Secret Sister (23 page)

“What’s going on? What do you want from me?” I sounded angrier than I thought I was.

“What do you mean?”

“You’re fooling around with your hands exactly like Cathy always did. You never had that habit. Why are you doing stuff like that?”

“What else am I doing?”

“You’re wearing your hair pulled back in a ribbon, and clothes like my wife wore.” I pointed at her blouse. “And you’re acting weird with the cat, like she’s
your
cat, among other things. It’s freaking Zoë out.”

Roxanne fidgeted. “That’s ridiculous,” she said, but her face revealed I’d hit a nerve. “Look, Nick, those things are nothing. I know it’s going to sound weird, but—”

I held up my hand. “Stop. Let me show you something.” I got the car rental agreement from the other room and tossed it on the table. “Let’s talk about this first.” I sat back down. “Is this
nothing
?”

She looked at it uncomprehendingly. “What is this?”

“It’s your car rental agreement.”

Roxanne unfolded it. “I don’t understand. What’s your point?”

“What’s your home phone number?” I challenged.

Roxanne rattled off a number and then put her hand over her mouth.

She had just recited
my
phone number. The same number she’d written on the form. “I don’t understand why you’re doing this. Where’s it leading?”

She looked down. “Can I ask you a couple of things first, before I explain this stuff?”

“Shoot.”

Roxanne leaned forward, her breasts pressing against the tabletop. Despite the drama around us, her ripe good looks were, as always, distracting as hell; the silky, tanned skin, her lush body. Staring into her eyes, my anxiety ratcheted up a notch.

“What are you doing home today? Are you sick?” she asked.

She was something. A real ball breaker. I had never figured her for this kind of pushiness. It was more Cathy’s style.

Shit, now I’m doing it
.

“That’s none of your business,” I retorted. “And if that’s the kind of thing you came here to ask about, when you know it’s none of your business, you can just get the hell out now. I’m not gonna play games with you.”

“Okay.” She cleared her throat. “Last year, in November, I came and stayed for a few days. I can’t remember everything that happened during that visit. Will you tell me what went on?”

“What went on?” My heart beat an irregular rhythm. I put my hand on my chest and rubbed it. “What exactly is it you don’t remember?”

“I remember you cooked waffles.” She looked outside, staring at the sky as if it were a television screen. “I don’t know what I don’t remember, Nick. That’s the problem.  I know I was upset because of problems with Michael. With the relationship. The rest is sketchy.”

“Why are you asking me this? Can’t you talk to someone more in the know? Michael, for instance? How about Bradley, or your mom?”

“I did ask Michael. And Betty told me a few things I don’t completely trust.” She paused. “I was hoping you could tell me what you remember. I know you’ll tell me the truth.”

We stared at each other. I felt like I was treading water. I knew she really didn’t remember the week she spent here, for if she did, she wouldn’t be this calm.

“What’s so important about those few days, Roxanne? Do you remember everything else in your past except that hunk of time?”

“No, I don’t. I’ve got a lot of gaps. But I remember most things I think are important, and something tells me this is a very significant point in time for me. But I can’t bring the details into focus.”

I looked up at the ceiling. What could I say? What
should
I say that would help anything now? What had happened last November couldn’t be undone. I looked at the table and thought about how I had reacted when Roxanne, sitting in the same chair she now occupied, had announced,
“I’m pregnant, Nick . . .
”

My face tingled as the echo of her words bounced around inside my head. This must be how it felt to be a defendant, guilty as charged, sitting in a courtroom hearing a jury verdict of ‘Not Guilty.’

I was being given the chance to escape reliving my betrayal of my wife. If I didn’t tell Roxanne the truth, and she didn’t remember the past, then would the damning details disappear forever?

A tree falling in the forest, and all that.

I stared at the woman across the table. What good would it do her to know the truth? I couldn’t imagine.

“You told us you needed to get out of your apartment because it was being painted,” I finally said. “Cathy invited you to stay here. You and Michael were on the outs, and you were pretty broken up. Cathy took you to see Ryan Seth, to get some help. You stayed a couple of days, life went on and you went home. End of story.”

Before she could say a word, the shriek of the telephone nearly knocked me off the chair. The second ring seemed louder. Roxanne watched me with a wounded look in her eyes.

I answered the phone. It was Zoë, sobbing that the new vet wanted to do surgery right away on the cat.

“Hang on,” I said, after listening to her shaking voice detail the cost, the risk, the fact that she had to sign a release acknowledging the cat might die from the anesthetic. “Tell me why exactly she wants to do surgery tonight.”

“The mass is huge on her back leg,” Zoë said. “I told her it was bigger than last week. And Pitty has a temperature. The vet says that probably means it’s affecting her other organs.” My sister cried harder and started gulping for air.

“Zoë, take a breath and calm down a little. Look, the cat’s been eating and walking around okay. Tell the vet we want to wait. I can’t believe if it’s cancer that it would grow so fast.”

“Did they check her for stingers?” Roxanne demanded.

I covered the mouthpiece of the phone and looked around. “What?”

“You’re talking about Pitty, right? The thing on her left haunch?”

I must have looked at her like she was a witch because she said defensively, “Zoë told me about it Thursday, when I was here.”

“Hang on a minute, Zoë.” I frowned. “What are you talking about, Rox? A stinger where?”

“Remember a couple of years ago when Pitty got into the yellow jacket nest and they stung her right leg? She had a stinger buried in so deep the vet had to shave her to see the thing. Her leg swelled up and the vet said at first he thought she might be having ‘kidney failure,’ the pinhead. But we found the stinger.”

She held out her hand for the phone. “Let me talk to the vet. I’ll tell her to shave Pitty’s haunch and see if anything is there.”

“Sit down, it’s my fucking cat.” But she was right. This had happened, but it was Cathy
who found the stinger.

Roxanne sat but kept talking. “We gave her a little Benadryl with an eye dropper, and the swelling got better, remember? If you won’t let me talk to the doctor, make sure Zoë tells her exactly where to look.”

I stared at her. Roxanne seemed agitated, charged up, ready to swoop in and save the day. She even acted maternal.

The Roxanne I’d known all these years was passive, cool and disconnected at times of crisis. A follower, not a leader. When she had told me she was pregnant, it was because she wanted me to tell her what to do.

Usually that task fell to my wife. But Roxanne had been adamant that neither of us could ever tell Cathy about the baby. My lack of judgment, among other things, had led me to go along with her, and lie a million times to Cathy over the next few weeks.

Who was this woman standing here? I wanted to scream aloud.
Who the hell does she think she is?

I kept my eyes on her, as if she might morph into a monster, my gut as freaked-out as my churning brain.

“Zoë, listen to me.” I related the yellow jacket story exactly as Roxanne had described. “Okay, then call me back. If you have to, leave Pitty there overnight, that’s fine. But make sure they don’t operate. The cat is too old to make it through anesthesia.”

I hung up.

Roxanne had walked over to the corner of the kitchen and was leaning on the French door, looking out at the back yard. The air conditioning unit kicked on and she kept her face averted.

Suddenly she said, “So, tell me about the abortion.”

“What?” The word exploded out of my throat.

She turned. Her eyes flashed and her voice was hard. “You lied to me just now, didn’t you, Nick? You know what the little ‘problem’ was. Betty Haverty told me the whole pathetic story. How her daughter got pregnant and had an abortion last fall. Betty said she wasn’t allowed to ever mention it to Cathy.” She paused. “I asked Michael about it. He said the baby wasn’t his. He said the father was a
married
man.”

Salt tracks from recent tears glittered on her cheeks. “Tell me the truth about this, Nick. Tell me and break my heart.”

I felt like I could not breathe. I had heard those words before.

The first time Cathy and I made love, she lay in my arms, warm and soft and naked, and asked me to swear I would never cheat on her. “If you ever want to be with someone else, just tell me and break my heart. But don’t lie to me, ever, Nick. I would die if you lied to me. Promise?”

I had promised.

Roxanne could not have known about this conversation between Cathy and me. My wife shared many things with her friend, but I would bet my life she hadn’t shared that.

A nerve under my left eye began to twitch. My vision clouded and suddenly she didn’t look like the Roxanne I had known all these years. The way she held herself, the downward curve of her lip when she cried, the nervous pulling at the skin on the back of her hand, all these movements belonged to another woman.

“Who are you?” I asked as if I was dreaming.

“Was it your baby, Nick? Don’t lie to me. Please.”

I leaned against the counter because my knees nearly buckled. “Who . . .?”

She wiped her eyes and pointed at the chair. “Sit down. I’ve got something to tell you.”

Chapter 20

Cathy’s home, Monday, August 1

Nick & Cathy

Nick fell into his chair, tense as a hostage wired to a bomb. I had never seen my husband scared, but the light was gone from his eyes, replaced by a radiating anxiety I felt across the space between us.

“Something happened after the accident on July 9,” I began. “Something that will be hard for you to accept. It has been for me. But it’s something you’re going to have to believe, because it’s true.”

Nick cracked his knuckles. His bruised face looked harder and leaner than I remembered and for a moment I was disoriented and felt as if I might be dreaming instead of awake.

With a deep breath and in a flood of words, I told him what happened to me, and to Roxanne. I factually recounted what I remembered about the sound, the smell, the frantic, horrible panic and nightmare of the wreck. I described the violence, the pain, and the blackness.

How I thought of him.

“And then I saw a woman with long, dark hair. She was trying to lead me somewhere, Nick. I was afraid of her and I didn’t understand what was happening. Even when I think of those moments now, they’re a blur of sound and fragmented images. I was dying and I didn’t realize, until last week at Simone’s, that when I was most in danger of leaving life behind forever, I was given a gift. That night, just before I saw you in the hallway of the restaurant, my past flooded back and I knew who I was. And the memory of the dark-haired woman made sense.”

I wanted to cross the room and put my arms around Nick and melt into him, comfort him, make the horror in his face go away. But I stood as if bolted to the cool tile floor, pinching my hand so hard it felt like it would bleed.

I think he knew what I was going to say before I said it.

“It’s me, Cathy. I’m here, Nick. I can’t explain how or why it happened, but Roxanne died that day in the accident, and I did too, but then for some reason, by some power I don’t understand, I moved into her body. It’s me in here, Nick. Cathy.”

I pressed my hands to my heart and whispered, “It’s a miracle.”

Nick gasped and pushed away from the table. His eyes were wild. “Get out.” He pointed toward the front door. “Get the hell out of here.”

“No.” I braced myself against the chair. “No, I won’t go, Nick. Not until you understand what I’m telling you. I know it will take some time to believe it, but tell me you understand.” I took a step closer. “I’ve missed you so much. Please, tell me what you’re thinking.”

“What I’m thinking is that you’re insane. Certifiable, Roxanne. And I’m not going to listen to this, this lie!”

“It’s the truth!” My frustration bubbled out of control and I hit his arm with my closed fist. “You have to believe me.”

“I don’t have to do anything for you.”

“Yes, you do. Starting with telling me what happened with you and Roxanne. You owe me that much!”

“I owe you?” he roared. “What do I owe you? I’ve known you for years and years, but I don’t owe you anything. I think July 9 cancelled everything between us, Roxanne. You’re nothing to me but heartbreak.”

I wrapped my shaking arms around myself. “I’m not going to go away until I know the truth about everything.”

“Everything?” His voice was ragged. “You want to know if you and I slept together and you got pregnant? Is that what someone told you? And since you can’t conveniently remember, you want me to verify the sordid details because, by the way, you are not who you look like
, you’re really Cathy Chance?”

It sounded as crazy as it was. “I know it’s shockingly weird. But you have to deal with it.
I’m not dead
.”

Nick pushed past the chairs and grabbed me by both arms, his eyes blazing. “You’ve always had a loose grip on reality, Roxanne. Why are you doing this? To get me to take you into the bedroom and fuck you in my bed, in
Cathy’s bed?
Is that where this sick joke is going?” He shook me by the shoulders. “Are you this jealous of her, even though she’s dead?”

I opened my mouth to yell at him for even thinking such a thing about Roxanne, but in that second I realized he was right.

She had been jealous, but not of me.

It was of him, and his love for me. It was something she’d never had. She’d never had a father in her life, and never trusted that any one had ever loved her for who she was inside. Except maybe for me. I looked into Nick’s eyes and saw Roxanne’s face reflected in his pupils and my heart broke again for my dead friend.

“You’ve got to believe me. I’m not Roxanne. I know it’s bizarre and crazy, but for your own sake, please listen to me. I can prove this. I know things. I remember almost everything that ever happened between us.”

My voice cracked but I kept talking. “I can tell you things that will convince you. Test me! I’ll answer any question about anything you want me to.”

“Who’s your best friend?” His breath was hot on my face.

“You’re my best friend, Nick Chance. And I’m yours.”

He flinched. “You are such a liar.”

I wrested myself out of his grasp. “I’m not lying. You’re the only one who has been lying today. You said nothing happened in November, but it did. She was pregnant. Did you and Roxanne have an affair?”

His lips pulled over his teeth, as if he were going to bite me. “Are you done? Are you going to get out or am I going to have to bodily throw you out?”

“Nick, we can talk this out. If you were unfaithful, explain how it happened and I’ll try to understand.”

A strangled noise escaped him and he stomped out of the kitchen.

I followed, furious with him, but mostly with myself. I needed to stop bouncing around and stay focused on convincing him about the main issue at hand. Which was my true identity. I had to make him agree to at least try and understand what had happened.

He was in the bedroom, our bedroom,
my bedroom
, sitting on the mattress fumbling with his socks, trying to pull them on. His shoes lay beside him.

“Nick, forget about the past for a moment. We have to talk about me. Please just listen . . .”

“Get out of here! Get the hell out of my room and my house.”

I came closer. He gave me a look that said if I moved, I would be in danger.

“Just because you can’t accept the truth doesn’t mean it isn’t real. You can keep the past from me all you want, but you’re going to have to deal with who I am. Please just say you’ll think about everything I said.”

“There’s nothing to think about. My wife’s dead. She’s in an urn under the bed. And you are batshit crazy.”

“I’m not lying.”

“Well then, you’re hallucinating. Or high.” Nick’s eyes made a quick journey of my body. “You’re not my wife, lady. Not even close.”

“Jesus, you’re not listening. Can’t you see past who I look like for a minute and see inside? Who else but me would keep at you like this?” I stomped over to the windows and pulled the shades, then slammed the door.

The room was now dark and dusky, warm and close. I walked back to where he sat and laid my hand on his arm.

I got a jolt from touching him. He was quiet, yet wound so tight I was afraid he might explode. But all I wanted to do was melt against him, so close that I would disappear into his body. I didn’t even care if he had ever been unfaithful to me.

He was my whole world. I needed him and I wasn’t going to ever give up and go away. I leaned over and whispered close to his ear. “It’s me, Nick. Can’t you see me inside?” And then I told him what I wanted him to do to me, a secret caress between us that he had to know I never would have shared with anyone.

Nick froze.

It seemed as if we both stopped breathing, and I felt as if I heard his thoughts, heard his heart beating. He met my eyes and I knew his mind had finally opened to the possibility it
was
me, and he might believe
just a little
.

Just enough for me to try.

“Do you remember the first time we made love in this room?” I asked.

He raised his left hand and put his fingers against my mouth. “Don’t . . .”

I moved his hand from my lips. “It was the afternoon we had the house inspected, a week before we moved in. We threw our clothes on the floor and you lay down and pulled me on top of you. We were both so ready it took all of five minutes for both of us to come. You said huge debt must make us horny. Afterward we took a shower and shared that little motel bar of soap we found in the bathroom drawer. It smelled like pine trees. You dried me off with your ratty UCLA tee shirt and teased me that you’d tell our kids someday how Mom and Daddy celebrated in their new home.”

Nick’s face was a study in grief and yearning so naked I felt for a moment that neither of us could survive this conversation.

I slipped my arms around his neck and kissed his throat so I wouldn’t have to look at him. “Remember, baby? I love you. Always have. Always will. I know you love me, too. Don’t you, Nick? Don’t you still love your wife?”

He moaned then, and pulled me against him so hard, he almost squeezed the breath out of me. He kissed my eyes and covered my mouth with his as if he would devour me and we fell backward onto the bed.

We tore at each other’s clothes. When we were naked, I pressed into him and kissed him and it was the sweetest, most passionate skin-on-skin communion I have ever shared with another human being. He was crying now too, kissing me, touching me, running his hands flat against my skin, digging his fingers into my flesh like a drowning man would delve into a saving stretch of sand.

I cried out when he entered me and everything else disappeared. We made love like starving people eat when they at last find food. Too much, too fast, desperate to gorge on what had been missing for oh, so long.

For several minutes afterward we lay entangled in each other’s limbs, like one creature, drowsy and sated in the room’s warm silence.

The front doorbell rang.

I twitched and tried to sit up but Nick pulled me back down onto the mattress. “Shh. Zoë probably forgot her key. Stay here, I’ll tell her to go to Mom’s tonight.”

Nick rolled out of bed and pulled on his jeans, staggered out of the room. I burrowed into the covers, wanting to sleep, but knew if I closed my eyes I’d be gone for hours.

I listened for Zoë’s voice, but instead a
low rumble of male voices seeped into the bedroom.

There was a chilling tone in those voices that made me get out of bed. I slipped Nick’s tee shirt over my head and crept to the door; peeked around the corner. Nick and two men were in the living room; the detectives, Morales and Strain.

“So, Mrs. Chance never expressed any concern about Miss Ruiz’s mental state? She never confided to you that she was worried her friend might try to commit suicide?” Morales asked.

The cops were sitting on the sofa. Nick leaned against the hallway doorframe, his naked back partially blocking my view.

“No,” Nick said.

“Would she have confided such a worry to you about her friend?”

“Yes.”

“Are you aware Miss Ruiz had tried to commit suicide in the past?”

Nick hesitated. “Yes. When she was in college, I think. Look, where is this going? Are you guys saying you think Roxanne wrecked the car intentionally, trying to kill herself?”

Oh my God
.

I covered my kiss-swollen mouth with my hand as panic coursed through me. I couldn’t let Nick just stand there and listen to those men talk about cut seat belts and skid marks. Not after I had made progress getting him to trust me enough to begin to grapple with our impossible situation.

Morales looked down at his notebook. “No, sir, we’re not saying that at all. We’re just tying up loose ends. The evidence says it was an accident.”

“Well, then, that’s what it was, right? Sounds to me as if there’s nothing left to say.”

Morales stared at Nick. “There’s always more to say if someone has doubts.”

“I don’t have doubts it was an accident.”

“That’s good to hear, Mr. Chance.” Morales edged forward. “There’s another issue I need to ask you about. Do you know a Mr. Michael Cimino?”

There was a moment of silence. “Yes.” Nick crossed his arms. He sounded exhausted.

“Mr. Cimino contacted me with some information about you and Miss Ruiz.”

“What kind of information?”

Detective Strain cleared his throat and took up the conversation. “Mr. Cimino stated that you and Miss Ruiz had an affair last fall and that Miss Ruiz wanted you to leave your wife for her. He said we should consider this before we accepted that the car accident was just an accident.”

I nearly fainted at these words. I gripped the wall, ready to rush in and stop them from saying another word when, shockingly, Nick stopped me cold by bursting into laughter.

His tone was derisive. “That guy’s a tool and he’s blowing smoke, Detective. Cimino has always been paranoid that Roxanne is going to leave him for someone else.”

“Like you, Mr. Chance?”

“No. She’s not my type at all.” As he spoke, Nick seemed to turn reflexively toward the hallway where I hid.

“Why do you think he would tell us such a thing?” Strain asked.

“I don’t know. Maybe they’re having trouble and he’s trying to cause her grief. Which he’s done since you two are out here now accusing her of this shit.”

“No one is accusing Miss Ruiz of anything. We’re just following up on questions he raised.”

“Yeah? Well, Cimino is the guy you need to ask questions of. He cheats on Roxanne with anything with tits. He probably got caught going out on her while she was in the hospital, recovering. I wouldn’t trust a goddamn thing he tells you.”