Denial

The Last Chapter

That is the story I told Ann Horowitz. Not exactly in those words, but essentially that was it.

It took us through lunch. She called and had a pizza delivered, half double onion for me, half spinach for her. During my telling she had to use my phone to reschedule three appointments.

She assured me that none of the appointments was within years of approaching emergency status.

“You have forty dollars?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“We’ve been here four sessions,” she said. “I won’t charge you for a house call.”

“I didn’t call you and this isn’t a house,” I said.

“Sarcasm?”

“No,” I said.

“I was hoping for sarcasm. You are a tough case, Lewis. Are you sure you aren’t Catholic?”

“I’m sure.”

“You think it would work out if Georgia Cubbins moved into Seaside and shared a room with Dorothy Cgnozic?”

“No,” I said.

“How about if Jane Welles moved in with Adele and Flo?”

“No,” I said.

“Do you think either of those suggestions was serious?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“You’re too smart.”

“Thank you,” she said. “It’s getting late. I still have to get back to the apartment, put on my bathing suit and do my twenty laps. If I miss my laps I get grumpy. Have you ever seen me grumpy?”

“No.”

“I’ll have to let you see that side of me sometime,” she said.

“I’ll look forward to it.”

“So, let’s get to the heart of darkness,” she said.

“Why do you do what you do?”

“Serve papers?”

“Yes, and help people in need find other people they think they need,” she said.

“I serve papers to make enough money to live. I find people because I can’t stop people from finding me.”

“Because they sense in you a person who will empathize, will find, will give them closure?”

“Maybe.”

“You could make money other ways than serving papers, finding people.”

“I’m good at it.”

“Professor Welles could have shot you. Alberta Pastor could have strangled you.”

“I know,” I said. “I’m suicidal, but I don’t want to commit suicide. I want someone to do it for me.”

“Like Welles?”

“No,” I said.

“No,” she said. “Here comes the profound part, the part where I really earn my money. You feel guilty about your wife’s death. You’ve convinced yourself at one level that you deserve to die, but you know you don’t want to die and that makes you feel guilty.”

“This sounds like the end of Psycho, ” I said. “Where the psychiatrist gives a pompous explanation of why Norman Bates isn’t a transvestite.”

“Interesting choice for comparison,” Ann said.

“In the end Norman Bates is sitting alone in his cell, smiling, determined never to speak again,” I said.

“I remember,” she said. “But I’ve got a solution for you, well, at least a possible solution. You are helping other people search because something is keeping you from searching for the person who might give you some relief. Who am I talking about? Who, with your skills, could you be looking for?”

Silence. Silence. Silence. Except for the cars whooshing down 301 beyond my window.

“Lewis, a swimming pool of uncertain temperature beckons.”

“The one who killed my wife,” I said.

“Why didn’t you, with your skills, stay in Chicago and find that person instead of driving more than a thousand miles to hide behind a Dairy Queen?”

“She was gone. Finding who did it wouldn’t bring her back,” I said. “We’ve talked about this.”

“No, Lewis,” she said. “I am old, nearly ancient, but my memory is trained and I take very good notes. If you’ve talked to anyone about it, it is Lewis Fonesca.”

“So?”

“You have clung with great tenacity to your grief,” she said.

“Finding the person who killed my wife…”

“Catherine.”

“Catherine,” I said. “Finding the person who killed Catherine might help me give up my grief?”

“You tell me,” she said.

“I don’t know. Even if I did try, where would I be if I failed?”

“It is a no-lose situation,” she said. “You find the person and that part ends. You fail to find the person and you know that you tried. Your life of quiet desperation will always be waiting for you in these two rooms, at least until they demolish the building.”

Ann got up. I opened my wallet and handed her two twenty-dollar bills, which she tucked into the outer pocket of her briefcase.

There was a knock at the door. Ann looked at me. I nodded my head yes to let her know it was all right to answer it.

Sally was standing there.

“Lew,” she said. “Thought you’d like to know that Jane Welles is going with her aunt to Reno tomorrow.”

Ann touched Sally’s shoulder and left the office. Sally stood in the doorway waiting.

“How would you like to go to Flo’s for a barbecue dinner tonight? The kids, Adele, Ames?”

“No,” I said.

“Good,” said Sally. “Because there is no dinner. What there is, is a pair of tickets to a movie at Burns Court. You can’t say no. I already bought the tickets.”

“I don’t go out to movies,” I said.

“You were going to take Darrell.”

“I would have found a way out.”

“Life is full of new and crazy adventures, Lewis,” she said. “Look, I just got off of a fourteen-hour day. My feet hurt. I can’t stop seeing the face of a ten-year-old girl I think is being abused by her stepfather and I need a movie. Help me out here. Don’t make me work for it.”

“Let’s go see a movie,” I said.

“Good. You were a real hit with Darrell.”

Sally smiled as I folded the empty pizza box and shoved it in the wastebasket. I tried to smile back.

“Made a decision,” I said.

“Tell me about it on the way,” she said. “The movie starts in fifteen minutes.”

“It’ll just take a few seconds,” I said. “I’m going to find the person who killed my wife.”

“Which means you’re not going to lock yourself in your office in the morning?”

“No,” I said. “I’m not going to lock myself in my office. No.”