monster?' He shook his head. 'We can't guarantee a positive prognosis for Lila if we open up that wound. Jesus God, I never thought I'd hear myself saying this, but maybe in this case it would be better to… just let it lie.'
They chewed on that for a while. Down in the park, an old man shuffled along the water's edge, head down, looking dejected. Far above, a jetliner caught the sun and blazed for a few seconds as it banked for its descent to New Orleans airport, bringing another load of happy tourists to the City That Care Forgot.
Cree was thinking that letting it lie was an option already lost to them. The spectral rape had started something irreversible in Lila. Somehow they had to do both: give Lila access to the anger and hurt so that she could start to rebuild, but somehow preserve the love she felt for her father, the love she still thought she felt from him. Possible? Remotely, maybe. It depended on the ghost. The outcome with the ghost would determine everything for Lila's future. Josephine might help, too, if she were alive, if they could find her. Lila had said repeatedly that in many ways she'd been closer to Josephine than to her own mother, that she had emotionally relied on the wise, patient nanny. And all the photos Cree had seen bore that out – their faces gave it away. A special connection.
But that brought up another thought. Lila had been so close to Josephine – wouldn't she have sought comfort in those strong, sinewy arms before she went to Charmian? Absolutely. Which meant the old woman would know the facts of that night. And Josephine would not have let the event pass without responding in some way. How? What had happened that night and in the following days? Josephine was cmcial here.
Suddenly Cree knew she had to go help Joyce. They had to double up on the search for Josephine.
She stood up quickly, staggered as the forgotten pain exploded in her hips and thigh, and lost her balance on the levee slope. Immediately Paul stood, too, and she grabbed his outstretched hand. She let him help her back to the path, and when he didn't let go she didn't resist the continuing contact. He put his arm around her waist, and they started back toward his car that way, hip to hip. After a moment she put her arm half around him, too, hooking a finger into a belt loop.
She felt a little better. The open spaces had helped, and the thought that maybe in Josephine they had a resource to help heal Lila. Paul helped, too, she realized. The occasional soft bump and brush of their hips felt good, at once so casual and so intimate. Less scary and confusing than it would have been a week ago. For all her sense of urgency, she didn't mind allowing the moment to linger. They didn't race back. From a distance, Cree thought, they would look like lovers out for a stroll.
'So what do we do?' Paul asked quietly. 'Do we approach Lila with this?'
Cree shook her head. 'Not yet. I want to see if we can find Josephine. And I want to get to know Richard first. Maybe some therapeutic avenues will become clearer.'
Paul nodded. After another minute he cleared his throat as if he had something he'd been wanting to say.
'Back at the hospital, I said I'd thought about… you know. What you told me the other night. About Mike. Is this something you're up for talking about now?'
'I think so.' She tugged at his belt loop.
'I want to offer you a provocative suggestion, one you may not like. But I hope you'll think about it.'
Cree chuckled humorlessly. 'After the events of the last forty-eight hours, Paul, I think I can probably take just about anything.'
He bobbed his head, uncertain. 'Seeing Mike after his death was a huge thing. It changed your outlook, you had to radically adapt your worldview to cope with it. And it left you with… ambiguities about your marital status. If people don't exactly, totally die, is Cree Black still sort of married? Or is she single? Your situation was more extreme, perhaps, but it's not so different from the confusion that's typical of every person who loses a spouse. They grieve, and they often stay single and celibate out of respect for the dead loved one – the sense of connectedness and love, the desire for fidelity, doesn't go away. Staying loyal is a way to keep the lost one alive, just a little, and anyway, it just doesn't feel right to become close to someone else. And there's often the fear of intimacy, the fear that getting close to someone might just set you up for another such loss. Have I got all this about right?'
Cree nodded.
'So in searching for answers, you become, by degrees, a ghost hunter – a psychologist for the dead. Because you want to know how it works. You want to know what kind of beings we are! But you also wonder where Mike is. Some part of you has got to be hoping maybe you'll see him again? You'll find him again?'
Cree felt each word like a body blow. It was all too true, it was all too much to bear. 'This isn't what I thought you were wanting to talk about,' she said hoarsely. 'I've just been through five kinds of hell. I don't -'
'Please, just let me finish. So you become a ghost hunter. Watching you dealing with Lila, I can tell your process just about kills you every time, yet you keep on doing it. Why? Just existential curiosity? I don't think so. I think the answer is right there, in what you really do with ghosts. Cree, no, don't turn away now! Listen to me! You get rid of them, you banish them! You 'free' them, you, what's your word, 'remediate' them! Don't hear this wrong, Cree, but maybe that's no accident? Maybe after nine years, part of you knows you need to 'remediate' Mike? Maybe that's the hidden truth of why you do this. You're unconsciously trying to free yourself from your own haunting. You're trying to – '
'You are not my psychiatrist!' All the anger had returned in a blinding blaze, and she shoved him from her so hard he staggered away. 'How dare you!'
Paul stood just off the path, hands palm up, his face searching hers. 'I'm just trying to – '
'You're trying to get me into the sack! You're being self-interested and opportunistic, and you're being intolerably condescending. You're thinking of me as some kind of psychological specimen under your microscope, Paul! You're violating a basic professional precept, which is that people ask you to analyze them, you don't presume to do so unless you are asked. And I most definitely do not want you to be my psychoanalyst!'
Furious, she strode away, leaving him standing there.
'What would you like me to be, Cree?' he called after her. 'Maybe it's time to figure that out.'
She stormed back to the car, tears burning on her cheeks. It wasn't until she saw the BMW below her that she realized that of course there were no clean exits here. She was dependent on Paul to drive her back downtown. A couple of other cars were in the lot now, trunk lids up as families unloaded picnic gear. She stumbled down the steps, ashamed of her red, tear-slicked face, of her predicament. She wanted to hide in the car, but of course the doors were locked and Paul had the keys.
So she leaned against the hood, her arms crossed hard, occasionally wiping her eyes with the back of her hands, doing her best to swallow the sobs before they could burst out. Everything hurt. The picnickers averted their eyes as they went past her to the stairs. Paul was a little figure at the top of the levee half a block away, walking along slowly, head down, hands in pockets, kicking at stones.
She hated him. She hated being wrenched open and exposed. She hated having to face that truth in her. She hated that Paul was right.
Oh, Mike! she cried inwardly. The rest was right there, the part she had never been able to say or even think: Set me free! Please, my love.
Paul came to the top of the stairs but stopped suddenly to dig his cell phone out of his pocket. He flipped it open, put it to his ear, and listened intently. His face changed.
Then he was trotting quickly down the stairs and jogging toward her. Whatever they might have said or not said was moot, because when he was fifteen feet away he called out, 'That was Jack Warren. Lila has attempted suicide – he doesn't know, maybe she's succeeded. Cut her wrists. They've just taken her to the emergency ward.'
36
There wasn't much to be done. By the time they got to the hospital, Lila had already undergone surgery to stop the bleeding and had been sedated. Now she slept in a private room with her wrists bandaged and strapped to the sides of the bed. Paul conferred with the surgeon and came back to report that she had lost a lot of blood, but that she'd received transfusions and was expected to be fine. Physically.
Of course, if she were really determined to do it, she'd try again.
