Perfect Match (25 page)

“I like my drawers.” Caleb takes a torn shirt I've put aside and stuffs it ba ck in all wrinkled. “Why don't you take a nap? Read, or something?”

“That would be a waste of time.” I find three socks, all without mates.

“Why is just taking time a waste of it?” Caleb asks, shrugging into another shirt. He grabs the socks I've segregated and puts them into his underwear d rawer again.

“Caleb. You're ruining it.”

“How? It was fine to start with!” He jams his shirt into the waist of his jea ns, tightens his belt again. “I like my socks the way they are,” Caleb says f irmly. For a moment he looks as if he is going to add to that, but then shake s his head and runs down the stairs. Shortly afterward, I see him through the window, walking in the bright, cold sun.

I open the drawer and remove the orphan socks. Then the torn shirt. It will take him weeks to notice the changes, and one day he will thank me.

“Oh, my God,” I cry, glancing out the window at the unfamiliar car that pull s up to the curb. A woman gets out-pixie-small, with a dark cap of hair and her arms wrapped tight against the cold.

“What?” Caleb runs into the room at my exclamation. “What's the matter?”

“Nothing. Absolutely nothing!” I throw open the door and smile widely at Mar cella. “I can't believe you're here!”

“Surprise,” she says, and hugs me. “How are you doing?” She tries not to loo k, but I see it-the way her eyes dart down to try and find my electronic bra celet.

“I'm . . . well, I'm great right now. I certainly never expected you to bring me my report in person.”

Marcella shrugs. “I figured you might enjoy the company. And I hadn't been back home for a while. I missed it.”

“Liar,” I laugh, pulling her into the house, where Caleb and Nathaniel are wa tching with curiosity. “This is Marcella Wentworth. She used to work at the s tate lab, before she bailed on us to join the private sector.” I'm positively beaming. It's not that Marcella and I are so very close; it's jus t that these days, I don't get to see that many people. Patrick comes, from time to time. And there's my family, of course. But most of my f riends are colleagues, and after the revocation hearing, they're keeping the ir distance.

“You up here on business or pleasure?” Caleb asks.

Marcella glances at me, unsure of what she should say.

“I asked Marcella to take a look at the DNA test.”

Caleb's smile fades just the slightest bit, so that only if you know him as well as I do would you even catch the dimming. “You know what? Why don't I take Nathaniel out, so that you two can catch up?”

After they leave, I lead Marcella into the kitchen. We talk about the tempera ture in Virginia at this time of year, and when we had our first frost. I mak e us iced tea. Then, when I can stand it no longer, I sit down across from he r. “It's good news, isn't it? The DNA, it's a match?”

“Nina, did you notice anything when you read the medical file?”

“I didn't bother, actually.”

Marcella draws a circle on the table with her finger. “Father Szyszynski ha d chronic myeloid leukemia.”

“Good,” I say flatly. “I hope he was suffering. I hope he puked his insides out every time he got chemotherapy.”

“He wasn't getting chemo. He had a bone marrow transplant about seven year s ago. His leukemia was in remission. For all intents and purposes, he was cured.”

I stiffen a little. “Is this your way of telling me I ought to feel guilty for k illing a man who was a cancer survivor?”

“No. It's . . . well, there's something about the treatment of leukemia tha t factors into DNA analysis. Basically, to cure it, you need to get new blo od. And the way that's done is via bone marrow transplant, since bone marro w is what makes blood. After a few months, your old bone marrow has been re placed completely by the donor's bone marrow. Your old blood is gone, and t he leukemia with it.” Marcella looks up at me. “You follow?”

“So far.”

“Your body can use this new blood, because it's healthy. But it's not your blood, and at the DNA level, it doesn't look like your blood used to. You r skin cells, your saliva, your semen-the DNA in those will be what you we re born with, but the DNA in your new blood comes from your donor.“ Marcella puts her hand on top of mine. ”Nina, the lab results were accurate. The DNA in Father Szyszynski's blood sample matched the semen i n your son's underwear. But the DNA in Father Szyszynski's blood isn't rea lly his.”

“No,” I say. “No, this isn't the way it works. I was just explaining it the other day to Caleb. You can get DNA from any cell in your body. That's why you can use a blood sample to match a semen sample.”

“Ninety-nine point nine percent of the time, yes. But this is a very, very spe cific exception.” She shakes her head. “I'm sorry, Nina.” My head swings up. “You mean . . . he's still alive?” She doesn't have to answer.

I have killed the wrong man.

After Marcella leaves, I pace like a lion in a cage of my own making. My hands are shaking; I can't seem to get warm. What have I done? I killed a man who was innocent. A priest. A person who came to comfort me when my world cracked apart; who loved children, Nathaniel included. I killed a m an who fought cancer and won, who deserved a long life. I committed murde r and I can no longer even justify my actions to myself.

I have always believed there is a special place in Hell for the worst ones-the serial killers, the rapists who target kids, the sociopaths who would just as soon lie as cut your throat for the ten dollars in your wallet. And even when I have not secured convictions for them, I tell myself that eventually, they will get what's coming to them.

So will I.

And the reason I know this is because even though I cannot find the strength t o stand up; even though I want to scratch at myself until this part of me has been cut away in ribbons, there is another part of me that is thinking: He is still out there.

I pick up the phone to call Fisher. But then I hang it up. He needs to hear th is; he could very well find out by himself. But I don't know how it will play in my trial, yet. It could make the prosecution more sympathetic, since their victim is a true victim. Then again, an insanity defense is an insanity defens e. It doesn't matter if I killed Father Szyszynski or the judge or every spect ator in that courtroom-if I were insane at the time, I still wouldn't be guilty. In fact, this might make me look crazier.

I sit down at the kitchen table and bury my face in my hands. The doorbell r ings and suddenly Patrick is in the kitchen, too big for it, frantic from th e message I've left on his beeper. “What?” he demands, absorbing in a single glance my position, and the quiet of the household. “Did something happen t o Nathaniel?”

It is such a loaded question, that I can't help it-I start to laugh. I laugh until my stomach cramps, until I cannot catch my breath, until tears stream f rom my eyes and I realize I am sobbing. Patrick's hands are on my shoulders, my forearms, my waist, as if the thing that has broken inside me might be as simple as a bone. I wipe my nose on the back of my sleeve and force myself to meet his gaze. “Patrick,” I whisper, “I screwed up. Father Szyszynski ... he didn't ... he wasn't-”

He calms me down and makes me tell him everything. When I finish, he stare s at me for a full thirty seconds before he speaks. “You're kidding,” Patr ick says. “You shot the wrong guy?”

He doesn't wait for an answer, just gets up and starts to pace. “Nina, wait a second. Things get screwed up in labs; it's happened before.” I grab onto this lifeline. “Maybe that's it. Some medical mistake.”

“But we had an ID before we ever had the semen evidence.” Patrick shakes his head. “Why would Nathaniel have said his name?” Time can stop, I know that now. It is possible to feel one's heart cease bea ting, to sense the blood hover in one's veins. And to have the awful, overwh elming sense that one is trapped in this moment, and there is just no way ou t of it. “Tell me again.” My words spill like stones. “Tell me what he told you.”

Patrick turns to me. “Father Glen,” he replies. “Right?” Nathaniel remembers feeling dirty, so dirty that he thought he could take a thousand showers and still need to clean himself again. And the thing of it was, the dirty part of him was under his skin; he would have to rub himself raw before it was gone.

It burned down there, and even Esme wouldn't come near him. She purred and then hopped onto the big wooden desk, staring. This is your fault, she was saying. Nathaniel tried to get his pants, but his hands were like clubs, un able to pick up anything. His underwear, when he finally managed to grab it, was all wet, which made no sense because Nathani el hadn't had an accident, he just knew it. But the priest had been looking at his underpants, holding them. He'd liked the baseball mitts. Nathaniel didn't want to wear them again, ever.

“We can fix that,” the priest said, in a voice soft as a pillow, and he dis appeared for a moment. Nathaniel counted to thirty-five, and then did it ag ain, because that was as high as he could go. He wanted to leave. He wanted to hide under the desk or in the file cabinet. But he needed underpants. H e couldn't get dressed without them, they came first. That was what his mom said when he forgot sometimes, and she made him go upstairs to put them on. The priest came back with a baby pair, not like his dad's, which looked lik e shorts. He'd gotten these, Nathaniel was sure, from the big box that held all the greasy coats and smelly sneakers people had left behind in the chu rch. How could you leave without your sneakers, and never notice? Nathaniel always had wanted to know. For that matter, how could you forget your unde rpants?

These were clean and had Spiderman on them. They were too tight, but Nathani el didn't care. “Let me take the other pair,” the priest said. “I'll wash th em and give them back.”

Nathaniel shook his head. He pulled on his sweatpants and tucked the boxers int o the kangaroo part of his sweatshirt, turning the icky side so that he didn't have to touch it. He felt the priest pet his hair and he went perfectly still, like granite, with the same thick, straight feelings inside.

“Do you need me to walk you back?”

Nathaniel didn't answer. He waited until the priest had picked up Esme and left; then he walked down the hall to the boiler room. It was creepy insi de-no light switch, and cobwebs, and once even the skeleton of a mouse tha t had died. No one ever went in there, which is why Nathaniel did, and stu ffed the bad underwear way behind the big machine that hummed and belched heat.

When Nathaniel went back to his class, Father Glen was still reading the Bib le story. Nathaniel sat down, tried to listen. He paid careful attention, ev en when he felt someone's eyes on him. When he looked up, the other priest was standing in the hallway, holding Esme and smiling. With his free hand he raised a finger to his lips. Shh. Don't tell. That was the momen t Nathaniel lost all his words.

The day my son stopped speaking, we had gone to church. Afterward, there wa s a fellowship coffee-what Caleb liked to call Bible Bribery, a promise of doughnuts in return for your presence at Mass. Nathaniel moved around me as if I were a maypole, turning this way and that as he waited for Father Szy szynski to call the children together to read.

This coffee was a celebration, of sorts-two priests who had come to study at St. Anne's for some sort of Catholic edification were going back to the ir own congregations. A banner blew from the base of the scarred table, wi shing them well. Since we were not regular churchgoers, I had not really n oticed the priests doing whatever it was they were supposed to be doing. O nce or twice I'd seen one from behind and made the assumption it was Fathe r Szyszynski, only to have the man turn around and prove me wrong. My son was angry because they had run out of powdered sugar doughnuts. “Na thaniel,” I said, “stop pulling on me.”

I'd tugged him off my waist, smiling apologetically at the couple that Cal eb was speaking to; acquaintances we had not seen in months. They had no c hildren, although they were our ages, and I imagine that Caleb liked talki ng to them for the same reason I did-there was that amazing What if permea ting the conversation, as if Todd and Margaret were a funhouse mirror in w hich Caleb and I could see who else we might have become, had I never conc eived. Todd was talking about their upcoming trip to Greece; how they were chartering a boat to take them from island to island.

Nathaniel, for reasons I could not fathom, sank his teeth into my hand. I jumped, more shocked than hurt, and grabbed Nathaniel by the wrist. I was caught in that awful limbo of public discipline-a moment when a child has done something truly punishable but escapes without penalty because it isn'

t politically correct to give him the quick smack on his behind that he des erves. “Don't you ever do that again,” I said through my teeth, trying for a smile. “Do you hear me?”

Then I noticed all the other kids hurrying down the stairs after Father Szyszynski, a Pied Piper. “Go,” I urged. “You don't want to miss the s tory.”

Nathaniel buried his face underneath my sweater, his head swelling my bell y again, a mock pregnancy. “Come on. All your friends are going.” I had to peel his arms from around me, push him in the right direction. Twi ce he looked back, and twice I had to nod, encouraging him to get a move on . “I'm sorry,” I said to Margaret, smiling. “You were talking about Corsica ?”

Until now, I did not remember that one of the other priests, the taller one w ho carried a cat as if it were part of his clerical attire, hurried down the steps after the children. That he caught up to Nathaniel and put his hand on his shoulder with the comfort of someone who had done it before. Nathaniel said bis name.

A memory bursts and stings my eyes: What's the opposite of left?

White.

What's the opposite of white?

Bwack.

I remember the priest at Father Szyszynski's funeral who had stared through my veil as he handed me the Host, as if my features were familiar. And I r emember the sentences printed carefully on a banner beneath the coffee tabl e on that last day, before Nathaniel stopped speaking.

PEACE BE WITH YOU, FATHER O'TOOLE. PEACE BE WITH YOU,