He broke off the sentence, reaching again for the bloody mary. I too took a long sip of my drink, my mind now endeavoring to work out the complex contours of Richard’s marriage. From the way he was reporting things, Muriel sounded cold, judgmental, emotionally detached. But was I thinking that because I could see the immense distress that her husband was embroiled in right now?
‘We all have our private griefs, don’t we?’ he said. ‘And I certainly didn’t want to go upending our lunch with—’
‘Do not apologize. What has happened to your son is so evidently huge and terrible. ’
‘What has happened to my son?’ he said, his voice just above a whisper. ‘You make it sound as if all this was visited upon him. Whereas the truth is. he visited it all upon himself.’
‘But you said he was bipolar. And if you are bipolar—’
‘I know, I know. And you’re right. Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. Muriel threw that line from Luke at me when I tried to explain away Billy’s behavior after getting expelled from the MIT Math Camp. “Making excuses for him as usual. You should march him down to the nearest Marine Corps recruiting office and get him signed up. Three months of basic training at Parris Island will knock all that craziness out of him.”
‘Now I know that all makes Muriel sound rather extreme. But the truth is, when I brought Billy home from MIT and he refused to talk with her, I woke around three in the morning to find Muriel sitting in a chair by the window in our bedroom, crying uncontrollably. When I tried to comfort her she told me that she blamed herself for so much that had befallen Billy. “I know I’ve been a bad mother. I know I’ve never given him the love he needs.” And it was wonderful hearing that. Because she had articulated a certain truth that I was always afraid of discussing with her.’
But why were you afraid? I stopped myself from posing that question. Because I knew just how much of a long, difficult marriage is often based around sidestepping so many painfully evident truths, and how we all are afraid of opening up the sort of conversations that can lead us into the darker, distressed recesses of the lives we have created for ourselves.
‘I’ve always hated myself for not confronting her about the antipathy that she felt towards our son. And the way she was incapable of showing any nurturing affection.’
‘Towards him and towards you?’ I asked.
I could see Richard tense, and silently cursed myself for overstepping a mark.
‘Sorry, sorry, that was an inappropriate question,’ I said.
He took another sip of his drink.
‘Actually, it was a perfectly appropriate question. And one which I think you already know the answer to.’
Silence. I broke it.
‘So after the MIT Math Camp. did he get help?’
‘Naturally I got the school therapist immediately involved. She was a very nice woman, if something of a lightweight who talked all this touchy-feely stuff, but was very out of her depth when it came to dealing with the clinical reasons why Billy had done something so destructive, so calamitous. She did send him to a psychiatrist. The psychiatrist diagnosed depression and put him on Valium. A reasonable year followed. He saw the psychiatrist once a week. The medication seemed to be working. Billy finished his senior year in high school. He scored high on his SATs — including a 750 in math. The incident at MIT was in the past. I paid the four thousand dollars in damages. They never pressed charges, so there was no record against Billy. Several colleges were seriously interested in him — including Chicago and Cornell. Another great triumph happened when CalTech came through with a complete four-year scholarship. CalTech! Billy was thrilled. I was thrilled. Even his mother was truly chuffed that her boy got into one of the world’s great science and math schools. The thing was, Billy was going out with a girl from his class. Mary Tracey. Lovely young woman. Quite the chemistry whizz. And she seemed to really understand our quirky son. She’d even gotten accepted on full scholarship to Stanford. It all looked so good.
‘Then, around three weeks before his high school graduation, he disappeared. Vanished completely. The local and state police were involved. His photo was in all the papers and on all Maine news bulletins. The fact that he had taken Muriel’s car and stolen her ATM card — he knew her PIN number because she’d asked him to get money out on occasion — well, naturally, this was serious stuff. The bank informed us that he’d only made one withdrawal of three hundred dollars on the day of his disappearance. We didn’t stop the card because, as the police advised us, they’d be able to easily track his whereabouts. But after that first withdrawal, nothing. No sign of him anywhere. The trail had gone cold. And I couldn’t help but fear the worst: that he’d taken his own life.
‘But then, eight days after he’d disappeared — eight days during which I had maybe slept three hours a night — we got a phone call at around four in the morning from our local police captain, Dwight Petrie. Bath’s a small town. Dwight and I had gone to high school together. His father had been in the police force. My dad had insured their family house and cars. Dwight came to me for all that when he got married and started a family. He was the only friend I confided in about the business at MIT. He was one of the few people I could trust to keep a secret. The fact is, the MIT business was kept pretty hush-hush. Billy’s disappearance, on the other hand, was big local news — and somehow word got out about Billy’s MIT business. I’m pretty damn certain it was a parent of one of Billy’s classmates. Her son was also at the same math camp, but he’d been passed over by CalTech and everywhere for scholarship. This woman — her name was Margaret Mallon — went around telling everybody that it was absurd that “that little freak Billy Copeland gets all the scholarships” and her boy got nothing. It was Dwight Petrie who told me she’d been overheard saying that. Being a police captain, Dwight never repeats anything incriminating unless he’s received it from impeccable sources. Next thing we know that too got into the newspapers. And the world being so linked now by Google and Yahoo, naturally someone in the admissions office at CalTech flagged it. The college guidance counselor at Bath High then got a call from the director of admissions at CalTech, demanding to know why the school had concealed Billy’s expulsion. The Bath college guidance counselor told him this was the first he had heard of it. Which meant that Muriel and I were asked to come into the principal’s office and were essentially carpeted for concealing this “felony”, as the principal put it. I tried to explain that, since the matter wasn’t reported to the police and it was all privately settled between ourselves and MIT, we didn’t feel it essential to “share” this information with the school. I knew this sounded lame — and that we were essentially guilty of a cover-up.’
‘What makes you think that?’ I asked.
‘The school should have been informed.’
‘Did MIT know the name of Billy’s high school?’
‘Of course. They had all his details.’
‘But they chose not to inform Bath High that he had been expelled. The very fact that MIT didn’t think it necessary to inform Bath High School of this unfortunate incident—’
‘It wasn’t an “incident”. It was an offense.’
‘Your son is bipolar. ’