Double Identity
Page 5
“Sure,” I say. I’ll be fine.”
And then Myrlie’s gone, and the house is dead silent. I stand at the window watching her blue car disappear from sight, and I feel abandoned once again. I stumble back and sit on the couch and I listen for a sound, any sound—the hum of the refrigerator, the tick of a clock, the breathing of the furnace. There’s nothing.
This is something else strange about me, which I never would have admitted to Myrlie or anyone else, but here I am, twelve going on thirteen, and I have never once been alone. Oh, sure, sometimes I’ve gone to my room and shut the door, shutting my parents out. But even then I always knew they were there in the house, just the other side of a wall, within earshot. Way back in third grade I started hearing from other kids at school how they got themselves out the door in the morning, an hour or two after their parents left for work; how they went home to an empty house and popped microwave popcorn and watched TV cartoons and didn’t even touch their homework until their parents straggled in the door.
By third grade I had the sense not to ask for this treat for myself. My mother would have popped microwave popcorn for me; she would have turned the TV to the right station long before I got home from school; she would have sat on the couch with me, pretending to be just as interested as I was in Rugrats and SpongeBob SquarePants and DivaGirls.
The wind blows outside and tree branches scratch against the house and I jump half a foot off the couch. I start thinking of those old third-grade classmates of mine as incredibly brave, not incredibly privileged.
“Stop it!” I say aloud. “You’re almost thirteen years old and you’re perfectly safe. Isn’t that why your father left you here?” My voice sounds quavery and terrified. I reach for the TV remote, hoping for some movie I can drown my cowardice in for the next hour and a half. I hear a rustling sound, and I jump again, but it’s just the newspaper Myrlie was reading earlier, the Sanderfield Reporter, sliding down to the ground.
“You know, there could be a whole article in there about Elizabeth, and you wouldn’t even know it because you’re such a chicken,” I goad myself.
I don’t really believe there’s anything about Elizabeth in the newspaper, but I pick it up anyway and start reading. The front page is all about the president’s latest speech and some embezzler in Chicago who’s getting out of prison. Further in, I have my choice of reading about a P.T.O. pancake breakfast or a street improvement project.
“Guess someone forgot to tell the Sanderfield Reporter that much more interesting things are happening in my life right now, right here under their noses,” I say. I’m really beginning to annoy myself with this talking out loud. It’s probably an early sign of mental illness.
Like Mom’s? I think this, rather than saying it, but that’s hardly comforting.
I turn another page of the paper, and my eyes light on a photo of a dozen women posing behind a swath of flowers. SANDERFIELD LADIES CLUB SPRUCES UP COURTHOUSE LAWN is the caption, and Myrlie’s face floats fuzzily in the back row of the picture. But my eyes focus on what’s behind her and the other women: the stone memorial.
For someone who died a long time ago, Myrlie had said, looking stricken, before we got to the Y, before Tammy mistook me for someone she’d known years ago, when she was my age. Before Tammy looked like she’d seen a ghost.
The way Tammy and Myrlie acted, I’m pretty sure Elizabeth is dead. And the woman at the front desk of the Y, whose little boy was born before she moved here, didn’t seem to notice anything unusual about my appearance. So probably Elizabeth died a long time ago.
What if Elizabeth was the person memorialized on the plaque? What if the plaque had her full name on it, first and last? If I just got a glimpse of that plaque, maybe the birth and death dates for good measure, I could use Myrlie’s computer—surely she has a computer—crank up a search engine, and find out everything I want to know. I wouldn’t need Myrlie to break her promise. I wouldn’t need my dad to decide it was safe to tell me the truth.
I’d just need to walk to the courthouse by myself. Now, before Myrlie comes back.
I don’t move.
It’s not really that I’m scared. What’s there to be frightened of, walking a few blocks in tiny Sanderfield, Illinois, in broad daylight on a crisp October afternoon?
“I don’t know,” I mutter, and that’s the problem. I feel like I’m trying to put a thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle together with all but two or three of the pieces turned upside down. Maybe there is something to be afraid of, if Dad said I’d be “safe” at Myrlie’s house. Will I still be safe four or five blocks away?
From the time I was a little girl, I’ve hated sitting still, doing nothing. It’s that, finally, that propels me off the couch.
“I just decided to take a walk, get some air,” I say, practicing excuses in case Myrlie comes home and catches me gone. I even write her a note on the tablet by the phone, under the grocery store’s number: “Be right back. B.” After all, it’s not like she told me I couldn’t go anywhere.
My heart’s pounding like I’m doing something horribly forbidden, but I try to ignore it.
I also pretend to myself that it’s perfectly normal to zip my windbreaker up to the very top, to pull up my hood so it covers my hair and most of my face. I step outside, latching the door behind me but not locking it, and this, too, I try to defend. People leave their doors unlocked all the time in small towns, don’t they? A stiff breeze hits me in the face and I tell myself it’s bracing, steadying. I take deep breaths and make it to the end of the block.
Nobody’s out walking except me, and I feel horribly visible to all the cars driving by. I hunch over, keep my head down. I turn right, then left, wait at a traffic light, and go straight. And somehow, fighting fear and panic and a slight sense that what I’m doing is ridiculous, I reach the courthouse square.
My legs start shaking as I climb two concrete steps toward the memorial. The writing on the plaque is in fancy script that’s not easy to read, but even with all the frills and flourishes, even from six feet away, I can tell: The first name’s not long enough.
It’s “Thomas,” not “Elizabeth.”
Brilliant work, Nancy Drew, I think in disgust. You’re so egotistical. Why would a plaque on a stone in Sanderfield, Illinois, have anything to do with you?
I read the rest of the plaque anyhow.
IN MEMORY OF THOMAS WILKER A GOOD MAN AND A GREAT MAYOR 1949-1991
Wilker, I think. Thomas Wilker. Myrlie Wilker. Is this her father? Grandfather?
I remember that “Wilker” is probably Myrlie’s married name. People at the Y called her “Mrs.” I do the math. This Thomas Wilker was forty-two when he died, some twenty years ago. Myrlie is probably in her late fifties or early sixties. She and Thomas would have been about the same age.
I’ve got no proof, but I’m certain: This plaque is a memorial to Myrlie’s husband.
ELEVEN
I walk back to Myrlie’s house, leaves crunching under my feet. I feel like I’m stepping on carcasses.
It’s too much I think. Mom crying and Dad being worried and me looking like some girl who’s probably dead and no one telling me anything, and Myrlie’s husband dying…. I know it’s strange to act like Myrlie’s newly widowed, but that’s how I feel, because I just found out about it.
I pass the house that Myrlie said Abraham Lincoln slept in once, and somehow that seems unbearably sad too. When he was in Sanderfleld, Lincoln didn’t know he was going to be assassinated, he didn’t know almost all the young men in town were going to go off and die in the war, he didn’t even know there was going to be a war….
I’m doing what I used to do when I was a little girl and Mom would start crying. Spiraling down. We’d be sitting on the couch and Mom would be reading one of my favorite books to me—Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle, maybe, or Madeline or Pippi Longs-tocking—and Mom’s voice would start sounding thick. I’d look up and Mom would have tears streaming down her face. And I’d feel those tears tugging at m
e. Pretty soon I’d be crying too. And Mom would start comforting me: “There, there, everything’s all right. You’ve got Mommy. I’ve got you.”
I think maybe that’s why the home-schooling ended, because my father came home from work and found the two of us crying on the couch together.
But I don’t know why Mom cried only every once in a while then, and cries all the time now. I don’t know when I learned how to separate, so I could watch Mom crying her heart out and feel absolutely positively nothing.
I wish I could separate myself from my sadness now. Why should I care that Myrlie’s husband died twenty years ago? Why should I feel anything for Myrlie, whom I didn’t even meet until yesterday?
Because she’s nice, I think. Because she cares about me. Because she’s all I’ve got right now.
I let myself in the front door at Myrlie’s house and tear up the note I left for her. Then I plop down in front of the TV and try to lose myself in some stupid movie about jewel thieves making one last heist. That’s what I’m watching when Myrlie gets home.
“Hi,” I grunt. I know I could jump up and offer to help her carry in the groceries. I could ask her about her husband—as far as I know, he’s not a forbidden topic. But I don’t do either of those things. I just stare at unrealistic car chases flickering before my eyes.
Somehow Myrlie and I get through the rest of the day. I watch TV; she cooks up a sumptuous dinner of chicken and stuffing and peas and those little baby onions that I love but I’m pretty sure I didn’t mention to Myrlie. It doesn’t matter. I can’t make myself choke down more than a bite or two of anything.
“I’m really tired. I think I’ll just go to bed now,” I tell Myrlie.
Myrlie glances at the pile of dishes in the sink, but all she says is, “Okay.”
I climb the stairs alone. After I’ve brushed my teeth and turned out the light and crawled into bed, I lay in the darkness telling myself, “Daddy will call in the morning. He will. He’ll call you. Daddy will call in the morning.” As mantras go, it’s not terribly comforting. And, as it turns out, it’s not exactly accurate. Dad doesn’t call me.
Mom does.
TWELVE
The phone rings in the middle of the night. I’m running to answer it before I quite remember where I am. I crash into the wall trying to find the door; I trip on the bottom two stairsteps. Still, I reach the kitchen long before Myrlie.
“Hello?” I gasp, out of breath.
“Elizabeth?” It’s my mother’s voice, but my mother’s voice with a difference: She’s not crying. “Elizabeth, I am so glad I reached you. I know you’re spending the night with Joss, but I just had the worst dream, and I wanted to make sure—”
“Mom, this is Bethany,” I say.
Mom actually laughs.
“Oh, is that the name you’re trying out this week? Enough, already. Listen, Elizabeth, I know you were counting on going to Sinclair Mountain for your birthday, but I don’t think it’s a good idea. This dream I had … Well, let’s just say it’d be better if you stayed home. We could rent some videos, have a party—”
“Mom, it’s Bethany,” I say. I have chills traveling up my spine.
“Quit fooling around, Elizabeth. I’m serious. I know you’re disappointed about Sinclair Mountain, but, believe me, this is for the best—”
In the background, I hear a kind of grunt, and my father saying, drowsily, “Hillary! Who are you talking to?”
“Elizabeth,” my mom says. Her next words are muffled, as if she’s put her hand over the phone: “I just had to call her. I had this horrible dream about her birthday at Sinclair Mountain. And it was all so real—”
I hear a clunking sound, as if the phone has fallen to the floor, then my father’s voice, louder than before. He’s talking directly into the receiver now.
“Hello?”
“Daddy?” I say.
“Bethany?” Even he sounds a little uncertain about my identity.
“Daddy, what’s going on? What’s Mom talking about? Who’s Elizabeth? Why doesn’t Mom know who I am?”
I can hear my father taking a ragged breath as my mother shouts in the background, “Walter, give me that phone! I have to talk to her! I don’t want her to die …” The “die” fades away into a wail and then sobs.
“Daddy?” I say again.
“Hillary, stop! You’re upsetting Bethany. Remember Bethany?” My father’s voice is a distant rumble. Then he’s back on the phone. “Your mother had a bad reaction to some medication. That’s all. She’s… hallucinating.”
“No, she’s not,” I say. I’m not sure my father can hear me over my mother’s sobbing, and somehow this emboldens me. “Elizabeth was real, wasn’t she? And I look like her. Who was she? Did she die?”
For a moment, all I can hear is my mother’s sobbing. Then my father whispers into the phone, “Yes.”
“Yes, what?” I say. “Yes, she’s real? Yes, she’s dead? Yes, I look like her?”
“We didn’t think we’d have to tell you,” my father says. His voice is still barely more than a whisper. I press the phone so tightly against my ear that I can hear my own pulse echoing against the receiver. And behind my pulse, the rest of his words: “We didn’t want you to be upset.”
“Upset?” I repeat. “Didn’t you think I’d be upset wondering why Mom cries all the time? Didn’t you think I’d be upset getting dropped off with some relative I’ve never even heard of, while you and Mom are God knows where?”
One of my teachers back in Pennsylvania, Mr. Kaffi, always quoted at us, “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.” It’s from the Bible or somewhere. I don’t know anything resembling the truth about Elizabeth yet, but it sure feels wonderful to speak the truth. It’s liberating. Suddenly, I love shouting at my father.
“Yes … I don’t know,” my father says, and he sounds so old and defeated, I stop feeling so wonderful. “Ask … ask Myrlie. Myrlie can tell you about Elizabeth.”
“She’s allowed to?” I feel cruel pressing this point, like a lawyer badgering a distraught witness on the stand. But I’ve come so far, I don’t want permission snatched away from me at the last minute. I can picture Myrlie shaking her head at me, saying, “Well, maybe your father told you I was allowed to tell, but he didn’t tell me.” It’d be like the little-kid game, losing at the very end because you didn’t say, “Mother, may I?”
My father sighs, a heavy, pained, I’m-not-sure-I-can-survive this sigh.
“Let me talk to Myrlie,” he says.
I look around and she’s right there, leaning against the counter in her red fuzzy robe, her white hair tousled, her face creased with concern. I don’t know how long she’s been there or how much she’s heard, but I hand her the phone.
“Walter?” she says, and listens. And listens. Finally she says, “I can do that. Take care of Hillary,” and hangs up.
The phone’s in its cradle and Myrlie turns to face me. My heart pounds hard against my chest, as though I just swam the hardest practice of my life. What have I gotten myself into? I dread the words that Myrlie is about to say. She opens her mouth. She speaks. I hear her voice as if I’m drowning and she’s far away on shore.
“Elizabeth,” she says, “was your sister.”
I pull back. I’m drowning for sure.
“I’m an only child,” I say.
Myrlie puts her hand on top of mine, on top of the counter. Holding on to me.
“So was Elizabeth,” she says.
THIRTEEN
I stare at Myrlie in confusion, as if she’s just told me one of those impossible-sounding brainteasers, like if a plane crashes on the border of Mexico and the United States, where are all the survivors buried? (Answer: Nowhere. The survivors are still alive.) How could Elizabeth and I be sisters if both of us are only children?
Oh.
“Only one survivor,” I mutter, which probably makes Myrlie think I’ve lost my mind. “You mean, Elizabeth died before I was born.”
We sit in opposing chairs, and although Myrlie doesn’t begin her story, “Once upon a time,” I still feel like I’m hearing a tale about a long-ago time that’s not quite real.
“Hillary and I grew up in this house,” Myrlie says. “Hillary married Walter and I married Tom and we moved into houses just around the corner from here. And then we each had one daughter. Elizabeth came first, in June of 1978, then Jocelyn—my Joss—was born that August.”
I try to figure out how long ago 1978 was, but my mind’s not capable of math right now. It seems like an eternity ago, another lifetime.
It was another lifetime, I think. Elizabeth’s lifetime.
Myrlie’s smiling, a misty, far-away look in her eye.
“Elizabeth and Joss were so tight, more like sisters than cousins. The very best of friends. They were always together. And Hillary and I became closer, because of them.”
I picture two little girls toddling around, falling over one another like puppies at play. I’m not sure what Joss should look like, but I give Elizabeth my blond hair, my hazel eyes. And then, somehow, I’m jealous. Elizabeth had my parents and my hair and my eyes and best friend/almost-sister/cousin Joss. At that age, I had Gretchen Dunlap across the street telling me I was a spoiled brat.
Myrlie’s still smiling.
“The summer Joss and Elizabeth both turned six, they fell in love with the Olympics. Do you know who Mary Lou Retton is? The gymnast? She won five medals in ’eighty-four. She was the star, and all Joss and Elizabeth wanted was to be Mary Lou. You should have seen all the cartwheels they did, the somersaults…. Off the couches, across the yard, down the stairs … Hillary and I signed them up for gymnastics lessons mostly because we thought the girls would end up killing themselves otherwise. We figured there would be mats at the gymnastics lessons, mats and spotters and safe techniques….”