Jar of Hearts

by Jennifer Hillier

  She clicks on the profile. It’s private, no information shared publicly, but it’s got to be him. She sends a friend request, and then decides maybe it would help to add a personal message as well. Before she can finish thinking of what to say, a notification pops up.

  You are now friends with Dominic Kent.

  And a second later, she gets a message in her in-box.

  Hi! Wow. U found me. So cool.

  Geo writes back.

  Hello, Dominic. I’ve read your letters. Thank you for writing to me. I’m sorry it’s taken so long to get in touch.

  Dominic: That’s OK, I totally get it. So ur out of Hazelwood?

  Geo: Yes. Finally.

  Dominic: How was it? Prison, I mean? Sorry, so many questions, LOL.

  Geo smiles. That’s okay. Happy to tell you whatever you want to know. Are you in Seattle? I would like to speak to you, and it’s rather urgent. I’m happy to come to you, or we can meet any place you like.

  A full minute passes. Geo’s heart is beating wildly. Just because he wrote her letters while she was incarcerated doesn’t mean he’s ready to meet in person. The agreement she made with the Kents eighteen years ago was that it would be up to Dominic to decide when he was ready, and that any invitation to meet would have to come from him.

  Then again, the agreement they had was that they would love and take care of him. So fuck them.

  Of course the easiest path would have been to tell Kaiser about Dominic and have him track down her son to warn him about Calvin. But that wouldn’t be right. It has to come from her.

  Dominic finally responds. Is today too soon? I can come there, I have a truck. Do u have family pictures? Is ur father around? Would be good to meet him, too.

  Of course he would want to meet Walt. The adoption agency—or maybe it was the Kents, when he was little—must have told him about Geo’s family, that her mother had passed away, because Dominic wasn’t asking to meet his grandmother.

  Geo: He’s at work until 6, but you’re welcome to stay for dinner and meet him when he gets home. I’m at 425 Briar Crescent. It’s the house I grew up in, so there are plenty of family photos to look at.

  Dominic: I can be there in an hour. Can’t wait to meet u.

  Geo: Perfect. See you soon.

  * * *

  She prepares as if she’s getting ready for a first date with a man she’s really excited to spend time with, which is, after all, what this is. She takes a fast shower, blow dries her hair, puts on a little makeup in an effort to look polished but not overdone. She throws on a pair of leggings and a cute sweater she forgot she had. She bustles around the kitchen, applying dry rub to the pork roast she had originally planned to make for Cat. It takes about four hours to cook, so best to start now if they want to eat at a reasonable hour. There’s a bottle of midpriced red wine in the pantry, and she starts to reach for it, only to catch herself and shake her head at her silliness. He’s only eighteen, for Christ’s sake. He can’t drink, and even if he does, she’s his mother. She can’t offer him alcohol.

  Oh god, she’s his mother. The nervousness hits her then, and she goes to the living room to sit down, trying to quell her anxiety.

  Will he like her? Will he hate her? He sounded friendly enough over Facebook. Articulate, too, from their short conversation.

  An old white Isuzu pickup truck drives down the street, pulling to a complete stop at the curb outside the house. He’s here. The police officer assigned to protect Geo immediately steps out of his vehicle, and Geo opens the front door.

  “It’s fine,” she calls out to the officer, heart pounding. “I’m expecting him. He’s family.”

  The officer nods, lifting a hand to acknowledge her, and gets back into the car.

  She’s about to meet her son.

  She waits on the porch with the door open behind her as the driver of the Isuzu slowly gets out of his truck. Hesitant at first, he starts up the driveway toward her, and Geo’s hand flies up to her mouth when she sees him up close. She takes a giant step backward, almost tripping over the threshold, unprepared.

  The man walking toward her is Calvin James.

  31

  It’s not Calvin. Of course it isn’t. But there’s no mistaking the physical similarities, the six-foot height, the same dark hair combed up and off the face, James Dean style. He’s even lean and muscled like Calvin was, and the contours of his arms are visible under the thin hoodie he’s wearing.

  The only thing missing is Calvin’s swagger, the ability to own a room the minute he steps into it. Dominic doesn’t have it—his smile is shy, and he seems nervous, too. But he’s still a teenager; the confidence may come in time.

  “Hi,” Geo says, and the word comes out in one long, breathy syllable, making her sound like a Valley girl. Hiiiiiii.

  “Hello. Thanks for inviting me over.” Dominic’s voice is deep, identical in tone to Calvin’s, which also catches her off guard. But Calvin had a lazy way of speaking, and in contrast his son speaks a bit faster, with more precision. More like Walt. “There’s a police car outside. Everything okay?”

  She’s flustered, but he seems to be as well, and they exchange awkward smiles. “Everything’s fine,” she says. “Don’t worry about it, he won’t bother us. Please, come in.”

  The fall day is crisp and a gust of chilled wind follows him through the door as he steps inside. Dominic looks around, notes her socked feet, and removes his shoes, placing them neatly off to the side. He catches her staring again, but he seems okay with it.

  “We have the same eyes,” he says.

  He’s right. They do. Dark, slightly almond shaped. She smiles. “Can I get you something?”

  He shakes his head. “I’m good. I was early so I stopped at the 7-Eleven down the street and downed a Big Gulp.”

  “That was the 7-Eleven where I—” She swallows, stopping in time. She was about to say where I met your dad, but he doesn’t know who his father is yet. It’s not right to spring details like that on him before he’s ready.

  He waits politely for her to finish what she was going to say, and when she doesn’t, he looks around again. She’s wringing her hands, and forces herself to stop, gesturing instead toward the living room.

  “There are pictures on the mantel,” she says. “Go and look.”

  He nods and walks into the living room. She trails behind, noting that he really does move like his father. It’s interesting to see how some things are truly genetic—things like posture and gait. He’s all Calvin, head-to-toe, with maybe a tiny sprinkle of Walt.

  Dominic picks up the photo of her mother and father on their wedding day, and a small smile passes his lips. Geo sees it, and something happens to her heart. A melting and swelling, at exactly the same time. That’s her smile. Her thoughtful one.

  After all this time, she thinks, I’ve never not loved you.

  “Your parents?” he asks. If he notices the look on her face, he doesn’t say anything.

  “Yes, your grandparents. Walter and Grace Shaw.”

  “I know a little bit about them from the file,” he says, setting the picture back in its place. He sits down on the chair closest to the fireplace and stretches his legs. “When I turned eighteen, I wrote to the adoption agency, asked them for whatever information they could give me. They said I had access to everything and sent me a file. It didn’t say much more than what I already knew about you, except it had yours and your parents’ names in it. I googled, didn’t find much on them, but the local library had an archive of the newspaper obituary from when your mother passed away. It had her picture. She was thirty-three when she died, right? You look so much like her.”

  Geo smiles. “I know. As I got older, I used to freak my father out. My voice started sounding like hers. He came home from work one day when I was visiting from college—I hadn’t told him I was coming home. I was in the kitchen making dinner and I turned around and he was standing there, white as a ghost. He thought I was her. I now know how he feels—”
She catches herself again, stops.

  “Can we talk about him?” Dominic says. “My father, I mean. I feel like he’s the elephant in the room.”

  Geo takes a breath. How will she find the words? But she has to. Somehow, she has to. “Of course we can.”

  “I know who he is,” he says.

  Geo never named Calvin on the birth certificate. She certainly didn’t tell the Kents. And while she never specifically told her father about Calvin, he finally put it together during the trial, as the timing fit.

  “I did a little investigating,” Dominic says. “My mother told me when I was maybe eleven or twelve what your name was. Dad was long gone by then, had remarried, and his wife had given birth to their second kid. And my mom was drinking. She drank a lot. Not in the early days, but after they got divorced.”

  “I’m sorry,” Geo whispers.

  “We were living in Vancouver at the time, had been there for a couple years already. Mom got a job at one of the universities, and her parents were there. She wanted to live closer to them after the divorce. It was why my dad agreed to sign over custody of me. She couldn’t move me to Canada without his consent, but apparently he didn’t feel too bad about it. Was kind of relieved to be done with me, from what I hear. I barely saw him, anyway.”

  “I’m sorry,” Geo says again. The matter-of-fact way that her son was speaking about all this also reminded her of herself, and it hurt her. She knew that the more unemotional he sounded, the more painful it actually was.

  “I’m not,” he says. “People change. They say you don’t love adopted children any differently than biological children, but I know for a fact that’s not true. I remember visiting Dad and Lindsay, his new wife, right after they had their first baby. A boy. I overheard Dad in the nursery, through the baby monitor. He was trying to get Holden to go to sleep, and when he finally did, Lindsay said, ‘Is this like when Dominic was born?’ and Dad said, ‘No, this is better.’”

  Geo winces. “Oh god. He should never have said that. And you should never have heard it. Not every adoptive parent feels that way.” Just the ones I picked for you, apparently.

  Dominic shrugs. “Anyway, when my mom told me your name a couple years later, I looked you up, found your mother’s obituary from way back. And later, I found a bunch of other stuff. By that time, you were testifying at a murder trial.”

  Geo closes her eyes. “Yes, that’s right.”

  “The article I read said that you and the accused used to be boyfriend and girlfriend. When you were in high school, when you were sixteen. I did the math. And then I saw his picture. We look a lot alike.”

  The understatement of the century. “Yes. You do.”

  “So he is, right?” Dominic says. “The Sweetbay Strangler is my father?”

  She wishes to god that he hadn’t used the nickname. She’s horrified he even knows it. And though her son already knows the answer, it’s clear from the way he’s looking at her that he needs her to confirm it. Because she’s the only person in the world who can. “Yes. Calvin James is your father.”

  Dominic doesn’t move, doesn’t react. His eyes grow distant, and for a moment he’s somewhere else, thinking about something else. The life he might have had, perhaps?

  “Did you kill her?” he asks.

  “What?” Geo blinks.

  “Angela Wong,” Dominic says. “I followed the trial. You signed a plea deal. But did you kill her? A lot of people think you did, and that you got off easy.”

  Again, he says it with no trace of emotion, no judgment. There’s only one way to answer, which is truthfully. After everything he’s been through, the life he’s led, and his goddamn genetics, the least she can do is answer his questions as honestly as she can.

  “I didn’t kill her,” she said. “But I helped Calvin cover it up. And then I lied. To the cops, to her parents, to my father, to our friends, to everyone.”

  “And you got away with it for a long time.”

  “I…” Geo wants him to understand. “I honestly expected to be caught. I thought they’d figure it out. But somehow, nobody did. Year after year, nobody did, until fourteen years passed.”

  “Why didn’t you turn yourself in? If you didn’t kill her, and you were only sixteen, why not come clean? You were practically a kid. I bet nothing would have happened to you.”

  Geo slumps. Obviously she expected they were going to talk about this, but she didn’t expect the conversation to be so hard, for Dominic to be so purposeful in his quest for information. She desperately wants to give him an answer that makes sense to him, but she isn’t sure that it’s possible, since she’s not sure it makes sense to her.

  “I think I justified it by telling myself it wouldn’t bring Angela back,” she finally says. “That she knew I loved her, and I was sorry and never meant for any of it to happen. I was very, very drunk that night, which I know doesn’t excuse anything, but I was, and if I hadn’t been, I might have been able to save her. But I didn’t, and she died. And her family…” Closing her eyes, Geo takes a deep breath. “They suffered because of me. They spent years wondering what happened to her, making themselves sick over it, and all that time I could have given them answers. I didn’t, and then fourteen years later, when the truth came out, they had new, fresh grief to deal with.”

  “Covering up her death was a mistake,” Dominic says. “Even if you killed her, that might have been forgivable. But lying about it for so long? Moving on with your life, while her parents suffered, wondering what happened to their kid? I mean, that’s a character issue. That’s really the part that makes you a terrible person.”

  He says it with no trace of humor or irony or bullshit. They are simply words, strung together in a specific way, and they cut deeper than any knife or blade could have. And there is no way to defend herself. He is absolutely right. Her son, only eighteen, has pegged her in one breath. Because she is a terrible person.

  “Yes,” she whispers.

  “I know now where I get it from.” Dominic cracks his knuckles, glancing over at the mantel where the family pictures are once again. “Between my biological parents and my adoptive parents, there was really no hope for me, was there? Nori and Mark never really loved me, I don’t think.”

  “But they did,” Geo says. She knows she sounds desperate, but she wants him to have something good, something positive, to hold on to. “I saw their faces the day you were born. They were over the moon with joy.”

  “No, you saw her face,” Dominic spat. “My mother told me all about that day. She was thrilled, but he looked like he was going to throw up.”

  Shit. That was true. Geo’s mind flashes back to Mark Kent’s face, how pale he looked, as if he couldn’t believe this had actually happened, his eyes roving from side to side as if seeking an escape route. She hadn’t really noticed at the time. Or had she?

  “My mother was always honest with me,” he continues. “Maybe too honest, you know? Like maybe she should have filtered some things, because as a kid there were certain things that I probably didn’t need to know. She told me the real reason they adopted me. They had been together since college, and Dad was getting bored. He’d already cheated on her a bunch of times. She thought a baby would fix things, that if they had a family, he wouldn’t go anywhere, but she couldn’t get pregnant. She had ovarian issues.” He said the last two words in a voice dripping with condescension. “So they started the adoption process. She didn’t really expect to get a baby out of it—they were young, not much money, had bought their first house. She thought maybe the experience would bring them closer together, prove to Mark how bad she felt that she couldn’t give him kids of his own.”

  “I didn’t know all of that,” Geo says, blinking away hot tears. It’s getting worse and worse, and she hadn’t even told him the worst thing of all yet. “I really didn’t. They looked so in love. Totally committed.”

  “I guess you saw what you wanted to see.”

  She hangs her head. Again, he was righ
t. She had interviewed several couples before the Kents, couples who were older, had been together longer, had tried for a baby much harder. Why hadn’t she picked one of them?

  Because she has terrible fucking judgment. About everything. All the time. That’s why.

  “Anyway, she died,” Dominic says, the matter-of-fact tone back in his voice. “The last boyfriend, the one who was abusing me, was an alcoholic. They were coming back from dinner, he’d had too much to drink as usual, and he crashed the car into the side of a building. Do you know that fucker is still alive? She died instantly, the airbags didn’t deploy properly on her side. But he’s alive and living somewhere in Idaho. He’s a paraplegic, but whatever.”

  “I’m so sorry.” Geo can’t seem to stop saying it. She’s full-out crying now, and she wipes the tears away furiously. “Dominic, I’m sorry. I never wanted this for you—”

  “Then what did you want?” her son asks her. His gaze doesn’t waver. His face is open, his dark eyes alight with what appears to be genuine curiosity. “I’d really like to know that, Georgina. What did you want? What did you think, getting pregnant at sixteen by a murderer—”

  “I didn’t want—”

  “There had to have been signs,” Dominic says, oblivious to her reaction. “Warning signs, red flags, whatever you call it. Early on. Was my father—Calvin, not the other deadbeat—controlling? Was he violent? Did he ever hit you?”

  Geo is shaking. She can’t answer, because she can’t speak. But of course she has to answer these questions, because she has to tell him about Calvin. About the monster Dominic’s father truly is.

  “He did, didn’t he?” Dominic says this with wonder. “He hurt you. And you stayed anyway. You had sex with him, anyway. That shit turn you on?”

  “It wasn’t sex, it was—” For the third and final time, Geo catches herself, stops. But it’s too late.

  “It was rape.” Dominic finishes the sentence for her. The words hang in the air for a moment, and he then throws his head back and laughs. It’s a deep, guttural sound, from a place of pain, not amusement. “Holy fuck. This shit keeps getting better and better.”