Inside (16 page)

One morning there was a sharp knock on the office door, and a couple walked in before Grace could respond. She couldn’t place them,
though she knew they had met, and as she stared at them blankly without rising from her seat, she saw them go from mad to madder.

“We need to talk to you,” the man said.

“Please, sit down,” Grace said, her mind coursing through unlikely scenarios before she realized they were Annie’s parents.

They sat together on the couch but as far away from each other as possible. Annie’s mother wore a dark-blue suit and her hair in a blond bun, her stiletto-heeled boots tapping with rage. Her husband’s suit was the same color. They were a matched pair, expensive and well maintained.

“What can I do for you?” Grace said. She still couldn’t remember their first names.

“What can you do? What have you
done
?” Annie’s mother said. She wasn’t crying, but her eyes instantly reddened, and Grace’s heart turned over.

“I assume this is about Annie,” she prompted.

“This is about the end of your career,” the man said.

She could tell he was accustomed to making threats, and she remembered something Annie had told her: “They always get what they want, so they don’t understand why I can’t too.”

“We know what you did for Annie,” he said. “Taking her to the hospital. Encouraging her to get an abortion.”

“What?” Grace said. “That did not happen.”

“We heard all about it from Annie,” his wife said. “You said that telling us would just complicate things. You’re a monster. This was our daughter.”

“Your daughter
is
very troubled,” Grace said. “Perhaps more troubled than any of us realize.”

“You shouldn’t be allowed to muck around in people’s lives,” the man said.

“I just want to be clear about this,” Grace said. “Is your objection to the procedure itself, or that Annie kept it a secret from you?”

“So you know all about it,” the father said. “I can’t believe this. I’m going to have your license revoked. I’m going to ruin you.”

“You could do that,” Grace said calmly, “or instead we could actually talk about your daughter.”

He glared at her and stood up, livid, but his wife, Grace could tell, wanted to stay. She stroked his arm and smiled up at him pleadingly. He sat down and said, “Tell me what you know.”

Grace looked at him for a long moment, choosing her words carefully. “When Annie first came to me,” she said, “I believed she was on a path of self-destruction that came out of her putting too much pressure on herself. And I still think that’s true.” She paused.

Annie’s mother tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, and despite her tailored clothing she looked very much like Annie: pretty, blond, vulnerable. The father was sitting stoically upright, allowing her to hold his hand, waiting grimly.

“I think Annie’s in so far over her head,” Grace said, “that she doesn’t even know it. She thinks she can manipulate all the adults around her in order to get what she wants, which is to continue inflicting pain on herself and prove to everyone—and herself—just how worthless she is. Needless to say, it’s a very dangerous place to be.”

Annie’s father’s face was flushed, but he didn’t say a word. Grace let the silence invade the room, waiting for the explosion she sensed was coming. Finally, Annie’s mother let out a sob.

“I came home and Annie was in bed,” she said. “She said she had the flu. I didn’t suspect a thing. She didn’t even miss any school, did you know that? She took her algebra test and then went to the hospital for a four o’clock appointment. She’s that responsible. That organized. She arranged it all so we wouldn’t know anything.”

Grace said nothing and waited.

“We would never have known,” the mother said, crying openly now.

“So how did you find out?” Grace said.

“It was after yesterday’s appointment with you,” the father said.

“We didn’t have an appointment yesterday.”

“Of course you did. Like always, the twice-a-week schedule you recommended six months ago.”

Grace sighed. “And what did she say?”

“She was very upset last night and couldn’t stop crying. She said she didn’t want to come see you anymore. When we asked why, the whole story came out. About what you’d helped her do, and how she had doubts about it.”

“She was a little girl again,” the mother said, “with a boo-boo on her knee. Crying in my arms.”

Grace thought, Boo-boo? “I don’t know what she’s been doing on Thursday afternoons,” she said, “but she hasn’t been coming to see me. Your statements from my office would reflect one weekly session.”

“We never even have time to look at them, as Annie well knows,” the father said. “Where the hell has she been?”

The mother was almost hysterical now. She couldn’t speak for sobbing, just shook her head apologetically. Her husband handed her a tissue from Grace’s box but made no move to comfort her.

“We called the hospital,” he said, “and they won’t give us any information. We can’t get a straight answer from anybody. You have to tell us what you know.”

Grace again said nothing for a moment, calculating how little trust these people had in her. “What Annie and I discuss is confidential,” she finally said.

His eyes were glowing with rage as he leaned forward, his expensive white shirt puffing out from his chest. “Who’s the father?”

“I don’t know.”

“Is it that Oliver kid? I’m going to kill him.”

“I honestly don’t know,” Grace told him. “But I do know that Annie needs all of our help to get through this.”

“Like helping her get an abortion without her parents’ knowledge?”

“I didn’t do that.”

“I don’t know why we should believe you.” He stood up again. “You and Annie—you’re both liars. No wonder you get along so well. That’s why she talks to you instead of us. You just build on each other’s lies.”

“Please, wait. Sit down and let’s talk this through.”

But to sit down would be to concede defeat. “This is your fault,” he said, biting off each word. “You were supposed to help her. That was your job, and you’re accountable.” He spoke slowly and precisely. He had located a target for his anger and was, however subconsciously, pleased. “We
will
hold you accountable. You’ll lose your position. Along with the right to inflict damage on other families.”

Grace stood up and faced him. “I understand how awful this is,” she said. “I really do.”

“I don’t care what you understand.”

“I care about Annie,” Grace said. “I’d like to keep helping her.”

“When I’m done with you,” the father said, “you’ll be the one who needs help. Starting with a good lawyer.”

He opened the door and strode from her office. And without hesitating his wife followed him, her face full of gratitude that he’d found a place to lay the blame.

FIVE
 
 
New York, 2002

THE CHILD EXISTED for the three of them in many ways—as a bone of contention, a zone of negotiation, a locus of arguments, a reminder of sex, a sore spot, a tender spot, a sweet spot—before it existed in the world.

Hilary’s body encased both the baby and herself in flesh and placidity; she could not be touched. At times, Anne couldn’t stop looking at her. What was it like to grow so massive, to be a container so uncontained? Huge and getting huger, she put on pounds every day, eating gallons of ice cream and boxes of saltine crackers and even T-bone steaks that Anne, who in all her time in New York had never even noticed a butcher shop, brought home for her.

Meanwhile her boyfriend, too, bulked up. He spent several hours a day doing pushups and weights—he’d found a set of barbells on the street—in a corner of the living room he claimed as his own, a masculine realm marked by fitness magazines, the barbells, a pair of stinky running shoes. He was working as a framer on some construction site in Queens, and between that work and the lifting his skinny body was broadening; there was a rope of muscle along his neck and shoulders, also nascent biceps and thicker forearms. It was as if he
thought that when it came to fatherhood, muscles were what would be required.

At least he was working, and Anne hoped he was putting money away. She had no idea what would become of them once the baby came and they moved out of her apartment. Or she assumed they would move out. When she tried to talk to Hilary about all this, her mask of placidity would break and she’d start to cry, her pale, milky face blotchy and streaked. “We’re going to figure it out,” she’d say weepily, which sounded less like a promise than a pallid, inadequate reassurance to herself and her unborn child. Feeling guilty, Anne would drop the subject. Nobody likes to make a pregnant woman cry.

One day she came home to find Alan by himself, lifting weights in the corner. “Where’s Hilary?” she said.

He grunted and ignored her, his thin face straining with effort.

She couldn’t think of another time when the two of them had ever been alone together. Hilary was always there, her body a buffer between them. Alan reached down and picked up a heavier barbell. They were his prized possessions, these weights, and they gleamed in the light. He faced the window, curling his biceps and panting with every lift. She stepped closer to him—he smelled sweaty and gross—and tried to catch his eye, but he wouldn’t look away from his muscles.

“Listen,” she said. “You know you guys can’t stay here forever. I hope you’re saving some money. Once the baby comes, you’re going to have to support them. You’re going to have to grow up.”

But once she’d delivered these lines she felt ridiculous. What did she know about supporting a family? She had been in Hilary’s position once, and had made the opposite choice. She’d left her parents behind too, getting as far away as she could from any kind of family. Thinking back on it, she could barely remember what thoughts had guided her decisions, or if she had had any thoughts at all. That time in her life was a blur of hate: her father was awful, her mother pathetic, both of them so self-absorbed they barely noticed anything she did. Anything she had made of herself, she’d accomplished without them. The one person who’d been kind to her back then was her therapist, and that was only because it was Grace’s job. Thinking
about this made her angry all over again, and the anger flowed onto Alan, whose only reaction to her statement had been to shift the barbell from one hand to the other. She could see his lips moving as he counted repetitions.

“Have you even thought about where you’re going to live?”

With a groan, he set the weight down. He was wearing a dirty tank top and his white skin shimmered with sweat. When he straightened up, his face was flushed with blood. “Why don’t you shut up?” he said.

Anne felt a physical ripple across her face, as if he’d slapped her. “Excuse me?”

“You act like you know everything. But you don’t. Just mind your own business.”

“Hard to do when
you’re
living in
my
apartment.”

“So you think you can boss us around? Act like you’re better than us?”

“I don’t even know what you’re talking about.”

“You’re just some stuck-up bitch,” he said, turning away.

Flashing with anger, sparks in her veins, she grabbed his arm and yanked it. She could tell he was surprised by how strong she was. “You shut the fuck up,” she said. “You’re nothing.
Nothing
. You owe me.”

Her fingernails scraped his clammy skin as he pulled his arm away, and she liked what she saw in his eyes. He was scared.

May came to the city, the bloom of trees a wistful pink against a pale sky. In the parks the memorials were fading, the pictures of the missing now gray and tearing around the edges. Old dried flowers bobbed their stiff heads in the wind; jars that had once held candles lay empty on their sides. The streets seemed ribboned with litter. And yet the weather was pretty, and people gathered at tables outside restaurants, glad to feel the sun on their faces again.

Anne’s play opened, and she was good in it; she knew she was. The audiences were tiny, mostly hipsters and college-theater nerds who went to see everything, but it was enough. There were reviews in
two weeklies, and one called her performance “compelling.” She cut the reviews out and pasted them in a scrapbook next to the playbill, something she hadn’t done since high school.

She gave Hilary and Alan tickets for a Friday-night show, and when they didn’t turn up she was angrier than she would’ve expected. She had sacrificed her apartment to these runaways, and they couldn’t even get it together to sit through two hours of theater? And the worst part was that she couldn’t get mad at them, because the whole deal, the basis of the relationship, was that they needed her, not the other way around. To tell them she was disappointed would have been to lose whatever thin emotional edge she still possessed. She assumed Alan had told Hilary about their confrontation, and that was why they hadn’t come.

When she got home that night, though, they weren’t there. This was more than unusual—they spent every night in front of the TV. Maybe they’d gotten lost on the subway? They were just two teenagers from the country. But they had left their families, without a word of explanation, and probably their parents had stood silent and gape-mouthed in their homes, just like she was now, wondering where they were.