God Project (17 page)

“I suppose so,” Sally murmured as she rose from the chair. Her mind was still spinning, but at least she knew where to go next “Thank you for talking to me, Annie. You’ve been very helpful.” Then her gaze fell on the file folder that still contained Jason’s health records. “Could I have a copy of that?”

Annie hesitated. She had already broken the rules by giving Lucy Corliss a copy of Randy’s file, and she wasn’t at all sure she wanted to repeat the offense. Still, the circumstances of the two mothers seemed to her to have certain parallels. She made up her mind and disappeared from the room for a few minutes. Finally she returned and handed Sally the Xerox copies of the file. “I don’t see how I’ve helped you, but if I have, I’m glad,” she said. She walked with Sally to the front door and watched as Sally hurried down the steps and went to her car. Then she returned to her office and stared at the file cabinet for a moment She began straightening up her office, but as she worked, her mind kept going back to CHILD and the survey. How much information did they have? And what were they using it for? She didn’t, she realized, have the faintest idea. All she really knew was that slowly, all over the country, banks of information
were being built up about everybody. But what did it mean?

For one thing, no one would be able to disappear. No matter who you were, or where you went, anyone who really wanted to could find you. All they’d have to do would be to ask the computers.

Annie wasn’t sure that was a good idea.

Sometimes people need to hide, and they should be able to.

For the first time, it occurred to Annie Oliphant that the whole idea of using computers to watch people was very frightening.

If there was a computer watching nine-year-old boys grow up, was there also, somewhere, a computer watching her?

   While Jason Montgomery played in the tiny backyard, Sally and Lucy sat in Lucy’s kitchen, sipping coffee and talking. The first moments had been difficult, as each of the women tried to apologize for not having offered her sympathy earlier, yet each of them understood the pain of the other.

For the last half-hour they had been discussing the survey their children were involved in.

“But what are they doing?” Sally asked yet again. “What are they looking for?”

Lucy shrugged helplessly. “I wish I could tell you, Sally. Maybe next week I’ll be able to. I’ve got an appointment on Monday, and I won’t leave until I know what that study is all about.”

“Do you really think it has anything to do with Randy’s disappearance?”

Lucy sighed. “I don’t know anything anymore. But it’s the only really odd thing I can come up with. Extra-healthy boys. They’re studying extra-healthy boys; but how could they know which ones are going to be extra-healthy when they’re babies? It doesn’t make any sense.”

“Maybe it does,” Sally said thoughtfully. “Maybe they started out with a huge population and began narrowing it down as some of the subjects began showing the traits
they were looking for. Maybe by the time the children get to be Randy’s and Jason’s ages, they’ve been able to focus on the population they’re interested in.”

“And maybe the moon is made out of green cheese,” Lucy snapped. “Think about it, Sally. Annie Oliphant told you there are only four boys at the school involved in the survey and all of them are younger than Randy. According to your idea, there should be a lot of children being surveyed, at least in kindergarten and the first couple of grades. But there are only four. So there was something special about those four, and the Children’s Health Institute for Latent Diseases knew about it.”

“And what about Julie?” Sally asked, her voice quivering. “Was there something special about her too?”

Lucy reached across the table and squeezed Sally’s hand. “Oh, Sally, I’m sorry. It’s just that I’m trying to figure out what might be going on. And—and maybe there was something about Julie that nobody knows about.”

“And maybe there wasn’t,” Sally replied. She stood up and began gathering her things together. “Maybe we’re both a little bit crazy, Lucy. Maybe I’d better go home and do what everyone wants me to do—forget about Julie and go on with my life.”

“And what about Jason?” Lucy countered. “Julie’s dead, and Randy’s missing, and Jason’s part of that study too! What about him?”

Sally’s eyes suddenly blazed. “What about him? What about
all
the other children in the survey? Apparently nothing’s wrong with the others, at least not the ones here in Eastbury.” And then, as she saw the hurt in Lucy’s eyes, it was Sally’s turn to apologize for her hasty words. “Lucy, forgive me. I didn’t think—I just let loose. Of course I’m worried about Jason. Ever since Julie died, I’ve been worried sick about Jason. I’m edgy all the time, and I can’t work, and half the time I think I’m losing my mind. But I don’t know what to do next.”

“Then don’t do anything,” Lucy said. “Don’t do anything at all. Wait until Monday. I’ll go to Boston, and
I’ll talk to the people at the Institute. Then we can deride what to do next. Okay?”

Silently, Sally nodded her head. A few minutes later, as she and Jason were on their way home, Sally found herself glancing over at her son.

Was there something about him that made him special?

Deep in her heart, she hoped not. All she really wanted for her little boy right then was for him to be just like all the other little boys.

Certainly, he
looked
just like other boys.

But was he?

   For Steve and Sally Montgomery, the evening was like a play, with each of them trying, as best as possible, to pretend nothing was wrong between them, or within their home.

And yet the house itself seemed not to have recovered from the loss of its youngest occupant, and there was an emptiness to the rooms of which both Steve and Sally were acutely aware.

Steve tried to fill the void with three martinis, but even as he drank them, he knew it was useless. Instead of feeling the euphoria that ordinarily enveloped him with the second drink, he was becoming increasingly depressed. As he fixed the third drink, his back to his wife, he heard himself speaking.

“Aren’t you making dinner tonight?” There was a cutting edge to his voice and, as the words floated in the atmosphere, he wished he could retrieve them. He turned to face Sally, an apology on his lips, but the damage had already been done.

“If you’re in such a hurry, you might start fixing it yourself.”

Jason, sprawled on the floor in front of the television, looked up at his parents, sensing the tension in the room. “Why don’t we go out?” he suggested.

“Because money doesn’t grow on trees,” Steve snapped. As his son’s chin began to tremble, he set his drink down, then knelt down to tousle Jason’s hair. “I’m
sorry, sport. I guess your mom and I are just feeling edgy.”

Jason squirmed uncomfortably. “It’s okay,” he mumbled. A moment later he slipped out of the room and Sally heard him going upstairs. When the sound of his footsteps had disappeared, she turned to Steve.

“They’re studying him too, you know,” she said. “It wasn’t just Julie, They’re watching Jason too.”

“Oh, Jesus,” Steve groaned. He’d listened to Sally’s recital of the day’s events earlier. As far as he could see, none of it meant anything. It was all nothing more than coincidence. Why wouldn’t she drop it? “For Christ’s sake, honey, can’t you leave it alone?” he demanded, but remorse at his own words immediately flooded over him.

It had been that way ever since the funeral. It was as if, with her burial, Julie had thrown him off balance, had somehow disturbed the symmetry of his life, drained away the joy he used to feel. Now he felt as though a stranger was living in his body, an angry, mournful stranger who had no way of dealing with the equally strange people around him. The only solution, he knew, was to forget about Julie, to forget that she had ever existed, and somehow to go back to the time before she had been conceived, when there had been only Sally and Jason and himself. If he could do that—if
they
could do that—then things would be all right again. They would be a family again.

But every day, every hour, something happened, or something was said, that reminded him of his little girl, and the scabs were ripped from his wounds and he began to hurt all over again.

And then he would lash out.

Lash out at Sally, lash out at Jason, lash out at anything or anyone that was available. The worst of it was that even though he understood what was happening to him, he could do nothing to stop it, nor could he bring himself to try to explain it to Sally.

He no longer knew what to do about Sally. He had thought that time would take care of her wounds, as he
hoped time would take care of his own. But then, late this afternoon, he had had that call from Dr. Wiseman.

Wiseman was worried about Sally. His conversation had been filled with words and phrases of which Steve had only a vague understanding.

“Obsessive behavior.”

“Paranoid tendencies.”

“Neurotic compulsion.”

All of it, Steve knew, boiled down to the fact that while he was trying to forget what had happened, his wife was refusing to face it. Instead, she was grasping at straws, looking for plots where there were no plots. And if it continued, according to Wiseman, Sally could wind up with serious mental problems.

Dinner, when it finally was on the table, was an unhappy affair, with Steve at one end of the table, Sally at the other, and Jason caught in the middle, understanding only that something had gone wrong—something connected with his sister’s death—and his parents didn’t seem to love each other anymore. He ate as fast as he could, then excused himself and went up to his room. When he was gone, Steve carefully folded his napkin and set it next to his plate.

“I think we have to talk,” he said.

Sally, her lips still drawn into a tight line that reflected the anger she had been feeling since before dinner, glared at him. “Are you going to apologize for the way you spoke to Jason and me?”

“Yes, I am,” Steve replied. He fell silent, trying to decide how to proceed. Finally, as the silence grew uncomfortable, he made himself begin. “Look, Sally, I know both of us are under terrible strain, and I know we both have to handle this in our own way. But I’m worried about you. Dr. Wiseman called today—”

“Did he?” Sally cut in. There was a coldness to her voice that Steve had never heard before. “Somehow, that doesn’t surprise me,” she said. “Did he tell you he thinks I’m a hysteric? He does, you know.”

“Sally.” Steve made his voice as soothing as he could. “He didn’t say anything of the sort. He’s worried about
you, and so am I. We can’t go on this way. We’re tearing ourselves apart Look at us. Barely speaking to each other, and when we do, it’s not very pleasant And what about Jason? We’re hurting him too.”

The words stung Sally, for she knew they were true. Yet she couldn’t keep from thinking about Julie and what might have happened to her. She had to find out, had to know that whatever had happened to Julie had not been her own fault. If she couldn’t do that, how could she go on living, go on being a mother to Jason? How could she ever know a moment’s peace if the thought was ever-present in the back of her mind that she might have done something that killed her own baby. And yet, Jason was still there, and Steve, too, and she loved them both very deeply. For tonight, at least, she would put her problems out of her mind and take care of her family.

“You’re right,” she said out loud. “Steve, I’m sorry.” She leaned back in her chair and toyed with her fork. “That sounds hollow, doesn’t it? Our world is falling apart, and all I can do is say I’m sorry.’ But what good does it do?” Without waiting for an answer, she stood up and started toward the stairs. “I’ll go try to make up with Jason. Can you take care of the dishes?”

“Sure.” As his wife disappeared from the dining room, Steve began clearing the table. At least, he decided, it was a beginning.

   As she passed the door to the little room that had been Julie’s, Sally steeled herself against the urge to open it, to look inside, knowing that the wish was futile, that it would not all turn out to have been a nightmare, that Julie would not be miraculously returned to her crib, breathing softly and steadily, gurgling in her sleep. She forced herself to walk steadfastly onward until she came to Jason’s room. The door was slightly ajar.

There was no sound from within, and for a moment Sally felt an unreasonable sense of panic. Again she steeled herself, and she pushed the door open.

Jason was sitting at his little worktable, his chemistry
set spread out in front of him, his face a study in concentration as he carefully poured a liquid from a plastic bottle into a test tube.

“Hi!” Sally said. “May I come in?”

Startled, Jason jerked his head upward, and the plastic bottle slipped from his hand. He grabbed at it, catching it just before the contents spilled into his lap. Some of the liquid splashed onto his hand, and he screamed in sudden pain.

Sally’s eyes widened in fear as she watched her son rise up from his chair and stare at his hand. Already, it was beginning to turn an angry red. Then Sally came to her senses and rushed forward to pick the terrified boy up and carry him to the bathroom.

“What was it?” she asked as she turned the water on full force and held Jason’s hand under the faucet.

“Acid,” Jason stammered. “Muriatic acid. I was di—”

“Never mind what you were doing with it,” Sally told him. “Let’s get it off.”

Through the rushing water she could see the blistering skin on Jason’s hand. On his fingers the acid had already burned into the flesh.

“I’ve told you never to play with anything dangerous,” she said. “Where’d you get muriatic acid?”

“At the pool store,” Jason said placidly. The cool water had flushed the pain out of his hand, and he stared at it now with more curiosity than fear. “I was diluting it down. Why’d you have to come in like that?”

“I came in to see what you were doing, and it’s a good thing I did.” Sally shut off the water and examined the hand. Now, without the water running over the burn, it didn’t look so bad. There were blisters, but apparently the skin wasn’t broken after all. Still, burns were easily infected. “Come on, let’s take this hand down to your father.”