In the Blood (2 page)

“What about this one?”

Startled from my reverie, I saw my psychology professor lingering nearby. He was looking at yet another board brimming with offers. So many people with menial needs, offering positions to those of us desperate for pocket money. It was a sub-economy: easy jobs for overprivileged youth. It seemed like an inside joke. While the larger economy faltered and the working poor labored tirelessly only to make ends meet, some of us drifted on a silly cloud, only asking to receive. Or maybe that’s just me being cynical.

I walked over to stand beside him. He was squinting through his glasses as he pulled a notice off the board and handed it to me.

“ ‘Single mother looking for afternoon help with her eleven-year-old son,’ ” I read. “ ‘After school through dinner, some overnights.’ ”

“Should work with your schedule,” he said easily. I had mentioned to him my need for a job before break and he’d promised to be on the lookout for something suitable.

In addition to being my teacher, he was also my school counselor. He’d come to the university shortly after I started. And we’d always walked the line of friendship, which was easier now that I was older.

Langdon Hewes was a study in propriety. We had only met in public places, or with the door to his office wide open. He was too young to be so cautious, but he hinted at having had some kind of negative past experience. And I didn’t pry—because I certainly didn’t want to talk about my past either. He ran a hand through the
perpetual tousle of his dark hair, and looked down at me from his towering height.

“Nanny?” I said, skeptical.

“More like babysitter,” he said.

“What’s the difference?”

He shrugged, looked up. He had this way of searching the sky or the ceiling for his answers. He’d tilt his head up and squint into nothingness, as if it were all there in the ether, just waiting to be found.

“Nannies are for little kids,” he said finally. “It’s more of a full-time position. Babysitting is, like, more casual, more as needed.”

He said this with a firm nod that brooked no questioning. Even though he surely knew nothing about nannies or babysitters, I took him at his word. He
did
have a Ph.D. in child psychology, was the known expert in childhood psychopathy. He’d published several articles in major consumer magazines—including the
New York Times Magazine, Psychology Today, Vanity Fair,
as well as the ever-important academic journals. Publish or perish; it was no joke at this school. He was currently at work on a book, a collection of case studies that was, he hoped, a blend between a text and something more mainstream. So maybe his opinion on this topic counted for something. At least that’s what I told myself.

I held the ad in my hand. Unlike the other pink and green and yellow sheets, with their fun or fancy typefaces, this was just a plain white paper, with centered Times New Roman text. It offered nothing but its own simplicity. A need in black and white, waiting to be filled.

“You only have three classes this term,” he said. “Mine, criminal psychology, and art. Light load. Never a good idea to have too much time on your hands.”

I wouldn’t call him handsome, but there was something pleasant about his aspect. Even his slouch, his perfectly pressed oxfords and chinos (sometimes jeans), those Merrell cross-training shoes, had a kind of comforting predictability. With Langdon, there were never any surprises. My own inner life was always chaotic, churning. I wondered what it was like to be so even, so measured. His presence never failed to calm me.

“I’ll be your reference.”

“I don’t have any babysitting experience.”

“You’re a psych major,” he said. “There was your internship at Fieldcrest. You were fabulous with the kids.” He said this with a smile, as though it was a little private joke. “You got an A in my class.”

My work at Fieldcrest, a school associated with the university for troubled and emotionally challenged young people, had been intense, to say the least. I was pleased that he thought I’d done a good job there. It was the first time he’d said so out loud, even though the internship evaluation he’d written had been glowing. I shifted forward, closer to him, feeling a little jolt of excitement. There was something about the paper in my hand, about his being there, about the prospect of something new in my life.

I fished my phone from my backpack and dialed the number as we walked into his office. I sat across from his desk and he sat, spun to face his computer, and started typing.

“My name is Lana Granger,” I said when a woman answered. “I’m answering your ad.”

“Oh, great,” she said. She sounded slightly breathless. I heard paper rustling in the background. “Can you come for an interview today?”

Outside the window, it seemed like a ray of sun had broken
through the cloud cover and I saw a little bit of blue in the sky for what seemed like the first time in months.

“Uh,” I said stupidly. I hadn’t expected things to progress so quickly. But why not? I guess when you needed a sitter, you really needed a sitter. I looked at my wrist only to realize that I wasn’t wearing a watch. I didn’t even own a watch. And I knew that I had nothing whatsoever to do that day anyway. “Sure.”

“Perfect,” she said. She sounded bright and cheerful; nice, I guess. “After lunch, say twoish?”

We made all the arrangements, exchanged necessary information like her address ( just a quick bike ride away from campus), her name (Rachel Kahn, son Luke), my phone number. After I hung up, Langdon turned to look at me. He had an odd expression on his face, something I couldn’t read. But he was like that, a total brain, his mind always working, figuring, developing theories.

“Good work,” he said.

“I didn’t do anything,” I answered. “It was just a phone call.”

“Today is the beginning of your real life,” he said. “This could be your first
actual
job.”

I couldn’t tell if he was making fun of me in that sweet, gentle way that he had. But I found myself smiling at him. It did feel like kind of a big deal, and my stomach was a little fluttery with happiness. And I was glad I had him to share it with.

“I’ll take you out to lunch to celebrate,” he said. “Let’s go get some pizza.”

I thought about my aunt Bridgette, who is not really so unbearable. Seriously. It’s only that she’s not my mother. Though I know she cares for me, she doesn’t love me. Only a child who has lost a mother knows how yawning and uncrossable is the space between those two things.
Just because horrible things have happened to you
doesn’t mean you can’t have a happy, normal life,
she’d said to me once. I had felt sorry for her, only because I suspected that she might be wrong. I was marked, wasn’t I? Forever? But for whatever silly reason as we left Langdon’s office, I let myself wonder if maybe she was right after all.

I could have gone to college anywhere. My grades and test scores, essays and recommendations, garnered me admissions to Harvard, Columbia, and Stanford. I’m not bragging. It’s totally true. But I just couldn’t see myself in any of those places. They seemed big and impersonal, and I imagined myself wandering in crowds of people, sitting in the back of stadium-size classrooms. I saw myself moving dark and small, unwanted, out of place among the world’s financial and intellectual elite like a raisin in the sun.

“But a degree from one of these schools is your ticket to
anything,
” said my uncle in dismay. “Your mother would have been so
proud
of you.”

What he didn’t understand was that, at that point, I didn’t actually
want
to do anything. I just wanted to hide. I wanted to find a safe place and disappear inside it. I didn’t want to Achieve Great Things or Make Everyone Proud or Prove Them All Wrong. I just wanted to be left alone.

I chose Sacred Heart College in The Hollows, New York. And if everyone was disappointed that I had decided on a tiny but well-regarded liberal arts college in the middle of nowhere, no one was
surprised. Everyone expected bad decisions and unpleasant outcomes from my side of the family, and this was the least of them.

The minute I stepped on the campus, small and isolated on 132 acres of land, I felt ensconced, secreted away. I wouldn’t be asked to do anything special here, I thought with relief. It wouldn’t be expected that I distinguish myself. This town, The Hollows, this school, would wrap themselves around me, and keep me safe. Just like I wanted. I was immediately accepted and I enrolled right away without a second thought.

New, gleaming buildings stood shoulder to shoulder with historic structures. A tall Norman tower stood at the center of the campus and loomed high as you pulled down the long, tree-lined drive up to campus. One was greeted on arrival by a rambling five-story colonial, which housed the president’s office and her staff. Students and faculty assembled there, in the grand foyer, for all parties and gatherings. There was a stone chapel where services were held. Alongside that, in the spring and summer, was an elaborate herb and vegetable garden. Because of the competitive equestrian team, there was also a stable of horses, as well as a small barn of animals—including laying hens and three milking cows.

Winding running paths laced through the acres of woods populated by oak and maple, sycamore and birch. The dormitory buildings—Evangeline, Dominica, Marianna, and Angelica—were four renovated Victorian-era mansions with barely a right angle between them. It was my dream of a college dorm, with curved baluster staircases, bay windows, restored woodwork. Imagine towers of bookshelves packed with leather-bound volumes, secret attic rooms, and tiny, winding back staircases. And yet we had high-speed wireless, cable, and laundry in the basement, all the modern conveniences.

The classroom buildings and library, science center, gymnasium,
and a newer dorm building were all gleaming glass and stone. Built to coordinate in essence with the older buildings, they seemed to mesh with rather than oppose the existing structures.

There was a part of me that hoped never to leave the safety and isolation of a school campus. Certainly, I knew it was possible; Langdon never had. He’d done his undergraduate work at Boston University. Then went on to get his master’s and his Ph.D. in childhood psychology, as well as his postdoctoral certificate in psychoanalysis and psychotherapy. Now, he was a full tenured professor here at Sacred Heart.

“It’s a life sentence,” he always joked.

He also worked as a clinical psychologist at the nearby hospital, and with troubled children at Fieldcrest. Fieldcrest was a school where children went when no one else would take them anymore—bring me your bipolar, your ADHD, your raging, your callous-unemotional.

I’d done several internships with Langdon at the school—art therapy, some poetry with the least disturbed of the kids. I could see myself following his path. I could see myself helping people in a significant way doing something like that. And I made the mistake of saying so over Christmas break. The leaden silence that followed was almost a scream.

“Oh, but,” said my aunt with that strained smile she always seemed to wear when I was around. “There are so many other things you could do.”

I felt myself bristle. My cousin Rose was at FIT; she wanted to be a fashion designer. My other cousin Lily (I know. My aunt is
really
into gardening) was studying film at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. They were bright and creative and gorgeous, both of them, full of life and energy and promise. Maybe that was because
my aunt had
created
her life, as she was so fond of saying, and my mother had most certainly not created hers. But I wasn’t Bridgette’s child, was I?

“I want to help people,” I said weakly. “My mother wanted me to help people.”

“Your mother wanted you to be happy and free and safe,” said Bridgette with uncommon passion. She was usually so
careful
with me, so
gentle.
I always wondered if she wasn’t a little afraid of me, of what she might see if she pushed me too hard.

“I don’t know what that means,” I said.

My uncle and my two cousins had drifted from the room, presumably to play with their new iPads. We’d all gotten one from Santa.

“It
means
that you don’t spend your whole life with
psychopaths,
” she said. This time she nearly shouted. And then she covered her mouth and bowed her head, blond waves bouncing, diamonds glittering. “I’m sorry.”

The Christmas tree was glimmering, the fire crackling (even though we were in
Florida
with the a/c cranking—I mean, come on, the
planet,
people!). A low strain of classical music—Mozart, Beethoven, who knows?—was coming from the mounted speakers. We sat on chintz sofas, leaning against perfectly coordinated throw pillows. I caught sight of myself in the mirror, a slim black line with folded hands and furrowed brow, an ink stain on cream silk.

“But what if . . .” I started to say. I hadn’t voiced this thought to anyone. And I almost didn’t want to. She stared at me expectantly, eyes wide open and caring.

“What if ?” she said. She was eager to make a connection to me, always had been. It was I who pushed her away, rebuffing her with chilly politeness and icy platitudes.

“What if I
could
help someone?” I said. “What if I could keep someone from doing something horrible?”

We locked eyes—hers a deep blue, mine coal black. Each of us had endured horrors most people don’t allow themselves to imagine. And so when we looked at each other, we could hardly see through all of it. But I saw her that afternoon. I saw how frightened and sad she was at her core, and that all the prettiness with which she surrounded herself was a kind of armor. Behind it, a little girl’s heart beat fast with terror and grief.

“Then you’re a stronger person than I am.”

We both knew it was true, so I didn’t bother to argue. When I saw her start to cry, I moved beside her and put my arms around her and she kissed my head. We stayed like that for a while with nothing resolved between us.