Disintegration

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

As Renee drove Jacob to Dr. Rheinsfeldt's office, she looked over at the passenger seat and admired her handiwork. He'd moved into her apartment, cleaned up, and bought a couple of new suits. It was off-the-rack, Belk's stuff, but it would have to do until the money began rolling again. And it would. A shave and a splash of cologne, three weeks of sobriety to get the bugs off his skin, and he was ready to climb back onto the throne. Kingsboro was waiting for him to stand up and be a Wells, to take the town's future in his hands and push it into a prosperous new era.

Attitude was the important thing. They had mourned enough. The SBI had turned in the final incident report, and the fire had been ruled "Cause undetermined." Not quite as good as a ruling of "accidental," which would mean that a definitive source of the fire had been found. As it was, the open-ended ruling left a cloud of suspicion lingering, but the insurance company was now compelled to pay. Two million dollars, minus the $20,000 that Renee had received for emergency housing and living expenses.

Now they were bound together, joined for the future, and Jacob wouldn't be able to shake her. He had accepted the new arrangement with sullen resentment, but she had explained that no other options remained. A husband and wife didn't keep secrets from each other, and now they had to close ranks. They could deal with the rest of it after they squared the books of M amp; W Ventures and shut up Donald Meekins. They'd already signed the necessary forms, and Rayburn Jones had treated them like old friends, pleased to see Jacob back in Rotarian form. Jacob seemed to sit a little straighter, his eyes brighter and wider, confidence returning.

They'd not talked about Joshua. Renee hoped he'd given up and left town.

"This is important," Renee said, pulling into the parking lot of Total Wellness. "I know we each have to deal with grief in our own way, but the community will forgive you faster if you seek help. And don't forget to act humble."

"Humble," Jacob said. "I can manage that."

"We don't even have to talk about the girls if you don't want to."

"Whatever the doctor thinks is best."

Summer was giving way to autumn, the grass taking on a blue-green shade and the oaks on the lawn in full red canopy. The sky was blue and the clouds high and white, and the sadness had faded enough that Renee could once again believe that God watched over them all.

She saw Rheinsfeldt at the second-floor window, looking down on them as they came up the sidewalk. Renee started to wave then wondered if that was a breach of etiquette. Maybe therapists didn't acknowledge their clients outside the confines of the confessional chamber. Jacob didn't notice the doctor, his gaze fixed on a hill in the distance where grading machines were at work notching a red gash in the slope.

"That's Wade Thompson's crew," Jacob said. "We had an option on that land before all this recent trouble. I think he's aiming for student apartments. I would have gone for condominiums myself. Fewer headaches and a quicker return."

He was sounding like the Jake of old, the one with plans and ambition. The man she had helped build, and the only version of him she was able to love. She had no use for the broken Jake who drank cheap liquor in the bushes and cowered at the mention of his brother. This reborn Jake had a bounce in his step and his complexion had gone to a healthy blush, the mottled and burned skin almost completely healed.

"Be patient, honey," she said. "We're going to get it all back. A Wells never fails."

"And two Wells are better than one."

The receptionist recognized Jacob. "Good morning, Mr. Wells," the receptionist said, smiling in a way that would have made Renee jealous had she not been so pleased that another woman found her husband worthy of charm. "Please sign here."

As he signed them in, Renee interrupted him. "Jake?"

"Yes?" He looked down and saw he'd been writing with his left hand. "Oh."

He switched to his right and finished his signature. They barely had time to pick up magazines, Home Design for him and Entertainment Weekly for her, before they were summoned down the hall to Dr. Rheinsfeldt's office.

"So," the doctor said, taking the couch this time. The room smelled of potpourri and long-burnt incense. The furniture had been rearranged, and Renee wondered if a chair had been taken out especially for their visit. With only one chair in the room, besides the small chair at the computer desk, one of them would be forced to sit beside the doctor. Divide and conquer, maybe that was the doctor's strategy.

That was fine with Renee. This outcome was already determined, so Dr. Rheinsfeldt could use whatever technique she desired. "We've decided to start over," she said.

"That's good," the doctor said, pursing her Prussian mouth in a manner that suggested she was displeased. "Willingness is half the battle."

Jacob sat beside the doctor. "I realized I was blaming myself for what happened," he said. "And then I blamed my wife."

"You realize there's no blame here," Rheinsfeldt said. "Just a tragic accident."

Renee and Jacob exchanged looks. The doctor went on, oblivious of their feelings. "When we suffer a loss, we each must design our own grieving process. Some people cry their eyes out all the way up to the funeral, then calm down and never seem to be bothered again. Others show no emotion and go around cold and dead on the inside for months or even years. It's not uncommon to slip into clinical depression"-she looked at Jacob over the top of her glasses frame-"especially if substance abuse is involved. And with your history, Jacob-"

"I'm done with all that." Jacob tugged at his tie, centering the knot under his throat. "I owe it to Mattie and Christine to keep living."

"The other thing," Renee said, "is he's coming to grips with his past."

Rheinsfeldt ignored her, focusing on Jacob. "From your records, that seems to be the origin of your trauma."

"I think Jacob and his twin brother were competing for their father's affection, and Jacob always felt he never shined as brightly as his brother," Renee said. "At least in his father's eyes."

"I'm aware of Warren Wells," Rheinsfeldt said. "He was a consummate overachiever, apparently. And your twin brother?"

"It doesn't matter now," Jacob said.

"I sense anger," Rheinsfeldt said.

"I have a right to be angry. Joshua played mean tricks on me all during our childhood. Even though we were physically identical, he was somehow stronger and more willful than I was. He always had the best-looking girlfriends, the star positions on the sports teams, the best grades. Even when I did his homework for him."

"So you felt inferior to him?"

"At first. Then, when I decided that I was going away as soon as I was old enough to live on my own, it didn't bother me anymore. Mom died and everything changed."

"You felt abandoned?"

"No. I felt relieved. Dad was just distant and reproachful. Mom actively despised us."

"Were you… physically abused?"

"No." Jacob's eyes fixed on the floor. "That would be too simple."

"Jacob's never been violent with me," Renee said. "He wouldn't spank Mattie. I always had to be the disciplinarian."

"Does that cause you resentment?" Dr. Rheinsfeldt asked her.

"Maybe, but let's focus on Jacob," Renee said. "I think he needs it more than I do right now."

"Tell me more about Joshua," the doctor asked Jacob.

"I went away to college, determined that I was never coming back here. I even toyed with the idea of changing my name. I just wanted to forget that I was a Wells, especially after Dad put all this pressure on us to follow in his footsteps."

"How did he do that? You said he was aloof."

"He had his ways. He was a slave master, a plantation owner born in the wrong time. He was a conqueror, not a father. With him, it was all about winning."

"And Joshua pleased him more than you did? Or, you at least perceived it that way?"

"Joshua had a way of… I don't know, dodging responsibility, shifting blame. If a lamp was broken, it was always my fault. If the newspaper was rumpled, I'd be the one who had no respect for the property of others. A bad report card, and I'd be the one not performing up to my abilities, even if my grades were better than Joshua's."

Renee leaned forward and touched Jacob's knee, encouraging him to continue. He was exposing his inner workings, the ones he'd always hidden from her. He was serious about wanting to start over. And getting the story straight was important.

"I started getting headaches, mostly when I was around Joshua," he said. "We'd always shared the same room, though we lived in a big house. I think it made Mom happy. She liked the idea that her sons were close. Gave her a feeling that she had done a good job of raising us."

"Did she?"

Jacob looked at the window, not seeing the curtains or the sliver of outside world between them. "Who knows? I suppose you judge your parents by how your own life turns out."

"Do you blame your mother for leaving you?"

"I'm not angry with my mother," Jacob said. "I guess I was angry at Dad. That's why I tried so hard to get away. If it wasn't for Renee-"

The sorrow slipped out of his eyes, replaced by a glint of determination. He would do it for her and their future together. Maybe one day they could start a new family. She loved him.

"She's the one who turned me around, cleaned me up, made me take some pride in myself," Jacob said. "It sounds strange, but she made me understand what it means to be a Wells."

"Do you think you turned Renee into a mother figure?"

"I don't think so," Jacob said. "Renee is different from my mother in most ways."

"Except the cleanliness," Renee cut in again. "You always said we were both neat freaks."

"But that wasn't what attracted me to you," Jacob said, talking to her now as if the doctor wasn't in the room. "It was your atmosphere, the way you carried yourself. Like you knew what you were about."

"And, being a bit scattered yourself, you saw a chance to impose some order on your life," the doctor said.

"Maybe," Jacob said. "That, and the conversation."

"Sex," Renee said. The sex hadn't been great at first. Jacob had been tentative, restrained, as if carrying a burden of guilt. It had taken months before he really opened up and became considerate and expressive. It had started with the night he'd come home drunk and taken her forcefully, with an animal passion that receded into such deep tenderness that she had wept during her final round of orgasms. The night that Mattie had been conceived.

"I was trying to come off as a gentleman."

"Remember that we only have one rule in this room," the doctor said. "Absolute honesty at all times."

Renee nodded at him. Jacob had never been a good liar. Despite his success at business, despite the long Wells tradition of deception, despite his hatred of his parents and twin brother, Jacob's blood had never turned cold enough to qualify him as a sociopath. She knew him better than he knew himself. She gave him a smile of support.

"Let's go back to your adolescent fugue states," Rheinsfeldt said. "What happened during them?"

"I would experience periods of forgetfulness. Most of the time they would only last a minute or two. Like I'd be in school, listening to the teacher start a math problem, then all of a sudden I'd hear the bell ring and all the kids would be getting out of their seats to change classes. The chalkboard would be full and I'd look down at my paper and see all these notes to myself. Notes that had nothing to do with the class work."

"Notes?"

"To my brother, mostly. We used to play a game called 'Wish Me.' Just a silly game where you wish something impossible. Except Joshua always made it scary."

"Scary?"

"In our room at night. He'd hide under my bed and be the Sock Monster. Put a sock over his hand and sneak up and pinch me. I'd say, 'Wish me away from the Sock Monster.' But he'd say, 'Wishes don't come true for rotten little boys.' And he'd twist my ears or snatch my toes or claw my face."

"No wonder you harbor anger toward him," Rheinsfeldt said, tapping the unlit cigarette on the rim of the ashtray. Renee was sure the doctor would be delighted to have the twins in the same room. Though she'd never met Joshua, Renee couldn't help loathing him after all the pain he'd caused her husband. And, of course, he might be dangerous in other ways. He was a rival.

"I covered up for him," Jacob said. "He was the black sheep, always getting in trouble, messing around with girls, disobeying Dad."

"And you were the responsible one?"

"Not always. But"-he looked at Renee, eyes unreadable-"he made me pretend to be him sometimes."

The doctor straightened. "During your dissociative disorder?"

"Nothing serious," Jacob said. "He'd skip a class and make me cover for him. So I would be the one who was marked absent. He had a Saturday job as a carpenter's helper, and if he had a date with a girl, I'd have to fill in. And the carpenters would get mad at me because I didn't know how to do the work. We were so identical that no one ever caught on. Except Josh is left-handed, so I had to learn to be ambidextrous."

"Did you ever pretend to be Joshua at home? Did you try to fool your parents?"

"Dad could always tell us apart. Like I said, Joshua always was his favorite, the one he finally decided would carry on the family tradition. I was the afterthought, even though I was born first. Mom seemed to ignore both of us equally. I don't think she cared enough to learn our individual mannerisms."

"After you left home, how did you feel?"

"Liberated. Like I could finally breathe for the first time in my life."

"And your fugue states?"

"I didn't have any after that. But there was one I still worry about."

"Really. Please tell us."

The room's cloying sweetness gave Renee a headache. Jacob had kept so much from her. She glanced at him, at his eyes that would always remind her of Mattie's. She studied his features more closely but saw nothing of Christine there. Christine had been hers, if only for two months.

"Joshua used to torture the guinea hens," Jacob said. "Dad kept them around so he could pretend to be the gentleman farmer, but we never collected their eggs. They mostly just ran wild around the woods. Joshua would corner them in the barn and shove things inside them-cigarette butts, pieces of corn, pencil erasers. He always made me watch."

"How could he force you? What sort of power did he hold over you?"

Jacob shrugged. "He was a Wells."

"Did your brother ever have counseling?"

"No, but I did. Because of the blanking out. They even ran brain scans. Dad thought it was for something else. Adjustment problems, or whatever the guidance counselor at school called it. Like he'd ever notice a difference."

"Ah," Rheinsfeldt said, with a knowing smile, confident her profession had successfully addressed Jacob's earlier problems. "So which fugue bothered you?"

"The one where I came awake in the barn. Joshua was standing there holding a bloody hatchet. There were six hens scattered around the floor of the barn. Joshua said I'd gone crazy and chopped their heads off. My hands were coated with blood. One of the hens wasn't dead yet, and it scratched its way across the dirty hay, one wing drooping to the ground. Its head lay at my feet, the eyes blinking at me as I watched the light fade out of them. And I can't understand why I'd ever do such a thing." Jacob looked at his hands as if the chicken blood was still slick on his fingers.

"Repressed memory," the doctor said. "People often block out traumatic events. It's the brain's way of protecting itself. Protecting us from ourselves, one might say."

"Anyway, once I got away from Dad and Joshua, everything was wonderful. I met Renee and she allowed me to be myself. I know it sounds corny, but once I got some distance, I began to miss Kingsboro."

"Did your father approve of Renee?"

"Once he figured out she would set me on the path to success. His idea of success. Real estate development, civic pride, big shot dreams, and money. Lots of money."

"Yet you don't resent your wife? After all, it sounds like she had the same kind of power over you that Joshua had, and your father had, only she used it in a more constructive manner."

Renee didn't like the doctor's shrewd lick of the lips. Her power over Jacob was unreliable. Love could only work so much magic. After that, all she had was words.

And the threat of secrets.

But Jacob didn't follow the doctor down that path of reasoning. "I would be nothing without Renee. After Christine-after that first tragedy-we really pulled together. We decided to dedicate the rest of our lives to making Mattie happy. Like maybe if we loved her twice as much, somehow Christine's short life wouldn't have been completely wasted."

Renee pulled a tissue from the box on the table. She was glad it was unscented, though some of the room's smell had settled into the fibers. She wiped her eyes and nose, determined not to break down. This was for Jake. She didn't need to add drama.

"And after Mattie died?" the doctor said, visibly taking measure of the dampness in Jacob's eyes. "After our session?"

"I lost it," Jacob said. "The drinking, avoiding Renee, shirking my business responsibilities. Pretty much everything I worked for and believed in was gone."

"And you were angry?"

"Damned right."

"And you needed someone to blame?"

"Sure."

"He blamed me," Renee said. "And it was partly my fault. If I had gone to Mattie's room with him, maybe together we could have saved her."

"No," Jacob said. "We have to move past that. It was just an awful, terrible accident. I'm sorry."

She wanted to trust him, wanted to believe he was back to his regular self. The Jacob he'd promised to be, the one who would remake Kingsboro in his image. But she had to know where his loyalty really lay, and who had the most power over him.

"Joshua's back in town," she said to Rheinsfeldt. "And I'm afraid Jacob's fugue states are coming back, too."

Rheinsfeldt's mouth opened in either surprise or pleasure. She stood on her thick legs and crossed to the telephone, pressed a button and spoke toward it. "Judy, cancel my next appointment. Thank you."

Then the doctor returned to the couch, plucked the unlit cigarette, and puffed on it as if frustrated by the lack of smoke. She faced Renee. "Tell us all about it."