There Will Be Lies (27 page)

She’s saying she can lip-read
, says Melany. Her eyes meet mine, and we both know she left out the part about MY MOM, who is not my mom at all. I’m grateful for that little thing.

Oh, good
, says Michael.
Can she talk? I mean … Sorry. Can you talk?

I can talk
, I say slowly.
But I don’t like to
.

Oh
…
ah
…
right
, says Michael. He looks like he doesn’t know where to put his hands; or even whether to stand or sit; and I know how he feels. We’re in a much more comfortable room than before, with a low coffee table, and magazines, and armchairs – kind of like a doctor’s waiting room.

We missed you so much
, Jennifer Watson says.
We never stopped hoping. Never. Never, honey. We kept looking for you always. We
–

She turns to her husband, my dad, as she talks, and so I don’t see what she’s saying.

Immediately she realises her mistake. She turns back to me.
I’m sorry
, she says.
This is going to take some getting used to
.

You didn’t know I was deaf?
I sign this, and Melany translates.

We suspected
, says Michael.
You weren’t speaking; we thought … I don’t know, we hoped you were just a slow starter
.

Your other kids?

Melany looks at me.
You mean, are any of their other kids deaf?
she signs.

Yes
.

Melany translates for my parents.

No
, says Jennifer.
But you were a forceps birth, so maybe
… She touches the cross again.
I just thank Jesus for bringing you back to me
, she says.
I went to the church every day, I prayed every day, I prayed every hour. I knew that if I was truly humble and never forgot you, if I only asked for you, if I put aside all my desires, all my sins, that Jesus would
–

Sure, sure, honey
, says Michael, and I think, What am I walking into here?
The important thing is you’re back
, he says. He has a red nose, veins bursting like fireworks. Alcoholic, I think. For sure. His hands are shaking too.

Jennifer Watson reaches into her purse and takes something out. It’s a moment before I realise what it is – a milk carton. I’m confused, but then I see the picture of the toddler on it.

That’s you
, she says.
That’s you, and this has been on my bedside table every day for fifteen years
.

Poor Michael, I think.

And now you’re here
, she says.
In front of me
.

She stares at the milk carton like she doesn’t know how it got into her hands.

I look at the picture – it could be any toddler. I mean, I could kid myself there was a resemblance, sure, but who looks like they did when they were two, anyway?

Then she throws the carton in the trash – there’s something about the way she does it, that makes me think it’s something she’s pictured many times. Fantasised about. A symbolic gesture. A ritual for her – long awaited.

Can I … can I hold you?
she asks.

I nod slowly – sign language for dummies.

Jennifer inches forward and puts her arms around me, and I stand there with my hands at my sides, not sure what to do with them.
Oh my little princess Angelica
, she says.
Oh I love you I love you I love you
.

Then she cries and cries and cries, and she’s shaking like there’s an engine inside her that’s come loose.

Me, I don’t feel anything.

We don’t just walk out of there, of course. I think at first that’s what’s going to happen, but Carla takes me and Melany over to the tall windows on one side of the building and points down. The windows are greyish, and I realise that people outside can’t see in. We’re, like, three floors up and I see what she means immediately: there’s a street, trees on the other side of it, and on our side of it there’s a crowd of people outside the door, some with cameras. TV vans with satellite dishes on top of them. Not just local either: NBC. CBS.

We’ve kept your image out of the press
, says Carla.
For now at least. But we’re hoping to get a privacy order. A closed trial, ah, I mean, when they get your, uh, when they catch Shaylene. It’s a long road
.

And now?
I say.

Now we take you down to the basement and put you in an unmarked car with your parents, and we move you to their apartment without telling anyone down there
.

You’re kidding?

No
.

Oh. OK
. I look at her.
Are you coming?

She smiles. She looks quite pretty when she smiles.
I can come if you want me to. But it might be weird
.

And Melany?

Again, if you want
.

I think about this. Actually they might get in the way of what I am planning, or maybe planning, whatever.
No, it’s cool
, I say.
I’ll go with them. But we’ll see each other, right?

Yes. And CPS will be visiting. Every day to begin with
.

I put my hand in my pocket, wanting to feel the knife that Mark gave me, Coyote gave me, feel its hard smooth bone handle. Then I remember that:

1. The knife only exists in the Dreaming, I mean my (mom) couldn’t see it anyway and

2. Even if it did exist in this world, I threw it into the undergrowth by the cabin, when the SWAT guys came along.

Still, even just thinking about the Dreaming, about Coyote and the knife, has made me feel stronger, somehow. Like there is something that belongs to me and not to anyone else. Not my identity, not my name, since it seems like anyone can just come along and take those things away, change them right under me, but a whole world. A dream.

Right
, I say.
Let’s do this
.

In the car, Jennifer sits in the back with me.

First thing she does is to grip my hand in this really intense way, like she wants to convert me or something, save my soul, and then with her other hand she takes up this tote bag with WHOLE FOODS on it and starts to take stuff out to show me.

Like:

Some kind of card with scribbles on it, that she says I made for Michael for Father’s Day.

A little baby hat.

Books. Books with ‘moon’ in the title, seems to be the theme.
Goodnight Moon; Papa, Please Get the Moon for Me
.

I look at them blankly.

You loved the moon
, she says.
You always wanted those stories, you would point to them, over and over. There are photos too that I want to show you, so many photos, but we – I – didn’t want to overwhelm you
.

I put my hand to my lips, palm towards me, then move it down and out, the sign for thank you. Then I mouth the words.

That means thank you?
Jennifer says. Melany of course has gone back to wherever she waits between super fun jobs like this.

I nod.

Look at me! I’m learning already
, she says.
Michael, I know how to sign ‘thank you’!

I don’t know what Michael says to this, if anything at all.

Then Jennifer reaches into her tote bag and takes something out that stops my heart in my chest for a moment, stops it dead. It’s grey and floppy in her hand and its ears hang over her fingers and its eyes are scratched and dull and –

Are you OK?
says Jennifer.
Honey? You’re very pale. Are you
–

With great effort, I nod. Everything is kind of crackling and sparkling and my vision is grey as fur at the edges because this is the rabbit from my dream, from the cage in the Dreaming, the exact same one.

This is Flopsy Bunny
, says Jennifer.
You carried it everywhere. In the hospital … In the hospital, they found it on the floor. In the corridor. I kept it for you
.

She holds it out to me and I recoil, violently. Something in Jennifer’s eyes flares, and they fill with tears.

Sorry
, I say, with my clumsy mouth. But I stay leaning away, and Jennifer reads something in my body language, and puts the bunny away in the bag.

But I feel it there, glowing like radiation. Emitting. Pulsing.

A piece of the Dreaming here in the real world.

A piece of my dream.

Jennifer holds up her little cross and kisses it.
Thank you Lord Jesus for returning my angel to me
, she says. Then she turns to me and her eyes are bright like jewels with tears.
I’m so sorry
, she says.
I’m so sorry about your legs … the burns
…

Michael must say something in front, from the driver’s seat, because she says,
No, Michael, I have to say this. If it wasn’t for me … If I hadn’t let you burn yourself, she never would have taken you
.

I look at her blankly. She speaks slowly, so I can read her mouth. Even then, I have to kind of assume some of the words she says.

That woman, who kidnapped you … she pretended to be a nurse. She took you away. It was all so confusing; I was so scared for you, I didn’t know what was going on, and Tyler was running around, getting under my feet, Anna was crying about something, I can’t remember what … I didn’t think. And then she never came back
.

Oh, I think.

The police didn’t believe me for the longest time, they thought we’d done something, but I mean, the CCTV, and everything, it was obvious I brought you in, and the doctors had seen you, you know. So it wasn’t like anyone could seriously believe we killed you
.

It gets worse, I think. All the pity I have to feel; all the sadness. That they were suspected of killing me – it’s awful. It’s too much.

Anyway, it was … it was my fault, that’s what I want to tell you. You shouldn’t have been in the kitchen with that oil; it was just because, well, James was screaming from the living room and I thought Tyler must have pulled his hair, I don’t know, and I was gone for a SECOND, and … I’m just so, so sorry
.

I think of my scars, the years that I’ve worn pants, even on burning hot days, the way that I’ve never swum, not ever, and there’s a part of me that wants to say
you stupid bitch
, but that wouldn’t help anything, would it?

I make a sequence of gestures.

What does that mean?
she asks.

I say it with my mouth, even though I can see the way she winces when I do that; I can see in her eyes how wrong my voice sounds, and it’s like knives in my belly.

I forgive you
, I say. It’s something easy I can say, and it might make what is going to happen easier. What I’m going to do to her.

The car – I guess it’s a rental, because it’s very clean and new-smelling – turns on to the main downtown street and I see, down a side street, the diner where Luke got his hand skewered. I wonder how Luke is doing now.

Then we pass Gene’s Western Supplies and the climbing store, and a couple of hundred yards down the road, Michael pulls over, close to a newspaper box that will sell you the
Arizona Daily Sun
for twenty-five cents.

He turns around in the seat.
This is us
, he says.
For now
.

I look up: it’s a new building, big high windows, balconies on each floor. A black metal fire escape that runs down the side, accessible from each balcony.

I follow them up. It’s a top-floor condo, two bedrooms, two bathrooms, they wanted me to have my own bathroom, says Jennifer, kind of babbling. Victoria and Richie are with their grandparents – MY grandparents – back in Alaska; the younger kids know about me, evidently, have been told about me all their lives.

I wonder how they think of me. What I am, in their minds. More like a symbol than a person, I guess. Like the Easter Bunny, or Santa. When I walk into their lives, when before I’ve just been a toddler on a milk carton, it’s going to be INTENSE for them.

Luckily, there’s an elevator – I don’t think I’d have got up any stairs with my CAM Walker. We stand in silence as we ride up. I am used to silence, but the parents look uncomfortable in it, like it’s a heat, pressing on them.

There’s a bike in the hall, a full suspension mountain bike.
That’s Michael’s
, says Jennifer, in her slow stage voice, mouth moving like molasses.

The trails here are [        ]
, says Michael, who speaks much quicker.
I wasn’t sure if [        ], so I thought, why not?

What he’s saying:

He didn’t know if I would turn out to be real, if the police would turn out to be right. So he brought a bike, so he could hit the trails, if it turned out to be a bust, a dead end.

Michael, I am thinking, wrote me off for dead a long time ago, and so he’s going to be the one to watch out for. This whole thing may turn out to be maybe ten thousand times harder for him than for Jennifer, because she KNEW I was alive, she trusted in Jesus.

She has just had her faith confirmed; he, though – he’s going to have to unbury me; unpack my dead limbs from where he has stowed them away, deep inside him.

I know I’m right about this: I see it in the veins in his nose, I see it in the way he moves so jerkily, so shakily, like we’re all in HD and he’s been filmed on Super 8, or whatever, some old camera stock like in black-and-white movies, where people moved like marionettes.

I see it in the way he excuses himself and goes off to the kitchen, leaving me and Jennifer alone in the living room.

Drink?
says Jennifer.

I nod.

OK, great, honey, great. Coke?

I nod again.

She goes to the kitchen. The apartment is furnished in black leather, with polished mahogany floors. There are no personal touches, no photos, no flowers – I guess there wouldn’t be. Good views from the windows, though – the red brick and glass of Flag-staff’s downtown; mountains and forest in the distance.

Jennifer comes back with a glass of Coke, and hands it to me, the awkwardness between us giving an air of ceremony to the way she does it.