Goodnight Beautiful Page 20

  August 23, 1969

  Hello beautiful,

  I arrived in Princeton this morning and it’s as pompous and bourgeois as I imagined. My parents insisted on dropping me off and I could not wait until they left—I’m thrilled at the thought of not having to speak to them for at least three months. Good-bye, family, and good riddance. The campus is crawling with television cameras, determined to hear what it’s like for us, the first women admitted to the university. The dean had a special reception for all 101 of us and while we drank wine inside, a crowd of reptilian men protested, holding signs that read “Bring Back the Old Princeton.” Poor things, not a chance in hell they’ll get laid.

  Sam folds the yellowed piece of paper and returns it to its envelope, then fingers his way to the front of the box and the first letter. July 24, 1968. Chicago.

  Hello beautiful . . .

  He sinks back against the wall, ignoring the throbbing pain in his head and the sinking feeling in his stomach, and starts at the beginning.

  Chapter 46

  I pull back the curtains with a shaky hand and risk a peek down at the front yard. Thank god. The vultures are gone.

  Three of them (“journalists”), circling since last night, when the public learned that Sam’s car was discovered at the Stor-Mor Storage facility on Route 9. The nerve of them, parking in my driveway, tearing up my lawn with their footprints, pointing their monstrous cameras at my house. “B-roll.” That’s what I overheard one of them say this morning as I barricaded myself in my bedroom, waiting for them to leave. They did, but not before getting their shot, bantering loudly back and forth the whole time about how the hell this guy’s car ended up at a storage unit.

  I’ll tell you how, vultures: I took the hidden key and went downstairs to Sam’s office the morning after the storm, and when I saw him there on the floor and remembered what I’d done—following him down the path, hitting him with the shovel—I panicked. I put on a pair of latex gloves and used the Visa card from his wallet to set up an account online. I locked him in his office and drove to Stor-Mor myself, entering with the PIN number that had been texted to his phone, which I fished out of his jacket pocket. I walked home in the freezing rain, through deserted streets, having no idea what I was going to do.

  But then Annie led me to Stephen King, and just like that, I knew exactly what I needed to do: nurse Sam back to health myself and make everything right.

  It all would have been fine if Sam hadn’t decided he was going to pick the lock on the door and go through my personal belongings, including my purple binders, never mind a person’s right to privacy.

  I know he did it. The evidence was there, in the mess he left me to clean up. Binders ripped at the spine, overturned drawers, the restraining order that Linda’s son applied for—all jumbled together in the middle of the floor. If he would have let me, I could have explained.

  It’s simple. Linda and I were friends, and she liked having me around. It was that meathead son of hers, making things out to be something they weren’t, suggesting something untoward in our relationship. I knew from day one that he didn’t like me—calling me Nurse Nightingale, which I didn’t understand until I looked it up. But it didn’t matter what he thought, because I wasn’t hired to take care of Hank. I was hired to take care of his mother from 6 p.m. to 9 a.m. four nights a week. Linda Pennypiece, the kindest person in the world.

  She’d had a stroke three months earlier, at the age of eighty-nine. She couldn’t speak, but I could see in her eyes how much she enjoyed our time together. On the nights she couldn’t sleep, we’d stay up late, watching reruns of Mary Tyler Moore. I’d feed her the individual-sized boxes of Kellogg’s Corn Flakes the agency gave everyone who worked the overnight shift. She’d stare silently at the television, but I could sense the joy it brought her. Until Hank showed up and ruined everything. I swallow back the disgust, remembering the sight of him walking into the kitchen as I stood at the stove in Linda’s robe, scrambling eggs. I was fired within the hour.

  See, Sam, I’d say. I told you there was a good explanation for that. Just like there’s a good explanation for the other big question I imagine is on your mind. How did I come to fill a binder full of facts about you? One word: fate.

  The moment fate intervened on our behalf: A one-item list

  The Bakery, just before lunch, the first Tuesday in April. I was inside the stall at the men’s room, wondering if I should complain that the tea I’d just finished wasn’t hot enough, and you were at the sink outside, talking on the phone about your fading dream of the perfect office space. I listened to the whole thing—the place you’d come from smelled of marijuana, and the realtor didn’t have anything else to show you. You said you were off to visit your mother, and I had no idea until I opened the door that it was you—Dr. Sam Statler, the brilliant therapist from the “Twenty Questions” profile I’d come across in the local paper, whose work I’d been obsessively reading. I didn’t have anything else to do, and so I decided to follow you in my car, up the mountain to Rushing Waters. I circled the parking lot while you sat in your luxury automobile, and that’s when the idea came to me, in a moment of divinity: I could give you the perfect office space.

  Why would I do that? you ask. Because I’m a nice guy. Because I care about people, Sam, and I appreciated the work you did, helping others understand the trauma of their childhoods. So much so that I went home and made a flyer. It took me no more than thirty minutes to find your car parked behind the bank, where I stuck the flyer under your windshield. Lo and behold you called just minutes later.

  And I did everything you wanted, Sam. Professional lighting. A self-flushing toilet. Organic paint. I even did the one thing you couldn’t do: I visited your mother. (Anyone with two eyes and a pair of binoculars could see that you stopped going inside soon after you moved to town.) There’s a volunteer application available at their website, and bingo! It sounded fun. I know they don’t like me there. I see the way people look at me, ignoring the suggestions I leave in the suggestion box, but I don’t care, Sam. Because I wasn’t taking your mother to bingo twice a week to please them. I was doing it to help you.

  But I can’t tell Sam any of this, because the last time I saw him was yesterday, when I dragged his lifeless body into the closet as the first journalist appeared, afraid he’d wake up and start yelling and someone would hear him. I’m so ridden with guilt over what I did that I still can’t bring myself to go down there.

  I know, a warm bath will relax me. I search for Agatha Lawrence’s bath salts, which I remember seeing in the closet, when I hear a humming noise coming from somewhere in the house. It’s not in the bedroom, or the hallway; as I ease down the stairs, the sound grows louder the closer I get to the kitchen. Finally I make my way to the hallway, to Sam’s room.

  “Good, you’re home.” Sam’s voice from inside is surprisingly firm. “Come in. I need something from you.” Hesitant, I return to the kitchen for the key, and return to his door. He’s in his chair when I peek my head inside, writing in his notebook. “Come in,” he says, waving me forward and then reaching to silence the clock on the table beside him.

  “What is it you need?” I ask nervously.

  “Your help.” I’m filled with shame when he glances up at me and I see the laceration in his lip, the swollen malar bone in his left cheek. “With a patient.”

  “A patient?” I say, confused. “I don’t understand—”

  “I’ll explain later.” He returns to his writing. “This feels somewhat urgent. Here—” He rips the page from his notebook and holds it out to me. “Take a look.”

  I walk slowly toward him and take the paper from his hand.

  “I’ve given you what I know of the patient’s history, a list of presenting problems, and my best guess at a diagnosis. I’d like you to review my work.”

  “Review your work,” I repeat, guarded, sure this is some kind of mean prank. “Why?”

  He hesitates a moment and then drops his pen and f
olds his hands on his lap. “All that listening you did at the vent paid off, Albert. I read through the notes you made on my clients, in that purple binder of yours. I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again. You have a mind for this work.”

  “I do?”

  “Yes. I’m impressed. And while I’ll eventually want to discuss some of the other things I found in those binders, I’d first like your help with this.” He nods at the paper in my hands. “It’s an old case—it’s been plaguing me for a while. I could use your help, if you don’t mind.”

  I scan his notes. “I don’t mind at all,” I mutter. “In fact, I’m honored.”

  “Good. And I’d like dinner soon, as well. That Salisbury steak, if you wouldn’t mind. And please, Albert, proper silverware this time.”

  “Yes, Sam. Whatever you want.”

  “Thanks, and I’d prefer you address me properly.” He picks up his pen. “It’s Dr. Statler.”

  I nod and turn toward the door, chastened. “Of course. I’ll prepare your meal and then get right to work.”

  Chapter 47

  “Why would a guy text his wife that he’s coming home and then stash his car in a storage unit?” Annie says into the phone. She’s sitting on the floor of Margaret’s room, her back against the wall, drinking from a bottle of Miller High Life. This is what she’s been reduced to. Not yet ten a.m., drinking a warm beer she stole from a nursing home dining hall, asking Siri to explain why her husband texted her and then stashed his car at the Sav-Mor Storage facility on route 9, ten minutes from his office.

  “I found this on the web for why would a guy text his wife that he’s coming home and then stash his car in a storage unit.”

  Annie scrolls through the results.

  How to prepare your car for long-term storage at Edmunds.

  What is your ex from hell story (and how not to take the bait when he calls!)?

  This last one posted two years ago, on the blog of a woman named Misty.

  Annie sips her beer, wondering what Misty might have to say. Maybe it’s unanimous. Maybe, like Franklin Sheehy, Misty thinks Sam texted her and then stashed his car because Sam’s the type of guy who disappears when the going gets tough, confirming that the apple does not, in fact, fall far from the tree. And maybe Misty will also echo the other opinion Franklin Sheehy shared in the newspaper this morning: there’s not much more the police can do.

  “This shows some planning, and is clearly the work of a cunning mind,” said Chief of Police Franklin Sheehy. “Not much left to surmise other than that Sam Statler doesn’t want to be found.”

  She’s taking a second pass through the list of results when the phone rings in her hand. It’s Dr. Elisabeth Mitchell, her dean.

  “I got your message, Annie. Is everything okay?”

  “I’ve been thinking about your offer to take time off,” Annie says. “And I’d like to accept it.”

  Dr. Mitchell is silent a moment. “I’m sorry for what you’re going through, Annie. When would you like it to start?”

  “Immediately?” Annie suggests. “I’ve sent a few emails, asking others in the department if they can take over, and I’m hoping—”

  “Don’t worry about your class,” Dr. Mitchell says. “I’ll teach it myself. And we can resume your fellowship when you’re back.”

  Annie thanks her and hangs up, knowing it’s unlikely she’s coming back. For what? A life in Chestnut Hill, alone in that house? Before she can second-guess her decision, she opens her email, pulling up the message that arrived from her aunt and uncle late last night.

  We’ve reserved you a plane ticket to Paris, her uncle wrote. The flight leaves in two days, giving you time to wrap things up. Maddie will pick you up and bring you to the house. The return is open ended. Just say the word, and we’ll buy it.

  Thank you, Annie types. I’d like to come.

  She hits send and polishes off the last of the beer as the door opens. She expects it to be Margaret, returning from getting her hair done by the stylist who comes every week, but it’s Josephine, carrying a basket of Margaret’s clean laundry. “Annie,” she says, seeing Annie on the floor, a beer bottle at her feet. “What are you doing?”

  “Living my best life,” Annie says.

  Josephine chuckles. “Good for you.” She flashes the laundry basket. “I was going to put these away, but I can come back.”

  “I’ll do it,” Annie says, standing up. “I could use the distraction.”

  Josephine pauses, giving Annie the look that says I read the newspaper article about your deadbeat husband disappearing and I’m not sure what to say. “How are you holding up?” she asks.

  “Other than drinking warm beer at ten in the morning, pretty good,” Annie says, setting the bottle on the table. “I’m leaving tomorrow, for some time away. I’ve come to tell Margaret.” Annie stacks the laundry on the bed. “I feel a little sick about it, to be honest. She’ll have nobody to visit her now.”

  “She’ll be fine, Annie,” Josephine says, reaching for the basket. “Everyone here loves her, and that volunteer comes twice a week to take her to bingo. We all call him her boyfriend.” She gives Annie’s arm a quick squeeze on her way out of the room. “We’ll take good care of her, promise.”

  Five minutes later she’s busying herself with straightening the contents of Margaret’s bathroom, replaying Josephine’s words. Something is nagging at her. She closes the medicine cabinet and leaves the room. The hallway is quiet, and a young woman Annie doesn’t recognize is at the front desk. “Can I help you?” she asks cheerfully.

  “Yes,” Annie says. “Josephine said a volunteer has been visiting my mother-in-law, Margaret Statler. I wasn’t aware of that, and I’m curious who it is.”

  “Sure thing.” The girl looks down and taps at the keyboard. “Oh,” she says, rolling her eyes. “You mean Albert Bitterman.” She leans forward and lowers her voice. “Between you and me, that guy’s a pain in the ass.”

  Chapter 48

  Sam cuts into the last piece of tough, tasteless meat, listening to Albert roaming the house. He chews slowly, his bruised jaw throbbing, imagining how it’s going to feel to sleep in his own bed again. He can feel it, his first shower, the strong stream of hot water from the Kohler Real Rain showerhead he splurged on, like a man with $2 million on the way. Annie is next to him, lathering Pantene shampoo into her scalp—the same shampoo her mother used, and a scent so distinctively his wife. “Took you long enough to figure out,” she says, biffing the suds into his face. “It was obvious the whole time. He didn’t want to kill you. He wanted your help.”

  “Right again, my brainy wife,” Sam whispers. He licks the last of the meat from the steak knife and holds it up to the light. “And don’t you worry, Albert, because help is on the way.”

  * * *

  Albert’s knock comes at nearly midnight, and Sam is ready. He sits up, sets the alarm for forty-five minutes.

  Game on.

  Albert’s hair is slicked back with gel, a notebook tucked under his arm.

  “Did you finish?” Sam asks.

  “Yes,” Albert says. “I’m sorry to bother you late at night, but you said it was urgent.”

  “It is.” Sam waves him in. “Have a seat. I’m eager to hear what you found.” Albert drops the key into the front pocket of his pressed khaki pants and takes a seat on the bed, keeping his gaze on his shoes, a shiny pair of black loafers. Sam stays silent, noting Albert’s posture. His hands are gripped in his lap, his jaw is clenched. “Go ahead,” Sam says.

  “Bottom line,” Albert says, “I wholeheartedly agree with the diagnosis you came to regarding this patient. What we’re looking at here is a textbook case of an adult with an attachment disorder. In fact, I would be a bit more specific and say that he has many of the qualities of an anxious-preoccupied adult.”

  “Really?” Sam sighs, feigning great relief. “Good. Walk me through it. From the beginning.”

  “Well.” Albert opens his notebook. “As you kno
w, because of an infant’s inability to survive on its own, every child is born with a primitive drive to get their needs met by their primary caregivers, usually their parents. This is called attachment theory. Infants who feel safe develop secure attachments. Those who do not, like our patient, develop insecure attachments. As adults they tend to be highly anxious, have a negative self-image, act impulsively, and live with a fear of rejection so severe it can sometimes be debilitating. This can go on to have a significant impact on the relationships they develop as adults.”

  “In what ways?” Sam asks.

  “I made a list.” Albert pulls a sheet of paper from his notebook. “Should I read it?”

  “Please.”

  “One: anxious-preoccupied adults behave in ways that seem desperate and insecure, at times controlling,” he reads. “Two: because they lacked security as an infant, they demand constant reassurance that they are special to their partner, in an attempt to allay their anxiety. Three: they believe their partner will ‘rescue’ or ‘complete’ them, a wish that is impossible for another person to fulfill.” He places the paper in his lap. “As you can see, even as they seek closeness and a sense of safety by clinging to their partner, their desperate actions actually push their partner away.” Albert frowns. “It’s quite sad, the reasons he’s like this.”

  Sam clears his throat. “Are you talking about his childhood?”

  “Yes. His mother died in childbirth, and he was left with an emotionally distant father who rarely showed him attention, let alone affection,” Albert says. “Of course he’s going to have insecure attachments as an adult.”

  “That’s right.” Sam points at Albert and nods. “I forgot that part about his mother. How old was he when she died?”

  “Six days old.”

  “Man, that’s rough.” He shakes his head. “Remind me again: What was the cause of her death?”