The Best Kind of People (21 page)

Every week, George was allowed three adult visitors for ninety minutes in total. Sometimes Clara would accompany her in the car and then hit the outlet malls while Joan visited with George. She tried to convince the kids to come, but Sadie, after that first visit, stayed away. She spoke with her father on the phone a few times a week, but refused to go visit.

Andrew had basically moved back into his old room on the weekends and insisted on visiting with George by himself for half an hour whenever he went to the prison. Joan would leave at the halfway mark and wait for Andrew in the parking lot. She expected this was because he didn’t want to be emotional in front of her. Improbable as it seemed, they settled into a new routine during this holding pattern — like when you’ve put gauze on a wound, and you’re waiting it out, hoping no infections seep in. Joan went through the motions: waking and dressing, eating and driving, falling into bed exhausted, and numbing out with television and red wine. She was always planning to go back to work in a week or so; she needed the routine again.

On occasion, though, something would happen to shake her from the routine.

She stood in line at the Book Nook in Woodbridge, buying reading material to take to George. The cashier was a young woman, straight blond hair tied back with a purple cloth headband. When Joan smiled at her, the girl’s face reddened, and she stumbled at the cash, forgetting the decimal point and charging her $2,754.00.

“Sorry,” she mumbled, trying to fix the error, which only seemed to anger the computer. The line behind Joan grew longer. The point-of-sale system made obvious beeping sounds of displeasure. Joan glanced at her name tag.
Tammy-Lynn.
Of course! Tammy-Lynn Harrison, one of George’s brightest scholarship students. He’d spoken of her often and fondly.

“Hi, Tammy-Lynn,” said Joan, obliviously. “It’s okay. I’m in no hurry.”

The girl fumbled, muttered a hello, and called the manager over to fix the error. She bagged Joan’s purchases and moved on to the next customer.

Joan lingered by the door afterwards, obsessed. Was Tammy-Lynn awkward because of the rumours? Joan felt she
had
to know. She went back into the store and pretended she had forgotten to purchase something. She lingered by a table of lavender candles and throw pillows. She grabbed a gaudy silver photo frame engraved with
Family is Love!
and brought it up to the cash. This time there was no lineup.

“Forgot this one,” Joan said.

Tammy-Lynn scanned it. “Uh-huh, that’s $7.57.”

Joan handed her the credit card, staring at her a bit too long.

“What?” Tammy snapped. “Look, I know what I saw. I wasn’t drunk. I know he’s a nice man and everything, and he was so kind to me usually, but I know what I saw!” She was yelling then. Joan stumbled back, jostling a display of boxed chocolates.

Joan grabbed the frame.

“I wasn’t drunk!” Tammy-Lynn yelled over the sound of soft eighties rock on the store speakers as Joan fled the scene. Joan stood outside on the sidewalk, momentarily forgetting where she’d parked the car. When she found it, she placed the frame behind the back wheel and listened for the crunching sound as she reversed over it.

EVERY SUNDAY, SHE
went to the support group, even though she felt she didn’t fit in. Regardless, it was a place to vent, with women who, whether she liked it or not, understood what it was like not to have access to your loved one, and to experience both anger and grief, love and rage, because of what he had done or might have done.

On Sunday mornings she’d get up and get dressed as though she were going to church like she usually did, but hadn’t been since the arrest. She’d put on
NPR
and make breakfast for Andrew before he went back to the city, and then she’d sit on the back patio and cover her legs with a blanket and sip coffee, while church went on without her. Every week she’d make a list of household things to get done that day instead of going to the group, and then at the last minute she’d get in the car and drive to the group.

The facilitator was trying to encourage Joan to share more. She had four weeks of attendance before he gently prodded her to participate in the discussion. “Why don’t you tell us about your visits to see your husband?”

“Well.” Joan clasped her hands to keep them from flying away. “Sometimes he just talks, you know, about the book he’s writing. I don’t understand all the jargon, but I like to see that he’s not just rotting away, that something still matters to him. I bring him books and magazines to read.”

“Do you feel like he listens to you?” asked Shelley of the many cat sweaters.

“Yes. I mean, he always asks about the kids first, and then he asks how I’m holding up. Always. I feel like he is genuine in his concern for me — for us.”

“Well, that’s the least he can do …” Shelley muttered. Shelley was having a resentful week.

“He thinks I should go back to work, you know. He said, ‘Joannie, you find so much meaning in it.’ And it’s true. I’m thinking about it. I do miss the routine.”

“Do you speak about the charges against him?”

Dr. Forrestor never said
crimes
, which Joan appreciated, unless the husband in question had actually been found guilty or admitted to things.

“I always blurt it out right at the end of our time, when I know I have to leave soon. I always ask him to tell me the truth. George reacted badly to this at first, like I was the one who should be embarrassed for asking the question. I want to know, and I need to know, and I deserve to know, right?” Her voice squeaked at the end of the question.

The women sitting around the circle nodded in sympathy.

“Every time he says no, he says it so firmly and with resolve. But I’ve noticed that he looks different when he says it, like his eyes glaze over and he almost vacates his body, like his spirit has been lifted away. Does that sound crazy? Sometimes he just keeps saying it, no no no no, you know? As if repeating it makes it necessarily so. At first I believed him, the words were comforting, you know?”

“Do you believe him?” Shelley asked.

“I don’t know. I change my mind all the time. My daughter says I’m in denial, and my son says he believes him. But last week when I asked him, he just exploded. He said, ‘Don’t you know how hard it is for me to hear you ask me that every damn visit? This is the one highlight of my treacherous, inhumane week.’ He said that if I really loved him, I would believe him.”

Several women sucked their teeth. “I’ve heard that one before,” said Ann, a mousy woman who rarely spoke, whose husband had assaulted his younger employee.

“He has never spoken to me like that before,” Joan said. “Despite the circumstances of why he is in jail, the encounters we had were always civil. I don’t know, I was so shocked that I just apologized. I felt
guilty.
”
It sounded ridiculous as she admitted it to these women, who were all nodding with empathy.

Joan wasn’t sure why she had immediately assumed responsibility that wasn’t hers. It seemed entirely out of character for her to do that. If you had to choose a Woodbury to be in a bar fight with, you’d want Joan. She didn’t used to back down.

“Why should I fucking
apologize
?
Was I that
easy
to manipulate? Who
am
I?” she said to the support group, who were rapt. How long had it been since she felt as though anyone was listening to her? Other than at work, it had been a very long time.

She proceeded to tell the women in the support group what she’d done after that. She pulled into the nearest mid-sized town, one that housed a university and a strip of hotels along a flat expanse of highway. She’d checked herself into the highest hotel on the horizon. She didn’t even bother to bargain-hunt, she just chose the first one she came upon besides the Motel 6. It was a lavish five-star, and a valet took the keys from her shaking, cold hand and exchanged them for a small piece of numbered paper, which she quickly lost in her pocket. In the lobby she signed the credit card slip with an angular scrawl unlike her real signature and didn’t really hear the concierge when he informed her of the checkout time and pointed her towards the elevators. She nodded at the bellhops, noted the entrance to a fancy steakhouse restaurant off the lobby as she walked, but she was not inside herself, truly. Her bones kept moving and she sank behind.

Her room was on the twenty-seventh floor. It overlooked a skateboarding and roller skating park. She opened the brown curtains and stood barefoot on the carpet, even though she knew it was unwise to do so with so many diseases combed into each tiny thread, ready to attach to her skin. She pressed her nose against the glass as the electric heater warmed her ankles. She stared down onto the streets, pushing her toes into the fibres. Directly below the hotel she watched a lone roller skater, a very proficient one, skate around the perimeter. Her legs were so tiny from Joan’s vantage point that they looked like little bird legs. Her movements and gentle rhythms mesmerized her. The sound of how George had spoken to her reverberated around the beige, tasteful decor.

“I ordered room service — I’ve never done that before! I opened the mini-bar and drank all the gin. It was kind of nice, actually. And I called my kids. I call them both at seven every night, usually.”

She didn’t tell the women that they only picked up about once or twice a week, and for those few times she was overwhelmingly grateful.

She was worried about Sadie.

For a few moments she’d felt regretful about her decision to get a hotel room. She was
fine
to drive. She just couldn’t bear the thought of the long stretch of highway and all that time to think. She’d needed a rest. Her phone rang, and she saw the familiar work number appear on the screen, the chief of staff at the Avalon Hills trauma department. She answered hesitantly.

“Joan, hello. You know …” He cleared his throat, the way he always did. Acid reflux. She knew what was coming.
We think the stress of the position might be too much for you, all things considered.
Meaning the bad media reflected poorly on the hospital.
We have donors, you know.
Et cetera. She steeled herself against this possibility.

“I’m calling because I’m hoping that it’s time for you to come back to work. You are missed. You run a tight ship, and your replacement is getting sloppy, you know. Confidentially …”

“Well, doctor …” Joan was so shocked she couldn’t really respond. She kept staring out the window, at the cars that looked like toys driving down the busy street. The sight of partying youngsters, couples arm in arm. The skater kept on circling.

“I know this has been hard, and your coming back would be contingent on checking in with our psychiatrist, but I’m sure it won’t be a problem. We all know how strong you are.”

“Yes, well, this has been tested lately.”

“Yes, I can imagine.”

Joan sat down on the edge of the bed, adjusting the belt of her plush white hotel robe.

“I don’t know if you’ve read the daily paper …”

“No, not yet.”

“Well, the hospital issued a statement of support for you, and I hope that puts your mind at ease. We are here for you. You’ve given the hospital so many years, and you’ve done exemplary work, and we are aware that you were as shocked about the news as anyone could be.”

“That is an understatement.”

“Well, I will give you some time to think about it. But we’re hopeful you can return within the week. Would you like to do that?”

“Yes,” she agreed, hesitantly.

“Terrific,” he said. “I’ll set up that appointment with Dr. Chua and you’ll be on your way back to work. Terrific.”

“Terrific,” she parroted, “thank you,” before hanging up.

Joan had called Clara and told her she would be returning to work.

“Amazing idea! You need something else to do besides support your husband,” she said. Clara had been on her to stop being so generous with her caring ear, to access her anger.

“Clara, I’m in a hotel near the prison. I’ve stopped because I can’t really deal with it. I think I might be going crazy.” Going crazy felt like a low moan of white noise in her head; the light of the room looked so bright, her hands didn’t seem to be her own.

“Good. You need to get fucking crazy. Some crazy shit has happened, and it’s time you stopped trying to solve everything you know you can’t solve.”

“You know I’m a practical person, and if there is something to be done, I will do it.”

“Yes, yes. I know. God. But what are you doing for yourself? Why don’t you trot on down to the hotel bar and meet a man. Don’t get his last name. Tell him you’re a corporate saleswoman in town for one night only. And get it
on.
”

“Clara! I could never. I’m
married.
”

Clara cleared her throat. “My god, are you Amish? I think that when your husband’s in prison and you’re not allowed any conjugal break times, you gotta do what you gotta do.” She laughed.

“Well, maybe you would, but I’m not like that.”

“No, of course, you live for other people. It gives your life meaning. Do something selfish for once. He owes you one, right? For sticking it out. You should fuck any man you want and George should just say thank you, thank you, thank you for staying with me.” She laughed again. Joan could tell she’d been drinking. She could hear people in the background. Clara was talking in the voice she took on when she was cognizant that others were overhearing. Her laugh was full and cackling. “I mean, it’s not as if he was faithful.”

“Fuck you, Clara.
Fuck you
.” Joan hung up the phone and threw it on the ground. It didn’t smash or make any sound against the plush beige carpet. She’d just alienated her only support system and she didn’t even get the satisfaction of breaking something.

She’d dressed and gone down to the lobby of the hotel to check her email. She didn’t like to answer email on her phone and had recently just disabled it entirely. But first she grabbed a newspaper and forced herself to read the article entitled simply
WHAT
WIVES
DON
’
T
KNOW
. The article opened with details of George’s case, and then chronicled several famous wives of sex offenders who had no idea, and quoted a researcher about how common this is. The words soothed Joan, that she wasn’t the only fucking idiot.