Golden State

by Stephanie Kegan

  She was silent when I finished. I stared at my bedside table, my half-empty water glass from the night before still sitting beside the novel I’d hadn’t been able to concentrate on for weeks.

  “You think I don’t know my own children,” she said in a way that made me feel I was no longer one of them. “Your brother’s not capable of such vile acts, and you’d never accuse him of such awful things.”

  I felt as if I were five years old, awaking in darkness. But there was no one I could cry out to. “Mother,” I said.

  “This all came from Eric,” she said.

  Was that true? He’d given me no time to find another way, but then I’d given him no choice.

  “There’s something wrong with him,” she said.

  “Bobby?” I asked foolishly.

  “Eric,” she said, her voice biting with a cold rage that I feared might be turned on me next.

  “I think Eric was trying to protect us,” I said. “All of us. There were too many similarities between Bobby’s letter and that manifesto for us to keep quiet.”

  “Why would you even read some ridiculous manifesto?”

  When I tried to answer, she interrupted.

  “Your brother’s letter belonged to me. He wrote it to me. It wasn’t yours to give to anyone, much less the FBI.” I heard my mother’s strangled cry. “How could you have done this?”

  My rationale didn’t matter. The lives at stake didn’t matter. That I loved Bobby, too, didn’t matter. “Mom, it’s not as bad as you think. It looks like there’s real hope this can all go away, that they’ll find the people responsible and Bobby will never even know.” My voice was shaking but I sensed her listening. I told her what Agent Miller had said about clearing this all up, what the FBI wanted from her. I felt her silence when I mentioned the money she might have given Bobby.

  “You don’t have to meet with them,” I said finally.

  “I’ll talk to the ghost of J. Edgar Hoover in a dress if that’s what it takes to get them to leave us alone.”

  I didn’t ask Eric to come with me to my mother’s that weekend. Nor did he offer. But he insisted I take Stu. “If there’s one thing I need to impress on you, it’s never to talk to the law without your lawyer present,” he said.

  *

  STU DROVE ME to Sacramento in his leather-upholstered car, driver’s seat pulled close to the dash for his short legs. He patted my hand as he tried to reassure me that this meeting with the FBI was no big deal. Agent Miller, dressed in a tan suit with an American-flag pin in his lapel, met us outside my mother’s condo.

  Mother answered the door dressed as if she were a country-club woman and we’d just dropped by after a round of golf. She couldn’t have been happy inviting the FBI into her house, but she gave no hint of it. She greeted Stu and Agent Miller as if they were on a social call. “I thought we’d have coffee and rolls,” she said. “Shall we sit at the dining room table?”

  I stared at my mother, who could not stand meaningless socializing, behaving as if she lived for it. I didn’t know what I was expecting, but it wasn’t this chilling performance. She poured the coffee, stirred in the cream and sugar for Stu, wiped up drips with a cloth napkin. She served cinnamon buns. When I refused one, she served me anyway, saying, “Don’t be shy, darling. I bought these for you.” I gave her a look. She knew I couldn’t stand cinnamon buns.

  “Agent Miller has assured us that all of your identities will be protected,” Stu said to my mother, a bun on the plate in front of him.

  “You have my word, absolutely,” Miller said. My mother looked from his lapel pin to me. I knew what she was thinking. It wasn’t just the flag pin she distrusted. It was his use of the word absolutely.

  I was afraid Miller might see the contempt in my mother’s eyes. I wanted him to like us, to see what decent, pleasant people we were. To close the file on us and move on. Though really what I wanted was to have it all taken back. Every step, every breath since I’d heard that radio playing in Claire’s office three weeks before.

  My mother was seventy-nine but she could have been thirty-nine, the way she answered Miller’s questions. She never flinched, never struggled to recall a name or a date. Her eyes never darted. She handed Miller a slender packet of letters. “My children aren’t writers,” she said, the point so soft I wondered if Miller got it. No writers, no manifestos.

  I glanced at Stu. The cinnamon bun he’d eaten had left crumbs on his shirt. He looked rumpled even when he was pressed, but there was nothing messy about his mind. I realized that, in all of this, he’d never told me what he really believed about Bobby.

  My mother gave Miller dates for money she’d sent Bobby over the years, a thousand dollars here and there, always for a purpose, the filtration pump he needed, a chain saw to help with the wood.

  I stared at my plate, my legs shaking. In a calm, steady voice, my mother was lying. She’d given Bobby far more than that. She’d given him her grandmother’s silver to sell.

  chapter fourteen

  WE HEARD no more from the FBI. I told myself it was a good sign. By the start of the second month after meeting in Eric’s office, our pretending to be normal seemed almost normal. There were times I forgot, stretches when there was only the blankness of anxiety, the demands of work and children, when the refrain faded into background noise: It’s not Bobby. Even the FBI doesn’t think it is.

  I never tired of concocting scenarios in which everything turned out fine in the end. I imagined my now-gray-haired brother riding the bike he’d built from spare parts, parking it at the rack in front of the library in town. He’d sit at a table with the other unwashed guys—they might even greet one another—and read a newspaper on a wooden pole. He’d skip right past the story about the Cal Bomber being caught because it meant nothing to him. I pictured Eric and me, delirious with relief, the stress of these last weeks erased.

  Eric’s brother phoned to invite us to a birthday party for their father. “I wish it wasn’t going to be such a big deal,” I said to Eric.

  “Turning eighty is a big deal,” he said.

  But he knew what I meant. The lavish affair his brother was hosting, all the people, the hours of acting as if we didn’t worry that the FBI would be on the other end of every phone call.

  I put on my black party slacks. They were tighter around the waist than when I’d last worn them in December. I hadn’t been aware I was eating more, just that I craved the comfort of fluffy potatoes and pudding in plastic cups. I slipped on a beaded top—there was no way to be too dressed up for one of my sister-in-law’s parties.

  It had been months since I’d worn makeup. Julia once asked me if I’d always been so low maintenance, and except for a heavy eyeliner period in college, I had. The pale skin and red hair I’d hated as a girl had seemed attractive as an adult, and these—and lipstick—had been enough.

  “You look beautiful,” Eric said. His eyes showed that he meant it. In the glow of his compliment, I started to think something good might come from this party.

  Lilly appeared in a polished-cotton flower-print dress I’d paid too much for. I was so grateful to see her looking like a perfect, and perfectly normal, little girl that I knew it had been worth it. When Eric, Lilly, and I were gathered at the front door, I called Julia for the third time. She came downstairs wearing a secondhand, lime-green pencil-­straight skirt with a small rip in the back seam, a thrift-shop blouse safety-pinned where the buttons were missing, a tiny black cardigan, and high heels from the Goodwill store.

  “No,” I said.

  “What’s wrong with this?”

  “Nothing,” I said carefully. “I just want you to wear something else. How about the pink-and-gray dress?”

  “How about I put on one of Lilly’s dresses and look like a real dweeb?” Julia glared at me. “That’s what you want, isn’t it? To infantilize me.”

  I glanced at Lilly, who looked crestfallen. I wanted to smack Julia. No, what I wanted was to get through this party with no sign i
n word, deed, or dress that our family might be hiding something.

  “You’ll do as your mother tells you,” Eric told Julia, angry blotches rising to his cheeks.

  I tried to calm Eric with a look. This battle wasn’t worth it. We hadn’t even made it out the door. “Wear what you want, but not another word out of you,” I said to Julia, my hand on Eric’s sleeve.

  I touched Lilly’s shoulder in her pretty dress, but she jerked away from me as if I, too, had betrayed her. In the car, the kids turned away from each other. Eric and I were quiet, the gossamer web of desire and possibility we’d shared ten minutes before swept away.

  Richard and Kelley lived in Woodside, in a spectacular house with views in every direction—ocean, bay, rolling hills. When I first met them, they were renting a two-bedroom bungalow, but even then, Kelley looked rich to me. She was a young mother with sleek blond hair and framed museum prints on her walls. By the time I got my own chrome-framed prints, Kelley was hanging original art.

  “There are parking attendants,” I said as we pulled up.

  “Oh, brother,” Eric said under his breath.

  “It’s all so perfect,” I told Kelley. I meant it. The food, the flowers, the musicians. She smiled. “The party’s for Richard. His father would’ve been fine with the grandkids and a cake.”

  Lilly ran to be with her grandparents, but Julia was glued to my side. I suggested she join her cousin, home from college for the party. It made her frantic. “Must you talk so loudly,” she hissed.

  I got a glass of wine, then looked for a place to sit. Julia shadowed me. I found an aunt of Eric’s I liked and asked after her family, happy to be able to keep the focus off me.

  Eric’s father came into the crowded living room carrying Lilly. At eighty he was still strong enough to ferry her in his arms. He motioned for Julia to follow them.

  “Is your mother here?” Eric’s aunt asked.

  I pictured my mother getting the invitation, wasting no time declining. It was too far for her to come, I said. But, of course, it wasn’t. Last year, my mother had posed with a camel in Egypt. I excused myself to get some food.

  Eric, in his best sport coat, stood with a group of men near the bar, a drink in his hand. I knew he needed it. We were both drinking more these days. My wineglass was already drained. I got a refill, and stood beside him. They were talking cars. I left for the buffet table, piled up my plate, and looked for somewhere to eat.

  The den, really a smaller living room and just as elegant, was a step down from the dining room. I don’t know how I missed it. My plate went flying. I saw the wine shoot from my glass. Someone asked if I was all right. I got up carefully, afraid that I wasn’t, then saw the dark stains on the overstuffed white chair, the splattered food. Guests were already springing from their seats to perform triage.

  I knelt to pick up my plate, and tried to wipe the seafood curry off the Persian rug with my hand. When I stood, I saw Julia staring at me from a corner of the room. I opened my mouth to say something to her, I wasn’t sure what, but she bolted, a hand over her face.

  I found Kelley as I carried the mess of my plate into the kitchen. I was in anguish as I apologized for the ruined chair, the carpet. Kelley just laughed, her eyes sympathetic. “Get yourself some more wine,” she said. “I’ll fix you another plate.”

  More guests arrived. There must have been a hundred people in the house. This was an old man’s birthday? Sara and I had been enough for my mother, who may not have even wanted us with her.

  There was an elaborate cake, toasts, speeches. I switched to champagne, and tried hard to chat.

  Eric caught my eye and tilted his head toward the door. I was more than ready to go. He had Lilly with him, her dress stained with chocolate ice cream.

  “Where’s Julia?” he asked.

  I looked around and shrugged. Eric sighed. “I’ll find her,” I said. I walked through the living room asking if anyone had seen her, went out on the terrace. When I passed through the den, unable to avoid the site of my ignominy, I was suddenly certain she was hiding in a bedroom, humiliated.

  We had an upstairs. Kelley and Richard had a second wing. I went through each room, every picture perfectly hung, every accent pillow in place, orchids in the bathroom, expecting to find Julia behind each door.

  I met up with Eric in the foyer. “She’s not in the house,” I told him. Our annoyance was shading into alarm. We questioned Kelley and her kids. Eric went outside, circling the house calling her name. People offered to help.

  I retraced my steps, this time opening closet doors. This is insane, I thought. Julia hasn’t been kidnapped. She’s not a baby. She’s punishing me. It will turn out to be nothing, just like this thing with Bobby will turn out to be nothing.

  Kelley came up behind me, put her hand on my back. “Eric’s found her,” she said. “She got the keys from the attendants and found your car. Guess my party was pretty dull.”

  I turned. She put her arms around me, and I held on to her. “Kids,” she said, patting my back.

  “Kids,” I repeated, my face still buried in her shoulder, wishing that was all it was.

  *

  AT HOME, I put Lilly to bed and then went to Julia’s room. She sat on the floor, her back against her bed, still in her party outfit—if I hadn’t criticized it, would the evening have gone differently? Her face was streaked with mascara. Before tonight, I’d never even seen her wear any.

  “I’m not talking to you,” she said.

  I sat on her bed, and patted the space next to me. She shook her head. I waited. She finally got up and sat next to me, her eyes downcast.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, surprising myself. I hadn’t meant to say this. “I’m sorry I gave you a hard time about your outfit. I’m sorry I fell and splattered all that food.”

  She looked up at me, astonished and wary. Without warning, I started to cry. She told me it didn’t matter, that it was just a spill. Then she put her arms around me, as if we’d traded places and she was the grown-up now.

  chapter fifteen

  ELEVEN LITTLE GIRLS in sleeping bags were packed on the floor of my family room. Smack in the middle was my own little girl, my baby, eight years old today. The slumber partiers all seemed to be asleep, each one clutching her doll. I’d already checked on them more times than necessary, but I wasn’t ready to go back upstairs. I just stood there in the low light, taking in these girls and their dolls.

  On the Thursday after the sleepover, Lilly and I were still reveling in the party’s success. I made meat loaf for dinner, Eric’s favorite. It was one of the things that endeared him to me, the way I could count on ground beef to make him happy.

  Lilly wanted to help and I said sure. She washed her hands proudly at the sink, and shoved them into the bowl next to mine. When Julia came downstairs for a snack, she ate her apple leaning next to us at the counter. I was happy, my girls and I in our sunny kitchen, the breeze through the windows carrying the scent of spring.

  I put the meat loaf in the oven with four potatoes. The kids went upstairs. I made a salad, opened a bottle of Cabernet, poured myself a glass, and took it to the family room. I flipped on the national news, and sank onto the couch, my reward for being so far ahead of the game. A commercial aired for Australian tourism. We could go there sometime, the four of us.

  I got up to shut the patio door against the cooling air. There was a hummingbird at the feeder Eric had hung. I watched it suspended in space. All that work to stay in one place. Did it ever think it wasn’t worth it? I heard the words federal agents apprehended, jerked my head around. I’d never seen my brother’s cabin, yet I knew it was his.

  Then I heard my brother’s name broadcast to the nation.

  I fell into a chair. I recognized the anchor’s voice but not the roar of his words. There was footage of a slight man, hair wild and matted, dwarfed on either side by federal agents in Kevlar vests. His head was down, resting on his filthy clothes. Absent the shackles and federal agents, he co
uld have been any of the down-and-out men I passed by every day in Berkeley.

  I wanted to see his face, to know that he hadn’t been hurt. Yet I feared him lifting his head, having to see the look in my brother’s eyes.

  Suddenly I heard my own name. The name I was born with, the name I’d kept when I married barefoot on my parents’ lawn, the name I still used: Natalie Askedahl. The only name I’d ever had. Agents acting on a tip provided by the suspect’s sister. Me.

  The shower came on upstairs. Julia in her safe world, primping unaware. The phone rang. I could not move to answer it. I flipped through the channels and saw more shots of the same rude shack, surrounded by FBI sharpshooters, rifles held high. So many guns for such a small, grubby captive, a caravan of vehicles in the woods. My brother.

  Lilly, carrying her American Girl doll, found me. “Can I watch?”

  “Absolutely not,” I said, switching off the set. “Go play in your room.”

  She looked at me suspiciously, but she did as she was told. I wanted Julia to never turn off the shower.

  I’d have to call Mother, call Sara. I got up slowly, locked the patio door, and gave it a tug to be sure. As if that was going to keep us safe.

  I looked up. Eric was coming in the door, his face bloodless, his briefcase sagging in his hand. “I heard,” he said. “On the radio in the car.” He brought his fist down on the back of the couch. “Those sons of bitches.”

  The shower went off upstairs. “Maybe the arrest doesn’t mean what we think it does.” I sounded frantic. “Maybe they’re not that sure about Bobby?”

  “Natalie,” Eric said, the pain in his voice pleading with me not to go there.

  He collapsed onto the couch. I sat beside him. “What are we going to tell the girls?”

  “Oh, Jesus,” he said, dropping his head into his hands.

  “What’s wrong with Daddy?” Lilly had reappeared like a cat at our sides.