Listen to the Silence

by Marcia Muller

  7:10 P.M.

  I hung up the phone and heaved a huge sigh of relief. From across the family room of my father’s house in San Diego’s Mission Hills district John asked, “So how’s Ma?”

  “Sad. Subdued. But she still found plenty to bitch about.”

  “Let me guess: Why couldn’t Pa have a funeral, like a normal person? Why aren’t you staying with her and Melvin, instead of in this empty house? How come we’re letting Nancy make off with all his worldly goods?”

  “That, and more.” I joined John on the ratty sofa, picked up my glass of wine from where he’d set it on the end table.

  “So what’d you tell her?”

  “That Pa wasn’t a normal person, so he could hardly be laid to rest in a normal way. That I didn’t want to stay up in Rancho Bernardo because I’ve got things to do here. That Nancy deserves whatever’s left, for putting up with him.” Nancy Sullivan was the woman Pa had more or less lived with the past few years—both at her La Jolla condo and on the road in his Airstream trailer. He seldom visited the Mission Hills house, except to putter in the garage workshop where he’d died.

  “And Ma said?”

  “After that I tuned her out.”

  “She does have one point: Why stay here? This house is pretty depressing, with most of the furniture gone. Where’d you sleep last night? On this couch?”

  “Yes. It wasn’t so bad.” And I’d been able to indulge my grief in private.

  “Well, tonight you should try out my new sofa bed.”

  “Can’t. I want to get started sorting through the boxes in the garage, so I can go home Wednesday or Thursday. Last week I picked up a couple of important clients; I need to oversee the jobs.”

  “Hy can’t do that?”

  “He’s not really an administrator.” Hy was a partner in a corporate security firm, Renshaw & Kessell International. He specialized in hostage negotiation and other, more esoteric, skills.

  John got up and went to the kitchen for another beer. When he came back, I studied our reflections in the darkened glass door to the backyard. We were so different: he, blond and big-boned and snub-nosed; I, dark and slender with chiseled features that were a genetic throwback to my Shoshone great-grandmother. I was the only one of the five of us who had inherited Mary McCone’s Native American looks. No wonder I’d always felt like the odd duck in an already odd family.

  “The thing about Nancy getting Pa’s stuff,” John said. “That’s just Ma being sour-grapesy because he found somebody else after the divorce.”

  “Why? She found Melvin before they split.” Melvin Hunt owned a chain of coin-operated laundries, and Ma had met him while patronizing one of his establishments when her washing machine broke down.

  “I know, it’s not logical, but Ma’s not logical. Anyway, Charlene and Patsy already took the things they wanted when Pa moved in with Nancy. Joey doesn’t care, and all I wanted were Pa’s watch and service medals, which Nan gave me yesterday.” We’d visited her in the evening, found her being well cared for by her grown daughter. “Is there anything in particular you’d like?”

  I smiled wryly. “I’ve already got it—the dubious privilege of going through the stuff stored in the garage. Wonder why he specifically wanted me to handle that?”

  “He said you were the only one with enough brains and patience for the task.”

  “Thank you, Pa—I think.” I raised my glass and toasted the heavens.

  9:15 P.M.

  The garage was so crammed with boxes and bins and odds and ends of furniture that a car wouldn’t fit—a manifestation of the pack-rat condition I’d come to think of as McCone’s Syndrome—and the cleared area by Pa’s workbench wasn’t large enough to unpack things in. I went over there anyway, looked at the project he’d been working on when he died. A small box constructed of finely milled samples of exotic woods; the pieces were all cut, and it was almost finished. I’d glue the rest in place, and it would be what I’d take away to remember him by.

  First things first, though: the cartons. I carried several into the house and got started.

  Miscellaneous clothing and uniforms from his days as a chief petty officer in the Navy. Those I would give to Goodwill. Books, mostly adventure novels and thrillers. Donate to the library. More wood samples, broken and outdated tools, package upon package of corroded batteries, ammunition for guns he had no longer owned, half a dozen old cameras of the point-and-shoot variety, ancient packets of seeds and sacks of bulbs, hundreds of ballpoint pens, glue that had hardened in much-squeezed tubes, mason jars full of nails and screws, old road maps for damned near the entire United States and Canada, shelf brackets and hooks and braces, telephone cords and connectors, margarine tubs and lids—good God, hadn’t he ever gotten rid of anything? And what the hell was I supposed to do with it all?

  My eyes felt gritty and my head ached. I got up, fetched a couple more boxes from the garage, went to take some aspirin. Ten-fifty by the kitchen clock, and I’d scarcely made a dent in the accumulation. The contents of the next box would require careful sorting, too; it was labeled LEGAL PAPERS.

  Birth certificate, marriage certificate, divorce decree. Retirement papers from the Navy. Two old wills, pink slips on the Chevy Suburban and the Airstream trailer. Grant deed on the house to a corporation Charlene and Ricky had once formed; they’d bought it from him with the agreement he could live out his days here—their way of ensuring that he wouldn’t have to sell it and move when he and Ma got divorced. Funny, I hadn’t thought about what would happen to the house. I supposed Charlene had gotten it as part of her settlement with Ricky; she’d probably want to put it on the market.

  The idea of the place being sold didn’t bother me, as it once would have. It was no longer home in any sense. Home was the earthquake cottage I shared with two cats in San Francisco’s Glen Park district. It was Hy’s ranch in the high desert country near Tufa Lake. It was Touchstone, our joint property on the Mendocino Coast, where our dream house was rapidly nearing completion. Even my offices at Pier 24½ were more of a home than this empty shell of a place.

  The thought of those offices reminded me of the two new clients and my need to get back to San Francisco. I dug into the papers with renewed vigor. Passport. Expired Navy ID card. Old bank and savings-account statements. PG&E stock certificate. Small whole-life policy with Ma still listed as beneficiary. A folder containing report cards: mine. Why the hell had he kept them? Photocopies of my high school and college diplomas. I didn’t know he’d made them. U.S. Savings Stamps booklets in each of our names, none full. Folder with copies of our birth certificates and…

  What was this?

  Gerald A. Williams

  1131 Broadway

  San Diego, California

  555-1290

  Attorney for Petitioners

  SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA COUNTY OF SAN DIEGO

  In the matter of the Petition of: ) No. 21457

  ANDREW JOHN McCONE and KATHRYN SYLVIA McCONE, ) PETITION FOR ADOPTION

  Adopting Parents. ) (Independent)

  __________ )

  Petitioners allege:

  1. The name by which the minor who is the subject of this petition was registered at birth is BABY GIRL SMITH.

  2. The petitioners are husband and wife and reside in the County of San Diego, State of California, and desire to adopt BABY GIRL SMITH, the above-named minor child who was born in San Diego, California, on September 28, 1959. The petitioners are adult persons and more than ten years older than said minor.

  3. The parents entitled to sole custody of the child have placed the child directly with the petitioners for adoption and are prepared to consent to the child’s adoption by petitioners.

  4. The child is a proper subject for adoption. The petitioners’ home is suitable for the child and they are able to support and care properly for the child. The petitioners agree to treat the child in all respects as their own lawful child.

  5. Each petitioner hereby consents to the adoptio
n of the child by the other.

  WHEREFORE, petitioners pray that the Court adjudge the adoption of the child by petitioners, declaring that each petitioner and the child thenceforth shall sustain toward each other the legal relation of parent and child, and have all the rights and be subject to all the duties of that relation; and that the child be known as SHARON ELIZABETH McCONE.

  Dated: October 1, 1959.

  Attorney for Petitioner

  Shock washed over me like a flood of icy water. My hands started trembling as I gripped the photo-copied document.

  … desire to adopt BABY GIRL SMITH…

  … be known as SHARON ELIZABETH McCONE…

  Adopted?

  “Mama, Joey says I’m not his sister!”

  “Why? Why would he say a thing like that?”

  “Because I don’t look like him or John or the new baby.”

  “But you do look like your great-grandmother. Remember her?”

  “… No.”

  “Well, she was an Indian, a Shoshone. You inherited her looks.”

  “How come only me, and not the others?”

  “That kind of thing just happens. It makes you special. Always remember that.”

  “Pa, why did John call me a throwback?”

  “Because they’re studying genetics in his science class. The way it works, we all have these little bits of matter called genes that get passed on from our ancestors. They determine what you look like. You’re only one-eighth Indian, but you got more of your great-grandmother’s genes than is usual. A person like you is a throwback to an earlier generation.”

  “Is that good or bad?”

  “Shari, it’s one of the very best things you can be.”

  Lies.

  All of it—lies.

  Tuesday

  SEPTEMBER 5

  12:12 A.M.

  Rancho Bernardo, the adult community where my mother lived with her gentleman friend, Melvin Hunt, slept under a pale moon. When I was a child this land to the north of the city had been nothing but rolling hills inhabited by jackrabbits and coyotes; even after the spacious homes had spread across them, the nights here were eerily dark and quiet. But now the glow from the urban sprawl and the hum of the freeways told of a population out of control. Fear had invaded the consciousness of the residents, too; I drove Pa’s Suburban down deserted streets, past houses where placards bearing the logos of security firms were displayed.

  Ma and Melvin’s house was on a cul-de-sac. I parked haphazardly at the curb, ran up the flagstone walk, punched the bell. In minutes the outside light flashed on and Melvin peered through the door’s small window. He registered surprise and let me in.

  “Sharon! What’re you doing here? It’s after midnight.” As he spoke he tightened the belt of his plaid robe; his thick gray hair, usually groomed to perfection, stuck up in unruly peaks. His face was gaunt and he seemed much older than when I’d visited last spring.

  I said, “I need to talk with Ma.”

  “What’s wrong? Has somebody else—”

  “No, nothing like that. Please, will you tell her—”

  “Tell me what?” My mother stepped into the tiled entryway, clutching her pink velour robe at the neck. Her short blond hair was as crisply styled as if she were going to a dinner party, rather than rising to greet a midnight caller, and her face had a youthful tightness. Irrelevantly I wondered if she had discovered some method of siphoning off Melvin’s vitality.

  “Ma, we need to talk.”

  She came over and put a hand on my arm, peering anxiously at me. “Oh, you’re a lot more upset than you sounded on the phone!”

  I looked down at her hand. Nothing youthful about it, and the contrast with her face told me another secret Ma had kept from me: she’d had cosmetic surgery.

  “Yes, I’m upset,” I said. “We need to sit down and talk.” I looked pointedly at the living room.

  Ma nodded and asked Melvin, “Would you mind putting some coffee on, dear?”

  I said, “I don’t want any coffee.”

  “Well, I need some. Come with me.” She let go of my arm, went into the room, turned on lights.

  She’d redecorated since last spring, in rose and lilac and cream, everything coordinated and in its place. Nothing at all like the mismatched but comfortable clutter of the house where I grew up. As I sat on the sofa and watched her curl up in the chair across from me, I realized this was not the mother I remembered. The woman who had loved to concoct huge meals in her kitchen and to dig barehanded in her vegetable garden had vanished; in her place was a somewhat brittle lady whom you’d expect to find lunching or playing a leisurely round of golf at the country club. She’d even streamlined her nickname, Katie, to the more sophisticated Kay. A deliberate and complete transformation for her new life, and now I wondered what had been so bad about the old one.

  “Sharon,” she said, “what’s got you in this state?”

  I set my bag on the coffee table and took out the copy of the petition for adoption. “This.”

  As I held it up, she squinted and frowned. Then she recognized it and paled. “Where did you get that?” she whispered.

  “It was in a box of legal papers in the garage. Pa told John that when he died he wanted me to go through the stuff.”

  An angry flush spread up Ma’s neck. “Oh, damn you, Andy! Look what you’ve done!”

  “He’s dead, Ma. You don’t have to get mad at him anymore.”

  “Don’t you see? He set it up so you’d find that. For years he wanted you to know, but he didn’t have the courage to tell you. So, as usual, he took the easy way out.”

  “Well, what about you? Weren’t you taking the easy way out by not telling me?” God, I hated the pathetic little-girl whine in my voice!

  She shook her head, put her fingertips to her lips.

  “Did you think you were protecting me? From what?”

  “Sharon, please, let it be. Destroy that document and forget you ever saw it.”

  “I can’t destroy it! I can’t forget. Who am I, Ma? Who was Baby Girl Smith?”

  “I can’t tell you that.”

  “Can’t, or won’t?”

  “… Both.”

  The hurt and anger I’d been holding in check broke loose. “Dammit, Ma, I need to know!”

  “I’m sorry, Sharon. There are things… you don’t understand.”

  “The only thing I do understand is that all those years, you and Pa lied to me: the story about me looking like Great-grandma; the nonsense about genetics. By your silence you lied to me every single day of my life! And you did it to protect yourselves.”

  “It isn’t lying to—”

  “Yes, it is. The one thing you managed to drum into my head with your good Catholic upbringing is that lying is wrong. Hell, according to the Church, it’s a sin. What did you do when you went to confession? Admit to the priest that you’d lied to your daughter over and over and over?”

  “Please, stop this!”

  “Did John and Joey know and lie to me too? And the relatives—were they in on the conspiracy? Just how many other people knew and covered up for you?”

  “Stop it!” She bowed her head, put her hands over her ears.

  I raised my voice. “You can’t block out what you don’t want to hear. Not when it’s the truth. And now that I’ve found out, I need to know who my parents were, why they gave me up, why you and Pa adopted me.”

  Melvin appeared in the archway, alarmed. I shook my head at him, motioned him off. He stayed where he was, eyes on my mother.

  She looked up, her face twisted in pain, and in spite of my rage I felt a rush of love and pity for her. But then her lips grew taut and I saw a familiar steely resolve creep into her eyes.

  “No, you do not need to know,” she said. “Baby Girl Smith ceased to exist four days after she was born. You are Sharon McCone. I am your mother. Andy was your father. We sheltered you, fed you, clothed you—and loved you. That should be enough.”

  “B
ut it’s not enough, not now! Ma, I love you; don’t push me away. Don’t hide the truth from me. And for God’s sake, don’t tell me any more lies.”

  “I love you too. In many ways, your father and I loved you more than our own children.”

  Our own children.

  I felt as if she’d slapped me.

  Ma realized how her words had sounded and flashed a horrified glance at Melvin, who still hovered in the archway. “Sharon, I didn’t mean—”

  “Yes, you did. You meant it.” I stood up.

  “Don’t go!” She started to get to her feet, but by then I was brushing past Melvin on my way to the door. As I opened it, I looked back at her; she made an imploring gesture with her hands, and when I didn’t respond, her gaze faltered and fell.

  It wasn’t till I was speeding down the freeway that I identified what I’d seen in Ma’s eyes during those final seconds.

  She was afraid.

  2:47 A.M.

  “I didn’t know!” John said.

  “You must have! Where did you think Ma got me? She wasn’t pregnant.”

  “Shar, I was eight years old—”

  “And you sure as hell knew where babies came from. Ma’s good Catholic friends got pregnant on a yearly basis.”

  We were standing toe to toe in the living room of his house in Lemon Grove, where I’d gone after driving all around San Diego in a near-blind fury. When I stormed in without knocking, he was hanging up the phone. Ma, he said. She’d called three times since I left Rancho Bernardo, giving him a bit more of the story in each conversation and finally begging him to find me and calm me down.

  Instead, he was only making me angrier. “Go ahead, why don’t you—lie some more! But this doesn’t lie.” I shook the petition for adoption under his nose.

  “Stop it!” He snatched the document from my hand and grabbed me by the shoulders, crumpling it. “You’re pissed at Ma, but she’s not here, so you’re taking it out on me. Just stop it.”

  I tried to pull away, but he held on fast, hurting me. His eyes were wild with frustration—fear, too. This was my brother, I loved him, except that he wasn’t really my brother, and my finding that document had turned us into strangers. Adversaries, maybe.

  My own fear welled up and spilled out in a rush of tears. John pulled me close and let me cry, stroking my hair, and after a bit I realized he was crying too. Some of my anger dissipated. I stepped back and regarded him while fumbling for a tissue. “Now, aren’t we a sorry sight,” I said.