Lunar Park

so in counseling with our “marriage educator,” theories were tossed around. Maybe it was the deterioration of my testosterone levels. But I was tested and the levels were normal. I started taking daily herbal supplements. We opted out on Viagra since I had a mitral valve prolapse—a slight heart condition that the drug could agitate. Other options included Levitra and Cialis—But I’m not impotent! I wanted to scream. However I was “value neutral.” I couldn’t grasp “shared commitment.” I was the master of “negative communication.” I had helped create an “unstable union.” I needed to develop “collaborative alliances.” I only offered “counterproposals.” I was accused of “cutting deals.” (Jayne was the one intent on “separation avoidance,” even though she admitted to having a problem with “self-differentiation.”) We were told to get a babysitter, leave provocative notes for each other, pretend we were still dating, check into a hotel, plan for intimacy, schedule intercourse. But by the end of September our sexual relationship was in major gridlock, and that was when I realized why. The thing that was causing it now had a name: Aimee Light. According to Jayne, the “most amazingly sad aspect” of our marriage was that she still loved me.

I breathed in deeply and walked into Dr. Kim’s office. Her door was open and she was scanning the New York Review of Books while waiting for me. She looked up—her small, brown, inquiring face creased with a tight smile.

“I’m sorry I’m late,” I said, closing the door behind me, flopping into the armchair across from her. That the office was serenely anonymous always helped me relax before we began the sessions, but today she jumped right in, and her increasing worry about my “abuse problems” was soon dominating the conversation. This probably due to the Kleenex I kept reaching for and the bloody ropes of snot I kept blowing from my sore and damaged nose. Then she wanted to talk about Robby and if I was still resentful of him, and next it lurched to Jayne and exactly what I was aiming for with her, and soon my patience expired and I had to interrupt what now resembled an interrogation. She balanced a legal pad on her lap and furiously kept writing notes.

“Look, I’m only here because I promised my wife I would try and get help and so I’m here and trying to get help and I don’t need another lecture about how I’m wasting everybody’s time, ‘kay?” I reached for another Kleenex and blew my nose. The tissue came away red and glistening.

“So why are you here, Mr. Ellis?”

“Well, I have anxiety and these, y’know, anxiety disorders.”

“About what?”

“Um . . . plane crashes . . . the terrorists . . .” I paused and then added genuinely, “Those missing boys.”

She sat up. “Mr. Ellis, I much more concerned about cirrhosis of liver than plane crash for you.” She sighed and marked something down, then immediately segued into: “So, any fresh dreams?”

“Yes, a major one,” I said, trying to hide my reluctance as I handed her the printed-out sheet.

Dr. Kim looked over the words typed hastily earlier this afternoon and got to a particular sentence where she blanched and then stared at me from where she was sitting. I was casually admiring a small cactus on a shelf, humming mindlessly to myself as I waited.

“This dream seems very, very fake to me, Mr. Ellis.” She glared at me suspiciously. “I think you make this dream up.”

“How dare you!” I sat up indignantly—a posture I realized that I adopted quite often in her office.

“You expect me to believe this dream?” She glanced back at the page. “Large-mouthed bass chase you into pond where you escape onto floating airplane and then are flying business class—a plane that has your father’s name on side of it?”

“This is my unconscious, Dr. Kim.” I shrugged. “These just may be legitimate concerns.” I sighed and gave up.

“You have not told your wife that you are using drugs again,” she said.

“No.” I sighed once more and looked away. “But she knows. She knows.”

“And are you still sleeping on the couch?”

“It’s the guest room! I’m in the fucking guest room! You can’t sleep on our fucking couch.”

“Mr. Ellis, you do not need to shout.”

“Look.” I sighed. “It’s been really hard fitting into this whole world, and all these pressures about being the man of the house or whatever you wanna call it are getting to me, as well as the fact that, yeah, I’m using again— but only a little—and drinking again—but only a little—and yeah, okay, Jayne and I aren’t having sex and I’ve been flirting with this girl at the college and I think another student’s pretending to be a character from one of my novels and Jayne’s little girl is, I think, really messed up and she thinks that her doll’s alive and attacking her plus she keeps calling me ‘Daddy’ and Harrison Ford wants me to write this script for him and I’m getting these weird e- mails from L.A. that have something to do with my father, I think, and all those missing boys are scaring the hell out of me and it’s all causing enormous conflicts within my psyche.” I paused, mid-rant. “Oh, and our golden retriever hates my guts.” I let out a huge sigh. “So, I’ve got a lot on my plate—chill out.” And then I reached for the page she was holding and said, “Give me that.”

She kept a firm grip, glaring at me. I kept pulling. She wouldn’t let go. Our eyes locked. I finally sat back, panting.

She waited patiently. “Mr. Ellis, the main reason you are here is to find ways to get to know your son. That is essential. That is necessary. That you connect with your son.”

There was nothing to say except “I’m getting a grip on that situation.”

“I don’t think you are.”

“Why not?”

“Because you haven’t mentioned him once since you’ve been here.”

7. robby’s room

Marta was in the kitchen making dinner, stir-frying vegetables in an aluminum wok, while the kids were upstairs getting dressed for trick-or-treating. It was dark out now but on the drive from Dr. Kim’s back to the house I noticed parents were already walking their costumed children through the town’s neighborhoods as dusk approached, which I took as a sinister reminder of the missing boys and which moved me to stop at a liquor store and buy a bottle of Groth Sauvignon Blanc and a magnum of Ketel One, and once I was safely ensconced in my office I poured half the wine into an oversized coffee cup and hid both bottles beneath my desk (my furniture was still rearranged). I wandered around the house with nothing to do. Passing the bowl of mini Nutri-Grain bars on a table by the front door, I went outside. Someone had already lit the jack-o’-lanterns. Victor was lying on the lawn. When he gave me a cursory look I gave one back and then picked up a Frisbee and threw it at the dog. It landed near where he was lying. He glanced at it contemptuously, then lifted his head and looked over at me as if I were a fool before nudging the orange disc away with his snout.

Back in the house I moved through the living room and noticed that the furniture had been placed back in its original position. Yet I still felt like I was viewing the room from an unfamiliar angle. The carpet looked darker, shaggier, the pale beige now morphing into something that bordered on teal or green—and the morning’s vacuuming still hadn’t cleaned up the footprints that were embedded in it. I kicked lightly at one of them—it was large and ash-colored—and was trying to smooth out the carpeting with the toe of my loafer when from upstairs I suddenly heard Jayne shout, “You’re not going as Eminem!” and a door slammed. I took a Klonopin, finished my wine, poured myself the rest of the bottle and carefully walked upstairs to Robby’s room to see if he was okay.

As I approached his door I saw the scratches he had mentioned that morning. They were clustered near the bottom of the door, and though they weren’t the deep grooves I had anticipated, the paint had been clawed off and I thought it was probably just Victor trying to gain entry. No one from the party had been upstairs, but then I flashed on Sarah’s torn pillow and fleetingly thought that maybe Robby had made the scratches himself—a hostile gesture, something to garner attention, whatever—until I realized that this didn’t seem like something Robby would ever do; he was far too passive and enervated to pull off a stunt like that. And then I flashed back on the Terby and the ripped pillow again. The kids were unreliable—their meds were proof of that. Plus Robby had recently switched antidepressants. Luvox had now been added for the anxiety attacks that had plagued him since he was six, and which had increased in intensity since I arrived—and who really knew