Douglas Kennedy - Five Days

‘I’ve always hated myself for not confronting her about the antipathy that she felt towards our son. And the way she was incapable of showing any nurturing affection.’

‘Towards him and towards you?’ I asked.

I could see Richard tense, and silently cursed myself for overstepping a mark.

‘Sorry, sorry, that was an inappropriate question,’ I said.

He took another sip of his drink.

‘Actually, it was a perfectly appropriate question. And one which I think you already know the answer to.’

Silence. I broke it.

‘So after the MIT Math Camp. did he get help?’

‘Naturally I got the school therapist immediately involved. She was a very nice woman, if something of a lightweight who talked all this touchy-feely stuff, but was very out of her depth when it came to dealing with the clinical reasons why Billy had done something so destructive, so calamitous. She did send him to a psychiatrist. The psychiatrist diagnosed depression and put him on Valium. A reasonable year followed. He saw the psychiatrist once a week. The medication seemed to be working. Billy finished his senior year in high school. He scored high on his SATs — including a 750 in math. The incident at MIT was in the past. I paid the four thousand dollars in damages. They never pressed charges, so there was no record against Billy. Several colleges were seriously interested in him — including Chicago and Cornell. Another great triumph happened when CalTech came through with a complete four-year scholarship. CalTech! Billy was thrilled. I was thrilled. Even his mother was truly chuffed that her boy got into one of the world’s great science and math schools. The thing was, Billy was going out with a girl from his class. Mary Tracey. Lovely young woman. Quite the chemistry whizz. And she seemed to really understand our quirky son. She’d even gotten accepted on full scholarship to Stanford. It all looked so good.

‘Then, around three weeks before his high school graduation, he disappeared. Vanished completely. The local and state police were involved. His photo was in all the papers and on all Maine news bulletins. The fact that he had taken Muriel’s car and stolen her ATM card — he knew her PIN number because she’d asked him to get money out on occasion — well, naturally, this was serious stuff. The bank informed us that he’d only made one withdrawal of three hundred dollars on the day of his disappearance. We didn’t stop the card because, as the police advised us, they’d be able to easily track his whereabouts. But after that first withdrawal, nothing. No sign of him anywhere. The trail had gone cold. And I couldn’t help but fear the worst: that he’d taken his own life.

‘But then, eight days after he’d disappeared — eight days during which I had maybe slept three hours a night — we got a phone call at around four in the morning from our local police captain, Dwight Petrie. Bath’s a small town. Dwight and I had gone to high school together. His father had been in the police force. My dad had insured their family house and cars. Dwight came to me for all that when he got married and started a family. He was the only friend I confided in about the business at MIT. He was one of the few people I could trust to keep a secret. The fact is, the MIT business was kept pretty hush-hush. Billy’s disappearance, on the other hand, was big local news — and somehow word got out about Billy’s MIT business. I’m pretty damn certain it was a parent of one of Billy’s classmates. Her son was also at the same math camp, but he’d been passed over by CalTech and everywhere for scholarship. This woman — her name was Margaret Mallon — went around telling everybody that it was absurd that “that little freak Billy Copeland gets all the scholarships” and her boy got nothing. It was Dwight Petrie who told me she’d been overheard saying that. Being a police captain, Dwight never repeats anything incriminating unless he’s received it from impeccable sources. Next thing we know that too got into the newspapers. And the world being so linked now by Google and Yahoo, naturally someone in the admissions office at CalTech flagged it. The college guidance counselor at Bath High then got a call from the director of admissions at CalTech, demanding to know why the school had concealed Billy’s expulsion. The Bath college guidance counselor told him this was the first he had heard of it. Which meant that Muriel and I were asked to come into the principal’s office and were essentially carpeted for concealing this “felony”, as the principal put it. I tried to explain that, since the matter wasn’t reported to the police and it was all privately settled between ourselves and MIT, we didn’t feel it essential to “share” this information with the school. I knew this sounded lame — and that we were essentially guilty of a cover-up.’

‘What makes you think that?’ I asked.

‘The school should have been informed.’

‘Did MIT know the name of Billy’s high school?’

‘Of course. They had all his details.’

‘But they chose not to inform Bath High that he had been expelled. The very fact that MIT didn’t think it necessary to inform Bath High School of this unfortunate incident—’

‘It wasn’t an “incident”. It was an offense.’

‘Your son is bipolar. ’

‘That diagnosis came later. And arson is hardly a petty crime.’

‘Still, MIT decided the infraction was not so severe as to ruin the future of a hugely gifted young man.’

‘I lost around a half-dozen clients. And they all said the same thing — they didn’t want to do business with someone who played fast and loose with the truth.’

‘That’s awful and pretty damn judgmental, if you ask me,’ I said.

‘You’re being far too kind.’

‘Are you saying that because you’re not used to kindness?’

Silence. Richard closed his eyes for a moment. From the way his lips tightened I could only wonder if I had crossed a forbidden frontier, and if he might just stand up and end our lunch before it had ever really begun.

‘I’m sorry,’ I heard myself saying.

Richard opened his eyes.

‘For what?’

‘For prying into something that I had no business—’

‘But you’re right.’

Silence. I chose my next words with prudence.

‘How am I right?’

‘About me not being used to kindness.’

Silence. Now we both reached for our drinks. Then:

‘I know a thing or two about that as well,’ I said.

‘Your husband?’

I nodded.

Silence. The waiter broke it, arriving at our booth, all smiles.

‘How are you guys doing. Ready for another mary? And just to remind you of our brunch specials—’

‘Why don’t you do that in around fifteen minutes?’ Richard said.

‘No problem, no rush,’ the waiter said, getting the message.

‘Thank you.’ Then, when the waiter was out of earshot, he said:

‘So. your husband. ’

‘We’ll get to that. Anyway, my point was—’

‘What’s his name?’

‘Dan.’

‘And he got laid off at L.L.Bean and starts again in the stockroom on Monday?’

‘Good memory.’

‘Salesmen remember everything.’

‘But outside of the insurance business, you don’t strike me as someone who’s always selling, always trying to close.’

‘Maybe that’s because, when I’m selling, I’m playing a role. And outside of that—’

‘Aren’t we all playing a role?’ I asked.

‘That’s a point of view.’

‘But one with a certain veracity to it. I mean, we all construct an identity, don’t we? The problem is, do we like the identity we have made for ourselves?’

‘You don’t expect me to answer that, do you?’

I laughed, and Richard favored me with a sly smile.