Okay, Facebook friend number 1,371. (Which wasn’t a boy’s name or a girl’s name but, surprise, surprise, a password name.)
I’m here.
My stomach wasn’t cooperating—I needed an airsick bag.
I felt like there was something in there I didn’t want to see. Something I shouldn’t be seeing. I’d been locked up twice for breaking and entering—breaking hearts, entering families hanging on by their fingernails—but this was the real deal. Like we’d smashed through a basement window at St. Luke’s—cleared the sticky cobwebs off our faces, landed softly on a cold cement floor, then directed a flashlight onto the rusty file cabinets, where we ticked off the alphabetically listed names down to the Ks.
Benjamin Horace Kristal.
Right you are, Tabs, St. Luke’s was a Catholic hospital. That also happened to be a Catholic school (like a school for traumatized kids?). Or a Catholic school that was also a Catholic hospital.
Emphasis on Catholic—most of the doctors and teachers had Father in front of their last names. Too bad for Ben none of those fathers were Jake. While the teachers were feeding the kiddies ABCs, the doctors were feeding them Depakote, Thorazine, and lithium—“Heavy-duty shit,” Tabs whispered—the dosage was listed right there in Ben’s file. Maybe I’d had it better than I’d thought in juvie hall—mystery meats, dykey roommates (sorry, Tabs), pissed-off social workers, and the rest.
Why a Catholic institution? The Kristals didn’t strike me as religious—Laurie seemed to worship tanning beds more than Jesus.
Maybe not back then.
When your daughter’s just been kidnapped, you probably want to hedge your bets. Grab some Muslim prayer beads, stick on a skullcap, pray to the Virgin Mary. Whatever it takes. I’d noticed a King James Bible in their bookcase that looked like it hadn’t been opened in years, when it must’ve become clear this whole prayer thing wasn’t working.
Ben’s therapist was Father Krakow.
“Priests can be psychs?” Tabs whispered. “Talk about multitasking.”
Krakow kept meticulous word-for-word records, starting from when a traumatized eight-year-old landed on his doorstep. As I began reading—as we both did—it was as if everything disappeared: the computer screen, the rows of tables, the library—the years.
SUBJECT: BENJAMIN HORACE KRISTAL.
I suddenly shivered—my whole body doing a kind of electric slide.
“Somebody walk over your grave?” Tabs asked.
“No,” I said. “Over Jenny’s.”