The Forgetting Time(28)

Anderson sat on the other side of Noah, his face inscrutable in profile, like the statue of a knight on a tomb. Before the movie was over, Noah had fallen asleep, his head drooping on Janie’s shoulder, but they watched the movie to its end anyway, lost in their separate worlds. She felt a pang of misery when the father found the son, envy at all that fishy happiness. Afterward, she had carried Noah to bed, his legs dangling on either side of her like a huge baby, and tucked him in. It was only six.

*

When Janie returned, the tall man was pacing back and forth. It was strange to have him in her apartment without Noah in the room. It was as if the doctor had suddenly become a man—not someone she would have an interest in (he was far too old for her, too aloof) but someone who nevertheless charged the molecules of the air with a masculine difference.

She watched him pace for a few moments; he seemed entirely lost in his thoughts.

“So,” she said at last. “What do we do now?”

He paused midstride; he looked surprised to see her there. “Well, we can try again tomorrow. If that’s all right with you, that is?”

“Tomorrow?” She shook her head. “I’ve got a client meeting.…” But he wasn’t listening.

“And in the meantime we need to corroborate the information we have. We’ll check with the school about the lizards and the other behavior he exhibited there. It’s too late now”—he glanced at his watch—“but I’ll e-mail them in the morning. Can you give them a heads-up?”

“I guess so.” She flinched inwardly at the idea of approaching Ms. Whittaker with this matter. Surely she would have no patience for it, and of course the preschool director would probably tell Anderson that Noah was already seeing a psychiatrist.…

“And a statement as well that they don’t instruct children in the art of baseball scoring, of course.” He chuckled to himself. “Though that would be highly unusual.”

“Why do you need to corroborate, anyway?”

“It’ll be a stronger case with multiple sources.”

“A stronger case?” She wished he’d stop talking about Noah as a case.

“Yes.”

“You mean—for an article or something?”

“Right.”

“Well, I don’t think I want any part of that.”

“Hmmm?”

“I’m a private person. We’re private people.”

“Of course. We’d change all the names in the book.”

The book. His excitement was suddenly becoming clear to her. She’d been wondering what kind of doctor he was, and now she knew: the kind that was writing a book.

“What book?”

“I’m writing up some cases. It won’t be lost in academic obscurity, like the others. This one is for the public,” he added eagerly, as if obscurity was the problem.

“I don’t want Noah in a book.”

He stared at her.

“Does it matter so much to you, Doctor?”

“I—” He didn’t finish his thought. He turned a shade paler.

She couldn’t trust him. He was writing a book. She remembered all those books her mother’s friends had given her when she was dying: everyone trying to make a buck off the hopeless with their special diets and yoga poses. Even when her mother was only briefly conscious, the books kept on coming. In the end there was a closet full of them.

There was certainly no book that could help her now, and there was no mother, either. There was only this stranger with his agenda. She felt the weariness that was washing over her transform suddenly into something else—an emotion that startled her with its ferocity. For months people had been sitting coolly across desks telling her that something was wrong with her son, and she had taken it in, quieting the outward signs of panic as best she could. But this man, with his bright, questioning eyes and ashy complexion—this man had something to lose, too. She felt the anxiety in him as only the desperate can, and the knowledge of it was like a key opening the door on her vast frustration and fury.

“That’s why you were so excited about the fact that he could score a baseball game, isn’t it? It’s not going to help us find any ‘previous personality.’ It’s just a good detail for your precious book.” He winced at the way she said the word. “Do you even care about helping Noah at all?”

“I—” He looked at her uncertainly. “I want to help all the children—”

“Right, by having their mothers buy your book?” She felt even as she said it that this man did not seem motivated by anything so coarse as making money, but she couldn’t help herself.

“I—” he started to say again. And then stopped. “What is that?”

They both heard it, then: from the bedroom down the hall. A whimpering.

“I think we woke Noah,” Anderson murmured.

The whimpering became a whooshing, like the wind wailing up a chimney.

“No. He’s not awake.”

The noise gathered power until it blew through the room: a hurricane, a force of nature, and then slowly the howl took form, became a word. “Mamaaaa! Mamaa!”

Always, it surprised her: that torrent of emotion that seemed beyond what a small boy would be able to summon. Janie stood wearily, on shaky feet. She looked at Anderson. She didn’t trust him, but he was the only one here. “Aren’t you coming?”