I winced at the unfortunate metaphor.
But Harry nodded and muscled his way into my embrace. “Tandy,” he said through his tears, “you are the best of all of us. You’ve always been the best.”
The best. Had I always been the best? When Malcolm or Maud whispered their plans for me or told me I had done well, I felt pride. Relief. Happiness. But now? I think what I was feeling was… gratitude. Harry’s words felt real to me, so much more than they ever had coming from our parents or Dr. Keyes.
“Dr. Keyes,” I said in a very quiet voice, “are you going to ask me how I feel?”
“Of course, Tandy.” Dr. Keyes gave me an encouraging smile. “Please do tell. That’s how we let it go. You’re so good at that. Show the boys how it’s done.”
I took another deep breath in the manner she’d taught me, but what I said wasn’t what she was expecting.
“I think that I’m very, very sad. And I’m not sure why, but that surprises me. Malcolm and Maud always told me that I didn’t have feelings, and that that was a good thing. Well, I’m feeling great sadness now. I think I’m feeling grief. It’s awful. But…” Tears came into my eyes. “I’m glad that I’m feeling this way. I’m really glad.”
Dr. Keyes looked rather dismayed. “Really, sweetheart?”
“Yes. And I don’t want to let it go. Not yet. I’m just starting to feel it. And it feels… I don’t know. Right, I guess. Maybe even… good.”
“It’s very natural to want to embrace these feelings, Tandy. But you, more than anyone else in this family, know that emotions disrupt our ability to function and focus—”
“Actually, Doctor, I’m focusing just fine. I’m thinking more clearly than I ever have before. And I mean no disrespect, but I think it’s time for you to leave.”
I ushered a stunned Dr. Keyes to the front door and shut it firmly behind her. And only then did I let myself smile, before I turned around and marched back to my brothers.
CONFESSION
You’re probably asking yourself: What did Dr. Keyes mean when she said, “You, more than anyone else in this family, know that emotions disrupt our ability to function and focus”?
After all, isn’t Harry the expert on emotions in this family?
It’s a little more complicated than that.
I’ve mentioned that things didn’t go well in the past when I let myself get out of control. When I followed the rules, things were easy. Malcolm and Maud took care of me. Protected me from any adverse force of nature.
These were the parents who never let us go to kiddie birthday parties, for fear that we’d be corrupted by addiction to Disney products or the artificial coloring in the cake icing. As we got older, boy-girl parties weren’t allowed because, well, our parents were obsessed with protecting us from… distractions.
Especially me. They really believed in me. Don’t tell anyone, but even though Malcolm said Matty could become president of the United States, he told me that I would become president of Angel Pharmaceuticals someday. Which, to him, was a far superior position. He believed in me so much that he planned to someday hand over to me the care of his first—and maybe his most beloved—baby. So they would do anything to protect me.
I found that out the hard way.
About a year ago, I did something forbidden. I went to a party that I wasn’t supposed to attend. I guess I was having one of those days when I just wanted to be… normal. Or maybe I was just inspired by Katherine. I don’t want to talk too much about it right now. I can’t.
For now, let’s just say that night at the party was when it all started. When I went astray. I met someone who changed my life. But it ended up hurting me more than I can explain right now.
Wait a minute, Tandy.
Didn’t you just tell Dr. Keyes that you were feeling pain, and that you were glad you were feeling it, and that you weren’t ready to let it go?
Okay.
You’re right, friend. I need to talk about this a little bit more.
The fact is: I might have been in love.
You find that hard to believe? Sometimes I do, too. But then, grieving with Hugo and Harry… somehow that experience stirred other forbidden feelings, hidden in very deep parts of me.
Sensations I’d never felt until that night at the party.
Like the taste and scent of desire, a vibration so deep inside it convinced my scientific mind that the soul was an actual physical organ in my body.
And the stab of a bleeding heart.
I’m still not ready to remember how it all fits together; it’s just too painful. The point is that when Malcolm and Maud found out what I’d done and how far things had gone, they made certain that person would never be able to come near me, or our family, ever again. Even though his family was… Well, let’s just say they held considerable influence. Emphasis on held.
My parents risked everything to make sure my whole life wouldn’t be ruined by what happened. They helped me to forget it and move on. They made it all go away. Quickly.
Just like it had never even happened.
32
After Dr. Keyes left, we felt a little more comfortable just being… sad. Crying. Hugging. And in the case of Matty, who rejoined us after Dr. Keyes’s departure, raging.
Leave it to Uncle Peter to break up the pity party.
He came down the stairs and paused dramatically on the landing so that he was standing ten feet above us. Apparently, he’d been nosing around in my father’s private records.
With his flannel and fleece and flyaway hair and bare feet, he looked almost warm and fuzzy, and yet I knew he was about as fuzzy as a T. rex.
“I have an important announcement,” Uncle Peter said, as though he were the king of New York and not just the head (in name only) of our household. “Matty, I’ve been going over the private records that your father kept in a special vault at the office. I’ll be turning everything over to the police shortly. Unfortunately, I’ve discovered some rather grave news. The records I found are different from the company’s official records.”
Everyone stared at him blankly.
“Let me be clear about this: Your father cooked the books.”
Matty’s face was unreadable. But I could sure read Uncle Peter. There was something bad in the forecast, and he was about to slit the clouds open and let it pour.
“But you already know about the bookkeeping irregularity, don’t you, Matthew?”
Matty answered in a deep, low voice, almost a growl. “I don’t know what my father’s bookkeeping has to do with me. As far as I know, the only thing my father cooked was food.”
“Well, I’ll spell it out for you, nephew. A sizable chunk of money—$1.7 million, to be exact—somehow slipped off the table, and your father covered it up. However, there’s a copy of a statement from a bank in the Channel Islands, where there is an account containing that precise amount—and your name is on it. And that little bit of grand larceny is why your father’s bookkeeping is your business.”
“Peter, you’re an idiot. You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Matthew said.
“I can read a bank statement. Did your father lend you the money for your gambling habit and then want it back? Did you kill him so that you wouldn’t have to repay the debt?”
Gambling habit? I wasn’t sure what to make of that. I knew Matthew enjoyed a game of poker with his buddies every now and then. Was it something more than that? Something I needed to be concerned about? Because, dear friend, gambling has played an unfortunate role in the Angel family history. But that’s another story, for another time.
Matthew’s smile was flat and, frankly, scary. His sunglasses covered his eyes and I, for one, was glad. Matty said, “You’re accusing me of killing my father?”
“I hate to say it, but maybe I’ve overestimated you, Matty. I wonder what the police will think of that money as a motive for murder.” Uncle Peter had his cell phone out. He punched in some numbers and then spoke into the mouthpiece: “Sergeant
Capricorn Caputo, please. All right. Tell him that Peter Angel called, and that it’s very important.”
I clasped my hands together so hard that my fingers went numb. I was kind of dumbstruck. My head was starting to spin.
Hugo jumped to his feet and screamed at our uncle, “You can’t call the police on Matty! He’s your family. That’s just wrong.”
Was it wrong?
Why had my father given Matty $1.7 million? Since my big brother had started spending nights with his glamorous girlfriend, I realized, I really didn’t know him like I used to.
Could Matty be a killer? I felt like I had been asking myself questions about him more than anyone else since our parents’ murders, and it was getting easier and easier to answer them.
33
Uncle Peter was quickly ejected from the room by Harry, of all people, who remembered that our uncle hated Brahms with a passion and so started banging out some Hungarian Dances—allegro—on the piano as Peter tried to finish his call to Caputo.
When Uncle Peter stood up to leave the room and complete the call elsewhere, Hugo helped speed his departure by taking a running start and head-butting him. Hugo wasn’t about to tolerate anyone bad-mouthing his hero like that. And the boy is strong. It worked like a dream.
“Okay, now that the vermin is gone,” Matthew said, “we need to talk about something important.”
“What? Do you have new information?” I asked eagerly. “About who might have done this?”
“No. It’s about the funeral.” Matthew swallowed. It was interesting to see him falter for a moment at that word. Then he quickly collected himself and resumed his big-brother-in-charge tone. “We have to figure out who’s doing the eulogy.”
We all stared at one another. That had been the furthest thing from our minds.
“Well, obviously not me,” Harry piped up. “You know I’ll self-destruct.”
“Of course, Harry,” I reassured him. “We wouldn’t put you through that. You’ll play a beautiful piece in their honor.”
“Well, it’s not going to be me, either,” Matthew announced. “Sorry, I know you guys might think it’s the role of the oldest, but I just had to put it out there that it’s not an option, okay? I’m dealing with… some stuff right now.”
I gave him a quizzical look. “Stuff?” Stuff, as in guilt?
“I’m sorry to hear it, bro,” Harry said with a sarcastic look. “I thought we were all dealing with some stuff right now.”
Matthew ignored him. “Hugo would be great,” he continued. “Hugo, you’re so upbeat and positive. Everyone loves kids. Especially when they get all poetic in a kidlike way…”
“About their dead parents,” Harry finished. “Brilliant, Matty.” Harry is so much better at sarcasm than I am.
“Are you nuts?” Hugo asked. “I’m ten. I’m officially not responsible for anything.”
“Of course not,” I reassured Hugo. “We wouldn’t put you through that. You’ll be a pallbearer. The best, strongest pallbearer ever.”
“Tandy’s the obvious choice,” Harry said with an encouraging nod at me. “You’d be in complete control. You’d say all the right things, and you wouldn’t spill a tear.”
That was a compliment, right? Yes, I reasoned. It was.
So why was I feeling a little… offended?
Matthew dug in. “No offense, Tan, but that’s the problem. No emotion. Screw Dr. Keyes, man. Who wants a robot up there speaking at a funeral?”
34
I left the living room without saying anything to anyone. Harry called after me, but I just kept walking—yes, robotically—down the hallway to my room.
I entered the space that had been my safe place ever since I could remember and closed the door before someone saw me do something I would never live down.
I sat cross-legged on my bed and looked through the window at my grand view of Central Park. The fluffy treetops were like a green reflection of the clouds above, and there was a wide band of blue between the canopy and the sky.
I hardly understood what was going on as my throat tightened up and my gut began to heave. I started to break down. Before I knew it, I was shaking and croaking and gasping for air. And that quickly turned into sobbing, which wracked my body with convulsions that threw me facedown on the bed in a big wet mess.
I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t turn off the cascade of feelings that I didn’t fully understand.
I am not a robot.
When I was finally able to take a few breaths without shuddering, I wiped my face with my sleeves and sat very still. I had no previous experience with all-out grief, but I had to admit the obvious:
I missed my parents, and I was scared. About what this would do to each of my siblings, and about what my siblings would do to one another. And about what would happen if one of them really was guilty. Would I protect him as fiercely, and without conscience, as my parents had protected me?
But there was more. I realized I’d lost something that until that moment I hadn’t appreciated. My parents were supposed to live until they were so old that they wanted to die. I was supposed to learn from them, and fight them to the wall every time we disagreed, and eventually go into the world on my own.
Now I understood that an unspoken promise had been broken. As unreasonable as it may seem to you, friend, I was furious at them for abandoning me and Harry and Hugo and even Matthew, who hated them. I felt betrayed.
For one thing, I had never forgiven them for Katherine’s death.
It was a hard kernel of anger that I could barely stand to examine.
And there was another thing I’d never forgiven them for.
CONFESSION
The kiss. Destroyed. Forever. Malcolm and Maud ruined it.
It was my first kiss. It was once the most precious moment in my life, an experience I could relive and savor and examine from new angles, like a piece of fine art. Now it was like a worthless forgery. I couldn’t see it in my mind’s eye, couldn’t feel it, couldn’t even truly remember it.
I only believe it actually happened—almost as if in another life—because I wrote it down. And honestly, friend? I wonder sometimes if I just made it up, like a silly little fairy tale hastily scrawled by a pathetic, caged child.
When I stopped sobbing, I pulled my diary from its hiding place under my bed and found the page where it is written. The book fell open to the page immediately, since I’ve reread the words so many times:
What I remember most is that the laws of physics no longer seemed to apply. Gravity was backward and the world was, I’m quite certain, moving in slow motion. His pull wasn’t a pull; I was just falling upward, and he caught me. There really was no beginning or end to the kiss; it wasn’t even really there—and because of that, it was tremendous. Our lips were just four sweet, shy people meeting, saying, “Hello, it’s nice to meet you.” But what passed between them was massive. Nuclear. And in an instant, every cobweb inside me was obliterated. My inner struggles, my uncertainty, my fear of tiger attack… gone. Just the feeling of being a newborn, a pure soul just waiting to be imprinted upon.
I slammed the book shut. Even after all this time, it reads as nonsense.
35
A knock at my door interrupted my thoughts.
I called out to whoever it was, “I’m not here. Go away, please.”
But there was another, more insistent knock. “Tandy, may I come in?” Samantha asked.
I didn’t want to see Samantha, or anyone else, but the knob turned and she came in anyway. She sat next to me on my bed.
“I miss them, too, Tandy. I’m sure your mother always wanted the best for you. But you know, she was complicated. A woman of many secrets.”
“What do you mean?” I searched Samantha’s face.
She seemed more shocked by what she’d said than I was. Whatever she had meant, she now choked it back.
“What secrets?” I asked.
“Oh, you know,” Samantha said. “Her past. Her mother and father�
�� weren’t good to her. She never told you kids much about all that.”
“You can tell me now, Samantha,” I said. “She’s dead.” I gulped. It was harder to say that than I’d expected.
Samantha just shook her head. It was as if she still didn’t believe it yet, still felt she couldn’t ever tell Maud’s business to anyone. “We have to accept them as they were, with all their faults.” And then she was sniffling, too.
Samantha was the last person to see my parents alive, but I hadn’t thought for a moment that she could have killed them. She had no motive to kill Malcolm and Maud, because she had absolutely nothing to gain. She no longer had a job. And soon, she wouldn’t have a place to live, either.
I looked into her pink-rimmed eyes.
“Do you know who killed them?”
She shook her head.
I said, “I do accept them, Samantha, whoever they really were. I’m going to give the eulogy at their funeral. I wonder what I’m going to say.”
36
My mother had secrets; Samantha obviously had secrets; and so did I. Now I think I’m ready to tell you a really big one.
Uncle Peter must have come back on the scene, because he and Matty were shouting at each other just outside my room. So I turned on some music and took out my pillbox.
The pillbox, which once belonged to Gram Hilda, is made of ebony and inlaid with mother-of-pearl. I opened the box and saw that I’d forgotten to take my pills the night before.
It was the first time I’d ever forgotten my medication. Ever.
I was horrified—probably because my parents would’ve been so angry with me. I could’ve even gotten a Big Chop for this. The same was true for my brothers, and for Katherine, when she was alive.
You never miss your meds.
I shook out the day’s dose of candy-colored pills and held them in the palm of my hand: two green pills, one pink one, three white caplets, one multicolored round pill, two tiny black ones, and a yellow gelcap.
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