"I planned to make it look unplanned," I explain. "Caleb, he hurt Nathaniel. He hurt him. And he was going to get away with it."
"You don't know that-"
"I do. I see it every day. But this time, it was my baby. Our baby. How many years do you think Nathaniel will have nightmares about this? How many years will he be in therapy? Our son is never going to be the way he was. Szyszynski took away a piece of him that we'll never get back. So why shouldn't I have done the same to him?" Do unto others, I think, as you would have them do unto you.
"But Nina. You . . ." He cannot even say it.
"When you found out, when Nathaniel said his name, what was the first thought that ran through your mind?"
Caleb looks into his lap. "I wanted to kill him."
"Yes."
He shakes his head. "Szyszynski was headed to a trial. He would have been punished for what he did."
"Not enough. There is no sentence a judge could pass down that would make up for this and you know it. I did what any parent would want to do. I just have to look crazy to get away with it."
"What makes you think you can?"
"Because I know what it takes to be declared legally insane. I watch these defendants come in and I can tell you right away who's going to get convicted and who's going to walk. I know what you have to say, what you have to do." I look Caleb right in the eye. "I am an attorney. But I shot a man in front of a judge, in front of a whole court. Why would I do that, if I weren't crazy?"
Caleb is quiet for a moment, turning the truth over in his hands. "Why are you telling me this?" he asks softly.
"Because you're my husband. You can't testify against me during my trial. You're the only one I can tell."
"Then why didn't you tell me what you were going to do?"
"Because," I reply, "you would have stopped me."
When Caleb gets up and walks to the window, I follow him. I place my hand gently on his back, in the hollow that seems so vulnerable, even in a man full-grown. "Nathaniel deserves this," I whisper.
Caleb shakes his head. "No one deserves this."
As it turns out, you can function while your heart is being torn to shreds. Blood pumps, breath flows, neurons fire. What goes missing is the affect; a curious flatness to voice and actions that, if noted, speak of a hole so deep inside there's no visible end to it. Caleb stares at this woman who just yesterday was his wife and sees a stranger in her place. He listens to her explanations and wonders when she took up this foreign language, this tongue that makes no sense.
Of course, it is what any parent would want to do to the devil who preys upon a child. But 99-9 percent of those parents don't act on it. Maybe Nina thinks she was avenging Nathaniel, but it was at the reckless expense of her own life. If Szyszynski had gone to jail, they would be patchwork and piecemeal, but they would still be a family. If Nina goes to jail, Caleb loses a wife. Nathaniel loses his mother.
Caleb feels fire pooling like acid in the muscles of his shoulders. He is furious and stunned and maybe a little bit awed. He has traveled every inch of this woman, he understands what makes her cry and what brings her to rapture; he recognizes every cut and curve of her body; but he doesn't know her at all.
Nina stands expectantly beside him, waiting for him to tell her she did the right thing. Funny, that she would flout the law, but still need his approval. For this reason, and all the others, the words she wants to hear from him will not come.
When Nathaniel walks into the room with the dining room tablecloth wrapped around his shoulders, Caleb latches onto him. In this storm of strangeness, Nathaniel is the one thing he can recognize.
"Hey!" Caleb cries with too much enthusiasm, and he tosses the boy into the air. "That's some cape!"
Nina turns too, a smile placed on her face where the earnestness was a moment before. She reaches for Nathaniel, too, and out of pure spite, Caleb hefts the child high on his shoulders where she cannot reach.
"It's getting dark," Nathaniel says. "Can we go?"
"Go where?"
In answer, Nathaniel points out the window. On the street below is a battalion of tiny goblins, miniature monsters, fairy princesses. Caleb notices, for the first time, that the leaves have all fallen; that grinning pumpkins roost like lazy hens on the stone walls of his neighbor's home. How could he have missed the signs of Halloween?
He looks at Nina, but she has been just as preoccupied. As if on cue, the doorbell rings. Nathaniel wriggles on Caleb's shoulders. "Get it! Get it!"
"We'll have to get it later." Nina tosses him a helpless look; there is no candy in this house. There is nothing left that's sweet.
Worse, yet, there is no costume. Caleb and Nina realize this at the same moment, and it sews them close. They both recall Nathaniel's previous Halloweens in descending order: knight in shining armor, astronaut, pumpkin, crocodile, and, as an infant, caterpillar. "What would you like to be?" Nina asks.
