Blessed Are the Wholly Broken (14 page)

My Dearest Peter,

As I write this you’re sleeping, if your schedule is as it should be. You’re a growing boy; you need your rest. And if the universe is kind, as it sometimes is, you’re dreaming of ballgames, water-balloon fights, bicycle rides and best friends.

But do you even know what these things are?

Forgive me, my son. News of your condition comes to me second-, third-, or even fourth-hand. None of it is encouraging, and all of it frightens me.

Here’s what you should know. Your mother loved you. I loved you. You were a dream come true for us, a dream two decades in the making.

That’s a big burden for a little boy; don’t think I don’t know that. It is through no fault of your own that my dream and your mother’s dream somehow diverged through the years. If you dig to the heart of the matter, the reason for the heartbreak, it’s only that we didn’t find you sooner; that’s how important you were to both of us. You, I believed, were to be the answer to all of our prayers.

For that, I apologize. It was unfair of me to place such a burden on your tiny shoulders. Had I listened to your mother, had I done as she asked—begged—you would not be suffering so. No matter what happens, should you grow up to read, explore the internet, watch old crime shows, or whatnot, know this:  No matter what you read, no matter what you hear, no matter what they say, your mother loved you just as much as I do. She did, Peter. She did.

When one has spent the better part of one’s life wishing for something—for someone—and that something—or someone—suddenly appears, even if in an unexpected way, it’s still a dream come true.

It is, Peter, and don’t ever let anyone tell you otherwise.

You were my dream come true.

You are my dream come true.

I love you, son. And so did your mother.

Forever and always,

Dad

“Phil—”

“Stop.”  I held my hand up as if to physically ward off Anna’s words. Instinct, an innate sense of self-preservation warned me; I knew I could not hear whatever it was she was about to say.

“But I—”

“No, Anna.”  I shook my head and turned away from her.

I convinced myself at that moment the baby was mine. I willed the seed of that belief to grow. After all, some tiny percentage of vasectomies fail. It hardly mattered to me that the number was so small as to be nearly nonexistent. Nor did it matter that I could scarcely remember the last time Anna and I had engaged in any sort of activity that might lead to pregnancy.

What mattered was that as I stood there looking at Anna, who held the towel against her swollen front as if to hide herself from me, I didn’t see the unhappy, middle-aged woman she had become. I didn’t see the short-cropped hair, faded of its color, or the extra ten pounds, or the downward lines around her mouth.

I saw a beautiful young woman laughing on a balmy fall night. I smelled the crisp scent of the river and heard the distant horn of a barge. I was mesmerized, the wind blowing curls across her face as my heart stuttered. It had taken all my willpower not to wind my fingers through that hair and pull her up against me.

Intertwined with that image, superimposed upon it, was that of a devastated young mother bent forward in agony, holding the still form of her infant son against her breast and looking into my eyes as we both began a descent into hell from which we would never fully recover.

“Do you want a divorce?” I asked, the question squeezing past the barriers I was already erecting against the knowledge in my mind.

“No,” she shook her head, tears spilling down her cheeks. “Oh, Phil, I—”

“Do you love me?” I asked, because it suddenly mattered terribly.

“Always,” she said, stepping towards me. “I always have, Phil. I always will. This was noth—”

“Hush, Anna. Don’t say it.”

She buried her face in the towel and began to cry. “I just couldn’t…sometimes it’s so
dark
here, Phil. Every time I manage to pull myself out of it to move on, you pull me back. You won’t let it go; you define everything by Jeffrey, and I can’t live that way. It’s hard enough—”

“Stop it!” I slammed my palm down on the sink vanity and Anna jumped, once again losing possession of her towel. “We won’t do that, Anna. Neither of us is without guilt. We won’t stand here and point fingers. It’s not my place to do that, and it certainly isn’t yours.”

A case would later be made that my anger regarding Anna’s pregnancy propelled me to plan her death, but although that made a neat and tidy package for the jury, it wasn’t true. No sooner had my anger surfaced than it dispersed. It was possible, I discovered in that instant, to have such a mix of feelings one ends up feeling nothing at all, much like a fuse that overheats and is subsequently blown. It was an emptiness that proved to be fertile ground for denial.

The only thing I was sure of as I once again retrieved Anna’s towel from the floor was that against all reason, I wanted that baby. I
deserved
that baby, by God, not only to make up for all of our past losses, but to make up for the current one, too, the one I steadfastly refused to see. Over the years, I’d accepted the life we had, but the universe was extending another chance to live the life I’d
thought
we’d have. No doubt I was irrational, but it wasn’t a violent break with rationality; it was instead a protective one. I wanted to protect what I had:  my marriage, my life, my home. And now, my child.

As I handed the towel to her once again, I already envisioned a future much as I’d envisioned two decades before, one with me, Anna, and a baby. In spite of my vasectomy, our prayers were suddenly answered, as if it were meant to be. Providence, fate, whatever was at work I was convinced this time everything would turn out right. Any doubts I had about the origin of the baby were quickly dismissed, neatly excised from the truth that was evident, and instead sealed tightly behind the truth I wanted.

“You’ll need an appointment,” I said, surprised at my ability to form a coherent sentence out of the jumble in my head.

Anna nodded, her expression a mix of confusion and surprise. “I’ve already made one for next week,” she said, attempting to scrub the tears from her cheeks. “I had hoped….Phil, I’m so
sorry
. As horrible as it sounds, as horrible as this makes me, I had hoped to have it taken care of before you even knew. It’s a terrible mistake; I haven’t been myself. I just want to erase it all, pretend nothing’s changed, go back to what we had….”

Her words swirled around me, some floating into the space between us, others lodging themselves into the cracks of my heart. “What do you mean, ‘taken care of?’ You can’t just erase a
person
, Anna. How could you even have considered such a thing?” I was stunned at her misunderstanding. Of all the revelations I’d had about Anna that morning, this one shocked me the most. For the first time ever, I saw her as someone distinctly different from the person I had married. But then, I was different, too.

“Phil, we obviously can’t move forward with this,” she glanced down at her front, her eyes huge, her expression disbelieving. “It’s not…Phil,
please
! Don’t make me say these things. I can’t have a baby now. I’m too old; it’s too late,” her voice rose. “There are the medical issues; I can’t go through that again. This is crazy. All of it is crazy. I can’t believe this is happening. Oh, God. I’m so sorry.” She folded to the floor, hugging her knees to her chest, her cries muffled by the towel.

The prosecutor would later claim I’d insisted Anna carry the pregnancy to term as a form of punishment. Knowing her medical history, the risks involved, he would insist I’d hoped for the worst, a passive sort of murder, and when that hadn’t happened, I’d taken a more aggressive approach. During the months since her death, I’d spent many hours going over things in my mind, questioning my motivations, and I don’t believe those accusations to be accurate, not even on a subconscious level. What
was
true, however, was that in the list of things I’d determined to protect, I’d forgotten to include Anna. 

So I left her there, rocking against the unyielding oak of the bathroom cabinet.

The Court:  You may proceed, Mr. Young.

Prosecutor:  Thank you, Your Honor. Mrs. Tyler, you are the mother of the victim, is that correct?

Connie Tyler:  Yes.

Prosecutor:  We’re sorry for your loss, ma’am.

Connie Tyler:  Thank you.

Prosecutor:  Kleenex?

Connie Tyler:  Yes. Thank you.

Prosecutor:  Mrs. Tyler, when did you learn your daughter was pregnant with her latest child, Peter?

Connie Tyler:  Oh, I think it was in October.

Prosecutor:  Of 2011, you mean?

Connie Tyler:  Yes. That’s right.

Prosecutor:  Who told you she was pregnant, Mrs. Tyler?

Connie Tyler:  Anna did. I knew something was bothering her. She didn’t seem well. Sad. Quiet.

Prosecutor:  What did she tell you regarding the circumstances of her pregnancy, Mrs.Tyler?

Connie Tyler:  I’m not sure what you mean.

Prosecutor:  Did she tell you Phillip Lewinsky was not the father of the child?

Connie Tyler:  I don’t know why you need to do this to her. To her memory. What does it matter now?

Prosecutor:  I do apologize, Mrs. Tyler, but I assure you it is important. We all want to see justice done for your daughter. So I need to ask again:  Did she tell you Phillip Lewinsky was not the father of her child?

Connie Tyler:  What you people don’t seem to understand is that sometimes there just isn’t any justice. But if you must know, yes. She did. She confided in me one Sunday, when they’d come to our house for dinner. She was highly upset. Crying. I knew something was wrong, so when Phillip and her father retired to the living room, I asked her what was bothering her. She said she was pregnant. I’ll be honest with you; I was worried. Because of her history, you know. And even without her history, she was on the older side to be finding herself pregnant. I was afraid for her health.

Prosecutor: And was it at that time she told you Mr. Lewinsky was not the father?

Connie Tyler:  Yes.

Prosecutor:  I’m sorry, Mrs. Tyler. You’re going to have to speak a little louder.

Cathy Tyler:  Yes. That’s when she told me. It was hard for her to confide in me, and I swore I’d never tell anyone. And now here you are making me.

Prosecutor:  Did she say whether or not Mr. Lewinsky was aware of the paternity of the baby?

Connie Tyler:  She said she thought he probably knew, but that he wouldn’t allow her to talk about it.

Prosecutor: Did she indicate she’d tried to talk to him about it?

Connie Tyler:  Yes. She said she’d tried, but he refused to discuss it.

Prosecutor:  Mrs. Tyler, did your daughter indicate her feelings about her pregnancy?

Connie Tyler:  She said she was worried. She was worried about her health, because of her medical condition and her age. She was also worried about…about losing the baby. About what that would do to her, mentally, you know, after all she’d experienced.

Prosecutor:  Mrs. Tyler, I know this is difficult, but did your daughter speak to you about the possibility of an abortion?

Connie Tyler:  It was too late for an abortion by the time she told me about the pregnancy, but she did say she had considered it. She said Phillip wouldn’t hear of it. She said he flat-out refused to consider abortion.

Prosecutor:  Even in spite of the risks to Anna’s health, he wouldn’t consider abortion?

Connie Tyler:  That’s what she said.

Prosecutor:  Were you also worried about Anna’s health?

Connie Tyler:  Of course. But she was under the strict supervision of her doctor throughout the pregnancy.

Prosecutor:  Mrs. Tyler, after the baby was born, did Mr. Lewinsky ask you to move into his home to help?

Connie Tyler:  No. He didn’t ask me; I volunteered.

Prosecutor:  Didn’t he, in fact, tell you he was “at the end of his rope” with Anna and the baby?

Connie Tyler:  Yes, but that was because—

Prosecutor:  Thank you, Mrs. Tyler. No further questions.

The Court:  Mr. Stone?  Your witness.

Defense Attorney:  Mrs. Tyler, first of all, I’m sorry for your loss.

Connie Tyler:  Thank you, Brian. I know you are.  Could I have a tissue, please?

Defense Attorney:  We would ask the Court for a short recess in order to allow Mrs. Tyler some time to compose herself.

The Court:  Granted, Mr. Stone. We’ll reconvene in fifteen minutes.