“You know what I began to do?” he asked.
I shook my head. His outburst seemed to get louder and more intense with every word. I was afraid to speak.
“I began to keep track myself of what each one did for me. How’s that? Pretty clever, right? I was only six, but a bright six-year-old. I wrote down what they said the way a little boy that age might, and then I made a chart with ‘Daddy’ on one side and ‘Mommy’ on the other. ‘Daddy, school.’ ‘Mommy, wash clothes.’ Stuff like that. One day, I brought it out and showed them while they were arguing, and they just stared at me and at my chart for a few moments before they turned on each other and started blaming each other for what I had done. I ripped up the chart and threw it at them.
“What do you think of that? I bet you didn’t have parents like that. Did you?” he asked when I didn’t reply.
“No, but I never really knew my mother,” I said.
“Divorce or death?”
“She ran off when I was very young,” I said.
“Selfish,” he muttered. “Couldn’t compromise. Never should have said ‘I do.’ ”
He was silent a moment, but it was a deep silence, the silence of someone seized by his own dark memories. I saw the way he gripped the steering wheel, too. His knuckles seemed to grow more pointed, the veins on the backs of his hands pressing up against his skin.
“They abuse us,” he muttered finally. “They abuse us when they create us. How lucky are the sperm and the eggs that never meet.”
“Who’s going to win in the case?” I asked, hoping to get him onto another topic.
“What case?”
“The one you’re on, the deposition you just did.”
“Oh.” He shook his head. “I don’t care, really.”
“How can you not care?”
“Hey,” he snapped back at me, “do you think the doctor you go to really cares about you? He’s just pumping out medicine and racking up insurance payments.”
“Well, what’s the argument?”
“What argument?”
“In the case you’re doing? Why is one or the other contesting the will?”
“This stuff really interests you?” he asked, sounding annoyed.
“I thought you wanted to talk to pass the time rather than listen to music or the radio,” I said.
“I changed my mind,” he said, and turned on the radio. “No one really listens to anyone anyway,” he muttered.
I was feeling more and more uncomfortable. I had made a big mistake taking a ride with him. I sat back, eager to see the lights of San Francisco, eager to get out of the darkness, for it seemed I would spend most of my life escaping from one shadow just to be overtaken by another.
And what awaited me in each was surely not pleasant.
2
The lights of a metropolitan area never seemed to be out there, no matter how far and how long we traveled. I looked at the time and realized we had been driving for well over an hour. If anything, the road looked darker, the sight of lighted house windows few and far between. I leaned forward to see if I could catch a road sign, but for miles and miles, I saw nothing.
“Are you sure this is the route to San Francisco?” I asked. A good twenty minutes had gone by without him saying a word. He had been either lost in his own thoughts or so into the music that he seemed to have forgotten I was with him.
“It’s a shortcut,” he said. After a moment, he added, “Look, I have to drop off this case of wine at my friend’s house. It’s a little off the beaten path, but I promise, it will take only ten minutes.”
I didn’t respond, but there was something in the air, a crackling that I could sense. I was reminded of the times when I was a little girl and Daddy would suddenly stop whatever he was doing and look as if he were listening keenly to something. I would try to hear whatever it was, too, but I wouldn’t hear anything. He was always so still, his eyes so fixed on whatever he thought he could see out there. I would look out into the darkness, narrowing my eyelids the way he did and concentrating, but I never saw anything. Suddenly, he would get up.
“What’s wrong, Daddy?” I would ask.
“Nothing. Just continue your reading,” he would say, and he would go outside. I would go to the window and look for him. I thought I saw him moving in the shadows, and then, as if the shadows stuck to him or he wrapped them around himself, he would grow into something larger and darker. Sometimes he was out there for only a few minutes, and sometimes he wouldn’t return for hours. Occasionally, I would have to go to bed before he returned, and Mrs. Fennel would always promise that she would tell him I was waiting up for him. He would come to my bedroom to be sure I was all right.
“What was out there, Daddy?” I would ask.
“Nothing you should fear,” he would always say. “Never be afraid of the darkness itself. Darkness is our best friend. The shadows protect us. Don’t fear them.”
“I don’t.”
“That’s my girl,” he would tell me, and he would kiss me on the cheek. Then he would fix my blanket and brush my hair. I would close my eyes and feel so safe and warm that nothing I could imagine would frighten me.
I wasn’t exactly frightened in the car with Keith. It was more like being cautious, prepared, triggering my personal homeland security system. All of my senses had been placed on high alert, heightened. I could feel my body tighten even more, the muscles in my arms and legs grow hard.
The road he had turned onto was bumpy and soon became more like a gravel driveway.
“Where does this friend live?”
“Not far now,” he said.
I looked for some sign of life, some light, something besides the trees and the distant mountains that now looked like smudges against the horizon, as if they had all been finger-painted on a grayish-black canvas by a young god who had not yet formed his vision of the world he wanted to create.
Suddenly, Keith stopped the car.
“Why are you stopping? What’s wrong?” I asked, my fingers folding tightly into fists.
“Don’t like the sounds coming from the rear of the vehicle. I’ll just check a moment,” he said, and got out. I watched him walk to the back of the SUV and open the door. “Can you push the wine case more toward me?” he asked.
“Why?”
“Just do it,” he ordered. “I think it has to do with the noise.”
I hesitated, then turned and leaned over the seat and reached back to push the case. When I did so, he lunged forward and grasped both of my wrists. I was too shocked to speak for a moment. He pulled me farther forward, and then I saw a set of handcuffs, one on each side of the SUV, each clipped to a hook. He wanted to put the handcuffs around my wrists and lock them. The realization of what that would mean shot through me like an electric spasm. My body recoiled, and when it did, I turned my hands, broke his grip on me, and seized his wrists.
My strength surprised and shocked him. For a few seconds, I just looked up at him. Whatever he saw in my face terrified him. He cried out like some desperate small animal that could see its life evacuating its body, fleeing in panic. I tugged him so hard and so quickly that he came flying forward over me and the front seats, smashing his head on the dashboard. I heard him groan and fall over onto his side against the driver’s door.
My heart was pounding, but I only felt stronger. I reached over him, turned the door handle, and pushed open the door. I shoved his body, and he rolled out of the SUV. I closed the door, shifted around so I could get into the driver’s seat, put the vehicle into drive, and shot ahead.
I decided not to follow the road, which looked like a road to nowhere anyway. I turned around instead and started back. I saw him struggling to get to his feet and then, obviously still quite dizzy, fall over again onto his side. I didn’t pause. I drove past him and made my way back to the highway. It was nearly twenty minutes later before I saw a sign that indicated the road that would take me to San Francisco. He really had taken us out of the way. I sped up and grad
ually felt my body soften, my pulse calm, and my breathing return to normal.
Hours later, I pulled into a gas station and fast-food shop. For a few moments, I sat there taking deep breaths, reliving what I had just experienced. Then, curious about him, I opened the glove compartment and found the SUV registration. It was registered to a Paul Bogan. He lived in Sonoma, California, and was only twenty-six years old. Those lawyer business cards were obviously either a forgery or cards he had taken from a real lawyer with that name.
Looking around the vehicle, I saw no lawyer’s briefcase. I should have noticed that immediately, I thought. That was very careless of me, or maybe just a sign of my inexperience and innocence. More curious now, I opened the carton. It was filled with female clothing, hair clips, lipsticks, and makeup pads such as would be found in a young girl’s purse. There was even a pair of high-heel shoes. Sick trophies of girls he had raped and maybe murdered, I thought. This was one man I would have gladly brought to Daddy.
I had started to get out to get something to drink when I saw Paul Bogan’s wallet on the floor. One side had a few of those business cards. The other had his driver’s license. There was more than five hundred dollars in fifties and twenties.
“There’s always a silver lining,” I muttered, taking the money. I got out, got my drink, and then headed for the San Francisco airport. When I got there, I left the vehicle where it was prohibited to leave one, hoping that he would get into some trouble for it. I went in to buy a ticket on the next flight out. I still had no idea where I would go. When I looked up at the schedule for one airline, I saw that I could make the next flight to Boston, Massachusetts. One place was as good as another, I decided, and bought my ticket. Less than a half hour later, I boarded the plane and took my seat by the window. I was feeling very tired and hoped that I could get some sleep.
An elderly man in a brown suit and a light brown tie took the seat beside me and smiled. “You like the red-eye?” he asked.
“Pardon?”
“You know, flights like this that fly at night. I don’t sleep much anyway.”
“Oh. I don’t know. I haven’t flown that much,” I said. I wasn’t really looking at him until then. He looked at least in his late seventies, if not eighties. His thinning white hair picked up the ambient light and seemed to glow like a halo. He was pale but had red blotches around his nose and over his forehead.
“Heading home?” he asked.
“No, visiting,” I said.
“I bet you’re going to visit your grandparents,” he said.
I just smiled as if he had guessed right. Daddy taught me it was always best to let people believe what they thought if what they thought was good for you. There was no sense in wasting the truth on anyone. “Save the truth for yourself,” he’d advised. His words of wisdom remained my personal Book of Proverbs.
“They’re lucky. I have to go visit my grandchildren. They’re all just too busy with their businesses and jobs to take the time to come see me in Boston. My name’s Thaddeus, by the way. My mother named me after one of the twelve Apostles. I’m Armenian, and the Armenian church has Thaddeus and Saint Bartholomew as its patron saints. Thaddeus is the patron saint of desperate causes and lost causes. The name is interchangeable with Jude. You’ve probably heard of Saint Jude.
“Okay,” he said after a short pause during which I just smiled. I was feeling quite tired and didn’t want to get into hours of conversation. “That’s all the boring stuff I’m going to say on the whole trip.”
“It’s not boring,” I told him, and he smiled.
“Well, aren’t you a sweet young lady? Maybe you’re telling the truth, and maybe you’re not. At my age, it doesn’t matter. It’s too late for me to impress anyone.” He sat back and closed his eyes.
He didn’t open his eyes and speak again until after we had taken off and leveled out. The flight attendant was asking if anyone wanted anything to drink. I took a soda, and he ordered a cup of tea.
“Well,” he said. “As you see, I fall asleep on and off nowadays. Seems to work. But I won’t keep you up,” he quickly added.
The whole time, I had been thumbing through a magazine about Massachusetts and found an interesting travel article about a town called Quincy. It was close to the Atlantic, and I had always enjoyed being near a beach. From the description I read about the small city, it seemed a perfect place in which to get lost. I had come to believe in fate and coincidence and thought that whatever powers were looking over me had put this destination in front of me. It was more than just a suggestion. It was a road map to my salvation.
Thaddeus looked at the magazine and nodded. I had left it open.
“I’ve been to Quincy often,” he told me. “It’s a very nice place.”
I could cling to the belief that maybe there was something out there, some great force that would want to protect me, but I had not left my paranoia behind. It sat with me in the seat. I didn’t like the idea that some stranger would have an idea about where I was headed.
“ ’Course,” he continued, “it’s been quite a while since I’ve been there. Now that I think about it, it’s more like twenty years, so you can’t take my word for it. Places change just like people, or maybe people change because the places change. I can’t tell you which comes first. So much for the wisdom of old age.”
“That’s all right. I’m just going to Boston,” I said. “I doubt I can get to anywhere else this trip.”
“Sure, sure, don’t rush your life along. I can tell you this,” he said, sitting back and closing his eyes again, “it seems like just yesterday when I fell in love with my wife. She’s been gone now close to twenty-five years, but I don’t wake up any morning without hearing her tell me not to dilly-dally. If it wasn’t for her, I’d have been half the man I was.” A smile seemed to land softly on his dark red lips. In moments, he was asleep again.
Would I live to be his age, and if I did, would I have any loving memories to bring me comfort?
We left the plane together. He offered to give me a ride to wherever I was going, but I assured him that someone was there to pick me up.
“Well, you ever get into any trouble, you call me,” he said. He reached into his pocket and produced a light blue business card with black print. His full name was Thaddeus Bogosian. Under his name was written “Insight Books” and his address and phone number.
“I had a small bookstore, specializing in religious, philosophical material. My wife’s the one who made the living in our family,” he said. “She was a crackerjack real estate agent. She married me because she said she needed a dreamer. You ever have need for a dreamer, you call,” he said.
I told him I would and watched him walk away. He looked as if he were holding on to an invisible woman beside him.
As soon as he was gone, I found my way to the train station. I was still undecided about where I would go or what I would do, but it felt safer to keep myself moving in almost any direction. The distance I had traveled from home gave me a sense of security. I had taken the magazine from the plane and continued to read about Quincy. It was the birthplace of John Adams, John Quincy Adams, and John Hancock. It shared a border with Boston, and its bay was actually part of Boston Harbor. It had several beaches and a community college. The train schedule showed me how to get there. I had no idea what I would do immediately once I was there, and I had no idea why I had such faith in myself, but I continued as if it had been my plan all along.
First, I went into a shop and bought a decent-size travel bag. A girl my age who arrived anywhere without a stitch of clothing or any possessions would surely attract more attention, I thought, recalling that it already had, so I then went into a department store and bought socks, undergarments, some pants and shirts, and a few simple dresses. I even bought myself a cap. After I had those things and some basic toiletries, I felt more confident about traveling alone.
I discovered that Quincy was connected to the regional subway system and was the fourth stop. At the
station in the city, I found a magazine advertising hotels and apartments. One in particular caught my attention because it looked so historic and yet unpretentious. It was the Winston Rooming House. I went to a pay phone and called to see if I could make a reservation. The woman who answered sounded old, maybe as old as Thaddeus Bogosian. Mrs. Winston seemed very suspicious. I was tempted to ask her if I was the first person ever to inquire about available space.
“Where did you get my number?” she asked with a tone of suspicion.
“You have an advertisement in the Daily Tripper,” I said.
“I do? Well, it was probably something my nephew, Ken, did without telling me. He thinks I need looking after, but I’ve been running this rooming house for close to thirty-five years, thank you. I always believed the right sort of people would find their way here without me doing a song and dance about how nice and clean my place is.” She paused as though she wasn’t going to say any more, but before I could speak, she asked, “How long do you plan on staying?”
“I’m thinking about looking for a job in Quincy,” I said. “At least a few weeks, if not longer.”
“Um. You sound very young. I should warn you that this is a very quiet place. I have some long-term regulars who demand it as much as I do.”
“That’s exactly what I’m looking for, Mrs. Winston, a very quiet place.”
“Um,” she said skeptically. She still hadn’t told me whether she had space available. “Well, you stop in, and we’ll see what we see,” she said, clearly sounding like someone who wouldn’t take just anyone into her rooming house.
“Okay.” I nearly laughed at her obvious New England independence, but then I thought that she and her place might be exactly what I needed in order to keep a low profile. Besides, from what I could see, there were quite a few other possibilities if that one didn’t work out. I headed for the subway train to Quincy. When I arrived, I looked for a taxi to take me to the Winston Rooming House. The driver not only knew it well, but he also knew Mrs. Winston, who was apparently quite a local character.