An Anonymous Girl (38 page)

It all looks so beautiful, doesn’t it?

The father has uncorked a bottle of Dom Pérignon. Smoked salmon with
caviar on crostini are passed.

Stockings lay below the tree. Although there are only four people in the room, there are five stockings.

The extra one has been filled for Danielle, as it has been every year. The custom is to donate to a meaningful charity in her name and place the envelope bearing the check in the stocking. Usually the recipient is Mothers Against Drunk Driving, although
Safe Ride and Students Against Destructive Decisions have also been chosen in the past.

Next week will mark the twentieth anniversary of Danielle’s death, so the check is a particularly large one.

She would have been thirty-six years old.

She died less than a mile away from this living room.

As the level of champagne in the mother’s second glass grows lower, her stories about the
younger daughter, her favorite, grow more hyperbolic.

This is another holiday custom.

She winds up a rambling tale about Danielle’s summer as a counselor at the country club’s day camp.

“She was such a natural with children,” the mother ruminates pointlessly. “She would have been the most wonderful mother.”

The mother has conveniently forgotten that Danielle reluctantly took the
job at the father’s insistence and was only hired because the father played golf with the country club director.

Typically, the mother is indulged.

But today a rebuttal is impossible to withhold: “Oh, I’m not sure how much Danielle actually liked those kids. Didn’t she call in sick so often that she almost got fired?”

Although an affectionate tone is sought, the words cause the mother
to stiffen.

“She
loved
those children,” the mother counters. Her cheeks redden.

“More champagne, Cynthia?” Thomas offers. It’s an attempt to break the tension that has suddenly infused the room.

The mother is allowed to win the point by having the last word, although she is wrong.

Here is what the mother refuses to accept: Danielle was thoroughly selfish. She took things: A favorite
cashmere sweater that was then stretched out, because Danielle wore a size larger. An A-plus paper for my junior-year English class that was stored on a shared home computer and resubmitted under her name the following fall.

And a boyfriend who had pledged to be true to the older sister.

Danielle never suffered consequences for those first two transgressions or so many before them; the
father was preoccupied with work and the mother, predictably, excused her.

Perhaps if she had been held responsible for her misdeeds all along, she would still be alive.

Thomas has crossed the room to refill the mother’s glass.

“How it is possible that you look younger every year, Cynthia?” he asks, patting her on the arm.

Usually Thomas’s attempts at peacemaking feel loving.

Tonight’s is perceived as another betrayal.

“I need a glass of water.” What is actually needed is an excuse to leave the room. The kitchen feels like a place of refuge.

Over the past twenty years, items in this kitchen have been altered: The new refrigerator contains a built-in dispenser for ice water. The hardwood floor has been replaced by an Italian tile. The dinner plates behind
the glass-fronted cabinets are now white with blue trim.

But the side door is exactly the same.

The deadbolt still requires a key to unlock it from the outside. From inside the kitchen, a simple twist of the small oval knob disengages the lock or engages it, depending on which way the knob is turned.

You have never heard this story, Jessica.

No one has. Not even Thomas.

But
you must have known you were special to me. That we are inexorably linked. It is one of the reasons why your actions have cut so deeply.

If only
you
had behaved, we might have had a very different relationship.

Because despite all of our superficial differences—in age, socioeconomics, educational levels—the most important pivot points in our lifetimes eerily echo. It is as if we were destined
to come together. As if our two stories are mirror images.

You locked your younger sister Becky in on that tragic day in August.

I locked my younger sister Danielle out on that tragic night in December.

Danielle often snuck away to meet boys. Her favorite trick was to leave the kitchen door open by disengaging the deadbolt so that she could reenter the house undetected.

Her subterfuge
was no concern of mine. Until she went after my boyfriend.

Danielle coveted my things. Ryan was no exception.

Boys fell over Danielle all the time; she was pretty, she was lively, and her sexual boundaries were nearly nonexistent.

But Ryan was different. He was tender and appreciated conversation and quieter nights. He was my first in so many ways.

He broke my heart twice. Initially,
when he left me. Then again, a week later, when he started dating my younger sister.

It’s remarkable how the simplest of decisions can create a butterfly effect; how a seemingly inconsequential action can cause a tsunami.

An ordinary glass of water, like the one being filled in this kitchen right now, is what began it all on that December night almost exactly twenty years ago.

Danielle
was out with Ryan, unbeknownst to our parents. She had disengaged the deadbolt to disguise her late return home.

Danielle never suffered consequences. She was long overdue for one.

A quick, spontaneous twist of the lock meant she would be forced to ring the bell and awaken my parents. My father would be apoplectic; his temper has always been short.

It was impossible to fall asleep
that night; the anticipation was too delicious.

From an upstairs window at 1:15
A
.
M
., the headlights of Ryan’s Jeep were observed being extinguished halfway up our long, winding driveway. Danielle was spotted slipping across the lawn, toward the direction of the kitchen door.

A thrill suffused my body: How did she feel when the knob refused to yield?

Surely the doorbell would soon
sound.

Instead, a minute later, Danielle scurried back to Ryan’s car.

Then the Jeep reversed its path down the driveway, with Danielle in the passenger’s seat.

How was Danielle going to get out of this? Maybe she’d appear in the morning with some ludicrous excuse, like she’d been sleepwalking. Even my mother wouldn’t be able to ignore Danielle’s deceit this time.

Unaware that their
youngest daughter had stuffed pillows beneath her comforter as a decoy, my parents slept on.

Until a police officer appeared at the door a few hours 1ater.

Ryan had been drinking, which he never did when we were together. His Jeep crashed into a tree at the bottom of our long windy road. They both died in the accident; her instantly, him at the hospital from massive internal trauma.

Danielle had made so many wrong choices that created the circumstances of the accident: Stealing my boyfriend. Drinking vodka five years before she was legally allowed to do so. Sneaking out of the house. Not owning up to her transgression by ringing the doorbell and facing our parents.

The final result of the kitchen door being locked was not anticipated.

But it was merely one in a string
of factors that led to her death. Had she altered any of her choices, she could be in the living room right now, perhaps with the grandchildren our mother so desperately wants.

Like your parents, Jessica, mine are only privy to part of the story.

If you knew how tightly we are bound by these dual tragedies, would you have lied to me about Thomas?

There are still questions about your
involvement with my husband. But they will be answered tomorrow.

Your parents have been told that you will be spending the holiday with me, and that they should enjoy themselves and not worry if they don’t hear from you.

After all, we will be very busy with plans of our own.

Monday, December 24

I didn’t notice the narrow silver plaque affixed to the bench when I met Thomas here less than a week ago; it was too dark.

But now, as the midafternoon sun hits it, I see the gleam of the reflective memorial.

Her full name and dates of birth and death are engraved in a graceful font, followed by one line. Dr. Shields’s silvery voice
reads the inscription in my mind:
Katherine April Voss, Who surrendered too soon.

Dr. Shields installed the plaque here. I know it.

It bears her trademark: Understated. Elegant. Menacing.

This quiet spot deep within the West Village Conservatory Gardens is composed of concentric circles: the frozen fountain is in the middle. Ringing it are a half dozen wooden benches. And surrounding
the benches is a walking path.

I stand with my arms encircling myself, too, as I stare at the bench where April died.

Since I left Dr. Shields’s town house last night, I’ve pored over my file, and April’s, again and again. I remember the line Dr. Shields wrote about me,
This process can set you free. Surrender to it,
in a script that looks not unlike the message adorning the plaque.

I shiver, even though in the daytime, these frozen gardens aren’t so spooky. I’ve passed several people out for strolls, and the laughter of children not too far away carries through the crisp air. In the distance, an elderly woman in a bright green knitted hat pushes a small shopping cart. She’s heading my way but moving slowly.

Still, I feel unnerved, and utterly alone.

I was so certain
answers would be contained in Dr. Shields’s notes.

But the missing piece of the jigsaw puzzle, the one I was sure I’d seen in April’s file but couldn’t pinpoint, remains elusive.

The elderly woman is closer now, her slow, heavy footsteps bringing her to the edge of the sitting area.

I rub my eyes, and yield to the temptation of a bench. I don’t choose April’s, though. I sit on the
one next to it.

I’m more tired than I’ve ever been.

I slept for only a few hours last night, and my uneasy rest was jarred by nightmares: Ricky lunging at me. Becky falling into a swimming pool in Florida and drowning. Noah walking away.

Taking Dr. Shields’s pill was never an option, though. I’m through accepting her gifts.

I massage my temples, trying to ease the pounding in my
head.

The woman in the green hat takes a seat on the bench one over from mine. April’s bench. She digs into her cart and pulls out a loaf of Wonder bread with bright polka-dot packaging. She begins tearing a slice into little pieces and tossing them onto the ground. Instantly, as if they’ve been waiting for her, a dozen or so birds descend.

I pull my eyes away from them as they flutter
around the food.

If the clue isn’t in the notes, maybe I can find it by retracing April’s footsteps. Immediately before she came to this Conservatory, April sat on a stool and conversed with Dr. Shields in her kitchen, just as I did last night.

I visualize other locations where our paths have intersected: April and I both hovered over keyboards in the NYU classroom, letting Dr. Shields
probe our innermost thoughts. We probably even sat at the same desk.

The two of us were then invited into Dr. Shields’s office, where we perched on the love seat, allowing our secrets to be teased out of us.

And of course, April and I each met Thomas at a bar, and felt his heated gaze, before bringing him to our homes.

The old lady continues tossing bread out for the birds.

“Mourning
doves,” she says. “They mate for life, you know.”

She must be talking to me, because there’s nobody else around.

I nod.

“Want to feed them?” she offers, walking over and extending a fresh slice of bread toward me.

“Sure,” I say absently, taking it and tearing off a few bits to scatter.

Other places April and I have both been: Her bedroom at her parent’s apartment, the one with
the ragged teddy bear still atop her comforter. And there was a photograph of the Insomnia Cookies storefront near Amsterdam Avenue that I recognized in her Instagram feed. I’ve stopped in there before, too, for snickerdoodle or double chocolate mint cookies.

Obviously, we’ve also both visited this garden.

I wouldn’t even have known of April’s existence if Thomas hadn’t invited me here
to warn me about his wife.

Thomas.

I frown, thinking about how so much imploded—my job, my relationship with Noah—while I sat in a chair across from Thomas’s desk and he talked about the fake affair he concocted with the woman from the boutique.

Thomas’s office is one place I’ve been that April never frequented; Thomas said he only met with April on that night that ended in her apartment.
Although, if she was really obsessed with him, she may have looked up the location of his workplace.

I toss out the last of my bread.

There’s something tugging at the edges of my mind. Something that has to do with Thomas’s office.

A mourning dove flutters past me, fracturing my thoughts. The small bird lands on April’s bench, by the old lady, and perches above the silver plaque.

I stare.

Adrenaline surges through my body, wiping away my exhaustion.

April’s name in that flowing script. The dates of her birth and death. The dove. I’ve seen it all before.

I lean forward, my breath quickening.

I realize where it was: on her funeral program, the one Mrs. Voss gave me.

I can almost feel my fingertips closing around the thing I’ve been hunting. My pulse
hitches.

I grow very still as I reconsider a fact that has always seemed strange: Thomas faked an affair with some inconsequential woman to cover up his encounter with April. He was also desperate to get April’s folder; desperate enough to find a way to sneak me into the town house while he distracted Dr. Shields.

The clue that has been dancing around the edges of my consciousness was
never in the folder, though.