“Yes. I have the dates here. I had to call the county health officer and so I have the dates. It was the nineteenth of May. He, the doctor, left some change, some silver, on his bureau and the boy helped himself to a twenty-five-cent piece. You couldn’t blame him. He never had a penny for himself. When the doctor came home that night he counted his money, he was very methodical. When he seen that he was short some he asked the boy if he took it. Well, he was a good, honest boy and he owned right up to it. So then the doctor took him to his room, the boy had a room at the back of the house and there was a closet and he told him to go into the closet. Then he went into the bathroom and got him a glass of water and he gave him the water and then he locked the closet door. This was about quarter to seven. I didn’t say anything because I wanted to help the boy and I knew if I opened my big mouth it would only make things worse for the boy. So I served the doctor his dinner with a straight face and then I listened and I waited but I didn’t go near the closet where the poor boy was locked in the dark. So then I went to the closet in my bare feet and I whispered to him but he was crying so, he was so miserable that he couldn’t do anything but sob and I told him not to worry, that I was going to lie down there on the floor by the closet and stay all night and I did. I lay there until dawn and then I whispered good-bye to him and I went down and cooked the breakfast. Well, the doctor went to the site at eight and then I tried to unlock the door but it was a good strong lock and none of the keys in the house would open it and still the poor boy was crying so that he couldn’t speak hardly and he had drunk his water and had nothing to eat and there was no way of getting any water or food in to him. So when my housework was done I got a chair and sat by the door and talked with him until half-past six when the doctor come home and I thought he’d let the boy out then but he didn’t go near the back of the house and ate his supper just as if nothing was wrong. Well, then I waited, I waited until he started to get ready for bed and then I called the police. He told me to get out of the house, he told me I was fired and when the police come he tried to get them to throw me out but I got the policeman to open the closet and the poor little fellow—oh, he was so sick—come out but I had to go although it broke my heart to leave him alone and I never saw the doctor again until today.”
“Do you recall this incident, Dr. Cameron?”
“Do you suppose, with my responsibilities, that I can afford to entertain such recollections?”
“You don’t recall punishing the boy?”
“If I punished him I only meant to teach him right from wrong.” His voice still had its edge, still soared, but he took no one with him.
“You don’t recall locking your son in a closet for two days with nothing to eat or drink?”
“I gave him water.”
“Then you do recall the incident?”
“I only wanted to teach him right from wrong.”
“Do you visit your son?”
“From time to time.” Something was carrying him on, some energy. He smiled.
“Do you remember the last time you visited him?”
“I can’t recall.”
“Would it have been ten years ago?”
“I can’t recall.”
“Would you recognize your son?”
“Of course.”
“Daddy, Daddy.”
The man who spoke from the open door seemed older than his father. His hair was white; his face was swollen. He was crying and he crossed the hearing room, knelt where his father sat, awkwardly for he was not a child, and put his head on the doctor’s knee. “Daddy,” he cried, “oh, Daddy. It’s raining.”
“Yes, dear.” It was the most eloquent thing he had said. He no longer saw the hearing room or his persecutors. He seemed immersed in some human, some intensely human balance of love and misgiving as if the feelings were a storm with a circumference and an eye and he was in the stillness of the eye. “It’s raining, Daddy,” the man said. “Stay with me. Don’t go out in the rain. Stay with me just once. They tell me you’ve hurt me but I don’t believe them. I love you, Daddy. I’ll always love you, Daddy. I write you all the time, Daddy, but you never answer my letters. Why don’t you answer my letters, Daddy? Why don’t you ever answer my letters?”
“I don’t answer your letters because I’m ashamed of them,” the doctor said hoarsely but not as if he spoke to someone childish or insane but to an equal, his son. “I send you everything you need. I sent you some nice stationery but you write me on wrapping paper, you write me on laundry lists, you even write me on toilet paper.” His voice rose in anger and rang off the marble walls. “How in hell do you expect me to answer letters when you write them on toilet paper? I’m ashamed to receive them, I’m ashamed to see them. They remind me of everything in life I detest.”
“Daddy, Daddy,” the man cried.
“We’ll go now, Philip. We have to go.” There was an attendant with him. The attendant took his patient by the arm.
