The Heat of the Moon: A Rachel Goddard Mystery (Rachel Goddard Mysteries)

by Parshall, Sandra

  I’d studied every inch of the lunar map in our new astronomy book, and when the brilliant full moon rose above us I patiently guided Michelle’s eyes to the Bay of Rainbows, the Sea of Tranquillity, the Lake of Dreams. I pointed out the places where astronauts had walked. All the while, I sneaked glances at Mother on my right. Was she impressed? She smiled and briefly rested a hand on my shoulder. I was thrilled. She thought I was a good, smart girl. She loved me.

  Then her gaze shifted to Michelle, and Mother’s expression softened, a deep tenderness bloomed in her eyes, and I felt an invisible circle closing them in, shutting me out. Her show of affection for me was like the heat of the moon, an illusion, a glow that gave no warmth.

  That night marked my first conscious awareness of what I’d always sensed, that Mother would never love me the way she loved Michelle.

  Perhaps now I knew the reason why.

  ***

  For days after I found the pictures I was nearly mute at home, fearful that I couldn’t speak to Mother without exploding into a babble of questions and demands. Before I dug any deeper, I had to work out all possible meanings of what I’d found, and not found, in Mother’s study. I needed to fortify myself by imagining the worst I could learn if I pushed for answers.

  I was willing to believe that grief over my father’s death made me destroy the pictures that showed me with him. But that didn’t explain why there were so many photos of my parents and sister together, some of them formal studio portraits, with no sign of another, older daughter. Families didn’t do that, they didn’t pose for portraits with only one child.

  Maybe I wasn’t one of them. Maybe I was adopted. The thought pierced me like a sword, but I forced myself to consider it. I’d never seen my birth certificate, a fact that hadn’t struck me as odd until now. I’d never needed it, never been asked to produce it. Mother had obtained my first passport when she took Michelle and me to Europe as teenagers, and I’d simply renewed it as an adult. I’d used my passport as proof of identity when I applied for a driver’s license. No one, anywhere, had ever asked to see my birth certificate, so I’d given it no thought.

  But if I was adopted, why hadn’t Mother told me? What possible reason could she have to hide it from me? And when did it happen? After those pictures were taken, when Michelle was about two and I was four or five? Surely I would remember it, if I’d been that old.

  This argument made me laugh scornfully at myself. I couldn’t remember a damned thing; I was stumbling around in the dark.

  Or was I? I reached out and found them lurking at the border of consciousness, a sad-faced woman and an angry man, phantoms I’d never been able to explain or get rid of. Did Mother know who they were? Was something about my origins so awful that she never wanted me to learn the truth?

  Mother could see, of course, that something was wrong. She came to my room one night, sat on my bed, and tried with her soothing quiet voice to coax out a clue to my emotional state.

  She talked and I studied her face for similarities to mine.

  You’re so lucky you got Mother’s coloring, Michelle had said many times over the years, as if unaware of her own delicate, fair beauty. I’d always taken it as a given that I looked like Mother. But did I? We both had auburn hair, and dark eyes with thick lashes. Both tall, slender. The curve of my jaw was similar to hers, and my full lower lip. Yes, in some ways I looked like her. It was my father I didn’t recognize in myself. I looked like Mother, Michelle looked like our father. That wasn’t unusual. Not at all.

  “Rachel?” Mother gave my arm a little shake to bring me out of my reverie.

  Her eyes were wide, soft with concern. She watched me pull up my knees, smooth down my robe. The novel I’d been trying to read before she came in had fallen from my lap and lay open on the bed beside me.

  “I asked if you’re still seeing Dr. Campbell,” she said.

  This was the first time she’d mentioned Luke since the dinner.

  “I see him at work every day,” I said, avoiding her eyes.

  Silence hung between us. She pushed the thin gold band of her watch forward, then back, on her wrist. She still had on the green silk blouse she’d worn to work, and I could see the outlines of her slender arms inside the sleeves. She always wore long sleeves to work, even in hot weather. I wondered if she was reluctant to expose too much of herself to patients.

  Finally she said, “That’s not what I meant. I can’t stop thinking about that night he was here—”

  “It doesn’t matter to me, Mother,” I said quickly.

  She looked straight into my eyes, holding me fast, not about to let me off the hook. “It matters to me, because you’re my daughter and I care what happens to you. I’m not blind, Rachel. I know you were hurt when you found out he’d been hiding something important from you. I can’t forgive him for it.”

  I almost laughed. This, from the queen of secrets! Feeling shaky and daring, as I always did when I challenged her, I said, “We all have things we don’t want to talk about, don’t we?”

  Only a student of her moods would have seen the slight narrowing of her eyes, the brief dimming of their light.

  Ask her, I urged myself. Ask her if you’re adopted. Ask her what the pictures mean.

  The very idea made me shrink back. Tell her I’d hired a locksmith to open the box I’d found inside a closet in her off-limits room? Tell her I thought she was a liar? She would fix me with a sad but forgiving look, and I’d be lost. She’d make me doubt myself, I’d end up convinced I was wrong, crazy, a bad daughter. And my questions would put her on guard; I’d never find out what I wanted to know.

  She sighed and let her shoulders slump a bit. “I’m interfering, I know. But I can’t help worrying about you. I don’t want you to get hurt.” She touched my knee, her hand light, the weight heavy. Smiling suddenly, she said, “When children reach adulthood, they have to learn to be patient with their parents, instead of the other way around.”

  She leaned to brush my cheek with a kiss. I was ashamed that I’d listened for lies beneath her loving words. But when she was gone, and the door shut after her, all the doubts and questions clamored in my mind again.

  That night I dreamed of the three of them, a happy little family with only one daughter.

  ***

  I talked to myself incessantly, the dialogue always going on at some level, whether I was driving down the street or examining an animal or sitting speechless at the dining table with my mother and sister. How much did I want to find out, what kind of answers could I handle?

  Everybody claimed to welcome the truth, they demanded it—honesty is the best policy, I want your honest opinion, tell me the truth!—but the way people behaved showed that even this desire for the truth was a lie. People lied to each other all the time, about small things and great. There was so much in life we couldn’t bear to look at straight-on, or simply preferred to leave unacknowledged. Surely a lot of families had secrets that no one wanted to uncover and bring into the light, for fear of hurting and being hurt.

  I should leave well enough alone. I should get on with my life. The present, the future. I should.

  I couldn’t.

  I had to know.

  ***

  I made the call from my bedroom after work, before Mother and Michelle got home. It was mid-afternoon in Minnesota. The courthouse would still be open.

  For ten minutes I paced back and forth with the phone in my hand, mentally reciting the reasons why this was a good idea. I would get my birth certificate, it would tell me what I already knew, that I was Michael and Judith Goddard’s child, and the question of adoption would be laid to rest without Mother ever knowing it had been raised.

  But dread sat on my chest like a stone, and it was only the awareness of time passing that made me act. If I didn’t do this now, I might never work up the courage again.

  I called long distance information. I waited another minute, eyes squeezed shut, breathing deeply, before I punched in the number I’d
been given. After my call was transferred to the right extension, I was talking to a clerk who handled birth records.

  “I’m trying to find out—” I cleared my throat. “I need to find out if you have my birth records on file.”

  “We charge for copies of—”

  “I’ll do that, I’ll send you a check for a copy, but could you just tell me now if you have the record?”

  A silence, then a little grunt of puzzlement. “Well, were you born in Hennepin County?”

  “Yes, in Minneapolis.”

  “Then we’ll have the record. What’s the date and the name?”

  I gave her my birthdate and name, spelling Goddard for her.

  “Just a second. I’m going to put you on hold.”

  The line went dead silent, no canned music to distract the mind. Chewing my thumbnail, I stood at a window and looked down at the driveway. Its black surface was dusty and dulled by the heat. Along the far edge, two dozen house sparrows bustled and pecked, probably scooping up ants that I couldn’t see.

  “Ma’am?”

  I snapped to attention. “Yes!”

  “I’m sorry, but we don’t have any record of that.”

  For a moment I couldn’t take in what she’d said. Then I stammered, “But—but it has to be there. Maybe you looked at the wrong day. It was August—”

  “Yes ma’am, I got that right,” the clerk said, with the exaggerated patience of someone who dealt daily with the public’s inquiries. “I looked at that date, and I checked a few days before and afterwards, and it’s not here.”

  My mind snatched at an explanation. “Maybe the records were destroyed in a fire or something—Could you—”

  “No, ma’am. I’m sure these records are complete. Are you sure you were born in Hennepin County? I know you’re talking about yourself, but—”

  I stopped listening. I pushed the off button and dropped the phone onto the bed. Thinking I was going to be sick, I rose, veered toward my bathroom, and smacked into the door frame.

  I groped my way inside and sank onto the edge of the tub. The air felt clotted, unbreathable, and I couldn’t pull enough of it into my lungs.

  In a while the nausea passed, leaving a knot of pain under my heart. I stood on shaky legs, went to the sink, splashed cold water on my cheeks. Soon I would be expected to go downstairs and eat dinner with my mother and sister.

  I raised my eyes to a reflection I didn’t recognize. The face in the mirror had the slack stunned look of people who appeared on the evening news after a tornado or hurricane or earthquake had laid waste to their lives.

  I touched the cool smooth surface of the glass and whispered, “Who the hell are you?”

  Chapter Twelve

  The only sound in the room was the faint tick of Theo’s marble mantel clock. Outside on the sidewalk, people passed within a few feet of the front windows, but their voices and laughter were muffled, distant. A hot summer Sunday in Georgetown. Crowded sidewalks, traffic-clogged streets. People living their lives. I was on the verge of redefining mine. The answers I needed were locked in my memory, waiting to be freed.

  With narrowed eyes, Theo peered at me from his armchair. “Are you afraid, Rachel?”

  I shrugged, dropping my gaze to the two Siamese cats crammed onto my lap. “A little. But I’m ready. I’m prepared.”

  I was terrified. How could I prepare myself for the unknown?

  Over a lunch I barely touched, we’d talked about books, my work, the heat and lack of rain, everything except the reason I’d come to see him. I’d known he was watching me, though, for signs that I might not be able to deal with the memories hypnosis dredged up. I put on a show of strength and composure.

  “Have you talked with your mother about this?” Theo said. “I don’t like keeping it from her.”

  “Theo—”

  He raised a hand. “Very well, I won’t mention it again.”

  I’d seen suspicion in Mother’s eyes when I told her I’d be with some rehabber friends that afternoon. She could tell I was lying.

  Forget about Mother. You’re doing this for yourself. The moment I formed the thought, a wave of familiar guilt swept over it, as surely as the tide rolls in to knock down a sand castle.

  “Are you going to try regression?” I said. “Taking me back to a younger age?” The idea scared me.

  Theo shook his head. “No, at least not at the beginning. What I think might work best for you is simple free association. My greatest concern is that you understand the unreliability of memory. Even pleasant memories may contain many distortions. And you aren’t likely to recover whole memories, with every detail intact.”

  “I know.”

  He smiled. “But perhaps you will be able to fill in some of the blanks, and what you learn may not be as terrible as you expect.”

  ***

  I drove the two of us to Theo’s office on K Street. He wanted to conduct the session in a professional setting.

  The elevator rose through a silent, deserted building and released us into a sixth floor corridor that smelled of wax. Theo’s four-footed cane thumped along the gleaming blue tile floor.

  When I stepped inside the office suite, fusty warm air made my throat close up. I coughed.

  Theo flipped on lights and went straight to the thermostat. “Eighty degrees!” He twisted the dial. “I cannot believe that turning up the thermostat for the weekend is cost-efficient in the least. But I always seem to be overruled in the matter.”

  Theo shared quarters with another psychiatrist; two doors opening off the small waiting room bore their nameplates.

  I didn’t want to be here. I shouldn’t be doing this. I took a step backward, toward the corridor, the elevator, my car.

  “Come in, come in,” Theo said, pushing open his office door and waving a hand at me.

  I hesitated a second before I followed. Like the man, the office was congenial and welcoming. Bookshelves overflowed, the top of the big oak desk held a clutter of journals and books. An oriental rug, predominantly red and blue, hid most of the beige carpet. In the wide window a pothos, glossy and riotously healthy, trailed from its pot.

  My fear ebbed for a moment. Then I turned and saw the brown leather reclining couch, a classic analyst’s couch, against one wall. Down its center the leather was worn nearly white from the contact of human bodies, and I had the sensation that I was seeing a ghost.

  “Well, now,” Theo said, a hand on the back of his desk chair. “Shall we sit down and talk a bit first?”

  I focused on a single strand of black hair in his white beard, and imagined the young Theo trapped inside that arthritic body, sending out tiny and easily overlooked signals that he was still alive.

  I pulled myself up short. “I’d like to get right to the point.”

  His laugh was a pleasant rumble. “In this office, that would be both unusual and refreshing.”

  When I tried to laugh with him, all that came out was a harsh croak.

  I felt him studying me while I studied a red poppy in the rug’s design. After a moment he swung his chair around and rolled it toward the couch. “All right then. Why don’t we begin?”

  What made me think I could go through with this?

  “Rachel, would you like to lie down?” Theo said, his voice already assuming that gentle tone associated with hypnosis. He gestured at the couch.

  I stepped over to it, looked down at the ghost. Theo sank into his chair, smiled encouragingly and made another sweeping motion, inviting and urging me to submit.

  I wanted to run. The thought of stretching out and giving myself over brought a wave of nausea. But I had to do this. I didn’t know any other way to free my memories.

  I made myself sit down. Instantly dread swooped over me, a smothering cloak. I can’t. I jumped up.

  “Rachel?” Theo said. “Do you need something?”

  Sitting again, I let out a short breath. “No, no, I’m just nervous.”

  “Are you sure—”

&nb
sp; “Yes!” The volume of my voice startled me. “Yes, I’m sure,” I said more quietly. I will do this.

  I was conscious of his hesitancy, and was relieved when he seemed to put it aside. “Please lie down, Rachel,” he said.

  Swinging my legs up, I laid myself out on the couch, ready for dissection. I didn’t realize my hands had formed fists at my sides until Theo touched my right wrist, murmuring, “Relax, Rachel. Relax. Take a long deep breath and let it out slowly, very slowly.”

  His soothing tone was so much like Mother’s.

  Breathe, deeply in, slowly out. Hands palm-up at my sides, the way Mother taught me. Open. Receptive. But my body remained rigid, caught fast in a web of tension.

  “I’d like you to close your eyes,” Theo said. “Take another deep breath and let it out slowly.”

  I closed my eyes. I breathed.

  “I want you to continue breathing deeply and slowly as you relax your body. I want you to concentrate on the muscles and nerves of your feet. All the muscles and nerves in your feet are completely relaxed. Completely loose and relaxed.”

  Let go. Let it happen.

  “Concentrate now on the muscles and nerves of your calves and thighs. All the muscles and nerves in your calves and thighs are completely loose and relaxed. Your legs are lying loose and relaxed on the couch.”

  Warmth spread through my legs as I felt them go limp.

  “All the tension is leaving the muscles and nerves of your stomach, your buttocks, your lower back. The muscles and nerves are completely relaxed.”

  My body sank heavily against the couch.

  Theo’s voice whispered on. “The muscles and nerves of your fingers, your hands and wrists…your arms…your shoulders…your neck…your scalp…your face…completely loose and relaxed. Your eyelids are very heavy. You will keep your eyes closed until I tell you to wake up.”

  I was aware of my eyelids fluttering, some part of me testing. My eyes refused to open.