Aftermath

“He was pleased at first. Thrilled. Proud that the publisher liked my work, proud when the book was published. He bought copies for all his nephews and nieces, his clients’ kids. His boss. Dozens of copies. And he was pleased that it was because of him all this had happened. As he never ceased to tell me, it would never have happened if I’d chosen to stay with my deadbeat friends.”

“This was at first. What about later?”

Maggie felt herself shrinking in the chair, her voice becoming smaller. “That was different. Later, after we were married and Bill still hadn’t made partner, I think he started to resent my success. He started referring to art as my ‘little hobby’ and suggested I might have to give it up at any time and start having babies.”

“But you chose not to have babies?”

“No. I had no choice. I can’t have babies.” Maggie felt herself slipping down the rabbit hole, just like Alice, darkness closing around her.

“Margaret! Margaret!”

She could hear Dr. Simms’s voice only as if from a great distance, echoing. With great effort, she struggled up toward it, toward the light, and felt herself burst out like a drowning person from the water, gasping for air.

“Margaret, are you all right?”

“Yes. I’m… I… But it wasn’t me,” she said, aware of the tears flowing down her cheeks. “It isn’t me who can’t have babies. Bill can’t. It’s Bill. It’s something to do with his sperm count.”

Dr. Simms gave Maggie a little time to dry her eyes, calm down and compose herself.

When she had done so, Maggie laughed at herself. “He used to have to masturbate into a Tupperware container and take it in for testing. Somehow that seemed so… well, Tupperware, I mean, it all seemed so Leave It to Beaver.”

“Pardon?”

“An old American TV program. Mom at home, pop at the office. Apple pie. Happy families. Perfect children.”

“I see. Couldn’t you have adopted a child?”

Maggie was back out in the light now. Only it felt too bright. “No,” she said. “That wouldn’t do for Bill. The child wouldn’t be his then, you see. No more than if I’d had someone else’s sperm in artificial insemination.”

“Did the two of you discuss what to do?”

“At first, yes. But not after he found out it was his physical problem, and not mine. After that, if I ever mentioned children again, he hit me.”

“And around this time he came to resent your success?”

“Yes. Even to the point of committing little acts of sabotage so I’d be behind on a deadline. You know, throwing away some of my colors or brushes, misplacing an illustration or a package for the courier, accidentally wiping images from the computer, from my computer, forgetting to tell me about an important phone call, that sort of thing.”

“So at this time he wanted to have children but discovered that he couldn’t father any, and he also wanted to be a partner in his law firm, but he didn’t get to be?”

“That’s right. But that’s no excuse for what he did to me.”

Dr. Simms smiled. “True, Margaret. Very true. But it’s a pretty volatile combination, don’t you think? I’m not making excuses, but can you imagine the stress he must have been under, how it might have triggered his violent feelings?”

“I couldn’t see it coming at the time. How could I?”

“No, you couldn’t. No one could expect you to. It’s as you said. Hindsight. Retrospect.” She leaned back in her chair, crossed her legs and looked at the clock. “Now, I think that’s enough for today, don’t you?”

Now was the time. “I’ve got a question,” Maggie blurted out. “Not about me.”

Dr. Simms raised her eyebrows and looked at her watch.

“It won’t take a minute. Honest it won’t.”

“All right,” said Dr. Simms. “Ask away.”

“Well, it’s this friend of mine. Not really a friend, I suppose, because she’s too young, just a schoolgirl, but she drops by, you know, on her way home from school.”

“Yes?”

“Claire’s her name, Claire Toth. Claire was a friend of Kimberley Myers.”

“I know who Kimberley Myers was. I read the newspapers. Go on.”

“They were friends. They went to the same school. Both of them knew Terence Payne. He was their biology teacher.”

“Yes. Go on.”

“And she felt responsible, you know, for Kimberley. They were supposed to walk home together that night, but a boy asked Claire to dance. A boy she liked, and…”

“And her friend walked home alone. To her death?”

“Yes,” said Maggie.

“You said you had a question to ask me.”

“I haven’t seen Claire since she told me this on Monday afternoon. I’m worried about her. Psychologically, I mean. What would something like this do to someone like her?”

“Not knowing the girl in question, I can’t possibly say,” said Dr. Simms. “It depends on her inner resources, on her self-image, on family support, on many things. Besides, it seems to me that there are two separate issues here.”

“Yes?”

“First, the girl’s proximity to the criminal and to one victim in particular, and second, her feeling of responsibility, of guilt. As far as the first is concerned, I can offer a few general considerations.”

“Please do.”

“First of all, tell me how you feel about it all.”

“Me?”

“Yes.”

“I… I don’t know yet. Afraid, I suppose. Not so trusting. He was my neighbor, after all. I don’t know. I haven’t been able to work it all out yet.”

Dr. Simms nodded. “Your friend probably feels the same way. Mostly confused for the moment. Only she’s younger than you, and she probably has fewer defenses. She’ll certainly be more mistrustful of people. After all, this man was her teacher, a figure of respect and authority. Handsome, well-dressed, with a nice house and a pretty young wife. He didn’t look at all like the sort of monster we usually associate in our minds with crimes such as these. And she’ll experience a heightened sense of paranoia. She may not feel comfortable going out alone, for example, may feel she’s being stalked or watched. Or her parents might not let her go out. Sometimes parents take control in these situations, especially if they feel they’ve been guilty of any sort of neglect.”

“So her parents might be keeping her at home? Keeping her from visiting me?”

“It’s possible.”

“What else?”

“From what I can gather so far, these are sex crimes, and as such they are bound to have some effect on a vulnerable young schoolgirl’s burgeoning sexuality. Exactly what effect is hard to say. It takes different people different ways. Some girls might become more childlike, suppress their sexuality, because they think that will afford them some kind of protection. Others may even become more promiscuous because being good girls didn’t help the victims. I can’t tell you which way she’ll go.”

“I’m sure Claire wouldn’t become promiscuous.”

“She may become withdrawn and preoccupied with the case. I think it’s most important that she doesn’t keep these feelings bottled up, that she struggles to understand what happened. I know that’s difficult, even for us adults, but we can help her.”

“How?”

“By accepting its effect on her but also reassuring her that it was some sort of aberration, not the natural