Thicker Than Water (17 page)

I frown. “We should tell the police about the letters.” I hesitate. “Some of them are a little . . . intense.”

Now his smile is genuine. “That’s the same word you used to describe me.”

“Exactly.”

He considers that for a moment. “He was young. The letters aren’t creepy. They’re desperate. He wanted his mother.” Thomas swallows, then shakes his head. “I wish I knew why.”

I push the plate toward him. “Finish up. Let’s go find out.”

He takes a long breath and blows it out. “Charlotte . . .”

“Thomas.”

His eyes settle on mine. “You’re the only person who calls me by my full name.” He finally eats that bite of pie. “I like that.”

Part of me wants to say, screw the drive, let’s stay here and get naked. It’s so unlike me, but my body seems to have a mind of its own when I’m near him. A flush crawls up my neck to find my cheeks, but I manage to hold his eyes.

“We need to drive,” I whisper.

“Why’s that?” he whispers back.

Think of something. Anything.
“Because we won’t get caught. I’ll drive the speed limit. No one in Crisfield knows you.”

He doesn’t answer. I can practically feel him deliberating.

“Isn’t the curiosity killing you?” I say.

“
Yes.
You have no idea.”

“Me, too!”

When he doesn’t say anything, I jingle my keys in my hand, taunting him. “If you don’t want to go, I guess I’ll just go on my own.” It’s not a complete bluff. I don’t remember the exact address, but I know the street name, the town.

When he
still
doesn’t say anything, I stand up. “All right, then. Enjoy the pie.”

I’m halfway down the hall when his arm catches me around the waist. My breath stalls, and I all but collapse into him. My ankle gives a twinge. He holds me there just long enough to whisper in my ear. “You’re dangerous.”

I have to put a hand on the wall to stay upright when he lets me go.

“So you want to go?” I feel half-drunk. Or what I imagine I’d feel like if I’d ever had more than a taste of alcohol.

“I want to go. Stay right there. I need to get some things.”

I’m breathless against the wall. It’s going to be a miracle if I can keep the car straight on the road. “You . . . what?”

His voice is muffled when he calls back from his bedroom. “I need my sketchbook.”

“Why?”

He reappears in front of me with a messenger bag slung over his shoulder. “Because I’m going to take your advice. I’m going to draw her.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

I
’m glad Charlotte is driving. If we’d stayed in the house, there’s a good chance I would have dragged her down the hall and coaxed her into my bed.

We only have an hour or so of sunlight left, but it’s enough to see the sketch pad, to let the pencil drag my hand around the surface.

I’ve been staring at the white paper for a good five minutes. I haven’t made a mark.

“You’re killing me,” she says. “You know that?”

I glance up at her. “Why?”

“
Why?
” She looks over and taps her fingers on the paper. “You’re, like, this amazingly talented artist, and I have to watch the road.”

I let the
amazing
comment go by without remark. I never know what to say to comments like that. Saying
thank you
feels arrogant. Drawing is as natural as breathing. How would she respond if I said,
You’re amazing at respiration
?

Instead, I say, “I haven’t drawn anything yet.”

“I know. I’m just saying.”

I make a face. “I don’t know if anyone wants to see this.”

She’s quiet for a while. “Are you afraid to draw it?”

“Yes.” I hesitate. “I got everything out last night, but I didn’t want to do it.”

This is true. I stared at this same blank piece of paper last night, and my eyes kept drifting to the pile of letters from my brother.

“Are you afraid to see it again?” she says softly.

“I see it again every time my brain settles and goes quiet,” I say. “I don’t need a drawing for that.”

“Draw something else,” Charlotte says.

I snap my fingers. “Quick, Thomas,” I mock. “Draw me a pony. No. Wait. A unicorn. No, wait. A pony
riding
a unicorn.”

She gives me a solid shove. “Shut your mouth. I mean, draw something
else
. Not your mother. Just make the pencil move.”

I look at the paper. I think about the exercises I used to attempt, when I first began taking my art more seriously. A glass bottle. A woman’s eye. Water pouring from a pitcher.

Every time my eyes blink, the image of my mother is superimposed over all of it.

“I can’t do it,” I whisper.

She’s quiet again. We’re on the highway finally, and the road hums beneath us.

“Draw your brother,” she says.

Protests come up from my throat, but they don’t make it to my lips. My hand is already moving on the paper. The pencil is forming a doorway. A bedroom doorway.

Well, right now it just looks like a door frame, but I add some shadow, then erase a bit, allowing for the glint of light on the doorknob. Short sloping lines begin the outline of a face: a man’s jaw, his cheekbone, just the bare side of his mouth, enough to show he’s not happy. I don’t have his eyes yet, but they’ll come.

I need a better eraser, but I can’t take the time to dig around in my bag. Pink shreds of rubber appear all over the pad and I barely take the time to brush them from my drawing space. A hand appears along the edge of the door frame, four individual fingers, rough from work.

Back to his face. Shadow finds his jaw, tiny spots of darker stubble. He needs a shave. He’s a little careless with his appearance, but his hair is cut short. He’s lean, and fit, and the hand leads to an arm, and, above that, one broad shoulder. Erase, erase. He’s wearing a T-shirt. I thought his eyes would be afraid, because his body is only half visible, implying that he’s hiding. But there’s no fear here.

He’s determined.

Charlotte kills the engine.

I look up in surprise. We’re parked on a narrow street, and the sun has fallen closer to the horizon, a bright beacon that burns my eyes.

“Wow,” she says softly.

I want to flip the cover closed. It’s ridiculous, but this feels too personal. I’m drawing straight from my imagination, from a deeply hidden place inside me, and having the image bared on the page is unnerving. “It’s not done.”

“I know. It’s still . . . phenomenal.” She hesitates.

“This is ridiculous.” It takes everything I have not to rip the page up and crumple it in my fist. “I feel like I’m romanticizing the whole thing. Look at my big, defiant brother.”

“Defiant,” she agrees. “That’s exactly what it feels like.” She pauses. “What’s he looking at?”

“I don’t know.” I give her half a smile, though my emotions are all over the place. “You stopped driving.” I look around. We’re parked on a residential street. The houses are small, not new, yet set a good distance apart, though none have driveways or garages. It feels like we’ve driven into a sitcom from the seventies.

“Is this it?” I say.

“Yes. The house is down the road a bit. I didn’t want to park in front of it like a creepy stalker.”

I give her a glance. “Now we just look like we’re creepily stalking
this
house.”

She shrugs and climbs out of the car. “Stay here, then. I’m going to check it out.”

Like I’m going to let the girl limp her way down a strange street. I shove my sketchbook into my bag, throw the strap over my shoulder, and follow her onto the sidewalk.

The humidity is finally taking a break, and kids are at play in half the yards we pass. Gulls lazily sail through the air overhead. We must be close to the beach here. Sand appears to be mixed with the soil.

“Are you nervous?” she says.

“No.” I watch two little girls run and shriek through a sprinkler in the next yard. “I’m not sure we’ll find anything. The most recent letter was five years old.”

She shrugs. “Danny still lives at home. Ben and Matt still come every Saturday for dinner. Small town living. You know.”

“No,” I say. “I don’t know.”

“Well,” she says. “Maybe you’ll get a chance to find out.”

I’ve been watching the street numbers, and we’re getting closer. They’re descending, like a countdown. I calculate that we’re four houses away, and I can see the frame of the house we’re seeking, though large pine trees in the yard keep it mostly out of view. My heart trips and stumbles in my chest.

And then we’re there, standing on the sidewalk, looking at a nice Cape Cod–style home, with white siding and a gray shingled roof. The house looks newer than those around it. The siding isn’t quite as old, and the railing on the porch is made of vinyl instead of painted wood. A blue-and-black kid’s bike rests against the side of the house, and a minivan is parked on the street.

My heart stutters again, before I remind myself that my brother is twenty-three, not six.

Nothing about this house looks like the brick wall I sketched, but I want to pull the drawing out of my bag to compare it.

I’m staring and I can’t stop.

So much for not looking like a pair of stalkers.

“What do you want to do?” says Charlotte. “Should we just knock on the door?”

“And say what? That we found a bunch of letters, and we want to know if someone here wrote them?”

“Um. Yes?”

Well. I don’t know if I can do that.

Something about all this feels wrong anyway. I can’t put my finger on it, but my brother doesn’t live here. He doesn’t visit here.

At the house next door, a middle-aged man is dragging trash cans to the curb. He gives us an odd look. “You kids looking for someone?”

“Maybe,” says Charlotte. She looks at me.

It’s a prompt, but I don’t know what to say. My brain is still taking in this small, white house. Did he use a fake address? Why?

Charlotte clears her throat. “His mother just passed away. We found some letters in her things, and they were sent from this address.”

She’s right. That was pretty simple. I’ve been spending too much time worried about every move I make.

The man sets the trash can against the curb. “Oh.” His eyes soften. “I’m sorry, son.”

I look between him and the house. “It doesn’t look like a twenty-three-year-old guy lives here.”

“No.” He frowns. I don’t blame him. I’m being abrupt. I didn’t even thank him for his sympathy.

Then he says, “The Coopers moved in last year. One of those
We Buy Any Property
companies rehabbed the house after the Bellweathers died. But their grandson moved out a while ago.”

The sentences come out of his mouth without any thought behind them, but they hit me like fists.
After the Bellweathers died. Their grandson. Their grandson moved out.

Grandparents. He lived with grandparents.

I had grandparents!

My hand is gripping Charlotte’s. I don’t know if she grabbed mine or if I grabbed hers, but I’m going to fall over if she lets go.

“Do you know where their—where their grandson went?” I say.

He frowns, thinking. “He enlisted, if I remember correctly. Hurt his leg playing football, so he couldn’t play college ball, but he passed the physical for the Navy. Or maybe the Marines?” He shakes his head. “It’s been years. I just remember George talking about how they were worried he wouldn’t pass the physical.”

I swallow. “You wouldn’t know where to find him, would you?”

He shakes his head and gives me a sad smile. “I’m afraid not.”

Of course not.

Enlisted.
This is a dead end. If he’s in the military, he could be anywhere. He could be in a war zone, for god’s sake.

He could be dead.

“It’s okay,” I say. My voice sounds hollow. “Thank you.”

“Sure.” He pauses. “Good luck.”

A breeze rolls down the street, making the trees rustle. The man is halfway back up the driveway before I realize that I’m still just standing here, staring at the new house. This is a dead end. I knew it was.
I knew it
.

“Hey!” Charlotte calls.

The man turns.

“Their grandson,” she says. “Do you know his name?”

He has to think for a minute, but then he nods. “Joe.”

Joe
. Like the newness of the house, it doesn’t feel right.

“He’s wrong,” I mutter. “It’s not
Joe
.”

Charlotte looks at me. “What?”

“I don’t know.” I shake my head a little. “It’s not Joe.”

She doesn’t question me. She just turns back to the man. “Are you sure it’s Joe?”

“Yes. Joe. Joe Bellweather.” He turns back to the house.

I sigh.

But then he stops, turns, and snaps his fingers. “You know what? It wasn’t Joe. John. I think it was John.”

My heart bangs around. That’s not it either, but it’s closer.

“Jonathan!” he finally declares. “Jonathan Bellweather. That’s it.”

Jonathan.
My brain clicks the names into place. That’s it.

I have a brother.

And now I have his name.

 

Charlotte’s driving again, and we’re rolling through the middle of town. We’ve already passed the high school—closed for the summer—and now we’re looking for places he might have hung out.

Well, I am. She’s probably waiting for me to tell her what to do.

“What do you want me to do?” she finally asks quietly.

Exactly.

“I have no idea.” I look at the shops lining the street. It’s not like the gas station attendants or the workers behind the counter at KFC are coincidentally going to know him.

As we drive farther along, the storefronts begin to look older, more settled in the community. Brick facings abound, but an aged, weathered brick, nothing new or modern. This is an area where people used to shop, but now mostly avoid. An awning sags over a flower shop. Main Street Bank doesn’t even have an ATM out front, but heavy bars block the windows. A tattoo parlor sports a pane of glass with long strips of duct tape hiding a crack. The next strip of shops offers a nail salon with a broken neon sign, two empty storefronts, and a bail bondsman. The light begins to fade, and shadows crawl along the sidewalk. My eyes fall on a crack in the pavement.

It’s just a crack, but it looks familiar. This whole building seems familiar, like I’ve been down this street before.

I almost grab the steering wheel. “Charlotte. Stop. Stop the car.”

She hits the brakes, and a car behind us lays on the horn. She winces and waves them by.

“Sorry,” I say. “I just—that crack in the pavement—”

I’m about to sound insane. I shake my head. Then, without warning, I get out of the car.

“Hey!” she cries. “Thomas—”

“One second,” I say. “I just need to check something.” I walk to the edge of the building. The bricks are crumbling apart, barely held together by decades-old mortar.

Almost hesitantly, I place my hand against the corner of the building.

And that’s it. I’m just standing here with my hand on some crumbling brick.

What was I expecting? A vision?

“Hey. Kid. You okay?”

A large black man has come out of the bail bonds shop. When I say
large
, I don’t mean tall, either. His gut hangs over his waistband, and his jowls take up most of his neck. His arms are huge, though, and that’s not just fat. He looks to be about forty or fifty years old, judging by the gray in his hair, but it doesn’t make him look frail. In fact, just the opposite. This isn’t a guy you want to screw with.

I shake my head. I don’t know what I’m doing here. I don’t know why I got out of the car.

He frowns. “You sick?”

“No.” I cough. “I’m looking for my brother.”

He looks up and down the street. “We haven’t had any kids through here in a while. It’s getting dark. Bedtime. Most kids are heading home.” He says it like he has a few of his own.

I shake my head again. “Not a kid. He’s older than me.”

“What’s his name?”