Every Single Secret(79)

I was suddenly acutely aware of Heath’s body next to me. I could feel heat emanating from him, a human heart pumping blood, and cells responding. This man was more than just a set of learned behaviors, fossilized by years of conditioning. Surely inside him there was a glimmer of empathy. Of love. It couldn’t have all been an act. We weren’t an act.

“This is where he preferred to watch me,” he said. “The cameras were always running, one to a room, but I think he preferred this old-school setup. He told me once, later, when I was older, that he could tell what I was feeling by the way I moved around the room, the way I breathed and blinked my eyes. He said he could sit all day and night, watching my brain at work.”

“Jesus.” I shook my head. “So you’ve been back in contact with him? For how long?”

He took my hand. “Do you want to know the truth, Daphne? Really? All of it?”

I was paralyzed, unable to make any kind of reasonable decision about which path to take. It was like my brain had suddenly dumped all its storehouse of information and in doing so, lost the ability to decide. Was there anything I could do to escape this nightmare and still be with Heath? I didn’t know. I had absolutely no halfway-reasonable frame of reference for any of this.

“If you do,” he continued, “then watch the rest of that video.”

I still didn’t move.

“But only if you want to.”

Which, all of a sudden, because of the glint of his eyes in the dark and the broken sound of his voice, I found I wanted to. I tapped the screen, and the video sprang to life.

From the perspective of Cerny’s camera behind the two-way mirror, I could tell Cecelia was still rubbing Heath’s back and singing Sinatra in her soft, clear voice. Instantly, all my hackles went back up, but I told myself not to flinch or look away. It was important to Heath—to us—that I watch it all. At last, when Cecelia finished the song and turned off the light beside Heath’s bed, she bent over him.

“She kissed you good night,” I said, surprised.

“She’d been doing it for a while, in secret. She sometimes hugged me when he wasn’t looking. Ruffled my hair. Nothing out of line in the eyes of normal people, but at Baskens, a mortal sin.”

He jutted his chin at the iPad. On-screen, Cecelia was closing the door between the bedroom and sitting room, then she walked toward the dining room. Slowly, purposefully, defiantly, her gaze fixed on the two-way mirror and the camera Cerny had aimed at her.

“She was messing with him,” I said.

And then, after a couple of seconds, she veered out one of the side doors that led to the main hallway. Inside the observation room, Cerny turned the camera, and the room where we were standing now materialized on-screen.

It was still and silent for a beat, then the door banged open. Cecelia stood in backlight, ferocious and ready for battle. Off camera, Cerny began a slow-clap.

“Bravo, darling,” he said. “Nine years of work, nine years of grueling, tedious, groundbreaking work, compromised. All because of your pathetic maternal yearnings.”

He stood, crossing into the frame. Cecelia squared her shoulders.

“He’s a child, Matthew. A human, who will, one day, hopefully, be able to survive in a world of other humans. He needs to understand how to move among them. To relate to them on more than an intellectual level.”

“We agreed on the terms of the treatment.”

“To thrive, a child needs warmth.”

“No,” Cerny snapped. “You need warmth. And it disappoints me to see how easily you will sacrifice your scientific ethics in order to get it.”

He moved closer to her, and I could hear her swallow audibly in response. Her body tensed as he spoke again.

“I was very clear with you that I needed an assistant who possessed the discipline and endurance to grapple with the complexities of a difficult project. You told me you would be that person.”

“And I am,” Cecelia said. “But you can’t keep treating me this way. I’ve done everything you wanted. Given up my life. Given you everything I had . . .”

He was so close to her, their bodies were touching. I could see she was trembling as he laid his palm on her face, then moved it to cup her chin.

“You still go down to the creek, don’t you?” he asked. “To stare at those goddamn trees. To wallow in the past, to mourn the things you can’t ever have.”

“They’re a memorial, Matthew.” Her voice was breaking now. “For the children. Our children.”

“Not our children, Cecelia. Cells, that’s all. Cells that never developed.”

She let out a whimper. “It’s hard for me. Be patient, please. I can be what you need.”

“You can’t,” he roared, grabbing her face and squeezing it. “You’ve already compromised everything. We are scientists, Cecelia. We deal in facts. In quantifiable data, not in yearnings of the soul. We don’t play house. We don’t pretend to be Heathcliff and Cathy. We do important work that will change the course of psychiatry forever. That could change the understanding of mental health universally. And you so cavalierly throw it away? If you’re so pathetic, so desperate for the touch of a—”

“Please—”

“—another human being, then go down to town and find yourself one of those mouth breathers sitting at the bar, drinking beer and dreaming they’re the ones running the football down the field.”