Lisa Gardner - Alone

It was only later, after they were married, maybe that one Monday evening when she'd commented on his drinking and he'd shocked her by slapping her across the face, that she'd started to wonder. What kind of man used a suicide hotline to pick up girls? What did that say about what he was looking for in a prospective mate?

Like his father, Jimmy had liked power. He'd liked to remind her that she'd be nothing without him. He'd liked to tell her that he'd scooped her out of the gutter, and he could damn well throw her back.

Sometimes, when Jimmy spoke, she actually pictured Richard Umbrio, standing way above her, haloed by daylight as one arm held up the wooden cover that would soon be sealing her in.

"Better make my next welcome even more exciting," he'd tell her gleefully, because otherwise, you never know when I might decide not to Visit. I've given you this much, Cat. You never know when I might take it all away." Jimmy had never wanted to save Catherine. He'd simply wanted to extend her programming.

Well, she now thought matter-of-factly, she had shown him.

In Nathan's room, she snapped on the overhead light. two sixty-watt bulbs blazed from the ceiling. It wasn't enough, however For her, for Nathan, it would never be enough.

"Cowboy," Nathan murmured sleepily against her shoulder Obediently, she went to that night-light first. Snap.

Nothing.

She frowned, tried it again. No light magically illuminated the cowboy's cheery face. Bulb must be burnt out. She went to the night-light beneath it, the traditional clam. Click.

Still nothing.

Maybe a blown fuse? The police with all their spotlights and recorders, maybe they'd overloaded the system. She crossed to the dresser, Nathan's weight growing heavy in her arms. Two table lamps. One had a cactus as its stem, the other a bucking bronco. She tried both, fingers shaking slightly, breathing accelerated.

Nothing. Nothing.

Okay, lots of options. Plenty of options. What was the point of having a neurosis if you didn't do it properly? Nathan's room offered six night-lights, three table lights, and two standing lamps. The overhead light worked, which meant there had to be electricity to at least part of the room. She just had to find those outlets, get those lights humming.

She moved quicker now. Nathan was lifting his head from her shoulder, as if sensing her agitation.

"Mommy, lights!"

"I know, sweetheart. I know."

The damn bear lamp didn't work. Two hundred bucks, she'd found it in Denver and mailed it home as a gift. The antique brass desk light, five hundred dollars from a tiny little shop on Charles Street, also out of commission. She moved to the standing lamps, halogen bulbs, the kind that illuminated the entire ceiling.

Nothing.

More night-lights now. Small little specks of radiance, topped with stained-glass images, or a red plastic Elmo, or a beaming Whinnie-the-Pooh. They had to work. At least one or two or three. Dear God, something in the monstrous room had to break up the dark.

She was breathing too hard, panting really. Nathan pushed rigidly away from her body, arching his spine in growing distress.

"Light, light, light!"

"I know, I know, I know."

Fuck the room. It was too big, too vast. What did two people need with a space this huge? She cradled her son close and bolted for his adjoining bath. Quick flick of the finger and she snapped on the overhead light, waiting for the white-tiled space to come brilliantly into view.

Nothing.

She clicked again. Then again. Hysteria was coming now. She could feel it bubbling up in her throat.

Nathan kicked in her arms.

"Mommy, Mommy, Mommy, where are the lights? I want light!"

"I know. Shhh, baby, shhh."

It came to her. His closet. The small walk-in space boasted two more sixty-watt bulbs. They could curl up on the floor, taking refuge in a puddle of illumination. It would get them through the night.

"Nathan, love, we're going to have an adventure."

She rubbed his back, trying to calm him, as she whirled out of the bathroom and bolted for the closet. She rolled back the mirror-paneled door, reached in her hand, and found the switch. Click.

Light. Bright, brilliant, wondrous light. It flooded the scene, reaching glowing tendrils to each dark corner, shoving back the shadows. Lovely, lovely light.

Catherine took one look inside the closet, then she stuffed her hand in her mouth to muffle the scream.

They were there, in the middle of the floor, right where she would see them: every single bulb, from every single light. They'd been taken out, then arranged into one simple, three-letter word.

BOO

Catherine forced her son's face back down into her neck. She stumbled away from the closet. She careened down the hall, and clambered down the stairs. In the foyer, she grabbed her coat, her purse, her car keys. Didn't look at the uniformed officer. Didn't bother to talk.

She burst out of the front door of the townhouse.

"Light, light light," Nathan was sobbing.

But there was no light. She understood it better than anyone Now it was just her and Nathan, alone in the dark.

"You told me you and your father had made a pact about drinking," Elizabeth said.

"I believe you mentioned an incident with him driving under the influence and that scaring him into sobriety."

"I lied."

"Do you lie often?"

Bobby shrugged.

"For certain things, you need a ready explanation. Saying my father attacked my brother with a knife isn't an explanation I feel like giving. Besides, the DUI incident happened. It was one of my father's relapses-sobriety wasn't exactly a one-step Plan for him. More like one step forward, two steps back. And around that time, I was having my own issues. So yeah, we made the Pact."

"I see. So you lied to me, but in your own mind, it was a lie containing the truth."

"Something like that."

"Uh-huh. And as a child, every time you had a bruise, I imagine you had an 'explanation' for that. And every time your father couldn't attend a school function or embarrassed you in front of your friends, another 'explanation," which may or may not contained a kernel of truth?"

"Yeah, okay. I see your point."

"You say your father is better, but it seems to me that thirty years later you're engaged in the same old patterns, including telling lies."

He didn't answer right away. She thought he was working on a good line of defense, but then he surprised her by announcing quietly, "My father would agree with you."

"He would?"

"He joined AA eight years ago, and for him, it's been like discovering religion. He's big on atonement. Wants to acknowledge what he did. Wants to talk about the old days, ask for forgiveness. My brother, George, won't take his calls. As for me… I just want to forget. My father was who he was, and now he is who he is. I don't see the point of dwelling on it."

"Bobby, aren't there times when you are very, very angry? Angrier than you probably should be?"

"I guess."

"Aren't there times when you look at the future, and you feel an overwhelming sense of hopelessness?"

"Maybe."

"And aren't there times when you feel as if everything is out of your control?"

He looked at her, clearly captivated.

"Okay."

"That's why you need to talk to your father, Bobby. That's why your father needs to talk to you. Your family has changed, but it hasn't healed. Part of forgiving your father is also giving yourself permission to hate him for what he did. Until you do that, you're not going to move forward, and you're not honestly going to love him for who he is now."

Bobby smiled, a wan expression in his tired face.

"I hate my mom, isn't that enough?"

"Your mom's the easy target, Bobby. Once she left, you had to love your father; he was the only caretaker you had. But you also feared and loathed him for how he treated you. Hating your mother resolved the conflict. If what happened to you was her fault, then it was okay to love your dad. It's called displaced rage. Thirty years later, you have a great deal of it."