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“Exactly. And you’re all alone. No family nearby, except thatasshole father-in-law. No friends in this new place. And you clear enough weren’t dealing well with things. Skin and bones. Had to be cuffed in the hospital.”
“But the psychiat—”
The sergeant plowed over her protestation. “Not the first time you’ve seen a strange man in your house, is it, with the shadow men you told me about? And you’re always awake, pacing the house constantly, your kids say. Letting them watch TV all day. Clinging to them, they said, getting hysterical over every scraped knee. And you ‘pushed them away,’ as you put it, when they were scared.”
You’re a terrible mother.
The sergeant leaned close, elbows on his widespread knees, chin resting on his knit fingers. The ice blue of his eyes lanced through her.
“You see how all this happened, ma’am? How simple it is?”
“He must have lied?” She shook her head, wishing she could make her voice louder, stronger, as her mind plucked at straws, at the thinnest wisps of possible explanations. “About being the manager, he—”
The sergeant didn’t pretend at patience now.
“Ma’am, the fact is, you were wrong. You made it up. Dreamed it. You’re lying to us. You’re not in your right mind. You wanted attention. Can’t you see how that’s clear?”
He hovered so close now she could smell him. Spray starch and raw onion under cologne.
Her mind folded inward, wending its way through a story from a psychology class she’d taken in college. Once upon a time, the story went, a man whose neighbor accused him of returning a teakettle broken replies that actually, it was already damaged when he got it, and really, he’d returned it undamaged, and truly, he’d never borrowed it anyway. It was to illustrate the way people think in dreams.I was in this place but it wasn’t this place. I was talking to you but it wasn’t you.
That illogic perfectly matched the sergeant’s contradicting arguments.
Actually, you’re crazy. But really, you purposefully set it up. Truly, you’re lying, but also, you just imagined it. In actuality, you weren’t good at staging a crime, but at the same time, you didn’t mean to. You’re paranoid, hysterical, but not emotional enough. Your story is too linear, but you make no sense. You calculated how to make yourself a hero, but also forgot every detail that would have let you get away with it. You’re dysfunctional, cutting yourself off from the world, but all you’re after is the attention of strangers. You’re certain you’re the only one who can protect your children, but really, you hurt them.
All those contradictory realities could not exist simultaneously with each other, but all of them nevertheless entwined to support the sergeant’s main point.
He thinks the Corner doesn’t exist. He doesn’t believe you.
“I’m the teakettle,” she murmured. Her hurt eye felt as though it were dissolving, turning to liquid that was filling the spaces under her skin. “I’m the teakettle.”
The sergeant and the boyish officer exchanged a look she knew meant they thought her mind had, at last, fully flown. All the familiar things, her belongings, backgrounded these strangers. There was a small stuffed horse under a chair by the fireplace. There were smudges of ash on the rug.
You can’t win. You’re playing a game with stakes, but you can’t win.
“Why don’t you tell us the truth?” The boyish officer was working hard to infuse his voice with kindness. “It’s all so understandable.”
The pain was terrible. The confusion, the sense that her brain was a skipping record, missing pieces of itself, overwhelmed her. How could she refute the seemingly endless contradictions, all the facts and alternate facts and maybe-facts the sergeant had just thrown at the wall to see what stuck? How could she do that with her skull so soft and battered?
“This can’t be happening. This is a nightmare.” She cradled her head in shaking hands.
The sergeant crossed his arms, his opinion of her shattered somewhere long ago. Maybe when he first saw the blood alcohol test. First found out there was no manager at the café. Maybe when she’d dismissed religion as supernatural. Maybe, just maybe, the second he’d set eyes on her back in November.
“A nightmare,” he said sternly. “That’s exactly right. Thank you for admitting that. Now, you’re smart. You’re a smart lady. That’s exactly it. It didn’t happen.”
He said the word “smart” the way her grandmother sometimes had, as a sarcastic response to back talk. “Well, aren’t yousmart.”
“It happened. It’s your job. It’s your job to believe me,” she murmured.
The sergeant gave an unamused huff.
“Frankly, ma’am, people lie to us. It’s our job to listen. To follow facts and evidence. This may have seemed real toyou. But it doesn’t mean it happened. Like you just said yourself, it was only a nightmare.”
She desperately wanted to shut her ruined eyes and go to sleep.
“No,” she said, her voice a distant whisper, “it wasn’t a dream. It really happened.”
Think of the treasure box, think of what you saw, think of the children, standing there in the office, listening with you. They heard and saw him, too.
