Guilt

“I intended to.”

“Sure you did.”

Howard Goldfeder’s reply was inaudible as he headed up the hall. Looking back for a second, he shut his door.

Heather said, “He’s protective ’cause he loves me,” and sat down perpendicular to me. She had on an oversized, sleeveless white blouse, khaki shorts, flat sandals. Skinny limbs but none of the ropy dehydration of severe anorexia. Lovely teeth, as her father had claimed. No evidence of breast development but the shirt would hide a less-than-generous bust.

“Well,” she said, “my therapy begins.”

I laughed.

“What’s funny?” she said.

“You’re pretty organized yourself.”

“Oh, I’m not, trust me, I’m a total slob.”

“Your dad tells me you’re quite a runner.”

“What he means is I’m a freak. My mother thinks so, too, ’cause I like to get down at least three hundred miles a month, more if I have time.”

“Impressive.”

“They think it’s nuts. Like an OCD thing, even though they bugged me to do sports in high school. Even though she’s at the gym six times a week and he’s there like three, four times, lifting weights and hurting himself all the time. I run ’cause I’m good at it. First time I tried I could go five miles without even breathing hard. I thought it would take time but it was easy. Felt amazing. Still does. When I run, it’s like I’m flying, nothing else makes me feel that way. That’s why I switched from Spanish to P.E. I want to be a coach or a personal trainer.”

“Makes sense.”

“So,” she said. “What should we talk about?”

“Whatever you’d like.”

“Would you like me to talk about yesterday?”

“If you want.”

“What do you want?” she said. “Being with the police.”

“I’m not here as a police representative.”

“Then what?”

“To make sure you’re okay after what happened.”

“Okay? Sure I’m okay. It was a great experience, seeing a dead person, let’s do it again tomorrow.”

She looked at the carpet. “Will talking to you help with my dreams?”

“You’re having nightmares?”

“Just last night. First I saw her face, then it kind of blended into a skeleton. Then I saw babies, tons of babies, with teensy little faces, all looking at me. Like they needed help. Then they turned into skeletons, it was like a mountain of skeletons.”

“Babies,” I said.

“Babies turning into skeletons. They told me about the skeleton across the park and it probably got stuck in my brain. Don’t you think?”

“Who’s they?”

“The two cops that showed up. They said there’d been another case across the park, a baby skeleton, maybe it was connected to the woman. Till then I was holding out pretty good. But a baby? Just thinking about it freaked me out.”

She smiled broadly. Burst into tears.

I fetched tissues from a spotless powder room left of the front door, waited until she’d composed herself.

“Wow,” she said. “I really thought I was okay. Guess I wasn’t.”

“Crying doesn’t mean you’re not okay, Heather. Neither does dreaming. Yesterday was a lot to deal with.”

“It’s weird,” she said. “Seeing her again. It’s not like I knew her but now I feel I kind of do. Like finding her made us … connected us. Like her face will be with me forever. Who was she?”

“We don’t know yet.”

“She looked like a nice person.” Laughing. “That’s a stupid thing to say.”

“Not at all, Heather. You’re searching for answers. Everyone is.”

She sat there for a while, shredding the tissue, letting flecks fall to the immaculate rug. “I saw the hole in her head. She was shot, right? I asked the cops but they wouldn’t tell me.”

“She was,” I said. “How’d the topic of the baby come up?”

“Soon after they finished asking me questions one of them got a call on his doo-what, his radio, then he hung up and the two of them started discussing something. They looked nervous so I asked them what’s up. They didn’t want to tell me but I cried and bugged them. Because that always works with my parents. Finally they told me. Was it her baby?”

“We don’t know.”

“Don’t you think it was? Why would both of them get killed the same time in the park? Nothing ever happens in the park. I’ve been running for months and the worst thing I ever saw was a coyote, that was way back when I first started. Just standing there, all bony and hungry-looking. I screamed and it ran away.”

“Spotting the body was a lot tougher.”

“The flies,” she said. “That was the grossest. At first I thought it was one of those dummies in the department store-a manikin.” Giggle. “They should call it a womanikin, right? She had one bare foot and that’s what got my attention, real pale, almost like plastic. Then I saw the rest of her, then I heard the flies.” She sighed. “I guess someone had to find her.”

“Keeping your wits about you and calling 911 took presence of mind.”

“Actually my first thought was to book as fast as I could, but then I thought what if someone’s still around and they try to shoot me? So I took a second to look around, check out the area, figure out the best escape route. The park was so quiet and that kind of made it even freakier. A nice morning, the sky was blue, and she’s just lying there. When do the cops think they’ll know who she is?”

“There’s no way to tell, Heather.”

“That sucks. So … my dreams don’t mean I’m a head-case?”

“Your brain’s using sleep to take in what happened and give your mind time to integrate. And yes, talking about it can help. Because one way or the other people need to express themselves.”

She finished destroying the tissue. Deliberately sprinkled the fragments onto the floor. “Is this talk totally secret?”

“Absolutely.”

“No one finds out? Not the cops? Not my parents?”

“You have total confidentiality.”

“What if I want you to say something to someone?”

“Your choice.”

“I’m in control.”

“Yes.”

“That’s … interesting.”

She got up, spent a long time gathering the shredded tissue, found every single speck, threw the collection out in the powder room. When she returned, she remained on her feet. Her mouth was tight. “So … can I get you something to drink?”

“No, thanks.”

“You’re sure?”

“I’m fine.”

“Okay … I guess that’s it. Thanks for talking to me.”

I said, “Your question about confidentiality.”