The Ex(46)

He was staring at his hands, folded in his lap. “I don’t want to talk about that night. If I’d wanted you to be the person who helped me through all that, I would have come back home.”

He’d been so relieved to see me when I got to the precinct. Now we were having a version of the conversation we might have had if I’d ever bumped into him at a coffee shop over the years. “But we both know you did more than not come home. That’s the part I need to know about. Where were you?”

When he looked up, I saw a flash of resentment.

“The hospital, Jack. I need the name.”

He finally gave in, telling me he spent a year at the Silver Oaks Psychiatric Center in Connecticut. I wrote the name down on my notepad. “I had what they call a psychotic break. It’s temporary psychosis—”

“I know what it is.” I had used it as the basis for an insanity claim in an aggravated assault case two years earlier. An acute onset of temporary psychosis could be triggered by extreme stress, like the death of a sibling. Or perhaps, the dismissal of a lawsuit against the man responsible for the murder of a spouse.

A psychotic break could be marked by behavior ranging from severe depression to violent outbursts, or swings between the two. I asked Jack what version his was.

“I was a basket case. I was nearly catatonic for the first month. I wouldn’t move or speak or eat or drink.”

“Violence?” I pictured Jack tearing up that agent’s rejection letter in the lobby of our apartment building.

He shook his head. “I basically ceased to exist for a year. Charlotte was the only one who knew where I was. I’m surprised she broke down and told you. Everyone else thought I was at a writer’s retreat in Wyoming, trying to get going on that novel I was always fiddling with. When I got out of the hospital, I basically started over again. Meeting Molly helped, and then Buckley changed everything.”

“Jack, I’ve never had the chance to tell you this, but I’m so sorry about . . . everything. I was being a coward. And being cruel. And that was bad enough. But Owen—” I let the sentence drop, because I wasn’t sure how to finish it.

“I never blamed you, Olivia. God, you were always convincing yourself that you were such a bad person, and that I was a saint. It took me a long time to realize it, but I get it now: I smothered you. I kept trying to make you be someone you weren’t ready to be. I made it impossible for you to leave me.”

“It doesn’t excuse what I did—”

“You want to know who I blame for Owen’s crash? Me. Saint Jack, as you used to say. I’m the one who called Owen after I . . . well, after everything in the apartment.”

We were both being so damn careful about calling it what it was. I had cheated, and I had lied. I took something that was sweet and good and made it ugly. I was the bad one. I always had been. It’s okay. Go ahead and hate me.

But instead, Jack was taking the blame. “I’m the one who kept buying round after round. If it’s anyone’s fault, it’s mine.”

He was falling into the same old pattern: I had done something destructive, and Jack was trying to look past it. This time I did reach for him, but Jack pulled away.

“I really don’t like talking about this. You said this was about the hospital, for my case.”

I placed my pen against my notepad perfunctorily. Back to business. “So you spent a year at the hospital. Who was your doctor?”

“There were a bunch.”

“The one who knew you best.”

“The primary one was Dr. Scheppard. Robin Scheppard.”

“Is he still there?”

“She. I have no idea, but if I had to guess, she wasn’t even forty at the time. I don’t know if she’d still be at Silver Oaks, but she’s probably still in practice at least.”

“Good, that’s helpful. I mean, if we need her—I doubt we will. Any continuing treatment?”

“Twice a week therapy at first, then once a week, but only for the next year and a half or so.”

“No psych treatment at all since then?” I asked.

“I went back to therapy for about six months after Molly first died, but it wasn’t like before. I didn’t shut down or anything like that. I think the coping skills I learned at Silver Oaks probably helped me get through it. Plus I had to take care of Buckley. The only time I’ve seen a shrink in the past two years was to go with Buckley when her counselor thought a family session was in order. Is the prosecution really allowed to use this against me?”

I told Jack I wouldn’t put it past them, but the threat of the government discovering his hospitalization wasn’t actually why I was here. If anyone was going to use this evidence in court, it would be me, to try to make out an insanity defense. But for now, I wasn’t thinking about the trial. “I need you to sign these forms so I can access your treatment records.”

“That’s not necessary—”

My response was firm. “It would be malpractice for me not to pursue this. We can’t be caught off guard.”

“I don’t know if that’s a good idea, Olivia. It was so long ago, right after we broke up. I said some things—”

“This isn’t about us. I’ve got a million things to do for your defense other than scour twenty-year-old medical records for your comments about our relationship.”