Complicit (18 page)

A headache has taken root in the base of my skull. It's sprouting into something prickly and fast-growing. Something beyond my control.

“You're right,” I say. “I wouldn't have wanted to go alone.”

“So what does that mean? No one seems to know anything about your mother.”

I look at her, face shadowed with sheets of rain. “I don't think—”

“You don't think what?”

My voice lowers to a whisper. “I don't think my mom is who I thought she was.”

“Jamie…”

“Jenny,
listen.
Look, I remember a woman with long dark hair. But the woman Darlene described—that wasn't her.”

“So who was it?”

“I don't know.”

“And where's the woman you remember?”

“I don't know that, either!”

“Jamie?”

“What?”

Jenny pauses. “You don't think your mom could still be alive, do you?”

My hands squeeze the steering wheel so tightly my knuckles go white.

My hands, my hands, my hands
 …

“Don't say that,” I whisper. “Please. I can't even go there. I don't know what I think. I don't know
anything.
”

“Do your parents, the ones you live with, do you think they have those items Darlene was looking for?”

“I've never seen them. They've never mentioned having them.”

“That doesn't mean they don't.”

“No … but, there's one person I want to ask about that.”

“Your sister?”

I shake my head. “No, not her.”

FORTY-TWO

That night, I'm sitting on the floor of my room watching a bad movie about the end of the world when the phone rings.

It's almost eleven and I've been up here for hours, ever since dropping Jenny off at her chamber group. When I got home, I had too many questions for Angie and Malcolm that I knew they'd never answer, so I just mumbled something about feeling like crap and came upstairs. You'd think they'd take a hint, but of course, Angie's already knocked once to remind me about an appointment with Dr. Waverly tomorrow afternoon. Then she knocked
again
five minutes later to make sure I heard her the first time. Fifteen minutes after
that,
she sent Malcolm up to see if I “needed anything.” Now my headache has swelled to apocalyptic proportions, so it sort of
does
feel like the end of the world when my sister calls.

I pick it up anyway.

“Hey,” I say wearily.

“What's wrong with you?” Cate snaps.

“I think I'm sick.” I reach to mute the movie I'm watching so I don't have to strain to hear her over the sound of exploding buildings and panicked crowds.

“How sick?” she asks.

“I don't know. I have a headache. A bad one. Maybe it's a migraine.”

“You got those as a kid, remember? They'd get so bad they'd make you puke.”

“No, I don't remember that,” I say. “At all. Cate, are you watching me?”

“What do you mean? Why would I do that?”

“I feel like someone's watching me. At night. All the time, even.”

“You sound paranoid, Jamie.”

“Do I? Because I'm not paranoid if I'm right, you know. If you really are watching me.”

“Wow, you're, like, so deep right now.”

I stare out the window. The rain's stopped but the wind's still blowing. Pounding, actually. “Alarms keep going off near the house. And the Dunnings got broken into on Friday. It was in the paper.”

“Am I supposed to give a shit?”

“I thought you might.”

“Well, you thought wrong. Again.”

“Why'd you run away from me the other day?”

“
I
didn't run away. You did.”

“What?”

“You held your breath until you passed out. I kind of took that to mean our conversation was over.”

I feel the swift knock of panic rushing to fill my soul. “I don't remember doing that.”

“Mmm, you don't say.”

“Cate, I think there's something wrong with me. Really wrong. I've been pulling my eyebrows out again. My cataplexy's getting worse, too. Three times in the last week.”

“You don't have cataplexy, Jamie.”

“What?”

“I said you don't have cataplexy.”

“Yeah, well, what do I have, then?”

“It's a convert—conversion something. Shit. I forget.”

“A conversion? Like being born again?”

“No! Double shit. Hell, don't ask me. I'm not a doctor!”

Unbelievable. “Where are these pictures of our mom? You said you'd give them to me. You
promised.
”

She sniffs. “Things change, little brother. It's the way of the world.”

A flush of anger runs through me. Why did I ever help her in the first place? Burying her things in the woods and sparing her even worse punishment? Why? She's not Crazy. She's
cruel.

I sit up, gripping the phone. “I went to the house where we used to live, you know. Out in Richmond. The woman there said our mom had blond hair. That's not what I remember. Our mom had dark hair, right?”

She says nothing.

“Cate?”

“Yeah?”

“Did you hear what I asked?”

“I heard you. You're practically screaming.”

I am definitely
not
screaming. “Why doesn't our mom look like how I remember her?”

“Maybe you only remember what you want to. Maybe that's your goddamn problem.”

“I—” I know what I'm going to ask might upset her. I know it might set her off. But I have to do it. “I've been trying to remember a lot of things lately. Things from the past. And that time I rode your horse down at the barn, after I held my breath, did you … hypnotize me?”

Silence.

“Cate?”

“Maybe I did,” she whispers. “And maybe I should have done it again. Only I didn't. Instead I bought into the lie that what you don't know can't hurt you. But it can, Jamie. It can hurt bad. You'll figure that out on your own, though. I know you will. You're so close. Now
go deeper.
”

FORTY-THREE

The following morning finds me lurking around the parking lot of the Happy Homes Adoption Agency in Stockton, which is a delta town more than sixty miles northeast of Danville. It's early still and I barely remember the drive out here—the whole trip's a hazy blur of bad heartburn, brake lights, and gas station coffee. So far, I've been passing time by doing jumping jacks to the beat of Ellington's “Caravan,” and generally looking like a crazy person. A painted mural of brightly colored flowers and brightly colored children adorn the wall behind me, and even though I've been freezing my butt off for over an hour in the crisp December air, it was a good call on my part, remembering the cigarettes. This is because when the back door of the agency opens and the woman I've been waiting for comes out, she makes a beeline straight for the ashtray I've positioned myself next to.

I stop jumping and watch as she approaches. It's been ten years, but I recognize her immediately, all the way down to the shiny pack of Kools and plastic lighter she's got gripped in one chubby hand. Her frizzy hair's cut short now, but she's still tall and sort of lumpy, and either there's something off about her makeup or there's just a whole lot of it.

“Hello, Miss Louise.” I try keeping my voice steady, but breath and words spill together from my mouth in a jumbled rush.

The woman blinks. “How do you know who I am?”

“I recognized you.”

“Well, tell me who you are then or I'll call the cops. You a relative?”

“A relative? Of who?”

“Of one of my kids.”

I'm confused. “Your kids?”

The look in her eyes isn't wary so much as weary. She pulls a cigarette out. Lights it. “Not
my
kids. But mine, you know? The ones I work with.”

“No,” I say. “I'm not a relative.”

“Well, then…”

“I think I
am
one of your kids.”

Miss Louise takes a step toward me. Minty smoke leaks from her nostrils, lit-grenade style, and her lips start to stretch into a smile. “Yeah? What's your name, then? Bet I remember you. I remember all my kids and I've been doing this job for over ten years.”

“My name's Jamie. Jamie Henry.”

Miss Louise freezes. Her soft dumpling skin goes white. Then
whiter.

“Oh,” she says.

I cock my head. “What's wrong? Don't you remember me?”

“Of course I remember you, Jamie. You … you're all grown now. But I heard about what happened with your sister. That was sad. Real sad. I'm sorry.”

I nod quickly. My chest is doing its tightening thing again. “Thank you.”

“How'd you find me?” she asks.

“Wasn't hard. I did a search for all the Louises that worked in adoption services. Found your picture on the Happy Homes website. Stockton's kind of far from Richmond, though.”

“I didn't work here when I knew you. I was out in West County then. Social services.”

“Oh.”

“Is everything okay, Jamie?”

“I guess.”

“Your parents treating you well? What was their name again?”

“The Henrys. Malcolm and Angie.”

“Of course. The Henrys. Terrible what happened to their kids.”

I lift my chin. “You mean their ‘real kids,' right? That's what people call them, you know. Like Cate and I are imaginary.”

“That's not what I meant at all. But what happened to them
was
terrible. You do understand that, right?”

My shrug is noncommittal. I mean, of course, I understand, but I don't totally agree with the terrible part, which is one of those nasty truths that can fill me with the most sinister sense of badness. But maybe it's the way any child born or adopted after the death of a sibling feels, this queasy lurch from gratitude to shame; if Madison and Graham hadn't died, where the hell would I be? “Miss Louise, do you think I could ask you some questions? About when I was younger? And about my mom? My real mom.”

She scratches the bottom of her chin with her thumb. “‘Real' mom, huh? Yeah, sure. Shoot.”

My mouth goes dry.

“Sorry,” she says. “That was tactless.”

I manage to clear my throat. “Do you know what my mom looked like?”

“Nope. Never saw her.”

“Well, after she died, did you ever go back to the house we lived in and get some of her things?”

She frowns and puffs harder. “Yeah, I did. Wasn't much to get, though.”

“What was there?”

“Don't remember. Nothing valuable. Good thing, too. That neighborhood was not optimal and that's putting it lightly.”

“Were there statues? Animal statues? Is that what you picked up?”

“I don't know. There might've been. Why're you asking these questions, Jamie?”

“I'm trying to learn more about where I came from. My past, you know? I don't remember anything from before I went to live with the Henrys. Sometimes it feels like nobody
wants
me to remember.”

“You don't remember anything?”

“Not really. All I know is what I've been told. That my mom was shot. That we were wards of the state until we got adopted. That they never found out who it was that killed her.”

“I see.” Miss Louise presses her lips together so hard a stream of ash breaks off, vanishing into the valley wind in an instant. “Well, here's what I know: You were miserable in that group home with your sister. Always sick and crying. You got nits and your hair fell out.”

My cheeks burn. “I remember
that.
”

“If you remember that, then maybe you shouldn't be worrying about before. Maybe it's now that matters. Your life with the Henrys.”

“But I want to know where I came from! That's important, isn't it?”

“Your parents now love you. Isn't that more important?”

“I guess,” I say, but I don't know. Maybe that's the unspoken truth of parents whose living children have come after ones who were lost—it's not that they don't love us, it's that they wish they never had to.

Miss Louise tips her head at me. Soft curls dance across pale cheeks. “Do you know how rare it is for older children to be adopted? Much less stay with a sibling? It was practically a miracle, what happened to you and your sister. And you don't question miracles.”

“You don't?”

“Oh, no. There's no truth that can change who you are. But looking into the past, at things that happened a long time ago, that can hurt you. Your sister's proof of that. So stop. All right?”

But I can't stop,
is what I want to say but my teeth chatter too hard in the chilled Stockton air. I look away.

Miss Louise reaches out. Takes my hand. Squeezes it hard enough to hurt.

“Be a
good
boy,” she says.

FORTY-FOUR

So why am I questioning miracles?

This is the drumbeat query that gallops through my mind, faster and faster, as I navigate the tight valley fog, winding out of Stockton, leaving behind Miss Louise and the wispy reek of her Kools. The distance between us may be increasing, but her wisdom, however murky, sticks with me. It fills me with self-doubt, a haggard sense of rootlessness. Like swimming in a cold lake at night and not knowing which way is up, I don't know what the right thing to do is.

And maybe that's just how Cate wants it.

Drops of moisture hit my windshield.

I switch on my wipers.

I drive full speed into the murkiness.

 

 

When I finally reach school, I don't head to my classes or the office or anywhere I'll be forced to concoct lame, stuttering excuses for my absence. Instead I seek solace in Jenny. In her body more than her words. That sounds selfish, I know, or shallow, but my intent is far from prurient. I just want to be close to her. I need her. And okay, maybe that
is
selfish, but I like to think she gets something out of being with me. She seems to and I don't mean in a giving way. I mean in the taking.