Christopher Hacker - The Morels

They’re in Virginia.

If you could get them to come up, support you here, you should consider it. Mostly though, it will be crossword puzzles and handheld video games, if that’s what Will’s into. My son’s crazy for his Nintendo.

Reassuring the mother, this is important. She is the most dangerous person here. She can help things go smoothly or make things impossible. Best to get her on board early.

When the psychologist emerges, he says that he believes the sort of abuse described in the book, the abuse Will recalls, may very well have taken place. Penelope sobs. It comes out involuntarily, like a sneeze. She allows herself to cry, to dissolve on this bench, in front of these men who do nothing to comfort her.

Some days later, she receives a visit from Joanna Brady, the attorney who will be handling the case. She is a towering redhead with hands that could palm a basketball. She meets Penelope and Will as equals, friendly with Will without being solicitous. Will takes an instant liking.

He follows her around the apartment. Try holding this in one hand without letting it drop. He hands her a large honeydew melon. If you knew the technique of Shaolin finger strength you could crush a man’s head with your bare hands, which is a lost art, apparently. Kendrick is always threatening me in the lunchroom, but I looked it up. Plus his father is a real pussy, which is a word I’m not allowed to say, so forget I said it.

Joanna is distressed to hear that Arthur is the one living in their apartment.

There’s no reason for you to be hiding out here. Will should be in touch with things familiar to him. This is going to be hard enough on him as it is. She urges Penelope to take the opportunity, once Arthur is processed, to move back in, to claim the space. We’ll try to have a judge issue an order of protection — he’ll just have to find some other place to go.

It’s hard to have a focused conversation with Joanna, Will is all over the place. He’s in and out of the bathroom. It’s not hard to imagine what he’s up to in there. Rachel has barged in on Will twice standing in front of the mirror with his pants at his ankles, playing with himself. Test-driving , she’d joked. This chronic masturbating was new.

The night before, Penelope was tucking him in and could swear he was touching himself under the covers. She made him hold out his hands to her, and she took them and kissed them and told Will that none of this was his fault. That it was okay to be nervous, to be upset by all this, but to know the trouble his father was in — it was trouble of his own making. Will argued with her, using logic to condemn himself for this awful turn their lives had taken: it wasn’t true that he, Will, had nothing to do with it; he was there and, by virtue of being there, wasn’t it true that he was a participant and, literally, a part of it? Had he not been there — had he, for instance, not been born—

Your father is not well, Penelope said, cutting him off. And this is not your fault, but then Will wanted to explore the definition of well/unwell , and Penelope was forced to turn off the light and leave him to his guilt, which, God help her for thinking it, she found annoying.

His guilt, his distress, come out in myriad unpleasant ways. Like now, for instance, while Penelope sits with Joanna on the living room sofa, Will is ripping out pages from the Gourmet magazines that had been fanned out nicely on the table. When Penelope tells him to stop, he argues that he is just pulling out the ads and making the magazine easier to read. It doesn’t escape Penelope’s notice, nor, she is sure, Joanna’s, that the ads Will is pulling feature almost exclusively women in bikinis.

It’s been two weeks since Will has spoken with Arthur, Penelope says when Will goes into the bathroom again — the fourth time since Joanna’s arrival. Will must miss him terribly, although he hasn’t said anything directly to me about it. He hasn’t even requested to speak with him.

I wouldn’t encourage it, Joanna says.

This advice is in line with advice she’s been given by the police and by her parents. People who have vested interests in avoiding family harmony.

Joanna talks arraignment, plea-bargaining, grand jury, pretrial motions. These are television words, the vocabulary of cop dramas, and as such seem, as all of this does, unreal. Penelope can’t see how these words apply to her or Will. I like to prepare for the long haul, but we’ll hope for an abrupt conclusion. It’s in nobody’s best interest here to drag this out, especially not Will’s. If Arthur is smart, he’ll want to end this quickly and quietly.

Will comes out of the bathroom and picks up a remote from the couch. The television blares to life. Will, Penelope shouts, turn that thing off and come here and sit still! Ugh! She rolls her eyes at Joanna, but Joanna gives her back a blank stare.

Can I look in your briefcase, Will says, or is it attaché? Valise?

Will, Penelope says, zip your fly please.

After that visit from the detectives, Arthur redoubles his effort to contact Penelope. He goes to the bakery, only to be told that she has taken an emergency family leave. From the neutral expressions he gets, Arthur is fairly certain they have no idea where she is. At Will’s school, he’s told Will, too, is on an approved extended absence. These people do seem to know what’s going on. They are wary of him, hostile even. But pressing gets him nowhere. Penelope’s cell goes straight to voice mail, no matter how many times he calls or how many messages he leaves. The Wrights have blocked his numbers, and when he calls from a pay phone, Constance immediately hangs up when she hears it’s him. He travels back down to Annandale and is told by Frank at the front door that Penelope and Will are not there.

I need to see them, Arthur says, no anger anymore, only bewildered desperation. This has all been a mistake.

You don’t have to take my word for it, Frank says, but you’ll want to clear out before the cops arrive. This time they’re apt not to be so nice.

Arthur is at a loss for what to do, so he tries waiting. Eventually she’ll contact him. He tries going about his professorial duties, marking up papers, meeting individually with students, but he has trouble understanding what people are saying to him.

They come for him at work, the same detectives. He recognizes them approaching as his seminar is breaking up. He is in the hall, surrounded by several students — a confluence of those in his class and those waiting to get into the room they’re vacating. The detectives click down the hall and take him by the elbow. Come with us, the younger one says. The students watch, paralyzed. The cops play at discreet, but if real discretion was what they wanted, they would have waited until he was on the street, away from students and colleagues. Or come to his apartment. They are civil but not particularly kind, the minimum courtesy they are compelled to show by law. Who can blame them?

In the car, they show no interest in challenging Arthur’s right to silence. He sits with his arms cuffed behind him, trying to find a more comfortable position, but it’s no use. Why have they cuffed him? He is obviously no threat. It’s an act of cruelty. He talks to the officers, tries reasoning with them, but they don’t answer. He threatens a lawsuit. This is abuse, he yells. One of them turns, talks to him about procedure, tells him he will be out of the handcuffs soon enough. His arms go prickly, then numb. He finds himself excited to arrive at the precinct, just to have the use of his hands again. Is he under arrest? It’s hard to tell. They did not announce that he was “under arrest,” but perhaps they used different words.

The room he is taken to has a mirror. He looks at himself seated at the table and knows that beyond his reflection there are people watching. Is Penelope there? Will? He imagines an audience seated, people fanning themselves with programs, waiting for him to speak. His hands tremble. He notices this from a distance. His heart is knocking at his chest. He waits here like this, alone — watching himself, feeling himself being watched — for a very long time. At first, he assumes it’s a ploy, keep him waiting, throw him off balance so he will be more susceptible to saying whatever it is they want him to say. But after some time passes, he’s not so sure. Perhaps the detectives have been called away on other business, forgotten that he’s in here. Eventually, Detective Ramirez arrives, accompanied by a man Arthur hasn’t seen before. It’s this man who does the talking.