Dennis Lehane: Shutter Island

He looked out at the shore and saw them neatly lined up, shoulder to shoulder.

He pulled his gun free of its holster. He showed it to her.

She bit her lip, weeping, and nodded. She looked up at the roof of the gazebo. She said, “We’ll pretend they’re with us. We’ll give them baths, Andrew.”

And he placed the gun to her belly and his hand trembled and his lips trembled and he said, “I love you, Dolores.”

And even then, with his gun to her body, he was sure he couldn’t do it.

She looked down as if surprised that she was still there, that he was still below her. “I love you, too. I love you so much. I love you like—”

And he pulled the trigger. The sound of it came out of her eyes and air popped from her mouth, and she placed her hand over the hole and looked at him, her other hand gripping his hair.

And as it spilled out of her, he pulled her to him and she went soft against his body and he held her and held her and wept his terrible love into her faded dress.

HE SAT UP in the dark and smelled the cigarette smoke before he saw the coal and the coal flared as Sheehan took a drag on the cigarette and watched him.

He sat on the bed and wept. He couldn’t stop weeping. He said her name. He said:

“Rachel, Rachel, Rachel.”

And he saw her eyes watching the clouds and her hair floating out around her.

When the convulsions stopped, when the tears dried, Sheehan said, “Rachel who?”

“Rachel Laeddis,” he said.

“And you are?”

“Andrew,” he said. “My name is Andrew Laeddis.”

Sheehan turned on a small light and revealed Cawley and a guard on the other side of the bars. The guard had his back to them, but Cawley stared in, his hands on the bars.

“Why are you here?”

He took the handkerchief Sheehan offered and wiped his face.

“Why are you here?” Cawley repeated.

“Because I murdered my wife.”

“And why did you do that?”

“Because she murdered our children and she needed peace.”

“Are you a U.S. marshal?” Sheehan said.

“No. I was once. Not anymore.”

“How long have you been here?”

“Since May third, 1952.”

“Who was Rachel Laeddis?”

“My daughter. She was four.”

“Who is Rachel Solando?”

“She doesn’t exist. I made her up.”

“Why?” Cawley said.

Teddy shook his head.

“Why?” Cawley repeated.

“I don’t know, I don’t know…”

“Yes, you do, Andrew. Tell me why.”

“I can’t.”

“You can.”

Teddy grabbed his head and rocked in place. “Don’t make me say it. Please? Please, Doctor?”

Cawley gripped the bars. “I need to hear it, Andrew.”

He looked through the bars at him, and he wanted to lunge forward and bite his nose.

“Because,” he said and stopped. He cleared his throat, spit on the floor. “Because I can’t take knowing that I let my wife kill my babies. I ignored all the signs. I tried to wish it away. I killed them because I didn’t get her some help.”

“And?”

“And knowing that is too much. I can’t live with it.”

“But you have to. You realize that.”

He nodded. He pulled his knees to his chest.

Sheehan looked back over his shoulder at Cawley. Cawley stared in through the bars. He lit a cigarette. He watched Teddy steadily.

“Here’s my fear, Andrew. We’ve been here before. We had this exact same break nine months ago. And then you regressed. Rapidly.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I appreciate that,” Cawley said, “but I can’t use an apology right now. I need to know that you’ve accepted reality. None of us can afford another regression.”

Teddy looked at Cawley, this too-thin man with great pools of shadow under his eyes. This man who’d come to save him. This man who might be the only true friend he’d ever had.

He saw the sound of his gun in her eyes and he felt his sons’ wet wrists as he’d placed them on their chests and he saw his daughter’s hair as he stroked it off her face with his index finger.

“I won’t regress,” he said. “My name is Andrew Laeddis. I murdered my wife, Dolores, in the spring of ’fifty-two…”

THE SUN WAS in the room when he woke.

He sat up and looked toward the bars, but the bars weren’t there. Just a window, lower than it should have been until he realized he was up high, on the top bunk in the room he’d shared with Trey and Bibby.

It was empty. He hopped off the bunk and opened the closet and saw his clothes there, fresh from the laundry, and he put them on. He walked to the window and placed a foot up on the ledge to tie his shoe and looked out at the compound and saw patients and orderlies and guards in equal number, some milling in front of the hospital, others continuing the cleanup, some tending to what remained of the rosebushes along the foundation.

He considered his hands as he tied the second shoe. Rock steady. His vision was as clear as it had been when he was a child and his head as well.

He left the room and walked down the stairs and out into the compound and he passed Nurse Marino in the breezeway and she gave him a smile and said, “Morning.”

“Beautiful one,” he said.

“Gorgeous. I think that storm blew summer out for good.”

He leaned on the rail and looked at a sky the color of baby blue eyes and he could smell a freshness in the air that had been missing since June.

“Enjoy the day,” Nurse Marino said, and he watched her as she walked down the breezeway, felt it was maybe a sign of health that he enjoyed the sway of her hips.

He walked into the compound and passed some orderlies on their day off tossing a ball back and forth and they waved and said, “Good morning,” and he waved and said “Good morning” back.

He heard the sound of the ferry horn as it neared the dock, and he saw Cawley and the warden talking in the center of the lawn in front of the hospital and they nodded in acknowledgment and he nodded back.

He sat down on the corner of the hospital steps and looked out at all of it and felt as good as he’d felt in a long time.

“Here.”

He took the cigarette and put it in his mouth, leaned in toward the flame and smelled that gasoline stench of the Zippo before it was snapped closed.

“How we doing this morning?”

“Good. You?” He sucked the smoke back into his lungs.

“Can’t complain.”

He noticed Cawley and the warden watching them.

“We ever figure out what that book of the warden’s is?”

“Nope. Might go to the grave without knowing.”

“That’s a helluva shame.”

“Maybe there are some things we were put on this earth not to know. Look at it that way.”

“Interesting perspective.”

“Well, I try.”

He took another pull on the cigarette, noticed how sweet the tobacco tasted. It was richer, and it clung to the back of his throat.

“So what’s our next move?” he said.

“You tell me, boss.”

He smiled at Chuck. The two of them sitting in the morning sunlight, taking their ease, acting as if all was just fine with the world.

“Gotta find a way off this rock,” Teddy said. “Get our asses home.”

Chuck nodded. “I figured you’d say something like that.”

“Any ideas?”

Chuck said, “Give me a minute.”

Teddy nodded and leaned back against the stairs. He had a minute. Maybe even a few minutes. He watched Chuck raise his hand and shake his head at the same time and he saw Cawley nod in acknowledgment and then Cawley said something to the warden and they crossed the lawn toward Teddy with four orderlies falling into step behind them, one of the orderlies holding a white bundle, some sort of fabric, Teddy thinking he might have spied some metal on it as the orderly unrolled it and it caught the sun.