It is a masterful act. One that goes through irritation, then sympathy, then a full-breakdown of tears over ‘where our boy may be’. Her worry for him. Her terrified portrayal of a loving aunt. Played to perfection. I watch her performance with dead eyes, horrified by the ability of this woman, one who has orchestrated Brant’s life for two decades. Ran BSX during that time. Protected secrets while spinning lies of her own. I sit before her, grip the arm of a chair, and wonder where in the home Brant is.
Once the noose is tied.
Once I know her selfish loyalties.
Once I understand my enemy.
I stand.
Throw back my head and scream Brant’s name as loud as humanly possible.
Chapter 61
Jillian shoots to her feet, confusion in her eyes, her gaze darting to the right, and I take off running, up the staircase, my Uggs taking me faster than a high-heeled senior citizen can even think about moving. I scream for him, scream his name over and over as I tear down a marble hallway, my feet slamming to a halt when I hear my name, called from a few doorways back, and I whip around, bursting into a bedroom as my eyes catch sight of Jillian’s entry from the top of the stairs.
I don’t at first understand the scene. A man I’ve never seen, standing at the edge of a bed, the thrashing figure before him a tangle of sheets and movement. I come to a stop, the stranger and I staring at each other for a brief moment, then my eyes are on Brant and he smiles and it feels as if my heart will explode. “Lana,” he gasps. “Get me out of here.” Then he jerks his hands and I see restraints and my entire world goes red.
“WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU?!” I whirl, Jillian’s entrance into the room skirted by two employees, three flushed faces who stare at me as if preparing for battle.
“Layana,” Jillian starts, her hands patting the air in a calming fashion.
“WHO THE FUCK HAS THE KEYS TO GET HIM OUT OF THOSE?” I point to the shackles *ohmygod* that hold Brant down. Hold him down, as if he is fucking dangerous. Or insane. Or anything other than Brant, my gorgeous brilliant man, currently tied down like an animal.
“We had to restrain him. He was violent.”
“No I wasn’t,” Brant speaks from behind me.
“You don’t know what you were!” Jillian snaps.
“You,” I snarl. “You don’t have the right to fucking talk to him anymore. I’m taking him with me right now.”
“Language,” Jillian clicks her tongue disapprovingly. “It’s nice to see the trash that lies beneath that blue blood smile, Layana.”
I look at her in disbelief. “My language? That’s what you want to discuss right now? While you have Brant tied down?” I look from the strangers face to her employees, all who look unsure. “WHO THE FUCK HAS THE KEYS?” I scream, my own hold on rationality questionable.
“I do.” The man in the room steps forward. Pulls a key chain from his pocket and looks to Jillian. I move in between them, blocking his view, and point to the bed.
“Untie him.”
“Don’t move, George,” Jillian’s voice rings out.
I step forward, snatching the key ring from the man and move to the bed. Meet Brant’s eyes while freeing his right hand. “I love you,” I breathe.
“I’m sorry,” he responded.
“Shut up baby.” I turn to his leg strap and come chest to chest with Jillian, her fingers wrapping around my wrist with an iron grip.
“Please call Duane and Jim,” she says crisply to the women behind her. “I need them to get over here immediately.”
I jerk my hand back, twisting it until her fingers lose their grip. I place both hands on her chest and shove, the woman letting out a cry as she stumbles back, her legs giving out and falling to the floor. “Stop!” I cry at the uniformed women, their exit paused as two pinched faces turn to me. “Right now,” I gasp. “You have a decision to make. You are, I assume, both BSX employees. If you have any interest in future job security, I’d get over here and help me free the owner of your company.”
My car burns rubber on its Nobb Hill exit, Brant’s groan from the passenger side causing my foot to ease slightly, my eyes leaving the road for a moment to assess his condition. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Just get us away from her.”
I press a button on my steering wheel, speaking when the tone sounds. “Call Home.”
I reach over and grip Brant’s hand, my fingers looping through his. An interlocking squeeze that I don’t want to ever lose.
The ringing through the speakers ends, replaced by the efficient voice of one of our security personnel. “Sharp residence, this is Len Rincon. Good morning, Ms. Fairmont.”
“Len, I’m with Brant. We’ll be arriving home in about ten minutes. I want the house on lockdown. No one coming in or out unless you talk to me. Especially not Jillian Sharp.”
“Is Mr. Sharp also available, Ms. Fairmont?”
“I’m here, Len. And I agree with everything Lana just said.” Brant leans forward to make sure the speaker catches his voice.
“I’ll need you both to provide your security passcodes.” Any comradery I’ve shared with this man over the last six months is gone. Suddenly, I see the ex-Special Forces asset we had hired.
“4497,” Brant mutters, sinking his head back against the headrest.
“1552,” I say.
“Thank you. We will be ready when you arrive. Would you like me to alert the police?”
I glance at Brant, speaking when he shakes his head. “No, thank you. Just make sure Windere is secure.”
“Will do, Ms. F.”
“And please connect me to Anna.”
“Certainly.”
The house manager answers promptly and with more perkiness than any individual should contain before 7 AM. I speak quickly, wanting to get off of the phone and talk to Brant. “Can you have Christine prepare breakfast? A full spread of everything Brant likes. Also, please prepare the bedroom. Draw a hot bath. And light the fireplace. I also need you to bring a physician in. He needs a full tox screen done, so have them bring whatever they need for that.” I had a sudden thought. “Actually, call Dr. Susan Renhart. She’s at Homeless Youths of America. Tell her it is urgent, and that discretion is important.”
She repeats the instructions back to me, then I end the call and glance over at Brant, his eyes closed. “Stay with me, babe,” I say softly, the sun rising spectacularly as my car whips around a curve.
“I’ll never leave you,” he says. “Not willingly.” He sits up, pulls on my hand slightly. “I’m so sorry, Lana. For everything I must have put you through.”
“We have the rest of our lives to talk about it.” I squeeze his hand. “Right now I’m more concerned with Jillian. Brant… she’s…”
“Crazy,” he finishes with a growl. “Crazier than me,” he adds with a wry laugh.
“Should you call your parents? I’m trying to think through her next course of action. It might be best for you to speak to them before she does.” I reluctantly pull my hand from his, put both on the steering wheel before he feels the shake in my palms. I was literally shaking with anger, at myself, at Brant, at the manipulation this woman has had in our lives. “I mean… Brant, she tied you down. What kind of sick person does that?”
“What if I’m dangerous, Lana?” His voice is quiet but walks the steps of giants.
I slow the car, jerking my gaze to him. “You’re not dangerous, Brant.”
“Brant isn’t dangerous. But you said yourself I have other personalities, what if one of them…” He suddenly leans forward, gripping the sides of his head. “Oh my God.”
“What?” I reach a frantic right hand out as my left pulls the wheel hard enough to turn through our gates. Tugs at his knee as I careen down our driveway. Pull at his shirt as I shift into park. Try to break through, but he ignores me, gripping his head as he shakes it from side to side.
“October 12th,” he whispers. “Oh my God. October 12th.”
I say nothing, wait, as he repeats a date that means nothing to me. Then, he stills. His head stops moving, he slows his frantic rock, and drops his hands, a calm settling over him as he raises his head and looks at me.
“I remember.” He says softly. “I remember October 12th.”
Chapter 62
Brant
There is not a moment when I feel the switch, when it bubbles through me and replaces one person with another. There is nothing to fight. Nothing to struggle against. I simply open my eyes to a place I don’t recognize. Stare around, take in my surroundings, and then continue.
Our minds are unique in that they are like infants in their acceptance of what is shown. I don’t wonder that I don’t remember yesterday, because I have always had no yesterday. It, to me, is normal. That personality has never lived another way. I don’t find it strange to be suddenly awake and at a restaurant and midway through a meal because that is what I know. How I know life to be. The regular world, as a species, doesn’t question the fact that they close our eyes and—for eight hours—time passes in literally the blink of an eye. Doesn’t question the fact that they may have said things in our sleep, held a brief conversation in the middle of the night with a spouse—a conversation that they remember nothing about. And just as they don’t question that, I never questioned the two decades where things didn’t always make sense. Blamed any gaps in memory or sudden changes in location on my medication’s side effects.
But now, suddenly, I remember something. One glimpse into a day I have wondered about for twenty-seven years.
I didn’t know much about my world when I opened my eyes on October 12th, other than a few simple facts. I was Jenner. I was eleven. There was a girl down the street named Trish who had a pet mouse and wouldn’t let me play with it. She’d shown me the tiny, trembling figure a few weeks earlier and I had touched it. Pale white with red eyes, and I had poked it too roughly and she had pushed me away. Pulled it close to her chest and screamed that I’d never touch it again.
I digress. I was Jenner. I did not know who this woman before me was and had no interest in her brand of authority. I wanted my mom. I wanted my blue house with the broken porch rail and the iced tea pitcher that collected condensation in the fridge. I didn’t want to be in a basement with a woman whose mouth was tight and eyes were black, who smelled of vinegar and coffee and whose finger wouldn’t stop jabbing the paper before me.
“Focus, Brant. Multiply the fractions. We don’t have all day.”
I’d never seen this pile of crap before. Numbers above and below lines. The crooked cross, which I knew meant to multiply but I didn’t know how to multiply. I pushed the paper away and looked at her. Said the only truth that didn’t make me sound stupid. “I’m not Brant.”
“You certainly are Brant. And you did three pages of these yesterday in the time it took me to use the restroom. So don’t tell me you don’t know how to do it.”
I don’t know how to do it. I said nothing, only stared in her face. “I want my mom.” It wasn’t so much as wanting my mother as wanting to get away from this woman.
She looked at me. “Your mother is at work, Brant. You know that. She’ll be home at six. Until then, you’re stuck with me.”
She was a liar. This ugly woman opened her mouth and all that spewed was a lie. My mother didn’t even have a job. She stayed home all day. Spent time with me. Let me watch TV and slipped me Hershey’s kisses and glasses of milk during commercial breaks. I closed my mouth and stared at the paper. Hated this stranger.
“Do you want to work on your computer for a bit, and then return to this?”
“I want to watch TV.” The clock about the shelves showed that it was almost four. My mom would let me watch TV anytime after three.
The stranger frowned. “You don’t like TV anymore, Brant. It hurts your head, remember? Why don’t you work on your computer.” She pulled at my arm and I snatched away, her grip slipping off, the return of her hand harder, her nails digging into the soft skin in a way that hurt.
I didn’t know what she expected me to do with a pile of junk stretched out, a computer screen hooked to a chain of pieces. There was no computer there, just a jumbled mess of wires. The only computer I’d used was my father’s, which was simple, the first step being the large and easy-to-find power button. There was no power button there, and that only served to make me feel more stupid. I shook my head.
“Then we’re back to fractions,” she sighed. “Do these four pages now, no excuses, Brant.”
I looked up, away from the worn page that had been pushed and pulled between us until it had a small rip in the right corner. “I’m not BRANT!” I screamed, the anger pushing out of my throat like it had legs and arms and would fight to be heard.
The woman started, her head jerking back, and I saw a change in her eyes, a hesitation of sorts. A look I liked. I pushed away from the desk, standing, almost as tall as her, a growth spurt already putting me a head taller than my classmates. Giving me strength over others. Over this woman.
“Shush, Brant!” she scolded, regaining her footing and putting a hand on my shoulder, digging in her nails and trying to push me down, into the chair, the muscles in my legs fighting her attempt without struggles.
“I’M NOT BRANT!” I screamed and reached out. Shoved both hands into her chest, having a moment of adolescent pleasure at the forbidden feel of female breasts, even if they were attached to an old woman. She fell, stumbling, her hand leaving my shoulder and waving wildly on its way down.
I moved closer, sitting on her stomach, like how Rowdy Roddy Piper had done to Hogan on TV a few weeks earlier. The move worked well, she struggled and yelled but went nowhere. Hulk had done an athletic spring jump that had thrown Roddy off and across the ring, but she only squirmed underneath me like an overanxious dog.
“Brant!” she yelled, hitting my chest and using the voice that my mother did when she was really serious about something.
“I’M NOT BRANT!” I swung with a fist, the way my father taught me, in our garage, against his baseball glove, my thumb safe, my wrist strong. Saw her head snap, her yells stopping as her hands flew up to protect her face, swing after swing breaking easily through the fluttering of her hands, her voice becoming a river of sobs, finally quieting by the time my hands tired.
My father had been clear in his teachings. You only allowed someone to push you to a certain point, then you pushed back. Stood up for yourself, first with your words, then your fists if the words weren’t effective. I had used his words against this liar. Asserted myself clearly before using violence.
The fists. I had enjoyed using the fists. I looked at the still woman beneath me and almost hoped she called me Brant again. Crawling off of her, I looked at my hands, ignoring the moan from behind me. I have blood on my hands. Someone else’s blood. A first for me. I brushed them off on my pants, realizing too late, that my mother would be upset by the streaks of red against the tan fabric. Then I head for the door, certain that somewhere nearby there will be a TV. And I had almost two hours to watch before my mother would be here to pick me up.
I climbed the unfamiliar set of stairs and smiled, certain my father would be proud.
Chapter 63
Brant finishes the story, torment ripping vulnerability through his eyes and for a moment I think he’s going to cry. Break in front of me. I grip his hand, bring it to my mouth. “Brant, it wasn’t you. You know that.”
“What I just saw… where I just went… that was me. Me peering into another world that makes no rhyme or reason. I did that. I hit her over and over, like she was an object, a game. My mother…” His voice drops and his hand comes up, pinches the skin between his eyes. “My mother came home and found me on the couch, watching television, eating popcorn, with fuckin’ blood on my hands.” He lets out a hiss. “I remember that. Like it was me, even though it wasn’t. Why am I suddenly remembering that? After twenty-seven years of nothing.”
“Do you know Lee? Remember anythin
g of him?” I am almost scared of the answer. Of Brant’s reaction to Lee’s memories.
He shakes his head. “No. I have… nothing, Lana. One memory, that’s it. That’s enough. After that, I don’t want any more.”
I squeeze his hand and release it. “Let’s go inside. Stop thinking for a bit and let me baby you.”
Anna has earned every bit of her salary. We walk into a house that smells of food and home, the staff fading into unobtrusive corners upon our arrival. Brant sits down at the kitchen table, silence falling over the room as he puts away a crabmeat omelet and two waffles. He avoids my eyes, his stare on the food before him. When he finishes, he stands with a quiet cough, wiping his mouth with a linen napkin. “Please tell Christine thank you for the breakfast.”
“I will. Anna drew a bath if you’d like one.”
“I think I’ll take a shower instead.”
Any thought I have of settling into hot bubbles with him disappears. I nod, smile. “Of course.”
Suddenly strangers, two lovers awkward in their own home. I don’t know what to say to him and he seems embarrassed, all over a fact I have known for two years. I want to hug him. I want to pull out his fears and lay them to rest. Kiss him and tell him I will always love him. But he steps, moves, speaks—all with a cloud around him, one that screams ‘Don’t touch!’. I stay in place and watch him head for the bedroom.
As I reach for his plate, Anna scurries around the corner. “Let me get those, Ms. Fairmont.”
“Thank you.” I drop my hand. “Did you reach the doctor?”
“Yes, she’ll be here within the hour.”
“Can you show her to the master suite when she arrives?”
“Certainly.”
“Thank you.” Having no more purpose in the kitchen, I walk to the bedroom, easing open the door quietly before stepping inside. The lights are off, the only illumination the dawn, dim over the Pacific. Behind me, the crackle of the fire takes the chill out of the air. I enter the bathroom, check to see that towels are heating, my eyes pulling to the fogged glass of the shower.