Perfect Match Read online

  I wish I had his patience, but I cannot sit here and watch Nathaniel struggle. I can't stop thinking that for every single moment Nathaniel is silent, there is someone else in this world who should have been rendered speechless, stopped in his tracks.

  Today, we have worked our way through practical signs for food--cereal, milk, pizza, ice cream, breakfast. The terms in the ASL book are grouped like that--in units that go together. There is a picture of the word, the written letters, and then a sketch of a person making the sign. Nathaniel gets to pick what we study. He has jumped from the seasons, to things to eat, and is now flipping the pages again.

  "Where he'll stop nobody knows ..." Dr. Robichaud jokes.

  The book falls open to a page with a family on it. "Oh, that's a good one," I say, trying the sign at the top--the F handshapes making a circle away from oneself.

  Nathaniel points to the child. "Like this, Nathaniel," Dr. Robichaud says. "Boy." She mimics touching the bill of a baseball cap. Like many of the signs I've learned, this one is a perfect match to the real thing.

  "Mother," the psychiatrist continues, helping Nathaniel hold out his hand, touch the thumb to the side of his chin, and wiggle the fingers.

  "Father." The same sign, but the thumb touches the side of the forehead. "You do it," Dr. Robichaud says.

  Do it.

  All those thin black lines on the page have tangled together, a fat snake that's coming toward him, grabbing him by the neck. Nathaniel can't breathe. He can't see. He hears Dr. Robichaud's voice all around him, father father father.

  Nathaniel lifts his hand, puts a thumb to his forehead. He wiggles the fingers of his hand. This sign looks like he's making fun of someone.

  Except it isn't funny at all.

  "Look at that," the psychiatrist says, "he's better than we are, already." She moves on to the next sign, baby. "That's good, Nathaniel," Dr. Robichaud says after a moment. "Try this one."

  But Nathaniel doesn't. His hand is jammed tight to the side of his head, his thumb digging into his temple. "Honey, you're going to hurt yourself," I tell him. I reach for his hand and he jumps back. He will not stop signing this word.

  Dr. Robichaud gently closes the ASL book. "Nathaniel, do you have something you want to say?"

  He nods, his hand still fanning out from the side of his head. All the air leaves my body. "He wants Caleb--"

  Dr. Robichaud interrupts. "Don't speak for him, Nina."

  "You can't think that he--"

  "Nathaniel, has your daddy ever taken you somewhere, just the two of you?" the psychiatrist asks.

  Nathaniel seems confused by the question. He nods slowly.

  "Has he ever helped you get dressed?" Another nod. "Has he ever hugged you, in your bed?"

  I am frozen in my seat. My lips feel stiff when I speak. "It's not what you're thinking. He just wants to know why Caleb isn't here. He misses his father. He wouldn't have needed a sign if it was ... if it was ..." I can't even say it. "He could have pointed, a thousand times over," I whisper.

  "He might have been afraid of the consequences of such a direct identification," Dr. Robichaud explains. "A label like this gives him an extra layer of psychological protection. Nathaniel," she continues gently. "Do you know who hurt you?"

  He points to the ASL book. And signs father again.

  Be careful what you wish for. After all these days, Nathaniel has given a name, and it is the one I would never have expected to hear. It is the one that renders me as immobile as a stone, the very material Caleb prefers to work with.

  I listen to Dr. Robichaud make the call to BCYF; I hear her tell Monica there is a suspect, but I am a hundred miles away. I'm watching with the objectivity of someone who knows what will happen next. A detective will be put on the case; Caleb will be called in for questioning. Wally Moffett will contact the Portland DA's office. Caleb will either confess and be convicted on the strength of that statement; or else Nathaniel will have to accuse him in open court.

  This nightmare is only just beginning.

  He could not have done it. I know this as well as I know anything about Caleb after so many years. I can still see him walking the halls at midnight, holding an infant Nathaniel by his feet, the only position in which our colicky baby would stop screaming. I can see him sitting next to me at Nathaniel's graduation from the two-day class in preschool, how he'd cried without shame. He is a good, strong, solid man; the kind of man you would trust with your life, or your child's.

  But if I believe that Caleb is innocent, it means I don't believe Nathaniel.

  Small memories prick at my mind. Caleb, suggesting that Patrick might be the one to blame. Why bring up his name, if not to take the heat off himself? Or Caleb telling Nathaniel he didn't have to learn sign language if he didn't want to. Anything, to keep the child from confessing the truth.

  I have met convicted child molesters before. They don't wear badges or brands or tattoos announcing their vice. It's hidden under a soft, grandfatherly smile; it's tucked in the pocket of a button-down shirt. They look like the rest of us, and that's what makes it so frightening--to know that these beasts move among us, and we are none the wiser.

  They have girlfriends and wives who have loved them, unaware.

  I used to wonder how mothers wouldn't have some inkling that this was going on in their homes. There had to have been a moment where they made a conscious decision to turn away before they saw something they didn't want to. No wife, I used to think, could sleep next to a man and not know what was playing through the loop of his mind.

  "Nina." Monica LaFlamme touches my shoulder. When did she even arrive? I feel like I'm coming awake from a coma; I shake myself into consciousness and look for Nathaniel right away. He's playing in the psychiatrist's office, still, with a Brio train set.

  When the social worker looks at me, I know that this is what she's suspected all along. And I cannot blame her. In her shoes, I would have thought the same thing. In fact, in the past, I have.

  My voice is old, stripped. "Have the police been called?"

  Monica nods. "If there's anything I can do for you ..."

  There is somewhere I need to go, and I cannot have Nathaniel with me. It hurts to have to ask, but I have lost my barometer for trust. "Yes," I ask. "Will you watch my son?"

  I find him at the third job site, making a stone wall. Caleb's face lights up as he recognizes my car. He watches me get out, and then he waits, expecting Nathaniel. It's enough to propel me forward, so that by the time I reach him I am nearly at a dead run, and I slap him as hard as I can across the face.

  "Nina!" Caleb catches my wrists and holds me away from him. "What the hell!"

  "You bastard. How could you, Caleb? How could you?"

  He pushes me away, rubbing his fingers against his cheek. My hand rises on it, a bright print. Good. "I don't know what you're talking about," Caleb says. "Slow down."

  "Slow down?" I spit out. "I'll make it really simple: Nathaniel told us. He told us what you did to him."

  "I didn't do anything to him."

  For a long moment, I don't say a word, just stare. "Nathaniel said I ... I ...," Caleb falters. "That's ridiculous."

  It is what they all say, the guilty ones, and it makes me unravel. "Don't you dare tell me that you love him."

  "Of course I do!" Caleb shakes his head, as if to clear it. "I don't know what he said. I don't know why he said it. But Nina, Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ."

  When I don't respond, every year we've spent together unspools, until we are both standing knee deep in a litter of memories that don't matter. Caleb's eyes are wide and wet. "Nina, please. Think about what you're saying."

  I look down at my hands, one fist gripping the other tightly. It is the sign for in. In trouble. In love. In case. "What I think is that kids don't make this up. That Nathaniel didn't make this up." I raise my gaze to his. "Don't come home tonight," I say, and I walk back to my car with great precision, as if my heart has not gone to pieces inside me.

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