The year She Fell (39 page)

He finally went away, and I finally went to sleep.

After a restless night, I felt dawn approaching—this was mid-June, so it came very early— and kept my eyes closed as I woke. I didn’t want to wake to total darkness again. Finally I sat up and put my bare feet on the cold concrete floor, and opened my eyes. I felt my way to the bag Ellen had brought, and washed my face with the bottled water, and longed for light.

Finally the boy came clumping down the stairs with his flashlight. I ignored him, getting yesterday’s newspaper and opening it, straining to read even the headlines in the weak light. He stood there outside my cell, holding the flashlight so the beam ricocheted off the wall behind me.

“I read up about you,” he said suddenly. “Did a Google search. That’s how I got the idea. You know. Of taking you hostage.”

Yes, well. Just my luck. I’d written hundreds of articles and three books, but what would come up first in a Google search would be my sojourn in an Iranian dungeon. “They were better than you. They at least let the Red Cross visit me,” I said. “And let me watch TV with the guards.”

“How did you get out?” he asked, edging closer.

Slowly I folded up the newspaper, hoping he’d move near the bars so I could—what? Grab him? Yeah. To distract him, I said, “Like I said, the Red Cross came. And they’d bring me packages from home. First-run videos from Laura—the guards loved those
Arnold
films. Theresa would send prayer cards from her convent.” I wasn’t one to pray anymore, but the lapsed Catholic in me appreciated that. “And then once Ellen sent some homemade brownies with a note suggesting that the guards might like a piece or two.”

The boy frowned at this. “It was . . . drugged?”

“Sure. Old recipe. We used to make it in college, only she tripled the effective ingredients.”

“Ellen? I mean, Mrs. O’Connor?” Shocked. “Reverend O’Connor?”

I had to laugh. These kids in their dun-colored clothes, their angry faces, take being bad so seriously. It’s a calling to them. Well, we were bad too . . . we just had a lot more fun with it. “It’s not a skill she bragged about on her résumé, but she modified the recipe. Added more chocolate to counteract the taste. “

“So I should, like, refuse if she offers me a brownie?”

He said this jocularly, as if we were buddies.

I didn’t bother to reply that Ellen wouldn’t be helping me escape this time.

He must have felt my renewed hostility, because he started backing away, staying clear of the bars of my cell. “So then,” he continued with that strained bonhomie, “I read that you walked out of the dungeon, and just kept going till you crossed the border.”

Oh, great. Admiration. He must still be drunk from last night’s binge. I answered shortly, “Something like that,” and went back to my newspaper. The surreality of this conversation, while he was himself holding me hostage, threatened to loose me from my tenuous calm. Best to concentrate on the analysis of the State Department’s continuing war with the Defense Department, spread over three columns on the op-ed page.

“I thought it was cool, that’s all.”

Okay, that distracted me from State v. Defense. “You thought it was cool,” I said slowly. “So imitation being the sincerest form a flattery, you thought you’d emulate that cool group of terrorist thugs and give me this little flashback.”

“I meant the escape was cool.” After a moment, he added, “And that, you know, repeating the event might make you more vulnerable. Maybe you’d get that post-traumatic stress condition.”

I could feel it coming on even as we spoke. “You were wrong.”

“It’s not like it’s a state secret.”

“It’s not like it’ll do you any good either. What exactly are you expecting to happen if you find out? How will your life change?”

“I’ll know who I am, that’s all. You think I’m weak, don’t you? Needing to know?”

“While you’re holding a gun on me, I’m not thinking much at all.”

“You think,” he said sullenly, “that I can’t handle the truth.”

“You keep laboring under the misapprehension that I care.”

It was cruel. He flinched. He’d probably shoot me now. But he just sat there, looking wounded.

I thought back, trying not to spare myself. There must have been a point where I could have averted all this. Sure. That first time I decided to go with her. But try as I might, I could not honestly say I would have been able to resist. She was beautiful. She was willing. I was twenty-two. Or I could have told Ellen the truth when I learned it—but Sarah was just a baby, and—and I couldn’t have done that. Maybe I should have . . . but I couldn’t. She would have left, and I would have lost my daughter. Or I could have told the boy when he first came. But he wouldn’t have just walked away. We would have ended up in some crisis one way or another. He wanted more than information.

I could have treated him more kindly. Yes, I could have done that. Hard to want to, with him sitting there on the crate, a gun resting on his knee.

Suddenly he said, “She was a whore, wasn’t she?”

I shook my head, clearing away the debris of regret. “If you mean, did I pay, no.” I was willing to give him that much.

“I meant like promiscuous.”

His imprecision of terminology annoyed me. I focused on that for a moment, then answered his question. “I have no idea. That was before everyone exchanged sexual histories on the first date.”

“So did—did you care? No. You didn’t. You said that before. Did she care?”

He was going to keep asking questions. And I was trained to answer. That was my job. I tried to say nothing, as long as I was answering. “I don’t know what she felt. Not love. I know that.”

“Did you know it then?”

Now that, I had to admit, was actually a good question. “I wasn’t much older than you are now. And I was even more arrogant. I assumed any girl who went to bed with me would have to love me. But I was wrong.”

“How do you know you were wrong? If you didn’t know her? If it was only—only a night?”

It was more than a night, but I wasn’t going to tell him that. And I wasn’t going to tell him I’d seen her again later. “Because love isn’t about a night. Or a week or a month. We were strangers.”

He was staring at me now. “You really meant it, didn’t you? When you said you didn’t know her?”

“I didn’t know her. She didn’t know me. The truth is, you were created by a meaningless act between two people who didn’t care enough to trade names. It was nothing special.” Well, that wasn’t precisely true. Special enough to lead to this point. “So guess what? You want meaning for your existence? Go fucking make it. I’m not going to give it to you.”

He was regarding me with shock. If he told me once more I didn’t understand . . .

I did feel a stirring of sympathy. Of course. He was young and idealistic. He wanted to matter. And I couldn’t help but think about Sarah, how deeply I loved her, how much I’d give to keep her safe. But she was mine. This boy wasn’t. Even if he hadn’t done his best to wreck my life these last few days, I wouldn’t have anything to give him. There wasn’t a need for me. Some other man had taught him what he needed to know about life. Some other man would gladly die to save him.

But it wasn’t going to be me. The mere fact of common blood didn’t make me his father.

He was starting to ask another question when we both heard a clatter upstairs.

“Forget to lock the door?” I asked. I tried to keep the hope out of my voice. Out of my mind. Maybe Ellen was back—

He was thinking the same thing. But my hearing was more attuned now— a while in total darkness does that— and I distinctly heard two sets of footsteps. “Looks like she’s brought someone with her.”

That was the wrong thing to say. The boy fumbled with his gun.

“Put that down,” I ordered. “You’re not going to shoot anyone. So don’t pretend.”

He glanced up the basement steps, and then, reluctantly, set the gun down on the crate.

Ellen came down first. I saw her scuffed sneakers and her khaki slacks and then the rest of her; her face was calm but wary. I couldn’t read that expression. Did she know?

My hope that she’d be followed by a cop was blasted when a pair of expensive high-heels appeared next. Laura. Now that I didn’t expect. She looked over at me anxiously. Guiltily.

They’d left the door open, and light filtered down the staircase, glinting off the weapon on the crate.

“He’s got another gun,” I said conversationally. “Maybe you better go back up those steps and get out of range.”

Laura looked ready to comply, but Ellen just fixed the boy with that look. “Another gun? Give it to me.”

Brian handed it over readily enough, muttering something conciliatory as she put it into her purse.

I didn’t trust him. Well, yeah, but I
really
didn’t trust him. “He’s probably got another stashed. Card-carrying member of the NRA too.”

Ellen very much disapproved of the NRA. But she seemed to disapprove of me more, because she wouldn’t even look at me. She kept her gaze on the boy. “Laura and I figured it out. So you can unlock that door.”

I resigned myself to it. She knew now. I didn’t care about anyone else.

He was silent for a moment, then took a deep breath. “Tell me first.”

Ellen didn’t even bother to argue. In a voice that managed to sound both gentle and firm, she said, “It’s not good news. Your mother is dead.”

That dashed any hope I had that she had the wrong answer. Involuntarily, I glanced over at the boy. He was staring, his eyes glassy. “Who?”

Ellen glanced at Laura, then said quietly, “Our older sister. Cathy. She died in
1992.”

“That’s—” He took a breath. “A year after I was born?”

“Yes,” Ellen said quietly. “She was a mountain climber. She died in an accident east of town.”

“So you’re like . . . my aunt?”

“Yes.” Ellen took Laura’s hand and pulled her closer. “This is Laura. She’s another sister. Of Cathy’s.”

“And you’ve already met Theresa,” Laura said.

She gave him a level look, and he ducked his head. I didn’t know what this was about— didn’t care. I was watching Ellen not watching me.

It was lost. I didn’t care about anything anymore. Just wanted out. Just wanted away. Just wanted to talk to Ellen alone, explain.

She and Laura answered a few stuttering questions from him, but he ran out of things to say. Probably never expected what he’d heard—that his birthmother had been dead most of his life.

“Ellen,” I said finally. She turned to me, her gray eyes opaque in the dim light, and I added, “When I’m out of here, I’ll explain.”

“What’s to explain?” she said in a brittle voice. “That you were young? That she was beautiful? That when she came and visited us and sat in our living room and held Sarah on her lap, the two of you were still keeping this a secret? That you had this little inside joke? That you were laughing at me?”

I felt them all around, all the others. This should have been done in private, in our bedroom maybe, or some solitary glade in the woods behind our house. This was just us, just our marriage, not public property—but there we were, out front, all our terrors and dreads and intimate secrets shared now not just with each other, but the world. I think I realized then that it was over. We weren’t one anymore. We weren’t even two anymore.

“No. That’s not it. I never laughed at you. I didn’t even know who she was.”