“Actually, would you tell him that Dr. Phillips's brother is here?” I said to the young woman. “Tell him I'd like to see him and that I'll wait. I'm not in a hurry.”
She disappeared, but I didn't have to wait long, for she reappeared with Ray in tow. He emerged from the jungle of dry cleaning, a deeply puzzled expression on his face.
I took the initiative, extending my hand, and saying, “Hi, I'm Alex Phillips, Maddy's brother.”
“How did he look?”
He was very nicely though simply dressed, cotton khaki pants that were freshly pressed and a blue oxford cotton shirt that was distinctly and crisply starched. He had short brown hair, nicely trimmed, neatly combed. His mustache, not particularly thick by any means, was a little lighter in color. And his skin was pale. That was what I noted. It was like he was indoors all the time, like he never left his business. He had a big, white, boyish face, nice-looking, with the lines of middle age just beginning to appear.
“So he looked healthy?”
Yes, that was what he looked like, a big boy, face clean and body a tad plump. There was a hint of a shadow beneath his eyes, but no real circles, nothing that indicated poor health.
He looked at me in disbelief, then hesitantly reached over the counter and shook my hand. “Dr. Phillips's brother, really?”
“Yes, really,” I replied. “I was coming down to Chicago and Maddy asked me to deliver this to you.”
He studied me as if I'd been sent by a ghost from his past, as if I were a messenger from someone sacred, thought to be long lost, and said, “No wonder you kind of look familiar. I saw you drive up—that was you in the red car, wasn't it?—and for a second I thought I knew you. You kind of look like your sister.”
I shrugged. While the resemblance between Maddy and me was slim, it was there. The same sort of eyes and nose, the shape of it all, the angles in the center of the face.
“Not many people pick up on that. You have a good eye.” I held up the envelope and said, “Maddy asked me to give you this.”
“Oh.” He glanced at the package, then suggested, “Why don't we step outside?”
Ray Preston led the way out of his small but apparently prosperous shop, around the edge of the building, and down the alley. He stopped after a few feet, took a single cigarette from his shirt pocket, a butane lighter from his pants, and lit up. I looked at the ground, saw lots of butts mixed in with the gravel. So this was the break area. How attractive.
He asked, “How is she?”
“Fine. Keeping busy. She bought a big old house on an island and I think the repairs will keep her occupied for the next ten years.”
“But, I mean, the accident. I heard she couldn't…”
“That's right. She's paralyzed from the waist down, but she's just as active as ever.”
He turned away, a calm rather mild-spoken person, and shook his head. When he looked back at me, however, his white face was flushed red with fury, his blue eyes wide. He looked like an angry sportsman, someone who'd lost not just unjustly, but horribly, and who was now brimming with rage, someone looking for a target, any target.
“Goddamned drunk drivers! That's what hit her, wasn't it? Some guy who was drunk?”
I nodded, rather spooked and not understanding where his anger was coming from. “A bus clipped her —the driver was drunk. He'd already been warned two or three times.”
“Jesus fucking Christ!” he cursed.
He took a long drag on his cigarette, sucking on it deeply as if it were a joint and he was trying to get every bit out of it and into him. All that heat and smoke. What was it fuel for? What was boiling inside him? He shook his head, cursed some more, and walked away from me. I understood now why Maddy wanted me to deliver the envelope. She wanted to see if he was stable and calm. I'd have to report that he definitely wasn't, not from what I was seeing in this brief encounter.
Then he turned back to me and in one simple sentence it all made sense.
“That's what got my little girl—a drunk driver.”
Oh, I thought. That was what was causing his eyes to redden, his voice to choke with grief. And that was undoubtedly why he'd ended up seeing my sister, the shrink.
“I'm sorry,” I said. “I didn't know.”
“Yeah, some fucker ran a stop sign and broadsided my car. It was about a year after my wife and I were divorced, and I had my daughter, Lisa, for a few days. She was only six, and we were hit right out here,” he said pointing to the street. “Right on her side.”
She was probably killed instantly. Or maybe she died in her father's arms. Or perhaps Ray Preston's wife was there, too. I sensed there was a gory end to the story, one I didn't want to hear, for all of a sudden I was flooded with my own memories, those of Maddy's accident. The initial phone call at work. How long it had taken me to get to the airport. How sweet and smiley the stupid flight attendants were when all I felt like was smacking them and everybody else who looked happy. And then the days of waiting. Would she survive? Would she be able to talk? Walk?
I wanted to get out of this territory and off this subject, so I stretched out my hand, held the envelope toward him, and said, “Here. Maddy asked me to give this to you. I think it's something that you left in her office and that got mixed up with her things. She said she's sorry she didn't get it back to you sooner.”
His brow pinched up in a puzzled expression, and it was quite obvious he couldn't imagine what his former therapist would be sending him after all this time. Perching his cigarette between his lips, Ray Preston accepted the parcel and started opening it at once. I was about to turn away, to beat a retreat to my car, but I couldn't hide my curiosity. What could Maddy possibly have sent? I moved closer as he ripped off the end of the envelope, as he dug in one hand and pulled out a letter.
Ray read it aloud. “Dear Ray, You left this in my office that day, but unfortunately I was never able to enjoy it. Sorry it's taken me so long to get this back to you—it was mixed up with my things. I hope you are well, and do call if I can ever be of help. Fondly, Dr. Phillips.”
It was all clear to Ray; he knew what was in the envelope, and he looked up at me, mumbled, “Oh, God. Your… your sister. She was so good. I mean, sometimes I forgot she was blind. I wasn't thinking one day and I took this in to show her.”
He pulled out a color photo of a beautiful child, a little girl with light brown hair, bangs, round face. She wore a little white dress, had dimples, a cherubic smile. Oh, shit, I thought, Maddy had never been able to enjoy the picture because she'd never seen it, hadn't been able to.
Ray took a deep breath, bit down on it, tried not to cry, muttered, “Oh, God.”
“I'm sorry. I… I…”
I was speechless, that was what I was. Why did Maddy do this, have me deliver this photo? Was she that thoughtless? No, not at all. Not really. She was extremely cunning, however, and Maddy had certainly calculated that if I, a mere messenger from his former shrink, couldn't stir up any kind of raw emotion, then the picture of the dead girl most certainly would. And if it did—and it most definitely had—that fact could be construed to show how much Ray still needed his therapist. And that in turn reflected quite poorly upon my sister's ego and her need to feel indispensable and important.
Disturbed by Maddy's motivations, embarrassed by the situation I was now in, I muttered a quick farewell and left Ray Preston red-eyed and clutching the photo and memories of his little girl.
Chapter 11
“Then when Lucretia resists,” Loretta recounted to me as we sat in her backyard, “this Roman soldier, Sextus Tarquinius, draws his sword and tells Lucretia that if she does not sleep with him, he will kill her and his own slave, place their bodies side by side, and tell everyone that they'd been caught in the act of adultery.”
“How awful,” I replied.
I wasn't sure why Loretta was telling me the story of the rape of Lucretia, but there was obviously something of importance, a truth of some sort, in the story, for I could see the
passion in Loretta's eyes. Ever since I'd arrived at her house that cloudy afternoon, Loretta had been clutching a volume of Shakespeare that contained the narrative poem of Lucretia's sad fate. Loretta had been holding it against her breast when she greeted me at the door, and she never put it down as she made us both a glass of iced tea, led me past the scorning Helen, across the patio, and to a far corner of the yard. As I sat there on the coarse crabgrass, I stared at Loretta, tried to comprehend what this was all about. This wasn't happenstance, her telling me all this, particularly in the absence of Helen.
“So rather than have everyone think she's been dishonorable, Lucretia lets Sextus take her. You know, they did it.” Loretta looked at me, her eyes wide, wanting to make sure I understood that fornication had taken place. “But that's not the end of it. Lucretia's a very, very honest, even righteous person. So the next day, she gathers her family and tells them what happened, telling them that her body but not her heart had been taken. And then Lucretia pulls out this long, arching knife, saying…”
At this, Loretta cracked the Shakespeare volume and read,
“Poor hand, why quiver'st thou in this decree?
Honour thyself to rid me of this shame;
For if I die, my honour lives in thee,
But if I live, thou liv'st in my defame.”
Loretta dropped the book in her lap, threw back her head of thick graying hair, slammed a fist against her chest, and said, “And then poor Lucretia plunges the knife into her chest and kills herself on the spot.”
It was all very dramatic. This story, the way Loretta was recounting it and beating her own chest. I studied that pale face that suddenly didn't seem so pale, for it was flushing with color and passion, and I admired how her eyes were coming alive with animation. Loretta, I thought, would have made an excellent English lit teacher, one who could have imparted her love of the word to her students. I couldn't help but wonder, however, how the theme of this poem was supposed to enlighten me or what the story itself was foreshadowing.
I glanced back at the house, and just as quickly as I saw Helen's thin figure staring out one of the rear windows, she disappeared. I knew Helen didn't like my being here and that it infuriated her that Loretta had led me out of the house and to the farthest edge of the property.
“That's a very moving story, Loretta,” I said. “You tell it quite well. You must have studied it a great deal.”
“I have,” she said quite proudly. “There's a library not far from here, and I've read everything they have on Lucretia. They even ordered some books from another library for me.”
“How nice.”
“Yes, I love to read. I read all the time.”
“To escape?” I asked.
“Yes, to learn about distant places.”
I tried to pose a leading Maddyesque question, and I said, “Are there things you want to escape from?”
She smiled, frowned, and then her mouth fell flat. “Well, sure.”
“Like what?”
I watched Loretta's eyes as they hit upon the yard, the house next door, a large oak tree, and then circled around and came back to her own home. She stared for a long time at the low white structure, the simple but empty patio in back, and then her eyes fell to the grass in front of her and she pulled at a blade of grass.
“I don't know, all this.”
My first thought, of course, was that Loretta had been raped. She so clearly identified with Lucretia, sympathized with her plight and dilemma, I couldn't help but wonder if she'd been similarly violated. If that were the case, was Loretta planning a course of action similar to her tragic Roman heroine's? Was her letter to Maddy nothing more than a veiled plea for help?
I cleared my throat, said, “My sister, Maddy—”
Loretta instantly brightened, looked up, blurted, “Yes, Maddy. She's your sister. How is she? Is she all right?”
“She's okay. She asked me to apologize for having left so abruptly. You know there was a terrible accident and that she was in the hospital. You know that she didn't want to leave you, don't you?” I asked, directly and forcefully delivering one of Maddy's main messages to her former client.
“Yes, she was hit by a drunk bus driver.”
“Right, and she lost the use of her legs. She's doing all right, though, and she wanted me to say hello and ask how you are.”
“Me? Oh, I'm fine.”
Loretta paused in thought, and looking at her I felt a bit of pity, I supposed, but also a great deal of affection. I liked her simplicity. Perhaps it was that she never strayed more than a few blocks from this house, for it was clear that she was not caught up in the complications of modern society. No, she seemed not at all affected by computers or global communications, not even by the myriad of input and stimulation brought right into the house by cable television. Definitely a misfit in terms of today's world. I imagined her in a long white dress on some English country estate and knew that if she'd been born a hundred or two hundred years ago, she could have lived her entire life on such a place and fit in quite perfectly. No one would have given a thought to her not leaving the grounds.
Loretta smiled. “I like Maddy. She's so pretty and nice. She was so nice to me.”
“Good.” Then I gently said, “She got your letter.”
“Oh?”
“And she's worried about you.”
“Oh.”
Loretta said nothing, just started pulling on another blade of grass. I'd been in therapy, knew the trick of silence, how shrinks used it to try to get you to play the next card. But Loretta was quite the expert poker player. She volunteered nothing further.
I prodded. “Maddy said it was all right for you to talk to me. She wants you to talk to me because she's worried about you.”
Loretta looked across the expanse of grass, brushed several strands of her long straight hair out of her eyes, but still said nothing, holding on to her silence and privacy. Of course, I couldn't expect Loretta to talk to me as openly as she had with Maddy, but I'd still hoped invoking my sister's name would grant me a certain amount of access. I supposed it had, actually, for I was out here in her yard, just the two of us, but I could now see Loretta pulling back, even starting to shut down. I pulled out my last and best effort.
Before I lost her completely, I said, “Loretta, in your letter you said you needed help and that it was a matter of life and death. What's the matter? Are you in danger?”
She shrugged, drew in a deep, long breath, opened just a bit, and hesitantly said, “We… we did something bad.”
“Who?”
“My family.”
“What happened?”
“Something… something bad,” she repeated.
“What can Maddy do to help you?” I asked.
“Nothing. I shouldn't have written her. I'm sorry. Tell her that, would you? It's too late.”
“No, I'm sure it's not, Loretta. Just tell me what happened, and I'll do what I can. Maddy will help, too.”
“No, she can't. Neither of you can. It's hopeless.” She looked down, shook her head. “We deserve to die.”
Oh, God. Oh, Jesus, I thought. It flashed before me: Loretta is going to kill herself, stab herself just like Lucretia. I could see the desperation, the despair, in her eyes. What should I do, could I do? Intervene, blow the whole thing up by talking to Helen?
“Don't panic, Alex. Loretta and I were talking about this very thing when she was in therapy. Something quite traumatic happened in her family, and this is her great secret. It was the focus of our work together. She was getting ready to divulge it when I had my accident. That's why my leaving was so hard on her—she trusted me and then I abandoned her. Find the key to this secret, though, and you'll unlock her mystery. That's what you have to do, Alex, find that key.”
I slowed my thoughts, tried to make a little more sense out of this, because somewhere inside me I knew that exposing Loretta's words, fears, and even threats to Helen or others would be the worst possible course of acti
on. I had some time, I sensed. This had been brewing for a while. There was no immediate emergency. I ran my hand over the grass, took a swig of iced tea, tried to plot my next move.
“This is good tea,” I said, trying to defuse things a bit. “Maddy would love it. She drinks this stuff by the gallon.”
She smiled. “I know. That's why I made it for you. In honor of your sister.”
I didn't ask how Loretta knew what Maddy liked to drink, but I suspected that she knew a lot about my sister. Like everyone in therapy, I was sure Loretta had noticed every detail about her therapist—from her shoes to her blouses to the framed prints on her walls —and gathered all these bits and pieces and tried to form an image of what that person was like in real life beyond the office.
I switched tactics, asked, “How's your brother, Billy?”
She opened her mouth, almost said something, then glared at me as if I'd almost succeeded in tricking her. Instead, she looked away and shrugged her shoulders.
“I don't know.”
But she'd been about to say fine, hadn't she? Hadn't I seen the beginning of that word perched on her lips?
“Why don't you know?” I asked, following Maddy's suggestion to push her on this one. “Don't you see him?”
“No, Billy's gone.”
“Gone or disappeared?”
She stared at me distrustfully. “Both. He ran away. Why are you asking about him?”
“Because I'd like to talk to him, if you wouldn't mind. Do you know where he is?”
“No,” she quickly replied.
She looked away, stared off into yard after yard of grass. Pinched her lips tightly together. I felt as if I could read her thoughts, that she was wondering just what kind of huckster I was.
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