I Know This Much Is True (62 page)

I asked her if her daughter looked like her.

“Jesse? No, she looks like the sperm donor.” I guess I must have
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looked at her funny. “My ex-husband,” she said. “If I think of him as the sperm donor instead of the toad I was stupid enough to marry, it doesn’t make me seem like such a bad judge of character.” She fished a picture out of her desk and passed it over: a chubby brunette in a pink leotard.

“She’s a cutie,” I said. “Seven, right?”

“Seven going on thirteen. You know what she wants to do when she grows up? Wear eye shadow. That’s
it
—the sum total of her future goals: wear blue eye shadow with glitter in it. Gloria Steinem would be furious with me.”

I had to smile. “I met Gloria Steinem once,” I said.

“Yeah? Where?”

“Down in New York. At a
Ms.
magazine party. Me and my wife.”

“Really? Geez, Domenico, I wouldn’t have automatically assumed you were on the guest list. What was the occasion?”

“My wife—my
ex-
wife—had started a day care program with her friend at Electric Boat. For working women, single moms. It was right after the Boat started—”

The phone rang. “Excuse me,” Sheffer said.

I told myself I had to stop doing that: talking about Dessa all the time, forgetting to put the
ex
in ex-wife. It was pathetic, really: the abandoned husband who couldn’t let go. You got a divorce decree and a live-in girlfriend, I reminded myself. Get
over
it.

“Yeah, but Steve, what
you’re
not understanding is that I’m in the middle of a meeting,” Sheffer told whoever was on the other end of the phone. I picked up the picture of her kid again. It was kind of funny: this little girlie-looking girl belonging to Sheffer, with her crewcut and her wrist tattoos.

“I’m not saying I
forbid
it, Steve. I’m not in a position to
forbid
anything. I’m just saying it’s not particularly convenient right now because I have someone in the office with me.” She held the phone in front of her and mouthed the word
asshole.
“Fine,” she said. “
Fine.

Send him up then.”

She banged the phone back down and moaned. “God forbid that clinical needs should interfere with the maintenance schedule,” she I Know[340-525] 7/24/02 12:56 PM Page 413

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said. “I’ve been asking for two weeks to have that light replaced.”

Her head nodded toward the dead fluorescent tube above my head.

“Suddenly, it’s now or never, meeting or no meeting.”

I shook my head in sympathy. “So, anyway,” I said. “You told me over the phone you wanted to talk about the hearing? Wanted to

‘brainstorm’ or something?”

She nodded, refocusing herself. “Okay, look. Here’s the deal. The Security Review Board meets on the thirty-first. Halloween. That gives us less than a week to build our case.”

“
Our
case?” I said. “I thought you were undecided about whether he should or shouldn’t stay here.”

She picked up a paper clip. Moved it end over end across her desk. “Well, Domenico, I had insomnia last night,” she said. “And somewhere around my twelfth or thirteenth game of solitaire, I joined your team.”

I looked at her. Waited.

“I really wasn’t sure before—I kept going back and forth—but I’ve come to the conclusion that another year here at Hatch would probably do him more harm than good.”

“What happened?” I said. “Did something else happen?”

She shook her head. “Nothing, really. Nothing out of the ordinary.”

“Which means
what
?”

“He’s been taking a little teasing here and there—at meals, at rec time. Don’t worry. We’re monitoring it. The trouble with Thomas—with anyone who’s paranoid—is that he tends to perceive run-of-the-mill ribbing as proof of grand conspiracy. Someone says something, and he immediately sees it as part of some master plan. And, of course, when he gives someone a big reaction, it invites more of the same. But he and Dr. Patel and I are working it out. Developing some strategies he can use when someone starts teasing him.”

“You know what sucks?” I said. “This security clearance bullshit.

The way I can’t even
see
him.” I picked a candy bar up off her desk and waved it. “The way I gotta communicate with these things.”

She assured me my security clearance would be coming soon.

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That the teasing was nothing out of the ordinary. “He’s
safe,
” she said.

“Oh, yeah. Safe with all the psycho-killers and pyromaniacs and God knows what else. Not to mention the goons in uniform. If he’s so safe, what made you decide he needs to get out of here?”

She sighed. “Well, ironically enough, the security. The inspections, the surveillance cameras, room checks—all the routines and precautions that
keep
it safe. The bottom line is: this is a very threatening environment for a paranoid schizophrenic. People
are
always watching you. I just think he could be better served, long term, at a facility where security is less of an issue.”

“But nothing else happened? He didn’t freak out in the dining room again or anything?”

“He’s
better,
Dominick
. Really.
His wound has healed nicely. The psycholeptics are starting to kick in. And he knows what to expect now—what the day-to-day routine is. But I’ll be honest with you.

He’s miserable here—scared, withdrawn. It’s sad. I just feel that a maximum-security forensic hospital is an inappropriate placement for him.”

“Which is what I’ve been trying to tell everybody right along!”

She nodded. Smiled. “So, okay, you’re ahead of the rest of us. Go to the head of the class. Anyway, I’m going to help you fight for his release.”

Sheffer took out a legal pad and we began to plan our arguments for the Review Board: the things
she’d
say, the things
I’d
say. It was crucial that I be there to advocate for him, she said. It would show the board that Thomas had family support—a safety net to fall back on. She wanted to know if Ray was planning to attend. Given Ray and Thomas’s past history, I said, I wasn’t sure if it was a good idea or not. Sheffer suggested that Ray be there—sit there—but not say anything. “You’ll be the spokesperson; he can be the ‘extra.’ Okay?”

“Okay with me,” I said. “I’m not sure if it’ll be okay with Ray.”

“Do you want to ask him about it? Or should I?”

I looked away. “You,” I said.

Together, Sheffer and I came up with a list of potential advocates I Know[340-525] 7/24/02 12:56 PM Page 415

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for Thomas’s release: former docs, staff members at Settle, people from the community who might be willing to write a letter on his behalf.

We divided the list; each of us promised to approach half. “Now,”

Sheffer said. “We have to talk about the unit team recommendation.”

There was a knock on the door. “Maintenance,” Sheffer said.

“Come in!”

But it was Dr. Patel’s little grapefruit-sized gray head that poked around the door. I’d have preferred the janitor.

“Hello, Lisa,” she said. “Hello, Dominick.” She explained to me that Sheffer had mentioned I was coming in for a meeting; she wanted to see me for just a minute. Was this a convenient time? “Yeah, sure, Rubina,” Sheffer said. “I’ve got something I should check on, anyway.

I’ll be back in five minutes.” She closed the door behind her. It was a setup.

Doc Patel cut to the chase. “You missed your appointment yesterday,” she said.

I reminded her I’d phoned and left a message with her answering service.

“Which I received,” she said. “Thank you. But that is not the point. My point is:
why
did you cancel, Dominick?”

“Why?” She hated when I did that: answered her by repeating her question.

“You’d had a difficult time of it the session before and then you didn’t show up yesterday. Naturally, I’m wondering if—”

“It was the weather,” I said.

“Yes? The weather? Explain, please.”

“They were . . . they were predicting rain on Wednesday and Thursday.”

She shrugged. “My office is indoors, Dominick.”

“It’s the end of the outdoor season. The
painting
season. I got this house I’ve got to finish—big job—and with everything else that’s happened, I haven’t. . . . We’ve had frost two nights in a row now.”

She shrugged again.

“Your work’s not seasonal,” I said. “Us lunatics keep you busy all twelve months of the year. But I can’t afford to—”

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She held up her hand to stop me. “You’re being flip with me,”

she said. “That’s a defense. I would prefer a more direct response.”

“Look,” I said. “It’s not that I don’t appreciate your help. I
do
appreciate it. But I just don’t have the luxury right now—if it’s a decent weather day—to leave the job site and go over to your office so I can rag about my brother. Not with November almost here. Not with this client named Henry Rood who keeps calling my house every other minute.”

“It’s interesting,” she said.

“What is?”

“That you refer to our work together as a ‘luxury.’ For me, a luxury is a hot bath on a weekend afternoon, or a trip to a museum, or the time to read a good novel. Not something as emotionally demanding as what you’ve begun. You are doing enormously difficult work, Dominick. Don’t devalue it, or yourself, like that.”

I got up and walked the four or five steps over to Sheffer’s barred office window. Looked out at that sorry excuse for a recreation area they had out there. “I didn’t mean
luxury,
” I said. “Jesus. Do you always have to take every word I say and—”

“Dominick?” she said. “Would you look at me, please?”

I looked.

Her smile was sympathetic. “I know that you were in a great deal of pain during our last session,” she said. “Your recounting of Thomas’s first severe decompensation—his hallucinations, his lacerating the inside of his mouth—these are such sad, frightening memories for you to have to relive. And such
vivid
memories, my goodness. The detail with which you recall those disturbing events indicates to me that you have been carrying an enormous burden for a very, very long time. So in my opinion, Dominick, the work we’ve been doing—unearthing these memories, dealing with their
toxicity,
if you will—this is important for your emotional health, perhaps in ways that you cannot yet assess.”

“Their ‘toxicity,’ huh?”

She nodded. “Think of your past as a well in the ground,” she said.

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Jesus, here we go again, I thought: Doc Patel, Queen of the Metaphors.

“Wells are
good
things, are they not?” she said. “They give life-sus-taining water, they replenish. They support. But if the underground spring that feeds the well—and by that, I mean your past, Dominick—if the spring is poisoned,
toxic
for some reason—then the water cannot sustain. Do you see the comparison I’m making?”

“Yup.”

“And what is your opinion, please?”

I made her wait. “My opinion is that housepainting is how I put bread on the table,” I finally said.

She nodded. “And therapy will sustain you as well, my friend.

My concern yesterday when you failed to keep your appointment was that our process may have frightened you. Overwhelmed you.”

“I was
painting,
” I said. “I had to
paint.
”

She reached out and patted my arm. “Very well, then. Would you like to reschedule your missed appointment or wait until next week?”

“Actually,” I said. “Now that you bring it up.”

I told her I’d been thinking about putting the whole process on hold for a while. Not quitting or anything, I said. Just postponing things until the dust settled a little.

“Yes? Then that’s something we’ll need to talk about the next time we meet. Shall we reschedule your missed appointment?”

“Let’s . . . let’s just hold off until Tuesday,” I said. “My regular appointment.”

“Which you will honor?” she said. “Rain or shine?”

I nodded. She shuffled the files in her hand. Headed for the door.

“Wait,” I said. “I wanted to ask
you
something, too. How are you

. . . which way are you planning to vote?”

She turned back toward me. “Vote?”

“On my brother? That team unit thing’s coming up in three or four more days, right? The recommendation? Are you going to recommend he stays here, or gets transferred back to Settle, or what?”

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She studied my face for a few seconds. “I’d rather not discuss it, please,” she said.

“Why not?”

“Because it’s premature. Our recommendation isn’t due for several days, and I’m still very much in the process of observing your brother—the daily effects that time and his medication are having.

And please keep in mind that our unit recommendation is only that.

A recommendation. The Review Board will make the final decision.”

“But which way are you leaning?”

“I’m
not
leaning,” she said. “As I’ve just said, I’m reserving judgment.” She held my gaze. “We’ll talk next Tuesday, then. We have a great deal to talk about.”

When she opened the office door, Ralph Drinkwater was standing there.

“Maintenance,” he said.

“Yes, yes. Come in, please.”