Guilt

I told Blanche to stay in the office, paid her with a Milk-Bone. Prema Moon said, “She can come with us.”

“She needs to nap.” The real reason: Time to minimize distraction. And comfort.

I walked her through the house, out through the kitchen and down the rear steps to the garden, stopping by the pond’s rock rim. The waterfall burbled. The sky was clear.

“Very mellow,” she said. “To encourage confession?”

“I’m not a priest.”

“Isn’t this the new religion?”

“God doesn’t talk to me.”

“Only Freud does, huh?”

“Haven’t heard from him in a while, either.” I sat down on the teak bench that faces the water. The fish swarmed.

Prema Moon said, “What are they, Japanese koi? Pretty.”

She took in the garden. Robin’s studio, softened by trees and shrubs. A whine cut through the waterfall. The band saw.

“What’s that noise?”

“The woman I live with builds musical instruments.”

“She’s going to come out here and see me?”

“No.”

“You’ve trained her to stay inside when a patient’s here?”

“Once she’s in there, it’s for hours.”

“What if she does come out?”

“She’ll go right back in.”

“What’s her name?”

I shook my head.

“Sorry,” she said. “I’m just … I’m jumping out of my skin, this is … I don’t know what it is. Don’t know what to do.”

I uncapped the canister of fish food, scooped a handful of pellets, tossed.

She watched the koi eat. Said, “Well, yummy for them.”

Not a word out of her for a long time. When that didn’t look as if it was going to change, I said, “Tell me what frightens you.”

“Why should I?”

“You’re here.”

She reached for the koi food. “May I?” Tweezing again, she threw in one pellet at a time. “I like the silver one. Elegant.”

I said, “Okay, I’ll start. People who work for you seem to die unnaturally.”

Her arm shot out. She hurled the rest of the food. The fish feasted. “People? All I know is Adriana. And I only know about her because I heard it on TV and it freaked me out completely.”

“Did you contact the police?”

Long pause. “You know the answer. I didn’t. Because I couldn’t see what I could possibly offer. She worked for me only for a short time. I really didn’t know her.”

I said nothing.

She said, “What did you mean ‘people’? You’re freaking me out.”

“First Adriana, then Melvin Jaron Wedd.”

Her hand flew to her face. “What! Mel? No! When?”

“A few days ago.”

“Oh, God, no-what are you telling me?”

“He was murdered a few days ago. Was he a good employee?”

“What?”

I repeated the question.

“Sure, fine, he was great. Murder? What happened-”

“Reliable? Skilled at organizing?”

“Yes, yes, all that, what does it matter?”

I said, “In addition to all that, he had a special talent. Vocal impressions.”

“What? Oh, that, sure, yes, he’d do cartoon characters for the kids. So?”

“He did a pretty good imitation of Donny. When he called me for that appointment on your behalf.”

“What!”

“I thought it was Donny. But it was Mel, wasn’t it?”

She said, “Mel called for me but-I never told him to do that.”

“Guess he improvised.”

“Why would he?”

“I thought you might be able to tell me.”

“Well, I can’t, I have no idea why.”

“Then I’ll take a guess, Prema. Subtle hostility. He didn’t much care for Donny, because he’d learned what Donny is like. He knew that Donny wouldn’t be happy about your consulting a child psychologist. So he mimicked Donny. Mel’s little bit of nasty irony.”

She stared at the water.

I said, “Mel refused to tell me which kid I’d be seeing because the answer was none of them. The kids didn’t need help, they were doing fine. All things considered.”

She looked at me. Her eyes were wet. “I’m doing my best.”

“I believe that you are. So the question remains: Why did you want to see me? I’m a child psychologist so it wasn’t about therapy for you. That leaves some kind of family issue.”

She didn’t answer.

I said, “Maybe a marriage that’s unraveling? A concerned parent wanting to learn about the impact on the children? And how to minimize it?”

She covered her face with both hands.

I said, “You care about everyone and everything. Donny couldn’t care less. You always wanted kids, he never did. You convinced yourself his attitude would change once he saw how cute they could be. It didn’t, he cut them off completely. And they know it. That’s why that picture in the lobby was so stressful. It was his idea, the first time he’d shown any interest in family life, so there had to be an ulterior motive. What was he planning to do with the shot? Use it for publicity?”

She raised her arms, punched air clumsily. “Damn him! For a stupid movie! Big lead role for him, he was going to play a dad.”

“Typecasting.”

Her laugh was bitter. “Caring, bumbling, lovable dad. Can you believe the morons who thought of that?”

“Not exactly Citizen Kane.”

“Not exactly Citizen Sane. Piece-of-crap script, piece-of-crap casting, his big comedy debut, it was going to open a whole new world for him.”

She got up, walked several steps away, returned.

“His plan was to sell the photo to People for big bucks. He never asked me, knew what I’d say. Instead he sprang it on me as we drove from the airport into the city. He’d instructed the driver to go straight to the theater, his agent had paid to rent the lobby. The whole purpose of the trip was educational. Show the kids the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the planetarium. I was surprised when he offered to come along. Allowed myself to be hopeful, maybe he’d seen the light. Then he pulled that! Expecting them to pose for hours of pictures. Him with the tribe, both of us with the tribe. He wanted them to jump in the air and laugh and hug him and kiss him! Disgusting! I killed it. The rule from the beginning was always they never got used. For his crap or mine. He knew that and now he’s trying