CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

“So how are things at the PECB?” Dr. Frank asked.

He sat in a dark green wingback chair flecked with tiny gold stars. I sat across from him, not on the proverbial couch, but in a second star-dusted deep-green wingback. Between us was a cherry table with a tape recorder and two china cups: tea for him, coffee for me. We could be a set piece at a theater: prominent shrink interviewing prominent patient.

I picked up the fine rose-patterned china cup and took a sip before answering. Work was Dr. Frank’s standard warm-up question. I only saw him a couple of times a year, so each occasion called for some sort of icebreaker, and he’d long ago realized I’d rather talk about other children’s problems than my own.

“I have a new charge,” I said now, setting down the coffee. It was decaf, really terrible. I didn’t know why I still accepted a cup, after all these years. You’d think I’d know better.

“Yes?” he said encouragingly, his gaze eternally patient.

“Her name’s Lucy. She’s a primal child. Fascinating, really. She soothes herself by taking on the persona of a house cat. Plays with her food, grooms herself, naps in sunbeams. As a cat, she’s fairly workable. Lose the persona, however, she’s aggressive, violent, wild…” I lifted my hair to reveal a giant scratch alongside my neck, as well as an assortment of dark purple bruises. “That was from an encounter last night.”

Dr. Frank didn’t say anything. Talking is my half of the relationship.

“We’d assumed she was completely nonverbal,” I continued. “But last night she spoke to me. Also, I’ve caught her listening a few times when the staff was speaking. The look in her eyes… I think there’s a lot going on in her head we don’t know about yet. In fact, I think she might be much more capable than we’ve assumed.”

“You said she’s your charge?”

“Yeah. Well, I’ve been on the unit a lot these days, and if I’m on duty, I generally work with the nonverbals. My specialty.”

“I see.” Another standard Dr. Frank line. Sometimes, I felt like I could script these sessions before I ever arrived, which was probably why I didn’t visit so much anymore. I’d quit altogether if not for Aunt Helen. She seemed to need for me to have a therapist, so Dr. Frank and I humored her.

Now Dr. Frank was eyeing me steadily. I knew what he was building toward, but I made him work for it. After all, asking was his half of the relationship.

“When did you get off work?” he questioned now.

“I got home around three in the morning.”

He glanced at his watch. It was ten a.m. Ten a.m. on a beautiful Saturday morning. I should be hanging out in the parks along the Charles River, not sitting here.

“What time did you get up this morning?”

“What?”

“What time did you rise?”

My knee was starting to bounce. I forced it to stop. “Don’t know. Didn’t pay attention.”

“Breakfast?”

“Sure.”

“What did you eat?”

“I don’t know. Bagel. What does it matter?”

He eyed me, going in for the kill. “You tell me, Danielle. Why does it matter?”

Both of my knees were jiggling now. Traitors. “Fine,” I huffed out. “So I’m not sleeping much. No surprise there, right? And okay, I skipped breakfast, and oh yeah, now that you mention it, dinner last night.” Not that it’ll stop me from pounding a few drinks later on. No surprise there either.

I glared at him, daring him to tell me I don’t have the right to self-destruct.

“Dreams?” he asked steadily.

“Same fucking ones.”

“Do you get out of your parents’ house?”

“Nope. Nothing new there either.”

“Have you tried any sleep aids?”

“If you can believe such a thing, they make me crankier.”

“All right.” He picked up his own china cup, took a delicate sip of tea, then gently returned the cup to its saucer. “So you have how many days to go?”

I continued to glare at him. He knew the anniversary date as well as I did, the asshole.

He remained unflappable, blue eyes direct, white beard neatly trimmed, light gray suit dignified, so I finally bit out, “Two.”

“Two days,” he repeated. “And thus far, your coping strategy involves overworking, undersleeping, overdrinking, and undereating. Does that about cover it?”

“Don’t forget the annual pilgrimage to the graves with Aunt Helen. Can’t forget that.”

“Do you want to go, Danielle?”

I didn’t answer, so he pressed button number two: “Do you want to get better? Do you wonder about your own capabilities, or does it remain easier to focus on one of your charges, such as Lucy?”

I refused to answer, so he went for the trifecta, lever number three: “Let’s talk about your love life.”

“Oh, shut up,” I said.

So he did. It was my session after all. I called the shots. I could lie as much as I wanted. I could deny as much as I wanted. I could hide as much as I wanted. Both of my knees were bouncing again and I wondered why I came. I should’ve stayed home. I should never leave my apartment again.

Because as of Monday it would be exactly twenty-five years. Twenty-five years to the day since my mother died, my siblings died, my father died, and I lived to tell the tale.

Except I had nothing to say. A quarter of a century later, I was not magically wiser. I didn’t know why my mom and Natalie and Johnny had to die. I didn’t know why my first life had to end, and I didn’t know why this second life was still so hard for me.

“Did you read about that case in the paper?” I heard myself ask. “The family killed Thursday night in Dorchester?”

Dr. Frank nodded.

“Yesterday, two detectives came to our unit to ask questions about it. One of our kids was involved. His parents discharged him last year against our advice. Turns out we might have been right about that one.”

Dr. Frank was accustomed to my sarcasm.

I couldn’t sit anymore. I was too edgy, agitated. I’d dreamed again last night. My fucking father standing outside my fucking room with a fucking handgun pointed at his fucking head. Fucking coward.

“This morning, they were talking about another family, too. In Jamaica Plains. Though maybe that was a drug deal gone bad. Nobody seems to know. Four kids, baby through teenager. Gone, just like that. If it was a rival drug dealer, why the infant? A baby can’t be a witness, a baby can’t rat anyone out. You’d think the shooter could’ve left the baby alone.

“Then again,” I heard myself ramble, “maybe the baby didn’t want to be left alone. Maybe the baby heard the shots and started to cry. Maybe the baby knew already that her mother and siblings were dead. Maybe the baby wanted to go with them.”

“What about the baby’s father?”

“Fuck him.”

“The baby didn’t miss her father?”

“Nope,” I answered, though his attempt to turn the baby into me is so Psych 101 I should laugh at Dr. Frank instead.

“There are no survivors,” I said. “Do you think they’re happier that way? Maybe there’s a Heaven. Maybe the mother and her children get to be together there. And maybe, in Heaven, children don’t have to listen to voices in their heads and parents don’t have to scream to make themselves heard. Maybe, in Heaven, they can finally enjoy one another. I don’t think it was fair of my father to deny me that.”

“Do you want to join your family?” Dr. Frank asked me steadily.

I couldn’t look at him. “No. I don’t. And that sucks even more, because I hate my father for killing my family, then I have to turn around and be grateful to him for sparing me.”

“You don’t have to be grateful,” Dr. Frank said.

“Yes I do.”

“You have a right to live, Danielle. You have a right to be happy and to fall in love and to find enjoyment in life. Your father didn’t grant this to you and you don’t owe him anything for it.”