Crooked Little Lies (18 page)

Bo, who had been diagnosed at one time or another with nearly every mental aberration this center treated—schizophrenia, schizo-affective disorder, bipolar disorder, and the catchall,
other, often hard-to-place psychosocial profiles
—had never looked as carefree as the people shown in the photographs. He was clean, obsessively clean, and his clothes were clean, but he was stiff in them. He moved in them like the Tin Man from
The Wizard of Oz
. He bent to the right as if the string on that side was pulled too tight; he talked to himself. His cheeks were hollows, and his eyes burned as if with fever for which no one, not even the most gifted therapist, had found a source or a cure. Scrolling back through the pages, studying the photos, Annie felt dismay, the sourer taint of derision.

She couldn’t picture Bo in any of them.

Annie got her cell phone and bringing it back to the den, she sat down in front of the computer again and dialed the contact number Constance McMurray had left in her message, noting that, except for the last four digits, it was the same as the main number for Rose Hill.

“Constance McMurray,” the woman answered, sounding breezy, as breezy and carefree as the website models.

Annie mentioned the message.

“Oh, yes.” The woman was instantly grave. “I’m afraid I don’t have good news, Mrs. Laughlin.”

“Is Bo there? Is he all right?” Annie didn’t bother correcting Constance McMurray’s misapprehension about her identity, and she would wonder later how it might have altered the conversation if she had. She would think Mrs. McMurray probably would not have been so forthcoming.

“Bo? No, he isn’t here. I’m calling about Lydia, Bo’s mother, Mrs. Laughlin. Since I spoke to your husband last week, her condition has been downgraded to critical.”

“His mother?” Annie frowned. She was on the verge of saying,
His mother’s dead; both our mothers are dead,
but Constance didn’t leave enough of a pause, and Annie didn’t have breath for speech anyway.

“She’s in acute renal failure, not responding to treatment. I’m afraid she’s—well, her prognosis isn’t good. As I explained to Mr. Laughlin before, she came to us too late this time. She’s receiving the best of care, of course. She’s as comfortable as we can make her, but the doctors aren’t encouraging. Will you tell Mr. Laughlin that if he’s changed his mind about Bo seeing his mother a final time, he should come quickly?”

“Are you sure you have the right—?” Annie stood up. “I mean—that is, I thought—”
Dead.
Bo’s mother was dead. JT had said she was. Annie’s mother had said she was. Bo listened to her through his earmuffs—

“Mrs. Laughlin?” Constance McMurray prompted.

“No, I’m her daughter. My mom—Sandy died two years ago.”

“Oh. Oh dear, I didn’t know. Mr. Laughlin never said—I’m afraid they—I mean, Mr. or Mrs. Laughlin—are the only ones authorized to receive information about Lydia.”

“Bo is missing, Mrs. McMurray. Did you know?” Annie wasn’t sure why she chose that question to ask rather than any one of the overwhelming number of other questions she might have asked.

“What do you mean, he’s missing?”

“He disappeared last Friday. The police are looking for him. Does he know his mother is still alive?”
Was I the only one who was lied to?

“Well, I don’t know if I should—”

“Look, if he knew, there’s a chance he’s there or trying to get there.”

“Well, honestly, I don’t believe he did know. I think when they moved from here, Mr. Laughlin decided the boy would be better off if he was told his mother had died. Because of her condition, you know. She was hardly capable of—”

“What was—is—her condition, Mrs. McMurray? I mean, besides kidney failure?”

“I shouldn’t—” She faltered. “But given the circumstances—” She hesitated again, and then, seeming to cast aside her reservations, she said, “Lydia was first brought to us by her parents years ago when she was in her twenties and diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. She’s been in and out of treatment here at Rose Hill and at various other treatment facilities in the area and other locations ever since.”

“Is that where it comes from? Why Bo is—? You know he was diagnosed, not with
paranoid
schizophrenia, but—” Annie stopped, uncertain how to continue.

“My understanding is Bo’s issues have never been as severe,” Constance McMurray said.

“Why would JT not want him to know his mother was alive? It seems cruel.”
Did it?
Had she said it aloud?
Cruel
was such a harsh word, a judgmental word. She’d never known JT to be cruel, which only made the situation all the more confusing.

“I really can’t say any more without the proper—”

“Mrs. McMurray, any information you can give me may help the police find Bo.” Annie paced into the kitchen, looking out the door for JT’s truck. The knot in her stomach was a small, heated coal, fueling the chaotic stew of her emotion, a blistering lash of words . . . all the things she would say to JT when she saw him.

Constance McMurray was explaining Lydia’s situation, but Annie only caught parts of what she said, that Lydia lived on the street when she wasn’t in treatment or in jail, that she could be violent, that, like Bo, she was prone to self-medicate with alcohol and whatever drugs she could find. That all of her history was bearing down on her now with enough force to destroy her.

Annie asked about Lydia’s parents.

“Her mother’s in end-stage Alzheimer’s. Her father died a few years ago. Massive coronary. I knew them through the years. They did what they could for their daughter, as much as parents can do. It’s a very trying and difficult situation when someone you love is afflicted in this way. They tend to not want to take their medication or to attend counseling sessions or do any of the things necessary to help themselves.”

“Yes,” Annie murmured, because she had experience, and because there was nothing else to offer other than the acknowledgment of a reality that was as grievous as it was inexorable. She thought of the people pictured on Rose Hill’s website. She doubted Bo’s mother resembled a single one of them.

“I’m sorry,” Mrs. McMurray said, “but I really have to go. If you’ll let Mr. Laughlin know I called—”

“If Bo comes there—”

“Of course, I’ll contact you immediately.”

“You mentioned you spoke to JT last week?” Annie asked.

“Yes.”

“What day? Do you recall?”

“Tuesday,” Constance McMurray answered. “I remember it because Lydia was much improved. Her vital signs stabilized; even her mind was clear. She was still weak, but we were optimistic, mistakenly, as it turns out. Anyway, she asked us to contact Mr. Laughlin, and I placed the call for her. She wanted him to bring Bo to see her. I think she knew—”

“You’re sure it was Tuesday?”
I could tell you something.
Bo’s words from last Wednesday circled Annie’s brain.
But just listen,
he’d said,
I heard talking
. . . Why hadn’t she paid attention? He’d been agitated and upset, not from a sugar overload or because he just got that way sometimes, no. He’d learned his mother was alive. Somehow, he’d overheard JT on the phone, talking to her, and he’d put it together. What a shock it must have been. He would have been desperate to go to her. Annie knew, because that was how she’d feel if someone told her that her mother was alive. She would want to go to her. Nothing would stop her.

She looked at him again in her mind’s eye, seated across the table from her, pouring packet after packet of sugar into his tea, scattering grains across the table and onto the floor in his haste and his anxiety. He’d come to the café to tell her his mother was alive. If she’d given him the slightest encouragement, he would have said he wanted to see her; he’d have asked Annie for help getting there. He might even have wanted her to go with him. She didn’t doubt that had been his intention. Just as she didn’t doubt that if, instead of lecturing him about his diet, she’d asked him what was bothering him, it would have changed everything, and the enormity of her mistake took her breath.

She didn’t explain the reason for her urgency when she called JT and summoned him home, and when he appeared, she didn’t apologize, either, for scaring him half to death. She was too hurt, panicked, and angry to take much notice or care of his feelings. While he stood in the doorway to the den, she paced in front of him, letting him have it. He’d lied, she told him. “How could you?” she asked.

He took his head in his hands, clearly stricken.

Annie’s heart didn’t soften at the way he stumbled to his recliner, where he didn’t sit down so much as collapse into it. His frailty only riled her further. “She’s his mother, JT! And all this time, all these years, you lied to him and to me! You and Mama. I just don’t believe it—”

“You don’t understand. Lydia’s mental condition—”

“No.” Annie stabbed her finger in JT’s direction. “Don’t blame her. You took Bo away from her. You took them away from each other. My God, he was only five years old. You broke his heart! He was still crying for her when you married Mom and moved in here. You know he wore those stupid earmuffs just to hear her voice.” Annie crossed her arms, chest heaving, indignant. “I guess you thought you were doing what was best, as usual.”

He didn’t answer. He was so pale, so ragged and done in. The slump of his shoulders, the way he sat with his chin lowered nearly to his chest . . . Now, with her anger abating, Annie did ache for him. She wanted to go to him and comfort him. She was angry with him but no more angry than she was with herself. And the place he was in, its very untenableness, sapped her of any remaining fury. She waited while he wiped his hands down his face. She saw the effort it took for him to gather himself.

“I came home from work one time—” He began slowly, voice halting and rough with some mix of apology and pain. “Bo was around four, and I was working nights then—and his mother wasn’t there. The kitchen was a wreck, eggs broken on the counter and the floor, flour everywhere. Back door open, stove going, TV blasting, but no Lydia and no sign of Bo, either. Scared the shit out of me. I was yelling my head off, running through the rooms like a madman. Finally, I realized if Bo was there, he was probably scared, so I stopped shouting and got real quiet, and he came out of his closet. He couldn’t tell me much, but from the little he did say, I knew Lydia went off her rocker, a full-blown episode. She’s schizophrenic, but she’s got bipolar tendencies, too. And when she drinks or does meth or any of that shit—” JT didn’t finish.

Wordless, Annie sat on the edge of the ottoman.

“I was scared to leave him with her after that. Her parents tried to help.” JT found Annie’s glance. “They’re well-off. Did Constance tell you that?”

Annie shook her head.

“They set up a trust fund for Lydia. That’s how come she gets the star treatment. At least, whenever her folks could manhandle her into Rose Hill or any of the other places they packed her off to. Once, they took her to some treatment center in Switzerland, stayed there with her six months. Didn’t do shit for her. Her dad’s dead now, though, and her mom’s not in great shape.”

Annie said she knew.

JT smoothed his palms down his thighs. “They never liked me. I wasn’t a professional man, a college man. He said I didn’t know what I was letting myself in for, like he was helping me out, which was bullshit. It pissed me off, but I should have listened to him because I knew Lydia wasn’t right. From the beginning, there were signs. But I loved her, you know?” JT’s voice caught.

Annie’s throat closed.

“Every time I look at Bo, I think I caused it. I went along when Lydia wanted a baby, when I knew there was a better-than-average chance he’d lose his mind at some point, just like his mother.”

“He’s not like her, JT.” Annie came to her feet. “He’s not nearly as—not even close,” she finished, and now her voice was shaky.

“Your mom wanted to tell you the truth, but I thought it’d only put a burden on you or you’d think Bo was better off knowing and tell him yourself. Your mama argued that you should both know—well, she went back and forth, really. She wanted to protect you. I did, too. That’s the hell of it with folks like Bo and his mother. Half the time—most of the time—you can’t figure out what’s right. It’ll drive you insane right along with them. It nearly has me, more than once.”

“Bo remembers seeing her in the hospital. He remembers her reading aloud to him.”

“Yeah. The times she ended up in treatment before we were divorced, I took him to see her. That was when I still thought things might work out, that we’d still be a family. I had this crazy idea they would get her on the right meds or she’d just get well—presto! I thought seeing Bo, being around him would make the difference. It did for a while. But he wasn’t out of diapers when she started taking off. She’d up and go for days. We wouldn’t know where. The last time, when she was gone for nearly two weeks, her dad found her on the street. She was going with men, you know, to get money for a fix. I filed for divorce after that. Her folks paid for the attorney and all the court costs. They paid for me to move here with Bo. Texas was their idea.”

“But didn’t they want Bo close by, where they could see him?”

JT brought his gaze to Annie’s, and it surprised her when he defended them, when he asked her not to blame them. “Lydia’s their only child. They’d already been through a lifetime of crazy bullshit with her. They just couldn’t face watching it happen to their only grandchild.”

“But to saddle Bo with that, before they even knew—” Annie interrupted herself. “He’s never said anything to me about any of this.”

“I don’t think he remembers much about that time,” JT said. “Or maybe he doesn’t want to.”

Annie thought about it, how she wasn’t much different. She tended to push the hard stuff out of mental view, too, the same way she stuffed her overdue bills into a drawer, as if that would make them disappear.

But her mother had never avoided anything; she hadn’t kept secrets. In fact, she’d always said she was opposed to them, that a secret was like an untended splinter, festering below the surface, and the longer it stayed there, the more trouble it caused when it came out. Clearly she’d made an exception. Maybe more than one.