What Remains of Me

by Alison Gaylin

  “Try finding something from Shakespeare, or the Bible.” That advice had come from Zeke, full name Ezekiel, who had clearly gone the latter route. And so Ruth had done the same, pouring over Bible passages until she found Ruth—lost and childless and longing for redemption. Perfect. The Freed part had literally come with the territory. It was Ezekiel’s last name too—the last name of everyone who lived here in the compound, its meaning obvious and true.

  Yet when she’d seen Rose Lund written out like that, Ruth had felt . . . nostalgic was the wrong word. She didn’t want the name back any more than she wanted the life it came with. But there was something else she did want to the point of longing. It became tangible only when she read the note, the part of it that said, I know you love your daughter.

  It had been six months ago, early evening just after supper. On cleanup duty that night, Ruth had been stacking plates. Jeremiah, who’d been on guard duty, had raced into the canteen, such a tense look on his face that Ruth had thought it was the cops again. “Is there a former Rose Lund here?” Jeremiah had said, because no one here knew each other’s former identities. No one wanted to. That was the point.

  Ruth had raised her hand shakily. Jeremiah had given her the note, explaining that the man who had left it for her was outside the gate, waiting. She’d read the letter in the cactus garden, Zeke at her side.

  “Old friend?” Zeke had asked.

  “Complete stranger. But he knows one of my daughters. He wants to meet me. Should I?”

  “You’re asking me. But you know the answer.”

  Ruth had left the cactus garden and stepped outside the gate for the first time in years to meet with the stranger, Sebastian Todd.

  At first sight, she’d been impressed by him, intimidated almost—this elegant, bald man from the outside world, a Pulitzer Prize–nominated journalist dressed all in white who claimed not only to know Kelly, but to have written a book about her. (“I can send you a copy,” he had said. “But you might not like it.”)

  He had then given Ruth two pieces of information: (1) Kelly had been out of jail for nearly five years. (2) She was now married to Shane Marshall.

  Ruth had crumbled at the name. Sterling Marshall’s son. Bellamy Marshall’s brother, and now Kelly’s husband? It wasn’t possible. None of this was possible. She’d managed to keep the past at arm’s length for so long, but listening to this man speak, she’d felt it caving in on her, crushing her. She’d accused Sebastian Todd of lying because Sebastian Todd lying had been her only hope. She had told him to leave and never come back, but still the damage had been done.

  One week after Sebastian Todd’s first visit, Zeke had woken up drenched in sweat, his lips blue, his body shaking uncontrollably. He’d used the emergency phone to call an ambulance, coming back from town days later with a diagnosis he refused to talk about.

  Ruth knew logically that Sebastian Todd’s visit wasn’t connected to Zeke’s illness, but a part of her—the same part that knew she was to blame for both her daughters’ fates—felt otherwise. Ever since her conversation with that white-clad harbinger of bad news, Zeke had been getting sicker and sicker, wasting away as he was now in his cabin, lying flat on his back on his thin, sweat-soaked futon, all the covers kicked off and Ruth at his side, spooning him lukewarm chicken broth, the only thing he was able to keep down these days.

  Deep in that same dark recess of her brain, Ruth now had a strange knowledge that Sebastian Todd was back, the light knock on Zeke’s door confirming it—that and Demetrius’s voice. “Ruth? You in there?”

  “Yes.”

  Demetrius poked his head in—such a handsome young head it was, blond curls and full cherubic lips and crystal-blue eyes. Zeke’s eyes. His mother, Ophelia, had left the compound three years ago. But unlike Ruth, Ophelia had left behind a child who was strong, mature, and confident, with a father capable of raising him. Demetrius was eighteen now, the same age Kelly had been when she was found guilty of second-degree murder. It broke her heart to look at him, how grown-up he was.

  He held out a hot pink envelope. “There’s . . . uh . . . a man in a white suit outside the gate?”

  Her stomach clenched up. “I don’t want to see him.”

  “Are you sure?” Zeke said it, his voice so soft and weak. “Don’t you want to read the note? It seems like it would be a good idea, doesn’t it?”

  Ruth sighed. She couldn’t say no to Zeke. She lived to keep him calm and happy, and turning down one of his suggestions felt like the opposite. She said nothing, just held out her hand. Demetrius padded over to her and gave her the note. He was a foot taller than Ruth, but still a little boy to her. She’d helped toilet train him after all. She still baked him cookies—double chocolate chip were his favorite. There had been a time when he was around five or six—a good eight months to a year in there—he’d insisted on calling her Nana. That had been the happiest time in her life. “Thanks, Deedee,” she said—his childhood nickname. He smiled. She wished she could hold him close, turn him back into a little boy, keep him that way forever.

  Before he turned to leave, Demetrius moved to his father’s bedside and kissed Zeke’s forehead very lightly.

  “I love you,” Zeke whispered.

  But Demetrius was already out, cabin door closed softly behind him.

  “He’s a good young man,” Ruth said. “You should be proud.”

  Zeke closed his eyes. “Read the note,” he said.

  She did. It was just one line: Kelly is in danger.

  RUTH MET SEBASTIAN OUTSIDE THE GATE AGAIN. SHE DIDN’T FEEL right about inviting him inside, not because she didn’t trust him (though she didn’t). The real reason was, she was afraid of the effect he might have on some of the children, the ones who were born here and had grown up knowing only clumsily sewn clothes and hand-me-downs. And looking at him now, leaning against his money-green Bentley, fine white suit glowing in the moonlight, she knew her instincts had been right. Sebastian held out his hand to shake hers and she noticed the watch—bulky and futuristic. Probably a Rolex—or whatever the equivalent was these days in the outside world. Back when she was Rose Lund, Ruth would have pined for this man.

  “Thank you for seeing me,” he said. “I know we didn’t part on the best of terms.”

  He wore sleek-looking glasses and had an intense, purposeful gaze she knew better than to meet. “You didn’t leave me much choice in the note.” It was a clear, starry night, and a windy one. Cool air crept under Ruth’s flannel shirt, ruffled her hair. She shivered. “What’s happened to Kelly?”

  “Sterling Marshall.”

  That name. She shut her eyes tight. “What about him?”

  “He’s dead.”

  “What?”

  “He was shot to death. Two bullets to the chest, one to the head. Just like John McFadden. The police suspect Kelly.”

  Ruth’s knees buckled. She collapsed to the ground, legs slipping out from under her, earth crashing into the side of her face, her hip, the palms of her hands.

  “Oh my God . . . Ruth,” Sebastian said, crouching down beside her. “Can you hear me?”

  She hadn’t passed out. It wasn’t that—it was her body giving out on her, surrendering as though her muscles, her bones and cells could no longer take being a part of her. Sterling shot to death. Kelly suspected. “It’s my fault,” Ruth whispered.

  “What? No,” he said. “Of course it isn’t your fault.” He put his arms around her, lifted her to her feet. He brushed the hair out of her face. His hands were soft and he wore an expensive cologne—first time in so long that she’d been close to a man who didn’t smell of sweat and homemade soap, and again, it took her where she didn’t want to go . . . “It is.”

  “Listen.” He grabbed her by the shoulders. “Listen to me.”

  Kelly. The name filled her thoughts, a thick weight in her heart. “She killed Sterling Marshall.”

  He shook his head. “She didn’t. I would bet my life on it,” he said. “And I honestly don
’t think she killed John McFadden, either.”

  Ruth let herself meet his gaze. In the moonlight, his eyes were an odd shade of yellow-green, like a cat’s. “You’re serious,” she said.

  He nodded. “I spoke to your ex-husband.”

  “Jimmy?” She nearly collapsed again. “Jimmy’s still alive?”

  “He’s in a rest home and he’s . . . well, he’s all right,” he said, looking at the ground. “He told me all about The Demon Pit, how McFadden was responsible for his injuries. He said McFadden deserved to die and that he had killed him.”

  Ruth crossed her arms over her chest, hugging herself against the cold, against her thoughts. The Demon Pit. God, that awful movie. The memories it dug up . . .

  “. . . saw the film myself,” Sebastian was saying now. “The scene where that poor man burns is horrifying. And he was never compensated. Not a dime. I’d have done it too. I’d have killed John McFadden in a heartbeat.”

  “Have you seen her?” She swallowed hard. “Have you spoken to my daughter?”

  “Yes. Right before I came here.”

  “How is Kelly?” she said.

  “She didn’t want to talk about McFadden or her father.” He looked at Ruth. “And I should tell you that I lied to her. I said you were the one who told me about The Demon Pit.” He cleared his throat. “I’m sorry but if I hadn’t, she would have thrown me out of a moving vehicle.”

  She drew a deep breath. In the distance, she heard a coyote, the howl so much like crying. “I just want to know how Kelly is. Is she healthy? Happy? I mean, aside from—”

  “Rose,” he said. “I don’t think she has any idea how much danger she is in.”

  “But . . . You said she didn’t kill Sterling.”

  “It doesn’t matter. She’s a murderer. She’ll always be a murderer, and as long as that’s true, she will always be the bad guy.”

  “They can’t arrest her based on opinions.”

  “Whether or not she’s arrested, a good man has been killed. A movie hero. And there are many who hate her for it.” He took a step closer, put a hand on her shoulder. “She’s in danger.”

  “What can I do?”

  “You can help me,” he said. “Help me rewrite her story.”

  Ruth leaned back against the Bentley and gazed up. Amazing how many stars you could see out here in the desert, the sky crowded with them like rhinestones on a black velvet shawl, every night so beautiful it bordered on gaudy. To this day, it was hard for Ruth to wrap her mind around the fact that at this moment, this very same sky was starless in Hollywood, rendered a dull purple from bright lights and automobile emissions. Those same stars that took Ruth’s breath away now had always been out there. But to Rose Lund they hadn’t existed.

  “They threw rocks at my apartment,” she said.

  “What?”

  “After Kelly was arrested, they threw rocks through my windows. They called me a bitch, a bad mother.” Her voice was soft, sad. Not her own.

  “Who?”

  “I didn’t know them. It didn’t matter. Whoever they were, they were right.”

  A tear ran down her cheek, warm and shameful.

  Sebastian brushed it away. “Will you help me?”

  “I’m a bad person.”

  He turned her face to his, cupped her chin in his hand very gently, as though she were something small and fragile and clean.

  “I can’t . . .”

  Sebastian put a finger to his lips. He shook his head slowly. “Nobody’s bad forever, Mrs. Lund,” he said. “Not unless they want to be.”

  KELLY REPLAYED THE SCENE AGAIN. THE LEADING MAN, BLANDLY handsome, pushing the evil demon into the fiery pit. The quick cutaway and then back to the demon writhing, Kelly’s father writhing in his demon suit, throwing his head back, pulling at his scaly skin . . . an audible scream and still the camera had kept rolling, the leading man backing away, his uncertainty so obvious, so real . . . John McFadden’s camera keeps rolling as Jimmy Lund burns.

  Kelly wiped a tear from her eye. “To my father, there are two types of people in the world—those who matter to his story and those who don’t.” Vee had told her that once. She couldn’t remember why he’d said it, but it was probably the truest thing he’d ever told her. “My dad can tell a good story. For some reason, he thinks that makes him a good person.”

  In a rare moment of non-self-absorption, Kelly’s mother had once told her that before his injuries, Jimmy had been something of a jock. Quite an adventurer too, as one might expect from a professional stuntman—the type who sought out what they used to call “natural highs.” “I could watch him surf forever,” she had said. “There was no wave too powerful for that man, and the way he’d hold his arms out, Kelly. My God. He was magnificent.”

  Jimmy was in an assisted living facility on Hollywood and Highland. Kelly had visited him there once, just once. The week she’d gotten out of prison. His mind was gone. Dementia, brought on by pernicious anemia, made worse by years of malnourishment and drugs. He shared a room with another old man who kept shouting at odd intervals. But Jimmy didn’t seem to mind—ever his easygoing self, even in the throes of confusion. He was painfully thin with bashed-in cheeks. His skin was crinkled and spotted and his sparse white hair stuck out at odd angles, like bits of frayed cotton. But his smile was the same. And that sameness—that one thing remaining of the Jimmy she had known—that smile was so much more heartbreaking than all the changes had been. “You’ve always been a pal to me, Sondra,” he had told Kelly. Confusing her with Sondra Locke. She’d never gone back. She called to check in on him every week. She spoke to the nurses. But she couldn’t see that smile again. Couldn’t bear it.

  Kelly put her head down on the kitchen table, tried to close that file drawer, the one that held her father, the same one that now held John McFadden and the stories he told. But the drawer stayed open, glared at her. She banged her head against the table just once, the sound of it breaking the silence, the pain echoing.

  Kelly headed for the refrigerator, grabbed another beer. With Shane, she often used to joke that she’d “filled up her chemical dance card,” meaning she’d done enough mind-altering substances in her teens to last a lifetime. But while that was true, she needed something right now. Something stronger than beer to smooth things over, to put it all in soft focus.

  Beer would have to do. She cracked open the can, downed it in three gulps before it hit her that she was drinking alone. All alone. Shane was gone. Acting out in strip clubs. Staying with his sister. Shane and his father, both gone within a day . . .

  The kitchen phone rang. She picked it up fast, said it without thinking. “Shane?”

  “Kelly?”

  “Yes . . .”

  “I’m with TMZ and first of all, I just want to say, I am so totally sorry for your loss—”

  Kelly cut off the call, heart pounding, hands shaking. She clicked on caller ID and scrolled back through recent calls, all those calls from the Los Angeles Times and AMI magazines and every Hollywood blog on the Internet, every one of those bastards who’d left messages on the voice mail, laced with fake politeness, falling all over each other to reach her, to reach Shane, begging to let them tell the story.

  There are two types of people in the world . . .

  She scrolled through all of them until finally, nearly last on the list, she found Bellamy’s call from this morning and hit redial. It was well past midnight, but she didn’t care. Time didn’t matter.

  Ever the night owl, Bellamy picked up after one ring. “He doesn’t want to talk to you,” she said. And Kelly closed her eyes, tears seeping out the corners. Her voice sounded so much the same. They could have been kids, for that was the last time they’d spoken. Could have been kids, arguing over a boy . . .

  “I don’t understand what is going on.” It wasn’t what Kelly had planned to say, the last thing she’d ever imagined herself telling Bellamy, in all the angry daydreams she’d had over the years. But in her daydreams, in l
ife, Kelly had never felt this way—helpless, as though the whole world had been pulled out from under her. She hadn’t felt this way in thirty years.

  “You don’t know what’s going on?” Bellamy said. “You’re a psychopath. You’re evil. And finally Shane knows it.”

  Kelly took a breath, tried to steady herself. “I need to talk to Shane.”

  Bellamy sighed—a long whoosh that hurt Kelly’s ear. “You can’t. He’s passed out.”

  Kelly closed her eyes. “Bellamy, I’m sorry.”

  “You killed my father. You killed his best friend and then you killed him and all you can say is—”

  “I meant I’m sorry about Shane.”

  Bellamy gasped. “I let you into my life. I let you into my life and you . . . you just . . . you destroyed it. From the inside out.”

  Kelly gritted her teeth. She clenched her fists. “Bullshit. You destroyed me. You made me into something I’m not. You know damn well what John McFadden was.”

  “I do know what he was,” she said, quietly. “He was my father’s best friend.”

  Kelly was shaking now, her whole body trembling, a white-hot burn in her brain, drawers flying open and clattering, breaking. Outside, she heard a clap of thunder, then the gush of sudden rain, the sky opening up as it hardly ever did here, the sky sobbing.

  “I thought you were my friend,” she said into the phone. “The only friend I ever had. You didn’t testify, but that was okay. I understood. I missed you so much, Bellamy, and you never called. I wrote you letters and you never answered and when you finally did . . . When you finally called . . . God, that one day you called me and asked me how I was and I thought my heart would burst. You really did care. I missed you. I needed you—and you got me to say that. You got me to cry and tell you I missed you. But you did it so you could . . . make it into art. Do you remember what you said to me, Bellamy? Do you remember what you said during that five-minute phone call when I was in prison? After I told you I missed you?”