The Third Child (21 page)

“Now you’ve got it all. It’s yours.”

“We want to thank you for your help. You won’t regret it.” Blake nodded, trying to reassure him.

“I hope you’re right. I really hope so. Don’t contact me again.” Once again the man stared all around, turning in a tight circle. Then he spun on his heel and strode out of the room, dodging quickly among the aisles of machines. In a moment he was gone.

“What’s in it?” she asked, peering at the envelope. “Let’s see.” She made a gesture toward the envelope.

“Not here. Not now.” Blake stuck it inside his leather jacket. “Let’s mosey on out.” He looked carefully around. He was enjoying the cloak-and-dagger stuff. Well, let him enjoy it. She was curious about what the guy had made such a fuss about. Was he just a loser who wanted to feel important? Probably.

THEY WERE
in his room at the dorm before Blake opened the envelope. She leaned forward to peer at the top page. “It’s just a bunch of dates and names and then a column of numbers.” She had expected something spectacular from all the secrecy and
Mission Impossible
atmosphere.

Blake was wheezing and feeling rotten. “It’s going to take…some research to…figure out what this is.” He put the papers down on his desk, next to his computer. “Tonight we can—start looking…for these names…on internet—see who they are. I hope…that guy isn’t nutcase…that really is dynamite…he was sitting on.” It took him a couple of minutes to get a sentence out.

“Baby, do you need to go to health services? This isn’t good.” Lists of numbers? Too boring to do any damage. But Blake would enjoy a treasure hunt on the internet. She took his boasts about her father as a kind of playing, like kids going on about their scores on hot video games. If Karen and Eve hadn’t been able to do it, Blake and Phil and she certainly weren’t
about to. Still she felt a little queasy about that guy and his lists. She wished they could just forget the whole thing and have fun, go on trips without having to meet some shady guy to justify the time.

“I’ll be fine…if lie down. Waiting for my meds…kick in.”

“Then just be quiet. We can talk tomorrow. Should I stay with you?”

He shook his head no. “Better—don’t talk.” He kissed his hand to her and waved her out. She was exhausted anyhow. Trips on his bike were like exercise, really. She would tell Em all about the casino, leaving out the reason they went, of course. She would tell it like an adventure all over her floor. Guess what Blake and I did today! It would make a cool story. Ronnie would be jealous. Nobody else on the floor had ever gone to Foxwoods. She could even pretend they had gambled, lost some money playing the slots. That would sound like an adventure.

M
elissa was walking back toward the dorm after her eleven o’clock political economy class. As she was crossing Andrus Field, skirting a Frisbee game, she saw Emily coming toward her. “Lissa, your mom called. She said it was urgent—an emergency. She sounded up the wall.”

“Is something wrong? Somebody hurt?”

“She wouldn’t tell me. You know she thinks I’m a ditz. She was pissed she couldn’t reach your cell phone. I don’t think she believed me when I tried to explain you can’t leave them on in class. She discounts everything I say.”

“You’re lucky. The less attention she pays you, the better.” She did not want to call her mother. “I’ll tell you what. Let’s have lunch first. I can take it better on a full stomach.”

After lunch, she sat on the library steps and called Rosemary. She could not imagine anything her mother would want to say to her that she would want to hear. It could only be bad news or trouble. She hoped not to get through or to have a conversation with Alison instead, but Alison put her mother on right away.

“Melissa, are you still seeing that boy? The Ackerman boy?”

What point was there in denying Blake? “Yeah, Mother, I see him. So what? He’s not responsible for his father’s courtroom activities.”

“We’ve learned more about him, information that is relevant to our family and to your own safety. Si Ackerman isn’t his father—”

“I know all that, Mother. He’s adopted. He doesn’t know who his mother or his father were.”

“Yes, he does. It’s a poorly kept secret. His father was a murderer.”

“A murderer? I don’t believe you. He doesn’t know who his father is, I’m telling you. What does it matter?”

“He knows who his father was—a cop killer. Your father prosecuted him. Toussaint Parker. He was executed soon after your father became governor. You must remember the execution? There was an enormous fuss in the media and picketers outside the mansion, chaos that night.”

“I remember.” She could see the candles bobbing. “What makes you think that man was Blake’s father?”

“His son was called Blake. After his mother died in a drug-induced car wreck, the Ackermans adopted the boy. Ackerman was Parker’s lawyer and caused us no end of nuisance, taking a hopeless case up through appeal after appeal. It cost the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania millions to finally mete out justice to him and avenge the death of that policeman. The officer had three children and now you’re dating his killer’s son? If you have any sense of loyalty to the family and any sense of self-preservation, you will never speak with him again. I’m demanding this.”

“He can’t be the same boy. He can’t be! He would have told me.”

“He’s probably ashamed of who he is. He’s been lying to you, obviously, and to everyone else. I can’t imagine a good college would have let him in otherwise. The Ackermans have colluded with him to conceal his identity.”

“Where did you get your information? Why do you believe this story?”

“We had your father’s speechwriter Eric look into it—he’s a whiz at research. It wasn’t difficult to find out who this boy really is—and there is no doubt, Melissa. The adoption wasn’t a secret. The boy was seven. He knows who he is, and now you do. End this ridiculous flirtation at once, for your own good and for ours. He could prove dangerous.”

Melissa found herself weeping. “I can’t talk.”

“It’s meaningless to cry about it. I’m considering taking you out of school and bringing you back here. It might be safer for all of us. You must see that he has only been pursuing you to hurt us in some way. I’m sorry if it upsets you, but I tried to warn you that this association was undesirable—in the extreme.”

“I can’t talk any longer.” Melissa broke the connection and shut off her
phone. She was stunned, as if an electric current blasted through her mind. She had believed in Blake absolutely, that he loved her, that he was truthful with her. He was lying to her. Why? To get revenge on her father? Blake did not love her. He was using her and she had been a complete fool. She stumbled back to her dormitory shamelessly weeping. In her room, Emily came and put her arms around her. “What happened? What’s wrong?”

When Melissa could speak, she told Emily.

“Maybe he really doesn’t know whose son he is,” Emily offered tentatively.

“He was seven. I remember lots of things from when I was seven. Don’t you?”

“People suppress trauma, Lissa. Maybe he managed to repress the trial and everything. It has to be really traumatic to have your father accused of murder, arrested, carted off and tried and finally put to death, the whole thing all over the papers and TV. Maybe he doesn’t want to know whose son he is. Maybe it was all just too awful and he never wants to think about it for the rest of his life.”

“I don’t believe that. He wants to bring my father down. He wants me to help him. That’s why he’s with me, that’s the only reason.”

“Lissa, I don’t believe that. He’s crazy about you. I see the way he looks at you. He’s made you feel good about your body for the first time in your life.”

“Maybe he was lying. It doesn’t mean anything to him.”

“You have to confront him. You can’t just believe Rosemary and give up on him. You have to let him explain. You have to talk with him. Then if you want to break up with him, do it. If he’s just using you, say bye-bye and walk out that door. But find out for yourself.”

Melissa slid out of Emily’s arms and flung herself on her bed. She wept and wept. Emily went off to class. Melissa cut hers. She lay there unable to move and, after half an hour of weeping, scarcely able to breathe. Emily was right. She had to confront Blake. But she did not want to see him. She felt hideously betrayed. She had loved him totally, and he had lied to her. Lied from the beginning. Lied all the way through their
relationship. She had thought they had this perfect intimacy, and it was all made up. Of course no one could love her the way she had dreamed of being loved, and the belief that Blake did had been illusion and wishful thinking. She had simply willed herself to be blind, she had wanted to be fooled into submission to his plans. Her anger at her parents had played into her willingness to believe. He had manipulated her beautifully. He had seen her weakness and used it. She had allowed him to play her. He was a liar and a manipulator, but she was the one who had made his schemes work. He had made his plans when he heard her read that ridiculous essay about her parents.

Finally she got up and sent him a brief e-mail. “I have to talk with you. I’ll be over at seven thirty. This is very, very important.” She did not sign Love. Would he guess something was wrong? What did it matter? It was over, the lie of their relationship, the farce of their great love.

She forced herself to wash her face and stumble off to her three o’clock French class, where she would find Emily and they could sit together. To be with Emily, who knew how she was torn open and bleeding, gave her comfort. Among all these indifferent students, Emily, her only real friend, was there with her, helping her to hold on. She sat through the class, she even answered the questions the instructor put to her, while all the time she felt numb. She had no hope. Nothing awaited her but pain and after pain, boredom forever, to the grim grey horizon.

After picking at her supper, she trekked over to his dorm, rehearsing speeches in her head. This was the breakup she had dreaded, and now it was happening. She would never love anyone the way she had loved Blake. She would start off, she decided, saying, “I know now you have lied to me. That our whole relationship was a lie. That you care nothing about me and were just using me to get to my father, because your father was a murderer and my father brought him to justice. So let’s say good-bye and end this sorry farce.”

She thought that said it all with dignity. Then she would leave immediately, before she did something humiliating like cry. She was sure her face was still puffy from the afternoon, but what did it matter if she was ugly? It was over.

He was waiting for her, standing in the middle of his room. “Your mother told you who my father was, and you think you know something about me you didn’t know last night.”

Of course. He was reading Rosemary’s e-mail, so he had expected this. She must have been communicating with Rich and Merilee about her discovery before she called her third child. She began her speech. “I know now you have lied to me. That our whole relationship was a lie—”

“No!” He leapt toward her, putting his hands on either side of her face. “We belong to each other, and nothing about our parents can change that.”

“Why did you lie to me?”

“If I’d told you right off what your father had done to mine, you would have been terrified. You would have walked away.”

“I should have.”

“No. You don’t believe that.”

His familiar scent. Leather. His lemon verbena aftershave. A tinge of sweat. A smell like gingerbread that emanated from his skin. The scent of his body had always excited and comforted her. “Why didn’t you ever tell me the truth during all these months?”

“I was afraid. Afraid to lose you. Have I lost you?”

She meant to say yes, but now she was clinging to him and the words would not come. She could not let go of him. “Make me understand. I can’t endure this. It hurts too much!”

“It’s a whole world of pain, Lissa. This is at the core of me. If I let you in, will you be able to endure what I endure? Or will you run away?”

“Tell me. Talk to me. I’m so confused I don’t know what to do, what to think, what to believe.”

“Believe me. I’m the one who loves you.” He led her to his bed and they sat there against the wall. He looked as haggard and exhausted as she felt. “So you want to hear my story?”

She nodded, swiping at her eyes.

He gave her one of his big white handkerchiefs. “My father was Toussaint Parker. Named by his own father for Toussaint L’Ouverture, who emancipated the slaves of Haiti in war against several armies and made a free black state—whatever came down the pike later. Anyhow, my father
took his name seriously. He was in the Black Panthers when he was sixteen. He was a community organizer all his life. He was not, in his later life, a violent man. I don’t know what he was like at sixteen, but at forty he was a determined but nonviolent organizer. He was a powerful speaker and he could move people.” He reached into his desk drawer, leaning forward and then immediately sliding back to put his arm around her, holding her tightly against him. He put a photo in her hand, the care-worn face of a man who had been handsome, prematurely grizzled, his arm around his little grinning son. “He cared for people and he stood up for them. He was not popular with the city administration, and the police hated him. He put tremendous pressure on them, about how they policed African-American neighborhoods.”

“But he killed a cop.”

“No, he didn’t.”

“You still believe he didn’t? He was convicted and all his appeals rejected.”

“Melissa, I know he didn’t. I was with him when he was supposed to have done it. They wouldn’t let me testify—a child just turned five. He was home with me. It was my birthday, and we were waiting for Mama to come home from the hospital.”

“Your mother was sick?”

“She was a nurse. An RN. She was white. Theirs was not an easy marriage, but it was a love match. She was as political as he was. She served as a medic in demonstrations and was gassed I don’t know how many times, even though she had asthma and could easily have begged off. The riot police often target medics in demonstrations.”

“So your mother was working and you were home alone with your father.”

“My grandma had been there earlier, but she left.”

“You could have fallen asleep.”

“On my birthday? I was too excited. We were waiting for my mother to come home when we’d have cake and ice cream. My father had hung bright blue balloons from the lamps. We lived on the ground floor of a town house with all these plants my mother grew. She loved begonias and
scented geraniums. I remember geraniums that smelled like roses, like cinnamon, like lemon. We had a big chocolate cake my grandma made, but we hadn’t even cut it because we were waiting for Mama. Instead the police came. They never listened to me. They never believed me. They didn’t want to. My father would never have shot that cop, but besides that, he couldn’t have. He was with me the whole evening. He would never go out and leave me alone, and he didn’t. He was playing with me and reading to me all that evening, until they came.”

“You remember all of it?”

“Of course. It was my birthday. And it was the night the world of my childhood ended. Ended cold.”

She tried to imagine what that would feel like. To know something but never to be listened to, never to be believed because you were a child, because they thought you couldn’t remember. To know that if they listened to you, you and you alone could save your father—but they wouldn’t listen. “So you knew he was innocent, but you couldn’t make them hear you.”

“It was a nightmare that just kept getting worse. He was treated badly in jail and then in prison. They did their best to keep him away from the other prisoners—they knew he was a hero to many of them. They wouldn’t let him have his books. They kept him in solitary for months at a time.” Blake was sitting with his long legs pulled up to his chest, his voice slightly muffled as he pushed his face into his knees.

“That’s why you won’t celebrate your birthday. Why you won’t let me give you presents.”

“It’s nothing to celebrate for me. It’s when everything went wrong.”

“How did your father’s lawyer come to adopt you? What happened to your mother?”

“It was tremendously hard for her. She was involved in the early appeals, and she kept going off to see him whenever she could. All the plants died. She began doing drugs. You know, nurses and doctors, they can get drugs as easily as I can buy a packet of gum. I don’t actually know what she was doing—some kind of downers. It kept her going. Now, my father was in a prison way in the corner of the state farthest from
Philadelphia. It was a four-and-a-half-hour drive in the best of circumstances. She generally had to drive both ways in a day, in order to get back to me and to go to work the next day. She was driving back late at night, as usual. She got in an accident on the Pennsy Turnpike. A truck that veered. She was killed instantly. I remember, I was sleeping at my grandma’s and the phone rang in the middle of the night.”