Page 89 of The Instruments of Darkness

“Yes.”

“What were her feelings about it?”

“Sorrow, and to a lesser degree anger and shame.”

“Why shame?”

“Because she blamed herself more than she blamed her husband,” said Veilleux. “She felt that if she’d been enough for him, he would not have looked elsewhere to satisfy those needs. I mean, it’s obviously more complicated than that, but as a bare précis of her position, it’s adequate.”

Veilleux tugged at her bottom lip with the forefinger of her right hand, the first time she’d displayed anything resembling a nervous tic. I let a distant clock count the seconds.

“You’re very patient, aren’t you?” she said.

“It’s born of necessity. I spend a lot of time sitting, watching. Not understanding.”

“Was that sarcasm?”

“Barely.”

“And listening, too?”

“Yes.”

“Then we may not be so dissimilar after all.”

“I never intimated that we were.”

“No, you didn’t, did you?” She clasped her hands and leaned forward, like someone about to share a delicious secret. “Did Colleen mention that she suspected Stephen of cheating on her previously?”

“It’s a natural response to unfaithfulness, to suspect there may have been more than one instance of it.”

“With me, she was more specific,” said Veilleux. “You see, she thought her husband might have met this Mara Teller person before.”

This I had not known.

“When?” I asked.

“At an earlier conference, before Colleen even became pregnant. She was convinced that she recalled the name, potentially from a document she’d seen, or notes made by her husband. She used to help Stephen with reports, because he was a lousy typist and a poor speller. Later, as she tried to keep her marriage together, she started to doubt herself, and ultimately she recanted. When I attempted to return to the subject a couple of months ago, she waved it off as a misapprehension brought on by the stress of all that had happened, and the name Mara Teller going around and around in her head, but I thought it was interesting. Our initial impressions are often correct: the first name that comes to mind upon renewing acquaintance with someone, for example, or the title of a film or song seemingly half-remembered.”

I would have to ask Colleen about this when I returned to Scarborough. More and more, I was finding aspects of her conduct disquieting, although I still did not believe she had killed her son. Instead, I was reminded of a novel I had first read in college, and to which I had returned many times since: Ford Madox Ford’s The Good Soldier, a book as steeped in irony as any I’d encountered. Colleen reminded me of its narrator, John Dowell, a character to whom things happen yet who does very little himself, a figure existing in a curious state of enervation. Even his name was only a letter away from dowel, a joint of wood in a wall to which other pieces are nailed.

“Would it be fair to describe Colleen’s disposition as passive?”

“I think it might,” said Veilleux. “The hardest part of our therapy has been convincing her to be something more than an observer of her own life. Even the decision to become a mother could almost be regarded as one made for her by another.”

“Her husband?”

“Chiefly, there was also some pressure from her mother, however well-intentioned. The main driver, though, was Stephen. He was very eager to be a father. It represented a change of heart for him, since he’d shown little interest in fatherhood for much of their relationship.”

“Why the transformation?”

“Colleen couldn’t say, other than that a child was just something he’d suddenly decided he wanted. We could speculate, I suppose. The ethos in certain corporations requires men to present a set version of themselves, one that includes a stable family life, even if the burden of work, and the pressure to succeed, is destined to undermine that stability. Obviously, that doesn’t apply to female executives, who are most definitely not encouraged to become pregnant and start families, but that’s an argument for another day. And there’s the simple biological imperative: Stephen might have wanted to pass on his genes, to leave something of himself in the world after he was gone. The truth, of course, may come down to some combination of the above, allied to motives of which we have no knowledge due to Stephen’s reluctance to reveal himself, even to his wife.”

I looked at my notes. I’d circled the names of Mara Teller and Stephen Clark before enfolding them in a larger oval. I felt the urge to check my phone in case Maralou Burnham had gotten back to me with news about the money order used by Teller to pay for her attendance at the forum. If she hadn’t, I’d nudge.

I asked Blaise Veilleux if there was anything else she could think of that might be of assistance, but she skirted the question in order to return to the subject of her testimony. She wanted to be sure she’d have the opportunity to give evidence, and that zealot’s gleam returned to her eyes. I phrased the next inquiry carefully, even disingenuously.

“It means a lot that you’re so open to taking the stand,” I said. “What you have to say could be important.”