“Probably not.” Now he was sure he didn’t want to have this conversation.
“Now, that might be the most unenlightened comment I have heard in a long time,” Dorothy said derisively.
“Thank you for the compliment,” Jack said. “But you and I have already had this conversation about the MMR vaccine and its totally debunked association with autism.”
“Not according to Dr. Cross, I’ll have you know,” Dorothy asserted. “He thinks there’s a definite association and did not have his kids vaccinated. You just don’t want to face facts and accept responsibility.”
“Is this Dr. Cross a medical specialist of some sort?” Jack asked. He couldn’t believe that a doctor could still be laboring under such a misconception, considering all the information that had been in the medical journals about the issue.
“Of course he’s a specialist,” Dorothy said. “He trained here at Columbia in psychiatry, and psychiatrists are well versed in the issue of autism.”
“Well, apparently not this psychiatrist. Clearly, he’s a businessman rather than a doctor, and I hope, for his investors’ sake, he is a better businessman than doctor. If he’s still laboring under the misconception about vaccines causing autism, I’d have to say that he’s a miserable doctor.”
“How dare you say such a thing,” Dorothy sputtered.
“Hello, everyone,” Laurie called out as she came up the stairs. “Hi, Mom! Hi, Jack! Hi, Caitlin!” She went directly over to the playpen and said hello to the children. For the moment they both ignored her as JJ arranged the beanbag animals into a small pyramid.
“JJ, I’m so proud of you for playing with your sister,” Laurie said. She watched as Emma rearranged the animals back to her liking. “Was this your idea all by yourself?”
“No, Grandma made me,” JJ admitted. “She said I couldn’t watch cartoons unless I agreed to play with Emma.”
“Well, I’m glad you listened,” Laurie said with a laugh. She tousled JJ’s blond hair, briefly rubbed Emma’s back, then turned her attention to her mother and Jack, who were staring darts at each other.
“Jack, dear. Could I have a word with you?” Laurie said with a forced smile.
Jack stood up, and without answering followed Laurie down the hall and into their shared study. It had two big windows facing 106th Street. He glanced out and saw that the crowd had significantly increased on the basketball court.
Turning back into the room, Jack could tell Laurie’s demeanor had changed from her initial apparent cheerfulness. She was now livid. “How dare you be disrespectful to my mother in our house. After the day that I’ve had, I have to come home to behavior like this? I truly don’t understand. What do you gain by baiting her like you were doing when I came up the stairs? Hermann Cross is one of my parents’ oldest and dearest friends.”
“I think you misread who was baiting whom,” Jack snapped back.
“Enough!” Laurie threw her hands up in the air in exasperation. “She’s an eighty-three-year-old woman struggling to cope with her only granddaughter recently being diagnosed with autism. What do you expect?”
“I expect peace in my own house. I might not be eighty-three, but I’m struggling myself and she is not helping.”
“Oh, give me strength!” Laurie said, raising her eyes skyward.
“Your mother is out of control,” Jack said. “And I am not the only one who thinks this. Caitlin is fit to be tied as well. She even told me that she’s thinking of leaving. I don’t need to tell you where we would be if that were to happen.”
“She’s never said anything to me,” Laurie said.
“Of course not,” Jack said. “She’s afraid to say anything.”
“I’ll talk with her,” Laurie said.
“It would be better if you talked with your mother. Even if she is having trouble adjusting to what’s going on, she shouldn’t be camped out here indefinitely like this. To be truthful, she’s also driving me crazy. If she tells me again that there is no autism in the Montgomery genealogy, meaning of course it must have come from the Stapleton side, I’m going to scream.”
“I can’t ask her to leave,” Laurie said. “I just can’t do it. You know I’ve had difficulty dealing with my parents for what seems like my entire life.”
Jack was well aware. The problem originated from a Montgomery family tragedy. Laurie’s brother, who Laurie worshiped, had confided in her that he was experimenting with speedball when she was at the impressionable age of thirteen and he a freshman at Yale. By accident over Thanksgiving break, Laurie had found a syringe in his Dopp kit that he’d pilfered from his father’s medical bag. As a condition of revealing his secret, which he described as a passing fad, he’d forced her to promise not to tell their parents. To get her to agree, he threatened never to talk to her again if she told. Four weeks later, during Christmas vacation, he’d accidentally overdosed and their parents found out that Laurie knew he had been using. In their intense grief over losing their beloved firstborn, they blamed Laurie totally for his death without taking into consideration the emotional toll on her psyche. From that moment on Laurie had had trouble standing up to her parents, as doing so always awakened the pain of losing her brother and the sense of responsibility that came with it.
“I understand your problem,” Jack said. “But we have a conundrum here. At this point, if Caitlin were to leave, I truly don’t know what we would do.”
“God!” Laurie ran her fingers through her hair. “I don’t need this added stress right now.”
“If you want me to tell Dorothy to go, I can do it,” Jack said. “I’ll be my normal diplomatic self.”
“No, I don’t want that,” Laurie said. “All right, I’ll give the idea of making a suggestion to her some serious thought.”
