How to Bury Your Brother

by Lindsey Rogers Cook

  “I like to think so.” He leaned back in his chair and crossed his legs.

  “Call the prison and get all his records sent to me.”

  “Speaking as a friend”—he crossed his legs the other way—“are you sure that’s wise? He would have gotten in touch with you if he wanted to.”

  His words stung, but his arrogance pissed her off. In that moment, she hated him, even more than when he had assumed she wanted to talk about a divorce.

  “I’m forty-two years old,” she snapped. “I can decide for myself and my family what is a good idea and what isn’t.” It felt good to say this to someone in her bitchiest voice. Like the welling of satisfaction that day at the playground when Rob had dragged Tommy back to apologize to her after he killed her snake. The way Edward looked at her, though, made her think in his mind, they weren’t talking about Rob anymore.

  “I’ll get the stuff sent to you.” He took a deep breath, then checked his watch again. “I really have to go now.” He stood and ushered her to the lobby.

  “Wait, one more thing: Jamie mentioned he gave a loan to my mother. I need you to look and see if she cut him any checks after my father died and let me know how much. I want to make sure Jamie got what he needed.”

  Edward grabbed her hand to shake it and then, upon second thought, patted it twice with his other hand. She held the plastic water bottle the secretary had given her awkwardly with the other hand.

  “I’ll ask an associate to check right now. It will be okay. Everything will be taken care of.” He looked away from her and toward the waiting faces in the ugly chairs. “Mrs. Daily, nice to see you.”

  She stormed out, letting the ankle boots she had put on for this occasion slam as hard as possible onto the carpeted floors. Even if Edward had helped Rob, he was still a suit. The type of person Rob hated.

  When she returned to the car, she sat in the driver’s seat and opened the water bottle. She’d recycle it, at least. She sipped slowly, breathing in between sips.

  The bottle was only halfway empty when her phone rang, showing the number for Edward’s office.

  “Mrs. Wright?”

  It was a young woman, not Edward.

  “Yes?” Alice said. She took a gulp of the water bottle.

  “Glad to reach you. As requested by Mr. Davis, I’ve examined your mother’s accounts. The amount paid to Mr. James Tate comes to $223,000.”

  Alice choked on the water, coughing and beating her chest as she struggled to swallow.

  Her throat burned. “Are you sure? Couldn’t that be something from the will or something like that?”

  “This is in addition to the sum your father left for him in a trust. Is there anything else we can do for you today?”

  Alice hung up.

  She had never hired a private investigator and didn’t know how much they cost, but the contract with the PI had been for six months. The amount paid to Jamie was way over what she had imagined. What could the money be for? Something with the business? Then why wouldn’t her father have paid? Why would her mother have waited to pay Jamie until her father’s death? Was it possible that her mother had forgotten how much money she owed and paid too much? Surely, Jamie wouldn’t have accepted it.

  Riding her wave of anger from Edward’s office, she dialed Jamie.

  “Alice!” he answered. “How are you feeling today?”

  “I’m at Edward Davis’s office and—”

  “Oh, Edward! He did turn out to be such a gentleman, didn’t he?”

  “And I asked him to pull some numbers from Mama’s finances, so I could make sure that she paid you back.”

  She waited to see if he would jump in again, but the line was quiet.

  “And he told me how much she paid you.”

  More silence. Alice could hear barking in the background.

  “It’s much more than I…expected, for the private investigator.”

  He didn’t respond. So, he was going to force her to voice the question. She struggled to put it into words that didn’t sound accusatory: “It’s just… It’s weird…to me. I wondered… What was it for?”

  He took a long intake of breath.

  “Your mother didn’t want to give up. We paid that private investigator off and on until the day we found out Rob was dead. Several times we thought we were close, only to have him vanish again. Your mother kept up hope though. I’m not sure how much it totaled to”—Alice narrowed her eyes at that; she imagined Jamie had that number tattooed on the inside of his eyelids, with his terrible money-managing habits—“but paying thousands of dollars every year, essentially a salary some months, for more than twenty years, plus expenses, it adds up. And interest, which your mother insisted on, but I told her it wasn’t necessary. Your mother said over and over again, ‘Spare no expense.’ And believe me, this guy took that to heart.”

  “Why didn’t you say that when we talked before?”

  “I didn’t want to embarrass your mother. I imagine after Rob died, she wasn’t too proud that she spent so much with nothing to show for it. I don’t think she would have wanted you to know that she dipped into the family money, your inheritance, Caitlin’s college fund, money for her medical bills, things like that. Money you could use to…strike out on your own.”

  Alice froze.

  “I know I would have left What’s-Her-Face way earlier if I had the money.”

  Rebecca, Alice said in her mind. Your ex-wife’s name is Rebecca.

  He continued. “There’s a lot of other stuff she could have used that money for, you know?”

  The phone rang again in Alice’s hand and she jumped. She pulled her ear away as Jamie continued.

  “It’s Caitlin’s school on the other line. I’ve got to go.”

  “I’m with the dogs, so I can’t really talk more anyway. But call me back if you have anything else, and I’ll see you on Saturday.”

  She clicked over to the other line.

  It was an administrative assistant from the school. Could she come in today? Whenever she had time.

  “I’ll come right now,” Alice said.

  She thought about texting Caitlin and asking about the meeting, but Caitlin had already earned detention twice for texting. Besides, this was the fifth time the school had summoned Alice this year for some award or reading or some such. While she understood parents valued transparency, there was such a thing as overcommunicating, like the three meetings last year to discuss her daughter’s “special needs” and what kind of “support” she may need as one half of the school’s first gay couple. “Mom, there are like twenty others. We’re just the only ones who kiss in front of the General,” Caitlin had said with an eye roll. The General was the students’ nickname for the straitlaced ex-military principal, who was at least seventy-five.

  Alice decided to go straight to Hilltree High School.

  Chapter Nineteen

  An hour later, her ankle boots clicked on the high school’s linoleum floors as Alice made her way to the teenager slumped over the visitors’ desk.

  The shock that Edward knew he was Rob’s designated contact and the amount her mother had paid to search (unsuccessfully) for Rob didn’t occupy her mind, although that would have been enough to process. Her mind stuck on the feeling that everyone knew about her and Walker and the true state of their marriage, except for her and Walker. Edward even thought she came to his office because of an impending divorce.

  The teen at the counter didn’t look up as Alice wrote her information on the visitors’ sheet. She grasped the pen, but the letters on the page swirled. Divorce. She shook the word out of her head.

  The teen looked up to see what was taking so long and tapped twice on a red-flashing clock next to the paper to indicate the time and date.

  “Ah,” Alice mumbled. She copied the numbers next to her name. The teen spun the clipboard to
face himself, sending the tinging sound of metal on fake wood echoing off the scuffed floor and cement-block walls.

  Alice drummed her fingers on the desk as he typed her information into a computer. She replayed the glances from the other mothers on the sidelines at the soccer game last night. Was it a sense, or had Edward, Jamie, and the soccer moms actually seen Walker around town with Brittani?

  Money you could use to strike out on your own, Jamie had said. It seemed so…big. A blank slate that she wasn’t sure how to fill.

  She took the name tag from the teen and looked at the type, briefly confused at the block letters: ALICE TATE.

  “Oh, umm,” she began, about to say that her name was Alice Wright, not Alice Tate, but she didn’t want to admit she had written her maiden name by accident. “It’s fine.” He had already gone back to stealing glances at his phone. She proceeded to the administrative office, where the secretary told her that she wouldn’t be meeting with the General today, but with the new vice principal, Dr. Garcia. After a few minutes, a trim man in a baggy suit came out with his hand outstretched.

  “Ms. Tate,” he said, reading from her name tag.

  “Nice to meet you.” Alice shook his hand. “I’m Caitlin Wright’s mom.” Again, she decided not to correct him. What was one person thinking she was already divorced?

  They walked through a hall lined with gold-plated awards and framed pictures of the football team until they reached a small office at the end with a simple desk, a world away from Edward’s large mahogany bookshelves stuffed with leather spines.

  Dr. Garcia perched himself on the edge of his desk, while Alice sat in a rickety metal chair that seemed to have been plucked from a classroom. “I’m sure you’re wondering why I called you so suddenly today.”

  Alice readjusted in the chair, feeling the harsh plastic through her jeans. She looked up and nodded.

  “I got news this morning, not two hours ago, that Caitlin got the scholarship.” He smiled wide and stretched out his arms, as a magician would to reveal a disappearing rabbit.

  “I’m sorry? What scholarship?”

  “The Emerging Women Writers Scholarship, at NYU.”

  At the look of uncertainty on Alice’s face, Dr. Garcia’s demeanor changed.

  “Oh, my apologies. I thought…” He shifted his position on the desk. “The nominating form required a parent signature. Caitlin said she told you.”

  “What is it?”

  “The program is very prestigious. Students need to be nominated by the school districts themselves. Mrs. Lyons, the theater teacher, recommended Caitlin, and I met with her and decided to submit her name. Her application went to the top! Let me just…” He crossed over to his filing cabinet and leafed through files inside, extracting a stack of papers from one. He flipped to the last page and handed it to Alice. “Is this your signature? Alice…Wright?” he looked up at her, and his eyes flashed to her name tag.

  Alice glanced at the signature, written in little loops, but not in her handwriting. She reached up to massage her temple with her right hand. She could feel a visual migraine starting at the edges of her eyelids. She smiled up at him.

  “It is! Yes, I remember now. I just… My mother is very sick, and I’ve been a little scatterbrained recently. I’m sure you understand.”

  “Of course.” His smile returned. “I called you in to tell you the good news and because we want to honor Caitlin on Saturday during the first night of the play. We’d love her family to be there as well.”

  The oranges and greens marched across Alice’s eyelids.

  “Is something wrong?”

  Alice’s hand dropped from her temple. “No! I’m surprised, that’s all. With it being so…competitive, we knew the chances were slim. Her father and I had discussed her staying in-state.”

  As it had so many times the last few days, Jake’s name popped into Alice’s head. How much easier parenting with him would likely be. How proud he would probably be if his daughter had such high ambitions, how undisturbed he would be by her not wanting to live the same life as her parents. Living a different life from what you knew growing up was a goal Jake and Alice had shared, once upon a time.

  “This scholarship is full ride: tuition, room and board, some spending money, everything. It’s only given to the three most promising young female writers entering the creative writing program. We are very proud of her, as I’m sure you are too. We’d hate for…” He stopped talking and checked his watch. “Perfect,” he muttered. “May I show you something?”

  Alice followed him, still holding the application. “Sure.”

  As they exited the office, she jumped a little when the bell rang. Unlike in her own high school experience, when people easily overlooked her, hitting her shoulder and sending her a step back, these students parted like a sea for the adult with the name tag and Dr. Garcia, parted like they had for Rob when she’d walked with him through the hallways, as if he had an invisible aura of protection around him.

  Couples dropped their clasped hands and separated from embraces. A group of large boys clad in their letterman jackets whirled on their heels as if in a choreographed dance and turned down another hallway. Nerds huddled around a locker, peering at something inside, then turned toward Dr. Garcia and Alice and slammed the locker closed.

  The bell rang again as Dr. Garcia opened the door to the theater’s light booth. “Is it okay if we watch for a minute, Mrs. Lyons?”

  The theater teacher stood up from her chair. “I was about to go get a seat in the front row anyway.”

  Alice and the vice principal stood side by side in front of the glass screen high above the theater’s stage, watching the students in their performance-week frenzy. Caitlin cued a scene and the actors began. She weaved in and out of them, stopping to adjust their positioning. She jogged to the back of the theater, below the light booth, and yelled directions from the back. The students laughed together as they said their lines. After a few rounds of the scene, Caitlin asked them to go back to put on their costumes.

  Alone onstage, Caitlin said a line from memory. She jogged to the other end of the stage in Alice’s gray Converses, playing the part that answered and muttered the lines, scribbling a difference in blocking on a legal pad.

  As Alice watched, her cheeks flushed. She replayed the conversation with Caitlin yesterday at the Fur Vault and their conversations with Walker about NYU. Why hadn’t Caitlin told her? Alice couldn’t ignore the feeling that everyone knew something she didn’t—about Rob, about Walker, about her daughter.

  Alice broke her staring contest with the stage to look at Dr. Garcia, who watched her too closely. She worked to clear her face of clues and plaster on a smile. In situations like these, she missed Walker. If he were here, he would tell Dr. Garcia to mind his own business, all the while using a smile and tone that, for people who didn’t know Walker, convinced them he was on their side instead of against them. It had convinced her, too, at first.

  Alice opened her mouth to speak, but Dr. Garcia spoke first. “She’s extremely talented.”

  “She is.”

  “And she’s well-liked by the teachers and the students,” he said. Alice shut her mouth. “I have no doubt she’ll do well at NYU. I urge you and her father to give it some thought, and if you’d like to come back and talk more, I’m happy to.” He crossed to the door. “Shall we?”

  They walked the empty halls, back to the front of the school, and Dr. Garcia continued. “Mrs. Lyons says that Caitlin has a feeling for the audience and the stage that’s as natural as she’s ever seen. We think her performance of the poems she submitted for the scholarship really set her apart.”

  Alice half listened to him. As they walked, her eyes darted to the application still in her hands and her fake signature on the parental guardian line. Walker would explode if he knew about the forgery.

  “Now, I’m sorry to
excuse myself,” he said when they reached the door, “but we have a faculty meeting in a few minutes. We are so, so pleased about Caitlin’s success. She is such a treasure, but of course, you know that.”

  “Yes, she is,” Alice said, relieved for a remark she could easily agree with. “Thank you for your time.” She tried to hand the application back to Dr. Garcia, but he waved her away.

  “Feel free to keep that. We have copies. See you on Saturday.” He turned around and left.

  Alice hurried to her car, flipping the application back to the first page while she crossed the parking lot. She read, starting with her daughter’s name written in the messy handwriting that had earned her low grades in penmanship in elementary school and notes from the teacher about how Caitlin refused to correct her pencil grip. She had always been so stubborn. Like Walker. Like Rob.

  Alice looked up every few seconds to ensure she was still headed in the right direction. Her eyes bounced over the address, GPA information, and courses taken, until she flipped to the recommendations. She skimmed praises from teachers about Caitlin’s stage presence, intelligence, willingness to help others, and creativity. On the second-to-last page, Alice found it: the submitted work that set her apart for her “performance.”

  She got in her car and blasted the heat.

  “Little White Lies, A Poem by Caitlin Wright” and a URL were the only things on the otherwise blank page. Alice found her phone and punched in the URL, squinting to get the numbers correct at the end.

  A YouTube link for “Little White Lies,” posted a few months ago. Alice noticed the views first—367,261. This many people knew something she didn’t about her daughter.

  The video finished loading and started to play.

  Claps and whistles reverberated through the car’s small space. Caitlin stepped into the light wearing jeans and a simple black top Alice recognized from a back-to-school shopping trip the previous August. Someone yelled “Go, girl!” and a voice Alice thought belonged to Chelsea screamed “Cait-lin! Cait-lin!”