Claribelle is also unfortunately on set today, but she brought her little girl. It’s only when that girl is around that Catherine’s face lights up.
It isn’t that I dislike Catherine. She just makes me uncomfortable. There’s something about how freely she embraces her sorrow. Not only that, but how it spreads around to everyone else. She stares at you with these imploringly eyes that say, Do you understand my pain now?
For me it’s just easier to speak with Jonathan. He’s a rugged man with a head full of snow-white hair. He has slightly droopy eyes that make him look perpetually sad but it’s his thin lips that are always set in a straight line that show he puts up with zero bullshit. He calls it like it is.
Weeks ago, we asked Jonathan to bring in some photos of Jackson throughout his life. I could’ve asked Catherine but I know what the answer would’ve been. A big fucking no. She probably has a shrine of every single thing he’s ever touched.
But Jonathan? He has a haggard, life has tried to beat me but I’ve won, look about him. I think that’s partially from being in the military for his whole career, but mostly from the cards life has dealt him. Either way, he was the person to ask. At first he was reluctant, until I told him how important it was for the viewers to see the other, softer side of his son.
He told me he’d think about it.
This morning when he came into the conference room he handed me a manila folder filled with photos of Jackson. Catherine had shot me a scathing look, like she couldn’t believe I’d go behind her back and ask such a question.
At the coffee station, I flipped through the photos. They were perfect. Pictures of Jackson’s first birthday. Jackson’s kindergarten photo. The awkward photos from middle school. Some prom photos. A handful of photos of him with Claribelle.
I close the folder and pat Jonathan on the back. “Thank you so much for these. We’ll take good care of them. In fact, during your interview we’ll go through these photos.”
He nods briefly. “How long will this interview take?”
“Not long. I will go through a string of questions, centered mostly around Jackson and—”
“And what happened,” he supplies.
“That’ll only be at the end,” I quickly explain so as to not to push him away.
Before he can reply, a makeup artist taps him on his shoulder and says, “Sir, we need to see you over there.” She points to behind the opened black curtains where Catherine is looking at her finished makeup. Jonathan looks at me with concern.
“Everyone wears makeup on camera. It’ll be just a bit of powder. That’s all,” I supply.
Jonathan relents, muttering things under his breath as he follows the makeup artist.
Catherine approaches me. “I picked out those photos you asked of Jackson.”
For a second, I’m stunned by her words. “Thank you for that,” I finally say.
“You didn’t have to go behind my back and ask my husband. This has been a brutal year but I can handle more than you know.”
That stops me in my tracks.
“I have to live with the tragedy that happened just like everyone else. I deal with both anger and sadness every day. And it’s agony,” she says, her voice wavering. But there’s strength in her eyes that I never quite expected.
“When we talk to you and your husband, show them you’re both a mom and a human being with feelings. It’s imperative the world sees that, Catherine.”
Thirty minutes later Catherine and Jonathan sit across from me. Everyone is perfectly still. The boom operator is standing close to the cameraman, ready to catch every word.
“How would you describe your son?” I ask.
Catherine sighs and her eyes take on a faraway look. “Jackson,” she says and then a burst of laughter spills from her mouth. “Jackson was Jackson. From the day he was born that kid was giving me a run for my money. Growing up he was so mischievous. He loved playing sports: soccer, basketball, and football. You name it.”
“Was he good?”
“He was amazing. But he was mostly interested in soccer. He could’ve gotten a scholarship to Millikin if he’d applied himself more.”
“So he didn’t do well in school?”
“If it didn’t interest him, he wanted nothing to do with it. And going to class was not interesting. He barely graduated high school and the minute he did, he got a job at Caterpillar.”
“Did that bother you?”
“Not really. It was a steady job and he seemed relatively happy.”
“Did he date a lot?”
“Of course. Jackson was quiet the catch. Growing up he brought home many girls for us to meet.”
“Did any relationship ever stick?”
Catherine smiles thinly. “Just one or two.”
I glance down at my notes. “When did he start writing?”
This time, Jonathan answers. “He’s been writing for as long as we can remember.” He looks to his wife. “When did he present us with his first novel?”
Suddenly, a bright smile graces Catherine’s face. She looks at the ground, deep in thought. “Seven or eight. He was so proud because he got to type it on the computer. It was only twelve pages long but he printed it out and made Jon and I copies.”
Jonathan and Catherine look at each other. Their smiles fade right along with the sweet memory of their son. Quickly, I glance at the questions in front of me.
“So you read his stories?”
“Only when he was a kid. As he got older he became protective over his work.”
“Did he ever mention the website JustWrite?”
“Just in passing,” Catherine replies. “He seemed excited to have a place to talk to other people that shared the same passion for writing.”
“And Selah Kerrington was one of those people.”
Catherine hesitates briefly. “Not at first. For a while I think they were just two people who read each other’s stories. It was later on that he started to become secretive.”
“Secretive how?”
“I’d ask more about this Selah but he’d be evasive. Tell me that they were only talking. He’d offer up no other details.”
“Did that bother you?”
Catherine thinks over her words carefully. “A mother is only as happy as her unhappiest child. He really struggled in his twenties but lately he seemed really happy. It was so refreshing to see. To me, that’s all that mattered.”
“Struggled how?”
“Unfortunately he started taking drugs. It really had a hold on him and put him in a dark place. For a long time I questioned if he’d ever be clean. It took him a while to finally pull away from that lifestyle.”
“How did you find out about Selah?”
“In early February. I remember he came home to visit and sat down at the kitchen table and said ‘I think I’ve met my match.’ I was so happy for him.”
“Did you ever get to meet her?”
“No.” Catherine adverts her eyes. “Everything happened so swiftly after that. We never got the chance…”
I KNOW I saw him.
I know it. Some people might say that it was a figment of my imagination, but he was a full-bodied, living, breathing male. And he was only just steps away from me.
And I swear when our eyes met a jolt slashed through me, from my fingertips to my toes. Right when I was getting answers to my most burning questions, I turned my gaze elsewhere and he was gone.
I realize that I should be furious at him. And I am. But more than anything, I just want an explanation as to why he left. Like anyone, I just want closure—a reason for his actions. At the diner he said there wasn’t enough time, which is ironic because that’s all I have. The clock keeps ticking away, threatening that I just might never find out the truth.
I start to pace my bedroom, fighting the urge to call Noah. He would know what to do. He always does. But even the kindest people have their limits and right now my thoughts are a fucking mess. Everything about me screams mess. I need
to get my shit together before I call him.
Over and over I pace the room until I’m convinced I’ve worn a trail onto the carpet. We’ll call it ‘the trail to insanity’ because that’s where I feel I’m heading.
“You didn’t make it up,” I say into the quiet room. “You saw him with your own two eyes.”
And that’s when I hear the automated voice.
“You’ve got mail.”
I pause and turn around slowly and look at my laptop sitting open on my bed.
“You’ve got mail.”
Pause.
“You’ve got mail.”
Pause.
“You’ve got mail.”
The phrase repeats itself until it’s all I can hear. I run over to the laptop and see all of Jackson’s e-mails being resent to me.
All the blood drains from my face; what the hell is happening?
Outside the wind picks up, sending hundreds of white flecks of snow against the windowpane. It’s freezing out but inside my blood is boiling. Nothing is making sense.
“No!” I shake my laptop in frustration. “What is happening?”
There’s no reason for this. I’ve heard of this sometimes occurring, but only with an an e-mail or two. Even then, it’s typically a glitch. Nothing to this extreme. No, this feels on purpose. It feels like someone, possibly Jackson himself, is resending every single e-mail just to get a rise out of me.
“You’ve got mail.”
This is all too much.
I cover my ears. “Stop it!” I scream. “Stop it! Stop it!”
And all of a sudden, it does. My ears are slightly ringing as I slowly lower my hands. They drop heavily to my sides. Except for the wind, it’s deathly quiet in the room. I take a deep breath. I approach the computer. My palms rest on the flat surface of the desk as I lean in and see that each e-mail is marked unread, as though this is the first time I’m seeing them.
It’s a ridiculous thing to do but I click on the first e-mail and read it.
To:
[email protected] From:
[email protected] February 2nd
2:27pm
Hello.
So innocuous. So simple.
But I remember impatiently looking for a job when that e-mail first showed up. And I remember deleting that e-mail.
“What the hell is going on?” I groan.
I slam my hand on the keyboard. I’m half tempted to rip the laptop off my bed and throw it against the wall.
Suddenly, out of nowhere, the printer kicks into action. When I hit the keyboard I must have hit the print button. Completely stunned, I listen to the steady thrum of the printer and see a page fall out of the dispenser, float to the ground, and softly land upside down. I bend down to pick it up and it’s then that I notice it. Something I’ve never seen before. It’s fleeting, like catching something out of the corner of your eye. But slowly the letters start to move around before they settle in their correct place: Jackvan.dois is Jackson Davis.
Of course. It makes sense now. If he had a double life, why wouldn’t he change his name? He wouldn’t want the two intermixing.
Ignoring the e-mail, I pull up a new window and Google his name
Seconds.
That’s all it takes for information to come up. There are multiple links, but all I see is the one from the Yellow Pages. The address is across the street, one that I know so well: Noah’s.
DON’T STOP NOW, little bird.
You are so, so close to the truth. You hold the key in your hands. The lock is only steps away.
I suppose I should be scared because everything is so close to becoming exposed. I don’t know how you’ll handle it. There’s a very good chance that you’ll crumble and never get back up.
But this is meant to happen.
All good things must come to an end.
Are you ready for the truth?
I know for damn sure that I am.
I’ve been waiting a long, long time fore this.
WHO KNEW THAT with all the secrets and confusion around me, he had the answers the whole time?
Slowly, I raise my head and look out into the hall. Before I leave the room, I grab the printed-out e-mail. My steps are slow and steady as I walk down the stairs. I skip putting on a coat and grab the first pair of shoes I can find. My heart is pounding, begging and pleading for me to hurry up. But something inside of me is growing numb. Something inside of me knows that what I uncover over there will destroy my whole world.
I walk outside, not even bothering to shut the door behind me. All around me the snow falls, making the street into a winter wonderland. Ice-cold wind bites into my skin, pushing my hair up and away from my face.
At this time of day, I’m sure he’s at work. Yet I still walk up the steps to Noah’s front door. I try the door and just as I expected it’s locked. But sweet, trusting Noah is probably like ninety nine percent of the people out there who keep a spare key somewhere near their front door. Since he doesn’t have any flower pots, I look under the doormat.
Bingo.
I hold up the silver key and shake my head as I break into Noah’s home.
There should be some part of me that feels a small amount of remorse for what I’m doing. But I’m so determined to find answers there’s no room for remorse. Somehow Noah’s intertwined in this, and I need to know why.
All the lights are off except for a lamp in the dining room. I creep forward, but pause when I hear footsteps. I sigh with relief when I see Duke standing in the doorway. He cocks his head to the side. His tail starts to wag slowly. I approach him with a small smile.
“Hi, Duke,” I whisper, which is ridiculous. No one is here.
He sits and cocks his head to the side, like he knows something is wrong with me being here and can’t figure out why. Seconds later he stands up, brushes past me and then walks to his pillow in the corner. So much for being a good watchdog.
Noah’s house is a bi-level. Almost an exact replica of ours, but completely different in one way: it’s virtually empty. Where Mom’s home is packed to the hilt with belongings, Noah’s house looks like no one is living in it. There’s a pop-up table in the dining room. The living room has a simple black leather couch and a flat-screen TV mounted to the wall. It looks like a man cave, only halfway decorated.
I move into the dining room. Besides the lone pop-up table, there are stacks of boxes lined up against the wall. His laptop is open on the table. A half-drunk cup of coffee sits next to it. I can picture him abruptly getting up from his seat and leaving the house to run a quick errand. Which allows me a small window of time to search through his things.
On the opposite wall from the stacked boxes is a massive dry erase board that you’d typically see in schools or conference rooms. On it was my family tree.
My name is written at the top in bold, block letters.
Beneath me is my family.
Dad, David Kerrington is to the left. To the right is Susan Kerrington. Birth: September 10th, 1963. And her death: March 6th, 2016.
Impossible.
Just seeing the words makes me almost collapse in the nearest seat.
I was right. This man is crazy. A stalker. He’s been watching me this entire time. How could I have let him dupe me like this? Anger makes a red haze appear in front of my eyes. If I had a gun and Noah walked in, I’d probably shoot his balls off.
“Calm down,” I say out loud. “You need answers.”
I need a lot of them. Starting with, how are Noah and Jackson connected? Why does he have a date of death listed for my mom?
My heartbeat echoes in my ears; it can’t be. She’s not dead.
Missing? Yes. But dead? No fucking way.
Sitting back in the seat I take a deep breath and press my palms against my eyes until white spots appear. When I open them back up, I look down at the table at a CD. On the plastic wrapping is a post-it note:
Noah,
Thought you might like to see how the taping has gone so fa
r. It airs in March.
Keep in touch.
-David.
My hands are shaking as I remove the CD and slide it into the CD port. It takes a few seconds for the laptop to download it. The screen turns black for a second and then a woman’s face appears. I move in closer and see that it’s the same woman who I saw driving Jackson’s car. She’s looking away from the camera but it’s obvious from her body language that she knows the spotlight is on her. I want to say she likes that, but there’s a slight tremor to her hands.
Someone snaps together a clapperboard and a man’s voice says, “Claribelle, how well did you know Selah Kerrington?”
My eyes are riveted to the screen. “I hardly knew Selah. I’d met her only twice.”
She looks away and you can tell that she can barely get my name out without feeling disgust. She tucks a strand of hair behind her right ear.
“And what are your thoughts about her?” the man continues.
Claribelle leans in and I find myself doing the same. “She’s an evil, manipulative bitch who can’t be trusted.”
I press pause.
This woman clearly knows me. But how? Other than the one time at Texas Roadhouse I’ve never spoken to her.
All the unanswered questions rushing through my brain are driving me crazy. I drag my hands through my hair and groan before I press play again.
Claribelle’s face cuts out, only to be replaced by Sam’s. Her face staring back at me gives me a jolt. How is she involved?
THERE ARE PEOPLE you interview that you enjoy, and then there are others who hold the missing puzzle piece.
They are the key that you desperately need to unlock the truth. Samantha Gulick is that key.
It took me five tries to get her to finally call me back. There was a brief second where I was convinced she’d reject my offer to be interviewed, because she wasn’t flattered like some. She saw this as a chore.