The Murderer's Daughters (21 page)

“Thanks,” I said. He had a sure touch. I couldn’t remember the previous night, but my body remembered him. It must have been good, because I wanted him so bad.

He handed me my white terry robe, which he’d somehow unearthed from the pile of clothes in my bedroom. “Not that used to drinking or too used to it?”

I started to shake my head, but the motion made me dizzy. My hollowed-out stomach protested any unnecessary movement. My head pounded. “Not.” I couldn’t eke out more than one word.

“Good,” he said. “My mother’s a drinker. Not a good quality.” He motioned around my tiny bathroom. “As you can see.”

Moving my head with as little motion as possible, I saw and cringed at the heaps of dirty towels I’d made into a nest and the mound of toilet paper I’d used to blow my nose and wipe my mouth. If I’d been less nauseated and my headache hadn’t grown to nuclear proportions, I’d have felt more shame. Later, I probably would.

“Let’s get you out of here. I’m not the doctor, but I don’t think this is the most healing environment.”

He led me back to bed, where I quickly fell asleep. Fortunately. When I woke, the first thing I saw was Nebraska reading the paper. I was surprised he hadn’t taken the opportunity to leave. I would have. He brought me a cup of tea and a plate of Uneeda biscuits. He must have gone to the store for both the tea bags and the crackers, as neither were part of my sad larder.

I was beginning to wonder if Nebraska was real or part of some alcohol-induced dream. A good dream, with men as knights, protectors, and healers.

“Secret family recipe.” He placed my battered television tray next to the bed. The bed sagged as he sat. He held out a steaming mug. I took a hesitant sip of the strong sugared tea, unsure of my reaction.

Nebraska handed me a Uneeda, and I nibbled. “Any better?”

“Marginally. Thank God I don’t have to go to the hospital today.”

“Your patients should be thanking God. Imagine the soaring mortality rate if you went.”

Nebraska had a sense of humor. Good.

“I don’t even know your name,” I said. “Did I not ask? Jesus. I slept with a man whose name I can’t remember.” I brought my knees up and rested the mug between them. “I’ve never had a one-night stand. Do you believe me?”

“My name is Drew. Short for Andrew. Andrew Winterson. And yes, I believe you.” He took my chin between two fingers and tipped it up. “Although I think you’d lie if necessary. I’d like it if you never lied to me, though.”

“I’ve been calling you Nebraska in my head.”

“How did you know where I came from?”

“My friend Marta told me. You told her. And she told me.”

“You asked about me?”

“I did.”

“What else did she say?”

“That you were boring. Marta’s attracted to dangerous guys, although she wants to marry a rich, stable guy. I suppose she’ll have affairs.”

“Good she didn’t know that I’m rich. However, she’s right. I am boring.”

“Are you?”

“Boring?” he asked.

“No. Rich.”

“Not really, but my family is more comfortable than most. My father owns a chain of tire stores.”

“That’s boring.”

“True, but it allows my mother to drink without the ladies of the town judging her. Instead, they put her on all the boards. And she gets to spend winters in North Carolina and indulge in Diet Sun Drop and gin.”

“I’m not an orphan,” I blurted out.

“I didn’t say you were.”

“I tell everyone that I’m an orphan. That my parents died in a car crash when I was ten. But it’s a lie.”

“So why do you say it?”

“Because my father killed my mother. He’s in prison. I’ve never told
anyone, at least not since a foster family took my sister and me out of the orphanage. I don’t want a soul in this world to know.”

“Then I won’t tell anyone.” Drew lifted the covers. “Move over.”

“I smell awful,” I said, even as I made room for him.

“Not awful. Though not great.” When he put an arm around me, I felt it from my shoulders to my thighs and in a spiraling elevator ride to my stomach. “But I’m from Nebraska. We have an awful lot of fortitude.”

Drew felt like a rare species. A trustworthy man who gave me the shivers.

Three weeks later, I confessed that I’d revealed the family secret. I sat at my kitchen table, crumpling my napkin as I waited for Merry’s reaction. I wished I were with Drew.

“Seriously, how could you tell him just like that?” Merry rummaged in my refrigerator. “Don’t you have any orange juice?”

“Be happy that I have any food or drink at all,” I said. “It came out naturally; it wasn’t even a decision.”

I didn’t know if Merry could understand how different Drew was from the rest of the world. Saying it sounded hokey, but he’d keep me safe. He’d keep us safe. He could be trusted, even with things like secrets.

He was the sort of man who’d bring you presents you wanted, not ones he thought you should have.

Drew was an honorable man. Maybe I’d never find one again, especially one who, after making me tremble in the dark, held me in the sun.

“So we can stop lying?” Merry bit into an apple that had seen better days.

Could it just be about me and not her? Where was my credit for inviting Merry over the first free moment that I wasn’t at work or wrapped in Drew? I wanted to be with Drew every minute. I wanted to drink him, sleep him, and inhabit his body. I wanted to spend the day in his pocket.

“Nothing’s changed,” I said. “You can’t tell anyone. Not until you’ve met the one.” When would that be? At least Merry looked decent today. Her tucked-in white blouse revealed less than her usual torn T-shirt emblazoned with a band’s name. Since going to work, she’d calmed down,
though I imagined the Freudian horror of working with crime victims slapped her in the face daily.

“Stop inspecting me.” Merry took another giant bite of her apple. Merry and I raced through life hungry. We ate fast, often, and a lot. God save us the day our metabolisms slowed down, and without any genetic material to judge by, who knew when that might be? Merry described our father as getting a little doughy—but honestly, did I want to think that his current physical condition was any portent of my future body?

“Did you really sleep with him the night you met him?” Merry said, grabbing an Oreo from the open sleeve. “Where’s Miss Perfect gone?”

“Falling in love is different than falling into someone’s bed.” I looked at my sister’s kohl-rimmed eyes and cherry-popped lips and felt like some crabby old maid lecturing a student.

Merry ignored my nasty words. “What does this miracle man do?”

I smiled. “Art.”

“He’s an artist? Like a painter?”

“Commercial art. Like greeting cards and stuff. He’s planning to illustrate children’s books.”

“He draws kittens for birthday cards?” Merry said. “Hallmark puppies?”

I didn’t care what Merry said about him. I let her chatter while I leaned into my memory of being in bed every minute that I wasn’t at the hospital. With Drew. Exploring Drew’s FQ and mine. They meshed damn fine.

After meshing, we’d watch whatever movie happened to be playing when we flicked on the TV. Themes, reviews, actors, genres—none of it mattered. We never made it to the credits.

For the first time in my life, I lived somewhere other than alone in my head.

I leaned forward and put a hand on my sister’s arm. “You’re going to like him, Mer,” I promised. “He’ll be good to us.”

She drew back. “Why didn’t you talk to me before you just told him? You’d kill me if I did that. Why is it always up to you?”

I didn’t want to be honest and tell her I had better judgment. “He’s family. I know it. You’ll love him.”

“I want to meet the right man also, you know, but how am I supposed
to when I visit Daddy all the time? It’s not easy having to hide going to prison from every man I meet.”

“Going there’s your choice, not mine,” I said.

“Why are you getting mad? Because I don’t want to lie about my life anymore either?”

“Telling is the most dangerous thing we can do. I’m looking out for both of us. Someday we’ll have children, and they don’t need a goddamned murderer for a grandfather.”

Summer was over, as were the salted-sex ocean weekends spent with Quinn, drinking Bacardi and Cokes, hidden away on desolate Maine beaches known only by locals. The rum and the sun had let me push away reality for two months. Push away Quinn’s wife. September brought the serious side of life. My job, my so-called relationship, and, of course, my father weighed down on me as I climbed off the bus and faced the courthouse.

Iona was my first client today, and I dreaded seeing her, positive she’d whimper and cry her way through our meeting. She’d take the dozens of tissues I offered while resisting any suggestions I made, giving me the poor Iona reasons why they wouldn’t work. In the parlance that I’d learned during my psych classes at Northeastern, Iona was a help-rejecting complainer. In my vernacular, I’d grown to detest her, which made me feel like pure shit.

Iona’s ex-boyfriend had battered, raped, and nearly killed her, so my reactions to her, though outwardly sympathetic, were hideous. Everything
drooped on Iona—her hair, her shoulders, her damn fingernails. In my heart, I wanted to push her away. What kind of victim witness advocate—my official title—thought that way? My title should have been fraud.

I lit a cigarette on the courthouse steps, one last stall before going into work. Funny, I’d been so keen on this job. Working with victims seemed perfect for me. Victims’ programs were the new thing when I’d graduated with my degree in criminal justice, offerings designed to appease the activists who’d lobbied for the recently enacted Victims’ Bill of Rights. I hadn’t known they were stingy, undercooked offerings.

Despite knowing from my college psych courses that I’d be working out some of my own issues on the job, I was aware that my reactions seemed extreme. I backed away from all my clients, wanting to yell at them to shut up, stop crying. Buck up, for Christ’s sake.

Even as I offered kindness and support, Iona’s tears of rage and self-pity made me want to slap her. I murmured comfort, nodded, and handed over tissues while internally screaming,
Shut the fuck up.

Sometime after Anne died, between my finishing high school and starting college, a seismic shift had taken place inside me. Living alone in that deadly quiet apartment with Doctor Cohen had stolen my hope. He’d hired a housekeeper who managed everything from food to correspondence with my school. If it were possible, Doctor Cohen would have hired someone to talk to me.

Doctor Cohen’s sole manner of caring for me had lain in driving me to Richmond County Prison. He’d upped the visits from monthly to once every two weeks to weekly, and I hadn’t known how to tell him it was too much. In some grotesque way, I think he’d believed he could off-load his fatherly responsibilities on Daddy.

Without Anne, Doctor Cohen hadn’t known what to do with me. I became the vestigial limb of his life. When he’d begun dating a woman closer to my age than to Anne’s, he couldn’t get me out of his home fast enough.

I took one last drag on my cigarette, then snuffed it out in the concrete planter guarding the courthouse before opening the heavy glass door. The door groaned as I entered the darkly wooded and hushed space; I felt I should genuflect. Criminals and victims alike walked around with their
eyes downcast. Lawyers and courthouse personnel scurried through the halls puffed up with self-importance, as I imagined Roman cardinals strutted around the Vatican.

I rode the elevator to the fifth floor. Dirt obscured the brass panels, testimony to the carelessness of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Victim Services Office, the afterthought of the judicial system, was stuck in the no-man’s-land of the courthouse along with unused office furniture, a typewriter cemetery, and softening cardboard boxes filled with evidence of forgotten crimes.

Just like our clients, we, their advocates, were not, nor would we ever be, the attractions of the legal show. The starring roles belonged to the judges, the criminals, and the lawyers. Even the probation officers, though only supporting players, were still in the main cast. Victims and their advocates were merely extras.