Dante's Dilemma (14 page)

“Tired. Depressed. Anxious about the trial. I just want it to all be over.”

“It's Christmas. Will anyone be visiting you?”

“No. I didn't want to impose on any of my friends. And as I said, my daughter and I aren't speaking.”

“Are you receiving any counseling?”

“I see a prison psychologist once a week.”

“Has that been helping?”

“A little. May I ask you something now?”

“Of course,” I said.

“Was I wrong to stay with him all those years?”

“Do you think it was wrong?” I said, dodging the question in true professional fashion. It made me feel like a perfect louse.

“I don't know. All I know is that I brought this down on myself.”

“Time's up,” Hallie announced.

Sadly, she could have been saying that to both of us.

THIRTEEN

In the end, I was spared a holiday alone with my ghosts. Just as I was leaving the jail, Alison DeWitt phoned, reaching me on my cell. Josh had told her about Louis, and my two colleagues had conspired to prevent further damage to my liver: I was to spend Christmas Day with Alison and her partner at their home in Lakeview. Since my only other plans for the occasion consisted of emptying a bottle and listening to George Bailey triumph over Mr. Potter—because he had
friends
, I reminded myself—I was happy to give in. So instead of going straight home, I asked Boris to drop me off at a toy store on Michigan.

I handed Boris his Christmas tip and we went through our usual ritual of embarrassed protest (Boris) and subtle persuasion (me):

“Boris, if I didn't know better, I'd think you weren't really Russian.”

“You already pay for trips.”

“True. But I happen to know that you grossly undercharge me. Besides, there's that Coach purse Yelena has her eye on.”

“Why you not make a gift yourself?”

“She might get ideas. And you're missing the point.”

“What point?”

“It will make her happier if she thinks it's coming from you.”

“There is line to get in. I should wait with you.”

“I'll be fine. It's barely below freezing. Go on now—the department stores are only open until five.”

Twenty minutes later, I was standing inside the overheated emporium, having my ears assaulted by “The Little Drummer Boy.” The store wasn't completely virgin territory. I'd gone there several times to purchase toys for Louis and could practically count off the number of steps to the Lego section in the rear. But I had to stop for a moment to remember where the stuffed animals were. The synthetic yipping of a toy dog was one indication, so I struck out in that direction, keeping the sweep of my cane to a minimum so as not to collide with the shoppers racing to snap up the last of the Xboxes. I was just thinking I ought to change my name to Andretti when I heard something that caused me to stop short.

Since going blind, my hearing had undeniably grown sharper. Though some blind people pooh-poohed the idea, brain studies had proved what folklore always insisted: when one sense shuts down, the others take over. But there were limits. While I was better at picking up sounds and where they were coming from, my ability to recall them hadn't radically improved. In contrast to my old photographic memory, which depended on sight, I was still only average at recognizing voices.

Still, I was sure I would have known this one anywhere.

An East Coast accent, slightly aristocratic, scaling upward like the trill of a flute. And just beside it, lower down but still discernible from several yards away, the lisp of a young child.

My heart skipped a beat.

And then another.

I stopped mid-stride, wondering if I was hallucinating. But there it was again: a little boy's voice asking when he would get to see Santa.

Louis's voice.

Within an instant, my mind was at war. My ex-wife and child lived thousands of miles away. What could possibly account for their being in Chicago on the most festive night of the year? Surely, they were back in Connecticut, preparing to leave for her parents' house. Once I had been an insider to their holiday rituals. Trimming the tree in the great room overlooking Long Island Sound. Cocktails and dinner at the Belle Haven Club. Midnight services in the family pew at Christ Church. It was madness to think Annie had forsaken all that out of kindness to me. And yet maybe she
had
relented of her plan to rob me of my son. Maybe their bags were waiting now in a room at the Peninsula or the Ritz. Maybe . . .

I started moving toward them, ears on the lookout. If there was a reunion in the works, wouldn't it be fun to surprise them, emerging suddenly from the crowd? I imagined Louis squealing in happiness when he saw me, how I would kneel down to gather him in my arms, tousle the curls on his little head. And Annie, standing to one side, as amused as ever by my lack of WASP restraint. If she permitted it, I might even peck her on the cheek.

For a few brief moments, I allowed my hopes to soar.

“Mommy,” the little boy's voice came again when I was only a few feet away.

“Yes, sweetheart?”

“Why does that man have a big stick?”

With a stab of horror, I realized my mistake.

“Sshhh. I'll explain later.”

“But
why
?” the boy whined, louder this time.

The woman spoke sharply. “I said not
now
, David.”

Filled with embarrassment, I sidestepped to escape.

But not fast enough.

“Are you all right?” the woman said to me. “You look upset.”

At least I hadn't shouted out their names.

I mumbled an apology and kept going.

As I beat a further retreat, I heard her call out, “I'm so sorry. He was only being curious.”

The next day, Alison was full of sympathy.

“The same thing happens to me whenever I hear a baby cry. I'm always convinced its Mika.”

Mika burped. I had just fed him a bottle of Gina's breast milk, and he was now burrowing into my shoulder, sniffling and shuddering his way into deep sleep. It was late—most of Alison's other guests had already departed—but I was still hanging on, enjoying the company and the little bit of heaven in my arms. I glanced over at the Christmas tree, whose lights periodically brushed my eyes like a sprinkling of fairy dust. The room, in a restored Prairie-style home, was as cozily appointed as my new home was not, filled with soft upholstery, scented candles, and strategically located throws. Alison was curled up in one beside me, happy to be off her feet after the long day of entertaining. Gina was off to the side of the room, chatting with a few other stragglers.

“How did you come up with his name?” I asked.

“We found it in one of those baby-name glossaries. It comes from the Lakota Sioux word for raccoon. We thought it fit him. His eyes are like little black buttons.”

I shifted Mika so that his head was resting in the crook of my arm. He rewarded me with a jerky fist to my chest and another contented grunt.

Alison patted me on the shoulder. “You like babies,” she accused.

“Should I be concerned that you find that shocking?”

“Not shocking. But you're better with kids than you give yourself credit for.”

I kept my shrug to a minimum. According to Alison, Mika was only just getting over his colic, and getting him down after a feeding was a major feat. “You're forgetting that my track record in the children department hasn't been all that great.”

Alison was one of the few people with whom I'd shared my history.

“You did pretty well just now getting him to go to sleep. Your ex was crazy to shut you out—then and now.”

I tried to lure her off the topic. “Thanks for having me today. I had a great time.”

“Oh no, boyfriend. You're not changing the subject that easily. I can tell what happened to you yesterday is really bothering you.”

“Wouldn't it bother you to make a mistake like that?”

Alison sighed. “You're having second thoughts.”

I could tell Alison wasn't going to be deterred, so I confessed some of my fears. “Not about getting more time with him. But maybe asking for joint custody isn't such a good idea. What if Louis had slipped away from me in that crowd and I couldn't find him?”

“You're not the only blind parent in history,” Alison said, echoing what I had told my lawyer two weeks back. “You'll do just fine. And don't forget, he needs his father.”

“But what if I can't manage it? What if I can't keep him safe? Hell, if anything ever happened to him while he was with me I'd . . .”

I'd kill myself, no two ways about it.

Alison said, “Every parent has those fears.”

But not every parent had seen them materialize.

Alison read my thoughts. “Mark, one day you're going to have to stop taking all the blame for your son's death. Wasn't your ex there that night, too? If you ask me, she was just as much at fault as you were for not getting him to the hospital sooner.”

“That's ridiculous,” I said. “She was eight months pregnant. She was—”

“Was what? Too exhausted to pick up the phone? If it had been me, I would have been screaming for an ambulance long before you returned. Haven't you ever thought about what Annie was doing all that time you were gone?”

“Sure, but—”

Alison put her hand on my arm to stop me. “No. Shut up and listen. Don't you see what you've been doing all this time? You're an expert. You know all about how guilt plays out in the minds of people who have undergone catastrophic trauma. If you had a patient who experienced something just as terrible—a rape victim, for example—how would you handle it?”

That was easy. First, I'd work to reestablish the patient's feelings of safety, of being in a place where she could control her environment. Then, when she felt secure, we would begin the process of remembering, of retelling everything that happened until the memory no longer held such vicious sway over her thoughts. Dissect it like a rotting corpse until the flesh fell away and it was nothing more than a drafty pile of bones. Only then could we start on the later stages of therapy—reconnecting with loved ones and creating a positive self-image for the future.

Alison congratulated me on a textbook response. “So which of those things have you done for yourself?”

Almost none, to tell the truth. I'd seen another shrink for a while, when it was forced on me to save my job. But I'd stopped going six months later, convinced it was taking up too much time. And I'd needed every ounce of forgetfulness to get me through the crisis of losing my sight.

“Don't you see?” Alison said softly. “You'll never trust yourself with Louis until you go back there.”

She was right. And wasn't it the same thing Kay Bergen had asked me to do? To reconstruct everything that happened that night—down to the last gut-wrenching second? Whether or not it would help win my custody battle, I would have to try.

Doctor heal thyself.

But later. After the Lazarus trial was finished.

FOURTEEN

The next day, I was finally ready to read Brad Stephens's report.

Arriving at 10 a.m., I wasn't surprised to find the office almost deserted. Besides being the day after Christmas, it was a Friday, and most of my colleagues had chosen to take advantage of the long weekend for some well-deserved R&R. It's a myth that psychiatric emergencies are more common during the holidays. Though people's moods often worsen—based on the mistaken belief that everyone else in the world is having a better time—they tend to put off harming themselves until the weather warms up. Psychiatrists have no idea why suicides go down during winter, but it's one of the few good things I can say about the season.

I unlocked my office door and proceeded to unravel from the layers I'd used to protect myself during the twelve-block walk from home. My wool Mets hat, a muffler, two fleeces, a down parka, and mittens I'd bought from an adventure-travel outfit specializing in polar expeditions. Typical for this time of year in Chicago, the wind chills were hovering in the forties—below zero, that is—and I had more reason than most to be worried about frostbitten fingers. Some blessed soul had come up with traction bands I could slip on and off my boots, and I removed those too, having just that morning solved the mystery of my AWOL footwear, which the movers, in another triumph of logic, had deposited in a box behind the furnace.

That done, I went looking for the key Yelena kept in the upper right-hand drawer of her desk.

On my way over, I caught the sound of a Rachmaninoff concerto emanating from Sep's new office, a closet-like space to the rear of our suite. I smiled to myself. It was just like the old man not to take any time off. Even though officially retired, Sep had been coming in every day to finish up a research project and attend to a handful of patients he'd been seeing for years. I thought to stop in and wish him a Merry Christmas but decided against it. Rachmaninoff usually meant he was deep in thought and wouldn't welcome the interruption.

Possibly because she never did any real work, Yelena's desk was always a model of tidiness, and I had no trouble locating the key in its usual place under a stack of magazines. Then it was off to the bank of pullout filing cabinets on the far wall. The ones belonging to me were in the middle. The bottom drawer held the files I deemed especially confidential and was labeled Private. I opened it with the key and felt around inside until my hand closed on the envelope Linda O'Malley had passed to me at our meeting. It was still sealed tight with multiple layers of tape.

Before returning to my office, I stopped off in the lounge to make a cup of tea and waited impatiently for the single-brew machine to heat up. I was feeling the sort of mild excitement people have when they expect their opinions to be vindicated, a twin of the confirmation bias that had kept me from opening Brad Stephens's report until now. Based on what I knew about him, I was expecting our conclusions to be roughly the same. Sure, we might approach the problem from separate angles, dwell on some facts more than others, attach varying degrees of significance to the same things. But it didn't even occur to me that we might
disagree
.