The day of the last session was a Sunday. I felt that Sunday as if we’d been at it all for centuries: not just missing Dee and hoping she was alive and, when so much time had passed that we knew she wasn’t, hoping that we would find out what had happened to her and, when even more time had passed and we figured we’d never know for sure, hoping still that we’d find her body somewhere in the city of Milwaukee. It wasn’t just all that, though this progression by itself entailed a certain wrenching fatigue.
But the weeks since the psychic had come to town had felt longer than the last ten years combined, and they produced a different kind of exhaustion. At least for me. Maybe it was the pretending, or the way in which I felt I had to pretend I wasn’t fooled by this kid, while at the same time I desperately hoped and at some point had begun to believe that maybe, somehow, he’d work a miracle for us. I remembered spinning slowly through Milwaukee’s sky with him at the bar at the Hyatt. His insistence on the photo. It was this kind of nonsense, these “embarrassing” feelings, as Henry would have called them, that I had to fight. But as the weeks wore on, I found myself less and less capable of drumming up incredulity and more and more alive at the prospect of finding Dee’s body. Some people think faithlessness is an easy way out, because they know sustained belief takes mountainous effort. But a commitment to incredulity, disbelief, hopelessness is its own kind of exhausting faith. The difference between them is one fills you up, the other drains you dry.
Pete’s pet journalist, Charlie, was there again that day. He was fresh-faced and full of jittery energy; he clicked and unclicked his pen on repeat. He refused to make eye contact with me. Otherwise the group was relatively small—Ma, me, Pete, Suze, Wolski, and of course, Thomas Alexander’s entourage. Dana had wanted to come, but Helena didn’t think it was a good idea. I promised I’d fill Dana in on everything. Since I’d shown her the photo, she’d renewed her efforts with my files. I told myself this meant it hadn’t been a terrible mistake. At the very least, it had gotten her out of her room. It was as if now she believed she had a piece of the puzzle that mattered. But I was afraid of what she was looking for.
While we were all taking our places, the lights began to flicker. Thomas Alexander was seated at the community room piano, idly tapping at the keys. Dee’s Walkman was on the bench next to him just barely touching his thigh. When the lights went out he became very still. Then Thomas Alexander began to scream.
It was an odd noise, something like the way I assume an animal might sound when it’s being eaten alive. A hair short of human. The room went quiet, and I expected that Thomas would stop once he had everyone’s attention, but he didn’t. He just kept screaming; the pitch of the noise was infuriating. The lights flickered. Pete’s journalist whimpered. Outside, it began to snow in heavy wet clumps. Late May. The sky was dark and full of snow. The lights glared on again and Thomas Alexander kept screaming. I wondered where the nurses were—why hadn’t they come to see who was screaming? A girl on Thomas Alexander’s team, whose job I’d never really understood, ran over to Thomas and put her hands on either side of his flawless face. His eyes roamed wildly in the sockets. We waited. Thomas Alexander screamed. I caught Wolski’s eyes. He blushed. The girl was rubbing her hands over and over Thomas Alexander’s cheeks. She leaned in to him and brushed her lips ever so slightly against his, leaving a millimeter of space between their lips. It was not a kiss. The screaming stopped. The lights flickered off again. And then on again. I looked around the room and felt for a moment as if I’d slipped out of time. Who were all these people? Why were they here? Who was this child screaming at the top of his lungs?
The psychic leapt up from the piano and rushed to Ma. He held Dee’s Walkman in one hand and my mother’s hand in the other. He pushed his Ray-Bans to the top of his head, revealing a sweaty, unwashed face and sunken eyes.
“She wants to tell you where she is,” he said. His makeup from the night before clung messily to his eyelashes and stained his face black. Had he slept yet? Had he been crying earlier? What was wrong with him?
“Where?” Ma whispered. The snow was getting heavier outside, and it was almost dark. In the west, the sky was turning the dark purple of a plum skin, but snow fell and fell.
An assistant spread a map across Thomas Alexander’s lap and handed him a Sharpie. He bent down close to it. His spine made the shape of a C. He drew a big mark over the County Grounds. “She’ll be here,” he said. Ma leaned over. She groaned. “Underneath a dog.”
Ma took the map from him and motioned at Peter to come take a look. I went over too. Pete held it out and we peered into Milwaukee’s sad grids. The X marked an old, unkempt cemetery. I had a memory of Dee telling me Frank had taken her on a date there. Thomas Alexander tapped this X over and over again with the Sharpie.
“Here,” he said. “Here, here, here . . . There is a cemetery here that everyone has forgotten about. Is that right? That’s where she is. She told me. In the woods, there is a shrine. Not to her. The shrine is for the dog. But she’ll be there.”
Wolski came up and peered over Thomas Alexander’s shoulder at the map. He pinched the bridge of his nose and shook his head. “Milwaukee County owns all that. I think they lease it to the medical college? Either way, totally blocked off. Private. Has been for a while now.”
Ma didn’t hear him, and if Thomas Alexander did, he took no notice. Charlie Makon was scribbling notes on an old-fashioned reporter’s pad. I wanted to burn the damn thing.
“This is it,” Thomas Alexander whispered. The room was closing in. All of us were getting closer and closer to Ma and Thomas Alexander. The bodyguards were moving toward the center of the room too. Thomas Alexander turned to look at me. “And Dee said to tell you, he’s coming back.”