Missing Pieces

by Joy Fielding

  I shuddered, not having considered the possibility of a hung jury until now. Anxiety tugged at my heart. Why couldn’t the forensic evidence have been more conclusive? “Close only counts in horseshoes,” I heard Colin repeat. All it took was one not-guilty vote, I realized. And then what? Another trial? More months of anguish for the victims’ families and friends? More months of headlines and depressing news reports? More months of my sister haunting courtooms and visiting jails? I sighed deeply. I didn’t think I could go through it again.

  “Something the matter?” Jo Lynn asked, eyes scanning the room.

  “It’s hot in here.”

  “No, it’s not. You’re just warm because your boyfriend’s here.”

  “What?” I spun around. Robert smiled at me from his seat at the back. Oh God, I thought, perspiration breaking out across my forehead. When had he come in?

  “Relax, Kate. Nobody’s going to spill your little secret.”

  “I don’t have any secrets,” I hissed between clenched teeth.

  Jo Lynn smiled. “Tell it to the judge,” she said.

  “The objection is overruled,” the judge was saying, sending the lawyers back to their battle stations. “The witness may answer the question.”

  “This isn’t your handiwork?” Howard Eaves repeated immediately, handing the photo to the defendant.

  “No, sir.”

  “What about this?” The prosecutor pushed a series of pictures into Colin’s hands. “You didn’t leave those bite marks on Christine McDermott’s buttocks? You didn’t slit little Tammy Fisher’s throat?”

  “No, sir. I c-certainly did not.”

  “And yet, I notice that you have no trouble looking at the photographs.”

  “Objection, your honor,” Jake Archibald protested.

  “Sustained.”

  “I c-could never do anything like that.” Colin Friendly looked directly at my sister. “You have to believe me, Jo Lynn.”

  “I believe you, Colin.” Heads snapped toward us as my sister rose to her feet.

  “Sit down, young lady,” the judge ordered, banging on his gavel, as excited whispers spun circles around us.

  “It doesn’t matter what anybody else thinks,” Colin continued, “as long as I know you believe in me.”

  The entire courtroom now pivoted in our direction. I found myself holding my breath. Oh God, I thought, please let this be all a bad dream.

  “I love you, Jo Lynn,” Colin Friendly was saying over the mounting din. “I want to marry you.”

  “Order in the court,” Judge Kellner bellowed.

  “I love you too,” my sister cried. “There’s nothing I want more than to be your wife.”

  The courtroom erupted, people laughing, hooting with surprise, reporters scrambling for the door, everyone on their feet at once.

  “Sit down,” the judge ordered my sister, “or I’ll hold you in contempt.”

  “Please, no,” I muttered, feeling sick to my stomach.

  In the next instant, I was pushing past my sister into the aisle and out of the courtroom.

  “We’ll take a half-hour recess,” I heard the judge shout as I reached the darkness of the small anteroom.

  “Kate, hurry,” a voice beckoned. “This way.” An arm pulled me into the corridor, guided me into the sanctuary of the empty courtroom next door.

  “Oh God,” I cried, my body heaving, my breath coming in short, angry bursts. “Were you there? Did you see what happened?”

  “I was there,” Robert said.

  “Did you see what they did? Did you hear what they said?”

  His arms reached for me. “Kate, try to calm down.”

  “She told that monster she’d marry him. Right out in open court, my sister stood up and told the world she loves a crazy man, that she wants to marry him.”

  “Kate, it’s all right, it’ll be all right.”

  I was sobbing now. “Why is she doing this, Robert? What is she trying to prove? Does she want the publicity, is that it? Does she want to be a star on Hard Copy? Does she want to make the front page of the National Enquirer? What is the matter with her?”

  His arms were around me. “I don’t know what her problem is, but you can’t let it get to you.”

  “You don’t think that she’ll really marry that monster, do you? I mean, you don’t think that the jury will actually find him not guilty, that there’s any chance they’ll let him go.”

  “I don’t think there’s a chance in hell of that happening.”

  “I want him to die,” I cried. “I want him to die and get out of our lives.”

  “Ssh,” Robert said gently as I buried my face against his chest. “Don’t worry. It’ll all be over soon.”

  He held me tight against him, one hand stroking the back of my hair, as if I were a small child who’d scraped her knee and needed comforting. My own arms reached around him, clung to him as if I were drowning, as if he were the only thing keeping me afloat. His lips grazed the sides of my cheeks, kissing away my tears, assuring me without words that everything would be all right, that he was there to ensure that nothing bad could ever happen to me again.

  And then he was kissing me, really kissing me, full on the lips, and I was kissing him back, with a passion that astounded me. Suddenly, I was a sophomore in high school and he was a senior, and our lives were just beginning and everything was right with the world.

  Except that we were no longer in high school, our lives were half over, and my world was quickly disintegrating into dust. “This is the last thing I need,” I told Robert, breaking free of his embrace, trying to make sense of what was happening.

  But even as I regained my composure and walked from the room, past the throng of reporters who crowded the corridors clamoring for my sister’s attention, and toward the bank of waiting elevators, I knew it was too late, that there was a very good chance my world would never make sense again.

  Chapter 16

  I tried burying myself in my work. It wasn’t easy. Everywhere I looked, there were my sister and her “fiance,” as she had taken to referring to him on television and in print. Their pictures tormented me from the front pages of every newspaper and tabloid in town; Jo Lynn gave interviews to Hard Copy and appeared twice on Inside Edition, although on both broadcasts she mercifully refrained from mentioning she had a sister. Since our last names were different—she went by her second husband’s name because she liked the sound of it with Jo Lynn—no one made the connection between us. Because we never traveled in the same circles, her newfound notoriety was not a problem to me either socially or professionally. Still, I was embarrassed—I like to think more for her sake than for mine, but truthfully, I’m not sure—and deeply concerned about both my sister’s mental state and her well-being.

  Sara, of course, pronounced the situation “cool”; Larry, as usual, ignored the whole business; Michelle asked simply, “What’s wrong with her?” As for my mother, she seemed oblivious to the commotion raging around her younger child. She never commented on the many stories in the newspapers or the ubiquitous interviews on TV. When I asked if she’d seen Jo Lynn’s picture on the front page of the Palm Beach Post, she said only that I should save her a copy, then never mentioned it again. Only Mrs. Winchell called to voice her concerns, her main worry being that all the publicity might adversely impact on the Palm Beach Lakes Retirement Home should it become known that Jo Lynn’s mother was a resident, and perhaps we might consider moving her someplace else. She needn’t have worried. Jo Lynn showed no inclination to share the spotlight.

  Robert phoned on an almost daily basis, but I was afraid to return his calls. Surely my life was chaotic enough without the addition of an extramarital affair, although his messages made no mention of what had happened between us. He asked only if I’d come up with any ideas, professionally speaking, and said nothing about the decidedly unprofessional kiss we had shared. Actually, I did have an idea I thought was pretty good, but I was growing increasingly fearful of both
him and the media, and was no longer sure I wanted any part of either. Besides, if I were to have my own show, then surely, at some point, some ambitious reporter would discover the connection between my sister and me. Indeed, Jo Lynn would probably be my first caller.

  “My sister’s always criticizing me,” I could hear her shout across the airwaves. “She doesn’t approve of my choice of clothes or my choice of men. She doesn’t think I’m capable of making an adult decision without her input. Just because she’s a professional, she thinks she knows everything. She’s always telling me what to do and I’m sick of it. What do you advise?”

  “I’m sorry, what did you say?” It was almost six o’clock one evening, and Ellie and Richard Lifeson, a young couple in their late twenties, were staring at me expectantly across the coffee table in my office, obviously awaiting some inspired words of wisdom to tumble from my lips. I realized that I had no idea what we’d been discussing, and silently cursed Jo Lynn, blaming her for my inability to concentrate. Immediately, I was back in the courtroom, watching as the accused serial killer proclaimed his love for my sister for all to hear. What had Colin Friendly hoped to prove with his little stunt? What had he been trying to gain? Sympathy? Support? What? “What?” I asked again, as Ellie and Richard Lifeson exchanged worried glances. “I’m sorry, could you repeat what you just said?”

  “She’s always telling me what to do, and I’m sick of it,” Richard Lifeson repeated.

  “I don’t tell him what to do,” his wife protested.

  They were a nice-looking couple, fresh-faced and well scrubbed. They’d been married three years; it was the first marriage for both; they had no children; they were contemplating divorce. I checked my notes to reacquaint myself with the particulars of their situation, then my watch to determine how much of the session I’d already missed.

  “Are you kidding?” Richard Lifeson asked. “Tell her what happened right before we got here.”

  “Why don’t you tell me,” I suggested, concentrating on his wide forehead, his square jaw, in a concerted effort to keep Colin Friendly out of my office, out of my thoughts.

  “I wanted to buy some potato chips,” he began, “and she tells me to get that new low-fat kind. I don’t like the low-fat kind, they have no taste, and why should she care, she doesn’t eat them anyway. But, of course, what kind do I end up having to buy? Guess.”

  “I never said you had to buy them. I just made a suggestion.”

  “Her Majesty never suggests anything. She issues proclamations.”

  “There he goes again, putting me down. He’s always putting me down. I can’t say one thing to him without his putting me down.”

  “Like what?” Richard Lifeson asked. “When do I put you down?”

  “Try last night when we went to my niece’s ballet recital,” Ellie Lifeson answered before I could step in. “After it was over, he asked me which dance I liked best and I told him I liked the one with the swans, and he said, ‘That just shows how little you know about ballet.’ And we end up in this huge fight, so, of course, we go to bed angry, and we don’t make love. Again,” she added pointedly.

  “You going to order me to make love to you now?” Richard Lifeson demanded.

  “Okay, wait, wait,” I said calmly. “There are a lot of issues here. Let’s try to take them one at a time. First, with regard to the potato chips: Ellie, you think you’re being helpful; Richard, you think she’s being dictatorial. This is a gender issue. Women think they’re making suggestions. Men hear them as orders.”

  “I’m not allowed to make suggestions?”

  “I know it won’t be easy, Ellie, but try to curb your desire to help out. And, Richard, you have to learn to stand your ground. If you don’t want low-fat potato chips, you have to say so.”

  “And get into a huge argument?”

  “You get into a huge argument anyway,” I told him. “Maybe not about the potato chips, but all that repressed anger is going to come out somewhere.”

  “She’s the one who’s always angry.”

  “Because you’re always putting me down.”

  “Try to avoid words like ‘always’ and ‘never.’ They’re counterproductive and inflammatory. And, Ellie, remember that nobody can put you down unless you allow it. Let me show you how the conversation after the ballet recital could have gone. Ellie, I’ll be you; you be Richard. ‘So, Richard,’” I began, addressing my comments to Ellie, “‘which dance did you like best?’”

  Ellie automatically deepened her voice, speaking as if she were Richard. “‘I liked the modern one at the end. What about you?’”

  “‘I liked the one with the swans,’” I told her.

  “‘That just shows how little you know about ballet,’” Ellie huffed.

  “‘You didn’t like it?’”

  “‘I thought it was terrible.’”

  “‘That’s very interesting,’” I said. “‘I liked it. I guess we have different tastes.’”

  Ellie and Richard stared at me in silence.

  “You see?” I said. “Nobody gets put down; nobody fights.”

  “It’s that simple?” Richard asked.

  “Nothing’s simple,” I told him. “It’s a whole new way of relating, a brand-new vocabulary. It’ll take time to learn, even more time to put into practice. But eventually, it gets a little easier.”

  They looked skeptical.

  “I promise,” I said.

  At home, Larry and I were at each other’s throats.

  “Sara’s teacher called today,” I announced one evening as Larry sat, feet comfortably up on the ottoman, watching a hockey game on TV. The girls were in their rooms, supposedly doing homework.

  “What did she have to say?”

  “Who said her teacher is a woman?”

  “Sorry, I just assumed.”

  “Are all teachers necessarily female?”

  “Of course not. What did this teacher have to say?”

  “She said that Sara has been …”

  “She?” Larry asked. “So, her teacher is a woman?”

  “This one is, yes.”

  “The one who called.”

  “Yes. What’s the big deal?”

  “You’re the one who made it a big deal,” he said.

  “Are you interested in what she had to say or not?”

  “Yes, I said I was.”

  “I don’t remember you saying any such thing.”

  “Maybe if you paid attention.”

  “You’re saying you don’t get enough attention?”

  “Just tell me what Sara’s teacher had to say,” he said.

  “She said that Sara has been acting very strangely.”

  “She just noticed?” He smiled.

  I refused the chance to smile back. “Stranger than usual,” I said.

  “How so?”

  “Nothing she could put her finger on.”

  “That’s helpful.”

  “Are you going to treat this whole conversation as a joke?”

  “I’m certainly not going to get all worked up about it.”

  “You never do.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means that I’m starting to feel like a single parent around here.”

  “Excuse me? You want to clarify that statement?”

  “It means you’re never here.”

  “I’m never here?”

  “You’re always on the golf course.”

  “I’m always on the golf course?”

  “When you’re not at work,” I qualified.

  “Oh, so I work. Well, thanks for noticing.”

  “It really doesn’t bother you that our daughter is failing?”

  “She’s failing?”

  “She failed her last two English tests.”

  “Have you talked to her about it?”

  “Why should I be the one who talks to her about it?”

  “All right. Do you want me to talk to her about it?”

 
; “And just what would you say?”

  He was on his feet. “I don’t know. I guess I’ll find out when I get there.”

  “I don’t think you should put her on the defensive.”

  “I wasn’t planning to put her on the defensive.”

  “Just tell her that her teacher called and that she’s very concerned about Sara’s recent behavior.”

  “If you’re going to tell me what to say, why don’t you talk to her yourself?”

  “Because I always talk to her, and I’m tired of being the one who takes care of everybody’s problems. I do it all day at work, and when I come home, I’d like somebody else to shoulder a little bit of the responsibility. Is that too much to ask?”

  “Apparently, since you won’t let me do it.”

  “I’m just trying to help you. Is your ego so frail that you can’t take a few simple suggestions?”

  “Is your ego so inflated that you can’t imagine I might not need them?”

  “You’re really a bastard sometimes, you know that?”

  He flipped off the television, walked out of the family room.

  “Where are you going?”

  “To bed.”

  “I thought we were having a discussion.”

  “The discussion is over.”

  “Why? Because you say it is?”

  “That’s right.”

  I followed him into our bedroom. “That’s very mature.”

  “I thought one of us should be.”

  “Meaning?”

  He reached the bed, started throwing pillows into the air. “I don’t want to fight with you, Kate. I don’t have the strength. I’m tired. You’ve been on my back all week.”

  “I’ve been on your back?”

  “Yes.”

  “How could I be on your back when you’re never here?”