Preston
I don’t know which scene satisfied me most—my posh parents waiting in the concrete-walled visitors’ room
or me deposited in front of them by a uniformed guard.
They sat across from me at the Formica-topped table. My father’s face was tight, eyes damp. Seeing him
distressed kicked a dent in my smug demeanor, so I stopped looking at him, my eyes ping ponged toward my
mother. Despite the sordid circumstances, she shone, her beauty ferocious, perhaps highlighted even more by
the dour surroundings. Thick hair still a perfect shade of bombshell blonde, skin pale but flawless despite
time’s march, the blue of her eyes a perpetual shock.
So entranced I forgot to insult her.
Almost.
“My incarceration poses a real problem for you. Doesn’t it, Mother? Harrison Blair doesn’t sully herself with
the downtrodden.”
She shifted backward then forward quick.
“You’re the problem, Preston. Downtrodden? That’s how you think of yourself? You—”
“Harrison, Preston,” Dad said. “Please. Let’s start right. Preston, your mother and I haven’t seen you in so
long. Though God knows I’ve tried. Let’s all make a real effort.”
He paused, probably to steel himself for objections in stereo. None came.
Dad continued. “You’re not incarcerated. You’re hospitalized. Your new therapist what’s her name.” He
squeezed his eyes shut like her name had been tattooed inside his lids. “Um, she, Isabel, says you’ve made
some headway, participating in therapy now.”
“Might as well,” I said.
“That’s the spirit. Won’t be long until you’re back home. You’re doing so well considering how difficult, well
you’re done with that part of the, uh, the rehabilitation.”
“You mean the sweating, shaking, puking, padded room part?” I said.
“You’re sober. That’s all I meant.”
My mother’s eyes popped like a kidnapper just yanked the hood off her head.
“Sober?” she said. “Doesn’t that term apply to alcoholics? Surely they have another term for homicidal,
drunken pill add—”
“She’s clean, Harrison. That’s all that matters.”
Dad kept yanking on his tie. I thought he might hang himself with it right before our eyes.
“All that matters? Is that your idea of a joke, Todd?”
“Nice dye job, Dad. Only you’d believe those stupid commercials. So natural no one will—”
“Darling, stop,” he said to Mother. “Of course sobriety’s not all but it’s a start. I think, we think enough time
has passed. We should jumpstart our family therapy.”
“We who?” I said.
The guard took a step forward, disapproving of my elevated tone. My father waved him back.
“Not Mother, I’m sure.”
“Well, Isabel thought—”
“Just because I’m in the cuckoo’s nest doesn’t mean I don’t have rights,” I said. “Isabel shouldn’t talk to you
at all about me. I’m an adult. She’s my shrink. Confidentiality too big a word?”
“Shrinks. Therapy,” Mother said. “In my day you poured yourself a scotch and got on with it.”
“You don’t pour yourself anything. You hire that out,” I said.
“Family therapy’s part of the deal,” Dad said. “The judge insisted—”
“You own the judge. We don’t have to do anything. Remind him, Mother.”
“You should kiss Judge Seward’s robed ass,” she said, hissing like a stabbed tire. “You’d be someone’s bitch
if not for his mercy.”
“You mean, if not for your money. Don’t pretend you did shit for me. You did everything for yourself,
Mother, to stop the gossip. That’s what you do.”
With both fists, Dad twisted the tie he’d finally managed to take off.
“Preston, we hoped something good could come out of—”
“Todd, the only good that could possibly come out of this mess is if Preston stays hospitalized for the rest of
her natural life.”
“Harrison, please. We agreed—”
“You agreed. With no one but yourself.”
“Hate to break up the party but I’m ready to go back to my room,” I said more to the guard than my parents.
“Wait, Preston,” Dad said, peering around the room, looking for his spine. “It doesn’t feel like it now, but
here’s a chance for you and Mom to, I don’t know what, start again, improve your relationship, even a little.
That’s what we all want, isn’t it?”
“Steady on, Dad. The devil comes dressed as everything you want.”
I let the guard take my arm, turned in time to see Mom lean her head back enough to dab at the scar under the
collar of her ivory silk blouse, a scarlet line cut across her throat, not quite ear to ear, a vicious permanent
necklace.
