Guilt
Authors: G. H. Ephron
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Contents
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For Don's patients and colleagues
For Jerry, Molly, and Naomi
Acknowledgments
Thanks to our editor, Kelley Ragland, for believing in Dr. Zak and making each book better. To our agent, Gail Hochman, for her enthusiastic support. To Sarah Hanley and Tony Hanley of One Step Beyond Martial Arts Training Center in Hyde Park for giving Hallie a painless introduction to self-defense. To Gus Rancatore for his enduring support and inspirational settingâToscanini's Ice Cream. To writers and readers who test-drove the book endless times: Connie Biewald, Maggie Bucholt, Patricia and Joseph Kennedy, Pat Rathbone, and Donna Tramontozzi. To Cynthia Lepore, Adriana Bobinchock, and the McLean Hospital for their support. To Katrina, Juliana, Olivia, Sophie, and Emma for inspiration. To Carl Brotman for twenty-five years of support. Special thanks to Susan Florence and Beth Blankstein, who made contributions to Jewish Family and Children's Services in order to attain the dubious distinction of having characters in this book named after their nearest and dearest. We thank them for their generosity and remind readers that names notwithstanding, all characters in this book are fictional. As always, thanks to our spouses, Jerry and Sue, whose love and support make it all possible.
1
M
ARY
A
LICE
Boudreaux paused in front of Storrow Hall. The place oozed Harvardâmonumental, aloof. Across the front, clusters of columns supported archways, and above that was a checkerboard band of pale pink and terracotta brick. Back home, everything this austere and grand had been flattened when Sherman marched through.
She read the edict carved in the stone façade:
A
ND THOU SHALT TEACH THEM ORDINANCES AND LAWS, AND SHALT SHOW THEM THE WAY WHEREIN THEY MUST WALK, AND THE WORK THAT THEY MUST DO.
Her daddy would have liked that, a quote from the Bible on a classroom building. He'd been convinced she was heading straight into the arms of the devil. Law school was bad enough. Yankee law school was a sacrilege. Hadn't they given her a good home? Sent her to a fine college? What she was supposed to do now was find a man, get hitched, and settle down to making babies. If she needed intellectual stimulation, well heck, that's what the Junior League was for.
Her parents hadn't a clue what to make of her. Just like she still hadn't a clue what to make of most of her fellow law students. She'd imagined a bunch of briefcase-toting stiffs, hanging around in the custom-fitted pinstripes that were their birthrightânot these scruffy kids who, in the middle of this hot September day, lounged on the broad front steps in their shorts and sandals, basking in the late morning sun, using their battered backpacks as pillows and footrests.
Behind her, cars were parked in a small lot, and beyond that, traffic whizzed out of a tunnel and up Massachusetts AvenueâMass Ave, as the locals called it. She smoothed the skirt of her suit and climbed the steps into the coolness of the portico, aware of heads turning to watch. With her blond hair and eyes the color of a summer sky, she'd been told by more than one intense, cerebral guy that she looked like a “sorority queen”âa pejorative phrase in this neck of the woods. Most of the smart, fast-talking women wrote her off, too. Some even had this crazy idea that being from the South, she came from a hoard of sheet-wearing rednecks that hadn't got the sense God promised a nanny goat. There really should be a law against ignorance.
Mary Alice shifted her briefcase to her other hand and pushed through the double doors, past the signs:
NO TRESPASSING; NO SOLICITING
. They sure knew how to welcome a stranger.
It was cooler insideâonly fitting, given that the place looked like the vault of a medieval castle. Her heels clicked on the polished wood floor as she walked past a cavernous lecture hall, full of students in stadium seats, all focused on a gray-haired professor in the pit.
At the end of the hall, a circular space opened up. Light streamed in through two banks of multipaned windows that stretched from waist-high walnut wainscoting to the ceiling. There, on a low, curved leather banquette attached to the wall, sat Jackie Klevinski. She was perched, like a watchful praying mantis, with her long arms and legs folded, her eyes bright. She had on brown pants and a pullover. Long sleeves hid the scars that Mary Alice knew ran up and down the inside of her arms, needle tracks that would be with Jackie for the rest of her life. She sat there, coiled to spring, the strap of her oversized purse over her shoulder. The scarf covering her dark hair partially obscured a bruise on the side of her face, her husband's latest handiwork.
Jackie's face opened into a smile when she saw Mary Alice. For a moment Mary Alice saw what a pretty girl this woman must have been before her marriage to Joe had hardened her over with fear.
“Mrs. Klevinskiâ” Mary Alice addressed her formally, the way she did her clients and everyone except her closest friends and relatives. She couldn't get used to the way complete strangers were immediately on a first-name basis up here. Her southern upbringing with its politenesses, its formal ways of addressing older people in particular, wasn't something she could shake. She wasn't sure she wanted to shake it. Shoot, she couldn't stop being who she was. “It's good to see you again.”
When Mary Alice extended her hand, Jackie flinched. She was skittish that way. But then, Jackie had the domestic equivalent of shell shock. She'd balked at meeting Mary Alice again at the Legal Aid Bureau. If her husband found out she'd been talking to a lawyer and was getting a restraining order, there'd be all hell to pay.
Mary Alice had suggested they meet here. During classes, it was usually deserted and quietâan echoey kind of quiet. That was good. No one could sneak up on them without being heard. And it was convenient. Jackie had a job working mother's hours at Harvard's undergraduate admissions office, and Mary Alice had to be there anyway. Her ethics class was the next one meeting in the second-floor lecture hall.
Mary Alice put down her briefcase and sat. She placed her hand on Jackie's arm. “This is a good thing you're doing. I know you know that, and I know it's hard.”
Jackie blinked back tears. “I know I've got to. It's just that half the time he doesn't know what he's doing.”
You could say that again. Roaring drunk, Joe Klevinski probably couldn't tell whether it was a wall or his wife's face that he was bashing. It infuriated Mary Alice the way Jackie made excuses for the jerk.
Mary Alice took her time explaining the abuse-prevention order. Step by step she went over the process, even though she'd gone over it the last time they'd met. Tomorrow they'd file the paperwork, meet with the judge. Now was the time to get cold feet.
“Once you have the order, he'll have to move out of the house,” Mary Alice said. “He'll have to leave you alone.”
“And what if he won't?”
“You call the police.”
Jackie leaned her head back and gazed at the ceiling.
Mary Alice pulled out a sheaf of papers. “These are the forms we need to file.”
Still taking her time, she went over each part of the paperwork she'd completed with the help of her supervising attorney. In cold, bloodless language, the affidavit summarized the years of abuse and injuries. “I don't remember all the beatings, but there were a lot of them,” Jackie had said. “I used to cower in the corner. He'd punch, kick, pour beer over me, and tell me how worthless I was. Said no one would want me. I believed him.”
The final straw had been when their seven-year-old daughter, Sophie, tried to step between them during one of Joe's rages. Jackie insisted that Joe would never hurt Sophie deliberately. But that night he did hurt her. She wasn't going to let that happen again, Jackie said. Not ever.
Jackie twisted her wedding ring and stared at the final form: “Issues Related to Children.” Silence pooled around them. This was the hardest part for her, severing Joe from Sophie.
As Mary Alice sat back and waited, giving Jackie as much time as she could to come to terms with what she was about to do, a man in a dark blue parka came out of the classroom. How anyone could wear a heavy coat in this heat was more than Mary Alice could fathom. Maybe the a/c in the lecture hall was on overdrive. The man dropped his backpack on the floor and disappeared into the men's room under the stairs.
Mary Alice checked her watch. Soon classes would end and the hall would be full of students. She went outside and scanned the crowd on the steps. As promised, a fellow legal aid volunteer, Leah Cohen, was there waiting for her. Leah had agreed to witness the signatures. Together they went back inside.
“Joe won't like this,” Jackie said in a hoarse whisper. The pen shook in her hand. “Not one bit.”
She braced herself, like someone about to dive into cold water, and signed the forms. Leah witnessed the signatures and left. Mary Alice took the heavy embosser out of her briefcase and notarized the document.
“The hearing. You don't think they'll find out about ⦠my past?” Jackie asked.
Mary Alice was pretty sure Jackie's husband would want to avoid any discussion of heroin addiction. He'd had his own run-ins with the law on that count. Still, as Mary Alice's grandma would have pointed out, that man's driveway didn't go all the way to the house.
“If it comes up at the hearing, then we'll deal with it. You've been clean for four years. You've got a good job.”
“I do,” Jackie said, sounding surprised and pleased. When she smiled, the worry lines vanished from her forehead.
Mary Alice stood. “I'll call you. I'll file these, and then I'll call.” She put the papers and the notary stamp back into her briefcase and snapped it shut.
Jackie stood, tucked a strand of dark hair into her scarf, and adjusted her bag on her shoulder. “Miss Boudreaux?”
Mary Alice looked up at herâJackie was a good head taller. “What is it, darlin'?” She felt her face grow warm. Where had that slipped out from?
Jackie put her hands on Mary Alice's shoulders and held her there, the way Mary Alice's grandma would when she was about to give her a dressing-down. Jackie's face clouded over. “You feeling all right?” she asked.
Uh-oh. Mary Alice knew what was coming. Jackie was into auras and holistic medicine. She wore a crystal on a chain around her neck, two pale purple stones fused together. A healing crystal, she called it. What the heck. Mary Alice's great-uncle had peddled dowsing pendulums and divining rods.