The doorbell rings, and I jump up from the couch, hurriedly wiping my eyes. Patrick, maybe back with coffee, or bagels. If he makes the choice to return, I'm absolved of blame. Even if it was what I was wishing for all along.
But when I open the door, Caleb is standing on the porch, with Nathaniel in front of him. My son's smile is brighter than the dazzle of snow on the driveway, and for one panicked moment I peer over Caleb's shoulder to see whether the tracks made by Patrick's police cruiser have been covered over by the storm. Can you smell transgression, like a perfume deep in the skin? "Mommy!" Nathaniel shouts.
I lift him high, revel in the straight weight of him. My heart beats like a hummingbird in my throat.
"Caleb."
He will not look at me. "I'm not staying."
This is a mercy visit, then. In minutes, Nathaniel will be gone. I hug him closer.
"Merry Christmas, Nina," Caleb says. "I'll pick him up tomorrow." He nods at me, then walks off the porch. Nathaniel chatters, his excitement wrapping us
tighter as the truck pulls away. I study the footprints Caleb has left in the snowy driveway as if they are clues, the unlikely proof of a ghost that comes
and goes.
III
Our virtues are most frequently but vices disguised.
-Frangois, Due de La Rochefoucauld
Today in school Miss Lydia gave us a special snack.
First, we had a piece of lettuce with a raisin on it. This was an egg.
Then we had a string cheese caterpillar.
Next came a chrysalis, a grape.
The last part was a piece of cinnamon bread, cookie-cuttered into the body of a butterfly.
After, we went outside and set free the monarchs that had been born in our classroom. One landed on my wrist. It looked different now, but I just knew this was the same caterpillar I found a week before and gave to Miss Lydia. Then it flew into the sun.
Sometimes things change so fast it makes my throat hurt from the inside out.
SEVEN
When I was four I found a caterpillar on my bedroom windowsill and decided to save its life. I made my mother take me to the library so that I could look it up in a Field guide. I punched pinholes in the top of a jar; I gave it grass and leaves and a tiny thimbleful of water. My mother said that if I didn't let the caterpillar go, it would die, but I was convinced I knew better. Out in the world, it could be run over by a truck. It could be scorched by the sun. My protection would stack the odds.
I changed its food and water religiously. I sang to it when the sun went down. And on the third day, in spite of my best intentions, that caterpillar died.
Years later, it is happening all over again.
"No," I tell Fisher. We have stopped walking; the cold January air is a cobra charmed up the folds of my coat. I thrust the paper back at him, as if holding my son's name out of sight might keep it from being on the witness list at all.
"Nina, it's not your decision," he says gently. "Nathaniel's going to have to testify."
"Quentin Brown's just doing this to get to me. He wants me to watch Nathaniel have a relapse in court so maybe I'll snap again, this time in front of a judge and a. jury." Tears freeze on the tips of my eyelashes. I want it over, now. It was why I had murdered a man-because I thought that would stop this boulder from rolling on and on; because if the defendant was gone then my son would not have to sit on a witness stand and recount the worst thing that had ever happened to him. I wanted Nathaniel to be able to close this godawful chapter-and so, ironically, I didn't.
But even this great sacrifice-of the priest's life, of my own future- has not done what it was supposed to.
Nathaniel and Caleb have kept their distance since Christmas, but every few days Caleb brings him to the house to spend a few hours with me. I don't know how Caleb has explained our living arrangements to Nathaniel. Maybe he says I am too sick to take care of a child, or too sad; and maybe either of these are true. One thing is certain-it is not in Nathaniel's best interests to watch me plan for my own punishment. There is already too much he's witnessed.
I know the name of the motel where they are staying, and sometimes, when I feel particularly courageous, I call. But Caleb always answers the phone, and either we have nothing to say to each other, or there are so many words clogging the wires between us that none of them fall forward.
Nathaniel, though, is doing well. When he comes to the house, he is smiling. He sings songs for me that Miss Lydia has taught the class. He no longer jumps when you come up behind him and touch his shoulder.
