"What did you think of him?"
"Eager to please—a little too eager, I thought. He virtually courted our mother, as if to prove how helpful and considerate he was. I remember her telling Joanie not to let him get away." Lara's tone became soft. "Then they got married, and I moved to Washington for the Times. Marie was born about the time I met you. They were the ideal family, Joanie claimed."
Listening, Kerry heard more than the words themselves: that Lara felt she had been too caught up in her own career, and Kerry, to see the warning signs. "And then you went to Kosovo," he said. "How could you have known?"
This tacit reference to their own estrangement caused Lara to take his hand. "I do now, don't I."
They walked in silence until they reached the beach, a grey-brown skein of sand strewn with driftwood. A redwood log stripped of bark had washed up near the lapping waves; after Lara sat, wind rustling her hair, Kerry did the same. "When I started prosecuting domestic violence cases," he said at length, "I began to see this depressing, endless cycle. Kids who witness abuse and then grow up to be abusive—or abused. In time, Marie could become Joan."
"So how do I help them?"
"Someone should do something. But you may not be the one."
Turning, Kerry faced her. "If you don't mind, I'd like to talk to Joan myself."
At once, Lara felt resistant. "This is my family. I know them. I'm not going to dump our problems on you."
"They're about to be our family." Kerry looked at her intently. "You already know about my own. Too often people treat this as a family matter, something private, and it just gets worse. We've both seen way too much of that."
Still Lara hesitated. Softly, Kerry asked, "What if he kills her, Lara?"
FOUR
The next morning, Kerry Kilcannon went to the Bowdens' home.
That this proved difficult reminded Kerry of the new strictures on his movement. Slipping the press was hard in itself; worse, Kerry was forced to wait in a nondescript Secret Service van while two agents introduced themselves to a startled Joan Bowden and asked permission to search the house. Kerry's only consolation was the certainty that her husband was not home; at his absolute insistence, the agents assigned to guard him agreed to wait outside.
When she opened the door, her swollen eye was no more than a slit. Kerry tried not to react to her disfigurement.
"I'm Kerry," he said.
Joan glanced past him as though worried he might be seen. Then she gave him a small, rueful smile. "I know who you are."
Kerry tilted his head. "May I come in?"
"All right," she said reluctantly, and then added with more courtesy, "Of course."
He stepped inside, hands in the pockets of his overcoat. The room was bright and orderly. But the visceral feeling he had on entering a home where abuse had occurred made the violence feel near at hand.
He turned to Joan. Whereas Lara resembled her mother—slender, with a certain tensile delicacy—Joan was rounder, with snub, placidseeming features altered, on this day, by a wary, guarded look. "I've felt funny," Kerry told her, "having an almost-wife whose family I'd never met."
As Joan smiled, a polite movement of the lips, she seemed to study him. "It was strange for us, too. You and Lara came as a surprise."
Though he felt the irony of his own evasion, Kerry gave his accustomed response. "It even surprised me," he answered. "When I got shot, Lara awakened to my virtues. A hard way to get the girl."
Joan appraised him. Then, belatedly, she motioned him to an overstuffed chair, and sat on the couch across from him. Kerry resolved to be direct. "Lara loves you," he said simply. "And now she worries for you."
Curtly, Joan nodded, as if confirming her own suspicion. "So she asked you to come."
"No—I asked." Kerry looked at Joan intently. "I used to prosecute domestic violence cases. I've seen too many 'family secrets' go wrong, too many people damaged. Especially children."
That there was more to this Kerry did not say. But the purple swelling of her eye stirred all of the emotions his father had left roiling inside a frightened boy of six or seven—a hatred of bullies; a sympathy for victims; the sense of guilt that he could not protect his mother; the angry need to sublimate this powerlessness through action. Nervously, Joan glanced at the door, as if Kerry's presence would summon her husband.
"I'll be all right," she insisted.
"You won't be. And neither will Marie." He paused, choosing his words with care. "I know you're watching out for her. But in the end it's not enough. When he harms you, he harms Marie."
Joan hesitated. Kerry watched her decide how much to say, how far to trust this man—at once so familiar, a constant presence on the screen or in the newspaper, a subject of relentless curiosity among her friends— yet a stranger in her living room.
"It's not John's fault," she said.
"Perhaps not," Kerry answered. "But it's his responsibility. And yours."
Joan kneaded her dress, a nervous gesture which seemed intended to gain time. "John's life growing up was hard," she said at last. "I don't think his father beat him, or his mother—it was more like John was terrorized. If he violated a rule, no matter how small, his dad would lock him in his room—maybe for a weekend, with no escape except for bathroom breaks. And sometimes not for that." She gave a helpless shrug. "It's like John goes back there—like someone throws a switch which sets him off. Afterward he's so sorry I almost feel for him."
To Kerry, this sounded like the Stockholm Syndrome—where a captive begins identifying with her captor. Like John Bowden, the boy, must have done.
"Except now John's the father," Kerry told her. "The only difference is that he's violent. And that he abuses his wife instead of his child."
Stubbornly, Joan shook her head. "He doesn't want to be like that. When I first met him, he wasn't at all."
"How was he then?"
"Wonderful." The word seemed to fortify her; a look akin to nostal
gia flickered in her eyes. "He was so responsible, so sure of himself, so determined to take care of me. He was unlike any boy I'd met—considerate, hardworking, and never drank a drop of alcohol. He was wonderful with my family, especially our mom. And I was the center of his world."
This was all too familiar, Kerry thought. "What about friends?"
"We didn't have that many—there really wasn't time." Her voice trailed off—the impact, Kerry guessed, of illusion crashing into reality. After a time, she added in a chastened tone, "He just wanted to be with me, he said. Sometimes he'd get jealous of other men, really for no reason. But he said it was because he loved me so completely he'd gotten too afraid of losing me."
As she paused, shoulders curled inward, Kerry felt certain she had never talked about this before. "And that felt right to you?" he asked.
She seemed to parse her memories—or, perhaps, to decide whether to respond. In a monotone, she answered, "Every day he sent flowers, or left notes on my front porch. I could hardly believe anyone loving me like that."
Though perhaps Kerry imagined it, the last phrase seemed to carry a faint shudder. Quickly, Joan glanced at the door again.
"When did he first hit you?" Kerry asked.
"When I was pregnant with Marie." Pausing, Joan briefly closed her eyes. "We were in bed, listening to an oldies station. Then they started playing 'The Way You Look Tonight . . .' "
* * *
The first few bars made Joan smile—at seven months pregnant, it was hard to imagine herself in Lara's white prom dress, altered through her mother's best efforts. Then she felt John staring at her.
"This song reminds you of him."
The accusation so startled her that at first Joan hardly remembered who "he" was. "God, John—that was high school. I couldn't say if he's still alive."
She could, of course—Mary had seen him at Stonestown Mall, with his new wife. In an accusatory tone, John said, "You're lying, Joanie. That was 'your song,' remember?"
It was so unfair: years
ago she had trusted him with a harmless scrap of memory, never imagining the ways in which he might harbor this inside him. "I'd forgotten . . ."
With sudden fury, John slapped her across the face.
She rolled away from him, stunned, eyes welling with startled tears.
Rising, she took two stagger-steps, head ringing, and rested her hands against the white wicker bassinet he had brought home to surprise her. "John . . ."
His eyes were damp as well. "I'm sorry, baby. I'm so sorry."
The next morning he sent flowers.
* * *
"But he couldn't stop being jealous, until it was about any man I met or even might meet." Averting her gaze, Joan touched her discolored cheek. "Of the fifty-year-old mailman, because we spoke Spanish together. A twenty-year-old teacher's aide at Marie's preschool. Some man I talked to at a party. When I would see friends or family without him. Even when I mentioned maybe getting a part-time job. When he began drinking, it got worse."
Yes, Kerry thought—it would. "When did that start?" he asked.
"About a year ago. With problems at work, I think." Still Joan looked down. "He was very insecure about his boss. The first time John came home like that, there'd been some reprimand. After I put Marie to bed, John hit me."
"And the drinking just kept on."
"Yes." Joan's words took on a despairing rhythm. "He'd drink, and hit me, and apologize; drink and hit me and apologize; drink and hit me . . ."
Abruptly, her voice caught. "Drink and hit you harder." Kerry's voice was soft. "Like the more he hit you, the more he needed to."
She gazed up at him, lips parted in surprise. After a time, a tear escaped her swollen eye.
More evenly, Kerry asked, "And this time?"
She would not answer. "Marie was in her room," she finally said. "He always waits for her to sleep."
Already, Joan was exhausted, Kerry saw. Rising from the chair, he walked to the shelf with the formal picture of Marie. Studying it, Kerry was struck by a thought he knew better than to express—Joan's six-yearold was a replica of Lara.
Turning, he asked, "Who do you talk to, Joan?"
She shook her head. "No one."
"Why not your mother? Or Mary?"
"I suppose I'm ashamed." She gazed at the rug, voice low and despairing. "Once, when I drove my mother to the grocery store, John hid a tape recorder beneath the car seat. Even if I'd told her, she couldn't comprehend it. John's so responsible, so good to her. He sends her flowers on Mother's Day."
For a moment, Kerry fell as silent as she, absorbing the fissures beneath the surface of a well-intended family, the way in which silence served their differing needs, their disparate denials and illusions. "Is that all he does?" Kerry asked.
Once more, Joan averted her eyes. "John controls the money. He says he'll never let me take Marie." She paused, throat working. "Last week he bought a gun."
Kerry felt an instant hyperalertness. "Has he threatened you with it?"
A brief shake of the head. "No. But he says if I ever leave him, he'll kill himself."
Crossing the room, Kerry sat beside her, taking both her hands. "Joan," he said, "I'm scared for you. Much more than when I came here."
So was she, her eyes betrayed. He felt her fingers slowly curl around his. "Why?"
"Because he's getting worse. And now he has a gun." Kerry paused, marshalling the words to reach her. "Look at him. Maybe his childhood explains him. But it's the adult who keeps choosing to be violent. And if he needs a reason to hurt you, he'll find one.
"Then look at you. Look at your reasons for staying—economic insecurity; fear of shame before your family; fear of Marie not having a father; fear of not having Marie." Clasping her fingers, Kerry gazed at her until her eyes met his. "You're scared for you—all the time now. And your only way out is to help John stop, or stop him yourself. Which could mean taking him to court."
Joan paled. "I can't," she protested. "I could never put Marie through that."
Kerry gave Joan time to hear herself. "Can you put Marie through this?" he asked.
Joan's face was a study in confusion—by turns fearful, irresolute, resistant, and imploring. He searched within himself for the words to reach her and realized, against his bone-deep instinct to seal off the past, that they could not be the words of an observer.
"I'm going to tell you something," he said, "that only three people know who are still alive—my mother, my closest friend, and Lara. It's about me. But it's also about Marie."
FIVE
Kerry Kilcannon's clearest memory of early childhood was of his father bleeding.
It began as many other nights had begun—with the sound of a slammed door, Michael Kilcannon coming home drunk. He would teeter up the stairs to the second floor, talking to himself or to someone he resented, pausing for balance or to take deep, wheezing breaths. Kerry would lie very still; until this night, Michael would stumble past Kerry's and Jamie's rooms to the bedroom at the end of the hall, and the beatings would begin. Through his tears, Kerry would imagine his mother's face at breakfast—a bruised eye, a swollen lip. No one spoke of it.
But on this night, Kerry's door flew open.
Michael Kilcannon flicked on the wall light. The six-year-old Kerry blinked at the sudden brightness, afraid to move or speak.
Slowly, his father walked toward him, and then stood at the foot of his bed. Blood spurted from his forearm.
Terrified, Kerry watched red droplets forming on his sheets.
Michael glared at Kerry, his handsome, somewhat fleshy face suffused with drink and anger. "Look." His Irish lilt became a hiss. "Look at what you've done."
Kerry stared at the bloodstains, stupefied.
"Your wagon, you pissant. You left your fooking wagon on the path . . ."
Kerry shook his head reflexively. "I'm sorry, Da," he tried. Then he began to cry, trying hard to stop.
Mary Kilcannon appeared in the doorway.
Her long black hair was disarranged, her skin pale in the light. Kerry was too afraid to run to her.
Entering, she gave him a gaze of deep compassion, then placed a tentative hand on her husband's shoulder. Softly, she asked, "What is it, Michael?"
Throat constricted, Kerry watched his father's angry face.
"The wagon." Michael paused, and then gazed down at the sheets with a kind of wonder. "Sharp edges . . ."
Eyes never leaving her son, his mother kissed Michael on the side of his face.
"That'll need tending, Michael." Still trembling, Kerry watched his mother take his father by the hand. "We should go to the hospital."
Slowly, his father turned and let Mary Kilcannon lead him from the room.
Kerry could hardly breathe. Turning, Mary Kilcannon looked back at him. "Don't worry about your father . . ."
Somehow, Kerry understood she meant that he was safe tonight. But he did not get up until he heard the front door close.
His eighteen-year-old brother Jamie—tall and handsome, the family's jewel—was standing in the door of his bedroom. "Well," Jamie said softly, to no one, "they cut quite a figure, don't they?"
Kerry hated him for it.
* * *
It started then—the thing between Kerry and his father.
Two days later, the stitches still in his arm, Michael Kilcannon, with two tickets a fellow patrolman could not use, took Kerry to a Mets game. Michael knew little of baseball—he had emigrated from County Roscommon in his teens. But he was a strapping handsome man in his red-haired florid way and, when sober, a dad Kerry was desperately proud of: a policeman, a kind of hero, possessed of a ready laugh and a reputation for reckless courage. Michael bought Kerry popcorn and a hot dog and enjoyed the game with self-conscious exuberance; Kerry knew that this was his apology for what no one would ever mention. When the Mets won in the ninth inning, Michael hugged him.
His father felt large and warm. "I love you, Da," Kerry murmured.
That night, Michael Kilcannon went to Lync
h's Ark Bar, a neighborhood mainstay. But Kerry felt safe, the glow of his day with him still.
Balance of Power Page 3
