“Right. I’m sure that’s exactly why you’re here. To prove there are two sides to every story.” Josephine smoothed the darts on the front of her dress. “I think we both know you’re here to build a case against us, not for us. And I have every right to protect myself. To document every move you make and ensure that you won’t twist my words to suit your quota.”
Trina and Mr. Flores eyed each other over the steaming teapot. For the first time, it occurred to Will that they were a well-oiled machine, like police partners. Will could practically read their thoughts: We’ve got a live one. Hostile. Adversarial.
Trina changed her mind and dropped a scone onto her plate. “Right, well … As I mentioned when I saw you last, the hospital notified CPS after Will’s recent hospital visit. The doctor who treated him had some concerns about the nature of his injury.”
“As well he should. Given my son was stabbed by his sister.”
“Yes, we’ve been told. But before we get to the night of Will’s injury, I hoped you might be able to give me a tour? All standard procedure. Just one of many silly things we’re required to do.” At last, Trina seemed to be speaking his mother’s language. The knot in Will’s chest loosened a millimeter. Soon this would be over. Soon he could get back to his investigations.
Mr. Flores grunted in agreement. “We just need to see the things Will eats. And make sure he has his own bed.”
“His own bed!” Josephine trilled. “Will has his own playroom. He has his own bathroom.” Her voice bristled with condescension. The look she gave Mr. Flores was like a backhanded slap.
Will trailed the three of them through the house, nodding in agreement—though no one was looking at him—because he thought someone ought to appear cooperative.
“Cool construction mural. Did you paint it yourself?” Mr. Flores asked when they got to Will’s room.
Will glanced at the wall’s cranes and bulldozers. He shook his head.
“I painted it,” Josephine said.
“Very cool,” Flores repeated. “So I was thinking, maybe Will and I can hang out here and have a chat while you show Trina the rest of the house?”
“It would be my pleasure to let you talk to Will privately when you come back here with a court order.” Josephine smiled. “But until then, Will has a legal right to be accompanied by me or an attorney.”
They did the final loop of the tour.
Mr. Flores continued to watch Will with prowling cat eyes. “So, buddy … Why don’t you and I sit right here at the table and talk, man-to-man, for a few minutes? Don’t worry, your mom’s gonna stay in the kitchen. She’ll be right over there by the stove with Trina.”
Trina smiled and waved from her place between his mother and the breadbox. Will had a feeling that Trina would put her hand out if Josephine tried to step toward him, the same way, in the car, his mother sometimes threw her arm across the passenger seat if she braked short at a light.
Mr. Flores reached into his leather backpack. He took out a notebook and pack of crayons that made Will feel as patronized as he did in restaurants where the waitress brought him a sippy cup and a word search puzzle. “So Will … Does anyone in your family smoke?”
Will wasn’t prepared for this line of questioning. He ached to glance over at his mother. Instead, he found himself studying Mr. Flores for clues to whatever answer he expected. “Just Violet.”
“Your sister,” Mr. Flores said. “Why don’t you use these crayons and draw me a picture of what Violet smokes?”
Will’s stomach clenched. He had no idea if he could render what he’d once caught Violet hiding in one of the basement armoires his mother used for storage. Please don’t tell, Violet had pleaded. No one will find it here. Mom rifles through other people’s stuff, but she’s totally unwilling to look at her own baggage.
Will had never told. But now he picked up the green crayon and drew a few crinkly green turds in the bottom of an old caper jar. Marijuana. Somehow he’d just known. Your stoner sister. That was what Will’s old public school tormentors used to call Violet.
His mother was looking at him sidelong. Will wasn’t sure which Josephine would hate more: the fact that Will had besmirched their fine, upstanding family or the fact that—even after all the contouring lessons she’d given him—his drawing techniques hadn’t much improved. The crayon went oily in his fat, clumsy fingers.
“You okay there, buddy?”
Will realized he was jittering his foot hard. On the table, the teaspoons were vibrating. “I’m okay.”
Mr. Flores poured himself a cup of tea but didn’t take a sip. “So let’s talk about when you left school—”
“The school wasn’t carpeted,” Josephine butted in. “In the event of a seizure, we didn’t want Will to hit his head on those hard floors.”
“That’s understandable,” Mr. Flores said, writing.
“Plus, with the Asperger’s … Public school was too stimulating. Will doesn’t do well in crowded, noisy places.”
“The thing is, Mrs. Hurst, I’d rather Will tell me these things himself.” Flores leaned in an inch. “Tell me how you feel in crowds, buddy?”
“I don’t do well in crowded places,” Will said. Echolalia: a echo-like repetition of another’s words. His mother’s voice brought him back: “Honey, you need to look Mr. Flores in the eye when you speak to him.”
“I don’t mind,” Flores said, but by then, Will was holding his gaze.
This time, it was Mr. Flores who looked away first. He seemed as unnerved as most people Will looked in the eye for more than a few seconds. That tension was the real reason Will avoided focusing intently on anyone. Eye contact didn’t disturb Will, but it seemed to disturb other people; it was easier for everyone when Will kept his gaze below sea level.
Flores said: “I gotta say, the homeschool thing has always struck me as pretty lonely. Do you get a chance to hang out with kids your own age?”
“Oh, yeah. All the time,” Will said automatically. His pulse was thumping. He hoped the lie didn’t show on his face.
“Where?” Mr. Flores asked.
“Where do I hang out with other kids?”
“Yeah.”
“Play group,” he said loudly. “At the Rosendale rec center.”
His mother did nothing to disguise her approval.
Mr. Flores had a pitying look on his face. He ran his palm over his New York Jets tie. Will thought it was a fashion choice that must have endeared him to other (sporty, normal) twelve-year-old boys. “Let’s talk about your epilepsy for a minute,” Flores said. “That must stink. Getting dragged around to all those doctor’s appointments.”
Will shrugged. “Lots of people have it worse. When my mom was little, she had such bad asthma she could barely walk up the stairs.”
“What does it feel like? A seizure, I mean?”
“I feel it in my chest, first. Not pain. It’s just kind of hard to breathe. Then, nothing until I wake up, and I can’t remember anything, and I feel like I’ve been hit with a frying pan. Sometimes there’s a little blood if I’ve bitten my tongue or the insides of my cheek.”
“Do you have seizures often?”
Later, thinking of his mistake, Will would blame the fact that he was on autopilot. He’d gone through the same spiel, so many times before, with so many different doctors.
“I have a seizure about every two or three months. I had two this month, which was”—Will almost said aberrant, a word his mother would use, but then he remembered himself, the fact that he should come off like an ordinary twelve-year-old runt—“freaky.”
“You had two seizures this month?”
“Yeah. One in the car the other day and one the night Violet went away.” Will’s heart clanged the second he said it. The seizure was not in the version of events he and his mother had rehearsed.
Mr. Flores twitched like a sleeping dog. He turned to look at Trina, but midrubberneck, he caught himself. “Can you tell me a little bit about the night Violet went t
o the hospital?” There was a softness in his eyes and a delicacy in his manner that scared Will more than anything.
“Um, sure.” Will, scrounging for ways to backpedal, realized there were none. All he could do was recite, word for word, the version he and his mother had practiced, and pray Mr. Flores forgot the small detail of the seizure. “Violet was pointing the knife at my mom. My mom called her sick, and Violet started charging at her. I put myself between them, and I snatched the blade away. She cut me a few times in the process, but I got it in the end.” Will looked away. There was a sickening feeling in his stomach when he remembered the way it seemed like the bleeding would never stop. He’d bled all over the tiles, all over a dropped oven mitt, all over his best khaki pants.
Mr. Flores scratched one tapered sideburn. “So, I’m a little confused here. Explain it to me like I’m a kindergartener. Did you have your seizure before or after you grabbed the knife away from your sister?”
Will’s vision tunneled. A cold numbness swept down his arms, and he wondered if everyone could see his heart squirming beneath his sweater vest. “After,” he said. Very suddenly he remembered the jagged pain in his hand and his mother’s angry face as she applied pressure to the wound. She couldn’t stand it when he hurt himself, even if he was only trying to help.
“You’re sure about that? Even though these seizures make it hard to remember many minutes before and after?”
“Uh-huh,” Will lied. “I remember it all really vividly.”
Will couldn’t help it. He turned and glanced to his mother for reassurance. It was an old habit, inevitable as drawing his next breath. Only her lipsticked mouth—lips pulled together like a little, red fist—foretold her disappointment and the classical punishment she had in store for him.
Misodoctakleidist: someone who hates practicing the piano.
VIOLET HURST
VIOLET’S THERAPIST, SARA, was an intimidating-looking woman, with her Eleanor Roosevelt hairdo. Like a master hunter or fisherman, she seemed to be able to sit still for hours without breathing audibly or adjusting the cross of her legs. Her pursed lips and squinted eyes blatantly warned Violet, I am judging you. I’m determining your future.
“I’d like to discuss the truth for a moment,” Sara-pist said.
“The truth,” Violet repeated, and for a moment she felt as though a weight had been lifted from her. At last, someone was at least considering the idea that Josephine wasn’t telling the truth about Friday night.
“Yes, the truth. Your parents seem to think you have a problem being honest. Do you find the truth makes you feel too vulnerable? Does it cause you some irrational fear?”
“No,” Violet snapped. She loved truth. She craved truth. If anything, being the family truth-teller was what got her in so much trouble.
“Let’s talk about lying, then. How do you feel when you’re doing it? Do you ever feel like you want to stop lying, but you can’t?”
“I don’t lie! Is that what my parents told you? That I’m some kind of pathological liar?!”
“The clinical term is pseudologia fantastica.”
“My mom is the liar!”
“Sounds like you’re projecting,” Sara-pist said. “Instead of seeing bad in yourself, you perceive it in others. It’s a defense mechanism. One that allows people to go on believing they’re perfect.” Her desk chair gave a little squeal as she leaned back in it. “Is that it, Violet? Do you think you’re perfect?”
“Of course not! And my mom is the one who does the projecting. Calling me crazy, when she’s the one who’s insane …”
“True. By sending you here, your mother made you what we call the ‘identified patient.’ Maybe you’re the person who shows the most symptoms, even if other people in your family have mental health issues too.”
“So why am I here and my parents aren’t?” It was such a whiny, teenage, it’s-not-fair-type question. Violet hated herself for having to ask it.
“You’re here, Violet, because you’re a violent offender. I can’t help you, and I definitely won’t release you, until we get to the heart of your lying, your violent tantrums, the ways you hurt your brother.”
“You’re not going to release me?” Strange the way Violet was both disappointed and relieved. She wanted to get home to Imogene and her farm stand friends, but she still hadn’t made an escape plan. She wanted to hear from Rose, and she needed to get to the heart of what had happened the night of Will’s injury.
“I can’t. I got a memo saying you’ve been named an elopement risk. Did you try to run away during last night’s recovery meeting?”
“I took a five-minute break. Without permission, yeah. But I needed some air. Did your memo say my dad was the guest of honor?”
Violet watched her meaning slowly register in Sara-pist’s expression. “Your father was the speaker?”
“Ask him yourself. He’s coming to visiting hours today.” It had been, hands down, the most awkward exchange Violet had ever had. Even worse, it had happened in front of a small audience of reverent addicts, all of whom were commending Douglas on his “emotional honesty.” In a totally Hurst fashion, they’d both pretended, however stiltedly, that nothing was wrong. Douglas faked like he’d invited her, and Violet didn’t breathe a word about his recent relapse.
Sara-pist took off her glasses and cleaned the lenses in the folds of the bland, expensive-looking blouse she wore under her white coat. “I’d love to see your dad while he’s here. I’ll alert the front desk to send him to me before he comes to you. Did you know he was in recovery before last night?”
“I knew he slurs like a Bowery bum. That wasn’t hard to miss. But I didn’t know he’d quit drinking. He said he was blacked out the night he brought me here. How did everyone here miss that?”
“You missed it.”
“I was tripping my face off.”
“Exactly. There’s addiction in your family. On the one hand, that’s a painful thing to accept. But there’s an opportunity for connection. You and your father have something in common.”
Violet shook her head vehemently. “My dad was too drunk to stand up for me and say I didn’t hurt my brother. That’s the painful thing to accept.”
“Listen to me, Violet. If you think you’ve been set up, then that’s a big setup. No one made you take drugs. No one forced you to pick up that knife. I think your main priority needs to be you. Not your mother, not your dad. I want you to take deep breaths and focus on the things you can do something about.” She glanced at her watch. “Sorry to cut this short, but it’s time to go.”
Sara-pist was right. It really was time to go. Violet needed to buckle down and make a two-year plan for herself. Homeless shelter. Storage unit. McJob. Whatever. She would get away from her cruel mother by whatever means necessary. It was time to stop panicking and start planning.
WILLIAM HURST
AFTER TRINA AND Mr. Flores left, Will sat at the piano keys, wondering how the heck he was going to play DeBenedetti’s “Arctic Nights” with just one hand.
“A real musician is someone who can create true and original music with every performance.” Josephine was lounging on the silk fainting couch that always made Will imagine a gang of shirtless men hoisting it up onto their flexing shoulders.
Josephine’s pantyhose whispered as she rubbed her feet together. “Real musicians play under all kinds of conditions,” she continued. “They play through tinnitus and arthritis. If you weren’t using your hand as an excuse, you’d be using your autism or your epilepsy. Stop making excuses for yourself, little boy.” Her tone was joking, but it had a hard edge.
“Are you angry?” After Trina and Flores left, Josephine had just stood behind the stove, pressing her palms against the unlit burners as though in a trance. When she’d snapped out of it, she’d gone directly to the sheet music. She’d actually lifted Will onto the piano bench as though he were a much smaller child.
“I said play. If you make me ask again, you’ll regret it.”
<
br /> He tried to play only the left hand, but that was the melancholy bit and it was not the same without the loud, fierce trillings of the right.
Josephine’s smile was prickly. “Funny, I don’t remember asking for half of a song. That’s like ordering a hamburger and getting only the bun. I need sirloin.”
But how? There must be some way to play the song with a splint on his hand. He was certain of it, or else his mother wouldn’t be demanding it. Will’s ears were buzzing. He felt out of sorts, unsteady on the bench. Will tried playing the right-handed parts with his left. It was still only half a song, and even choppier than the first time around. Rhadamanthine, a describing word. Like a stern judge.
“Enough,” she finally said. “It’s obvious to me that you haven’t been practicing. Get up.”
“No, Mom …” How dumb he’d been to think piano time was his punishment. What she had in mind was much worse.
“Don’t ‘No, Mom,’ me. I am the mother and you are the child.”
Will reluctantly followed her to her second-floor office. The smell inside was the same as always: hand lotion and expensive art paper. The curtains were drawn. Josephine flicked on the desk lamp, and Will went directly to the spot on the back of the closed door that no one but the two of them knew about. He seemed to find himself there, for one reason or another, at least once a week.
She pulled open her desk drawer and took out a sheaf of reward stickers—the ones she bought at Kingston’s Parent Teacher Store. Will watched her peel off a red apple giving the thumbs-up. Great Work! the sticker read. It was so strange to be punished with praise. He felt certain it would hurt less if she gave him emotionally honest stickers: ones that said Bad Job! or Boo! or So disappointing! But then, no company printed put-down stickers, did they?
Will watched his mother thumb the apple sticker high onto the back of the door. Too high. He wasn’t even sure he could bring his nose to reach it, let alone hold it there for an hour or more.
“I thought I did a good thing!” Will pleaded, as she nudged him toward it. “It was good, wasn’t it? Telling them about what Violet smokes? I thought you’d be happy.” Tears were dripping down his cheeks.
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