Playing With Fire (3 page)

I think of my daughter and how easily she enchanted Dr. Cherry. At three years old, she already knows how to charm everyone she meets. That’s a gift I never had, but Lily was born with it.

I set my parents’ photo back on the shelf and turn to Val. “What really happened to my brother?”

My question makes her stiffen and she looks away; clearly it’s something she doesn’t want to talk about. I’ve always known there was something more to the story, something far darker and more disturbing than I’ve been told, and I’ve avoided pressing the matter. Until now.

“Val?” I ask.

“You know what happened,” she says. “I told you as soon as I felt you were old enough to understand.”

“But you didn’t tell me the details.”

“Nobody wants to hear the details.”

“Now I need to.” I glance toward the bedroom where my daughter, my darling daughter, is sleeping. “I need to know if Lily’s anything like her.”

“Stop, Julia. You are going down the wrong path if you think Lily bears
any
resemblance to Camilla.”

“All these years, I’ve heard only bits and pieces about what happened to my brother. But I always sensed there was more to the story, things you didn’t want to say.”

“The whole story won’t make it any easier to understand. Even thirty years later, I still don’t understand why she did it.”

“What exactly
did
she do?”

Val considers the question for a moment. “After it happened—when it finally went to court—the psychiatrists called it postpartum depression. That’s what your father believed, too. It’s what he
wanted
to believe, and he was so relieved when they didn’t send her to prison. Fortunately for her, they sent her to that hospital instead.”

“Where they let her die of appendicitis. That doesn’t sound so fortunate to me.”

Val is still not looking at me. The silence grows so thick between us that it will turn solid if I don’t cut through it now. “What aren’t you telling me?” I ask quietly.

“I’m sorry, Julia. You’re right, I haven’t been entirely honest. Not about that, at least.”

“About what?”

“How your mother died.”

“I thought it was a ruptured appendix. That’s what you and Dad always said, that it happened two years after she was sent there.”

“It
was
two years later, but it wasn’t from a ruptured appendix.” Val sighs. “I didn’t want to tell you this, but you say you want the truth. Your mother died from an ectopic pregnancy.”

“A
pregnancy
? But she was a prisoner in a mental ward.”

“Exactly. Camilla never named the father, and we never found out who he was. After she died, when they cleaned her room, they found all sorts of contraband. Liquor, expensive jewelry, makeup. I have no doubt she was trading sex for favors, and doing it willingly, always the master manipulator.”

“She was still a victim. She had a psychiatric illness.”

“Yes, that’s what the psychiatrists said in court. But I’m telling you, Camilla wasn’t depressed and she wasn’t psychotic. She was
bored.
And resentful. And fed up with your baby brother, who was colicky and crying all the time. She always wanted to be the center of attention and she was accustomed to having men trip over each other to make her happy. Camilla was the golden girl who always got her way, but there she was, married and chained to two kids she never wanted. In court she claimed that she didn’t remember doing it, but the neighbor witnessed what happened. He saw Camilla walk out onto the balcony, carrying your baby brother. He saw her deliberately throw the baby over the railing. Not just drop him, but
throw
him two stories to the ground. He was only three weeks old, Julia, a beautiful boy with blue eyes, just like yours. I thank God that I was babysitting you that day.” Val takes a deep breath and looks at me. “Or you might be dead, too.”

Rain taps my kitchen window and drips its watery fingers down the glass as Lily and I make oatmeal-and-raisin cookies for her preschool party tomorrow. In an era when every child seems to be allergic to eggs or gluten or nuts, making cookies feels like a subversive act, as if I’m crafting poison disks for the delicate darlings. The other mothers are probably preparing healthy snacks like sliced fruit and raw carrots, but I mix butter and eggs, flour and sugar into a greasy dough, which Lily and I drop in clumps onto baking sheets. After the cookies emerge warm and fragrant from the oven, we go into the living room, where I set two cookies, along with a glass of apple juice, in front of Lily for her afternoon snack. Yum, sugar; what a bad mother I am.

She’s happily munching away as I sit down at my music stand. I’ve scarcely taken my instrument out of the case in days, and I need to practice before our quartet’s next rehearsal. The violin rests like an old friend on my shoulder and when I tune, the wood sounds mellow and chocolate-rich, a voice that calls for something slow and sweet to warm up with. I set aside the Shostakovich quartet arrangement I planned to practice and instead clip
Incendio
to the stand. Fragments of this waltz have been playing in my head all week, and this morning I woke up hungry to hear it again, to confirm that it’s as beautiful as I remember.

And oh yes, it is. The sorrowful voice from my violin seems to sing of broken hearts and lost love, of dark forests and haunted hills. The sorrow turns to agitation. The underlying melody has not changed, but now the notes come faster, move up the scale to the E string, where they scamper up a series of arpeggios. My pulse quickens, along with the frantic pace. I struggle to stay on tempo, my fingers stumbling over one another. My hand cramps. Suddenly the notes fall out of tune and the wood begins to hum as if vibrating at some forbidden frequency that will make my instrument splinter and fly apart. Yet I struggle on, battling my violin, willing it to surrender to me. The hum grows louder, the melody rising to a shriek.

But it’s my own scream I hear.

Gasping in agony, I look down at my thigh. At the gleaming shard of glass that protrudes like a crystal dagger from my flesh. Through my own sobs, I hear someone chanting two words over and over in a voice so flat, so mechanical, that I scarcely recognize it. Only when I see her lips moving do I realize it is my own daughter speaking. She stares at me with eyes that are a placid, unearthly blue.

I take three deep breaths for courage and grasp the shard of glass. With a cry, I wrench it out of my thigh. Fresh blood streams down my leg in a bright, scarlet ribbon. It’s the last thing I register before everything fades to black.

Through the haze of painkillers, I can hear my husband talking to Val on the other side of the ER privacy curtain. He sounds like he’s out of breath, as if he’s run into the hospital. Val is trying to calm him down.

“She’s going to be fine, Rob. She needed stitches and a tetanus booster shot. And there’s a big goose egg on her forehead from hitting the coffee table when she fainted. But after she woke up, she was able to call me for help. I drove right over and brought her straight here.”

“Then it’s nothing more serious? You’re sure she just fainted?”

“If you saw that blood on the floor, you’d understand why she keeled over. It was a pretty scary wound, and it must’ve hurt like hell. But the ER doctor said it looks clean, and infection shouldn’t be an issue.”

“Then I can take her home?”

“Yes, yes. Except…”

“What?”

Val’s voice drops to a murmur. “I’m worried about her. In the car, she told me—”

“Mommy?” I hear Lily whimper. “I want Mommy!”

“Shhh, Mommy’s resting, darling. We have to be quiet. No, Lily, stay here. Lily, don’t!”

The privacy curtain jerks open and suddenly there is my angelic daughter, reaching up for me. I flinch away, shuddering at her touch. “Val!” I call out. “
Please
take her.”

My aunt scoops Lily into her arms. “I’ll keep her with me tonight, okay? Hey, Lil’, we’re going to have a sleepover at my house. Won’t that be fun?”

Lily’s still reaching for me, begging for a hug, but I turn away, afraid to look at her, afraid to glimpse that blue, alien stare. As Val takes my daughter out of the room I remain frozen on my side. My body feels encased in ice so thick that I don’t think I’ll ever break free of it. Rob stands beside me, uselessly stroking my hair, but I can’t even feel his touch.

“Why don’t I take you home now, babe?” he says. “We can order in a pizza and have a quiet evening, just the two of us.”

“Juniper wasn’t an accident,” I whisper.

“What?”

“She attacked me, Rob. She did it on purpose.”

His hand pauses on my head. “Maybe it seemed that way to you, but she’s only three years old. She’s too young to understand what she did.”

“She took a piece of broken glass. She
stabbed
me.”

“How did she get hold of glass?”

“This morning, I dropped a vase and broke it. I threw the pieces in the trash can. She must have gone into the bag and found them.”

“And you didn’t see her do it?”

“Why does it sound like you’re blaming me?”

“I’m—I’m just trying to understand how this could have happened.”

“I’m
telling
you what happened. She did it on purpose. She told me so.”

“What did she say?”

“Two words, over and over, like a chant.
Hurt Mommy.
”

He looks at me as if I’m a madwoman, as if I might leap up from the bed and attack him, because no sane woman is afraid of her own three-year-old child. He shakes his head, not knowing how to explain the scene I’ve just described. Even Rob cannot solve this particular equation.

“Why would she do that?” he finally says. “Just now, she was crying out for you, trying to hug you. She
loves
you.”

“I don’t know anymore.”

“Whenever she’s hurt, whenever she’s sick, who does she call for? It’s always you. You’re the center of her universe.”

“She heard me screaming. She saw my blood, and she was utterly calm about it. I looked into her eyes, and I didn’t see love there.”

He can’t hide his disbelief; it’s there on his face, as obvious as neon. I might as well have told him that Lily sprouted fangs. “Why don’t you rest here for a while, sweetheart? I’m going to go talk to your nurse and see when I can take you home.”

He walks out of the room and I close my eyes, exhausted. The pain pills they gave me have fogged my brain, and all I want to do is drop into a deep sleep, but in this busy ER too many phones are ringing, too many voices chatter. I hear gurney wheels squeak by in the hallway, and in some distant room a baby is screaming. A very young baby, by the sound of it. I remember the night I brought Lily into this same ER, when she was only two months old and she had a fever. I remember her hot, flushed cheeks and how quiet she was, so very quiet, lying on the exam table. That’s what frightened me most, that she didn’t cry. Suddenly I ache for that baby, for the Lily I remember. I close my eyes and can smell her hair, feel my lips against the downy top of her head.

“Mrs. Ansdell?” a voice calls.

I open my eyes and see a pale young man standing beside my gurney. He has wire-rim glasses and a white lab coat and his name tag says “Dr. Eisenberg,” but he doesn’t look old enough to be a medical professional. He doesn’t look old enough to be out of high school.

“I just spoke with your husband. He thought I should have a chat with you, about what happened today.”

“I’ve already told the other doctor. I’ve forgotten his name.”

“That was the ER doctor. He was focused on attending to your wound. I want to talk to you about how this injury happened, and why you think your daughter did it.”

“Are you a pediatrician?”

“I’m a resident in psychiatry.”

“Specializing in children?”

“No, adults. I understand you’re very upset.”

“I see.” I give a weary laugh. “My daughter stabs me, so of course
I’m
the one who needs the psychiatrist.”

“Is that how it happened? She stabbed you?”

I tug aside the bedsheet to reveal my thigh, where the freshly sutured wound is now dressed with gauze. “I know I didn’t imagine these stitches.”

“I read the ER doctor’s note, and it sounds like you got a pretty nasty laceration there. What about that bruise I see on your forehead?”

“I fainted. The sight of blood always makes me dizzy. I think I hit my head on the coffee table.”

He pulls up a stool and settles onto it. With his long legs and skinny neck he looks like a stork perched beside my gurney. “Tell me about your daughter, Lily. Your husband said she’s three years old.”

“Yes. Just.”

“Has she ever done anything like this before?”

“There was another incident. About two weeks ago.”

“The cat. Yes, your husband told me.”

“So you know we have a problem. You know this isn’t the first time.”

He tilts his head, as though I’m some odd new creature he’s trying to figure out. “Are you the only one who’s witnessed this behavior of hers?”

His question puts me on guard. Does he think it’s all a matter of interpretation? That someone else would have seen something entirely different? It’s only natural that he assumes a three-year-old is innocent. A few weeks ago, I would never have believed that my own daughter, with whom I have traded so many hugs and kisses, was capable of violence.

“You haven’t met Lily, have you?” I ask.

“No, but your husband tells me she’s a very happy, charming little girl.”

“She is. Everyone who meets her thinks she’s adorable.”

“And when you look at her, what do you see?”

“She’s my daughter. Of course I think she’s perfect in every way. But…”

“But?”

My throat chokes to a whisper. “She’s different. She’s changed.”

He says nothing but starts to scribble notes on his clipboard. Pen and paper, how old-fashioned; every other doctor I meet these days types away on a laptop. His handwriting looks like ants marching across the page. “Tell me about the day your daughter was born. Were there any complications? Any difficulties?”

“It was a long labor. Eighteen hours. But everything went fine.”

“And how did you feel about giving birth?”

“You mean, aside from being exhausted?”

“I mean emotionally. When you first saw her. When you first held her in your arms.”

“You’re asking whether we bonded, aren’t you? If I wanted her.”

He watches, waiting for me to answer my own question. Just my
interpretation
of what he’s asking is a sort of Rorschach test, and I sense minefields everywhere. What if I say the wrong thing? Do I become the Bad Mommy?

“Mrs. Ansdell,” he says gently, “there is no wrong answer.”

“Yes, I wanted my daughter!” I blurt out. “Rob and I tried for years to have a baby. When Lily was born, it was the best day of my life.”

“So you were happy about it.”

“Of course I was happy! And…” I pause. “A little scared.”

“Why?”

“Because suddenly, I was responsible for this little person, someone with her own soul. Someone I didn’t really know yet.”

“When you looked at her, what did you see?”

“A beautiful little girl. Ten fingers, ten toes. Hardly any hair,” I add with a wistful laugh, “but perfect in every way.”

“You said she was someone with her own soul. Someone you didn’t know yet.”

“Because newborns are so unformed and you have no idea how they’ll turn out. Whether they’ll love you. All you can do is wait and see who they grow up to be.”

He’s scratching on his clipboard again. Obviously I’ve said something he finds interesting. Was it the bit about babies and souls? I’m not the least bit religious and I have no idea why that spilled out of my mouth. I watch with growing uneasiness, wondering when this ordeal will be over. The local anesthetic has worn off and my wound aches. While this psychiatrist takes his time writing God knows what about me, I’m more and more desperate to escape the glare of these lights.

“What sort of soul do you think Lily has?” he asks.

“I don’t know.”

He looks up, eyebrow raised, and I realize that my answer was not what he expected. A normal, loving mother would insist her daughter is gentle or kind or innocent. My answer leaves open other, darker possibilities.

“What was she like as a baby?” he asks. “Did she have colic? Any trouble feeding or sleeping?”

“No, she hardly ever cried. She was always happy, always smiling. Always wanting hugs. I never thought motherhood would be so easy, but it was.”

“And as she got older?”

“She never went through the terrible twos. She was the perfect child until…” I look down at the bedsheet that covers my wounded leg, and my voice fades.

“Why do you think she attacked you, Mrs. Ansdell?”

“I don’t know. We were having such a wonderful day. We’d just baked cookies together. She was sitting at the coffee table, drinking her juice.”

“And you think she got the piece of glass out of the trash can?”

“That’s where she must have gotten it.”

“You didn’t see it?”

“I was practicing my violin. My eyes were on the music.”

“Oh yes. Your husband told me you’re a professional musician. Do you play with an orchestra?”

“I’m second violin in a quartet. It’s an all-women group.” He merely nods, and I feel compelled to add: “We performed in Rome a few weeks ago.”

That seems to impress him. An international gig always impresses people, until they find out how little we’re paid to perform.

“When I practice, I’m very focused,” I explain. “That’s probably why I didn’t notice Lily get up and go into the kitchen.”

“Do you think she resents the time you spend practicing? Children often hate it when Mom talks on the phone or works on the computer, because they want her full attention.”

“It never bothered her before.”

“Maybe something was different this time? Maybe you were more focused than usual.”

I think about it for a moment. “Well, the music
was
frustrating me. It’s a new piece and it’s challenging. I’m having trouble with the second half.” I pause, as the memory comes back to me of how I struggled to play the waltz. How my fingers cramped as those malevolent notes spun out of my control. The title
Incendio
means “fire” in Italian, but my fingers feel like icicles.