Her father’s entire face flushed red, his jaw clenched. “I wanna kill her. I mean, in the legal sense. I take that back, in both senses. I’m sure Prokop has lawyered up by now, but she doesn’t stand a chance on either charge, attempted murder and treason. I hope she rots in jail—rots.”
Cady squeezed her father’s hand. She knew him well enough to know that anger was his way of redirecting fear. And what happened tonight had scared the hell out of him.
“What was the proof you found?” he asked.
“It actually wasn’t proof. I was mistaken when I confronted her. The photos weren’t of Prokop.” She looked at her mother. “They were of you. That’s how I knew you were with Eric when he died.”
“There are photos?” her mother asked, barely above a whisper.
Her father recoiled. “Wait, what?”
“It’s okay, Mom told me about what happened the night Eric died, how she was there, and how you both lied to me about it.”
He shot a cold look at his wife. “You couldn’t wait to include me in that conversation?”
“Dad, listen, there’s a lot to sort out,” Cady interrupted before her mother could defend herself. “The girl you hired to hack Eric’s web stuff, Lee Jennings—Mom, I don’t know if you knew about that.” From the look on her face, Cady guessed no. “Lee answered your ad because she was Eric’s competitor for the Bauer, and she had an ax to grind against Prokop for choosing to advise him. Lee suspected the favoritism was sexual—she was wrong, Prokop chose him because his illness let her manipulate him and provided a good cover for her illegal activities, plus Lee is an active member of the Navy ROTC, she would literally be the last person Prokop would want around as she sold research belonging to the Department of Defense—but Lee had been stalking them and taking photos of them both in hopes of getting proof of an affair. Lee was spying on Eric the night he died.”
“So she saw me, and she has photos?” Her mother looked frightened.
“You don’t need to worry, Lee thinks it was Prokop in the picture, the quality is terrible, and that fits the narrative she already had in her head. Lee gave me the photos under that pretext, and that’s why I told Prokop I had proof of her trying to murder Eric. When I actually looked at them, I realized Lee was wrong. Anyway, it doesn’t matter now. The pictures don’t incriminate Prokop, I do.” She looked back at her mother and saw that her face was suddenly beet red. “Mom, what’s wrong? I told you, you have nothing to worry about.”
“I’m not worried about myself. I feel for you.” She fought back tears from her already bloodshot eyes, her heart wrung out. “I can’t believe you saw that moment, you should never have had to see that. I know I was wrong to keep it from you in the first place, but I hate to think how that made you feel, how I made you feel.” She took a shaky breath. “It isn’t enough, but I am so, so sorry. And I’m sorry to you, too, Andrew, for Eric, for everything.”
“Karen, if anyone on this earth could’ve stopped Eric, it would’ve been you.” He gave a heavy sigh. “I was just angry—angry at Eric for doing it, angry at you for going without me, and most of all angry at myself for not protecting all of us. But I couldn’t talk to anyone about it. So I took it out on you, and I’d hate myself for it afterward, and round and round. You didn’t deserve that, and I couldn’t bear to do it to you anymore. That’s why I moved out. It wasn’t you. And look, you did save our baby girl. I wasn’t here, and you saved her.”
For the first time in a while, she saw the softness return to her father’s eyes, and he looked at her mother in a way that honored their shared love, their shared history, and their shared heartbreak. Cady had thought she was one step ahead of them, analyzing their fights from the other side of a door, but now she realized she had misread so much between them. She had misread a lot.
But Cady’s mother remained crestfallen. “Cady wouldn’t have been on that roof if it wasn’t for those photos. I’ve driven my husband out of the house and driven nearly both my children to suicide.”
“Mom, it wasn’t just the photos that got me up on that roof tonight.” Cady looked between both of her parents, unsure of whether now was the right time to open up. They were all in various states of exhaustion, her dad’s clothes were rumpled from the long drive, her mom looked as if she had been through a hurricane, and Cady herself was bone-tired, every muscle in her body ached, her heart most of all. But the time for secrets was over. It was the secrets that had done this to them.
She didn’t know where to start but at the beginning: “Since Eric died, I’ve been trying to understand why he did what he did. Once I got on campus, making sense of his suicide took over everything else. At the same time, I worried his schizophrenia was genetic and it was just a matter of time before I got it, too. I started hearing voices. I couldn’t tell you, I knew what you would think, I knew what I thought. But they weren’t scary or telling me to do anything bad, they were more like imaginary friends, but from the past, like ghosts.” She only skimmed the surface in describing them, but it was a relief to say any of it out loud. “They had their own stories to tell, but they brought up a lot about my own, memories of Eric that I’d blocked out. I had a lot of feelings around his death that I hadn’t dealt with, and the only person I could find to blame was myself. The voices helped me sort through it. Anyway, they’re gone now, and I don’t think they’ll come back.”
Even in her parents’ silence, Cady could tell her they were anxious at hearing this, but no more than she was at telling it. Her mouth had gone completely dry. She took a sip of water from the little plastic cup on her bedside before she continued. “When I found Eric’s notebook, and the coordinates, it gave me purpose, and it gave me hope that maybe I wasn’t to blame. Maybe not even Eric was responsible, maybe he hadn’t wanted to die. Maybe I could blame it all on Prokop and do right by Eric by vindicating him. I hung every hope on that, it was the only thing that distracted me from my fears about myself. Then, when the pictures weren’t the proof I thought they were, and the truth was even more complicated, I lost it.”
She gingerly ran her hands over her bruised arms; she had goosebumps. “I wasn’t on the roof of Leverett to kill myself, not really. I felt responsible for so many choices that weren’t mine and situations in other people’s lives, that I didn’t realize I’d given up control in my own life. Consciously or not, the roof was a test—a test to see if Eric’s fate was mine, or if I could trust myself to make my own choice.” Cady took a deep breath. “Once I was standing on that ledge, I didn’t know what I was doing, I didn’t know who I was, I still might not, but I realized I’m not Eric. I’m not better or worse, I’m just myself. And I want to live to figure that out.” She met her mother’s gaze. “I was getting down from the ledge when Prokop pushed me.”
Cady took her mother’s hand and squeezed, as much to gain strength as to give it. “But after all this, I know I don’t blame you, because I’m done blaming myself.”
They were all silent for a few moments, the low hum of medical machines and the smell of cold pizza filling the space between them.
“So where do we go from here?” her father asked, packing much into a single question.
“The detectives said they’d like us to stay in town, in case they need us for more questioning,” said her mother. “After that, I think you should come home, Cady, I think we have work to do in this family.”
Cady nodded.
“Do you like that therapist you’re seeing here, Greg?” her mother asked.
“Oh, I’m not really seeing a therapist, I lied about that to check out the fourth drop—but I will, I want to, I know I need help. A professor of mine gave me a name of a psychiatrist in Boston.”
“I don’t know about Boston,” her father said. “I think you should transfer.”
“I’ll take this year off, but I’m coming back,” Cady answered.
“Cadence, you have nothing left to p
rove,” he said.
“It would be running away. And that’s what got us into this mess in the first place. This entire family, we all run away from what’s hard or what frightens us instead of facing it. Mom did it that night, Dad, you did it when you moved out, I did it plenty. But this was the first time I went toward something painful. And as difficult as it’s been, I needed to do it.” Cady sat up, energized by her conviction. “I didn’t vindicate Eric, or myself, in the way I’d set out to. But with regard to Prokop, I did finish what he started. That letter was his last mission for me. And I’m proud that I did it, even if he isn’t here to see. It was worth it.”
“It almost killed you,” her mother said.
“No.” Cady heard her own voice, and it sounded sure. “It saved me.”
65
Cady and her parents stayed in town through the next week at the request of the authorities, who had follow-up questions. Cady used the time to recover in the hotel and pack up her room at Weld. She had a lot to explain to her roommates, and to apologize for, now that she saw their well-founded concern more clearly, but they received her with sympathy and grace. They said they were sad she was taking the year off and promised to keep in touch, and Cady hoped that they meant it. She felt genuinely choked with emotion when she hugged them goodbye, wishing she could have met them both in a better time.
Although the news of Professor Prokop’s arrest for allegedly attacking an unnamed undergraduate bumped the story off the Crimson’s front page, Cady read that LeeAnn Jennings had won the Bauer Award, so she was definitely not coming forward to claim those pictures. A later article on the Prokop saga included the footnote that she had been subsequently accused of sexual misconduct by her advisee, Nikos Nikolaides, who was additionally appealing the Bauer decision in connection with his harassment claim. The Ad Board ruled that Cady’s plagiarism case was inconclusive and she should be graded without penalty. She waited for Hines’s email conceding that she received an A on that paper before she informed him she was dropping all her classes and taking a year off. By the following Saturday night, the boxes were packed, the loose ends were tied, and the Archers were ready to go home.
That Sunday morning, her father came over to her and her mother’s room to eat breakfast together before they hit the road, but it was her mother who suggested they attend Sunday services at Memorial Church. Now, walking up the steps of the church, Cady realized with a twinge that it was the first time they had all been together in a church since Eric’s funeral, but she knew they could get through it. They’d been through worse.
It was also the first time Cady had been inside Memorial Church in the daytime, and it was glorious. Sunlight streamed through the floor-to-ceiling windows, filling the white room with warmth. What had seemed forbidding now felt airy and inviting, filled with light, sound, and bodies. The red carpet seemed cheery instead of lurid, like a strawberry in summer. The swath of sky seen through the window was the clear, crisp color of a blue jay’s wing. The lofty, open space was filled with the bustle and chatter of its congregants, a mix of students, faculty, and members of the community.
Here, none of the students seemed to have the typical pall of Sunday dread; instead the atmosphere was social and relaxed. Cady sensed the tension subsiding from her mind and body for the first time in weeks. She and her parents took seats in the middle of a pew, not far from where she had first met Whit that night.
When the minister approached the lectern, everyone took their seats and quieted down. The clergyman was a small, round black man with even smaller, rounder eyeglasses and a halo of soft gray curls encircled his balding brown head. He had smiling eyes and a great, generous mouth; either he was born to be a preacher, or his body had grown to accommodate the calling. Cady liked him immediately. He greeted them in a baritone voice both gravelly and sonorous, with vowels drawn out by a plummy Boston Brahmin accent. His voice delivered an air of both elite intellectualism and easy comfort.
“Welcome, friends,” he began. “Some of you here experienced your first Parents’ Weekend last week—and you survived.”
The room laughed as the Archers remained silent.
“Some of you may even be feeling a little homesick after saying goodbye to the people who raised you. They gave you food, clothing, and shelter, they are largely responsible for providing the opportunities and support in getting you here. But now they’re home, and you’re on your own again. So, I want to talk about what it means to be raised.” The reverend lifted his arms palms up. “There are many meanings of the word. One can raise a barn, meaning to build it from the ground up. Or raise a question, meaning to offer for consideration. To raise a bet, to gamble on the unknown. To raise funds, something Harvard does very well, meaning to collect or bring together. I look around, and I am constantly reminded of those heroes and benefactors who raised this glorious church. First of course, the fallen heroes whose names are inscribed upon these walls …”
As he went on to point out each of the various memorial walls, Cady couldn’t help but think of how Whit’s name wouldn’t be on any of them. How he had died serving his country just a few years after this church was dedicated, and yet, his name would be missing by a technicality that it didn’t occur during wartime. But she would never forget him, James Whitaker Goodwin, Jr.
“… the vestry of Trinity Church in Copley Square gifted this pulpit upon which I stand in memory of their rector and our distinguished alumnus, Phillips Brooks. Harvard’s Phi Beta Kappa chapter gave that golden eagle lectern over there in memory of its members who died in that war. And past university president Abbot Lawrence Lowell donated the bell in our tower in memory of the World War I dead and inscribed on the lip the words ‘in memory of voices that are hushed.’ ”
Hushed. There was a peace to the word, like a baby sleeping. When Cady had first heard the voices of Robert, Bilhah, and Whit, she had railed against them to be quiet, more recently she had longed to hear them. But now, for the first time, she found comfort in hoping they were hushed. At peace. Her brother most of all.
The minister had circled back to his main discussion: “To raise: to build, to offer up, to bet on, to support, to honor. To raise a child means all of the above. But perhaps the simplest definition is to lift. Many of you may recall when you were but a small child, the sensation of your father or mother lifting you onto his or her shoulders. It was a joyful gesture, one that is always sure to elicit a peal of laughter from the child and a smile from any passersby.”
Cady looked over and saw her father place his hand over her mother’s and give it a squeeze.
“But recall, the purpose of being raised this way was to see better. To be positioned to observe the world from a better point of view. We cannot do this all on our own …”
The words resonated. Cady thought of the inherent incompleteness of any single perspective, the primary and most painful example being Eric, her wonderful, troubled, brilliant, short-sighted, and beloved brother. She accepted now that his reasons for deciding to end his life could never be fully known, but it wasn’t to punish them. She remembered Whit’s words: Just because it’s my choice to go doesn’t mean I’m not heartbroken to leave you. But Eric hadn’t given himself enough time or his loved ones enough space to carry him through the darkest times of his illness to the brighter recovery that might have been around the corner. Loving Eric wasn’t always easy, but any one of them would have carried him through fire to save his life.
But it wasn’t only Eric and his illness that made him think this way, it’s human nature to default to our own narrow perspective. The stories we tell ourselves have such power, and yet they can be mistaken, cherry-picked, or otherwise fictitious. Cady thought of how Nikos had believed Eric’s suicide was all about him and the competition. How Lee could only see Prokop in the picture. How her father, who thought he knew everything, could fail to see how he’d distanced himself from his wife and daughter. She thought of how her mo
ther had seen only her own hand in Eric’s death to the exclusion of all others, and then how Cady herself had done the same. None of them alone could ever see it clearly. They needed each other in order to see the whole picture, or as close as they could get. They needed to raise each other to see past the tragedy of Eric’s death.
She thought, too, of how even the ghosts functioned to teach her this. She had thought that hearing them was her cosmic punishment for failing her brother, her curse to meet each at the turning point of their lives, to miss it, and to lose them, and repeat the agony of her missed opportunity with Eric. But the complexity of their lives showed her that that golden opportunity was never there in the first place. To think so narrowly overlooked their own agency, their limits, and her own. History is never as simple a narrative as we write in books.
She could not change the ghosts and their paths any more than she could Eric’s, and she had to make peace with that. But she could let them change her. She could learn the lessons of Bilhah, that DNA did not have to be destiny, and that the story of our future is ours to write. And Whit, who carried the burden of his father’s legacy but never forgot the choice was his. And Robert, that to judge ourselves in hindsight will never be fair, or proper scientific method. She could see her life better for having seen theirs.
And she could see the ways she was like her brother and the ways she was different, and cherish his memory and his lessons all the same.
“Nothing is guaranteed to you,” boomed the minister. “Contrary to what you may have been told, Harvard is not a golden ticket. You will earn your keep and sing for your supper and reap what you sow. And even then, you may not get what you deserve. Nothing has changed but for this: You have been raised. So look around. Be grateful for every new perspective you encounter on this campus. Listen to the voices around you, however dissimilar to your own. Make up your own mind, forge your own path, your life is your own. That is the purpose of your new privileged position as a student at this institution of higher learning.” He held a finger in the air. “And most important, do not forget upon whose shoulders you stand: family, history, and spirit. Let us pray.”
Ghosts of Harvard Page 43
