“Does it matter?”
“Where this is concerned, yes,” Colin said, “it matters.”
“I want an address.”
“No.”
“You’re my attorney!”
“No, I’m your best friend. But your attorney would tell you part of the agreement was sealing their contact information, probably to avoid this very situation. Shelly Cointreau, previously from Algiers. That’s all you’ll ever get, Charles. I’m sorry.”
“If this was your child, you wouldn’t be so flip about it, Colin.”
“It wouldn’t be my child, because I don’t get wasted and have sex with strangers at parties.”
Charles cracked his knuckles. “If you were anyone else…”
Colin rolled his eyes. “You’d what?”
Charles eased back a bit. “Since you’re not my attorney, as you said, you can help me.”
Colin shook his head. “It doesn’t work like that. The files are redacted. I couldn’t get her address even if I wanted to. Her mother mentioned moving up north somewhere, New England I think, and she was going to change her name and give Shelly her maiden name. I don’t know her maiden name, and I suspect Cointreau wasn’t a real name, either, truth be told. They don’t want to be found.”
“That’s a start.”
“It’s a dead end.”
“Why aren’t you on my side?”
Colin paused before answering. “Did you ever stop to think that when I’m telling you what you don’t want to hear, that this is when I am most on your side?”
“I don’t even know what you just said.”
“I know you’re pissed at your mother,” Colin said. He slowed his words, something he reserved for when he was especially trying to get his point across. “I know you’re thinking about a child out there that shares your DNA and maybe looks like you. I would be, too.”
Charles pounded the rest of his beer and ordered another.
“But sometimes…. Sometimes life works out the way it’s supposed to. Maybe Shelly is better off. And maybe you are too, Charles.”
“Better off?” Charles repeated the words with a scowl, like poison in his mouth. “How could my child be better off with someone else?”
“Her mother. That someone else is her mother.”
“And she has more right to our daughter than I do?”
“Legally, yeah, she probably will.”
“Legally, this won’t even make it to court because all the judges are in my pocket.”
Colin exhaled. He signaled for the check. “This is going nowhere. I’d encourage you to think, really think, about this. About whether you really want this. I’m sure a decent private detective could get ahold of enough of a paper trail of records to find them, but then what?” He dropped a ten on the slip of paper.
“Where the fuck do you think you’re going?”
Colin smiled for the first time in their conversation. “There’s this girl.”
“A girl! Since when?”
His friend checked his watch. “We met a couple weeks ago at a fundraiser for heart disease. My mother dragged me along, and… I gotta go. I’m gonna be late in meeting her. I’ll introduce you to her soon, I promise.”
“You fucking better!” Charles exclaimed. He couldn’t believe it. Colin Sullivan had a girlfriend. Finally. “What’s her name?” he called after him.
Colin threw his blazer over one shoulder and grinned. “Catherine. Catherine Connelly. But she goes by Cat.”
Seventeen
Through the Chasm
Maureen spent a lot of her time wondering what would finally, ultimately be what broke the Deschanels. With each and every new scandal or drama, she’d think, ah, this, this is what will finally push us all through the chasm. Instead, each thing just peeled one more finger from the edge.
There weren’t many fingers left.
Nineteen seventy had been one hell of a year.
She moved about her first year in high school with a level of disinterest impressive even for her. Maureen had never enjoyed school, and her goals didn’t require her to be much of a student—trophy wife was an IQ-agnostic job. With the dangling promise of a life with Peter now shattered, though, she’d determined to at least try to pass her classes. Unlike that drama queen Madeline, Maureen accepted a diploma was something one must get regardless of one’s aspirations, unless one wished to be branded a failure. And with no backup plan to her dream of being Mrs. Evers, Maureen possessed a pragmatism, however mild, that would have impressed even Colleen.
It was this general understanding of what was required of her that prompted Maureen to start thinking more about how she could accomplish this. There was no way, no how, she could get through high school with the ghost of Peter Evers brooding over her shoulder with his pathetic, “Why, Maureen?” every few minutes.
“You know why!” she snapped today. Maureen had managed not to respond to his pitiful recitations throughout all of fall, but coming into Christmas, her patience was so thin she could snap it with a sneeze. Between Madeline’s stunt at the drug house—which now meant everyone had to walk on eggshells around the little princess, lest she run off with yet another drug dealer—Colleen’s extreme bitchiness, Evangeline’s attention grabs by not ever coming out of her room, and Elizabeth yet again having to switch schools, she’d had about enough.
Peter’s sad, vacant eyes implored her. “Why, Maureen?”
“Because you can’t fuck a fourteen-year-old without consequences, you old creeper!” she cried out, and really, truly, she would’ve never said such a thing if she’d remembered she was in the middle of Health class.
Oops.
Worse, even, than her mother having to come get her at school was the realization that what she said to Mr. Evers was true. She even believed it now. He was a creeper. What kind of man turns to a child for what he should be getting from a woman? Maureen couldn’t fault him for cheating on his wife. She obviously wasn’t giving him what he needed if he’d turned elsewhere. But with a child? Maureen was no ordinary child, clearly, if she could attract the eyes of a mature man, but this was less about her charms and more about a sickness within him.
She wondered often if her slow acceptance of this fact was her way of trying to live with what Charles did. What Colleen and Augustus helped to cover up. His death was tied to her fractured relationship to almost half her family, and over time, the sting had softened, but the bonds remained fractured.
It wasn’t as if she was ever close to any of them, but now she felt apart in a more profound way. Apart with a capital A-P-A-R-T.
Maureen was doing well at neither family nor school, and in a rare moment of wisdom, decided that to achieve her goals she needed to improve at both.
After twenty of her classmates observed her outburst to a ghost, she wasn’t sure she should go back. She had an idea, though Mama wouldn’t like it.
“You can’t leave, Sweet Maureen.”
“Hell’s bells, Daddy!” She clutched her chest. She’d been sitting alone in her room, working up the courage to have the conversation with her mother. They were the only ones home, after Maureen’s mid-day field trip home.
“If you leave, I can’t come with you.”
Oh? In that case, I’ll go today! “I know, Daddy.” Her brief spurt of anger faded to sadness at the idea. She hated that she could see him. She missed him so much that she craved these moments. Madness, further and further into madness. The point of no return was coming.
“You’re my only connection to this world, my sweet girl. If I could have seen the future and known… I might have let the healers heal me. Your mother needs me. I see that now.”
Maureen rolled her eyes. She spat her gum at the canister in the corner and missed. The white wad hit the floor and settled next to the baseboard heater. “A little too late, dontcha think?”
“We’re always too late when it matters,” he said, sighing. “I know why you want to go. But this family cannot be divided. Who you
are is a secret to the rest of the world, but not each other.”
“Might as well be a secret here, for all we’re allowed to talk about it!”
August hung his head. “I failed to adequately prepare your mother to handle this alone.”
“Ya think, Dick Tracy?”
“I may be dead, but don’t you mouth off to me, Maureen.”
“Sorry.” She wanted to laugh. Apologizing to a ghost. Yelling at a ghost. She talked to ghosts more than the living!
“Your mother needs you. Madeline needs you. Colleen needs you.”
“Colleen needs no one but her own damn self.”
“That’s not true and you know it.”
Maureen twisted her mouth into a pout. “They might need me more if they realized what it was like to miss me,” she said and hopped off the bed. “Here goes nothing.”
* * *
It was over before she could get the remainder of the sentence out.
“Boarding school? Have you lost your mind?”
Yes. “Mama, I hate it there! I need a new start. Somewhere I can focus and not be distracted.” She stood behind her mother in the kitchen.
“Distracted by what? Boys? They have those in boarding school, too, you know.”
If only she knew. Boys. Maureen had only known men. “Not boys, Mama. Everything else.”
“Everything else isn’t very specific, Maureen.” She dropped her dust rag. Leaned over the kitchen sink, eyes trained out the window. “What makes you think leaving here will make you less distracted?”
Maureen had never had the urge to tell her mother about her terrible ability until now. But she couldn’t, not now or ever. “I don’t know, I just do.”
“Not good enough,” replied Irish Colleen, who returned to dusting the ledge behind the sink. Dismissed.
“So is you saying no without even thinking about it!” Maureen cried.
Irish Colleen’s arms went stiff as she gripped the sink. She made no sigh, but Maureen felt it just the same. “I’m not sending you away just because you want a new adventure. And, with everything that’s happened, it’s important we all stay close. Together, as a family.”
Maureen slammed her fist into the wood hutch. A massive wall of pain nearly blinded her. The damn thing was oak. “Don’t punish us all just because Madeline is a drug-addled whore!”
The words were out, and she wished she could take them back. She didn’t even mean them. Madeline was a lot of things, but not those things.
“Maureen… Amelia… Deschanel.”
They both turned at the sound of a cry in the hall. Irish Colleen blew past Maureen, knocking her aside, as she went after the sobbing Madeline.
“She didn’t mean it, Maddy! Your sister didn’t mean it!”
“I did,” Maureen lied, crying herself now. It was a mess, all of it. All of them. A mess with no cure. Apologies were weak bandages.
Upstairs, a door slammed. She was used to the sound now and didn’t even jump. Doors slamming was a pretty regular occurrence in the Deschanel house these days.
Irish Colleen’s soft features were a mix of hardness and hatred. “You go apologize to her, Maureen. I don’t care if you mean it. You tell Madeline you’re sorry, and that you love her, or I will… I will…”
She didn’t finish.
* * *
Madeline resisted the urge to flee to her brother’s room, to tell him what happened. He would comfort her, of course. He’d been more than good on his word to protect her, and Irish Colleen had fallen in line, too. Whatever she really thought, she hid it well and treated Madeline with a softness she’d never known from her mother. She wished only that she knew if this was real, or her fears manifested through a series of programmed motions.
She’d lived up to her part. Her grades weren’t going to get her on any lists, but they were enough. Enough was all she’d promised, and she couldn’t let Augustus down. Not now.
Five months. That’s all she had to survive. Five months, and she’d walk down that aisle in her cap and gown, collect that worthless piece of paper that meant so much to her dearest brother, and then he’d send her to D.C. She hadn’t told him that’s where she wanted to go, but she’d already decided. He was going to dip into the trust fund money that all Deschanels collected at twenty-one, but had access to earlier if in college, and she would pay him back every last cent when she turned twenty-one. Whatever Augustus did for her, she would do back, a hundredfold.
Mostly, she would make him proud. Her letters home would ease his heart and show him that a life of activism was not only as good as a career, but better. He would see how happy she was, and… at peace.
She just had to make it to May.
Madeline had promised to graduate. She hadn’t promised anything about how she’d get there.
She dialed the numbers on the rotary phone in the hall.
* * *
Charles sat on the couch. His hands ached from being cuffed. For once, he was glad not to be high, because he was not the slickest about hiding it. Not that he ever bothered to practice. Who would do anything about it?
Except the police, who were parked in his living room.
Red and blue lights colored the night sky outside. Two in the morning, and the neighborhood was lit up like the Christmas tree of law enforcement. No doubt the neighbors were pissed to high hell. Fuck ’em.
The rest of the room was about as far from the Norman Rockwell Christmas painting as a family could get.
Madeline, red faced and huddled under Augustus’ coat in the corner.
Irish Colleen, hair still in rollers, alternating between under-breath curses and full-on Irish outbursts.
Colleen and Augustus, standing sentry on either side of the room, arms both crossed, like mirror-imaged dark angels.
The youngest three had been banished upstairs, but he knew good and well they were crowded near the bannister, straining to hear. It was what he would have done.
The ambulance pulled away moments ago. Inside was Madeline’s boyfriend—or drug dealer, Charles didn’t fucking know, but he was twice her age, and that was not something he’d abide under any moniker—who used to have a decent face but now wore hamburger in its place. As they strapped him to the gurney, Irish Colleen demanded he apologize. He laughed instead.
He was not the least bit sorry for knocking the dog shit out of that piece of ass like the rented mule he was. Coming around here when Madeline was trying to pull her life together.
Fuck. That.
“Let’s start from the beginning, Charles.”
“Mr. Deschanel,” Charles corrected. “We’re not friends.”
The officer in charge swung his head as if to say, Have it your way. “Mr. Deschanel, let’s start from the beginning.”
“Officer, it’s very late,” Irish Colleen said, voice heavy. “My children are very tired. Can we do this tomorrow? I’ll bring him down first thing.”
“We can do this here or at the station, Mrs. Deschanel, but we’re doing it tonight. That man just left in an ambulance.”
She waved her hand and buried her sniffling nose in a monogrammed handkerchief.
Augustus and Colleen exchanged looks across the room. Augustus heaved forward in disgust and stepped between the officers and Charles.
“We’re done here. Charles was defending himself. We’re paying the hospital bills for Bill, or whatever his name is. Good?”
Both officers nodded and put their notebooks back in their shirt pocket. They apologized to Irish Colleen, and then to the rest of the family, and finally un-cuffed Charles before excusing themselves.
The sound of their radios trailing into the night was all that could be heard in the Deschanel living room.
Augustus stormed off in disgust. Madeline started after him, but Colleen held a hand up.
“He’s not mad at you, Maddy. He’s mad at me.”
“Why did you make him do that?” Madeline sobbed. “He thinks you all only love him for what he can do for y
ou! Don’t you know that?”
“Stuff and nonsense,” Irish Colleen said. Her voice skittered with light sobs. “We all do what we have to do to protect the family.”
“Is that what you call this?” She gestured around the dysfunctional scene. “Who’s gonna protect us from ourselves?”
“Oh, shut the fuck up,” Charles boomed. He shot to his feet. His wrists were jelly. “Madeline, you of all people have some real nerve pointing fingers.”
“Charles,” Colleen cautioned.
“You’re not Mother Theresa, Colleen. You’re not Mother Anyone, last time I checked.”
“Billy wasn’t hurting anyone, Huck. But you can’t handle anyone having fun that you haven’t approved!” Madeline shrugged off the jacket and launched herself at him. “And you can use that ‘you of all people’ line on yourself next, brother. We all know you did something terrible last summer, and Augustus saved your ass.”
“What?” Irish Colleen whipped her head around.
“Nothing, Mama,” Charles hissed with a hard look at Madeline. “I’m a goddamn mess, and that’s no secret, but ever wonder why all the drama in this household points back to you?”
“That’s not fair,” Madeline cried. “Or true.” She looked pleadingly at Colleen for help, but their sister’s gaze was fixed to her feet.
“Look at our mother!” He ran his hands over Irish Colleen’s hair, coiled in curlers. “Look at that gray! That’s you, Maddy! You! You stupid, ungrateful bitch, you are sending our mother to an early grave!”
Madeline fled the room in tears.
Irish Colleen ripped the pins from her hair, one by one, and threw them at her son. “You! Don’t! Speak! For! Me!”
Soon, she was gone, too.
“You shouldn’t have said that,” Colleen said. She rolled his hands over in hers, passing her healing to him. The broken skin fused back together. The redness ebbed. How many times had she healed his indiscretions? “You really shouldn’t have said that.”
The Seven Boxed Set Page 18
