The Perfect Wife
You indicate the painting. “Was that how she paid you?”
“Abbie?” He looks amused. “Why would she need to pay me?”
“For setting up a corporation.”
Carter takes off his reading glasses and twirls them in his hand, looking at you thoughtfully.
“That was the part she’d have needed help with,” you add. “Most of the instructions she was trying to follow were straightforward—leave your phone on a bus, stop using credit cards, that kind of stuff. The tricky bit was setting up a legal entity that could rent a house and sign up for utilities and so on, without her name being attached to it. I’m guessing she came to you for that.”
Charles Carter raises his eyebrows. You outwait him.
“That’s conjecture,” he says at last.
“I’m extremely good at conjecture. Intuitive thinking is what I was built for.”
“It’s always good to have a purpose,” he murmurs. “And indeed, to know what that purpose is.”
“For a while back there, I thought you might have been sleeping with her,” you add. “But now I think I was falling into the trap of looking at everything the way Tim does. I’m guessing you simply liked each other. Two lonely people who, in their different ways, had each lost the person they loved most in this world…And as you said yourself, you owed her a favor, for sorting out the leases here with Tim.”
“If I owed Abbie a favor, there’d have been no need to pay me with a painting, would there?” he points out.
“But she gave you one anyway.” You think for a moment. “Not as payment, then. As something to remember her by.”
His eyes travel to the painting. “Abbie Cullen was one of the kindest, sweetest people I ever met,” he says quietly. “Sure—she struggled when Danny regressed like that. But more to the point, she had to decide where her loyalties lay. She’d been able to live with her husband when he was the only demanding man in her life. When there were two demanding men…”
You see the way his expression softens as his eyes drop to the signature, and you’re sure now you have it right.
“If I did have any professional dealings with Abbie, they’d be privileged,” he adds. “But I will say this. I think she made the right decision.”
* * *
—
“I need you to look for emails from a man called Charles Carter,” you tell Nathan. “Or anything on the iPad suggesting he helped Abbie set up a corporation.”
You’ve dropped by the phone shop on your way home. Nathan looked surprised to see you. But not so surprised that he didn’t immediately go and lock the street door.
“Come in the back,” he says.
Once there, you endure the now-familiar routine of him plugging a cable into your hip.
“Here,” he adds, handing you a printout. It’s thinner than the last one—only two sheets. “This is what I’ve unscrambled since yesterday. It’s part of her search history.”
Quickly you scan the page.
µ Treatments for autism
µ Do B14 injections help autism?
˜ autism special diet XÿŒ chelation therapy
Anxiety autism
Heller syndrome organic diet
€˜
Can stem cell infusions cure autism
Positive Autism
#Positive Autism Dr. Eliot P. Laurence
Dr. Eliot P. Laurence Contact
“She was looking for a cure,” you say. “That’s hardly surprising.”
“Uh-huh,” Nathan says, his eyes on his screen.
“What’s this? Positive Autism?”
“Beats me,” he murmurs.
“Look it up.” When he doesn’t react, you say impatiently, “Look it up on the internet now, or I’m disconnecting.”
“No—wait.” Nathan opens a browser and types Positive Autism wiki, then turns the screen so you can see.
Positive Autism is an approach to autism and other developmental disabilities developed by Dr. Eliot P. Laurence, PhD.[1] Parents and facilitators are taught to see autistic behaviors not as aberrant or “wrong,” but as necessary coping mechanisms for an overstimulating world.[2]
Using a combination of proven healing interventions, including qigong massage, art therapy, toxin-free diets, and sensory integration techniques, Dr. Laurence’s seminars, books, and the many charitable foundations that use his methods have helped thousands of people with this condition to increased quality of life.[3]
The external links include a website. “Click on that,” you tell Nathan.
The page that comes up shows a picture of a ranch. Kids—clearly with learning disabilities, but smiling—are riding horses, hiking, and having massages. At the top it says:
Our goal is not to make people “less autistic”; it is to make the world less troubling for people with autism.
You scan the page quickly. “Now click on CONTACT.”
Sighing, Nathan does as you ask. “And that’s it,” he adds sulkily as you memorize the details. “You’ve had your turn.”
While he peers at the code flowing across his screen, occasionally scribbling a note, you think about what you’ve just read. It seems clear now that Danny’s diagnosis opened up a hidden fault line in Tim and Abbie’s marriage. You can imagine her showing him the Wikipedia article you’ve just read, and what his response would have been. If this stuff really worked, don’t you think someone would have peer-reviewed it by now? Successful treatments for autism aren’t so common they get ignored. If there’s no clinical trial, it’s bullshit. Nice-sounding bullshit, admittedly—but it won’t make our son any better.
On the other hand, at least this Dr. Laurence isn’t giving his students electric shocks. Is reducing the appearance of stress really such a good thing, if the student is actually terrified? Just what do people mean when they talk about “treating” autism anyway?
These must be the exact same questions that went through Abbie’s mind five years ago, you realize.
“Beautiful,” Nathan murmurs. His fingers tap the keyboard, and there’s a shutter-closing sound. He’s taken a screenshot.
“That’s enough,” you tell him sharply. “Time’s up.”
63