The Silent Sister

  “No.” I backed down the steps to the concrete pad. “No, I don’t want anything. I just need to talk to Tom!”

  “All right, all right,” she said, descending the steps. “You’re worrying me. You seem like such a calm person most of the time, and to see you like this is … well, what’s the problem? You said the meeting went fine, so—”

  “He said my sister didn’t kill herself.”

  She stared at me a moment, her face a puzzled mask. “Sit down, dear,” she said after a moment, lowering herself into one of the old webbed chairs.

  “I don’t want to sit.” I stood in front of her. “I just want to know why he said that.”

  “Sit,” she said again, motioning to the other chair, and I reluctantly dropped into it. My right knee jumped up and down as though an electric current ran through it.

  “Why would he say that?” I asked.

  “I honestly don’t know,” she said. “I’m a tad stunned that he would. He has a bit of a mean streak that comes out every once in a while, but I can’t imagine, even in his foulest moods, that he’d tease you that cruelly.”

  “So, you don’t think it’s true? That she didn’t kill herself? You think she did?”

  “Oh, honey.” She reached out to rest her hand on my arm. “You know why she took her life, right?”

  “Guilt and fear,” I said. “She was afraid she’d end up in prison.”

  Verniece nodded. “She killed someone and she was going to have to pay,” she said. “I know they didn’t find her body, and some people believed she’d faked her death to avoid going to prison, but the Potomac is a big river, and they couldn’t search everywhere.” She spoke kindly, the way she had spoken to me about my supposed adoption, and there was something about Verniece’s voice—her whole demeanor—that had a way of calming me.

  I felt tears collect in the back of my throat. “I want it to be true.” I twisted my hands together, rubbing them back and forth. “I want her to be alive. I need my family, Verniece. I’m managing everything to do with the house and Daddy’s estate and I’m worried about Danny and … I feel like I’m a little kid with too much on her plate.”

  “You poor dear! I never should have told you about your adoption, at least not now, when you’re dealing with so many other things.”

  “My mother’s best friend knows nothing about that,” I said firmly. “I really think you have my mother mixed up with someone else.”

  She looked at me a moment before nodding. “Maybe,” she said, and I knew she was saying it only to placate me. “Maybe I’m remembering wrong.”

  “Where can I find Tom right now?” I asked.

  “He’s probably stopped off for a nip someplace where you wouldn’t want to go.” She looked toward the road as though expecting to see his car any moment. “Tom’s a good man and he’s been a good husband for all these forty years,” she said, “but the bottle has a bit of a hold on him, I’m afraid.”

  I thought about the affair my father had kept hidden for Tom. I felt sad for Verniece, being stuck with a man like that. Feeling like she needed to defend him.

  “Do you know when he’ll be back?”

  “Oh, you never know with Tom.” Verniece smacked a mosquito on her bare knee. “And depending on how much he’s had to drink, you might not get any clear information out of him,” she added. “Better to try to see him in the morning. You can bet that when I see him, I’ll ask him what he meant about your sister. All I can think is that you must have misunderstood him.”

  “I don’t know what else he could have meant.”

  “I’ll talk to him. But”—she let out a sigh—“I should tell you something, Riley. It might explain why Tom would say something so hurtful to you.”

  “What?” I braced myself, not sure I wanted to hear.

  “See,” she said, “your daddy was planning to give us the RV park.” She tightened her lips together as though afraid she’d said too much.

  “He was?” I remembered the look Tom had given me in Suzanne’s office when he mentioned the park.

  Verniece nodded. “He and Tom had been talking about it for a while, and now with your father gone … if we seemed ungrateful about getting that pipe collection, that’s why. Tom expected so much more. He thought we’d be able to sell the park and have a little easier time of it in our later years.”

  I was shocked. Why on earth had my father been so generous with Tom Kyle? “Oh,” I said, “I had no idea. I’m sorry.”

  She shrugged. “That’s life, I guess. But my husband is bitter about it. I’m afraid he was just taking it out on you with what he said about your sister.”

  I looked down the gravel lane, wishing I would see his car coming around the bend. “I wanted it to be real,” I said quietly.

  “I know, dear, but sometimes we have to face the truth.” She shifted in her chair. “I was actually there at the river that day,” she said.

  “What day?” I asked, confused.

  “The day after it happened. You remember we lived up there, since Tom worked for the Marshals Service?” She looked into the distance as though she could visualize the scene. “I saw the yellow kayak caught in the ice out in the middle of the river. The police and firefighters and everyone were there, and they looked overwhelmed by how they’d get to the kayak, much less how they’d find a … someone under the ice. Your sister could have been out in the Chesapeake Bay by then, honey.”

  I shivered, although the temperature was well into the eighties. “I just wish it could be true,” I said. “I don’t remember her. I never got to know her. But I need her right now.”

  She looked at me kindly. “You can lean on me, Riley,” she said. “I know I’m not your mama or your sister or even an aunt, but you can talk to me anytime. All right?”

  I made myself smile at her. “All right,” I said. “Thank you.”

  JANUARY 1990

  19.

  San Diego

  Lisa

  Her legs were like rubber when she got off the train in San Diego after three days and nights of a miserable, anxiety-ridden journey. She’d felt paranoid during her waking hours on the train, afraid she would be found out and led away at any moment, and her sleep had been full of the nightmares that had haunted her ever since that horrible day in October. They were bloody dreams. She didn’t know the people in them, only that they bled. And bled. And bled.

  Waking up that final morning in the tiny cubicle her father had reserved for her—so tiny she had to lift the bed to use the toilet—she’d noticed her hip bones poked up beneath the thin blanket. All she’d been able to eat on the train were saltines, and she’d had to force them down. She’d gotten her period the second day of the trip and had to make do with paper towels and toilet paper until the train reached Chicago and she could buy what she needed as she waited for a different train to L.A. For most of the trip, though, she slept, trying to block out thoughts of what her mother was going through, thinking her daughter had killed herself. Matty would be hurting, too, wondering if there was something he could have said or done to stop her from taking her life.

  Clutching her suitcase and purse, she followed the other passengers out of the San Diego train station, wincing at the blinding late afternoon sunlight, the sky a more vivid blue than she’d ever seen. A line of cabs was parked beneath a row of palm trees, and she climbed into the backseat of one of them and asked the driver to take her to Ocean Beach.

  “Where in Ocean Beach?” he asked as he pulled away from the curb.

  “Um, a motel?”

  He chuckled, glancing at her in the rearview mirror. “You want a nice motel or a cheap motel?” he asked.

  She thought of the three thousand dollars her father had left in her purse. A lot of money, but how long would it last? Find a job, her father had said, but all she could think of doing at that moment was crawling into a bed where she could sleep away the rest of her life.

  “Cheap,” she said.

  Thirty minutes later, the
cabdriver pulled up in front of an old motel only a block from the ocean. It looked rundown and dingy, but that close to the beach, how bad could it be? She lugged her suitcase out of the back of the taxi—she couldn’t believe it had felt so lightweight to her only a few days earlier. Now she could barely lift it to the sidewalk. Her hands shook as she peeled bills from the wad of cash in her purse, and when she reached through the window to pay the driver, the money fell from her fingers onto the floor of the cab.

  “Oh!” she said, trying to open the door, but the driver waved her away.

  “No problem!” he said, and she watched him drive off, leaving her alone, and only then did she realize that the blue sky had clouded over and dusk was closing in. She needed a room.

  She carried her suitcase into the bare-bones lobby of the motel, where a man, as big and broad as Tom Kyle, stood behind the counter, brazenly smoking a joint. She froze just inside the doorway.

  “Ain’t got no rooms,” he said. “Come back tomorrow.”

  She couldn’t move. Couldn’t speak. Her brain was too tired to comprehend what he’d said, and the scent of the marijuana alone made her dizzy.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  “I need a room,” she managed to say. “Where can I get one?”

  “Saturday night in Ocean Beach?” he asked. “Nowhere. Stay on the beach, like everyone else. Then you come back tomorrow. Maybe a room for you then.” He sucked on the joint, filling his lungs, holding it in. “You okay?” he asked again in a stream of smoke.

  She had no voice to answer. She turned and walked outside.

  The sky had turned an inky blue in the few minutes she’d been inside the motel. The air grew chillier by the second as she walked the half block to the beach and she was glad she had her jacket. The man was right. There were people on the beach, a mixture of vibrant, healthy-looking people her age, some of them winding up a volleyball game, all of them packing up to leave, and the bedraggled men and women who, she was certain, had no home to go to. They huddled alone or together against the seawall, and she guessed they were settling in for the night. She stood at the entrance to the beach, paralyzed, unsure what to do as darkness fell around her.

  She clutched her purse in one hand, her suitcase in the other. People stared at her. She stood out, and that was the one thing she couldn’t afford to do. Walking onto the sand, she took a few steps to a vacant area by the seawall. She set her suitcase flat on the sand, sat down on it, and hugged her arms across her body, pressing her purse and the money inside it to her chest. Everyone’s eyes were on her. The homeless people. Staring. Wondering who this strange new girl was. What if someone called protective services? She was only seventeen. They could take her in, couldn’t they? And then the questions would start. Questions she could never answer. Daddy would be furious at her for botching this. But then she remembered she was eighteen in all the documents she carried. Birth certificate. Social Security card. Driver’s license. Protective services wouldn’t be able to touch her.

  She couldn’t let herself sleep. As soon as it was dark enough, she took the money from her purse and crammed the bills into her underwear, flattening them against her breasts and her hips. She heard some of the people talking. Heard laughter. The clink of bottles. “Fred Marcus,” she whispered to herself. “PO box 5782. Pollocksville, North Carolina.” And she repeated it over and over again, like a prayer.

  Her muscles grew stiff as she sat like a statue, trying not to draw any attention to herself. The darkness terrified her. She felt like a target for anyone who wanted to hurt her. Rob her. But no one bothered her and she had nearly begun to relax when she saw a light bobbing along on the beach near the seawall. People began calling out, “Hey, Ingrid, over here!” and “Ingrid! Ingrid!” They came to life as the beam of light found them, and she caught a glimpse of the woman who seemed to know them all and who stopped and chatted with each of them.

  She hugged herself harder as the woman and her light drew closer, and her fingers toyed nervously with her pendant where it rested snugly in the pocket of her jeans. There was nowhere to go and her mouth was dry as dust as she waited for the light to find her. When it finally did, she blinked and turned her head away.

  “Hey.” The woman carrying the light dropped to the sand in front of her. “You’re new,” she said. She rested the lantern on the sand so that it reflected off the wall, and her face, while shadowy, was suddenly visible. Blue eyes. Straight nose. Wide smile. “I’m Ingrid,” she said. “What’s your name?”

  She was afraid to say the words Ann Johnson. Afraid the name would somehow give her away. She felt the jade pendant beneath her fingertips. “Jade,” she whispered, then tried to wet her lips with her dry tongue. “Jade,” she said again.

  “Beautiful name.” Ingrid reached into a bag she carried and pulled out a bottle of water. “Here, baby,” she said, handing her the bottle. “And do you like chocolate chip or oatmeal?”

  She didn’t know how to answer. She didn’t even understand the question.

  “Cookies, sweetheart,” Ingrid said. “I try to bring them out here a few nights each week.”

  She doubted she could eat a cookie, but knew she needed to try. “Oatmeal,” she said, and took the plastic-wrapped cookie Ingrid offered her.

  “Is this your first night in O.B.?” Ingrid asked.

  She nodded.

  “And how old are you, honey?”

  “Eighteen.”

  Ingrid hesitated, then picked up her lantern again and got to her feet and Lisa—Jade—had to stop herself from grabbing the woman’s leg and begging, Please help me!, but the last thing she needed was a stranger in her life. A stranger who, in better light, might recognize her face. Steven’s murder had made national news. It had even been written up in People magazine. Her father had been foolish to think that changing her hair color would be enough to protect her.

  “Stay safe, honey,” Ingrid said as she moved away from her, and Jade fought back a sob as she watched the light move on down the beach.

  * * *

  In the morning, she hobbled stiffly to a small coffee shop, where she used the bathroom. Her reflection in the mirror was a shock, not only because of the brown, unwashed hair but also the dark circles below her eyes and the tight, sickly white skin stretched across her cheekbones.

  In the café, she drank a carton of juice and ate half a bite of Ingrid’s oatmeal cookie before her stomach let her know it was a mistake. She was so exhausted after a sleepless night that the people milling around her in the café seemed like figures in a dream. At a table by the window, she spotted a man reading The New York Times, and wondered if there was a story about her in the paper. The Times had covered the murder, of course. Would it also cover her suicide? The man glanced in her direction, and she let a few strands of her hair fall over her cheek like a veil.

  * * *

  Back in the motel, the same man as the night before sat on the stool behind the counter and he said he’d have a room ready for her by noon. She cried, she was so relieved. One-twenty a week, he told her. She had no idea if that was a good price for this dumpy old place or not. She’d never been on her own before. She’d traveled more than most kids her age. All the concerts. All the festivals. But some adult—her parents or Steven or Caterina—had always taken care of everything and all she’d needed to do was show up and play her twenty-thousand-dollar violin. She knew now, as she waited for her room on a hard plastic chair in the lobby, with its grimy floor and stained walls, that she’d been spoiled.

  Sitting there, she clamped her suitcase between her knees, knowing she was perilously close to drifting off to sleep. At noon, the man gave her a key and she walked outside, up the stairs and down a long exterior walkway to a room that was no bigger than the prison cell she belonged in. Although it was daylight and the sun shone through the filmy glass of the window, two roaches marched across the floor in full view. Jade barely took note of them. All she saw was a bed that looked like it had clean sheets benea
th a thin green blanket. She locked the door, pulled the curtains closed, and fell onto the bed to sleep away this horrible new reality that had become her life.

  * * *

  She didn’t fully wake up until noon the following day. She’d gotten up a few times, awakened by laughter or shouting or, on one frightening occasion, pounding on her door, but other than that and a couple of breaks to use the filthy toilet in the bathroom, she slept. When she opened her drapes that second day, a man was peering straight into her room, his craggy face pressed against her grimy window. She screamed and whipped the drapes closed again. She didn’t dare go out there. The night she spent on the beach seemed like ages ago. Like someone else’s life. She’d been very lucky she’d made it through that night safely and had lost none of her precious cash.

  Sitting on the bed in the dim light, she nibbled the remaining third of that woman Ingrid’s cookie, wondering how she would get more food, even though she still had no appetite. But she needed to eat to survive. She felt so weak and trembly, she wasn’t sure she could make it down the motel steps to the street. I could die in this room, she thought. But she couldn’t go outside with that creepy man out there. She crawled under the covers again. When she closed her eyes, all she could see was the image of her mother rocking Riley to sleep in her arms. Riley had on her pink-footed pajamas and Jade imagined the scent of baby shampoo and her mother’s hand lotion. If only she could erase the past few months and be back with her family! She fell asleep, longing to touch them.

  The next morning, she awakened to a knock on the door. She stared at the door from the bed. The sun peeked into the room through the gap between the door and the door frame. It was the only way to know day from night in the room. The knocking came again.

  “Jade?” a woman’s voice asked. “It’s Ingrid, honey. Please open the door.”

  Jade hesitated a moment, sitting up in the bed, thinking, It’s a trap. Don’t open it. Don’t open it. But her need for kindness, for a grown-up to take over her life and put it in some kind of order, was too strong and she slowly moved the covers aside.