The Night Strangers - Chris Bohjalian [129]
Well, Dr. Valerian Wainscott was in all likelihood a member, too.
And now she wanted to commit Chip Linton—or, to be precise, recommend to Chip that he commit himself. And while that notion alone had infuriated Michael, he had to admit that he was also annoyed with her presumption that she was better trained than he was to care for “a middle-aged male cutter” like Chip Linton.
“You make it sound like that’s a type,” he had told her, incapable of hiding his incredulity.
“It’s uncommon, but not unseen,” she had replied, her voice downright chipper. “I see men like the pilot at the hospital periodically.”
“You do?”
“Absolutely,” she had assured him.
“Well, he does not need to be committed.”
“Is he getting better with you?”
“He’s making progress.”
“No,” she’d said, her voice pert, “I just don’t see it. And are you really that confident that he won’t kill himself? Tell me: Could you live with yourself if he did?”
“I simply do not believe hospitalization is in his best interests,” he had told her. “I will argue against it. I will tell Emily that her second opinion is a wrong opinion.”
Valerian had smiled and raised her eyebrows and shrugged. He’d decided she was absolutely beautiful and absolutely insane. He’d decided she was completely unqualified to do what she did for a living. And he’d decided he would tell Emily and Chip to give this Valerian Wainscott as wide a berth as they could. They should have nothing to do with her and—if they ever met any others—they should avoid those Bethel women who spent way too much time in their greenhouses.
“I’ll bet your father has finished hanging the wallpaper in the dining room,” Emily told the girls, handing Hallie a half gallon of milk and Garnet a brown paper grocery bag. On the way home from dance class, they had stopped at the supermarket and done the food shopping for the next few days. “I really won’t miss those sunflowers,” she added, trying to sound cheerful. She was looking forward to seeing the room brightened by the new wallpaper patterned with roses, but mostly she was preoccupied with Valerian’s belief that her husband should be institutionalized. She wasn’t sure if she had stopped thinking about it for more than a few minutes since Valerian had rendered her opinion. She wanted to meet with Michael Richmond to see what he thought, and didn’t want to broach the subject with Chip until she knew more.
“Me, either,” Hallie said, leading the way into the house even though she was burdened with the milk, her dance bag, and her school backpack. “They were creepy.”
Emily called out to her husband that they were home, a grocery bag in each arm, figuring in her mind that she had two more trips. “Chip?” she called again when he didn’t respond. She thought she needn’t necessarily worry that he hadn’t answered, but she did.
The three of them went straight to the kitchen, put the bags down on the counter, and then Emily followed the twins as they peered into the dining room. But instead of hearing the girls either coo over the new wallpaper or remark on the reality that there was still a whole section of the west wall with those gloomy, dispiriting sunflowers, she heard Garnet calling out the cat’s name quizzically. “Dessy?” Garnet was saying, her voice not much more than a murmur. “Dessy?” But then the voice grew to one long, loud shriek, and Hallie was wailing the animal’s name, too. There was the family cat on the floor by the credenza—half on the Oriental rug and half on the hardwood planks—her eyes wide open and her tongue protruding like a small pink stone from her mouth. There seemed to