Page 11

"Selfish? How?"

"I had found a way to control her, to keep her under my power. She needed me, depended on me. The short time we had up here before it all fell apart was ironically the happiest time I had with her. We pretended we were married and in our own home.

Actually, pretending anything made her comfortable.

"It was very wrong and later, it was very painful I had betrayed the people who loved, trusted and believed in me the most. For that reason alone, nobody wanted Karen to be telling the truth about what had been going on in her home more than I did. It wouldn't completely excuse what I had done, but it would help explain it and in some ways rationalize it. No one was more disappointed than I was the night your aunt and I discovered that the story your mother was spinning was a total fabrication."

"Total?"

"It was just too fantastic, bizarre. She had depicted her stepfather to be some Norman Bates character from Psycho. She told both Zipporah and me some things going on at her house that we found not to be true. All the stories about a separate apartment for Harry Pearson's mother proved false, for example, and therefore all the things she claimed had gone on in there were obviously just as false."

"But why would she do something so terrible to her stepfather then?"

"As I said, she was a very complicated person. Something just cracked inside her, I suppose. That's something people trained and educated in psychology will have to answer or maybe have already."

"You don't know?"

He shook his head, a look of shame washing over his face.

"No, I didn't keep up with her situation."

"Did you ever tell her that you knew what she had told you and Aunt Zipporah was all untrue?"

"Yes, of course. Right in this attic," he said, looking around. "Matter of fact, she stood by that window when we told her."

"What did she say?"

"She said her mother was lying, the police were lying, everyone was lying but her."

"Then what did she do?"

"She just walked out and went home, or tried to. Your aunt and I called your grandfather, and he called the police. They picked her up strolling down the street as if nothing was wrong, nothing had happened. I suppose she was in some state of shock. From there, she went to a mental clinic where they diagnosed her as delusional and, well, you know the rest of it."

"No, I don't. Talking about my mother is practically forbidden in this house. Grandma gets so upset at the mention of her name, she practically faints. Didn't you ever go to see her? Ever?"

He stared at me, and then I saw him glance at the attic door.

"You did, didn't you?" I pounced.

"No one knows," he said almost in a whisper. "Not even your grandfather." He thought for a moment and then said, "Maybe keeping it secret doesn't matter anymore."

"Tell me about her. Please," I begged and inched closer to him. "What was she like when you visited her?"

"She was Karen again," he began. "Doing what she does so well to cope with the reality she hated."

"What do you mean?"

"She had created a whole new scenario to explain where she was and why she was there. She didn't act at all like a patient in a clinic. It was as if the whole thing, everyone working there, was at her beck and call, there solely for her.

"First, she looked absolutely beautiful--radiant, in fact. I had been expecting to find a defeated, mousy young woman, wrapped up in her own madness, impenetrable, shut up tightly. I feared that not only would she ignore me, but she might turn on me, be enraged."

"And?"

"She was the complete opposite, buoyant, cheerful, back to the way she had been when Zipporah first had met her. She came rushing out of her room into the hallway to greet me. Her hair was longer and she had done something clever with her bangs. She extended her hand and, NI never forget, said, 'Jesse, how sweet of you to make the trip to see me. How are your parents and your sister? You must fill me in on everything you've been doing. Don't leave out a single thing.'

"I glanced at the nurse who had escorted me down the corridor and saw she was smiling. Later, I found out everyone there enjoyed your mother. Contrary to what I had expected, she was not only not depressing, but she cheered up other patients and made the staff comfortable as well. It was remarkable. I felt as if a coat made of iron guilt had been lifted off me. I couldn't help but laugh myself."

"When was this? I mean, had I been born?" "Yes. It was nearly a year later."