Murder At The Mikvah (26 page)

Across the park, Lewis sat on the landing of the slide. At just under six feet in height, he looked uncomfortable, and like he might have difficulty getting himself upright again. He tucked his hands inside his pockets and sat quietly, his eyes fixed on Judith as she paced and ranted. He couldn’t help but wonder how little Yitzi felt about coming to the park with his Nana, only to be ignored while she made business calls. After a few minutes, Judith shoved her cell phone into her jacket pocket and looked in his direction. Lewis met her gaze but said nothing.

“Sorry about that,” she shouted over to him, and then shrugged. “You know how it is… since it’s…”—she made air quotes with her fingers—“
Shabba
t… I can’t call from the house.”

Lewis held up a hand. “No need to explain,” he said. It occurred to him that someone like Judith would actually benefit from some of the
down time
Shabbat offered.

“Listen, about the coat…” Judith said, “it was nice of you to offer. I mean, it’s refreshing to see a man who… well… I apologize if I sounded rude…”

Lewis hoisted himself up from the slide with surprising ease and walked toward her. “Something funny? I love a good joke,” Judith said.

Lewis didn’t realize he had been smiling. He shook his head. “No jokes.”

“Then what?”

Lewis paused to gather his thoughts. “Well, tonight at dinner, your son gave a
dvar Torah
and spoke about blessings. How we all take so much for granted because our human nature is to focus on what's missing rather than what we have. So I was just thinking about my own blessings, the things I'm grateful for—my daughter, my grandchildren, good health—and right now Judith, I feel blessed to be here, honored to share this beautiful night with you.”

Judith swallowed and looked away, flustered. “Well, yes, it is a beautiful night to be out,” she said, jumping to her feet, wrapping her arms around herself, and looking up. “The sky is so clear…”

“Yes it is.”

“But nothing like the sky in New Mexico,” she said in one breath.

This comment surprised him, but he knew enough to wait and see where she went with it.

Judith kept her gaze fixed upward as she spoke. “I spent a lot of time there you know, back when I was young…”

“I see.”

“My husband and I lived on a commune right outside of Santa Fe.”

Santa Fe and marriage
. Lewis now understood. What had hurt Judith in the past, now protected her in the present. Judith Orenstein had done something not uncommon; she had used her pain to build a wall to keep others from getting too close.

“A commune?” Lewis repeated. “
You
?”

“Don't be so shocked. At nineteen, I was eager to pave my own path.”

Lewis smiled. “You were a typical teenager.”

She shrugged. “Of course ‘my own path’ merely meant doing the complete opposite of whatever my parents were doing. Actually, it was more what they
weren't
doing… I was much more interested in exploring my inner self.”

Lewis raised his eyebrows.

“
Beyond
drug experimentation,” she added, having a fairly good idea what he was thinking.

“So you meditated and practiced yoga.”

“That's right, how did you know?”

“Just a wild guess,” Lewis said. “Yoga’s made quite a comeback, hasn’t it? Elise has taken a couple of classes.”

“Yoga indoors does not compare!” Judith said, laughing. “No, not when you've experienced a
downward dog
with the Sangre de Cristo mountains as your backdrop.” She took a deep breath. “The communion with nature—hiking, gardening… well, it was all wonderful, but a lifetime ago.”

“You realize you can still do those things,” Lewis said.

She shooed him with her hand. “Nonsense. I don’t have the time.”

He didn’t feel like arguing. “I'm curious about something,” he said instead. “How does a flower child go from living on a commune to raising an orthodox son?”

“Easy,” Judith said. “The flower child gets divorced.” She closed her eyes for a moment before continuing. “After my marriage ended, I moved back in with my parents and sent Yehuda to Jewish Day school.”

“Oh, so
your
parents were religious?”

Judith shook her head. “Not quite. While I was growing up, we had an occasional Friday night dinner, but that was it.” She paused. “Well, it was until my son talked them into
kashering
their kitchen.”

“It was considerate of your parents to be so accommodating to Yehuda,” Lewis said.

“His name was
Ira
back then, and even at fifteen he could be pretty persuasive,” Judith said. “Besides, deep down, my father had a strong Jewish identity, even if his only
rituals
were eating bran cereal for breakfast and watching
Jeopardy
after dinner.”

Lewis laughed. “There's nothing better than a good round of Jeopardy! In all seriousness though, routines are a comfort to people—they lend a sense of order to our lives. That's the reason we sit in the same seats, eat the same foods and why most people, even disorganized ones, have at least some semblance of structure to their day. That was probably one of things that attracted your son to orthodoxy—the structure.”

Judith shrugged. “It's possible,” she said. “After his father and I divorced, his whole world was turned upside down. We moved out of state, the kids met their grandparents for the first time, were enrolled in new schools.” She leaned back, remembering. “Before the divorce, Yehuda was such a happy, carefree kid—but after, he became serious and introspective. He began having nightmares and worried constantly that something would happen to me, like I would get lost and never find my way home.”

Lewis nodded. “Well, it isn’t unusual for some individuals—even young children—to develop irrational fears after experiencing a loss. May I ask how old was he when you divorced?”

“Eleven,” Judith said. “But at the time, I didn’t consider it a
loss
, just a
change
.”

“We didn’t know then that divorce often has the same effect as death, especially if there is a lack of amicability between divorcing spouses,” Lewis said.

“Oh we were amicable,” Judith said, sarcastically. “My ex didn’t give me a penny, but he
did
graciously hand over full custody of our two children! He made it crystal clear he had no interest in seeing me, or them again—something about us
smothering
him. Ha! What a joke!”

Lewis didn't respond.

“It's just that if you knew me back then,” Judith explained, “you would realize I was pretty passive—certainly not the smothering type.”

“I see,” Lewis said. He suddenly understood the inspiration behind Judith's aggressiveness. She was compensating for a skewed self-perception. “Your kids really haven’t seen their father since the divorce?” he asked.

Judith shook her head. “No.”

Lewis shifted toward her on the bench. “What a major blow for them,” he said, shaking his head, “not just the dissolution of the family unit, but a complete rejection by a parent!” He looked at her sympathetically. “That must have been a very difficult time for them, as well as for you, Judith.”

“We got through it,” she said quickly.

“Well, knowing his background, it doesn’t surprise me that Yehuda took to religion the way he did,” Lewis continued. “The rituals probably saved his sanity. Did you notice a decrease in his anxiety levels as he became more religious minded?”

Judith raised her eyebrows, surprised. She had never made that connection before, but Lewis was right. Yehuda
had
become happier and more relaxed as his interest in Judaism increased.

“Religion gives us stability—a sense of control over our lives,” Lewis said.

Or maybe a false sense of security
, Judith thought to herself, though she was impressed with Lewis's bulls eye evaluation of Yehuda. “Do you see a lot of that in your practice?” she asked.

“Ritualistic behavior in response to stress?” He nodded. “Oh, yes, I certainly do; and lately there's been a surge in the number of children I see.”

“So it’s pretty common phenomena then?”

“Yes, but too often misdiagnosed.”

“How so?” Judith asked.

“To their parents and teachers—even trained counselors—these kids may look like they have attention deficit or obsessive compulsive disorders, but what the adults fail to consider is the
timing
. ADD and OCD
don't just
coincidentally
appear after a parent walks out!”

Judith considered how many of her clients' children were on Ritalin or other mind-altering drugs. In her estimate, it was well above fifty percent.

“So those kids aren't getting the right help?” she asked.

Lewis shook his head. “Not if they’re being medicated for something that has a situational rather than organic basis,” he said. “Drugs have their place, don't get me wrong; I just think we're too quick to Band-Aid a problem, rather than heal it at its source. And this doesn’t just apply when it comes to children, Judith. I’ve had more than a few seriously depressed adults come to me asking for Prozac or Effoxor. But once we talk a little, delve into some personal history, we’re usually able to root out early disturbances that were never dealt with. Often times patients have a hard time believing it themselves—especially when they report that others were amazed at their ability to cope so well during the crisis itself.”

“So you're saying that somehow they kept it together as young children, but then fell apart as adults?” Judith asked. “Sorry, but it sounds kind of backwards.”

“Children cope to the best of their ability with what limited resources they have,” Lewis said. “For those who appear to be the most resilient, it can take years before symptoms manifest.”

“You're talking about kids whose parents have divorced?” Judith asked.

“Not just with divorce, but a whole range of traumas.”

“But then aren’t the symptoms—when they
do
manifest—simply appearing out of the blue? I thought you said that didn’t happen.”

“I guess I wasn’t clear,” Lewis said. “The subconscious mind is extremely powerful. Often times, it's main objective is survival—protection from situations that may be too much to deal with. When there are no effects immediately following the disturbance, it means emotions are being suppressed—tucked away and dormant in the subconscious mind— waiting for the right time and the right
trigger
before they manifest.”

“What kind of
trigger
?”

Lewis thought for a moment. “Well, for example, I had one patient who one day out of the blue began compulsively cleaning.”

“And this had to do with some tragedy from her past?” Judith asked skeptically.

Lewis nodded. “Her daughter was entering the 2nd grade when the compulsive cleaning began,” he said. “I actually had to use hypnosis on her before she remembered that she herself had been in the 2
^nd
grade when a favorite cousin was killed in a boating accident.”

“It sounds impressive,” Judith agreed. “But how can you be sure the two incidents are linked?”

“Good question,” Lewis said, “The answer is that once the root trauma is exposed, the symptoms usually vanish pretty quickly.”

“So in that patient's case, you're telling me the compulsive cleaning stopped?”

Lewis nodded. “Within days.”

Judith rubbed her mitted hands together. “This may be unrelated to what you're talking about,” she said, “but I had a strange thing happen to
me
once.”

Lewis listened attentively as Judith continued.

“Years ago, while I was still married, I developed a rash on my finger—right under my wedding band,” she said. “It got so bad I had to take my ring off. A friend suggested I was reacting to the gold, but that wasn't it.”

“What was it then?” Lewis asked, although he already had a fairly good idea.

She looked away. “My husband was cheating on me.”

“Ah, the power of the mind-body connection!” he said, trying to regain eye contact with her. “On a subconscious level you must have sensed the affair, Judith.”

She shrugged, but still avoided his eyes. “I suppose there was a part of me that
did
know about it. I just didn’t want to admit it, so I kept telling myself I was imagining things. I was too afraid I guess.” Judith's earlier demeanor had changed. Now she seemed completely vulnerable.