What Remains of Me

by Alison Gaylin

  He looked at her, the blue-veined hands delicate on the glass. “No, I didn’t,” he said.

  “After we came back from our honeymoon, the driver took us up that hill and then he carried me over the threshold. I almost fainted from the shock.”

  “It was a surprise?”

  “Completely. I’d never seen the house. I had no idea he was even thinking of buying. I looked at that marble staircase, that enormous window overlooking the canyon, and I just started to sob.”

  “Tears of joy.”

  “Yes, of course. But also . . . something else.” She took another sip, set the glass down on the table. “The idea that he could have bought that house and kept it such a secret that I never had the slightest clue until we drove through the gate . . .”

  “Yeah?”

  “It was fear, Shane. That’s what I was feeling and the real reason why I cried. I feared that part of your father . . . that ability to, to hide things . . . It terrified me.”

  “But, Mom, he was an actor.” Shane winced. He bit back tears. Despite everything, it hurt to use the past tense with Dad, and he couldn’t hide it. He didn’t have that ability.

  But Mom didn’t seem to notice. “Your father called Kelly that night,” she said. “I heard him on the phone with her.”

  “I know, Mom. You told me.”

  “He thought I was asleep. I never would have known about it if I hadn’t overheard him calling.”

  “Mom . . .”

  “He said he’d wronged the girls. He wanted to make things right with the one surviving one before he died. He was changing his will. So he could take care of Kelly in a way he never had in life. I thought, What about me? Our whole life together was a lie. How was he ever going to make up for that?” Tears started to run down her cheeks.

  “He took care of you, though.”

  “That isn’t the point,” she said. “I married a man who abandoned two of his three daughters. He let one of them go to prison, and the other one . . . she died, Shane. He didn’t go to her funeral. He never once shed a tear. Kelly would come over and he would treat her as though she was any other friend of Bellamy’s. I married a man who was capable of that, and if I had known—if I had known what type of person he really was . . .” Shane put his arms around Mom and hugged her to him, her body so weak and frail and thin. “I didn’t mean to shoot him. I was so angry and it was right there on his desk. I pulled the trigger. I don’t even remember doing it. I didn’t know it would go off . . .”

  Shane didn’t ask her about the last shot—the one that landed square in the middle of Dad’s forehead. It didn’t matter. None of it really did, now.

  When her breathing finally calmed and she pulled away, Mom dabbed at her eyes with her handkerchief. Within moments, she was herself again—serene, elegant, slightly drugged. She stood up, steadying herself on the back of the mission chair. “I worry about your sister, Shane,” she said. “She isn’t as strong as she looks. I want you to promise me you’ll be there for her.”

  Shane sighed. Just like Dad. “Trust me,” he said carefully. “Bellamy has been doing fine without me for years.”

  She gave him a sad smile and headed for the room she was sleeping in—a fully equipped sewing room, with two spotless machines that hadn’t been used once. “I wasn’t talking about Bellamy,” she said.

  SHANE WOKE UP ON THE COUCH, SUNLIGHT POURING IN ON HIM, assaulting his eyes. His head felt heavy and he couldn’t figure out why, until he remembered the four vodka rocks he’d consumed last night after his mother had gone to bed. He didn’t drink usually, but he’d poured and poured to shut out his thoughts. To take the edge off the pain, he’d told himself. What a dumb idea.

  Shane threw an arm over his eyes and groaned. Vodka was a crappy replacement for Ambien. His eyes were too big for their sockets. His stomach gaped. He was so thirsty and achy, he felt as though his entire body had been wrung out like a sponge.

  He plodded into the kitchen and ran himself a glass of water, chugged all of it without taking a breath. He sliced off a piece of the crusty bread Bellamy kept on the counter, wolfed it down. ARTISINAL BREAD, the label said. He hated that, hated reading the words. Made him want to throw the loaf under a truck.

  Shane gulped water from the faucet until he felt slightly human, then headed back into the living room again. He looked at the antique grandfather clock in the corner. Seven A.M. and so bright already. He hated this place—the big windows, the piney smell, the arduous, overbearing sunlight. Bellamy said she found it stimulating here. He would never understand her . . .

  He started to lie down again when he spotted his denim jacket on the couch. He hadn’t remembered leaving it there—he was sure, in fact, that he’d hung it on the coat tree, yet it had apparently been there with him all night, on the edge of the couch, next to his feet. He picked it up, his hand slipping into the inside pocket, fingers searching for his extra camera lenses, their reassuring feel. He wasn’t sure why he always did this. It was almost as though touching them reminded him of who he was. Even now the cool feel of the glass lifted the hangover, just a little.

  There was something in the pocket with the lenses—a thick piece of paper. He pulled it out and saw the writing.

  He sat down on the couch and stared at it—Kelly’s round, loopy script. Shane choked up. “You were here,” he whispered. “You came to see me.”

  Dear Shane,

  I realize I never thanked you, all those years ago, for the letters you wrote me in prison. I’ve always felt that the best gift you can give another human being is to truthfully answer all their questions, and that’s what you did for me. You are the only person who ever has. But I never answered yours. You’ve never asked, I know. But not asking questions doesn’t mean you don’t deserve answers—it just means you’re kind.

  From somewhere outside Bellamy’s house, Shane heard a faint wow, wow, wow . . . Gambel’s Quail. Kelly had told him about that bird, a desert bird. “They like running better than flying,” she had said. “So they don’t go very far.” He closed his eyes for a moment and felt that heat under his lids—not tears so much as the threat of them.

  To be honest with you, I wish I had answers for half the things I’ve done. They seem to make sense at the time, but shine a good, strong light on my reasoning, it all falls apart. Here are my answers: Why do I visit Rocky? I believe he may be someone I used to know. I can’t bring myself to ask him, but I keep hoping he’ll tell me on his own. That’s why I keep going back to see him—I like the feeling of hoping for something. Why did I kill John McFadden? I learned that shortly before she died, he got my sister pregnant. I believed (and still do) that he killed her because she wouldn’t get rid of the baby. 3) Why do I believe he killed my sister? Bellamy found a tube of Catherine’s lipstick in the trunk of McFadden’s car. It’s very rare. At the time, you could only get it in Europe. It was called Rouge de la Bohème.

  Shane’s breath caught in his throat.

  I never discussed my reasons in court because my lawyer said they weren’t relevant—and no one would believe me anyway. I never discussed them with you because I promised Bellamy I wouldn’t tell anyone, ever . . .

  He dropped the letter. He couldn’t read any more, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move for the memory flooding his mind: the waxy leaves of the magnolia tree, his special perch in the crook of the thick, high branch, the place he always spied on Bellamy, watching his sister through her window, watching her opening her drawer, thinking she might do that scary thing with the razor again . . .

  But she hadn’t. He’d seen her take something shiny and silver from her jacket pocket, saw her put it in that drawer, pushing it all the way to the back. He’d thought, Something important. Something she wants to hide.

  Later, when Bellamy was out with her friends, he’d sneaked into her room. He’d gone through her vanity drawer, looking for that shiny thing, thinking that it had to be very valuable. I bet it’s a silver bullet for killing werewolves . . . God, he
still remembered having that thought. He’d felt around her drawer for it, pulled it out. A fancy tube of lipstick. He still remembered the brand name, the strange words he didn’t understand: Rouge de la Bohème . . . Shane had been eight years old. Bellamy, fifteen. It had been early in the morning on a weekend, just after Valentine’s Day. Right around the time when Kelly’s sister must have died . . .

  Shane put the letter down. He walked down the hall to his sister’s tastefully appointed master bedroom with its pillow-strewn sleigh bed and flat-screen TV and heavy silk curtains. For a few moments, he stood in the doorway, watching Bellamy the way he used to as a kid. Bellamy always thought it was creepy, the way he’d spy on her. She’d shut doors in his face and complain to their parents and set her friends on him, calling him names. But Shane had had a reason—the same reason he watched her now. He was trying to figure out who Bellamy was.

  And still, all these years later, Bellamy slept the way Shane had always known her to sleep—on her back, her body still, breath soft, face placid: Snow White in her glass coffin. Bellamy Marshall, still posing, even in her sleep.

  He backed out into the hallway, softly closed Bellamy’s door. For a few moments, he stood outside the silent sewing room, thinking about what Mom had said last night. If I had known what type of person your father really was . . . But hadn’t she? That pale memory worked into his head again, Mom clutching his hand on the Defiance set, the heaviness of her step as she went for his trailer. “You wait here, Shane. Mommy’s going to see Daddy for a few minutes.” She had known what kind of person he was. She’d just chosen to be ignorant.

  Did you kill Dad for keeping secrets all those years—or was it because he was finally ready to start telling the truth?

  When Shane was sixteen years old, he’d overheard his family’s personal chef on the phone with someone from the National Enquirer, talking about Mom. He hadn’t heard the whole conversation, but he had heard “junkie” and “pathetic” and “life-threatening pill habit.” And being sixteen and drunk, he’d gone ape shit. The police were called, lawsuits were threatened—that’s how brutally Shane had attacked the chef, who had dared to try and tell the truth about his mother. Dad had made a big show with the cops, assuring them Shane had been out of his mind from booze and crystal meth and had lashed out against their trusted employee for no reason at all—ultimately shipping him off to Betty Ford for six weeks in order to fully satisfy the officers that Shane (who in reality had simply raided his father’s liquor cabinet for the first and only time) was the drug addict in the family. In the car on the way to the clinic, the two of them alone, Dad had offered up the only words he ever would about the incident: “You did the right thing, son. Your mother and I are grateful.”

  Shane went for his cell phone, called a cab. He waited for it in silence, staring up at Mona Lisa, looking into teenage Kelly’s eyes, an emotion inside them he’d never noticed and didn’t know the name for. What would you call it—that feeling of being the only person left in the world?

  “I can’t do this to you,” he said to the picture—to seventeen-year-old Kelly, whom he had loved at first sight, the only friend of Bellamy’s ever to say hi to him. Kelly, his dream girl. His pen pal. His soul mate. His sister. Shane couldn’t let her take the fall for Sterling’s murder. She didn’t deserve that. More than anyone else in their messed-up family, she deserved the truth.

  He got his phone out of the pocket of his denim jacket, typed in Kelly’s number, and texted her everything he now knew to be true. It took a long time. Then he headed for the sewing room, knocked on the door. He listened for his mother’s heavy, pill-fed sleep-breathing but heard nothing.

  Shane tried the door. It hadn’t been locked. And sure enough, when he pushed it open, the bed was empty and neatly made, everything in its place. His mother was gone.

  CHAPTER 29

  Kelly’s rental car was much smaller than her Camry. It felt lighter too, as though it was skating over the road and a good strong wind could set it airborne. The car had an odd name—the Plymouth Breeze Expresso, which sounded like something more easily drunk than driven—but still she was glad to have it. Glad to be out of Parker Center and out of Hollywood and on her way back home to the desert at last.

  On Ilene’s advice, she had told the two detectives what had happened the night before in as few words as possible: She had been out on one of her night drives. Sterling Marshall had called and asked her to come over. She had rushed to his house and found him dead. No, she hadn’t run into anyone there. She’d left the house so quickly because she was panicked. She hadn’t woken her husband when she got home because she was in shock and exhausted and didn’t know how to tell him. She hadn’t phoned the police because she was Kelly Michelle Lund.

  “The one part I don’t understand,” Braddock had said, “is why you rushed to Sterling Marshall’s house in the first place. By all accounts, you and he weren’t close at all.”

  Kelly had looked at her, flat-eyed and still. “I guess I’m a little starstruck,” she’d said.

  Braddock and Dupree hadn’t seemed to like the answer much, but still they couldn’t hold her. She hadn’t been formally charged, though her car had been impounded. So Ilene Cutler had left with her, waving off press and ushering her into her shiny silver Escalade, chatting Kelly up, keeping her calm, making sure she knew her rights regarding the inevitable phalanx of reporters outside her house in Joshua Tree. (“A press card is not a get-out-of-jail-free card. If they’re on your property, call the cops!”) They’d exchanged information, Ilene urging Kelly to charge up her cell phone as soon as possible, asking her if she had any questions or concerns—and generally not acting like the Ilene Culter Kelly used to know. “You’re taking this whole do-over thing very seriously,” Kelly had said at one point.

  “I’ve learned a hell of a lot since 1980,” she had replied. “You’re my one and only chance to prove it.”

  There had been a lot of traffic, so by the time they finally escaped downtown, it had been quite late and Kelly was starving and exhausted. Ilene had dropped her off at a Holiday Inn near the airport, where she’d devoured a club sandwich and fries, caught a few hours of sleep, poured coffee down her throat, and shuttled to the car rental in the morning, craving the desert, the birds, the comparable silence.

  Driving now on the 10, an open stretch of road ahead of her along with the still-rising sun, Kelly thought again about Ilene—the one strange thing she’d said after she’d pulled into the Holiday Inn drop-off, just as Kelly was about to leave the car: “So were your ears burning about three weeks ago?”

  Ilene had explained that it had been particularly kismet-like, Sebastian calling her about Kelly when he did, because her name had come up in conversation at a cancer awareness fund-raiser at the Beverly Wilshire—raised by Mary Marshall of all people. “She said something very nice about you,” Ilene had said. “I assumed it was because she’d had several too many appletinis.”

  “Thanks a lot.”

  “No,” she’d said quickly. “That’s not what I mean. What she said was, ‘Far as I’m concerned, that girl deserves a medal.’”

  “For what?”

  “Killing John McFadden.”

  Bizarre, Kelly thought as she exited the freeway and headed down the long local road to her home. Far as she knew, Mary Marshall had never felt anything but love for McFadden and pity for her—the poor misguided teen who never had a chance. Has she found out yet that I’m her husband’s daughter?

  Kelly needed some noise. She flipped on the Breeze Expresso’s radio. Country music filled the car, something she had a lot more tolerance for now than in her youth, but still she had to be in the right mood for those sighing guitars, those vocals so thick with emotion they sounded as though they could burst from it.

  She flipped the dial past NPR news and some top-forty song she’d heard countless times but had never bothered to learn the title, past a 1-800-Mattress ad and more country music to an oldies station, where she
let the dial rest: Elvis’s “Burning Love,” one of Kelly’s favorites from childhood, was playing, making her think of simpler times, happy times—dancing in the kitchen to Mom’s transistor radio, Catherine using the broom handle as a microphone . . .

  The song was fading, but on its heels, the blare of a saxophone. “You ready for a little Madness?” said the deejay. Kelly sighed completely, breath tumbling out of her. This station was lethal. “One Step Beyond.”

  Strange the way memories worked. How they could hide between the lines of an old song and jump out at you, ambush your thoughts, leave you wrecked and weakened. God, Kelly missed Vee and Bellamy. She missed her young self too. She missed standing on Vee’s property in the middle of the desert, sun at her back, gun in her hands, drugs in her veins that made her powerful as a movie hero. She missed the way Bellamy made her laugh and the way Vee made her feel—as though her life was just beginning and the future was limitless. As though she could change the world, rather than the other way around.

  Kelly could see her house ahead of her, the festival-like crowd lining the opposite street—TV news vans and paparazzi with their elaborate camera setups, her arrival home a red carpet event. How did I get here from that day in the desert? Kelly slowed down, staring at this group, this circus. She flashed back to the cameras outside the courthouse after her sentencing and her face twitched into the same strange smile, history nearly repeating itself. Nothing like a mob scene to make you feel utterly, hopelessly alone, Kelly thought. Until she realized she wasn’t.

  She lurched the Breeze Expresso into the left lane and careened up Hummingbird Springs, making the turn up the hill, holding her breath until she saw the army of prickly pears and then the broad, tattooed back, sinewy arms clutching the chainsaw, clouds of sawdust billowing around him as he worked. Just like the first day she saw him. That same thrill.

  Without hesitating she turned up his long driveway, stopping once she was a few feet away from where he was working. She stayed in the car, watching him sawing away, waiting for him to feel her watching him.