”

Nick took the phone and set it back in its cradle.

As his hand grazed hers, something let loose inside Sandy. Her knees gave a jog, and the final brick crumbled to dust in her mind. Sandy brought her hands up to her temples, pressing hard, but she couldn't halt the stampeding herd of memories.

Nick looked at her, an
aha
in his pale gray eyes. “So. Now we stop pretending?”

“No,” Sandy said, still squeezing. “No, no, no…”

“Shut up!” Nick hissed.

There was a distant crunch of gravel, then the growl of an approaching car.

T
he Happy Learners Nursery School was housed in a low red building on an isolated road leading out of Cold Kettle. Barbara had balked at first, not wanting her little boy to be so far from home at only four years of age, even though the school was really just a few miles from the center of town as the crow flies. But there weren't many options for children before they started kindergarten. When Barbara had looked into the one other place, run by a good friend of Glenda Williams, the woman had eyed Nicholas oddly and accepted Barbara's application with a studied coolness. Barbara wouldn't have allowed Nicholas to spend his days in such a place for all the gold in California. If her son was going to enter school, then he would have to be treated with the same loving warmth Barbara provided.

Nicholas went to Happy Learners three mornings a week, so Barbara had found it a little odd when the director invited her to drop by on a Thursday, one of the days Nicholas didn't attend. Not only her; Gordon had also been asked. Barbara arranged for Nicholas to stay with Glenda upon the director's suggestion that the little boy not come, another thing Barbara thought strange.

“Tell me again why I'm here,” Gordon said, shifting uncomfortably on the rigid chair in the hall outside the director's office. It wasn't one of the children's seats, but Gordon still looked out of place in it—in this whole situation, in fact, like an adult playing at dolls. School, along with the rest of Nicholas' life, was Barbara's terrain. “Why did they want to see us both?”

“I'm not sure,” Barbara replied. She twisted around in the seat she occupied, almost facing the wall so that she didn't have to look at the hall. Then something occurred to her. “Maybe they want to talk about skipping Nicholas ahead into kindergarten. That's why they asked us not to bring him along. So he wouldn't get, you know, a swelled head.”

Gordon was distracted, studying the hallway.

Barbara continued to avert her eyes from the spot where he kept a watchful eye.

The door to the director's office swung open, and Ms. Castleman stuck her head out.

The
Ms.
had impressed Barbara upon introduction—she felt a blend of interest and admiration for the women's libbers who were infiltrating Cold Kettle—though the director's political leanings were less important than the education her son was being given, of course. But Nicholas actually had a touch of the hippie himself, with those long locks of curls Barbara cut so sparingly. He fit right in here.

“Mr. and Mrs. Burgess? Won't you come in?” Ms. Castleman poked her head out a little farther, peering into the hall. “And bring your little girl, of course.”

Gordon stood up and walked in the indicated direction, stooping down and offering one hand as he scooped up a toy with the other.

Barbara left him to the task, entering the office first.

“There are some playthings over there,” Ms. Castleman said, pointing to a corner.

Barbara faced the director's desk resolutely, waiting to begin.

After a few moments spent fussing and settling, Gordon came and took a seat beside her.

“Thank you for coming in,” Ms. Castleman said to him. “We don't usually ask to see both parents, usually just the mother is fine. Your extra time is appreciated.”

“That's all right,” Barbara replied for both of them. “When it comes to Nicholas, we want to be here for whatever is needed.”

“I'm glad to hear that,” Ms. Castleman said. There was something careful in her words.

Barbara decided to spare the director any delay in deciding how to proceed.

“Ms. Castleman…” The title felt awkward, unseemly on her tongue. “I have an idea about why you wanted to see us.”

Ms. Castleman sat forward. “You do?”

Barbara nodded eagerly.

Gordon had been checking behind him; now he turned and faced front again.

“It's about Nicholas and whether he should be here, isn't it?”

An expression of something like relief crossed Ms. Castleman's face. “Why, yes, Mrs. Burgess. I'm not sure how you knew—what you might've been told—but that's exactly the reason I called you both in today.”

“We've been wondering the same thing,” Barbara said. She snatched a quick look at Gordon, keeping her line of sight sideways so it wouldn't wander over to the play corner. “I have at least.”

Ms. Castleman nodded. “And what is it that you've been wondering?”

“Why, whether Nicholas wouldn't be better off advancing more quickly,” Barbara said. “To a kindergarten class where the other children will be—up to his level.”

She hadn't realized how awkward it would be to put this into words, until silence cast a heavy shroud over the office.

Ms. Castleman aimed her gaze down toward her desk.

Gordon gave a cough. “That's not—this isn't why you brought us in here today, is it, Mrs. Castleman?”

Barbara frowned at him. “It's
Ms.
And what are you saying, Gor—”

Ms. Castleman shook her head. “No. I'm afraid it isn't.”

“Well, what is the reason, then?” Barbara asked. She was accosted by the strangest urge to get up and leave. Just run right out of the office, the whole school, fetch Nicholas away from Glenda at the rectory, and never let these halls darken him again. “Is it because he's a little undersized? Because I've been working on that. He drinks milkshakes every day.”

Ms. Castleman spoke stiffly, as if her words had just been cued. “We here at Happy Learners don't feel that your son is a suitable addition to our facility. We think that he would be better off someplace else.” She took a breath before going on. “Less officially, I would like to tell you that I have been a nursery school director—and a teacher before that—for more than fifteen years. And from what Nicholas' instructor has told me, and what I took the opportunity to witness myself, I think that your son would benefit greatly from some sort of intervention.” She paused. “A visit to a psychiatrist or a child psychologist would not be out of order.”

“A psychiatrist!” Barbara burst out, so loudly and suddenly that there was a clatter from behind. Barbara remained in place, chest heaving, as Gordon got up and restored whatever order had been breached. Ms. Castleman sat there, watching, a perplexed expression on her face.

“What?” Barbara snapped. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

Ms. Castleman's cheeks fired. “I wasn't looking at you, Mrs. Burgess. In fact, I was just wondering…”

“What?” Barbara returned in the same clipped tone as before. “Wondering what?”

Ms. Castleman shook her head before speaking in a great rush. “How you can have one child who's so well behaved and pleasant, when the other appears to be so greatly troubled.” Her professional voice returned. “Perhaps that is for the doctor to get to the bottom of.”

“We're not taking Nicholas to any head shrinker,” Barbara answered. “He's gifted. That's why he can be moody while his sister is level, as you say. It will be the challenge of my life to help Nicholas direct his talents instead of being driven by them.” That phrase had been in the book she'd read. “And I'm deeply sorry that you won't join me in that pursuit.”

She stood up.

Ms. Castleman rose and put a hand out to stop her.

“Mrs. Burgess,” she said. “I didn't say that your daughter was level-headed. I said that she was sweet and well behaved. Just look at how she's putting those blocks together. Look at her smile.”

Barbara stared steadfastly ahead at the director, who took a breath and went on.

“And Nicholas isn't only moody. For one thing, he's not achieving in an age-appropriate manner, learning letters or numbers with the rest of his class, nor even colors and shapes. And it has nothing to do with his size.” Ms. Castleman paused as if waiting for a response. When none was forthcoming, she added, “Nicholas is the most unstable and roughly tempered child I've ever met.”

Barbara felt a vein pulsing between her brows.

Gordon placed his hand on her arm, but Barbara shook him off. “He's stormy,” she told the director. “As are most geniuses and artists.”

“Mrs. Burgess!” Ms. Castleman burst out, raw exasperation now present in her tone. “It's not moodiness, it's not storminess, and it is most certainly not genius. Nicholas is violent. Do you know, I nearly lost another student after he attacked her in the classroom? The only way this child's mother agreed not to withdraw her daughter from my school is because I promised that the little girl would never again have to go near the boy who hurt her. The girl is having bad dreams every night.” An expression of repugnance rolled across Ms. Castleman's face. “She had a perfectly round circle driven into the skin between her thumb and forefinger. It was put there by the hole punchers we use for making Christmas ornaments.”

“Well,” Barbara replied. “Perhaps you shouldn't allow weapons into your classroom.”

Ms. Castleman was finally at a loss, standing behind her desk, mouth rounded and silent.

“But thank you for helping me to understand,” Barbara said.

“Understand?” Ms. Castleman echoed. “Understand what?”

“How two children got into a tussle because your teacher cannot maintain control and you decided to scapegoat mine.” Barbara whirled on her heels. “Good day, Ms. Castleman. All told I am glad we found out sooner rather than later that you don't have the skills or resources necessary to educate a child like Nicholas.”

Barbara strode across the room without checking to see if Gordon was behind her.

Ms. Castleman spoke up as she reached the doorway. “Do you know what I noticed when I told you about the hole puncher?”

Barbara paused with her hand on the knob.

“You didn't seem surprised.”

Gordon drove the station wagon to the end of the winding lane that led to the rectory. He parked and got out, then busied himself with something in the backseat. Barbara strode across the lawn, stepping without particular care over the walkway flowerbeds to approach the front door.

Glenda answered her abrupt knock. “Back already? How did it go at the school?”

Barbara gave a rapid shake of her head. “How is Nicholas?”

Glenda gestured her inside. “Fine, just fine. Come on in. You look like you could do with a cup of tea.”

Barbara was about to shake her head again when tears suddenly spilled over. “I want to go see Nicholas.”

Glenda noticed her tears, which Barbara rued inwardly. She couldn't stand to be chided by one more person right now.

“You poor dear. Nicholas is perfectly fine. My youngest is taking care of him. He's the only one who never had anyone to babysit.” She offered a smile of fond reflection, considering her brood. “You have yourself a cup of tea and relax.”

There was a knock on the front door, then Gordon walked in.

Glenda smiled brightly in his direction. “Well, aren't you a sight for sore eyes. I bet you'll be just the thing to cheer Mama up.”

Glenda walked over to the door and lifted Gordon's burden into her own arms. She returned with her neck wreathed in a choking clasp. Glenda looked down with a smile, her hand stroking wisps of hair, and positioned herself in such a way that Barbara couldn't help but see what she carried.

Barbara blinked back the last of her tears and turned away. “No tea, Glenda, thank you. You said Nicholas is upstairs?”

Barbara heard murmurs as she left the room.

Gordon's voice, then Glenda asking, “Leave the school completely?”

Gordon said, “It's not as if she gave us much choice.”

If she hadn't been headed upstairs to Nicholas, Barbara would have wound her arms around her husband's throat in a merciless hug, and squeezed the words right out of him.

A mewling cry began behind her. “Mama?”

Barbara's nerves felt like fur being rubbed the wrong way. She walked away from the sound. Glenda and Gordon spoke in similar soothing tones while Barbara mounted the stairs, and the cries grew muted.

In a back bedroom, Nicholas was sitting at a little table with Adam, a strapping boy of fourteen or fifteen who straddled a too small chair, a leftover from one of the many childhoods lived in this house.

Barbara stood in the doorway, barely allowing herself to breathe.

Nicholas sat straight and still in his chair while Adam laid cards out in front of him. They were Candy Land cards; Barbara recognized them from a set Nicholas had shredded for some art project. Squares of bright M&M colors: red, green, yellow, orange.

“Now which one is this?” Adam asked.

“Purple?” Nicholas guessed in his sweet piping voice.

Barbara's heart clutched with love.

Adam shook his head. “Try again,” he said. “You're close. When you get real good at this, I'll tell you about the color wheel, and then you'll see just how close you were.”

Nicholas squinted at the card. His little hands knotted in frustration, and his brows drew down. He was going to get upset; Barbara could feel it.

“Take your time,” Adam said.

“I'm just thinking right now,” Nicholas said.

“That's right,” Adam said. “That's a good thing to do. Want me to give you a hint?”

“No.” Nicholas caught the tip of his tongue between pearly teeth. “I can do it.”

“I bet you can.”

Barbara walked into the room. “Adam Williams! Don't you talk to him like that!”

Adam pushed backwards in the small seat, toppling it over. He stood up awkwardly. “Like—like what, Mrs. Burgess?”

“Why, sarcastically. Making him think he's not good at this.” She looked down at her little boy. “Nicholas knows perfectly well what color that is.”

Adam's face tangled in a frown. “I wasn't being sarcastic. I'm trying to help him learn his—”