Nighttime Is My Time

'Which was hard for you to compete with, I would think,' Jean observed.

'I know people believe that, but actually, Dennis was great to me. He was my big brother. Talk about hero worship.'

It seemed to Jean that Mark was talking more to himself than to her. 'He played tennis with me. He taught me how to play golf. He took me for rides in that convertible, and then, because I bugged him so much, he taught me how to drive it.'

'But you couldn't have been more than thirteen or fourteen,' Jean said.

'I was thirteen. Oh, I never drove on the street, of course, and he was always in the car with me. Our house has quite a bit of property. The afternoon of the accident, I had been pestering Dennis all day for a ride. Finally, around four o'clock, he tossed me the keys and said, 'Okay, okay, get in the car. I'll be right there.'

'I was sitting, waiting for him, counting the minutes till he got in so I could be the hotshot driving the convertible. Then a couple of his friends showed up, and Dennis told me he was going to shoot some baskets with them. 'I promise you'll have your chance in an hour or so,' he said. Then he called out, 'Turn off the engine and be sure to put on the parking brake.'

'I was disappointed, and I was mad. I slammed into the house. My mother was in the kitchen. I told her that I'd be glad if Dennis' car slid down the hill and crashed into the fence. Forty minutes later it did slide down the hill. The basketball net was at the base of the driveway. The other guys got out of the way. Dennis didn't.'

'Mark, you're the psychiatrist. You have to know that it wasn't your fault.'

The waiter was back with the sandwiches and coffee. Mark took a bite of his sandwich and sipped the coffee. It was obvious to Jean that he was struggling to keep his emotions in check. 'Intellectually, yes, but neither of my parents was ever the same toward me after that. Dennis was the Christ child in my mother's eyes. I can understand that. He had everything. He was so gifted. I heard her tell my father that she was sure I had deliberately left the brake off, not to deliberately hurt Dennis but hoping to pay him back for disappointing me.'

'What did your father say?'

'It's what he didn't say. I expected him to defend me, but he didn't. Then some kid told me that my mother had said that if God wanted one of her boys, why did it have to be Dennis?'

'I heard that story,' Jean admitted.

'You grew up wanting to get away from your parents, Jean, and so did I. I always felt we were kindred spirits. We both threw ourselves into academics and kept our mouths shut. Do you see your parents much?'

'My father lives in Hawaii. I visited him there last year. He has a lady friend who's quite nice, but he proclaims from the rooftops that one marriage cured him of ever walking down the aisle again. I spent a few days around Christmas with my mother, who seems genuinely happy now. She and her husband have visited me a few times. I admit that it does make me gag a bit to see the two of them holding hands and nuzzling each other, when I think of how she behaved with my father. I guess I'm over resenting them, except for the fact that at age eighteen I didn't think I could turn to them for help.'

'My mother died when I was in medical school,' Mark said. 'I wasn't told that she'd had a heart attack and was dying. I would have jumped on a plane and come back to say good-bye to her. But she didn't ask for me. In fact, she said she didn't want to see me. It felt like the final rejection. I didn't attend the funeral. After that I never came home again, and my father and I have been on the outs for fourteen years.' He shrugged. 'Maybe that's why I decided to be a psychiatrist. 'Physician, heal thyself.' I'm still trying.'

'What were the questions you asked your father? You told me he answered them.'

'The first one was why he didn't send for me when my mother was dying.'

Jean wrapped both hands around the coffee cup and picked it up. 'What was his answer?'

'He told me that my mother had become delusional. Shortly before she had the heart attack, she had gone to a psychic who told her that her younger son had deliberately released the brake because he was jealous of his brother and wanted to hurt him. Mother had always believed in the possibility that I had wanted to damage Dennis' car, but the psychic put her over the edge. That may even have brought on the heart attack. Want to hear the other question that I asked my father?'

Jean nodded.

'My mother couldn't stand any kind of drinking, and my father liked to have a drink in the late afternoon. He'd sneak into the garage where he kept some booze hidden on the shelf behind the paint cans, or he'd pretend to be cleaning the inside of his car and have a little cocktail party of his own. Sometimes he'd sit in Dennis' car and have his nip. I know I left that brake on. I know Dennis didn't go near the car. He was playing basketball with his friends. Certainly my mother wouldn't get into the convertible. I asked my father if he had sat in Dennis' car that afternoon, having his couple of scotches, and if so, didn't he think it was possible he might have released that brake accidentally?'

'What did he say?'

'He admitted that he was in the car and got out of it only a minute or so before it rolled down the hill. He never had the courage to tell my mother, not even when that psychic poisoned her mind about me.'

'Why do you think he admitted it now?'

'I was walking around town the other night, thinking of how people go through life with unresolved conflicts. My appointment book is filled with patients who are living examples of that. When I saw my father's car in the driveway-that same driveway, incidentally-I decided to go in and, after fourteen years of silence, have it out with him.'

'You saw him last night, and you're seeing him again tonight. Does that mean a reconciliation?'

'He's going to be eighty years old soon, Jean, and he's not well. He's been living a lie for twenty-five years. He's almost pathetic, talking about how he wants to make it up to me. Of course he can't, but maybe seeing him will help me understand and put it behind me. He's right about the fact that if my mother knew he had been drinking in the car and had caused the accident, she would have gotten rid of him that same day.'

'Instead, on an emotional level she withdrew from you.'

'Which, in turn, contributed to the total sense of inadequacy and failure that I remember feeling at Stonecroft. I tried to be like Dennis, but I certainly wasn't as good-looking. I wasn't an athlete, and I wasn't a leader. The only time I felt any sense of camaraderie was when some of us worked a job together in the evenings our senior year. We'd go out afterward and have a pizza. Perhaps the good part is that I learned compassion for kids who have it tough, and as an adult I have tried to make their paths a little smoother.'

'According to what I hear, you're doing a good job of it.'

'I hope so. The producers want to move the show to New York, and I've been asked to join the staff of New York Hospital. I think I'm ready to make the change.'

'A new beginning?' Jean asked.

'Exactly-where what can't be forgiven or forgotten may at least be relegated to the past.' He raised his coffee cup. 'Shall we drink to that, Jeannie?'

'Yes, of course.' As badly as I was hurt, it was worse for you, Mark, she thought. My parents were too busy hating each other to understand what they were doing to me. Your parents let you know they preferred your brother, and then your father deliberately let your mother believe the one thing that she could never forgive you for. What did that do to your soul?

Her instinct was to reach across the table and lay her hand on his, the same gesture with which he had comforted her yesterday. But something held her back. She simply could not trust him. Then she realized she wanted to pick up on something he had just said. 'Mark, what was the evening job you worked at during senior year?'

'I was with the office clean-up crew in a building that has burned down since then. Jack Emerson's father got a bunch of us jobs there. I guess you weren't around when we were joking about it the other night. Every one of the guys who is an honoree pushed a broom or emptied wastebaskets over there.'

'All of you?' Jean asked. 'Carter and Gordon and Robby and ~.

'That's right. Oh, and one more. Joel Nieman, a.k.a. Romeo. We all worked with Jack. Don't forget, we were the ones who didn't have to practice for games or travel with teams. We were perfect for that job.' He paused. 'Wait a minute. You should know that building, Jean. You were Dr. Connors' patient.'

Jean felt her body turn icy. 'I didn't tell you that, Mark.'