Breaking the Silence (26 page)

“Only those patients who are deemed expendable by virtue of their psychiatric condition are being taken to the highest levels of experimentation,” Gilbert said.

“I still think it’s wrong,” Sarah said. “I think someone should blow the whistle on what’s going on here.”

“And harm a carefully engineered program?” Dr. Palmiento finally spoke up. “A program sanctioned by the government and designed to develop methods to counter the Communist threat?”

“Joe was just a casualty in all of this, wasn’t he,” she asked. “He knew too much. You needed to shut him up.”

“Not true at all,” Dr. Palmiento said. “Joe was unwell.”

She knew she would never get him to admit to anything else, and he was the well-respected, award-winning genius of the psychiatric community. She was the fragile, unstable, deluded wife.

“Here’s the main reason we wanted you to know and understand what we’re doing here,” Gilbert said. “We need you, Sarah. We want to keep you on as a member of our team. We know you’ll need some time to cope with what happened to your husband, but you’re a skilled nurse, truly the finest nurse on ward three, and you’d be a valuable asset to us. Surely you can see the importance of the research we’re doing.”

Sarah stood up. “I don’t want anything to do with your so-called research or with either of you or Saint Margaret’s,” she said. “You’ve destroyed my husband, you’ve harmed my patients, and now you want me to join forces with you? Never!”

“You’re not thinking clearly,” Gilbert said, with real
sympathy in his voice. “That’s certainly understandable. Please consider what we’ve said. About this being a matter of national—”

“I don’t believe you!” she said. “This is a free country. We don’t destroy our own people in the name of national security. I don’t believe for an instant that the government sanctions what you two are doing. And you can bet that when I leave here, I’m going straight to…to someone in authority with what you’ve told me.” She started toward the door.

“Just one minute, Mrs. Tolley.” Dr. Palmiento stopped her with the threat in his voice. He rose slowly to his feet, his eyes pinning her to the wall.

Sarah closed her own eyes to shut out his impaling glare. She’d been right about him in their first meeting. He was crazy as a loon. “What?” she asked.

“You have a young daughter, don’t you?” His voice was merely inquisitive, but the menace was clear. “Do you want her to suffer the same fate as your husband? Or worse, perhaps?”

Sarah gasped. “That’s an empty threat,” she said, but her voice was shaking.

“I don’t make empty threats,” Palmiento said. “I see a problem and I solve it. Your husband Joseph Tolley was a problem, and I took care of it. Rather quickly, too, wouldn’t you say?”

Gilbert moved to stand between them. “I don’t think we need to resort to threats,” he said, obviously trying to placate them both, and for the first time Sarah realized that the young psychology student might not be completely supportive of his mentor’s methods.

“I think we do,” Dr. P. said. “If Mrs. Tolley understood how grave the consequences would be if she revealed anything
about our work, that would be fine. We could let her go. But she doesn’t seem to comprehend the gravity of the situation. So, I say to you, Mrs. Tolley—keep your mouth shut about what you know and no harm will come to you or your child. Speak up, and there are people far more powerful and zealous about this cause than I am who will be sure you never speak again. Understand?”

Sarah said nothing. Her knees were about to give out.

Dr. Palmiento walked toward her. “Do you understand?” He repeated. “Swear to us that nothing you know about Saint Margaret’s will ever leave this room.”

She turned her head from his gaze. “I swear it,” she said, backing away from him. Then she fled from the office, fled from Saint Margaret’s, hoping she would never have to set foot in that house of horrors again.

T
HERE WAS A LONG VOICEMAIL FROM
B
ECKY
R
EED, THE
publicist for Ray’s book, waiting for Laura when she arrived home from Sarah’s. Laura leaned against the kitchen counter, listening.

“Sorry to call on the weekend,” Becky said on the tape, “but this can’t wait. We have tentative dates scheduled for two local talk shows, as well as—hold on to your hat—
Oprah
. That’s a major coup, I’m sure you know. That particular show won’t air until November, when
For Shame
is released, but it will be taped the end of next month. So we need to know right away if you’re willing to do it—and we certainly hope you are.” Becky left her home number with a request to call her “right away.”

Still preoccupied by what she’d learned from Sarah that afternoon, Laura could barely concentrate on the message. The walls of the kitchen were closing in on her. The last thing she felt like doing was boning up on Ray’s work with the homeless.

She called Stuart in Connecticut and told him about the message.

“Oprah!”
Stuart said. “That’s fantastic.”

“The taping date is in late September,” she said. “It’s too soon. I—”

“It’s more than a month away.” Stuart paused. “How come you don’t sound more excited about this, Laura? This is everything that Ray wanted.”

“I’d rather not do it,” she said bluntly. “Maybe you could do it.”

Stuart was quiet. “It wouldn’t have nearly the same impact coming from me as from his wife,” he said finally. “And you’re already a household name, practically, with your comets and all. What the hell’s the problem?” He didn’t usually swear, and she knew he was not pleased with her.

“I don’t know, Stu. I’m just wiped out by my life right now.” She looked out the window toward the lake. Some of the leaves were already beginning to color, and it was only the end of August. “Emma still won’t talk, and she’s crawling under furniture again.” It had only happened that once, and she felt guilty taking advantage of the behavior to support her own need. “I’m trying to coordinate a relationship between her and her birth father, and—”

“You are?” Stuart asked. “So soon?”

“It’s been eight months, Stu.” She explained how Dylan came to be involved in their lives.

“Still seems awfully soon,” Stuart said. “Are you sure that’s the best thing for Emma?”

No, she wasn’t sure, but that was the choice she’d made and she was too tired to defend it. “He’s a nice guy,” she said, “and her therapist seems to think it’s the right thing to do.”

“You sound really upset, Laurie.”

“I just came from visiting Sarah. You know, the woman my father asked me to look after? And she told me some things that are…disturbing.”

“What sort of things?”

She sighed. “I really don’t want to go into it now.”

“Maybe it would help to talk about them with some—”

“I’m too tired, Stuart.”

He was quiet for a moment. “Laurie, why are you doing this to yourself? Why do you still visit her when it upsets you? What’s the point? It sounds like it’s not doing you any good, and with everything else you have going on—”

“But it does
her
good. At least, I think it does,” she said. “She loves to get out for a walk. And besides, I
like
her, Stu. I would miss her if I didn’t—”

“You’re too wiped out to promote your husband’s book, but you have time to—”

“I didn’t say I wouldn’t do it,” she said quickly.

“Don’t you at least think you owe him that much?”

Her guilt over Ray’s death hit once again with full force.

“All right, I’ll do it,” she said. “I’m just nervous about it. I’m nervous about knowing what to say. How to explain his death. How to—”

“Look,” Stuart said, “how about I come down to Virginia sometime soon? I have a sales trip down that way the second week of September. You and I can sit down and plan what you should say.”

“That would help,” she said. “Thanks.”

She got off the phone feeling weak, badgered and ashamed. What was wrong with her that she had no interest in being her husband’s champion?

The following afternoon, Dylan came over to go swimming with her and Emma. Emma had loved swimming the year before, but the one time Laura had taken her to the lakeside beach this summer, she wouldn’t even set foot in the water. She would only agree to go now if Cory could come along.

Laura herself had a moment of anxiety that morning as she pulled her two bathing suits from the bottom drawer of her dresser. One was at least ten years old, and the elastic in the
legs was nearly nonexistent. The other suit was new—well, three years old at the very most—but it was a one-piece, black, old-lady sort of suit. She wore clothes for service, not for style, but that morning she wished she’d remembered these two flabby old suits and gotten a new one with a little more flair.

She threw the oldest suit in the trash and put on the black suit, studying her reflection in the mirror. She’d lost a lot of weight since Ray’s death. Her legs were thin, and her breasts looked as though they’d shrunk. She had a vague tan, but it stopped at the middle of her thighs and a few inches below her shoulders. A year ago she wouldn’t have noticed, and it irritated her that now, simply because Dylan would be with them, she felt self-conscious about her looks. She pulled a pair of shorts over the suit for the walk to the beach.

Dylan arrived in baggy trunks, a Hawaiian shirt and his own farmer’s tan. He stood in the living room, holding his arm out next to hers. “I can see that both of us need to get to the beach more often,” he said.

Emma ran into the room at that moment, stopping short when she saw Dylan, falling once again into shyness.

“Just think, Emma,” Dylan said. “Every time you look around this room, you know that you helped make it look so pretty.”

Emma looked at the walls.

“She helped me pick out the curtains, too,” Laura said.

“A regular Martha Stewart,” Dylan said.

Laura laughed. “Go get your flip-flops, honey,” she said to Emma.

They stopped by Cory’s house on their way to the beach, and the two little girls skipped ahead of her and Dylan along the paved path surrounding the lake. It was a hot day, and Laura was perspiring by the time they’d walked a short distance.

“That water’s going to feel good,” Dylan said when the beach came into view.

The beach consisted of a small crescent of sandy soil. Only the families living around the lake were permitted to swim there, so the beach was never crowded. A teenage boy sat on the lifeguard stand, his hair nearly white from the sun and his skin the color of caramels. Two teenage couples baked on their blankets. The only people in the water were a young woman and her little boy, standing in the shallow section roped off for children.

Laura and Dylan laid a blanket on the sand while Cory slipped into her green, dragon-shaped tube.

“C’mon, Emma!” Cory said, running toward the water.

Emma didn’t budge.

“Do you want your raft?” Laura asked her.

Emma shook her head. Her thumb slipped into her mouth.

“Come
in
, Emma,” Cory called. She was already up to her calves in the water, and Laura, the raft in her arms, followed her in to keep an eye on her. Once in the water, she turned to see Dylan crouch down on the beach next to Emma, talking to her. Emma didn’t move away from him, but she didn’t look at him, either, and Laura wished she could hear what he was saying to her.

“
Push
me, please,” Cory begged, and Laura bounced Cory and her tube around in the water.

After a while, Dylan stood up and walked into the lake himself, and Laura saw the look of resignation on his face.

“Thanks for trying,” she said when he’d come close to her and Cory.

“Couldn’t get her to budge,” he said.

The little boy paddling around with his mother called to Cory to come play with him. “Can I go over there?” Cory asked Laura.

“Yes,” Laura said, waving to the boy’s mother. “Stay right there, though, so I can see you.”

She watched Cory paddle off, then boosted herself onto the raft. Lying on her stomach, she watched Emma, the little blue-and-beige statue whose toes barely touched the water.

“I feel so sorry for her,” Dylan said, his hands on his hips as he looked toward the beach. “She wants to come in. You can see it in her face.”

“I know.”

“And watching Cory play with you and now with this little boy has to make it doubly hard on her.” He looked at Laura. “You deal with this day and night,” he said. “How do you cope with it? With how terrible this feels?”

“Not too well,” she admitted. “I’m a little more hardened to it than you are, though.”

Dylan lowered himself into the water, leaning back against the ropes. “So,” he said. “How’s Laura?”

“Laura’s a wimp.” She ran her fingers through the water. “I agreed to do the talk shows.”

“How’d that happen?”

“Ray’s brother pushed my guilt buttons last night.”

“You are so
weak
,” he said, with mock disdain.

“I know. But what kind of a wife would I be if I didn’t do it?”

Dylan ignored the question. “So, what did that decision do to your stress level?” he asked.

“It’s sky-high.” She didn’t tell him that trying to find a bathing suit to wear in front of him had only added to her anxiety. The water glistened on the dusting of dark hair on his chest. His arms were stretched out along the rope, and he was more muscular than she’d imagined him to be. Probably from working on the balloon. What was he thinking about her body? About her pale legs? The cellulite on the back of her thighs?

“What was this you were telling me on the phone the other night?” he asked. “About Sarah’s husband getting lobotomized? That sounded unbelievable.”

“You haven’t heard the half of it,” she said. “After the lobotomy, they took Sarah into their confidence.” She described Dr. Palmiento’s allusions to government-sanctioned mind control experiments.

“That actually happened,” Dylan said. “But not here. At least, I didn’t think it was here.” He looked up at the sky as if trying to remember. “It was in Canada, I think. In the fifties. The CIA was involved.”

“I vaguely remember something about it, too.” Laura said. “It sounded familiar when Sarah started talking about it. Did they actually experiment on psychiatric patients?”

“I think so. Along with some other unsuspecting victims.”

“I’ve been wondering if the person who sent me those letters might actually be trying to protect Sarah from her memories.”

“Could they be from her daughter?” Dylan suggested. “The elusive Janie?”

Laura pondered the possibility. It would certainly make sense that Sarah’s daughter would want to protect her from any distress. “But if Janie cared enough to protect her mother from me, then wouldn’t she also be involved in Sarah’s care? Wouldn’t she at least visit her?”

“Maybe she can’t. If she’s actually in hiding, for whatever reason, maybe she’d be afraid to see her mother.”

Laura watched Cory and the little boy splash each other. “I would really like to find out what happened to Joe,” she said. “Sarah never found out where he was institutionalized, or if they killed him, or what actually happened to him. I think it would give her some comfort to know. He might even still be alive.”

“Can people live that long after a lobotomy?” The sun was beginning to sink in the sky, but it still gave his eyes that translucent look that mesmerized her.

“I don’t know,” she said. “He was younger than Sarah. Seven years younger, I think, so maybe it’s possible, though I’m sure he’d be in horrendous shape. But I’d like to see if I can find him.”

“Is this for Sarah’s sake or for yours?” he asked.

“Not sure anymore.” She smiled. “And while I’m at it, I think I’ll try to track down Janie, too.”

“Hey, why not?” he teased. “You don’t have anything else to do.”

She sobered instantly. “My obsession is showing.”

“No, your
interest
is showing. Your
excitement
is showing. Ray was cruel to try to squelch that in you.”

She started to defend Ray but managed to bite her tongue before the words left her mouth.

Dylan suddenly groaned. “I can’t take this,” he said, his gaze on the beach. “I can’t take watching Emma stand there like a lost, lonely little waif. Let’s go in.”

“All right.” She slipped off the raft and began walking toward the shore.

The sun had fallen behind the trees when they reached the beach, and Emma and Cory were sitting side by side on the blanket, Cory shivering in her beach towel.

“Would you like to stay for dinner?” Laura asked Dylan as she dried off.

He shook his head. “Got a date, but thanks for the invitation.”

“Some other time,” she said, paying more-than-reasonable attention to the task of drying her shoulders. Well, at least he hadn’t lied to her. She may have been admiring his chest out there in the water, but to him, she was Emma’s mother, a woman in an old-lady bathing suit, nothing more. He dated numerous women who were probably glamorous and carefree.
Child
free. Okay, so that meant that she and Dylan were friends. And if they were friends, she could ask him about his date that night. Who was the woman? Where were they going? How did he feel about her?