The Program Page 6

  She’d arrived for this session, her second, with a lollipop in her mouth, the white stick tucked all the way against the corner on the right side. She touched the stick infrequently and had only removed the lollipop from her mouth once in the few minutes she’d been sitting with him. Her new therapist thought it might be a Tootsie Roll Pop, but he wasn’t really up on lollipops.

  When she spoke again, he was amusing himself by trying to decide whether to say something interpretive about an oral fixation.

  “Most of the time, they’re submerged. Invisible. I’m talking about the whales. But they always surface eventually—it’s as though they need to come up for air. Sometimes they surface when I expect them to, you know, someplace close to where they were the last time they went down. I’ll see a picture of Robert and I’ll remember something especially happy or especially sad about him, about us. Other times the whales seem to migrate and pop up where I don’t expect them. Lately they’ve been coming up in the middle of the night. They do seem to like to surface then.”

  “They don’t ever really go away?” Dr. Gregory asked. With his question, he was dancing a little. What he really wanted to know was whether her metaphor about whales was her way of talking about repressed memories, those that are inaccessible from consciousness, usually due to trauma, or whether she was referring to memories that had simply faded from her awareness.

  He was still distracted by the lollipop.

  “The big ones? The whale memories? No. I wish sometimes that they would go away. I marvel sometimes that, uh, Landon is already forgetting things that happened to her when she was only three and four. Even special times that have to do with her father. I would think she’d cling to those as though they were a life preserver. That worries me mostly, but sometimes I feel envy, too. Because I don’t believe my whales will ever, ever totally fade away. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to forget some of the whale memories. The best I hope for,” she smiled sadly, “is that when the bad whales dive, they go down so deep that I can’t find them for a while, can’t even feel the disturbance they make as they swim through the deep water.”

  He didn’t know where she was going next and said nothing.

  She arched one eyebrow, then the other. A trace of a smile was visible in her eyes. “Some of them I actually adore,” she admitted. “The memories aren’t all evil, not at all. The ones I adore are the ones that appear in my mind like daydreams and float me away to someplace special that I once cherished and that I fear I will never… ever … have again. They’re my friendly whales. I call them my belugas.”

  “But some of the memories aren’t so friendly?” Dr. Gregory assumed that Peyton’s intent was to talk about the whales that weren’t so friendly, but he silently questioned the redirection he’d encouraged the moment the words were out of his mouth. It wasn’t part of his job to assume what patients intended.

  “Absolutely not. God, no. Those are my killer whales. Robert being murdered.” She looked away and stared at a blank spot on the wall. “Getting the phone call about my mother dying. And …” She closed her lips tight around the tiny lollipop stick and shut her eyes for a moment. “The day they tried to kidnap Landon—Landon was Matilda then. You probably don’t know about that, do you? What happened … was never in the news. That’s the whale that keeps visiting during the night these days. I wake up, and I get out of my bed and move from my room into her room, and I lie—is that right? Is it lie or is it lay? I don’t know, I can never remember. Anyway, I lie beside her in her bed before I can fall back to sleep. I smell her here, in the crook of her neck,” she said as she touched herself right above her collarbone. “I just stick my nose right into her hair and inhale her sweetness, and I swear it’s like a narcotic for me. It calms me. And hours later I wake up and I’m still in her bed. And when I do, that whale is no longer on the surface.”

  Dr. Gregory had trouble concentrating. His mind had already traveled from his patient’s daughter’s bed to his own wife’s womb, to the sweetness growing there. He was momentarily lost wondering about his baby’s sweet aroma, the perfume in the crook of his son or daughter’s neck. Then the word kidnap resonated in his consciousness and he asked, “They tried to kidnap your daughter?” trying to keep the Oh my God! out of his voice.

  Peyton nodded. “After my husband was killed, we went into hiding. Landon and me. But he found us, his people found us, found her. Matilda, I mean Landon. She did all the right things, though.”

  “You weren’t there?”

  She lowered her chin and shook her head, as though shamed. Without Dr. Gregory noticing, she’d managed to move the lollipop stick from one side of her mouth to the other. “She was at a new friend’s house. They were playing outside.”

  The truth was that despite all the times Dr. Gregory had seen Kirsten Lord’s face on the news, he wasn’t sure he would have recognized her. Her long blond hair was now carelessly short and had been cosmetically darkened to the color of weathered mahogany. She wore rimless glasses instead of contacts and simple clothes suitable for both Boulder and her new profession.

  Since she’d arrived in Boulder, she’d been working as an unpaid intern in the kitchen at Q’s, arguably one of Boulder’s finer restaurants, doing something she’d always thought she might love. She’d joked to herself that she was auditioning for the role of being just another burned-out lawyer looking for something new to do with her life.

  Teri Grady had warned Alan Gregory that money is an important issue for most people in the program. WITSEC provides some transitional financial support, though program participants are expected to move quickly toward self-sufficiency. But Peyton didn’t have those concerns yet. Her husband’s life insurance and their joint savings were more than adequate for the short term for her and for her daughter. She could afford to apprentice in a restaurant kitchen and pursue her dream to learn how to cook.

  “I DON’T REALLY want to talk about that today. I trust that’s just fine with you, Dr. Gregory.” Her voice, he thought, was mildly teasing.

  “It is,” he said while he palpated the tease for signs of flirtation.

  “What I want to talk about is my daughter.” She waited.

  He said, “Yes.”

  She pulled the lollipop from her mouth. The candy that remained on the end of the stick was no larger than a pea.

  Dr. Gregory knew that he would have chewed the little nub of candy off the stick long ago. He was beginning to appreciate that the woman sitting across from him had an abundance of patience.

  “Do you know much about kids?” she asked.

  As a psychologist he’d heard the question before, of course. He hated it a little bit more each time he heard it anew.

  “Yes,” he said. Technically—academically—his answer was truthful. But he felt like a liar. The kid he knew the most about was the one who hadn’t yet been born, the one still in his wife’s body.

  She fished into her purse and retrieved a camel leather wallet. The picture on top was of her daughter. She handed it to him.

  He struggled for the right words. “She’s lovely. She looks a lot like, oh, you know …”

  She finished his sentence by saying, “The way I used to look?” She smiled with her mouth, but not with her eyes. “Thank you for saying that. It’s a compliment for me. Though she looks a lot like her daddy, too.”

  “But you have some concerns?” he said, attempting to reel them both back to her prologue.

  She nodded. “Of course. What she’s been through. Robert’s murder. Two major moves. Two new schools. The kidnap attempt. All my paranoia. She’s been through … hell. And it’s all because of me.”

  “You feel responsible,” he said, injecting some empathy, yet hoping not to interfere with whatever direction she’d chosen to go.

  Her eyes moistened. “Landon is all I have left. My parents are dead, so are Robert’s.”

  “How is your relationship with your daughter?”

  Peyton smiled with her eyes and with h
er mouth and said, “She’s my buddy. She’s a dream. She’s just nine years old. Oh, sometimes she’s more like four, and sometimes she’s more like nineteen. Sometimes she wants me to be her best friend, and sometimes she wants me to be her mommy. Every hour, every minute, I have to figure out what she needs, and I have to be there for her. Truth is, she’s the only reason I decided to volunteer to go into the Witness Protection Program. And she’s the only reason I’m still sane.”

  She paused, waiting for something. Dr. Gregory wasn’t clear what.

  She said, “Yoohoo, Dr. Gregory? I am still sane, aren’t I?”

  “As far as I can tell.”

  “Now there’s damning with faint praise.” Her eyes fell to her lap. “I’m having a problem about Landon with Inspector Kriciak. I’d like some advice.”

  He allowed her request to linger in the space between them for a moment before he said, “I’ll do what I can to help.”

  “Landon lives for two activities. She loves soccer—she plays goalie. And she’s a phenomenal little speller. You know, like spelling bees? Ron doesn’t want her to compete in any events where there’s likely to be media coverage. No regional soccer tournaments or soccer camps, no spelling bees outside her school. I think he’s exaggerating the risk to her. What do you think?”

  He recalled Lauren’s reaction to seeing Peyton in the waiting room. He said, “I can see how there could be some risk of your daughter being recognized.”

  Peyton was prepared to argue. “Her hair’s different. She’s growing like a weed. What’s even more relevant is that she needs soccer and spelling for her… self-esteem, you know? It’s part of how she sees herself. They were two things that she did with Robert. Her father. For her, doing them is a way of keeping his memory alive.”

  He weighed his words before speaking. “Even if by doing them she increases the risk of not keeping the two of you alive?”

  His question was too direct. She took a moment to compose herself. She touched the lollipop stick and then the collar of her shirt. She tried to smile, but failed. “I’m not even comfortable leaving her alone with a babysitter. When I’m at the restaurant, I call home twice an hour to check on her. She wears a beeper so that I can reach her. I wear one so she can reach me. For me, this whole move to Boulder has fresh nightmare written all over it. I’m beginning to recognize the signs. I’m afraid that this is going to be the birth of a new whale.”

  “Is it a killer whale or a beluga?”

  “That’s the question I’m struggling with,” she said. “That’s the question. There’s another category of whales in my pod. The humpbacks. They sing to me when they’re close to the surface. Long, brooding songs. When they dive they disappear, and when they resurface, they come back up as belugas or killers. But I don’t ever know which. This one—this whole question about Landon’s freedom, her soccer, her spelling—it’s singing to me now; it’s starting off feeling like a humpback.” She sighed. “You see, the whole thing is especially complicated because Landon has already tested into some summer competitions that will prepare her for the regional spelling bees.”

  Dr. Gregory waited. Peyton waited. Finally, he spoke. “That must make you proud, Peyton.”

  “Proud? Absolutely. But terrified is more like it. I have only one daughter. I couldn’t bear to lose her.”

  He nodded as though he understood her words at the deepest of levels. But he acknowledged to himself that he probably didn’t. Once again his thoughts went to his wife’s womb.

  “Don’t you see what’s happening?” she said. “Landon and I are all that’s left standing after fate has bowled its first ball down the lane. That’s it—two pins left standing. And we’re just waiting … paralyzed … waiting for the next bowling ball to come down the lane, waiting to see if fate’s a good enough bowler to pick up the spare. Coming to Boulder, all that accomplished was moving Landon and me from Lane One to Lane Thirty-three to try to protect us. But fate will find us down here, too. You watch. Fate found Robert, didn’t it?”

  “You’re not completely sure you want her in that spelling bee either, are you, Peyton?”

  “No,” she admitted. “I’m not. But I can only protect her so far. We changed where she lives. We gave her a new name, altered the way she looks, even gave her a new birth date. But we can’t change what’s in her soul, Dr. Gregory. We can’t tell her to love something new and different. Some things about children aren’t malleable. Some things parents can’t change.”

  “You want me to talk to Ron Kriciak?”

  “Please.”

  “And what would you like his blessing to do?”

  “She wants to go to the summer spelling competitions. She’ll stay away from the cameras. Even if she qualifies for the regionals, she won’t go. That’s what we’d like his blessing to do. That’s all.”

  6

  Dr. Gregory didn’t laugh when I told him about my whales, didn’t even seem to be hiding too much of a smirk. I wonder if he knew it was a test.

  I wonder if I did.

  I’d been in Boulder with Landon—gosh, it was so hard to remember to call her by her new name—for only, what? Ten days?

  Yes. Ten days.

  I KNEW THAT Kriciak, the inspector who was supervising me for the Marshals Service, was going to go nuts when I told him that I wanted to allow Landon to participate in soccer and spelling. Kriciak’s style was to act cool, but underneath it all he had a temper, a cop’s fuse. In my years as a prosecutor I’d worked with a dozen cops just like him.

  I could have already predicted his arguments about why I shouldn’t allow Landon to participate.

  He’d say there was a chance she’d be recognized. People might be looking for her to surface.

  He’d say it will be too hard for us to protect you. Your tormentors are quite determined.

  And anyway, he’d say, think about Landon.

  None of the marshals who had assisted me during my orientation and evaluation at the safe site had mentioned any possible relocation sites. No one pretended with me that I might have a choice about where I ended up. In fact, they made it clear to me many times that I didn’t. I prayed for a city that might have good restaurants. After what happened in New Orleans and what almost happened in Slaughter, I knew that working as an attorney again, especially as a prosecutor, was out of the question. I’d already decided that I wanted to follow another passion of mine: I wanted to learn to cook in a fine restaurant.

  When I heard I was going to Boulder, I was elated. I thought Boulder would offer more opportunity for fine restaurants than a place like Fresno, California, or Amarillo, Texas. I imagine that sounds insulting to the people of Fresno and Amarillo, whom I don’t even know. I’m sorry, but that’s what I was thinking at the time. Though I admit I wasn’t at my best then, thinking-wise.

  The marshal who eventually told me I was going to Boulder was a young woman. She was black and had eyes as comfortable as the softest pillow on which I’d ever rested my head.

  She questioned me relentlessly to determine that Boulder wasn’t a hot spot for me, that it wasn’t in what she called my “danger zone,” which included, as far as I could tell, only Louisiana, Florida, and the Baltimore–D.C. corridor. There were no known associates of the man they suspected of murdering Robert living in Boulder. They had asked me to be sure, and I wracked my brain for two days and nights and couldn’t think of anyone I knew in Boulder. No old friends. No colleagues who had relocated there. No one from law school. No one who would recognize me and blow my cover.

  I LIKED IT in Boulder. The sun in Colorado is sharp and brash, and I found myself attracted to the brazenness and to the clarity of the light. The Rocky Mountains rise provocatively—almost majestically—from the western edge of town, and I felt their vaulting presence as a protective wall for me and for Landon, as though they functioned like a moat at a medieval castle. During the first few days in town, I found myself turning my back to the Rockies the way I’d started sitting against walls in re
staurants, always facing the open door, always scanning for short men in chinos.

  Rationally, I didn’t suspect that the next assault would come from the same man who’d killed Robert or even another man dressed the same way. But I had a face for the old monster, and I cherished it in much the same way that I cherished the cameo that hung around my neck.

  It connected me to something essential, to my survival.

  THE FIRST BRICK pavers of the Pearl Street Mall begin only a couple of blocks from Dr. Gregory’s office. I walked to the Mall after the session when I’d confessed about the whales and looked for a place to sit outside in the sun. I had time to kill before I needed to be at Q’s to begin the evening prep, and I was fighting a strong, strong urge to park myself outside Landon’s door and listen to the childish sounds she made as she played. The sounds would soothe me like nothing else could.

  The urge was a daily one. I swear my blood pressure went up twenty points the moment the little girl was out of my sight.

  I’d just selected a pleasant spot on the Pearl Street Mall, at an open table under the outdoor awning at the café beside the Boulder Bookstore. I’d been to the café a couple of times before, and on one of the previous visits a waitress had told me that it was right next door to the old New York Deli, the one where Mork used to work—remember Mork? No? It’s not important. The New York Deli’s gone now, replaced by a sushi bar called Hapa. Mork’s gone, too.

  Anyway, that’s where I was about to sit down when I felt someone looking at me.

  My antennae resonated with some alarm, and I hesitated while I decided which seat at the table to choose. Intentionally, I looked down before I glanced back up, and I knew I’d succeeded in catching the man turning his head away from me as though he didn’t want to be nabbed—what did Landon call it?—gaping. He didn’t want to be caught gaping.