A Map of the World - Jane Hamilton [189]
“If the child then sees the parents in conjugal relations,” he was saying, “he can well feel betrayed by them. He sees the adults keeping the relationship, an obviously special, deep relationship, of the body, away from the child, in fact denying it to him. The child will undoubtedly experience alarm and confusion, but as I said before, the trauma is dependent on what he witnesses, how much, how long, and so forth and so on.”
“Is it possible, Dr. Bailey,” Rafferty said, walking along the jury box and tapping it with his pen, as if he meant to wake them up, “is it possible that when a child sees his parents having sex he may feel betrayed?”
“I believe I just said so, yes.”
“What would you say are typical reactions to betrayal: If a person feels that he has been betrayed how might he act, in general?”
“Well, I’d say that typical responses might include anger, despair, perhaps vengeful feelings.”
“And could that feeling of betrayal in a child make him exhibit some of the symptoms of PTSS that we’ve been talking about?”
“Hypothetically, yes.”
“Did you ask Robbie if he’d witnessed the primal scene?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“And yet you just said that a child who sees the sex act may exhibit some of the symptoms of PTSS, did you not?”
“We are speaking hypothetically.”
“So you did not think it necessary to ask a child who has sexual knowledge and symptoms of PTSS if he had witnessed the primal scene?”
“Not in this case, no.”
“And from your description of the primal scene am I correct that this is usually presumed to be the sexual act between the child’s parents?”
“That’s the presumption.”
“Now, Doctor, if that child were to witness the primal scene, but let us imagine that the sexual act was a violent one, involving bondage, or whipping, would it be fair to say that this could cause an even more severe reaction?”
“Yes, that’s fair.”
“And suppose further, if you would, that this scene is not only violent, but is between the child’s mother and a veritable stranger—not rape, but a man who does not know or care to know anything about his paramour’s child. Couldn’t that result in even more pronounced symptoms of PTSS?”
“Undoubtedly.”
“You stated in your report that Robbie’s nightmares, his acting out, his regressive behavior were pronounced symptoms of PTSS, did you not?”
“If it’s in the report, then I did.”
“You stated in your report and in your testimony that Robbie had pronounced symptoms of PTSS.”
“Yes—as a result of—”
“That will be all my questions, your honor.”
The last person to testify for the prosecution was Officer Melby. He was put at the end so that the jury would be left with my own words, my admission, the “I hurt everybody” line. It began to snow while he described my conduct at the school-board meeting. Susan Dirks asked him several different questions about my admission, so that he kept repeating the incriminating sentence. I watched the flakes come sifting down past the windows. It was going to be Christmas soon. Dan and Theresa had only had two Christmases with Lizzy. There would be milestones every year: the day of the drowning, the day of her death, Christmas, Easter, her birthday. The years couldn’t ever simply go forward because of the cycle that would keep them anchored in the past: the day of the drowning, the day of her death, Christmas, Easter, her birthday. I didn’t dare think about Christmas, about where I might be. I had thought that I should buy a few things in case I wasn’t with the family, so that Howard wouldn’t have to brave the mall. If I’d been fanciful, I might have felt Lizzy’s presence because of the snow; I might have thought it was her way of being with us, assuring us with the soft, white cover.
I couldn’t listen anymore and Howard had to tell me on the way home that he thought Rafferty had sufficiently clouded Melby’s case. Howard didn’t sound entirely convincing. He said that Rafferty had forced the officer to admit that he hadn’t investigated any other explanations or any other possible suspects. Rafferty had moved for a directed verdict at the end of Dirks’s case for some