Blameless (17 page)

Unable to speak, Diana just stood there.

“Why, Diana?” he demanded, his fingers digging into her coat. “Why?” His angry words ricocheted harshly off the bare floor and walls. Then as quickly as he had seized her, Craig suddenly let her go.

Diana staggered backward and then righted herself.

Craig was staring at his hands in horror. “This can’t be happening,” he said, shaking his head as if to shake himself out of a trance. “This can’t be us.” He pressed his hands under his armpits and walked to the window, turning his back to her.

“It was
my
journal.” Diana crossed over to Craig and took his arms, forcing him to turn and face her. “Now it may seem stupid—but when I wrote in it I never expected anyone to read it. It was my private journal. And it was stolen,” she added. “I kept the damn thing locked up in my desk, for God’s sake!”

Craig nodded slowly, but his fists remained stuffed under his arms.

“I couldn’t help what I thought, the feelings my job caused me to feel,” she tried again.

“I know that,” he said, letting his arms drop to his sides, but not meeting her eye. “I understand your work. You don’t have to ex—”

“But I do,” Diana interrupted, terrified that Craig would be so hurt or so angry or so disgusted with her that they would never pick out a crib with bright-colored bumpers and a quilt to match. “I don’t want to lose you. I don’t want our daughter to grow up without a family. I want us to be together …”

“This is nuts.” Craig threw his arms up in the air and began to pace the perimeter of the room. “Completely nuts.”

“It may be nuts,” Diana said, “but it’s also the truth. This countertransference stuff is for real. Don’t you remember what happened with Sandy? How I was mothering and overprotecting her? How I had to talk to my peer group and work it out in my journal? She was responding to me as her mother—and that was a good and necessary part of her therapy—but I needed to learn not to respond back from that role.”

Craig stopped his pacing. He crossed his arms and stood at the far end of the small room.

“It was the same thing with James,” Diana said softly. “I needed to let him relate to me as someone I wasn’t. I had to be Hank Hutchins for him. He had to make me into a sex object to work through the pain. Don’t you see? Then I needed to work it through on my end—to learn how not to be the sexualized person he made me into.”

Craig took a step closer and searched her eyes. “So this countertransference thing is pretty powerful …”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.” She looked up at him. “You have to believe me. You have to.”

Although his brow was still slightly furrowed, Craig stepped forward and touched her cheek. Diana dropped her head, her hot tears fell onto his hand, soaking into the gray wool of her coat. They stood like that for a long time in the center of the empty room. “I guess a person has a right to put anything they want in a private journal,” Craig finally said. “I guess you just did what you thought you had to do.” Then he pulled her toward him and held her close.

When Valerie called to report on the results of the hearing, the irony of the situation was not lost on either Diana or Craig: confidentiality had prevailed over direct relevance. Neither the journal nor Diana’s treatment notes would be admissible in court.

“But what about your ‘unimpeachable argument’?” Diana demanded. “What about all that ‘in the bag’ business you were handing me last night?”

“I’m sorry, Diana,” Valerie said, her voice softer than Diana had ever heard it. “Truly I am. The truth is, you never know what’s going to happen in court—with a judge or a jury. I was wrong to be so confident. Wrong to get your hopes up.” The rapid tapping of fingers on a computer keyboard came over the phone lines and then Valerie cleared her throat. “I’m, ah, I’m also real sorry about the
Inquirer
. You two doing okay?” she asked awkwardly.

Diana had to swallow the lump in her throat that Valerie’s sympathy had elicited before she could answer the question. “Craig’s being great,” she finally said, turning to smile sadly at him. “A real trouper. I think I’m still numb.”

“I guess there must’ve been a leak at Engdahl’s.”

“Or whoever sent it to Engdahl sent it to the
Inquirer
too.” Diana chuckled without humor and then added, “I just can’t imagine who it might have been.”

Valerie was silent for a long moment. “If it makes you feel any better,” she finally said, “after reading the paper this morning, we’re lucky that journal isn’t going to be allowed—tough as the loss of the treatment notes is.” She paused again. “Those entries would have crucified us, despite the fact that its obvious most of them aren’t true and there’s no corroboration.”

“Corroboration?”

“The only person—besides yourself—who knows if your entries are fact or fantasy is dead.”

Now it was Diana’s turn to sit in silence. “So what do we do now?” she finally asked.

“Well,” Valerie said, her voice perking up, “I figure we continue with our four-pronged attack to build up your credibility and tear down James’s. Ultimately proving that no one—not even a top-notch therapist such as yourself—could have stopped a true loony like Hutchins from killing himself.”

“Can we do that without the treatment notes?”

“It won’t be as easy, but it can be done,” Valerie assured her. “We put you on the witness stand and have you start to describe what was in the notes, Engdahl objects and, although his objection is sustained, I get the judge to instruct the jury that extensive notes were taken—even if their content is privileged.”

“That doesn’t sound like enough.”

“It isn’t,” Valerie agreed. “But we’ve still got your credentials, James’s history, and all those articles you told me about proving that borderlines are impossible to treat. And if a number of your colleagues testify to the existence of your notes—and I can elicit a few pieces of specific information from them before Engdahl objects—we’ll be able to portray you as thorough and competent and always maintaining the highest of professional standards.”

“I’ve got support letters from almost a dozen professionals in the field.”

“Fax them to me as soon as we hang up,” Valerie ordered. “We may have to make some changes so that the language emphasizes the right things.”

“But the stuff in the paper may—”

“Diana, I know that having your journal in the
Inquirer
is a terrible personal blow,” Valerie interrupted. “But you’ve got to remember that it’s irrelevant to this suit. All that matters right now is what’s in court.” She then went on to direct Diana to put together a resume as complete and impressive “as if she were going up for tenure at Harvard” and set up a meeting to review Diana’s list of potential witnesses. “I want you to keep organizing your treatment notes as if we were still going to use them—that way I’ll have full knowledge and be able to work what I can into evidence. Oh,” she added, “I also need you to come down to my office to review some hospital records I got from Engdahl—you’ll probably need three or four hours.”

“Hospital records?” Diana asked.

“Mass General. Looks like Hutchins was admitted there for a suicide attempt this past summer. You knew that, right?”

“All too well.”

“That’s what I thought. Anyway, Engdahl seems to think the records contain proof positive of your incompetence, but I figure we can use them to show how sick Hutchins really was.”

Diana agreed to check her schedule and hung up the phone. Then she sat back down at the kitchen table where she and Craig had been pretending to eat a late lunch, but had, in actuality, been moving mounds of reheated linguine marinara in circles on their plates. Diana repeated Valerie’s words, although Craig had caught the gist from listening to her side of the conversation.

“So she’s still optimistic?” Craig asked.

Diana picked up her fork and twisted some pasta around it, carefully soaking up as much sauce as she could. Then she just as carefully pushed it all from her fork and to the other side of her plate. “I guess.”

“If she’s still optimistic,” Craig said, “then we should be too.” He put a large scoop of linguine in his mouth and looked at her thoughtfully as he chewed. “Figure it this way, if you can convince the supposed ‘wronged husband,’ you can convince anybody.”

Diana went ice-cold. She knew Craig meant for her to be consoled, but the words “wronged husband” and the calmness of his tone terrified her more than any angry outburst could have.

“If I stand by you,” he said, “everyone will know that it can’t possibly be true—and then they’ll all go away and leave us alone.”

Diana played with her linguine. If only it was as simple as Craig made it sound. If only he believed what he was saying. If only she believed it. As she lifted the fork to her mouth, the telephone rang. She looked at Craig and shook her head; he jumped up to get it.

It was their friend Lisa. “Yeah,” Craig said, “the lawyer’s pretty sure we’ve got a good case. Invasion of privacy.” He smiled at Diana and rolled his eyes. “I don’t know about sexual harassment. It seems like a long shot when there’s no proof the
Inquirer
wouldn’t have done the same thing to a male psychologist. But Valerie Goldman’s the—” He listened for a moment. “She’s doing okay, but she’s not really up to talking to anyone now.” He nodded. “I’ll tell her,” he said and hung up the phone.

Craig told Diana that Lisa sent her love and resumed eating his lunch.

“Do you think I should call that reporter at the
Globe
?” Diana asked after a while. “To get out my side of the story?”

Craig shook his head. “Forget about the press—let them have their little fun. Then let it die down.”

“But—”

“No,” Craig interrupted. “You start trying to refute your own words and you’re just begging for trouble. It’ll prolong the whole thing and turn this into a citywide
Globe-Inquirer
battle—blow it up into an even bigger circus than it already is.” He took another bite of pasta. “Better to concentrate on the things you can do that’ll help. Like getting all those papers on your desk in order for Valerie. Like getting people to testify for you.”

The telephone rang again and Craig sighed. “Your turn,” he said.

“Let the machine get it.”

But Craig had never been one to let a ringing phone go unanswered. After a few rings, he stood up and grabbed it. This time it was his brother Paul’s wife. “We’re hanging in, Martha,” he said, looking over at Diana and raising his eyebrows. “It’s nice of you to call.” Martha was not the person they would have expected to come through for them in a crisis.

Diana shrugged and mouthed the words, “Maybe she’s not as selfish as we think.”

“I took the afternoon off to be with Diana,” Craig explained. “We’re just having lunch.” As he listened to Martha, his eyes hardened and his chin jutted forward. “No,” he said, “I don’t think that at all. My last name isn’t Marcus, and neither is Paul’s—I doubt either one of us has anything to be concerned about. Now I’ve got to go. Tell Paul I’ll talk to him later.” He hung up the phone without saying good-bye and sat back down at the table.

“She’s worried about the effect of this on Paul’s reputation?” Diana asked, surprised, but not surprised, at her sister-in-law’s self-centeredness.

Craig nodded as he twisted a huge wad of linguine around his fork.

“See?” Diana said. “I have to call the
Globe
. I have to try to clear myself—for all of our sakes.”

“You don’t have to do anything because of that idiot Martha,” Craig snapped.

“But if I don’t explain about the journal, if I just let it stand the way it is in the
Inquirer
, it’s as if I’m admitting that what I wrote really happened.” Diana stood and dropped her full plate in the sink. Then she walked over to the window and looked out at the shadowed alley. The gathering clouds of the morning had fulfilled their promise. It was raining. When the phone rang for the third time, Diana didn’t turn around. “I’m not here.”

“Oh, hi Lionel,” Craig said with false joviality in his voice. “We’re doing pretty well, thanks. Just having a little lunch.”

Diana closed her eyes as Craig listened to his boss, her stomach squeezing. How could she have been so stupid? What had she done to them all?

“That’s really thoughtful of you—but it’s not necessary. Diana’s got a great lawyer and we’re sure this whole thing’ll blow over in a day or two.” Craig paused. “No, no, really I’m sure. I’ll be in in the morning.” He paused again. “Okay, right, I’ll call. But expect me at the usual time.”

Diana turned as Craig dropped into his chair. This time he didn’t bother to feign interest in his linguine. “He offered me the rest of the week off. ‘Take a few personal days,’ he said. ‘We’ll cover it out of overhead.’” Craig shook his head. “That’d be four days counting today. Lionel Lunt’s never covered four personal
hours
out of overhead without someone holding a gun to his head.” Craig looked up at Diana and smiled ruefully. “Sorry,” he said. “Bad choice of words.”

She shrugged. “I guess that clinches it. I’m calling Risa Getty.”

“Face the facts here, Diana,” Craig said, pulling at his ear and staring over her shoulder. “It’s going to be tough to refute that journal. You have to admit that you wrote those things, and once you do …”

Diana didn’t say anything. She watched Craig, hoping that she was imagining the anger she heard building under his words.

“Damn it!” he yelled, pounding his fist on the table.

Diana jumped at the sound. “Craig, don’t—”

“Damn that Hutchins!” he exploded. Then, in a single forceful motion, he stood, picked up his plate, and threw it hard against the wall. To Diana’s surprise, it didn’t break. It clattered to the floor, turned a few revolutions, and then came to rest facedown in a puddle of red sauce and linguine noodles. “Damn him!”

“Stop it, Craig,” Diana cried, rushing to him and trying to wrap her arms around him. “Stop it.”

He pushed her away and began to pace the room. “The guy’s dead! The fucking guy’s dead and he’s ruining our lives!” He grabbed Diana by the shoulders. “When will it end? When we’re broke and divorced and the stress has made you lose this baby too?”