The Language of Secrets (9 page)

As she was ushering Robert to a chair, she was saying, “The questions I need to ask you won’t take long. But they might take a few more minutes than normal. It’s my first week doing things on my own. This is my first job out of nursing school and …” She stopped to retrieve the pen that had slipped from her clipboard. “I’m a little nervous. I’m sorry.”

“Check back with me later. Please.” Robert wanted to be rid of this fumbling girl.

“Actually, all I need is a signature. Permission for your son to receive a transfusion in the event he might need one.”

The nurse held the clipboard out to him and Robert scrawled
his name at the bottom of the form. He was buzzing with a sudden fear that Justin might be dying. “Does he need blood?” Robert asked. “I can donate right away. Where do I go to do that?”

“No, he doesn’t need it right now. But it’s great if you give blood anyway. That way you’ve made a contribution we can bank. All I’ll need is to make a note of your blood type.” She was holding her pen poised above the clipboard.

“It’s O. Type O,” Robert said.

The nurse seemed confused by his answer. “Are you sure?”

“You want proof? I’ve got it here on my emergency information card.” Robert pulled his wallet from his back pocket.

“No. I mean it’s probably my mistake. Or maybe your wife wrote down her information wrong.” The nurse looked at the clipboard again. “Because I have her as type A. And we know your son is type AB. So there’s no way if you’re an O that you could possibly be his—” The nurse stopped short.

When her gaze met Robert’s, there was panic in her eyes. Neither one of them spoke.

She had told him the truth about Justin, and about Caroline. There was nothing more to be said.

“I was lying in bed. At home. Then I looked toward the window and there was a man in a red fleece jacket. All I could see of him was from the neck to the waist. His torso was filling the window. I could tell that he wasn’t anybody I knew, but I understood he was there to kill me. Then he was in the room, standing across from the bed. He had a rifle aimed at me. And I thought, Shit, I don’t need this. Then I saw the bullet coming down the barrel of the gun, straight at me. And I turned away, rolled over, so my back was to him. I knew he was shooting me and it was going to hurt … the bullet going in. I kind of reached back with my hand. I guess I was trying to deflect the bullet, like it would slow it down, make it hurt less. Then the bullet hit my palm. And it stung like a son of a bitch.” Justin hesitated, then added, “That’s all.”

“That’s all?” There was a flicker of surprise in Ari’s eyes.

“Yeah. The bullet stinging my hand, that’s what woke me up.”

“The dream,” Ari said. “It was vivid. It seemed real while you were in it?”

“Yes,” Justin replied. “I mean the room, me, everything, it was exactly like it is in real life.”

“And then what?” Ari had opened his small office refrigerator and was reaching into it, taking out a bottle of mineral water.

“And I woke up and I thought, Great, finally I remembered a dream. And then I wrote it down so I wouldn’t forget.”

“Want one?” Ari asked, indicating the mineral water.

“No. I’m good.” Justin sat back and waited. He was becoming familiar with the rhythms of these sessions. Justin knew when Ari was taking time to contemplate his next move.

They had been meeting twice a week, here in Ari’s office, for almost a month. During his first few appointments, Justin had been uncomfortable sitting across from a neighbor in this impersonal yet oddly intimate room with its sleek leather chairs and strategically placed boxes of tissues. He hadn’t been certain he wanted to risk exposing whatever dark secrets there were about himself to someone he knew. At the same time, he hadn’t been certain he wanted to open himself up to a stranger, either. What he had known, without a doubt, was that he was in desperate need of help.

“How did you feel after you woke up?” Ari settled into the chair across from Justin.

“Glad I’d finally remembered a dream.”

“Nothing else?” There was no edge to Ari’s voice. But in the way he held the bottle of water and tapped it against the arm of his chair, there was tension. Justin saw it and was surprised. Keeping a record of his dreams had been something Ari had asked him to do. Justin had assumed that remembering this dream, remembering any dream at all, would have elicited a positive response from Ari.

“And in the dream, when you realized the man was there to kill you, how did you feel? Were you afraid?”

“No, I didn’t have any emotion on it … except, like I said, a kind of ‘Shit, I don’t need this’ feeling. Like it was one more thing coming at me.”

“And you clearly understood you were about to be murdered?”

“Yeah. Absolutely.”

“And that didn’t frighten you?”

“No.”

Ari took a sip of water. “Were you frightened when you woke up?”

“No. Why all the questions?”

“Because the dream you just described is a nightmare, you’re in the process of being murdered. Yet you feel no fear. And when you wake up and recall the dream … again, no fear. No emotion.”

“So, what are you getting at?”

“I’m saying that the normal reaction to a nightmare, and to the prospect of being murdered, is fear. You didn’t have any.”

“And that means what?”

“It suggests that you control your emotions and your mental processes to such a degree that the control is almost complete. It’s not only governing your behavior when you’re awake and conscious but it’s reaching into the subconscious, into your dreams, and clamping down on the flow of normal emotion, of normal processing.”

“I still don’t understand. What does it mean?” There was concern in Justin’s voice.

“It suggests you’ve locked yourself in, and you’ve fortressed yourself against something,” Ari said. “And that it’s big. And that we’ll need to be very careful about how we go looking for it.”

*

The Pacific Regent Hotel was resplendent with holiday decorations. In every public room, there was a massive Christmas tree hung with jewel-toned ornaments, crowned with a golden angel,
and ringed with swirls of emerald-colored moss. The effect was one of magnificent excess.

Justin had come down from his office and was now walking across the lobby. The sight of the extravagant Christmas displays, and of his staff efficiently going about the hotel’s business, gradually took his mind off the disturbing session he’d had with Ari earlier in the day.

From the moment he had first begun working in them, Justin was captivated by elegant hotels. To him, they were places of sanctuary. They glowed with warmth and safety, with serenity and beauty. To Justin, coming into a fine hotel felt like coming home should feel.

As he entered the jewelry store in the hotel’s shopping area, the girl behind the counter grinned and said: “Mr. Fisher, good news. I found the exact one you were asking about.” She took a suede jewelry case from a drawer, and Justin saw that it contained the Christmas gift he wanted for Amy: a perfectly cut diamond solitaire suspended from a length of platinum as thin as a strand of a spider’s web.

Justin leaned over the counter to look at the necklace. He was facing the mirrored rear wall of the store. As he straightened up, he caught sight of his own reflection, and then he saw the image of a woman. Her image had moved so swiftly that, for an instant, it gave Justin the impression the woman had gone
through
him. But he realized she had
gone past
him. Out in the corridor, on the other side of the store’s glass front wall.

The woman had fiery red hair, pale skin, and sloping shoulders. The combination hit Justin with a wave of recognition that rocked him and left him feeling almost stunned.

He rushed toward the door, leaving Amy’s necklace forgotten on the counter.

As he ran out of the jewelry store, he was scanning the length of the corridor, trying to catch sight of the woman with the red hair.

There were people moving around him in all directions, but she was nowhere to be found. Justin sprinted toward the exit doors at the far end of the shopping arcade. As he pushed them open, he saw her. But before he could get to the sidewalk, she was already in a taxi, and it quickly pulled away.

For several weeks, a splinter of memory had been pricking at the edges of Justin’s consciousness. The sessions with Ari had been nudging it closer to the surface, and the sight of this red-haired woman had hit like a final, sharp tap. It was out in the open now.

And all Justin could feel was bone-shaking fear. He fumbled for his phone. When he pressed the speed-dial button, he heard “You have reached the private line of Dr. Ari Silver. Please leave your name and telephone number.”

“Ari, I need to see you,” Justin said. “I know who TJ’s mother is.”

Caroline laid her cheek against Justin’s hand, and when her skin touched his, he stirred and made a sound that was something between a sigh and a dreamy giggle. He was not fully conscious, but he knew she was there.

“Your son’s a very lucky little boy.” The doctor was standing at the foot of Justin’s bed. “All he managed to get out of that stair dive was a pretty good concussion, a fracture of the left forearm, and a few cuts and bruises.”

“And that’s the extent of it?” Caroline said. “He’s going to be fine?”

“Sometimes kids his age can bounce like they’re made of rubber. We’ll keep an eye on him for a while, but yes, it looks as if he’s going to be perfectly fine.”

The wave of relief that swept over Caroline left her weak. All she could do was smile.

“It’s important to keep him as alert as possible for the next few hours,” the doctor said.

Still smiling, Caroline nodded. The doctor left the room. Caroline
held Justin close. He lifted his hand and it fell, warm and small, into her open palm. She rested her head near his and began to sing.

The song was one she had invented and taught to him as soon as he’d been old enough to speak. She had made up similar songs for both her girls. It was Caroline’s way of ensuring her children could never be completely lost from her. In these simple rhymes, she was giving them a compass that would guide them home.

“Do I know my name?” Caroline sang to Justin. “Yes, I do. Yes, I do. My name is Justin. And my name is Fisher, too.” Justin’s eyelids drooped. Caroline tickled his palm and said: “No, baby, don’t drift away. Don’t get lost. Stay with me. Come on, Justin. Sing your song.”

“My name is Justin … and my name is Fisher, too …” The words were lisped and indistinct, but Justin was singing. He was awake. He was connected to her.

“Do I know my home?” Caroline sang. “Yes, I do. Yes, I do. I live on Lima Street. Right at 822. Do I know my town? Yes, I do. Yes, I do. My town’s Sierra Madre, and California, too. Do I know my parents? Yes, I do. Yes, I do. One’s named Caroline. And one’s named Robert, too. Do I know my sisters? Yes, I do. Yes, I do. I have a sister Julie. And a sister Lissa, too.”

Justin gave Caroline a sleepy, wavering smile and said: “Tell me again, Mommy. Sing me my story.”

And all through the night, Justin heard his mother’s low, clear voice singing to him: “Do I know my name? Yes, I do. Yes, I do. Do I know my home? Yes, I do. I live on Lima Street. Right at 822.”

*

It was after midnight, and Robert’s arrival in the house startled Mrs. Marston. She had been dozing on the sofa. She was still
groggy as she mumbled: “Robert, why are you back so soon? I didn’t expect you for hours.”

He was already moving past her. She followed him as quickly as she could, explaining that she’d taken Julie and Lissa to her house and that her husband was with them.

When she caught up to him in the kitchen, Robert was pouring himself a drink.

“Why haven’t you brought Caroline and Justin back with you from the hospital? Oh Lord, the child’s not dead, is he?”

“No.” It was all Robert could manage to say.

The information he’d been given at the hospital—that Caroline had not only betrayed him but had brought him another man’s son—was tearing away at Robert.

He was paying little attention as Mrs. Marston said: “The girls were so upset, seeing their baby brother hauled off in an ambulance. Such an awful thing.” As she prattled on, Robert moved from one area of the kitchen to another, swallowing his drink in open mouthfuls, trying to recall where he had stored the tax records four years ago.

“Robert!” Mrs. Marston’s tone was peevish. “You’re not hearing a word I’m saying, are you?”

As he upended his glass to drain the last of the scotch from it, he saw the open basement door, and the birthday cake Caroline had carefully wedged onto a shelf just inside it. He calmly reached in and wrapped his fist around the pedestal of the cake stand. Then with an angry flick of his wrist, he sent Caroline’s elegant creation flying toward the open trash can near the back door, but the cake slapped against the wall and splattered across the floor.

“Don’t clean that up,” he told Mrs. Marston. “Leave it there.”

He dropped the cake stand and abruptly walked out of the kitchen. He had just remembered where he’d put the tax records.

They were in a storage container at the back of a closet in the upstairs hallway. Along with the tax forms was a year’s worth of canceled checks—and Robert’s desk calendar for 1971. He flipped through it, looking for the months of October and November, the time when Caroline would have conceived. Within seconds, he’d found the answer to his question. He saw the notation for the insurance seminar he had attended in Fresno on October 30 and 31.

And he remembered everything.

He remembered the beery smell and hazy light in the cocktail lounge and how tempted he’d been by the woman who was sitting beside him. She had first sidled up to him at the afternoon lecture and then, later, joined him at dinner. A vaguely pretty, slightly plump female with unremarkable legs and an ingenue’s excitement about the insurance business. The kind of achingly ordinary woman that in his youth Robert had always assumed he would end up with; the only type of woman (because of his own ordinariness) he believed he deserved.