Here Lies Daniel Tate

  I laughed.

  It took me a second to realize that’s what the sound had been. My mouth snapped shut. The girl was grinning.

  “What’s funny?” Lex asked as the barista handed her a latte.

  “Nothing,” I said.

  I looked back as we left the coffee shop, but the girl was concentrating on her laptop again.

  • • •

  Patrick came over for dinner that night. Jessica wasn’t in the house. No one but Mia seemed worried or curious about her absence, and she still wasn’t home when Lex convinced Patrick to stay the night, and everyone headed to bed. If I’d thought becoming Danny Tate would mean getting a more loving and attentive mother than the one I’d grown up with, I would have been disappointed, but I was relieved. I could play Lex like a fiddle, but Jessica made me uneasy. I didn’t get her, and I wasn’t good with mothers.

  I didn’t go to sleep when everyone else did. Instead, I sat on the floor of Danny’s room with everything Lex had bought me that morning spread out in front of me. It was all I needed to make a decent attempt at getting away from here. Clothes, including a new coat that would be warm enough even in Vancouver, and several good pairs of shoes to choose from. A laptop and a smartphone that would get me a nice chunk of cash at any pawn shop. The passport with Danny Tate’s name on it next to my picture. If I moved fast enough, flying back to Canada before the Tates realized I was gone and raised the alarm, I could use it to get across the border if I wanted.

  I had everything I needed to go.

  But, after more than an hour of staring at the supplies in front of me, I got up and started to put them away. Clothes hung in the closet, laptop plugged in on the desk, new toothbrush dropped into the cup by the sink in Danny’s bathroom. I was going to stay. If I was honest with myself, I had made the decision the night before as I floated in the pool and looked up at the sky. I was going to see the con through, take this chance to have a real life.

  I was going to become Danny Tate.

  I had a million rationales. Staying was actually, weirdly, the safer choice. Right now they believed I was Danny, with the possible exception of Nicholas. If I ran, they would all know I wasn’t. The power and wealth of the Tates had cut through government bureaucracy like a hot knife through butter to get me out of Canada, and that the same influence would be brought to bear on finding me and putting me in prison for impersonating their son. For years I’d relied on my ability to read people, and I was confident that if they started to suspect me, I would see it coming. There would be time for me to get away if I needed to. And in the meantime I’d live like a king.

  Because I’m just as good at lying to myself as lying to other people, I even believed those were my real reasons.

  I wasn’t sleepy, so I decided to go through the house again while everyone was asleep. I walked the upstairs halls, quizzing myself on what lay in the room behind each door, and then moved downstairs. I went through each cabinet and drawer in the kitchen, learning where the Tates kept the forks and cookie sheets and what kind of cereal they ate. I was in the fancy living room—the one no one ever seemed to use—going through the drawers in a side table when headlights swept across the windows.

  Jessica was home.

  Seconds later I jumped at a sudden loud noise from outside. A plastic crunch-pop and the yelp of a car horn.

  Shit. As quickly as I could on silent feet, I headed for the stairs. But I was too late. I heard a door open and close and the pounding of footsteps above my head, and I ducked back into the living room as Lex and Patrick came running down the stairs together.

  “Son of a bitch,” Patrick was saying as he headed for the front door.

  “She’s got to stop this or . . .” Lex’s reply was swallowed up by the night as she followed Patrick out of the house. I followed silently behind them, and, hidden by the shadows of the open doorway, looked out over the driveway. Jessica had driven her SUV up onto the lawn and into a concrete pillar that held a large planter overflowing with flowers. The front end of the vehicle was crumpled and steaming.

  “Mom?” Patrick called.

  Jessica wobbled out of the SUV.

  “I’m fine,” she said.

  “You’re not fine!” he snapped. She was obviously wasted.

  “Jesus, Mom,” Lex said. “You could have killed yourself!”

  Patrick stepped toward his mother, taking her arm as she stumbled. She tottered on sharp heels that sank into the grass, and tried to push him away.

  “What’s going on?”

  I spun. Nicholas was standing behind me. He was even stealthier than I was.

  “I . . .” I didn’t have a lie prepared for this. “I’m not . . .”

  He looked past me through the open door and sighed. “Great.”

  “I won’t . . . ,” Jessica was saying as Patrick maneuvered her back toward the house, and Lex climbed into the wrecked car to kill the engine. “I won’t go back.”

  “You should get upstairs,” Nicholas said to me. Then he stepped outside to help Patrick with their mother. She was crying now, mumbling words I couldn’t make out.

  I watched, transfixed, seeing ghosts of my own superimposed onto Jessica’s beauty queen face.

  Then I heard her say it.

  “He’s not my son,” she said, the words slurred but unmistakable.

  • • •

  My heart dropped like an anchor to the sea floor. This was it.

  • • •

  “Mom!” Patrick barked. “Stop it!”

  “He’s not my son!” Jessica said to Lex.

  Before the last word had died on the warm April air, the crack of Patrick’s hand meeting her face replaced it. Jessica reeled backward. He hadn’t hit her that hard—I could tell—but she took the blow like it was a fatal one and crumpled to the lawn. Lex screamed at Patrick, slamming her hands against his chest, and knelt beside their mother, who was now moaning on the grass. Nicholas turned and looked right at me.

  “You shut your mouth,” Patrick said as he towered over his fallen mother.

  Jessica looked up at him, then at Nicholas. She followed his gaze to me, standing in the doorway, and Lex and Patrick turned to look at me too. For a moment everything was frozen and silent, me staring at Jessica, them staring at me.

  Jessica looked down at the ground, her nails digging into the grass as she struggled to stand.

  “You’re not my son,” she said again, but when she raised her head, it wasn’t me she was looking at. She was looking at Patrick. Lex grabbed her arm and tried to help her up, but Jessica pushed her away. “You’re not my daughter. None of you are my children! A mother’s children wouldn’t treat her this way!”

  A painful shudder of relief went through me.

  “None of you are my children!” she sobbed.

  Patrick looked down at her as she struggled. His body cast a shadow over her face, obscuring her expression.

  “Don’t you ever say that again,” he said. Then he turned and walked back into the house, brushing past me on his way, leaving me cold in his wake.

  “Nicky,” Lex said after he was gone, waving Nicholas over. The two of them managed to get their arms under Jessica’s and helped her to her feet.

  “Everything’s okay, Danny,” Lex said brightly, sounding for all the world like she believed it. “Go on back to bed.”

  I returned to my room, closed the door behind me, and blocked the air-conditioning vent with a pile of books so I could try to get warm again.

  • • •

  From my bed I listened as Lex and Nicholas moved Jessica upstairs, and the water somewhere above me began to run. I was finally beginning to drift off, maybe an hour later, when there was a light knock at my door. It was so quiet I thought I had imagined it until the door opened a sliver, and I could see the glint of Mia’s night-light off Lex’s corn silk hair.

  “You asleep?” she whispered.

  “No.”

  “Can I come in?”

  I nodded, and
she stepped inside, closing the door behind her so that we were in the dark together. She sat on the edge of the bed while I propped myself up on the pillows.

  “I’m sorry you saw that,” she said in a low voice.

  “It’s okay,” I said.

  “No, it’s not.” She put a hand on my knee, though I could barely feel the touch through the thick comforter. “I hope she didn’t scare you with all that talk. She doesn’t mean it; it’s just what she says when she’s been drinking. You aren’t my kids, this isn’t my home, this isn’t my life. She’s . . . she’s a very unhappy woman sometimes.”

  I thought of my mother—the real one—and I nodded.

  “I think she’s been a little overwhelmed by everything,” Lex continued with a commendable flair for understatement. “But she’ll be okay. We’ll make sure of it. You don’t have to worry.”

  I tried to remember the fear I used to feel as a little boy when my mother disappeared for days at a time. Tried to let that scabbed over old feeling show on my face when I nodded.

  “And Patrick.” Lex shifted, uncomfortable. “He’s not . . . I mean, I want you to know that he’s not . . . a violent person. He would never hurt any of us, so you don’t have to be afraid of him. Okay?”

  I frowned, because it never would have occurred to me to be afraid of Patrick, as long as he didn’t find out who I really was. Then all bets were off, violent person or no.

  “I get it,” I said. “He was just protecting me.”

  “Yes.” She seized my words like a struggling swimmer grabs a life ring. “Yes, exactly. He’s not a bad person.”

  “Of course not,” I said, bemused.

  “Good.” She smiled and reached out to touch my face. At the last moment, though, she changed her mind. I don’t know if it was something I did or something that changed in her thoughts, but she ended up just tracing the air beside my cheek. Air molecules moving against my skin instead of hers.

  She drew back her hand and stood, looking down at me. “Good night, Danny,” she said, and left.

  • • •

  After Lex left, I got out of bed and went to the desk against the window, where I’d left my new laptop. I could tell I wouldn’t be able to sleep, and now was a good time to do something I’d been wanting to do for days.

  I opened the browser and did an Internet search for Daniel Tate.

  The top result came from the Center for Missing and Exploited Children, the place I’d first discovered Daniel. The second result was the news article from two days after his disappearance that I’d printed off that same night and read after sneaking back to bed. Nothing to learn there.

  The third result was an AP story about my return, complete with a photograph taken at the airport, which thankfully showed little more than the brim of my hat and part of my jawline. “Missing child Daniel Tate, subject of the recent LA Magazine article that revived public interest in his case, has been reunited with his family . . .”

  I typed in a new search.

  Daniel Tate LA Magazine

  Up came the article—“Two Thousand Days Later: The Disappearance of Daniel Tate”—a detailed examination of the case on the sixth anniversary of the last day Danny was seen. It was published just over three weeks ago.

  The door to my room cracked open, and I slammed the laptop shut.

  “Danny?” Mia poked her head into my room.

  “Hey,” I whispered. “You okay?”

  “I’m thirsty,” she said.

  “Isn’t there a cup in your bathroom?”

  “I don’t like that water,” she said. “Magda used to leave me a glass of water from the kitchen, but Lex forgot. Will you come downstairs with me? It’s dark.”

  What I wanted to do was retroactively remember to lock my bedroom door, but then I thought about being a little kid creeping alone through the darkness, not sure what dangers were lurking there, and what a difference having a hand to hold would have made to me. Suddenly, I saw the gap-toothed boy in the T-ball uniform standing in front of me instead of Mia, and I smiled at him.

  “Sure,” I said. “Let’s go.”

  • • •

  The next day, and the next and the next, all passed the same way. Breakfast, shower, fine new clothes on my back that felt too nice for a day of just hanging around the house. I’d watch the others go off to school while I stayed behind with Lex hovering over me all day. I kept waiting for my interview with the police to come, bracing for it every morning when I came downstairs for breakfast, but whatever Patrick was saying or doing to put them off was obviously working. That left me with nothing to do but kill time with Lex. We spent hours together watching TV on the couch in the non-fancy living room. She filled me in on her favorite soaps—Harrison was secretly in love with Savannah, Lucinda was cheating on Jack with Mateo, Clark had been the one to sabotage the breaks on Sabine’s car—and I began to understand why she still hadn’t graduated college. I couldn’t totally blame her though. The soaps were weirdly addictive, and I liked watching them with her, the two of us passing back and forth a bowl of popcorn that Lex had added extra melted butter to.

  I read the article in LA Magazine about Danny’s disappearance. It was like a bad pulp novel, the story of senseless tragedy fracturing the glamorous, idyllic façade of Hidden Hills. It was heavy on details like what kind of shoes Jessica had worn for the press conference and light on facts, but judging by the hundreds of comments people had left on it, it had struck a chord. No wonder the paps had shown up to the airport.

  I had two phone calls with Robert Tate from the minimum security prison upstate where he was due to spend the next eighteen months. He cried for most of the first one. We were actually able to talk during the second, and he swallowed my story as easily as everyone else had. I promised I would visit soon.

  I barely saw Jessica. She rarely left her room, and when she did, it was just to get into her rental and drive away. I had no idea where she went, and no one else seemed to either. Weirder, none of them seemed to care.

  One morning after everyone else had left, Lex went down to the basement and came back with the family photo albums and a handful of home videos.

  “I don’t want to push you,” she said, “but I thought these might help you start to remember more. Want to have a look?”

  I nodded. The amnesia act would deflect suspicion for only so long; I needed to start learning this stuff if I was going to make everyone believe I was truly Danny.

  Lex flipped through the book, naming everyone and narrating the events the pictures captured. Every now and then she’d look at me and say, “Ring any bells?” or “Do you recognize this?” I would say something noncommittal, and she never pushed. It was exactly what I needed. The more cousins’ names I could commit to memory, the more birthday parties I witnessed via Sharpie-labeled DVDs, the more I could start to become Daniel Tate. Lex made me a crunchy peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch, and I ate it happily, even though I didn’t care for peanut butter. This had been Danny’s favorite, and now it would be mine. To tell a good lie, part of you has to believe it’s true. With each piece of his past and each day spent under this roof, with this family, I could feel Danny growing inside of me. He was the parasite and I was just the host. Eventually, he would take over until I was only the skin he wore.

  It was all I’d ever wanted. To finally bury the boy from Saskatchewan who had mattered to no one and become something else. Something better.

  But it was a slow process, and the days were long in that house. I wasn’t used to my every movement being watched, to having to weigh every word and action so carefully. When I was in care, all I had to do was keep my mouth shut and everyone ignored me. It was a totally different story here. Lex never left me alone during the day, Mia clung to me when she got home from school, and I feared making even the smallest misstep in front of Nicholas, who was standoffish, if not downright suspicious of me.

  “Adam Sherman messaged me on Facebook to ask about you,” he said one day
at lunch. “I can give you his e-mail if you want to talk to him.”

  I blinked. “You mean Andrew?” Andrew Sherman, I’d learned from Patrick and Lex, had been Danny’s best friend and had moved away several years ago.

  “Oh, right,” he said vaguely. “Want his e-mail?”

  It could have been an honest mistake, but I wouldn’t have put money on it. At least if it was a test, I’d passed.

  The only time I had to myself was when I went to bed, which I did increasingly early just so I could escape the eyes for a little while. I wasn’t made for this. I was used to being invisible, and I’d never realized before how much freedom there was in that.

  On my twelfth day at the Tates’, I finally snapped. Lex had been following me from room to room all morning, never more than five feet away from me, asking every ten minutes if there was anything she could get or do for me. Nicholas looked up at me from his computer every time I moved or breathed. But the last straw was Mia. I usually didn’t mind being around her as much because there was no chance of her doubting me, but she’d developed a habit of climbing up next to me anytime I sat down, her overly warm, sticky hands clinging to me like she was trying to absorb every lost moment with Danny through her skin. It was stifling. Like the walls were closing in on me, the big bright rooms of the Tate mansion getting smaller and darker around me, trapping me in a tiny room, a closet, a coffin.

  I disentangled myself from her and got up, intending to go to the bathroom in the hallway to catch my breath. But my feet just kept walking, taking me out the front door, down the driveway, and onto the street. I walked and walked in a kind of frenzy, sweat beading on my forehead and stinging my eyes. My muscles burned from following the swells of the hills, but I could breathe. The walls I’d felt pressing in on me had fallen away. No one was looking at me. No one was expecting anything of me.

  At the gate, a security guard asked me if I was Daniel Tate, that my sister had called down and asked them to look out for me. I said no and kept walking.

  What I learned pretty quickly was that people in California don’t walk. I wanted to disappear, but instead, everyone was staring at me from their cars.