Cross - James Patterson [80]
“Almost always?” asked Jannie.
“Almost always. Think about it, Janelle. You’re smart. She chose me, didn’t she? All the cute boys she could have had, she chose this puss, this dour personality.”
Janelle and Damon smiled; then Damon said, “This is because the one who killed her is back? Why we’re talking about our mother now?”
“That’s part of it, Day. But lately I realized I had unfinished business with her. And with the two of you. That’s why we’re talking, okay?”
Damon and Janelle listened in silence, and I talked for a long while. Eventually, I choked up. I think it was the first time I’d let them see me cry about Maria. “I loved her so much, loved your mother like she was a physical part of me. I still do, I guess. Still do, I know.”
“Because of us?” Damon asked. “It’s partly our fault, isn’t it?”
“What do you mean, sweetheart? I’m not sure that I follow you,” I said to Damon.
“We remind you of her, don’t we? We remind you of Mom every day; every morning when you see us, you remember that she’s not here. Isn’t that right?”
I shook my head. “Maybe there’s some little bit of truth in that. But you remind me in a good way, the best way. Trust me on that. It’s all good.”
They waited for me to talk some more, and they didn’t take their eyes off me, as if I might suddenly run away on them.
“Lots of changes are happening in our lives,” I said. “We have Ali here now. Nana’s getting older. I’m seeing patients again.”
“You like it?” Damon asked. “Being a psychologist?”
“I do. So far.”
“So far. That’s so you, Daddy,” said Jannie.
I snorted out a laugh, but I didn’t go fishing for a compliment about what Jannie had said. Not that I was completely averse to compliments, but there was a time for everything, and this wasn’t it. I remember that when I’d read Bill Clinton’s autobiography, I couldn’t help thinking that when he was confessing to the hurt he’d caused his wife and daughter, he couldn’t seem to resist looking for forgiveness too, and even hugs from the reader. He just couldn’t resist—maybe because his need for love is so great. And maybe that’s where his empathy and compassion come from.
Then I finally did the hardest thing—I told Jannie and Damon what had happened to Maria. I told my children the truth as I knew it. I shared most of the details of Maria’s death, her murder, and I told them that I had seen it happen, been with her when she died, felt her last breath on this earth, heard her last words.
When I was done, when I couldn’t talk anymore, Jannie whispered, “Watch the river, how it flows, Daddy. The river is truth.”
That had been my mantra for the kids when they were little and Maria wasn’t around. I’d walk them by the Anacostia River or the Potomac and make them look at it, the water, and say, “Watch the river . . . the river is truth.”
Or at least as close as we’ll ever get to it.
Chapter 105
I WAS FEELING STRANGELY emotional and vulnerable, and I guess, maybe, alive these days.
It was both a good and a bad thing.
I had breakfast with Nana Mama at around five thirty or so almost every morning. Then I jogged to my office, changed clothes, and started my sessions as early as six thirty.
Kim Stafford was my first patient on Mondays and Thursdays. It was always a hard thing to keep personal feelings out of the sessions, at least for me, or maybe I was just out of practice. On the other hand, some of my colleagues had always struck me as too clinical, too reserved and distant. What was any patient, any human being, supposed to make of that? Oh, it’s okay if I have the affect of a turnip; I’m a therapist.
I needed to do this my way, with warmth at times, with lots of feeling and compassion rather than empathy; I needed to break the rules, to be unorthodox. Like confronting Jason Stemple at his station house and trying to punch that scum’s lights out. That’s what I call professional.
I had a break in my schedule until noon, so I decided to check in with Monnie