Silent Partner

“I knew him socially. My people had known his people for generations. He had a lovely home not far from mine with a beautiful office suite on the ground floor. Complete with a private entrance. I thought he’d be discreet.”

She laughed. A drunken, strident laugh. “I don’t seem to be much for… prescience, do I?”

“Tell me about the treatment.”

“Four sessions a week. One hundred twenty-five dollars a session. Payment for ten sessions in advance.”

“What diagnosis did he give you?”

“He never gave me one.”

“What about treatment goals? Methods?”

“No, nothing like that. All he said was that she had serious problems- character problems- and needed intensive therapy. When I tried to ask questions he made it very clear that everything that went on between them was confidential. I was forbidden to be involved at all. I didn’t like that, but he was the doctor. I assumed he knew what he was doing. I stayed completely out of it, had Ramey drive her to her appointments.”

“Did Kruse help her?”

“In the beginning. She’d come home from seeing him and be calm- almost too calm.”

“What do you mean?”

“Sleepy. Drowsy. I know now that he was hypnotizing her. But whatever benefits that brought didn’t last. Within an hour or two she was the same old Sherry.”

“Meaning what?”

“Defiance, foul language. That terrible temper- still breaking things. Except when she wanted something- then she could be the most charming little doll in the world. Sweet as sugar, a real actress. She knew how to twist people to her needs. He taught her how to do it even better. All the time I thought he was helping her, he was teaching her how to manipulate.”

“Did you ever tell him about Sharon?”

“He wouldn’t let me tell him anything.”

“If he had, would you have told him?”

“No. That was… in the past.”

“But eventually you did tell him.”

“Not until later.”

“How much later?”

“Years. She was a teenager- fourteen or fifteen. He called me late at night, caught me off- guard. He liked to do that. All of a sudden he’d completely changed his tune. All of a sudden it was imperative I be involved. Come in to be evaluated. Five years of going nowhere and now he wanted me on the couch! I wanted no part of such a thing- by then I’d realized that it was useless, her personality wasn’t going to change. She was the prisoner of her… genes. But he wouldn’t take no for an answer, kept calling me, badgering me. Dropping in to chat when I was entertaining guests. Pulling me aside at parties and telling me that she and I were a… what was the word he used?… a dyad. A destructive dyad. Two people on a psychological seesaw, trying to knock each other off. Her behavior affected mine; mine, hers. In order for her to stop doing all those terrible things, we needed to equalize our communications, find emotional homeostasis or some rubbish like that. I felt he simply wanted to control me, and I wasn’t about to give in. But he was like a… a drill. Kept at it, simply wouldn’t give up. Still, I was able to resist.” Prideful smile. “Then things got much worse and I caved in.”

“Worse in what way?”

“She started doing… teenage things.”

“Running away?”

“Disappearing. For days at a time- completely without warning. I’d send Ramey out for her but he rarely found her. Then, out of nowhere, she’d come crawling back, usually in the middle of the night, all disheveled, filthy, crying, promising never to do it again. But she always did.”

“Did she talk about where she’d been?”

“Oh, the next morning she’d be boasting, telling me horrid tales in order to make me suffer- crossing the bridge and heading over to the colored part of town, things like that. I never knew how much to believe- didn’t want to believe any of it. Later, when she was old enough to drive, she’d take off in one of my cars and vanish. Weeks later, the credit card bills and traffic tickets would start trickling in and I’d find out she’d been traipsing all over- Georgia, Louisiana, dull little towns I’d never heard of. What she did there God only knows. One time she went to Mardi Gras and came home painted green. I finally took away her driving privileges when she ruined my favorite car- a lovely old Bentley painted lilac, with etched windows. Henry’s gift to me on our tenth. She drove it into the ocean, just left it there and walked away. But she always managed to find a set of keys, be off again.”

One way or the other, Sherry would triumph.

No smile, now.

I remembered what Del had told me about the needle marks, said, “When did she get into drugs?”

“When she was thirteen, Paul had tranquilizers prescribed for her.”

“He wasn’t an M.D., wasn’t allowed to prescribe.”

She shrugged. “He got her those drugs. Prescription tranquilizers.”

“What about street drugs?”

“I don’t know. I suppose so. Why not? Nothing could stop her from doing what she wanted.”

“During this period, how often was Kruse seeing her?”

“When she chose to go. He billed me even if she didn’t show up.”

“What was the official schedule?”

“No change- four sessions a week.”

“Did you ever question him? Ask why years of treatment hadn’t improved her?”

“He… he was hard to approach. When I finally raised the issue, he got very angry, said she was irreparably disturbed, would never be normal, would need treatment all her life just to maintain. And that it was my fault- I’d waited too long to bring her in, couldn’t expect to wheel a jalopy into a garage and have a Rolls-Royce emerge. Then he’d start in again, pressuring me to come in for evaluation. She was getting worse and worse. He broke me down- I agreed to talk to him.”

“What about?”

“The usual rubbish. He wanted to know about my childhood, did I dream at night, why I’d married Henry. How things made me feel. He always talked in a low monotonous voice, had shiny things in his office- little toys that moved back and forth. I knew what he was doing- trying to hypnotize me. Everyone in Palm Beach knew he did that kind of thing. He did it at parties, at the Planned Parenthood ball- made people quack like ducks for amusement. I resolved not to give in. It was difficult- his voice was like warm milk. But I fought it, told him I didn’t see what any of that had to do with Sherry. He kept pushing. Finally I blurted out that he was wasting his time, she wasn’t even mine, was the product of some slut’s bad genes. That made him stop droning and he looked at me strangely.”

She sighed, closed her eyes. “My heart sank. Trying to resist him, I’d said too much, given him just what he needed to bleed me dry.”

“You’d never told him she was adopted?”

“I never told anyone- from the day I… got her.”

“How did he react to finding out?”

“Broke his pipe in half. Slammed his hand on the desk. Took me by the shoulders and shook me. Told me I’d wasted his time all these years and severely damaged Sherry. Said I didn’t care about her, was a terrible mother, a selfish person- my communications were perverse. My secretiveness was what had made her what she was! He kept going on like that, attacking me! I was in tears, tried to leave the