“I was hoping I could talk to you about … Ben,” I started, not sure what my wording should be.
“I know, I know, I’ve written him several letters of apology over the years, Libby. I just don’t know how many times I can say I’m sorry for that damn, damn book.”
Unexpected.
BARB EICHEL WAS going to have me over for lunch. She wanted to explain to me in person. She didn’t drive anymore (here I caught a whiff of the real story—meds, she had the shiny coating of someone on too many pills), so I’d come out to her and she’d be so grateful. Luckily, Topeka’s not far from Kansas City. Not that I was eager to go there—I’d seen enough of it growing up. The town used to have a hell of a psychiatric clinic, seriously, there was even a sign on the highway that said something like, “Welcome to Topeka, psychiatric capital of the world!” The whole town was crawling with nutjobs and therapists, and I used to get trucked there regularly for rare, privileged outpatient counseling. Yay for me. We talked about my nightmares, my panic attacks, my issues with anger. By the teenage years, we talked about my tendency toward physical aggression. As far as I’m concerned, the entire city, the capital of Kansas, smells like crazy-house drool.
I’d read Barb’s book before I went to meet her, was armed with facts and questions. But my confidence was flattened somewhere in the three hours it took to make the one-hour drive. Too many wrong turns, me cursing myself for not having the Internet at home, not being able to just download directions. No Internet, no cable. I’m not good at things like that: haircuts or oil changes or dentist visits. When I moved into my bungalow, I spent the first three months swaddled in blankets because I couldn’t deal with getting the gas turned on. It’s been turned off three times in the past few years, because sometimes I can’t quite bring myself to write a check. I have trouble maintaining.
Barb’s house, when I finally got there, was dully homey, a decent block of stucco she’d painted pale green. Soothing. Lots of wind chimes. She opened the door and pulled back, like I’d surprised her. She still had the same haircut as her author photo, now a spiky cluster of gray, and was wearing a pair of eyeglasses with a beaded chain, the type that older women describe as “funky.” She was somewhere north of fifty, with dark, darting eyes that bulged out of a bony face.
“Ohhh, hi, Libby!” she gasped, and suddenly she was hugging me, some bone of hers poking me hard in my left breast. She smelled like patchouli and wool. “Come in, come in.” A small rag-dog came clicking across the tiles toward me, barking happily. A clock chimed the hours.
“Oh, I hope you don’t mind dogs, he’s a sweetheart,” she said, watching him as he bounded up on me. I hate dogs, even small, sweet dogs. I held my hands aloft, actively not petting it. “Come on, Weenie, let our friend get by,” she babytalked it. I disliked it even more after I heard its name.
She sat me down in a living room that seemed stuffed: chairs, sofa, rug, pillows, curtains, everything was plump and round and then layered with even more material. She bustled in and out a bit, calling over her shoulder instead of standing still, asking me twice what I wanted to drink. Somehow I knew she’d try to give me dirt- smelling, crystal-happy, earthen mugs of Beebleberry Root Tea or Jasmine Elixir Smoothie, so I just asked for water. I looked for liquor bottles but couldn’t spot any. There were definitely some pills being swallowed here though. Everything just plinked off this woman— bing, bang!—like she was shellacked.
She brought sandwiches on trays for us to eat in the living room. My water was all ice cubes. I was done in two swallows.
“So, how is Ben, Libby?” she asked when she finally sat down. She kept her tray to her side though. Allowing for a quick retreat.
“Oh, I don’t know. I don’t have contact with him.”
She didn’t really seem to listen; she was tuned to her own inner radio station. Something light jazz.
“Obviously, Libby, I feel a lot of guilt over my part in this, although the book came out after the verdict, it had no bearing on that,” she said in a rush. “Still, I was part of that rush to judgment. It was the
“What was?” I wondered how many times she’d use my name in conversation. She seemed like one of those.
“The whole psychiatric community, the police, law enforcement, the whole shebang—they thought everyone was a Devil worshiper back then. It was …
The dog sniffed over to me, and I tensed up, hoping Barb would call it away. She didn’t notice, though, her eyes on a dangling stained-glass sunflower casting golden light from the window above me.
“And, I mean, the story just worked,” Barb continued. “I will now admit, and it took me a good decade, Libby, that I breezed over a lot of evidence that didn’t fit this Ben-Satan theory, I ignored obvious red flags.”
“Like what?”
“Um, like the fact that you were clearly coached, that you were in no way a credible witness, that the shrink they had assigned to you, to quote ‘draw you out’ was just putting words into your head.”
“Dr. Brooner?” I remembered Dr. Brooner: A whiskery hippie dude with a big nose and small eyes—he looked like a friendly storybook animal. He was the only person besides my aunt Diane I liked that whole year, and the only person I talked to about that night, since Diane was unwilling. Dr. Brooner.
“Quack,” Barb said, and giggled. I was about to protest, feeling defensive—the woman had basically just called me a liar to my face, which was true, but still pissed me off—but she was going again. “And your dad’s alibi? That girlfriend of his? No way that should have held. That man had no real alibi, and he owed a lot of people a lot of money.”
“My mom didn’t have any money.”
“She had more than your dad did, believe me.” I did. My dad once sent me to a neighbor’s house for a free pity lunch, told me to look under their sofa cushions and bring him any change.
“And then there was a footprint of a men’s dress shoe
