Iron House (13 page)

“Julian?”

Her eyes began to adjust. To her right, the bed was dark and flat and empty. Furniture made vague, humped shapes in the room, while from somewhere deeper, a dull, rapping sound made itself heard.

“Julian?”

There were two more thumps, and then the sound stopped. Something moved in a far corner.

“I’m going to turn on a light. You might want to cover your eyes.”

She shuffled to the bedside table and clicked on a small lamp, a Tiffany piece whose soft light touched a pale yellow rug and cream-colored baseboards beneath walls papered French blue with gold fleur-de-lis. Shadows gathered under furniture, and she saw Julian, hunched in the corner beyond the bed. His hair was unwashed, his face buried in knees drawn to his chest. His pants were stained with mud and grass, his shirt untucked and greasy at the collar. Clean clothes sat in neat piles, but he refused to touch them. He refused to eat. Refused to drink.

“Good morning, sweetheart.” Abigail moved closer, and Julian pushed into the corner. He clenched his arms more tightly, and in the light she saw that gauze wrapped his hands. The fabric extended from his wrists to the tips of his fingers, tightly wrapped except at the edges, where it had begun to tear and fray. Blood soaked through at the knuckles, red stains on white, and on the walls around him—on all the walls—blood discolored the fine, blue paper. Where Julian huddled, the blood was fresh and wet, while farther away it had dried to thin smears of rust-colored ink.

Abigail froze when she saw how wet the bandages were, how stained the walls. This was something terrible and new: damaged hands and bloodstained walls. She asked why, but had no answer; looked for reason and saw only madness. She turned a circle, barbs of fear hooked in the walls of her chest, the strings of her will simply cut. The marks went as high as the ceiling, as low as the floor. The walls were dashed with red and rust and questions she could not bear.

She sank to her knees and put her hands on those of her son. “Julian.”

The bandages were warm and wet.

My baby ...

Ten minutes later, Abigail found her husband in the study, reading the
Washington Post
, half-glasses on his nose, mouth slightly open. Behind him, French doors showcased the formal gardens and the pool house beyond.

Randall Vane looked good under his silver hair. He was sixty-nine, wide-shouldered and tall enough to carry some extra weight. He had a strong nose and green eyes that worked well with the silver hair. Leonine, he’d once been called; it was a word he favored.

Leonine.

Lion-like.

Abigail entered without knocking. She felt nothing physical as she walked, neither her feet nor the smears of blood that her son’s bandages had left on her cheeks. She felt the ache of Julian’s eyes and the memory of heat in his wounded hands. She stopped at the desk’s edge, her fingers pressed white on the wood. “Julian needs a doctor.” Her voice shook, and she thought she might be in shock. Randall lowered the paper, took off his glasses. He considered her appearance: the fine nose chiseled white at the nostrils, the large eyes, and the once-plump lips drawn tight. His gaze traveled to the man’s coat she wore and the muddy pants beneath it. “It’s getting worse,” she said.

“Whose coat are you wearing?”

“It’s getting worse.”

She put the force of her will behind her words, and, hearing that force, Senator Randall Vane leaned back in his chair, folded the newspaper, and dropped it on the desk. The shirt pulled across his broad chest, the swell of his stomach. His face was ruddy, his teeth impossibly white. The cuffs of his shirt were monogrammed with pale, blue thread. “What do you mean?”

“Julian is harming himself.”

The senator laced thick fingers and rested them on his stomach. His voice came smoothly. “It started last night. I don’t know when.”

“Where is Mrs. Hamilton? Julian should be with someone he knows and loves.”

“I found Mrs. Hamilton asleep in the hall.”

“She helped raise him, Randall. If I’m not there, she is. That was our deal. How could you send her away without bringing me there first?”

“She was sleeping on the job while Julian beat his hands bloody. I sent her to bed and brought in someone I can trust.”

“What happened to my son, Randall?”

The senator rocked forward in his chair, big elbows landing on the desk. “He started hitting the walls. What else can I tell you? We don’t know why. He just did it. He was already bleeding when I went to check on him. He could have been doing it for hours.”

“And you didn’t come get me?”

“Come get you where, exactly?” His eyes drove the knife home, and Abigail looked away, angry and ashamed. “You ran out in the middle of our discussion.”

“Our argument.”

“Argument. Discussion. No matter. You were not to be found and I was left to deal with Julian. We bandaged his hands, sedated him. The injuries are minor. We’re watching him.”

“He needs a doctor.”

“I disagree.”

“He hasn’t spoken since he came home. We don’t know where he’s been, what happened to him…”

“It’s only been a few days. We agreed—”

“We did not.”

“We agreed to give him time to come out of this on his own. He’s upset about something. Fine. It happens to all of us. There’s no point in blowing this out of proportion. It’s probably just a girl, some sweet young thing that broke his heart.”

“He’s injuring himself.”

“Doctors keep records, Abigail. And records can be leaked.”

“Please don’t make this about you.”

“He’s a political liability.”

“He’s your son.”

It was an old argument, the line drawn when Julian was a boy. He had trouble looking people in the eyes, and rarely shook hands or allowed himself to be touched. Even now, he was painfully shy, so reticent he did poorly with people he did not know well. To complicate matters further, the books he wrote were as dark as could be and still be for children. They dealt with difficult themes: death and betrayal and fear, the pain of childhood’s end. Critics often remarked that a distinct godlessness characterized his stories, and because of that, some conservative communities had banned his books, even burned them. The power of his artistry and storytelling, however, was undeniable, so powerful, in fact, that few could read them without being emotionally challenged in some meaningful way. So, while in some circles he was demonized, in others he was celebrated as an artist of the highest order. His own explanation was simple:
The world is cruel and children can be stronger than they know
. Yet, his books, like life, did not always end well. Children died. Parents failed.
Telling children less,
he’d often said,
would be cruelty of a different sort
.

“It’s an election year.” The senator frowned. “He’ll be fine.”

“You’re blind, Randall.”

“Blind? I don’t think so.”

“Blind and arrogant.”

The senator leaned back in his chair, fingers laced above his belt. “Whose coat is that?”

“That’s hardly relevant.”

“I can have a doctor here by lunch. All you have to do is tell me who owns the coat you’re wearing.”

Her sigh was an exhausted one. “Why do you even care?”

“Because you said I’m blind.”

“Fine. You’re not blind.”

“I want to hear you say it.”

“It belongs to Jessup. Are you happy?”

“Jessup’s a good man.” He paused. “A bit humble for your tastes.”

“The man loaned me his coat.”

“Of course.”

Abigail pushed the phone across the desk. “You’ll call?”

“Of course.” The smile was a knowing one.

“You exhaust me, Randall.”

“I consider that my job as your husband.”

“A doctor,” she said. “Soon.”

Back in Julian’s room, Abigail found that he’d used a stub of pencil to draw the shape of a door on the wall. It was small and childish, nothing like the art of which he was capable. Normally, if Julian were to draw a door, it would look so real one might try to open it and walk through. He could make it look that solid, or he could shape it in a manner so fanciful it could be a door to another universe, the passage to a world of magic and joy, or a black gate yawning wide to collect a host of damaged souls. But that’s not what Abigail saw. The lines on this door wavered and diverged, making an irregular shape less than five feet tall. The doorknob was a scrawl, the hinges thick marks of heavy black. Julian knelt in front of the door, still bent. He was beating his knuckles on the drawn door, the bandages not just wet, but torn.

“Baby.” She knelt beside him, close enough to feel his heat. The skin under his eyes was bruised, his face so lean the cheeks were sunken. He ignored her, his eyes fevered and empty, his lips chewed raw and dry as chalk. He struck one part of the door, then another, so intent he did not react when she put a hand on his arm. “Baby, please…”

His eyes were shockingly drawn, pulled so deeply into their sockets they looked black. His mouth opened and the tip of his tongue pushed against the back of his teeth. When Abigail reached again to touch him, her arm passed before the lamp so a shadow flickered on the wall. Julian flinched when he saw it, and Abigail cringed from the sudden terror in his face. Then, just as quickly, the emotion fled and his face emptied. She watched his lips move in mindless rhythm, and her fingers stopped an inch from his skin. “Baby, please.”

“Sunlight…”

His voice was the barest whisper.

“Silver stairs…”

The doctor was like so many doctors, quiet and certain and spare. He arrived in the company of an unfamiliar nurse, and when the door clicked shut Julian froze, a new attentiveness to his features, a contemplation that seemed to emanate from some especially still place in his soul.

“Julian, my name is Dr. Cloverdale. I’m a friend of your father’s. I’m not going to hurt you. I’m just going to conduct an examination and fix up your hands. Is that okay?” Julian did not respond, and the doctor said, “We’re all friends here.”

Moving gently, the doctor checked the sound of Julian’s heart and lungs. He shone a light in Julian’s eyes, and Abigail imagined her son’s face turned up in the dark, a small light seen from the bottom of a deep well.

“You’re doing fine, Julian. Just fine.”

The doctor continued his examination, and when the bandages came off Julian’s hands, Abigail stifled a small cry. “It’s okay,” the doctor said; but it was not. The knuckles were scraped and torn and weeping lymph. The meat was white, and Abigail thought she saw a wet, gray flash of bone. The doctor dressed the hands, and then sedated him. Julian did not react when the needle went into his arm. Abigail turned down the sheets, and together they got Julian into bed. At the door, the doctor spoke in a whisper. “The nurse will clean him up.”

In the hall, Abigail put her back against the wall. “His poor hands…”

“There’s no permanent damage.”

“You’re certain?”

“Barring further injury, yes.” The doctor’s face was kind, but serious. “This just happened?”

“Which part?” Abigail felt a hint of panic in her own voice.

“When did this begin? Let’s start there.”

“Three days ago. He went away—we don’t know where—and when he came back, he was like this. I found him in the garage, barefoot and filthy. He wouldn’t say a word, wouldn’t go to his own room. He came here and locked the door. He wouldn’t answer when we tried to talk to him, wouldn’t come out. After a day, we brought in the locksmith.”

“Does he often disappear like that?”

Abigail shook her head. “No. Never. I mean, he goes places, of course. But not that often, and never without letting someone know.”

“Where does he go, when he leaves? Friends? Vacations?”

“No. Not really. I mean, he has friends, of course, but not close ones. People from school, mostly. No one person in particular. He goes to New York to meet with his publishers. He does occasional conferences, public appearances, things like that. Mostly, he stays here. Walks in the woods. Writes his books. He’s a very insular young man.”

“Comfortable in his own skin.”

“That might be pushing it.”

“He’s rather old to be living at home…”

“He has his strengths, Dr. Cloverdale; it’s just that he’s complicated.”

“The senator filled me in on his history. I understand he suffered some abuse as a boy?”

“Yes.”

“Was it severe?”

“Yes.” She felt her own madness rise. “It was severe.”

Cloverdale frowned. “Did he have counseling?”

“With minimal effect. He went through the motions, but still wakes up screaming.”

“Screaming?”

“For his brother. They were close.”

“Have you ever seen anything like this kind of self-injury?”

“No. It just started last night.”

Cloverdale shook his head. “This is not my area. He needs a psychiatrist, I suspect, maybe inpatient treatment at Duke or Chapel Hill. Someone who specializes in emotional trauma…”

“Are you suggesting we commit him?”

“Let’s not rush to judgment,” Cloverdale said. “If we did commit him, he would be placed under observation for several days. We can do the same thing here, no problem. Your husband hired me for the week, so I’m here. Why don’t we give it a day or two? I’ll keep Julian calm and comfortable. I’ll watch him. Sometimes these things resolve themselves.”

“Really?”

“Sure.” He showed his calm, doctor’s smile. “Why not?”

She studied his eyes. “A few days, then.”

“Good.” The doctor clasped his hands. “Now, let’s talk about you.”

He made a kind face again, and only then did Abigail realize how distraught she must appear, mud-spattered and wild-eyed. She’d not slept in two nights, barely eaten. She was pale and exhausted, her son’s blood dried to a crust on her cheeks. She touched the nest of hair on her head and felt a sudden blankness move into her eyes as she focused on the doctor’s chin. “I’m fine,” she said.

“If you’re worried I’ll discuss it with your husband—”

“I’m fine.” The stare continued unabated. She knew it, but could not lift her eyes. It was an old feeling, the denial.