Perfect Match Read online

  "Monica." I am holding onto the thinnest filament of control. I remind myself that she could not have known what Nathaniel would do. That nobody is perfect; and that I had not protected him any better, apparently, than she could. But still.

  Irony: I will be acquitted, and my son will be gone.

  Out of a crowd of cries, I have always been able to hear Nathaniel's. As an infant; on a playground full of children; even with my eyes closed, playing Marco Polo in the shallow end of a pool. Maybe if I cry loud enough, now, Nathaniel will be able to hear me.

  Two bright circles of color have appeared on Monica's cheeks. "What can I do?" she whispers.

  "Bring him back." Then I walk away, because guilt is not only contagious but also deadly.

  Caleb watches the police speed away in their cruisers, the lights flashing. Maybe they'll attract Nathaniel; maybe not. He knows one thing--these officers have forgotten what it is like to be five. To this end, he puts his back up against the window that leads into the basement bathroom. He kneels, until he is Nathaniel's height. Then he squints, taking into account everything that might capture his attention.

  A clump of matted bushes, bare and shaking. An umbrella, turned inside out by the wind and discarded. A handicapped ramp painted with yellow zigzagged lines.

  "Mr. Frost." The deep voice startles Caleb. He gets to his feet and turns to find the prosecutor standing there, shoulders hunched against the cold.

  When Monica ran into the courtroom to deliver the bad news, Fisher Carrington took one look at Nina's face and requested a recess. Brown, on the other hand, stood up and asked the judge if this might not be a ploy for sympathy. "For all we know," he said, "the boy is safe and sound in a conference room upstairs."

  It didn't take him long to realize his tactical error, as the jury watched Nina become hysterical. But all the same, he is the last person Caleb expects to see out here.

  "I just wanted to tell you," Brown says now, "if there's anything I can do ..."

  He lets his sentence trail off. "You can do something, all right," Caleb replies. Both men know what it is; know it has nothing to do with Nathaniel.

  The prosecutor nods and walks inside. Caleb gets down on his knees again. He begins to move in a spiral around the court building, like the way he lays stone in a round patio--widening his circles so that he leaves out no space and maintains the arc of the ring. He does this as he does everything--slowly and tenaciously--until he is certain that he's seeing the world through the eyes of his son.

  On the other side of the highway is a steep hill that Nathaniel slides down on his bottom. His pants snag on a branch and rip and it doesn't matter, because no one will punish him. He steps in melting puddles of icy water and through the ragged seam of the treeline, where he walks until he stumbles over a piece of the forest that has been left out by mistake.

  It is the size of his bed at home and has been flattened by the tracks of animals. Nathaniel sits down on a log at the edge and pulls his pillowcase out from inside his coat. He takes out his granola bar and eats halfway, then decides to save the rest. He turns on his flashlight and holds it up to his palm so that the back of his hand glows red.

  When the deer come, Nathaniel holds his breath. He remembers what his father told him--they are more afraid of us than we are afraid of them. The big one, a doe, has a coat the color of caramels and tiny high-heeled hoofs. Her baby looks the same, with white spots on her back, as if she has not been colored in the whole way. They bend their long throats to the ground, pushing through the snow with their noses.

  It is the mother deer who finds the grass. Just a tuft, hardly a bite. But instead of eating it she shoves the fawn closer. She watches the baby eat, although it means she herself will get nothing.

  It makes Nathaniel want to give her the other half of his granola bar.

  But the minute he reaches into his pillowcase the heads of the deer jerk up, and they leap from all four feet, their tails white sails as they disappear farther into the woods.

  Nathaniel examines the rip on the back of his pants; the muddy tops of his boots. He places the half of the granola bar on the log, in case the deer come back. Then he gets up and slowly heads back toward the road.

  Patrick has canvassed a one-mile square around the courthouse, certain that Nathaniel left of his own free will, and even more certain that the kid couldn't have gotten much farther. He picks up his radio to place a call to the Alfred dispatch, asking if anyone's found anything yet, when a movement at the side of the road strikes his eye. As he watches, a quarter mile up the road, Nathaniel crawls over the iron horse of the guardrail and starts walking along the shoulder of the highway.

  "I'll be damned," Patrick breathes, pulling his truck forward slightly. It looks like Nathaniel knows exactly where he is going; from this spot, even someone as small as Weed would be able to see the high roof of the courthouse. But the boy can't see what Patrick can, from the high cab of his truck--Caleb, coming closer on the opposite side of the road.

  He watches Nathaniel look right and then left, and Patrick realizes what he is planning to do. Sticking his flashing magnetic light on the roof of the truck, Patrick hurriedly swerves to block traffic. He gets out and clears the way, so that by the time Nathaniel sees his father waiting, he can run across the highway and into Caleb's arms safely.

  "Don't do that again," I say into Nathaniel's soft neck, holding him close to me. "Ever. Do you hear me?"

  He pulls back, puts his palms on my cheeks. "Are you mad at me?"

  "No. Yes. I will be, anyway, when I'm done being so happy." I hug him tighter. "What were you thinking?"

  "That I'm bad," he says flatly.

  Over Nathaniel's head, I meet Caleb's eyes. "No you're not, sweetheart. Running away, that wasn't good. You could have been hurt; and you worried me and Daddy like you can't believe." I hesitate, picking my words. "But you can do a bad thing and not be a bad person."

  "Like Father Gwynne?"

  I freeze. "Actually, no. He did a bad thing, and he was a bad person."

  Nathaniel looks up at me. "What about you?"

  *

  Shortly after Dr. Robichaud, Nathaniel's psychiatrist, takes the stand, Quentin Brown is on his feet to object. "Your Honor, what does this witness have to offer?"

  "Judge, this goes to my client's state of mind," Fisher argues. "The information she received from Dr. Robichaud regarding her son's declining condition was highly relevant to her mental status on October thirtieth."

  "I'll allow it," Judge Neal rules.

  "Doctor, have you treated other children who were rendered mute after sexual abuse?" Fisher asks.

  "Yes, unfortunately."

  "In some of these cases, do children never regain their voices?"

  "It can take years."

  "Did you have any way of knowing whether this would be a long-term condition for Nathaniel Frost?"

  "No," Dr. Robichaud says. "In fact, that was why I began to teach him rudimentary sign language. He was becoming frustrated with his inability to communicate."

  "Did it help?"

  "For a while," the psychiatrist admits. "Then he began talking again."

  "Was the progress steady?"

  "No. It broke down when Nathaniel lost contact with Mrs. Frost for a week."

  "Do you know why?"

  "I understood she was charged with violating her bail conditions and was imprisoned."

  "Did you see Nathaniel during the week that his mother was in jail?"

  "Yes, I did. Mr. Frost brought him in, quite upset that the child was no longer speaking. He'd regressed to the point where all he would sign for was his mother."

  "In your opinion, what caused that regression?"

  "Clearly, it was the sudden and prolonged separation from Mrs. Frost," Dr. Robichaud says.

  "How did Nathaniel's condition change when his mother was released again?"

  "He cried out for her." The psychiatrist smiles. "A joyful noise."

  "And, Doctor, w