Speaking in Tongues (22 page)

“Where?” she asked.

“Boston.”

“No kidding! That’s where the McCalls are from.” She pointed to some pictures of her family in front of
Old Ironsides
and in their front yard, the Prudential building towering over the skyline in the background.

“Sure,” he said. “I thought I detected a bit of accent. I’m driving the cah to the pahty . . .”

She laughed.

“You miss it?” he asked.

“No. We moved here when I was ten. The South definitely appeals to me more than New England.”

“To the extent this is the South,” he offered.

“That’s true.”

He took her glass and refilled it. He handed it back and leaned against the island, glanced at the expensive stainless-steel utensils. “I love to cook,” he said. “It’s a hobby of mine.”

“Me too. It’s relaxing to open some wine, come out to the kitchen and start slicing and dicing.”

He lifted the heavy Sabatier butcher knife and tested the edge carefully with his thumb. Nodded. “Sharp knives are—”

“—safer than dull ones,” she said. “My mother taught me that.”

“Mine too,” he said, weighing the knife in his hand for a moment, studying the blade carefully. Then he set it on the table. “Should we go back in the other room?”

“Sure.”

He nodded toward the door. She preceded him into the living room. Bett sat on the couch and he walked over to the bookshelves, looked at her collection of crystals and several boxes of tarot cards.

He chided, “Didn’t you know you’re supposed to keep your tarot cards wrapped in silk?”

“You
know
about that?” She laughed.

“Sure do.”

“I was really into the occult a long time ago.” She smiled and realized that she was relaxing for the first time all day. “I was kind of crazy when I was young.”

“You look embarrassed. You shouldn’t be. I think our spiritual side’s as important as our physical and our psychic sides. I use a holistic approach in my treatment. A lot of times I’ll prescribe herbs—they have both organic and psychosomatic effects.”

“I try to use them whenever I can,” Bett said.

“If my patients need
something
I’d rather it was Saint-John’s-wort instead of Prozac.”

He was a
doctor
who felt this way? How often had she explained these things to doctors, or to friends, or to
Tate,
only to be met with a politely wary gaze—at best.

Dr. Peters continued. “It makes a lot of sense to me. Take tarot cards . . . do they predict the future? Well, in a way they do. They make us look at who we are, where we fit in with the godhead or the Oversoul—”

“Oh, you know Emerson?” she asked, pointing to a book of his writings.

Dr. Peters walked to it and pulled the volume off the shelf. He flipped through it, held up the book and showed her the title of an essay, “The Oversoul.” “I’ve been reading him since college . . . I think fortune-telling makes us look at where we fit in with the life force, what our relationships are like, makes us question where we’re going. That
has
to affect our future.”

“That’s true,” she said, feeling warm and comfortable. She sipped more wine. “That’s what I’ve always felt. Most people don’t get it. They just make
fun of the Madame Zostra’s fortune-telling stuff. It’s not fair. My ex . . .”

But she decided to let the thought die. And Dr. Peters didn’t push her to finish.

The doctor was looking at her bookshelf, head cocked sideways. Pointing out volumes. “Ah, Joseph Campbell. That’s very good. Sure, sure . . . You know Jung?”

“Sort of, not really.”

“About the archetypes? There are certain persistent myths we see surfacing in people’s lives. The Arthurian legend—you know it?”

Know it? she thought, laughing to herself. I lived it.

“T. H. White, Camelot, the whole thing.” She pointed out an old copy of
The Once and Future King.

“What a book that is,” he said. “Oh, and
The Mists of Avalon,”
nodding at the book.

“The best,” she said enthusiastically. Remembering how Tate didn’t have time for any of this. She found the old angers and resentments churning up again and recalled how much comfort she’d found in the New Age world. Here was a man who truly understood her. It was so refreshing . . .

Dr. Peters tapped his glass to hers and they sipped. Her glass was nearly empty. Yet she didn’t feel drunk, she felt elated. He sat down close to her. “Um, Bett . . . I don’t know how much Megan told you about me.”

“Nothing, really. But she didn’t want to talk about her therapy sessions. That’s what we were going to do today, Tate and I. Meet her for lunch and find out how it was going.”

He nodded. He was really quite a handsome man,
well built. Interior designer Bett McCall thought: Proportions are everything.

“Dr. Hanson saw her more frequently than I did. But I wanted to come over tonight and just talk to you about her a little. Try to reassure you.”

Oh, I’ll take that. Anything you want to give me in the reassurance department, I’ll take.

“Have you heard anything from her?” he asked.

“Not a word. But there are some funny things going on.”

“What sort of things?”

“We think maybe somebody was following her. My husband . . . my ex-husband thinks it might have to do with a case he’s working on. He thinks the man he’s suing is trying to distract him or something. I don’t know.”

“Any . . . what would they say on
NYPD Blue
? Any concrete leads?”

“Not really. But Tate’s been in touch with a friend of his at the police.”

“Oh, is that the detective who called me? He asked me a few questions about Megan. Um, what’s his name again?”

“Konstantinatis.”

“Right. Well,” he continued, pouring more wine, “I think you should know what I told him.”

“What’s that?”

“That I don’t think she’s in any danger.”

“Oh, did she say something to you about running away?” Bett asked quickly. “You’d tell me if she did.”

“Ordinarily that’d be confidential. But . . . yes, I would tell you. And she didn’t say anything specific
about it though she was always talking about going to a big city like San Francisco or New York.”

“They found an Amtrak timetable in her car. She’d marked trains to New York.”

He nodded, as if a mystery had been explained. “I’d guess that’s what happened. No, I’d say I’m
positive
that’s what happened. I really doubt there are stalkers or bogeymen out to get her.”

“Why’re you so sure?”

He didn’t answer her. Instead he said, “I think we need more wine. I’ll get it. Okay?”

“Sure.”

Dr. Peters vanished into the kitchen. He returned a moment later, sat down and poured. After a moment he asked, “How does your husband feel about his daughter?”

“Tate’s . . .” She groped for words.

He supplied one. “Indifferent?”

“Yes. He’s never been very involved with Megan.”

“I understand that. But why?”

She now looked at the crystal ball. In it was captured the orange glow from a wall lamp. She stared at the distorted trapezoid of light and said, “Tate wanted to be his grandfather. He was a famous lawyer and judge in the area. He had a big family, a traditional lifestyle. Well, Tate wanted that—and a good, dependable farmwife.” She lifted her hands and slapped her thighs. “He got me instead. Big disappointment.”

“No, that’s not you.” The doctor smiled wryly. “I can see that. That was very unfair to you for him to expect that.”

“To me?” she asked. “Unfair?”

“Of course,” he offered as if it were obvious. “Your husband had a distorted level of expectations—based on a child’s view of the past—and he tried to project that onto you. I’ll bet he worked a lot, spent time away from home.”

“He did, yes. But I was busy too. My sister was sick—”

“Her heart condition.”

Oh, she could talk to this man for hours! She’d met him only thirty minutes ago and yet he
knew
her. Knew her better than Tate did—even after all those years of marriage.

“That’s right.”

“But why are you taking the blame? You’re attractive, intelligent, have a mind of your own. If you wanted an independent life, why should you feel bad about that? It seems to me that
he’s
the one to blame for all this. He went into the marriage knowing who you were and tried to change you. And probably in some less-than-honest ways.”

“Less than honest?”

“He
appeared
supportive, I’ll bet. He probably said, ‘Honey, do whatever you want to do. I’ll be behind it.’ ”

She was stunned. It was as if Dr. Peters were looking directly into her memories. “Yes, that’s exactly what he’d say.”

“But in fact, what he was doing was the opposite. Little comments, even body language, that’d whittle away at your spirit. He wanted you barefoot and pregnant and wanted you to give up your life, have dinner on the table for him, give him a brood of kids, ignore your ill sister. And he was going to make a name
for himself as a prosecutor and to hell with everybody else.” His eyes flickered with pain—
her
pain. “It was horrible what he did to you. Inexcusable. But I suppose it’s understandable. His character, you know.”

“Character.”

“You know the old expression? ‘A man’s character is his fate.’ That’s your ex-husband. He’s reaping now what he sowed. With Megan running away.”

I wish I could believe that, Bett thought. Please . . . Tears now. From the wine, from the astonishing comfort she felt, years and years of pain and confusion and loneliness being stripped away. “I . . .” She caught her breath. “He’d sit down and talk to me and say that he loved me and what could he do for me—”

“Tricks,” Dr. Peters said quickly. “All tricks.”

“I couldn’t argue with him. He had an answer for everything.”

“He’s smooth, isn’t he? A slick talker. Megan told me that.”

“Oh, you better believe it. I couldn’t win against him. Not at words. Never. I always came away feeling, I don’t know, violated, I guess.”

“Bett, most women would’ve put up with that. They would’ve stayed and stayed and destroyed themselves. And their children. But you had the courage to do something about it. To strike out on your own.”

“But Megan . . . she’s suffered . . .”

“Suffered?” He laughed. “Because of
him,
yes. Not because of you. You’ve done a
miraculous
job with her. Here’s to you.” He tapped her glass and they drank. The room was swimming. She realized he’d moved very close to her and she enjoyed the proximity.

“A miraculous job?” Bett shook her head, felt her eyes swimming with tears. “Oh, I don’t think so.”

Dr. Peters said firmly, “Why, if every mother cared for her children the way you care for Megan I’d be out of business.”

“Do you really think that?” she asked in a choked voice. The tears were coming fast now. But she wasn’t the least embarrassed. Not in front of this man. She could tell him anything, she could do anything. He’d understand, he’d forgive, he’d comfort. She said wistfully, “Too bad Megan doesn’t think so.”

“Oh, but she does.” He frowned in confusion.

“No, no . . . there’s a letter . . .” She glanced toward her purse, where the girl’s horrible note sat like a puddle of cold blood.

“The detective told me about it. That’s the main reason why I wanted to see you. Alone, without your husband here.” He took the wineglass from her and set it on the table. Then he sat forward, took her hands in his. Looked at her until she was gazing into his dark eyes, nearly hypnotized. “Listen to me. Listen carefully. She didn’t mean what she wrote you.”

“She—”

“She. Didn’t. Mean. It. Do you hear what I’m saying?”

Bett was shaking with sobs. “But what she wrote, it was so terrible . . .”

“No,” he said in a firm whisper. “No.” He was completely focused on her. She thought of the other men in her life with whom she’d had serious talks. Tate was often elsewhere—thinking of cases or trying to dissect what she was saying. Brad would smother
her with an adoring gaze. But Dr. Peters was looking at
her
as a person.

“Here’s what you have to understand. Your letter doesn’t mean anything.”

Oh, please, she thought, please explain how this happened. Please explain to me why I’m not a witch, please explain how my daughter still loves me. She thought of an expression she’d heard once and believed was true: You’d kill for your mate; but you’d die for your child. Well, I would, she thought. If only Megan knew that she felt that way.

He squeezed her hands. “Your daughter hates your husband. I don’t know what the genesis of that is but it’s a very deeply ingrained feeling.”

Bett felt the impossibility of compressing seventeen years into a few minutes. Her eye went to a board game, Monopoly, sitting dusty on the shelf. “There were so many things she wanted from Tate . . . Megan wanted us to play games together, Tate, her and me. But he never would. And then—”

“It doesn’t matter,” the doctor interrupted. “The fact is that she was the child and he was the parent and he failed her. Megan knows it and she hates him. The anger inside her is astonishing. But it’s only directed at
him
—I guarantee you that. She loves you so much.”

Shaking with tears. “But the letter . . .”

“You know the Oedipus and Electra principles? The attractions of sons and mothers and daughters and fathers?”

“A little, I guess.”

“In Megan’s subconscious her anger at your ex-husband makes her feel terribly guilty. And directing it
only
at him is intolerable. With the natural attraction between fathers and daughters she either had to write no letter at all or write you both. She was psychically unable to point her anger only at its true source.”

“Oh, if I could believe that . . .”

“During our sessions she was always telling me how proud she was of you. How she wants to be like you. How hard a life you’ve had. I promise you, without a doubt, she regrets writing that letter to you. She doesn’t mean it. She’d give anything to take it back.”