There was a long moment of silence after the door was closed. Then Lois heard Billy’s sobs. She pushed him away roughly.
“What’s wrong with you?”
“I’m scared, Lois.”
“Everything’s all right. Don’t you see? Everything’s perfect. They won’t bother us now; no one will bother us.”
“But Mommy. Mommy’s sick bad.”
“She’ll be all right. If you behave yourself, we’ll go to see her in a day or two.”
He controlled his sniffling and wiped his eyes. Then he waited for orders. Lois was just standing there, looking up the stairway.
“Actually, we’re better off with her out of the house for a while. Too much to worry about between the both of them,” she said, but he could tell she said it mostly to herself. She took a deep breath and then looked at him again. “You’d better go wash your face.” He nodded. “I’ve got to go upstairs and fix things again. You did very well, though, Billy, very well.” She patted him on the head. “I’m proud of you, and when Daddy gets better and hears about all this, he’ll be proud of you, too.” Billy smiled and ran to the bathroom. “Get your hands good and clean, even under the fingernails.”
“Uh-huh.”
She heard him go in and then she started up the stairs. All this confusing activity was certainly detrimental to the subject, she thought. Why, an interruption like this could have the traumatic effect of throwing things back a week. Her father might have already begun to build up renewed opposition to her techniques. She’d have to show him that nothing had changed; she have to show him she was still in complete control.
When she opened his bedroom door and stepped in, the look of disappointment on his face was so great it nearly made her laugh. It was obvious he had been expecting the others.
“I’d think you’d be more happy to see me, Daddy, after all that commotion. Are you OK?” He blinked his no. “I didn’t think so, but I’ll fix that.”
She went to the bureau on the right and opened the top drawer to take out the electric wires and the terminal. Gregory blinked his no’s continually, but she wasn’t looking at him.
“Now,” she said, unraveling the wire, “I know that teacher was in here talking to you, but you’ve got to disregard anything he might have said. You see,” she said, pausing in her work and looking up at him, “Professor McShane had only one real reason for coming here—he wanted to steal my research. He has come to realize how important my work is and what it could mean to the whole field of behavioral science. I’m sure he wanted to do a paper using my data and build himself a reputation.
“You might not realize how important that can be to a teacher in college, Daddy,” she continued, working on the wire again, “but publications and significant findings can up their value to other colleges, better colleges. McShane probably wants a good seat at one of the better universities. Well, he’s not going to get it at our expense, is he, Daddy?”
She began winding the wire through his feet again, tying the bare copper against his naked toes. He willed with all his might to move his foot, and there was a barely perceptible movement. She caught the slight twinge and looked up quickly. “You moved a little tiny bit, didn’t you? I saw you do it. Do it again. Go on, try.” He didn’t. “You just don’t want to for me right now, is that it? I think I understand. You still see me from a negative viewpoint. But I did see you move that foot, Daddy. There has been some progress, and there’s going to be a lot more. I knew it; I knew it.” She worked faster and completed the electric-shock mechanism. “And to think those fools almost ruined things.” She stared at him. Tears were running out from the corners of his eyes, down the temples of his head and onto the pillow. “Crying is part of your condition, Daddy. Don’t worry about it. Well,” she said, slapping her hands together, “I’m going down to prepare your drink. Just relax, and later on we’ll work on the therapy I’ve designed.”
He didn’t open his eyes until after she left. Then he stared up at the ceiling. If he could only will his own death, he thought, simply will himself into it …
Lois was in the midst of what she called a session with her father when she heard Billy’s scream. She went to the top of the stairs.
“Who is it?”
“He says he’s Patty. There’s someone else too.”
“Don’t open the door.” She looked back toward her father’s bedroom. The knocking below became more intense. They were shouting now. She was halfway down the stairs when their shoulders hit the heavy wood and their pressure plus the weight of the door tore out the chain lock from the doorway molding. Patty and a state policeman stepped into the house. Lois turned on the stairway.
“Don’t move!” Patty shouted, but Lois continued up the steps. “Damn, let’s go!” The two law officers lunged up the stairway, but Lois got to the bedroom and slammed the door shut, locking it quickly.
“Go away!” she shouted. “Leave us alone!”
“Open this door, Lois. We know what you’re doing in there now. Open up.”
“You don’t know. None of you know. You’re going to ruin my work. I’ve made progress. My father’s going to be cured. If you’ll just leave us alone.”
“If you don’t open up, we’re going to have to knock this door in also.”
She looked back at her father. He seemed more alert than ever.
“You’re happy, aren’t you? You’re so stupid. Don’t you know they’re ruining your best chance for a recovery? Isn’t that the most important thing?”
“Lois!”
Slowly she turned the lock on the doorknob and stepped back. Patty and the state policeman stepped in.
“Just wait outside, Lois,” Patty said. He saw the electric wires on Gregory Wilson’s foot. Both he and the state policeman continued in slowly.
“Holy shit,” the state policeman said. “What the hell is going on here?”
“Pull the plug quickly,” Patty said. As soon as the state policeman did so, he carefully took the wires off Gregory Wilson’s foot.
“I’ll go down and call for the ambulance.”
“Right. Put the boy in my car and the girl in yours.”
“Gotcha,” the state policeman said.
Patty stood up and then went to Gregory Wilson’s side to take his right hand.
“Greg, Greg. What can I say? I don’t know how we missed it before, but your wife was so incoherent, and that teacher looked like he had broken into the house without reason. … Lois always seemed so competent, I just …”
The tears were streaming from Gregory Wilson’s eyes now, and there was a perceptible vibration through his body. Patty could feel it in his hand.
“Easy, buddy. We’ve sent for an ambulance. We’re goin’ to get you back to the hospital where they’ll check you out and get you on the right road again. And Dorothy’s goin’ to be all right, too. Jesus,” the town cop said, turning away from the crying man. He looked down at the wires he had dropped to the floor and then reached up to jerk the gong cable out of the ceiling. He tore it out, pulley and all, causing the gong to sound one last time.
“You’re not going to need that anymore, buddy.” He patted Gregory’s hand. A smile had formed in the invalid man’s eyes. Patty bit his lower lip to contain his own emotion. “I’m just going to go downstairs and check on things. Be right back, buddy.”
“Ambulance is on its way,” the state policeman said, “and both kids are in the cars.”
“Kids. I’d hardly call her a kid.”
“What went on here?”
“I don’t know all the details. Some sort of science experiment. Couldn’t understand what that teacher was babbling about in the car, but when we got to town, I called Mr. Wilson’s doctor and the teacher spoke to him. He told me to get right back up here, Lois was performing some cruel experiments on her father. You saw some of it.”
“What the hell are we goin’ to run into next?”
Patty sent the state policeman ahead, but he waited in the car while the ambulance came and the attendants loaded Gregory Wilson back into it for his ride to the hospital. Billy waited with Patty. The little boy was crying continually now.
“Easy, Billy,” Patty said softly. “We’re going to follow the ambulance to the hospital, where the doctor’s going to look you over too. All the while you can tell me about those things your sister tried to do with your father, OK?”
Billy shook his head. “Lois doesn’t like me to talk to people about it.”
“Oh, I’m not people, now, am I, Billy? I’m a policeman. She didn’t mean policemen too, did she, son?” Billy wondered. “And you want to do anything you can to help your father, right?”
“So. That was quite an idea, that gong. I bet that helped a lot, huh?” Billy nodded. “Did you have to do something special with it?”
Billy started to talk about the chart, and as the police car traveled through the night, following the blinking lights of the ambulance, the little boy continued to narrate the tale, the words pouring forth as though language itself had been stifled within him for years.