The Perfect Wife(7)

Danny has childhood disintegrative disorder, also known as Heller’s syndrome. It’s so rare, most pediatricians have never seen a case. Instead they’d tell you patronizingly that children simply don’t reach the age of four and then get struck down by profound autism over the course of a few terrifying weeks. That they don’t suddenly regress from whole sentences to talking in squeaks and groans and little snippets of dialogue from TV shows. That they don’t start urinating on carpets and drinking from toilet bowls. That they don’t pull out their own hair for no reason, or bite their arms until they bleed.

When a child dies, the world recognizes it as a tragedy. The parents grieve, but there’s also the possibility of grief lessening, one day. But CDD takes your child away and swaps him for a stranger—a drooling, broken zombie who inhabits your child’s body. In some ways it’s worse than a death. Because you go on loving this beautiful stranger even while you’re grieving the sweet little person you lost.

“Where is he now?” you ask.

“He goes to a great special-ed school across town. Sian—she was one of the teaching assistants there, until I hired her as a live-in nanny—takes him every morning, then comes back to work with him on his therapy program afterward. It’s not close, but it’s the best place for kids like him in the whole state.”

You’ve missed so much, you think. Danny’s at school. A school you didn’t even know existed.

Tim opens another door. “And this is the master bedroom.”

You step inside. It’s a large room, dominated by the painting, a self-portrait, on one wall. The woman in the painting is red-haired, her mid-length braids—dreadlocks, almost—casually piled on top of her head. Her left ear, the one turned to the viewer, has three large studs in it. She’s wearing a striped shirt, the lower part of which is covered in colored smears, as if she’s simply wiped her paintbrush on it as she worked. She looks cheerful: an optimistic, sunny-natured person. On her neck a tattoo, an elaborate Celtic pattern, disappears under the shirt collar and emerges from one sleeve.

You look down at the flesh-toned rubber of your own arm.

“We can’t do tattoos,” Tim explains. “It would compromise the skin material.” He gestures at the picture. “Other than that, it’s pretty accurate, wouldn’t you say?”

He means, you’re an accurate copy of the painting, you realize, not the other way around. They must have used a scan of it to construct you.

Is the woman in the painting really you? She seems too self-possessed, somehow, too cool. And too confident. You look at the signature, a dramatic squiggle in the lower left corner. Abbie Cullen.

“You didn’t usually work in oils,” he adds. “It was your wedding gift to me. It took you months.”

“Wow…What did you give me?”

“The beach house,” he says matter-of-factly. “I had it built for you as a surprise. There’s a big garage there you used as your main studio—you needed space for your projects.” As he speaks he’s opening another door, directly opposite the master bedroom. “But you worked in here when we were in the city. This is where you painted that self-portrait.”

The floorboards in this little room are flecked with paint. On a trestle table are jars of dried-out paintbrushes and tubes of solidified acrylics. And a silver pen in a stand. You go and pick it up. The barrel is inscribed ABBIE. ALWAYS AND ALWAYS. TIM.

“The ink will have dried by now, I expect,” he says. “I’ll get some more. I’d better start a list.”

Numbly, you pull at the hospital gown you’re still wearing. “I’d like to get dressed.”

“Of course. Your clothes are in the closet.”

He shows you the closet, a walk-in off the main bedroom. The dresses hanging there are lovely—boho-chic, casual, but made from beautiful materials in bold, bright colors. You glance at the labels. Stella McCartney, Marc Jacobs, Céline. You had good taste, you think. And a good budget, thanks to Tim.

You pick out a loose Indian-styled dress, something easy to wear. “I’ll leave you to it,” he says tactfully, stepping out.

Remembering that hideous plastic skull, you avert your eyes from the mirror as you pull the gown off, but then you can’t help looking. Your body hasn’t been this toned for years, you catch yourself thinking: not since you gave birth to Danny—

But this isn’t a body. Those limbs were put together in an engineering bay, your skin color sprayed on in a paint booth. And below the waist you simply fade into smoothness, as blank and sexless as a doll. With a shudder, you pull the dress over your head.

There’s a sudden crash from downstairs, the front door slamming open. Feet pound the stairs.

“Danny, don’t run,” a female voice says.

“Don’t wrun!” a small voice mumbles. “Wrunning!” The running feet don’t slow down.

Danny. Spinning around, you catch a glimpse of dark hair, deep-set eyes, a taut elfin face, as he hurtles down the landing. Maternal love sluices through you. You can’t believe how big he is! But of course, he must be almost ten. You’ve missed half his life.

You follow him to his room. He’s already pulled an armful of toy trains from under his bed. “Line them up. Line them uuuuup,” he mutters feverishly as he sorts them, biggest to smallest, placing them precisely against the baseboard.