by A. J. Finn
It’s all super-mysterious, Alex had gloated. Now I know. A little affair. Nothing special. I wonder if it was worth it.
“Right after we moved in, my mom went back to Boston to take care of some stuff. And to get away from my dad, I think. And then he went up. They left me alone, just for the night. They’d done it before. And she showed up.”
“Your birth mother?”
“Yes.”
“What’s her name?”
He sniffles. Swipes at his nose. “Katie.”
“And she came to your house.”
“Yeah.” Another sniffle.
“When? Exactly?”
“I don’t remember.” Shaking his head. “No, wait—it was Halloween.”
The night I met her.
“She told me she was . . . ‘clean,’” he says, pinching the word like it’s a wet towel. “She wasn’t doing drugs anymore.”
I nod.
“She said she’d read about my dad’s transfer online and found out we were moving to New York. So she followed us here. And she was waiting to decide what to do when my parents left for Boston.” He pauses, scratches one hand with the other.
“And what happened then?”
“And then . . .” His eyes are shut now. “Then she came to the house.”
“And you spoke to her?”
“Yeah. I let her in.”
“This was Halloween?”
“Yeah. During the day.”
“I met her that afternoon,” I say.
He nods into his lap. “She went to get a photo album at her hotel. She wanted to show me some old pictures. Baby pictures and stuff. And then on her way back to the house she saw you.”
I think of her arms around my waist, her hair brushing my cheek. “But she introduced herself to me as your mother. Your—as Jane Russell.”
Again he nods.
“You knew this.”
“Yeah.”
“Why? Why would she tell me she was someone she wasn’t?”
Finally he looks at me. “She said she didn’t. She said that you called her by my mom’s name, and she couldn’t think of an excuse fast enough. She wasn’t supposed to be there, remember.” He gestures around the room. “She wasn’t supposed to be here.” Pauses, scratching his hand again. “Plus I think she liked pretending she was—you know. My mom.”
A crack of thunder, as though the sky is breaking. We both start.
After a moment I press him. “So what happened next? After she helped me?”
He turns his gaze to his fingers. “She came back to the house and we talked some more. About what I was like as a baby. About what she’d been doing since she gave me up. She showed me photos.”
“And then?”
“She left.”
“She went back to her hotel?”
Another shake of the head, slower.
“Where did she go?”
“Well, I didn’t know then.”
My stomach twinges. “Where did she go?”
Again he lifts his eyes to me. “She went here.”
The tick of the clock.
“What do you mean?”
“She met that guy who lives downstairs. Or used to live.”
I stare. “David?”
Now a nod.
I think of the morning after Halloween, how I’d heard water pushing through the pipes as David and I examined the dead rat. I think of the earring on his bedside table. It belonged to a lady named Katherine. Katie.
“She was in my basement,” I say.
“I didn’t know until after,” he insists.
“How long was she here?”
“Until . . .” His voice shrivels in his throat.
“Until what?”
Now he knots his fingers. “She came back the day after Halloween and we talked a little, and I said I’d tell my parents that I wanted to see her, like, officially. Because I’m almost seventeen and when I’m eighteen I can do whatever I want. So the next day I called my mom and dad and told them.
“My dad blew up,” he continues. “Like, my mom was mad, but my dad was furious. He came straight back and wanted to know where she was, and when I wouldn’t tell him, he . . .” A tear rolls from his eye.
I place a hand on his shoulder. “Did he hit you?” I ask.
He nods soundlessly. We sit in silence.
Ethan pulls a breath from the air, then another. “I knew she was with you,” he says shakily. “I saw you over there”—he looks at the kitchen—“from my room. I finally told him. I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.” He’s crying now.
“Oh . . .” I say, my hand hovering over his back.
“I just had to get him away from me.”
“I understand.”
“I mean . . .” He drags a finger beneath his nose. “I saw that she’d left your house. So I knew he wouldn’t find her. That’s when he came over here.”
“Yes.”
“I was watching you. I was praying he wouldn’t get mad at you.”
“No, he didn’t.” I just wanted to know if you’d had any visitors this evening, he’d explained. And later: I was looking for my son, not my wife. Lies.
“Then right after he got back home, she . . . she showed up again. She didn’t know he was there already. He was supposed to come back the next day. She rang the doorbell and he made me answer it and invite her in. I was so scared.”
I say nothing, just listen.
“We tried to talk to him. Both of us did.”
“In your parlor,” I murmur.
He blinks. “Did you see?”
“I saw.” I remember them there, Ethan and Jane—Katie—on the love seat, Alistair in a chair across from them. Who knows what goes on in a family?
“It didn’t go very well.” His breath is choppy now. He hiccups. “Dad told her that if she ever came back, he would call the police and have her arrested for harassing us.”
I’m still thinking of that tableau in the window: child, father, “mother.” Who knows what goes on . . .
And then I recall something else.
“The next day . . .” I begin.
He nods, stares at the floor. His fingers writhe in his lap. “She came back. And Dad said he would kill her. He grabbed her throat.”
Silence. The words almost echo. He would kill her. He grabbed her throat. I remember Alistair pinning me to the wall, his hand gripping my neck.
“And she screamed.” I sound quiet.
“Yeah.”
“That’s when I called your house.”
He nods again.
“Why didn’t you tell me what was happening?”
“He was there. And I was scared,” he says, his voice rising, his cheeks wet. “I wanted to. I came here after she left.”
“I know. I know you did.”
“I tried.”
“I know.”
“And then my mom came back from Boston the next day.” He sniffles. “And so did she. Katie. That night. I think she thought Mom might be easier to talk to.” He plants his face in his palms, wipes.
“So what happened?”
He says nothing for a moment, merely looks at me out of the corner of his eye, almost suspicious.
“You really didn’t see?”
“No. I only saw your—I only saw her shouting at someone, and then I saw her with . . .” My hand flutters at my chest. “. . . with something in . . .” I trail off. “I didn’t see anyone else there.”
When he speaks again, his voice is lower, steadier. “They went upstairs to talk. My dad and my mom and her. I was in my room, but I could hear everything. My dad wanted to call the police. She—my—she kept saying that I was her son, and that we should be able to see each other, and that my parents shouldn’t stop us. And Mom was screaming at her, saying she’d make sure she never saw me again. And then everything got quiet. And a minute later I went downstairs and she was—”
His face crumples and he splutters, sobs bubbling deep in his chest and bursting at the
surface. He looks to the left, fidgets where he sits.
“She was on the floor. She’d stabbed her.” Now Ethan’s the one pointing at his chest. “With a letter opener.”
I nod, then stop. “Wait—who stabbed her?”
He chokes. “My mom.”
I stare.
“She said she didn’t want someone else to take me”—a hiccup—“take me away.” He sags forward, his hands making a visor over his brow. His shoulders jump and shake as he cries.
My mom. I had it wrong. I had it all wrong.
“She said she’d waited so long to have a child, and . . .”
I close my eyes.
“. . . and she said she wouldn’t let her hurt me again.”
I hear him weeping softly.
A minute passes, then another. I think of Jane, the real Jane; I think of that mother-lion instinct, the same impulse that possessed me in the gorge. She’d waited so long to have a child. She didn’t want someone else to take me.
When I open my eyes, his tears have subsided. Ethan is gasping now, as though he’s just sprinted. “She did it for me,” he says. “To protect me.”
Another minute passes.
He clears his throat. “They took her—they took her to our house upstate and buried her there.” He puts his hands in his lap.
“That’s where she is?” I say.
Deep, dense breaths. “Yes.”
“And what happened when the police came the next day to ask about it?”
“That was so scary,” he says. “I was in the kitchen, but I heard them talking in the living room. They said that someone had reported a disturbance the night before. My parents just denied it. And then when they found out it was you, they realized it was your word against theirs. Ours. No one else had seen her.”
“But David saw her. He spent . . .” I riffle through dates in my head. “Four nights with her.”
“We didn’t know that until after. When we went through her phone to see who she might have been talking to. And my dad said that no one was going to listen to a guy who lived in a basement, anyway. So it was them against you. And Dad said that you—” He stops.
“That I what?”
He swallows. “That you were unstable and you drank too much.”
I don’t respond. I can hear rain, a fusillade against the windows.
“We didn’t know about your family then.”
I close my eyes and begin to count. One. Two.
By three, Ethan is speaking again, his voice tight. “I feel like I’ve been keeping all these secrets from all these people. I can’t do it anymore.”
I open my eyes. In the dusk of the living room, in the fragile light of the lamp, he looks like an angel.
“We have to tell the police.”
Ethan bends forward, hugging his knees. Then he straightens up, looks at me for a moment, looks away.
“Ethan.”
“I know.” Barely audible.
A cry behind me. I twist in my seat. Punch sits behind us, head tilted to one side. He mews again.
“There he is.” Ethan reaches over the back of the sofa, but the cat pulls away. “I guess he doesn’t like me anymore,” says Ethan, softly.
“Look.” I clear my throat. “This is very, very serious. I’m going to call Detective Little and have him come here so that you can tell him what you’ve told me.”
“Can I tell them? First?”
I frown. “Tell who? Your—”
“My mom. And my dad.”
“No,” I say, shaking my head. “We—”
“Oh, please. Please.” His voice breaks like a dam.
“Ethan, we—”
“Please. Please.” Almost screaming now. I stare at him: His eyes are streaming, his skin is blotched. Half-wild with panic. Do I let him cry it out?
But already he’s talking again, a wet flood of words: “She did it for me.” His eyes are brimming. “She did it for me. I can’t—I can’t do that to her. After what she did for me.”
My breath is shallow. “I—”
“And won’t it be better for them if they turn themselves in?” he asks.
I consider this. Better for them, so better for him. Yet—
“They’ve been freaking out ever since it happened. They’re really going crazy.” His upper lip glistens—sweat and snot. He swipes at it. “My dad told my mom they should go to the police. They’ll listen to me.”
“I don’t—”
“They will.” Nodding firmly, breathing deeply. “If I say I talked to you and you’re going to tell the police if they don’t.”
“Are you sure . . .” That you can trust your mother? That Alistair won’t attack you? That neither one of them will come for me?
“Can you just wait to let me talk to them? I can’t— If I let the police come and get them now, I don’t . . .” His gaze travels to his hands. “I just can’t do that. I don’t know how I’d . . . live with myself.” His voice is swollen again. “Without giving them a chance first. To help themselves.” He can barely speak. “She’s my mother.”
He means Jane.
Nothing in my experience has prepared me for this. I think of Wesley, of what he’d advise. Think for yourself, Fox.
Can I let him go back to that house? To those people?
But could I doom him to lifelong regret? I know how it feels; I know the ceaseless ache, the constant drone of it. I don’t want him to feel that way.
“All right,” I say.
He blinks. “All right?”
“Yes. Tell them.”
He’s gawking now, as though in disbelief. After a moment he recovers. “Thank you.”
“Please be very careful.”
“I will.” He starts to stand.
“What are you going to say?”
He sits again, sighs wetly. “I guess—I’ll say that . . . you know. That you have evidence.” He nods. “I’ll tell the truth. I told you what happened, and you said we need to go to the police.” His voice quavers. “Before you do.” Rubbing his eyes. “What do you think will happen to them?”
I pause, pick my way through a response. “It’s . . . I think—the police will understand that your parents were being harassed, that she—that Katie was in effect stalking you. And was probably in violation of what was agreed when you were adopted.” He nods slowly. “And,” I add, “they’ll take into account that it happened during an argument.”
He chews his lip.
“It won’t be easy.”
His eyes drop. “No,” he breathes. Then he looks at me with such force that I shift where I sit. “Thank you.”
“Well, I . . .”
“Really.” He swallows. “Thank you.”
I nod. “You have your phone, right?”
He taps his coat pocket. “Yeah.”
“Call me if—just let me know that everything’s okay.”
“Okay.” He stands again; I stand with him. He turns toward the door.
“Ethan—”
He pivots.
“I need to know: your father.”
He watches me.
“Does he—did he come to my house at night?”
He frowns. “Yeah. Last night. I thought—”
“No, I mean last week.”
Ethan says nothing.
“Because I was told that I imagined something happening in your house, and now I know that I didn’t. And I was told that I had drawn a picture that I hadn’t drawn. And I want—I need to know who took that photograph of me. Because”—I hear my voice tremble—“I really don’t want it to have been me.”
A hush.
“I don’t know,” says Ethan. “How would he have gotten in?”
That I can’t answer.
We walk to the door together. As he reaches for the knob, I catch him in my arms, bring him close, hold him tight.
“Please be safe,” I whisper.
We stand there for a moment as rain spits on the windows and wind hisses outside.
&
nbsp; He steps away from me, smiles sadly. Then he leaves.
94
I part the blinds, watch him climb his front steps, jab the key into the lock. He opens the door; when it closes, he’s disappeared.
Was I right to let him go? Should we have warned Little first? Should we have summoned Alistair and Jane to my house?
Too late.
I gaze across the park, at the empty windows, the vacant rooms. Somewhere in the depths of that place, he’s talking to his parents, taking a claw hammer to their world. I feel as I did every day of Olivia’s life: Please be safe.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned in all my time working with children, if I could whittle those years down to a single revelation, it’s this: They are extraordinarily resilient. They can withstand neglect; they can survive abuse; they can endure, even thrive, where adults would collapse like umbrellas. My heart beats for Ethan. He’ll need that resilience. He must endure.
And what a story—what an evil story. I shiver as I return to the living room, switch off the lamp. That poor woman. That poor child.
And Jane. Not Alistair, but Jane.
A tear runs down my cheek. I touch my finger to it and it gloms onto the skin; I look at it, curious. Then I wipe my hand on my robe.
My eyelids sag. I walk up to my bedroom, to worry, to wait.
I stand at the window, scanning the house across the park. No signs of life.
I chew a thumbnail until it leaks blood.
I pace the room, walk circuits around the carpet.
I glance at my phone. Half an hour has crept by.
I need a distraction. I need to calm my nerves. Something familiar. Something soothing.
Shadow of a Doubt. Screenplay by Thornton Wilder, and Hitch’s personal favorite among his own films: a naive young woman learns that her hero isn’t who he pretends to be. “We just sort of go along and nothing happens,” she complains. “We’re in a terrible rut. We eat and sleep and that’s about all. We don’t even have any real conversations.” Until her Uncle Charlie pays a visit.
She remains oblivious a bit too long for my liking, frankly.
I watch it on my laptop, sucking at my wounded thumb. The cat wanders in after a few minutes, bounds into bed with me. I press his paw; he hisses.
As the story coils tighter, so too does something within me, some unease I can’t name. I wonder what’s happening across the park.
