We'll Meet Again

42

This isn’t happening! Molly told herself. It’s a bad dream. No, not a bad dream. It’s a bad nightmare! Is there such a thing, she wondered, or is “bad nightmare” like saying “to reiterate again”?

Since that morning her mind had been a muddle of conflicting thoughts and half-remembered moments. Trying to concentrate on the question of grammatical redundancy seemed as practical an exercise as any she could imagine. As she considered the question of a “bad nightmare,” she sat on the couch in the study, her back propped against the arm, her knees drawn up, her hands clasped around them, her chin resting on her hands.

Almost a fetal position, she thought. Here I am, huddled like this in my own home, while total strangers tear apart and examine everything in it. Her mind flashed to how she and Jen used to joke and say “Assume the fetal position” whenever something was just too overwhelming.

But that had been a long time ago, back when a broken fingernail or a lost tennis match was a big deal. Suddenly “overwhelming” had taken on a whole new meaning.

They told me to wait in here, she thought. I thought that once I was freed from prison, I’d never have to take orders about where I could come and go, never again. One week ago I was still locked up. But now I’m home. Yet even though this is my home, I can’t make these terrible people go away.

Surely I’ll wake up and it will be over, she told herself, closing her eyes. But of course it didn’t help a bit.

She opened them and looked about her. The police had finished searching this room, had lifted the cushions of the couch and opened all the drawers of the side tables, had run their hands down the window draperies in case something was hidden in the folds.

She realized they were spending a long time in the kitchen, no doubt going through every drawer, every cabinet. She had overheard someone say they should collect any carving knives they found.

She had overheard the older investigator tell the younger officer to seize the outfit and shoes that the waitress had described her as wearing.

Now she could only wait. Wait for the police to leave, and wait for her life to return to normal-whatever that might be.

But I can’t just sit here, Molly thought. I have to get out of here. Where can I go that people won’t point fingers at me, won’t whisper about me, and where the media will leave me alone?

Dr. Daniels. I need to talk to him, Molly decided. He’ll help me.

It was five o’clock. Would he still be in his office? she wondered. Funny, I still remember his number, she thought. Even though it’s been nearly six years.

When the phone rang, Ruthie Roitenberg was just locking her desk, and Dr. Daniels was reaching into the closet for his coat. They looked at each other.

“Do you want to let the service pick it up?” Ruthie asked. “As of now, Dr. MacLean is on call.”

John Daniels was tired. He’d had a difficult session with one of his most troubled patients and felt every day of his seventy-five years. He was looking forward to getting home, thanking heaven that the dinner party he and his wife had planned to attend had been canceled.

Some instinct, however, told him he should take the call. “At least find out who it is, Ruthie,” he said.

He saw the shock in Ruthie’s eyes when she looked up at him and mouthed, “Molly Lasch.” For a moment, he seemed unsure as to what to do and stood with his coat still in his hand as Ruthie said, “I’m afraid the doctor may already be gone, Mrs. Lasch. He just went out to the elevator. I’ll see if I can catch him.”

Molly Lasch. Daniels paused for a moment, then walked to the desk and took the phone from Ruthie. “I heard about Annamarie Scalli, Molly. How can I help you?”

He listened, and thirty minutes later Molly was in his office.

“I’m sorry to have taken so long getting here, Doctor. I went to get my car, but the police wouldn’t let me take it. I had to call a taxi.”

Molly’s tone was one of bewilderment, as if she herself didn’t believe what she was saying. Her eyes made Daniels think of the cliché of the deer caught in the headlights, although she was clearly more than merely startled. No, she seemed almost haunted. He realized immediately that she was in danger of slipping into the same lethargic state that had come over her after Gary Lasch’s death.

“Why don’t you rest on the couch while we talk, Molly,” he suggested. She was seated in the chair opposite his desk. When she did not respond, he crossed to her and put his hand under her elbow. He could feel the rigidity of her body. “Come on, Molly,” he coaxed as he urged her to stand.

She allowed herself to be guided by him. “I know how late it is. You’re very kind to see me now, Doctor.”

Daniels was reminded of the beautifully mannered little girl he had watched at the club. A golden child, he thought, the perfect product of breeding and quiet wealth. Whoever then would have dreamt that this moment was waiting in her future, suspected of a crime-a second crime-the police searching her home for evidence to use against her. He shook his head ruefully.

For the next hour she tried to explain aloud-for her own benefit as well as his-exactly why she had needed to talk to Annamarie.

“What is it, Molly? Tell me what you’re thinking.”

“It’s that I realize now that when I ran away that week, up to Cape Cod, I went because I was angry. But I wasn’t angry because I’d found out about Annamarie. In truth, Doctor, I wasn’t at all angry because Gary was involved with another woman. I was angry because I had lost my baby and she was still pregnant. I should have had that baby.”

With a sinking heart, John Daniels waited for Molly to continue.

“Doctor, I wanted to see Annamarie because I thought that if I didn’t kill Gary, then maybe she was the one who did. Nobody could prove where she was that night. And I knew she was angry with him; it was obvious from her voice when I overheard her talking to him on the phone.”

“Did you ask her about that when you met her last night?”

“Yes. And I believed her when she said she didn’t kill him. But she told me that Gary was glad I had lost the baby, that he was going to ask for a divorce, and that the baby would have complicated everything.”

“Men often tell the other woman that they’re planning to get a divorce. Much of the time it’s not true.”

“I know that, and maybe he was lying to her. But he wasn’t lying when he told her that he was glad I’d lost my baby.”

“Annamarie told you that?”

“Yes.”

“How did that make you feel?”

“Doctor, that’s what scares me so much. I think that at that moment I hated her with every drop of blood in my body, just for even saying those words.”

With every drop of blood in my body, Daniels thought.

Molly suddenly started talking very rapidly. “You know what went through my mind, Doctor? That line from the Bible, ‘Rachel mourned her lost children and would not be comforted.’ I thought of how I had mourned my baby. I had just felt life stirring in me, and then I lost it. In that moment I became Rachel, and the anger drained away and I was in mourning.”

Molly sighed, and when she continued, all emotion had been drained from her voice. “Doctor, Annamarie left ahead of me. She was gone when I got to the parking lot. My very clear memory is that I came home and went to bed early.”

“ ‘Very clear memory,’ Molly?”

“Doctor, the cops are searching my house. The detectives tried to talk with me this morning. Philip ordered me not to tell anyone, not even Jen, what Annamarie Scalli told me.”

Her voice became agitated again. “Doctor, is it like last time? Have I done something terrible and blotted it out again? If I have, and they can prove it, I’m not going to let them put me back in prison. I’d rather be dead.”

Again, Daniels thought. “Molly, since you’ve been home, have you had any more feelings about someone else being in the house that night Gary died?”

He watched as the tension eased from her body and a measure of hope flickered alive in her eyes. “There was someone in the house that night,” she said. “I’m beginning to be sure of it.”

And I’m beginning to be just as sure that there was no one there, Daniels thought sadly.

A few minutes later, he drove Molly home. The house was dark. She pointed out that there were no cars parked outside, no sign of the police. Daniels would not leave until Molly was safely inside, until she had turned on the foyer lights. “Be sure to take that pill I gave you tonight,” he cautioned. “We’ll talk tomorrow.”

Doctor Daniels waited until he heard the click of the front door lock before he walked slowly back to his car.

He did not believe that she had yet reached the point where she would harm herself. But if evidence was found to justify an indictment against her in Annamarie Scalli’s death, he knew that Molly Lasch might choose another way to escape reality. Not dissociative amnesia this time, but death.

He drove home slowly, sadly, to his very late dinner.