Georgia Levy Coffey
My husband came home last night after midnight, dead drunk. According to Helen Penzil, it was Joe who brought him home.
He’s spent the whole morning closeted in Mission Control. I’ve heard them shouting at each other. Then, just a little while ago, Joe called for him, and he came rushing out to take it, and when I accosted him after he hung up, his moon face all sweaty and red-eyed, all he’d say, in a loud whisper, was, “It’s all fixed, Georgie. Our little boy’s coming home, but—this is crucial—you don’t know a goddamn thing about it.”
Great! It’s all fixed, is it?
“What’s all fixed?” I shouted at him, but he was already gone, back in the den, the door shut behind him.
I can’t stand it anymore. I just walked in on them. Karnishak of the FBI, Conforti, the local lawyer, Capriello in blue serge and the too-tight collar. My husband.
The room reeks of men.
“I have to talk to you privately,” I say to Larry.
“Georgia, honey, we’re in the midst, can’t you see? Honey, I’m sorry, but—”
“Just a minute, please.”
This is Karnishak. He’s standing, holding some papers in one hand. His normally bland face is furrowed, serious.
“Mrs. Coffey,” he says, “Larry’s given us a statement he made yesterday to a colleague of mine at the Justice Department. I’d like to hear what you know about it.”
“She doesn’t know anything about it! I haven’t had a chance—”
“Please, Larry,” Karnishak interrupts, not taking his eyes off me. “I want to hear about it from Mrs. Coffey herself.”
He’s holding the papers out to me. I don’t take them.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I don’t know anything about a statement.”
“Larry’s recanted, Mrs. Coffey. Everything. Everything he told us about Shaw Cross and other people, he now says he was lying.”
“I didn’t say lying!”
“A fabrication,” Karnishak persists, and now I can hear the angry irritation in his voice. “An invention. Now he’s saying he made it all up, under pressure. I needn’t tell you how serious this can be, if it turns out he’s lying now.”
“Jack, that sounds pretty coercive to me.” This is Conforti speaking. “I don’t think she has any obligation to say anything at all.”
The FBI agent shrugs, tightens his lips. “She can say whatever she wants,” he says tersely.
I’m aware of Larry in the background, but I can’t bear to look at him. It’s all fixed, he said. Is this what he meant?
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I tell Karnishak. “I’ve hardly seen Larry the last few days. I don’t know what he’s been doing.”
“But you’re aware of the charges he made before?”
“What charges?”
“Against Shaw Cross and the others. I remember going over the names with you myself.”
“Yes,” I answer.
“And you took them seriously, didn’t you?”
“Yes, of course I did.”
“Thank you,” Karnishak says. “That’s very helpful. We’ll be out of your hair in a little while.”
Just a few anxious moments—God, what has he done now?—and then, from my bedroom window, I watch their cars roll down the driveway, and here comes Larry, climbing the stairs.
“I made a deal, honey,” he says.
I stare at him, sweaty, puffy face, eyes small and bloodshot. I don’t know how I’m supposed to react. It’s almost funny—another deal? (complete with fingers twiddling at his hair?)—but somehow it isn’t.
“Our little family’s going to be back together again.”
Am I supposed to believe him?
He’s all full of it, though, full of himself. I’m sworn to secrecy, he says. The police, Karnishak, can never know. No one can know. It’s Gamble, he says, Holbrook too. Yes, what Karnishak said was true: He did recant, everything, but only in exchange for Justin. That was the deal. Mark Spain’s involved in it too, he says, even the Runt, his old buddy. It all has to do with The Cross, but not in the way we thought. The company’s being sold.
“What has to do with Shaw Cross? I don’t understand. Are you saying they kidnapped Justin?”
“No, for Christ’s sake! Harriet kidnapped Justie, except Harriet Major’s not her real name.”
“Oh? What’s her real name?”
“I don’t know. They wouldn’t tell me. It’s a complicated story. She comes from some old Wall Street family, I think that’s why they’re trying to cover it all up. I know that sounds lame—it does to me too now, probably we’ll never know the whole truth—but what difference does it make? All that matters is that they’re getting Justie back for us.”
“Who’s getting Justin back for us?”
“Gamble and Holbrook. It’s all fixed. They’re in it together. It turns out Holbrook owns a piece of The Cross.”
Suddenly I can’t take it anymore. All his goddamned Mission Control, the cloak-and-dagger stuff, the deals. While his son—my son—is caught in the middle!
“Where is he then?” I snap at him.
“Where’s who?”
“Justin, for God’s sake! Where’s our son? You just said we’re getting him back.”
“I said it’s complicated. They need twenty-four hours, but it’s going to happen.”
“How do you know it’s going to happen?”
“Georgie, for Christ’s sake, I’ve got a head like Vesuvius! You don’t know what I’ve been through! They’ve had me in the fucking wringer all day, and it’s not over, I could be in big—”
“I don’t give a damn about your head!” I shout at him, fists clenched. “How do you know it’s going to happen?”
“Because they gave me their word!”
“Who gave you their word?”
“Gamble, Holbrook! The Runt too! It’s all part of the deal.”
Suddenly it explodes out of me. He’s so … so goddamn dumb! I’m screaming at him, I don’t even know what—“If anything happens to Justin!”—and he’s screaming back. He’s like some hulking ruined teddy bear, ten times my size, but I could smash him, flatten him.
“For Christ’s sake, Georgie, don’t you realize she’s crazy? Harriet, whatever her name is? The woman you hired? That she was institutionalized?”
“You fucked her, you bastard! She’s the same woman you wanted to fuck!”
“Goddamn it, I never—”
“Don’t you goddamn me! You’ve lied so much, you don’t know what’s true anymore, and what’s a bald-faced lie!”
“Georgie, I swear—”
And now, so help me—hound-dog eyes—he’s reaching for me.
“Don’t you realize,” I say, backing off, “I don’t give a good goddamn whether you fucked her or not?” Then, my voice hoarse, “I want you out of here now, Larry. Out of my house.”
This stops him. He stares at me for a second, mouth wide open.
“But Georgie, that’s nuts! Good God Almighty, Justie’s coming home! That’s what this is all about, I swear it! He’s coming home!”
“Out,” I say, pointing. “I want you out.”
“This is my house too, remember? And he’s my son.”
“For God’s sake,” I hurl at him, “go make another deal!”
I’m heaving painfully, deep gulps of air.
He turns tail. Doesn’t leave the house, though. I can hear him downstairs, his voice. The phone? For what it’s worth, I’m no longer tempted to listen in.
This is what life’s become for us, I think. The downstairs is his, the second floor mine. The kitchen: neutral territory.
Later, his footsteps on the stairs again.
He’s standing in the doorway. I glance up. He’s got on the shaggy coat, the one with the alpaca lining, and a stupid-looking ragg cap on his head.
“Remember, Georgie,” he says, “whatever happens, you don’t know anything about this. Everything I told you. That’s vital.”
I say nothing.
“I’m going now. I’m going to find out what’s happened.”
No answer from me.
“Fuck you, Georgie,” he says.
Nice.
It’s almost dusk. A minute later, I can hear the grinding of gravel outside.
It’s pitch-dark now. Over by the chaise longue is an abandoned turkey sandwich and a mug of milk, no longer warm, but I’m lying on the bed, in my bathrobe, reading Adrienne Rich, or trying to. It’s not Rich’s fault that I can’t concentrate. Zoe, changed and fed, sleeps in the portable crib next to the bed. Meowie, Justin’s calico, is curled in a ball at my feet.
The phone’s rung several times, but I can’t bring myself to talk to anyone in other than monosyllables. Once it was Larry, but just to ask if I’ve heard anything. Heard anything about what? About Justin. No, I said, at which he hung up.
I ought to call someone, to find out what this is all about, but whom? To find out what? Confirmation that my husband is a total asshole?
I’m very calm, strangely. I sent my parents home yesterday and, over my mother’s better judgment, let the baby nurse go, who was useless anyway. For once there are no sounds. It’s as though the whole earth is uninhabited, except for this one room. Else fogged in. Else muffled in snow. Except there’s no snow, of course. There never is anymore. People in St. George like to reminisce about the last blizzard, a couple of years before we moved in, and who got stuck where that night, but—
The front bell just rang.
Or did it?
But Meowie must have heard it too! She just trampolined off the bed in a brown blur.
It can’t be Larry; he has the master code.
I glance at the alarm panel on the far wall. The red light is on, thank God, the system still armed.
I hold my breath, strain for porch sounds, footsteps, anything.
Nothing.
Is that a car engine? No. It’s more of a whine, high-pitched, and too far off.
It’s stopped anyway, gone.
I wait for a second ring.
Nothing.
Could I have imagined it?
Finally I make my way out to the top of the stairs.
The stairwell is dark, the front hall too. The only source of light is behind me in the bedroom.
I go down gingerly, bare feet, avoiding the creaky spots. I’m conscious of my heart thumping. Even the front hall mirror is black, no reflection. All I see is a corresponding dot of red light, the downstairs alarm panel.
Suddenly I remember Zoe, upstairs, alone.
Should I call someone first? But whom, the police?
All I have to do is press the panic button and they’ll come. But what if I’ve invented the whole thing, what would I say?
I open the inner door. It has a faint creak at the hinges. I hear nothing else. The porch light is on outside, but through the lace panels that cover the front door glass, I can see only a hazy light, shadows from the columns. I’m prepared for there to be nothing out there—some prankster? kids ringing doorbells and running away?
On tiptoe, I pull aside the panels, making a narrow break between them.
I just barely have the presence of mind to reach back and disarm the system before I yank the door open.
Justin is standing on the front porch.
My son is standing on the front porch, all alone, just standing there.
“Oh, my darling! Oh, my darling boy!”
I’m on my knees in the front hall. I’m holding his face in my hands. I’m flooding. Whatever else has happened, he’s alive, he’s home. My little boy. Justin. Thank you, God.
I pick him up in my arms, talking to him, murmuring. He’s wearing high-top sneakers I’ve never seen before, and some grubby sweats outfit that seems too big for him. He’s all skin and bones inside, a featherweight. Could these be the same clothes as the description from the mall? But didn’t they change him? Didn’t they feed him?
I realize now that I’m crying. Big tears, no sound. He hasn’t said anything, not a word. I carry him into the kitchen. He seems bewildered. Is it the lights? Sudden lights after darkness?
“You’re home, darling,” I babble at him. “It’s Mommy. It’s your own mommy. You’re home, Justin. This is your own house. You’re home at last. Can I fix you something to eat? A turkey sandwich? Your grandma was here this weekend, she roasted a whole turkey for us.”
Finally—such a small voice—he says he’s thirsty.
I sit him down on the butcher-block counter, his legs dangling over the side. Then I panic—suppose he falls?—and put him instead on one of the kitchen stools. I hug him again, pull his head into my breast, but now I’m afraid of squeezing him too hard. He doesn’t react, though, just lets it happen. My tears—I can’t stop them. Oh God, he’s so skin-and-bones!
I pour him a glass of milk, set it before him. Averting my head, I dry my eyes. I’m aware of the trembling in my lips, my aching throat.
For God’s sake, what’s happening to me? He’s home! My son is home!
He doesn’t touch the milk.
“What’s wrong, darling? What is it? I thought you said you were thirsty.”
“Don’t want milk.”
“Okay, what can I get you?”
“Jutesy,” he says.
The familiar word, the same old Justin word. I find a bottle of apple juice in the refrigerator. Hands shaking, I pour him a large glass, set it in front of him.
He doesn’t touch it.
“Please, Justin, I—”
“Box,” he says.
“A box?”
“Jutesy in a box.”
God, he wants it in a box. I fling open the tall cupboard, rummage in the shelves, find one of his little three-packs. It’s apple and cranberry mixed. Please God, let that be all right. I tear at the cardboard, have trouble getting the cellophane off the damn straw, finally punch it into the hole.
At last he sips.
“Who brought you here, Justin darling? Please tell Momma. Who was it who brought you home just now?”
No answer.
“It wasn’t Harriet, was it? It couldn’t have been Harriet.”
He shakes his head.
“Then who, Justin?”
“The oarlock.”
“Who? The what?”
“Oarlock,” he repeats.
Oh my God.
“What’s an oarlock?”
“A man ’itch.”
“You mean a male witch? A warlock?”
He nods, sipping.
“But who is he? What’s his name? Do you know his name?”
He shakes his head.
“But where were you? Where have you been all this time?”
“Rocket car,” he says. “The dungeon.”
“The dungeon?”
“Uh-huh.”
“What dungeon?”
My God, I think, but that is Harriet! Harriet and all that medieval claptrap she filled his head with! Goddamn her, goddamn her!
I try to question him further, get nowhere. He’s emptied the juice box. I tear free another, set it up for him, but he doesn’t touch it.
“Are you sure you don’t want something to eat, darling? A turkey sandwich? I don’t know what else there is. Would you like some soup?”
He shakes his head.
It flusters me. I can’t help it. I want to tell him I’ve been worried sick, scared to death, but how can I tell him things like that? I want to ask him what’s wrong, but dare I? Instead, I punch out the pediatrician’s number on the wall phone.
I give the answering service my name, number, say I want to talk to Braden urgently. The operator says Dr. Braden’s not on call tonight, it’s Dr. Felici. I know Felici, a woman about my age who’s second fiddle in the practice, but I want Ray Braden!
“Who’s the patient, please?”
“Just tell him it’s Justin Coffey, my son. He’ll understand. It’s an emergency.”
“How old is the patient, please?”
“What difference does it make how old he is? Just tell him it’s Justin Coffey! It’s an emergency, he knows the whole story! And I don’t want Felici, I want Dr. Braden!”
I hang up. I ask Justin if he doesn’t want a quick shower? He shakes his head. Or a tub bath, at least a change into fresh clothes? Pajamas? No. And when I hug him again, and even though I’m babbling again, telling him all over again how thrilled I am that he’s home, so thankful—and I feel again the great swell of emotion in me, the ache in my throat—it’s not that he resists, but somehow it’s worse than if he did. Totally without affect. He’s like a noodle, a bag of bones.
Then I think of Zoe. God, how long have I left her alone?
“Please come with me, Justin. Come upstairs now. There’s someone upstairs I’m very anxious for you to meet.”
But why is my voice suddenly so formal?
I hold out my arms to him. Instead, he slips off the stool. I take his hand in mine.
Together, we go up to the second floor, but he breaks away from me on the landing. One minute he’s holding my hand, the next he’s headed up the stairs toward the third floor.
“Justin, where are you going?”
No answer.
I don’t understand. Or rather I do, in a wounding flash, but can’t face it. I want to shout at him—Justin, for God’s sake, it’s Mommy, you’re home, don’t you understand? Instead, I switch on the third-floor landing light from below and climb after him. But I stop short of the top step. I haven’t been up there myself since it happened.
I see the light go on in Harriet’s room, then off. Then he emerges. I watch him cross to his room, light on, off. Then back onto the landing, his dark eyes on me.
“Her not here,” he says.
“Who’s not here?”
“’arrit.”
“No, of course she’s not, darling,” fighting for calm in my voice. “You were the last one to see her. Was she with you these last few days?”
No answer and, worse, no expression on his face. And the questions come pouring out of me.
“Who brought you home, darling? Tell Momma. You have to tell Momma. Where have you been? Was Harriet with you the whole time? Were you alone or were there men too? Where did they take you? Did anybody hurt you? What happened at the mall, Saturday? Do you remember that? The restaurant? The Greenhouse? We were there before, remember? Your momma came to get you, but the man had already taken you away. Who was he, Justin? You’ve got to tell Momma.”
But he is so distant, so uncommunicative, that I flood with despair.
Why is he so bewildered? Disoriented?
Is it me? Or did they do something to him?
I pass a terrible night. I don’t know where to find Larry. By the time he comes home, I’m still awake. I’ve put Justin in my bed with all his clothes on. I beg Larry not to disturb him, but he insists on picking him up, the blankets with him, and he’s shouting something like “Hey, Tiger, it’s Daddy! Oh my God, Justie! Welcome home!,” parading Justin around the room in his arms. And Justin does come half-awake, at least his eyes open, but it’s as though he doesn’t know where he is, and then his head nods forward again onto Larry’s shoulder.
Larry turns to me. “God, Georgie, what’s wrong with him?” Alarm in his voice.
“Wrong? What do you mean, what’s wrong? Can’t you see he’s exhausted?”
I take Justin from him. While I lay him back down on the bed, tucking him in, Larry talks exuberantly at me. Apparently he’s had a “hallucinating” night, went a little haywire, something about Penzil, Leon Gamble, that he’d thought they were reneging. But then—what is it? some phone call?—he found out that Justie was already home, and he thinks he made it from the Lincoln Tunnel inside of twenty minutes.
It’s not in me to care. Clearly he wants to talk about it, find out what happened, celebrate, sing and dance for all I know, but I plead exhaustion too. I tell him I’ve an early appointment with Braden in the morning. He wants to know why. Just a precaution, I say. Just to make sure Justin’s okay physically. Good idea, he says. Finally he’s gone, and I lie down next to Justin, sheltering him, half-cuddling him. But the tears come again, I’m helpless to stop them, and then I’m wide awake. Up again. Standing in the dark, watching over my children. In the end, I’m able to doze fitfully on the chaise longue, but if I get up once to hover over them, it’s a dozen times, and every time I drop off to sleep, I jerk awake within minutes, tormented by nightmares I can’t begin to describe.
We’re off to Braden’s office, by special dispensation, at seven forty-five. At the last second, I realize I’ve nobody to leave Zoe with. Larry is still asleep. I decide to take her with us. I lock her carrier into the backseat, but this leaves no car seat for Justin. (Of course not! Didn’t Harriet take his?) But I can’t put a normal seat belt across him, he’s still too little. In the end, I stick him next to me, without a seat belt, and creep through St. George, one hand poised to grab him.
Ray Braden is big, paunchy, bald, gruff, fortyish. He has six children of his own, two Mercedeses, and a mammoth practice. Normally his waiting room is jammed, but we’re there ahead of the nurses, and the doctor greets us alone, in a rugby shirt and jeans.
“Hey there, Chief,” he booms at Justin. “Welcome home. What do you think of this kid sister of yours? Isn’t she a doll?”
No answer from Justin. He endures the examination with the same docile stoicism as last night, and when the needle punctures his arm for blood, he doesn’t cry out, doesn’t so much as wince.
I wince for him.
“Hey, you a Pittsburgh Steelers fan?” Braden asks.
I explain, embarrassed, that that’s what Justin was wearing when he came home, and I haven’t been able to get it off his back.
“But even a Steeler has to get his uniform cleaned between games, doesn’t he?” No answer. “I’ll tell you what I’m going to do, Chief. I’m putting you on the D.L. for two weeks, do you know what the D.L. is?”
Justin shakes his head.
“It’s the Disabled List, for guys who get hurt on the field. Two weeks for you. I want you eating, sleeping, drinking your milk, taking it easy. Then I’ll check you out again, and chances are we’ll have you back in action in time for the Super Bowl, okay?”
We escort Justin out to the playroom and stand in the doorway. I’m holding Zoe in my arms.
“He seems basically none the worse for wear, Georgia,” Braden says to me. “A little tired. We’ll see what the blood workup gives, but I don’t expect to find anything.”
I stare at him, confused.
“For God’s sake,” I manage, “it’s not as though he’s been sent home from school with a cold! He’s been gone for three weeks! God knows what he’s been through, I can’t get him to talk to me about it, but just look at him! Are you telling me that’s normal?”
“I’m only an amateur psychologist,” Braden says, “but I’d say give him time. Keep him quiet, rest and relaxation, fatten him up as much as you can. Is he taking vitamins?”
“Vitamins?” I blurt out. “Well, yes. At least he was.”
“Give him vitamins. And while I’m prescribing, Momma, I’d say that if anybody ought to be on the D.L., it’s you. Two weeks of R&R for you too, then bring him in again and let me take another look.”
Larry’s up by the time we get home. I barely have time to tell him what Braden said when, a few minutes later, Joe Penzil arrives.
I don’t understand. Isn’t he one of them?
“I asked Joe to come over,” Larry explains. “In a little while, this place is going to be crawling with police, the media too, probably. We’re going to need all the help we can get.” He feels compelled to explain everything now, how he was half-crazed when he left me yesterday, because the twenty-four hours were up and he’d thought they were reneging on him, and how he went on a rampage in New York, he’d even assaulted Leon Gamble. “But it’s all over now,” he says. “I don’t give a shit, Georgie. We’ve got our kid back, that’s all that counts.”
At this, he picks Justin up in his arms, tousles his hair, tries to get a rise out of him. But my son, I notice, reacts to his father with no more emotion than he’s shown toward me.
“They’re going to want to know what happened, Georgie,” Joe Penzil says to me. “The police in particular.”
I turn to him. He fixes me with his dark-eyed stare. I’ve known him for years, have always looked on him as Larry’s friend, of course, but mine too. Now that’s all gone.
“Then maybe you’d better explain to me first what did happen,” I say acidly to him.
“As far as you’re concerned,” he replies, “it’s exactly what you experienced. Nothing more.”
“Meaning what?”
“You tell us. Tell us what happened here last night.”
He questions me on the details. By this time, we’ve moved into the living room. I realize that Joe’s rehearsing me, and I resent it. Nonetheless I give him the details: the doorbell ringing, the cat jumping, my finding Justin on the front porch.
“And you’ve no idea how he got there, do you?” he asks. “Or who put him there?”
“No, I don’t.”
“You don’t know who it was. All you know is somebody brought him back, and the rest is a mystery.”
“As far as I’m concerned, yes. But what about Larry’s latest deal?”
“What deal?”
I glance at Larry, then back.
“Don’t take me for a total idiot, Joe,” I say. “Larry told me he made a deal with Gamble and Holbrook. He said it was all fixed. He said Mark Spain was involved, and so were you.”
“There was never any deal,” he says.
“Not for public consumption anyway,” Larry adds.
“Not for any consumption,” Joe corrects. “I’ve told you, Bear, and let’s all get this absolutely straight: If anyone ever claims there was, it will be categorically denied.”
I stare at the two of them, from one to the other. I suppose I ought to be appalled—maybe I am—but somehow I’m not all that surprised. The one thing that’s clear to me, without knowing the details, is that Larry has let himself be manipulated. I also know what he’d say: I did it all for Justie, all for our little family.
“Look, Georgie—” Larry begins.
“There’s no need for anyone to explain further.”
“Maybe there is,” Joe Penzil says. “Just so you know, the fact is that your baby-sitter did take Justin. From what I’ve been given to understand, she’s a very screwed-up young woman. She’s now a fugitive from justice. Maybe the police will find her, maybe they won’t. But we—that is, certain parties—were able to arrange to get Justin back from her and deliver him to you.”
“And that’s that?” I say.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean it was you—one of your ‘certain parties’—who took him at the mall Saturday, wasn’t it? Where I’d gone to collect him? How do you explain that? I was there, remember?”
“Georgie, it’s complicated. But whatever else you may think of us, we’re not ax murderers. Beyond that …”
“Except that it gave you time to get whatever it is you wanted to get out of Larry, didn’t it? Isn’t that the truth? Else why didn’t you bring Justin back here Saturday?”
“Georgie,” my husband intervenes, “the important thing—the only important thing—is that we’ve got him back. The rest of it is all bullshit.”
I start to snap at him, but Joe interrupts me.
“He’s right, Georgie. Finally, cutting through everything, he’s right. And believe me, it’s best for everybody concerned—and that includes Larry and you—that this be the end of it.”
Yes, I think bitterly. And meanwhile, my son’s a wreck.
From where I’ve been sitting, in the living room, I’ve kept an eye on him. He’s in front of the big-screen TV in the next room. Cartoons. If he’s been trying to listen in on us, I’ve seen no sign of it.
How are they going to shut him up, I wonder, if ever he decides to tell what happened to him?
I guess Joe Penzil must have followed my gaze.
“The police may want to talk to Justin,” he says. “Almost certainly they will. I don’t think you should allow it for the time being.”
“After all he’s been through?” Larry says. “You’re damn right.”
So there’s my answer.
“Are you agreed, Georgie?” Penzil says, his eyes on mine.
In other words, am I going to cooperate or become a problem for them? For a fleeting second, I wonder what they’d do.
“Yes, sure,” I say, looking at Justin again, the back of his head.
“Who’s your pediatrician?”
“Braden,” I answer.
“Ray Braden? I know him pretty well. With your permission, I’d like to give him a call now.”
Everybody wants to do things for me. I let them, except where Justin and Zoe are concerned. With two exceptions, I won’t let them out of my sight for more than five minutes.
The first is for Capriello. He wants to talk to me alone. Conforti, the lawyer, advises me that I’m under no obligation to, but I decide to get it over with and, no, I don’t feel the need for counsel. Why should I?
“I’ve already gotten Larry’s version, Mrs. Coffey,” Capriello says mildly in my living room. “Now I’d like to get yours.”
I tell him. I doubt it takes me more than sixty seconds. He questions me further on a few details—how long did it take me to get downstairs once the bell rang? Was I sure I heard nothing, no footsteps, no car motor?—but he doesn’t even ask me to speculate on who it might have been.
He takes a few notes as I talk.
“What does Justin have to say about it?” he asks.
“Nothing.”
“Nothing at all? About who brought him here? Or where he’s been kept all this time?”
“I haven’t been able to get him to talk about it.”
He studies me, beady eyes in the ruddy, glistening face. I’d be hard put to have to describe him—beyond “small-town Italian cop in his fifties”—but why is it I have the impression he’d be just as happy to have the case go away now? Is it because of what he knows? Or what he doesn’t know?
“I’d like to talk to Justin myself,” he says.
“I’m sorry, I can’t allow that. Not today.”
“No, of course not today. But as soon as possible.”
“We’ll have to see, Lieutenant. My son’s welfare is uppermost in my mind.”
“As well it should be, Mrs. Coffey. But like it or not, we’ve got a case to wrap up. A situation like this, we really need the family’s cooperation.”
He mentions something about a court order. He hopes that won’t prove necessary. I, in turn, mention Ray Braden. By this time, I know that Braden has already ordained that Justin be left alone by the police.
He shrugs it off, as though that’s a detail, or maybe a detail he won’t have to deal with personally.
“The important thing,” he concludes, “is that you’ve got him back, safe and sound. Rest assured, though, we’re not going to quit on Harriet Major. She’s beaten us so far, but that’s not gonna last forever. Someday she’ll have to answer for what she did.”
Capriello, it occurs to me, has simply been saying what he has to say. All along.
But so, I realize, have I.
The house has filled with people, downstairs, and it’s all I can do to keep them away from Justin. Outside, the media have resumed their state of siege. The telephone rings off the hook. Even Helga Harris calls and, later, Selma Brodkey in Helga’s behalf. “She really wants it, Georgia. She wants it exclusive, but she’ll settle for non. Look, sweetie, she did you a favor once, don’t you think you owe her?”
Somehow I don’t feel as though I owe anyone, not today. I put Selma off. Maybe that’s mean-spirited of me: even though I can’t share in it, the spirit of the day is clearly one of congratulations, that and a sense of relief that it’s all over. Only my father, when I talk to him in his office, asks how Justin is, really, but when I expose some of my anxiety to him, he offers the same prescription as everybody else: “Just give him time, Georgie. He’ll snap out of it, and meanwhile I think your doctor’s absolutely right. Keep him quiet, fatten him up, love him.”
Quite.
In the afternoon, my husband accosts me in the upstairs hall. He’s wearing a forest-green shetland over matching corduroys, and an air of weary triumph. The inevitable tasseled loafers. Brown for home, black for business.
“If it’s okay with you, honey,” he says, “I’d like to spend a little time alone with Justie.”
“Why?” I ask him.
“Don’t worry, honey, I’m not going to pump him. I’d just like to spend a little quality time with my son. Maybe we’ll go for a walk.”
“Are you crazy?” I say. “With that mob outside?”
“Yeah, you’re right. I forgot.” Ducking his head, the sheepish grin. “Look, honey, it’s all going to go away. Things’ll get back to normal. I’ll just take him down to the den, then.”
I follow them downstairs, carrying Zoe in her Kanga-rocka-roo. They go into the den, Zoe and I into the kitchen where Helen Penzil now presides, just as Joe, I’ve noticed, has taken over the comings and goings of officialdom.
I tell Helen my story—Justin’s mysterious appearance—which has now become the official version. I wonder, in passing, if she knows anything more, but if she does, she’s keeping it to herself. She asks how Justin is. I hear myself say he’s just tired, that Ray Braden wants him to rest. We chat on. Once, on some pretext, I walk out past the den. The door is ajar. Apparently they’re watching TV together. I can hear the sound and spot Justin, small in the Stickley chair.
So much, I think, for quality time.
I retreat to the kitchen. I play with Zoe while Helen talks at me, but I can’t concentrate. I find myself growing tenser by the minute. Give him time, I keep telling myself, for God’s sake, he’s hasn’t even been back twenty-four hours.
Finally, I go out into the front hall again.
The door to the den is wide open.
I see Larry talking on the phone, but no Justin.
My God, where is he?
I must have shouted it aloud. Larry’s standing at his desk, his hand cupped over the mouthpiece.
“What is it, honey?”
“Where’s Justin?”
He shrugs with his shoulders. “I don’t know. I got this call I had to take. I guess he got tired of—”
“Oh my God!” I scream at him. “You dumb son of a bitch!”
I stumble as I swerve around, almost fall. I rush through the downstairs, calling out his name. He couldn’t have gone into the basement; the door’s held shut by a hook above his reach. But the front door! People have been coming in and out all day!
I clamber up the stairs on the run. I call out to him, but there’s no answer, only voices from down below. Where did he go? My God, someone could have taken him again! Right out the front door!
Then it hits me, where he is. I feel myself start to cry. I don’t even stop to look on the second floor. I keep going.
He’s standing in her room, gazing out the window. He has Meowie, his cat, draped over one shoulder like some kind of regimental sash.
I stop a few paces behind him, forcing myself to catch my breath. Surely he knows I’m there, but he doesn’t acknowledge me. Only the cat watches me.
From his vantage point, the view is bleak, wintry, a gray and sunless sky, the trees bare and brown-gray. The great oaks of St. George, the mulberrys, beeches, down to the spreading split-leaf maples. Our lawns look barren, muddy.
“What are you doing, Justin?” I ask him softly.
He doesn’t answer, doesn’t budge.
“You’re looking for her, aren’t you? Harriet?”
I see him nod slowly.
“I don’t think she’s coming back, darling.”
“Yes her is,” he says.
“I don’t really think so.”
“Yes her is.”
“She is,” I correct automatically. “But I don’t think so, Justin. Chances are she’s a long way from here by now.” He shakes his head. “That’s what I think I’d do in her shoes, don’t you? Tell me honestly, if you were Harriet, wouldn’t you get as far away from here as you could?”
He shakes his head again. God, does he really not understand? Even at three and a half?
“Her promise,” he says, his eyes still on the view.
“What did she promise, darling?” I ask him.
“Her promise to come get me. Wherever I is. All I got to do … is be brave.”
His voice has broken now. Even without seeing his face, I can feel the anguish inside him.
“You are brave, Justin. I think you’re very brave.”
He turns. Meowie wriggles from his grasp and jumps free. Great globules of tears are welling in his sad, little face. I hold out my arms, and this time he comes toward me, and I think my heart is about to break in two.
I pick him up. Finally, at long last, I’m able to hug him close. His arms are around my neck, I feel his hands in my hair. We grip each other tightly. We’re both crying now, and somehow there’s no need for words.
I sit down on the bed, her bed, and hug him. We rock together. At some point Larry appears in the doorway. “Are you all right?” he wants to know, but I tell him to go away. I can’t make Justin stop crying, even though we are there a long time, till it’s almost dark outside and there is nothing more to see.
He and I may be the only ones in the world who realize that it’s not over.