by Kim Savage
In the mirror, I see Momma’s face, blank with fear.
* * *
Sunday morning is impossibly bright, and the Lovecrafts sleep in, probably hungover, and I am hungover on my nightmare. Confessing murder agrees with you, on the other hand. When I stumble downstairs you sit at the table already pouring milk, showered, fully dressed, hair glossy in a high ponytail. Slade lurks around the edges, drinking coffee behind his newspaper, hangdog like he got railed at yesterday for leaving us cowering in the limo. Mr. and Mrs. Lovecraft stroll down the stairs, swatting each other with their bathrobe ties, giggling.
A glob of Honey Nut Cheerios gets stuck in my throat. I gulp milk and swallow hard.
You pour more cereal into your bowl. “So are you guys gonna tell Vivi the good news or make me wait some more?”
Mr. and Mrs. Lovecraft sweep into their seats. Mrs. Lovecraft pours coffee for herself and Mr. Lovecraft, and Slade looks increasingly uncomfortable, and they must have asked him to stay up.
“Mom?” you say, impatient.
“Yes, all right, Temple. Vivi, the news has to do with you. Actually, it’s more than one thing. First, we’ve decided you should go to the Parkman School next September. I know it will be strange at first, but we’re concerned you’re missing out on the social aspects of school. How do you feel about that?”
I feel like I just learned your daughter killed the real Vivienne Weir, so feeling strange is relative.
“Cool.”
“That’s hardly the only news,” Mr. Lovecraft says. “Clarissa?”
Mrs. Lovecraft sits next to me and holds my hand. “We’d like to formally adopt you. With your consent, the process will be initiated by our legal team starting tomorrow. Isn’t that wonderful?”
Over Mrs. Lovecraft’s shoulder, you raise your eyebrows.
* * *
By Monday morning, Slade is gone, replaced by Gerry, who is polite and has a beautiful accent and is deadly serious. Before Gerry came to the United States, he was a child soldier in the Lord’s Resistance Army under a Ugandan warlord. I don’t know the details of Gerry’s life beyond the fact that he escaped and was “rehabilitated” and came here, and if anyone wanted to compare our crappy childhoods, I’m betting Gerry wins, hands down.
Unlike Slade, Gerry rejects the idea of sleeping. As far as I can tell, he naps once every day, from four p.m. to six p.m., and requires no more. This allows Gerry to spend a lot of time watching me. I notice when I am being noticed. Gerry looks at me like he understands what being trapped is. This shouldn’t make sense, because on the surface, I am the luckiest girl in the world. (Spending money! Car services! Dinners in fancy restaurants!) People dependent on monsters know one another, whether those monsters live in Back Bay or in the bush. When things are quiet, he looks at me this way. The only way to call Gerry out on this is to get him alone, so I wait until Temple is fencing and make up an excuse to go for a walk to the Public Garden.
I start at a pretty good clip, heading down Commonwealth Avenue, crossing at Arlington Street and heading riverward toward Marlborough Street. Gerry walks six paces behind me. I stop and turn.
“Why don’t you just walk with me?” I yell.
Gerry stops and shakes his head. “This is where I walk.”
“Suit yourself. I don’t have a destination, you know. I’m just out here to think.”
“Your destination doesn’t concern me,” Gerry says.
The park on a Wednesday morning has some nannies with strollers and tourists, but it’s mostly empty in the way Boston clears out once the college students leave for the summer. I find a spot on a bench near the Ether Monument, a tall fountain-sculpture of a doctor holding a limp, nearly naked man and a cloth coated in ether, which is a pretty miraculous invention when you consider having your appendix out without it, for example. Anyway. I rarely look up at the naked guy: I prefer the carvings hidden under the arches below, especially the one I’m sitting in front of now, where an angel descends to an injured man.
“Neither shall there be any more pain,” I call to Gerry.
His eyes squeeze slightly, considering the inscription’s truth. Or doubting it.
I pat the bench next to me. “Come read it yourself.”
Gerry plants his feet. “I’ll stand here. For your safety.”
“You aren’t here for my safety. You’re here so I don’t run away.”
Gerry looks on passively. He will not reveal what he knows; he is good at this.
“Suit yourself,” I say.
The gurgling lion-faced fountains feed water to the basin. It’s a pleasant noise. Gerry is a pleasant—if awkwardly distant—companion, and it feels good to get away from you and my future adoptive parents for a while. It’s almost a relief to be with a stranger. To think. I try to make myself feel that Vivi is actually gone. My rational self says, Jo, you are safe now. No more worrying that the real Vivienne Weir might actually show up. I should be liking this more than I am. So why won’t the darkness lift?
I look toward Gerry and call out, “Is it hard?”
Gerry folds his arms tightly. It’s impossible to imagine him folding them any other way.
“Is what hard?”
“Is it hard to feel safe, after everything you’ve been through? When you were a kid?” I ask.
He looks out the sides of his eyes, as though someone is eavesdropping. Slowly, he walks toward me. Though his gaze fixes on the angel, he is seeing something else.
“When I was abducted from my father, I was still wearing my school shorts. I was a respectful child who prayed and listened to my teacher and my parents. When they took me, they told me they were going to write my name. I thought they would take out a pen. Instead, four teenagers beat me with sticks. They said if I cried out, they would kill me.”
“That’s awful. That’s—”
“That was the beginning. They make you a soldier by three tricks. First, they make you lose hope that you will ever see your parents again.”
“Did you try to run back to them? Your parents, I mean.”
“If I did I would not be here talking to you.”
“Right.” I feel my face turn pink. “I’m sorry.”
“Second, they make you kill.”
I swallow. “Does it get easier, every time you kill?”
“Yes,” he says.
I cock my head. I did not expect yes, I expected no. I expected a lesson. “Because you get used to killing?”
“You do not get used to killing. The first time you kill, you change inside. You think this is a good change, because it brings you respect from the ones who control you. But it is not a good change. You can never go back to not having killed.”
I breathe hard. “What’s the third trick?”
“They use the rage you have built inside you. Always, a rage so wide that you cannot cross it to get back to yourself.”
I picture the insects building inside me until I tilt my head and open my mouth, crossing lakes and mountains, a traveling whorl the length of a football field, then two, whole states and continents. My rage against the Last One could circle the earth twice, a buzzing comet fueled by the million indistinguishable things he did. The humiliations. The frightening near misses in the hotel rooms. The pains he inflicted on Momma.
Behind closed eyes, I remember every violation to my own body.
I picture myself using that rage to kill if I needed to.
“Do you think there’s such a thing as a natural-born killer?”
“I know there is not. Killers are made. I have just told you how.”
I feel the blood drain from my face, sweet relief. I smile weakly. Gerry registers my gratitude, but does not smile back.
“In answer to your question, Miss Vivienne: I would have to be a fool to feel safe ever again, in my lifetime. I am not a fool. And neither are you.”
PART III
JO
The adoption ceremony is held two days later at the Boston Municipal Courthouse, a bustling pl
ace. I am dressed up and supposed to be happy, but mainly I’m nervous. The judge is slack-faced and resentful. The Lovecraft name got this done faster or with less paperwork than is typical and the judge knows it, and he is spiteful. I should be happy, but a bitter, contrary thing keeps welling up. Mr. and Mrs. Lovecraft beam. They touch each other constantly, and you roll your eyes, and they talk a lot about how there are families you are born into and families that come together through fate, and that the sadness of the last seven years is 100 percent over, as though something can be 97 percent over, and I want to scream the very definition of over is over. Mrs. Lovecraft says there’s something magical about the number seven, and I also want to scream no, that’s wrong, it’s three, three times makes things so. It’s getting hard to hide how opposite I feel, and yet they are so kind, bathing me in love, and it gets even stranger as we walk down the courthouse steps.
In front of the courthouse on busy New Chardon Street parked illegally is Gerry holding a puppy. The puppy licks his face, and he holds it as far away from himself as he can without dropping it, and people crowd around him, which makes him even more uncomfortable than the puppy, and the puppy is that cute.
“Gerry got a puppy?” I say, incredulous.
“No, silly!” says Mrs. Lovecraft, flushing with joy. “It’s yours!”
“It’s a King Charles spaniel,” says Mr. Lovecraft. “A she. Hypoallergenic: we weren’t sure if you had allergies.”
“She looks like she should be in a calendar,” I murmur, eyes fixed on the puppy. “Can I touch her?”
“Can you touch her? You can hold her! She’s yours!” Mr. Lovecraft says.
I am cuddling this precious ball of fluff now, and she is shaking, and warm, and something about this sweet creature unlocks my heart, and I am crying into her fur. People around us are making aww noises and they might be crying, too, and Mrs. Lovecraft is definitely crying, and Mr. Lovecraft is swooping us up in his big hug-thing again. I peek out for a moment to see you standing outside our circle, a tightening under your eyes, which are locked on me.
It’s been sixteen days since I found the Lovecraft’s private investigator’s report. Sixteen days, too, since you told me you knew who I was. The four of us live in a strange pretend world where I know the Lovecrafts know I’m not Vivi, but I can’t act like it.
Three is my number. Nothing good comes from four.
When I ask you if your parents know I know, you shut me down by saying it’s irrelevant: I am theirs now. I do not ask what “theirs” means. If the first part of my time with the Lovecrafts consisted of you giving me experiences, this second half, this After the Knowledge half, is all about the Lovecrafts giving me stuff. In addition to the puppy that still has no name, I have an Apple watch, a credit card of my own, and a hoverboard that only you are capable of riding.
I become their daughter with each accepted gift.
The puppy pees everywhere. Because you complain loudly about the smell, I keep the puppy in my bedroom most of the time. Not including Gerry, you are the only human not brought to your knees by the puppy’s adorableness, though this does not surprise me.
“Haven’t you named her yet?” asks Zack Turpin every day. I am starting to like Zack more than I did before, possibly because he is the only person who does not seem to want anything from me, and maybe because I’m feeling nostalgic now that I know our time is coming to an end. Zack doesn’t even seem to notice that I’m too good at algebra for a kid locked in a shed for seven years.
“I’m calling her Wolf.”
“That’s cute. She looks like a Wolf,” Zack says, and I like him more.
“Can I ask you a legal question?”
“Sure, but I’m not a lawyer yet, so I can’t exactly give out legal advice,” he says.
“I get that. But what is the advantage of adopting a child when the parents have given you legal custody anyway?”
“Hmm. Well, I guess that’s what’s so cool about what the Lovecrafts did. There isn’t any advantage.”
At my feet, Wolf whines in her sleep.
“So why would they do it?”
A strange look passes over Zack’s face. “Um, they love you?”
I laugh awkwardly. “Of course, I know they love me. I just wondered: I mean, the Lovecrafts are smart people. Might there be, you know, some financial—maybe a tax—advantage? Or a legal reason? Something like that.” See, it came outta nowhere, Zack. And in my old world, the one I spent the longest in, no one does something without an angle.
“Yeah, there are tax advantages, sure. I don’t exactly think the Lovecrafts are looking to save money on taxes, though. I guess if there was some reason you got called to court to testify against them, they’d be safe, because Massachusetts is one of the few states that recognizes parent-child privilege.”
“Say that again?”
“Parent-child privilege. You’ve probably heard of spousal privilege: that’s a big one for TV shows like Law and Order, where someone gets married to avoid testifying against their spouse. In Massachusetts, a child cannot be made to testify against a parent.”
“So if I knew the Lovecrafts did something against the law, I couldn’t be called to court?”
“Right.”
“What if it was something really bad, and they didn’t have any other witnesses?”
“Actually, that’s the only time you really hear about that kind of thing being invoked, in the big cases. You know, murder, that sort of thing.” Zack sits back and runs his hand through his thinning curls. “Vivi, why are you asking me weird questions?”
I reach down and pull Wolf to my chest and bury my face in her fur. Zack is pure and kind and way too close to the truth, and I’m feeling easily broken these days. “No reason.”
“Do you feel like someone is trying to hurt you?”
He says it so tender and kind and tender things must not stay tender, they need to be rubbed until they aren’t anymore. When I don’t answer him right away, he takes it as not-no, and this is not going in the right direction, not for Zack’s own good. “Is it Temple?”
I nearly drop Wolf. “No.”
I’m unconvincing, because Zack plows on.
“You know I worked with Temple for a while, right?”
“I didn’t. In what subject?”
“English. It wasn’t—it wasn’t a good fit. I was glad they called me about you. And frankly, a little surprised. Anyway. This probably isn’t an appropriate conversation to have. Forget I even brought it up.”
“I brought it up.”
Zack reaches to scratch Wolf’s ears roughly, like she loves. “Yeah. Well. I was talking with my girlfriend about this the other night. I’ve met people like Temple once or twice in my life. In law school, unsurprisingly.” He laughs, as though I ought to get his joke. I frown. “You just need to be careful. There are people in this world who don’t feel empathy the same way as other people. They see people as pawns and life as a game to win. I’ve seen enough of Temple to know that she has some of those qualities. Be careful. That’s all I’m saying.”
My wrist buzzes: a big no-no during study time. I check my wrist anyway, because I want to hide my reaction to what Zack said.
Tell Zack you’re done for the day. I’m out front with an Uber. Getting Starbucks.
And leave the sweater: it looks dorky.
I look down at the lime J.Crew sweater from the day I told the cops I had no memory: the one you told me to wear. I am chilled. For the life of me, I cannot remember if you have seen me today in this sweater. I don’t think so, but this is not the kind of thing I would have been unsure of before. What’s with all this “unsure”?
I stand. “I have to go.”
Zack closes his laptop. “We were done anyway. Promise me something. If you ever feel like you need someone to talk to, someone outside of your family, call me, okay? I’ll text it to you.”
“No!” I yell. It suddenly occurs to me that they are reading my texts, my e-mails, my search hist
ory. Of course they are. Bottom line, Jolene Chastain is a con who cannot be trusted, though they will try their hardest to buy my trust. I push my history book toward him and turn it to page three.
“Write it here,” I whisper hoarsely.
* * *
“They’re making a new hole in the wall.”
This is what you tell me later that night over what are not vanilla bean Frappuccinos but rum drinks at Mont Vert, where you know a bartender who thinks we’re in college, and the booths are high and private. Gerry waits in the alcove, his face a mask of disapproval.
“What are you talking about?” I say.
You sip your drink neatly and set it back down. “My parents. They say it’s to blow insulation in, but you have to wonder.” You nod at my drink, called, fittingly, a Crash and Burn. “You’re nursing your cocktail. Drink.”
I sip. The drink is spicy and I don’t like it, but we’ve done this before—in fact, it’s the only place we can do it, and I know you will be relentless until I finish it. The truth is, I like how I feel when I drink with you. It was hard at first to be together, to let you kiss me, but it’s easy after a few of these, even though hours later my head feels like a sledgehammer hit it. Also, it makes me feel like myself: I am the con and I am superior to you and I am still winning. Winning, because I am the one with the house and the clothes and the watch and the adoption papers and the puppy, and the real Vivi is dead, and all I have to do is play along and my life is so much better.
“So do your parents know I know yet?” I ask for the hundredth time.
“Not because I told them. But you should know that Dr. Krebs doesn’t believe you’re Vivi. Detective Curley’s onto you too.”
I scowl into my drink. These pieces of news are not things I didn’t already suspect.
“Are you just looking for things to worry about? You know what happens if someone tries to out you.” With two fingers, you snuff the candle between us. “We’re naturals. I told you.”
