Chapter 2

Bob closed his eyes and his shoulders slumped. He presented the classic indications of a man conjuring up an image in his mind, about to divulge something deep and dark. I let him work up to it naturally by remaining silent.

"I was ten, and it was Christmas eve. I was more excited that year than usual, because I knew my dad had gotten a big bonus that year."

His eyes opened and he stared at me.

"That's the only reason I couldn't go to sleep. It's not like I was up trying to catch him."

"Catch who?" I shouldn't have spoken, but I did. Time was getting short.

"Santa," he said. Bob must have seen the unavoidable flicker of derision on my face, because he leaned forward. "I was at that age where you know he doesn't really exist, but you can still kind of milk the concept, if you know what I mean. Our parents still took us to sit on his lap and ask for things. We'd done that, in fact, just a couple of days earlier, standing in line with a bunch of other kids. I had to watch Suzie - she's my sister - while our mother and father did some shopping. Suzie was all excited about talking to Santa, but I knew it was all a lie, and that our parents put the presents from Santa under the tree after all us kids were in bed on Christmas eve. And that's what I was doing that night - just sneaking down to see what size the packages from Santa were going to be. I was just too excited to sleep."

He paused, as if he were waiting for me to acknowledge that he had an appropriate disbelief in Santa Claus.

"Go on," I said, instead.

"I knew if I got caught I'd get in trouble, so I went to the kitchen first and got a glass of water. I thought I was so clever. But there were no new presents under the tree. So then I was worried I'd come down too soon, so I hurried to get back in my room."

He stopped and frowned, and his eyes took on a glazed look, as if he were visualizing something far away.

"But when I got to the hallway, my parents' door was open and the light was on. I knew I was busted, but I had the glass of water, so I decided to try to bluff my way through it if I couldn't just slip by without them seeing me."

It was difficult, but I waited. He closed his eyes again but this time his whole body stiffened up.

"As I approached my parents' bedroom door, I looked in, just to see if they saw me ... you know? But what I saw then..."

He trailed off and I saw a single tear squeeze our of a tightly closed eyelid and roll down his cheek. He was exhibiting all the signs of someone who is reliving a traumatic incident.

"Go on," I said softly.

His eyes opened again, but the look on his face was hopeless.

"I stopped because the bed looked all wrong. I could see my dad, lying on his side, and my mom's hair lying on her pillow. And I could see her legs ... her bare legs ... wrapped around him."

Another tear welled out of Bob's left eye.

"Your father?" I asked. Sometimes when a child sees his parents making love, it's shocking enough to cause problems later on in life.

"No," he gasped. "There were three people on the bed."

"Three?"

"The one on top of my mom ... they were having sex. But it wasn't my dad. It was him!"

"Him?" I prodded.

"It was ... Santa," he whimpered.

I sighed. He'd been so lucid, there for a few minutes. I'd thought I was going to get some really good information, and then he'd gone off the tracks again.

"Santa," I said slowly.

"It was him!" insisted Bob. "He looked just like all the pictures. He was big, and had on a red suit with white fur on it and everything. And he was humping my mother!" He shook his head slowly. "Right there in the bed, next to my father."

"And you were ten," I said. I couldn't disguise the disappointment in my voice.

"Old enough to know what was going on," he said defensively. "When I was growing up we knew all about it long before any of our parents wanted us to, and long before we got to sex ed in school. We never got to do any of it - not that young - but we knew what was involved."

"Listen to yourself," I said calmly. "You just told me that Santa Claus, fully dressed by the way, was having sex with your mother, while her husband was lying in bed beside her."

"I know that."

I sighed. "Was your father watching?"

"He was asleep!" snapped Bob. "I could hear him snoring. I could also hear the bed springs making noise as the bed bounced up and down. And I could hear my mother ... moaning."

"So she was awake."

"She knew who he was! She was saying his name."

"She was saying Santa's name," I repeated.

"Yes, and telling him how good it was."

"And you were ten," I repeated, trying to impress on him how young that was.

"Doctor, I told you it sounds crazy, but the fact is I remember every detail, as if it happened yesterday. I remember what happened next too."

"There's more?" My voice rose.

"Oh yeah," he said almost sadly. "I was frozen right there. While I knew what was happening, I'd never seen it happen before. I was at the age where I wanted to believe my mother had never had sex at all, and that Suzie and I were magic or something. You know the deal. Anyway, he made this giggling, groaning sound and went all stiff for a few seconds and then there was an explosion of some kind of golden dust or something and he like bounced off of the bed. He landed right on his boots, except that it didn't make enough sound. It was like he only weighed a few ounces. He looked down at my mother ... my naked mother ... and said "You were always a looker Marge, and it was even better the second time." And then he turned around and looked right at me and put his finger to his lips. I knew he was looking right at me ... that he knew I was there, watching. I heard the faintest 'Shhhh' from him as he fumbled around down where a zipper might be."

Bob's eyes glazed over again.

"Except I never heard a zipper."

His eyes cleared and he looked at me.

"And then suddenly his hand was on my arm and I was floating away from their door, back down to the living room, next to the tree. He said I was supposed to be in bed, and that he was going to have to take my name off the nice list and move it to the naughty one."

By now I didn't know what to think. Maybe Bob really was around the bend. He went on, though, so I listened as his eyes glazed over again.

"I still remember exactly what I said. I was horrified. I said 'That's my mom!' to him. He laughed, and said 'I'm just giving Suzie what she asked for, remember?' and he let go of me."

Bob slumped, as with resignation, and he looked at me again.

"Remember when I said they took us to see Santa at the store, and I was watching Suzie? Well when she sat on his lap she said she wanted a baby sister."

I almost rolled my eyes, but controlled the urge.

"So anyway he said I wasn't supposed to have seen that, and that he was going to have to do something about it, and the hair stood up all over my body and I started to run. I was looking over my shoulder at him, which is why I tripped over the edge of the throw rug that's only there during the Christmas season. I saw him laugh and he pointed his finger at me and it was like golden sparkles shot out of his finger and came right at me. I was falling, though, and my hand got between me and him so that I couldn't see him any more and the sparkles got all around me and I felt numb all over."

He stopped, looking confused. "I don't remember anything else until Suzie came in and woke me up for Christmas Morning. And at that time I didn't remember any of what I just told you."

I frowned. His comment wasn't registering as anything that made sense. "What?"

"I didn't remember any of what I just told you until ten years ago. I was in a hockey game with a bunch of other enthusiasts and a slap shot hit me in the head. I almost died. I was in a coma for a week. When I woke up in the hospital ... that memory was in my head. But if I remembered all that ... why don't I remember any of the rest of the night?"

"We can look into that later," I said, actually interested now. Physical trauma can affect the mind in ways we don't fully understand yet, but it's very different from disease. Treatment options are still experimental for the most part, but it's a fascinating field, and I was interested in it. If all this delusional behavior was based on damage caused by the accident, there was at least hope that approaching things from a rational standpoint might produce positive results in discrediting his possibly false memory.

"Well you're not insane," I said firmly. I shouldn't have said that. Not then, and not in that voice. But I think I was already unconsciously starting treatment with the idea that convincing him of an alternate truth ... a rational truth ... would be possible.

He actually laughed. I took it as a good sign, because he relaxed too.

"Oh I don't believe that you actually saw all that," I said quickly. "But I believe you believe it. I don't think it's the product of some disease, and I think we can deal with it."

"Oh really," he said, smiling.

"Really," I said, also too firmly.

"So how do we deal with the fact that that my mother had a little girl the next September?" he asked.

I waved a hand. "You may actually have seen your father and mother making love," I said sagely. "But your ten year old mind couldn't deal with that reality. You said yourself that you didn't want to believe that your parents had sex. So you repressed that memory, subtly altering it in the process, and kept it suppressed until the accident." I held up a hand. "I'm not saying that's what happened, but it's what may have happened. It's one explanation for what you're going through."

"My father had a vasectomy after Suzie was born," he said calmly. "When they found out mom was pregnant, they almost got divorced, because he thought she'd been cheating on him. I remember her crying and pleading with him to believe her. There were some really rough months there, until the doctor said his clamp might have leaked. Back then they just clamped things off, instead of cauterizing the ends, like they do these days."

"Okay," I said easily. "So maybe the clamp did leak."

"Melody doesn't look anything like Dad, or Suzie or me," he said.

"You know better than to think that proves anything," I said, trying to get him to admit that at least some part of his theory was questionable.

"Okay," he said, giving me what I wanted. "What about the fact that when I went to bed that night I was ambidextrous, and when I got up Christmas Morning I was left handed?"

"What?" I was clearly confused as to what this had to do with anything.

"Remember I said my hand got in the way of that gold dust ... the sparkles? That was my right hand. It took the full brunt of them, rather than my head, which was what I think he was aiming at. So I did forget what I wasn't supposed to have seen, but not as thoroughly as he intended. The accident shook it loose." He held up his right hand. "Before that night I was ambidextrous. I could do everything with either hand. But this hand ... the one that got hit by that dust or whatever it was ... I couldn't write with it any more, and I couldn't throw a ball with it or anything. It was like it had forgotten how to do everything it had ever been trained to do."

"Oh give me a break," I said, finally unable to keep my frustration in.

Bob wasn't at all shaken by my outburst. "I had a backpack when they arrested me. There's a book in it ... my mother's diary. I found it in her things after she died. Go look at the entry she made for Christmas day, 1972. She wrote about it."

I looked at my watch. I had another appointment to get to.

"Why did you grope that woman?" I asked him, point blank.

"She's due in September," he said, his voice completely normal. "When I meet a woman who's due in September I can't help but think she might be carrying Melody's half brother or sister."

I didn't know what to do. I obviously needed to spend more time with this man. He was clearly deranged, but I couldn't know why without further evaluation. He could understand the charges against him. I was sure of that. But he might be able to mount a pretty good defense based on insanity.

That was something that could wait.

"I'll be in touch," I said. Then I signaled the guard to let me out.

"Doc," he called as the door opened.

I turned.

"Remember ... I was born in September too," he said. "And Santa said it was their second time."

I called the court clerk later that day. I confess I misinformed her, technically speaking. That was because if I just said he could understand the charges, they wouldn't need my services any longer, and I thought I could do something for this man if I had a little more time with him. His obsession had landed him in hot water. He might survive that, but who knew what all this Santa business might lead him to in the future. So it was for that reason that I informed the clerk that my initial contact indicated further evaluation was necessary. She grumped about it. They always do. Everybody thinks a psychiatrist has some mystical ability to look at someone and make a diagnosis right then and there. She tried to make me feel guilty by saying that the judge wasn't going to do anything about bail until I gave him my final report.

Maybe the clerk's guilt trip worked, because I made room in my schedule two days later to see Bob again. I took along some testing materials in my briefcase. When the guard was going through it, inspecting all the papers, I remembered Bob's reference to his mother's diary and asked to see his personal items box. The perfectly ordinary book was in the box. I didn't have to look for the date he'd given me. The diary fell open to that page, as often happens when a book is opened to a particular part over and over again.

Her handwriting was neat and legible.

Christmas day, 1972. Something happened last night. I dreamed. I can't remember what it was about, but I woke up excited ... excited about Christmas ... but more than that somehow. I feel wonderful. Haven't felt like this in years and years. We made love last night. That hasn't happened in months. I can't remember that either, but I know it happened. No time for more. Must get breakfast ready and wake the children. Bobby's usually up begging to skip breakfast on Christmas, but I haven't heard a peep from him.