Gaits of Heaven

outright viciousness, especially her cruelty to Caprice. It was now easy to see that Johanna had modeled cruelty for her son, Wyeth. Either of them, mother or son, could have killed Eumie, and either could now be lashing out to protect the other.
    I reluctantly stepped out of the van. As I was locking it, I realized that I stood on the exact spot where Caprice had been when Wyeth had run his car into her. I retained a clear memory of the expression on his face. That recollection jarred with everything about Eumie’s murder, which had been indirect and, as I’d never before quite realized, sneaky. In contrast, Wyeth’s dangerous acts had been altogether forthright. For example, he hadn’t placed his computer and peripherals on a windowsill where they’d fall into the backyard; he’d actively thrown them out the window. He’d run his car right into Caprice, and he’d done it while I’d been there to see him. As to his violence toward himself, his suicide gesture, he hadn’t tried to make the overdose look like an accident, and he hadn’t set someone else up to take the blame for it. In fact, I suddenly realized, the sneaky person in the family was Caprice. Her binge eating was a secret activity, as was her use of medication. She’d found out Anita’s last name by researching all of us on the Web, and when I’d confronted her, she herself had used the word sneaky. What’s more, her own mother, Eumie, had enlisted her as a fellow sneak, a Web-sawy assistant in ferreting out information about people.
    With these depressing and worrisome thoughts in mind, I made my way back to the house. In the front hall, Dr. Foote and Dr. Needleman were speaking with Dr. Tortorello. In passing, I heard Vee Foote say, “Well, I assume we’ll be paid for all this time! I’m not here for my own pleasure!” Vee Foote, ever the helping professional! When I entered the living room, Rita was again in front of the fireplace. Caprice and Monty, I saw, were deep in muted conversation, each with a hand on the other’s arm. I wanted to think well of both of them. If, as seemed to be the case, this Monty, the false Monty, was truly addicted to Internet pornography, he was hardly alone; the addiction was common. At a guess, he had nonetheless allowed it to act as a barrier in his relationship with his daughter. He visited occasionally, took her to restaurants, and left, thus protecting his baby girl from knowledge that he assumed would destroy her golden image of him. And what was the consequence for Caprice of having her father keep his distance? I didn’t want to think about it and looked away. In a corner, the capable-looking Cantabrigian social worker from the hospital was conferring with Wyeth and Johanna. Kevin remained against a wall, as if he hoped to be mistaken for a piece of furniture. Ted was now seated with Barbara, George, and George’s lawyer. Like me, Ted had sought the solace of a dog. He had his hands wrapped around Dolfo’s head. As I watched, he lowered his face to the dog’s so that two pairs of eyes met only inches apart.
    “Let’s reassemble,” said Rita. As people drifted back to their seats, she said, “Let me summarize. We’re dealing here with two sets of alliances that were ruptured. Ted and Johanna’s marriage, and Monty and Eumie’s. The divorces left a great deal of anger. Monty’s anger at Ted, Johanna’s at Eumie, and anger of each former partner at the other. The anger of the children. Wyeth’s at Eumie and at his father, Caprice’s at Ted. And the conflict between the stepchildren. This is a family, I think, in which it’s difficult to see the alliances, but they’re here. Ted and Eumie had a strong alliance, really, a kind of enmeshment, as it’s called, so that they were, as I see it, aimed at becoming the same person. In that unit, they even included their dog, Dolfo. As we all know, Eumie’s death suddenly disrupted that enmeshment and, with it, the whole family system. Each child has a powerful alliance with the parent of the opposite sex, Wyeth with Johanna, Caprice with Monty, even though that’s also a distant relationship. And we find powerful alliances with therapists, each individual with one or more people outside the family. Another unit in this family is, as I see, prescription medication. In effect, the people living in this house had attachments of a sort to that unit, which really functioned as a member of the family, a member about which everyone agreed, a