by Katy Regnery
When I wake up, it’s late afternoon. Annie needs to be milked, and the girls need to be fed. Otherwise the place can go to hell. I don’t care about it anymore. Anywhere I look, I’ll see Brynn now. I’ll remember her smiles and sighs, the way she hummed the Beatles and giggled at me, the way her sweet body curved into mine, so trusting, and the way she said she loved me. For a sweet, short moment, she filled my bleak, sorry, unworthy life with color and tenderness.
This homestead, which was once my sanctuary, then my heaven, is my hell now. I can’t bear to stay, not that it’s even an option.
I need to move on. Immediately.
I’m a murderer now. The murdering son of a serial killer. It’s only a matter of time until they come for me, and when they do, there’s no way in hell they’ll believe I killed that guy accidentally. They’ll take one look at my last name, and I’ll be sent to prison.
Unless I run.
I am going to pack up what I need, including the rest of Gramp’s paper money, and I’m heading north. It’s still July, which means I have two months of fair weather. I should be able to find a new place to build my own cabin. Four walls with a makeshift fireplace and chimney by the end of September. I’ll wait out the winter, killing whatever I need to survive—a moose for meat, a bear for its skin, geese for their fat and feathers. I’ve never killed mammals before, but what does it matter now? I’ve killed a man, a human being. I’ve given up the only woman who could ever love me. I feel dead inside. The moral code I lived with all my life may as well be dead too.
As far as Annie and the girls go, I can either pack them up on my ATV and drop them off at the store, or I can set them free, knowing they probably won’t be able to fend for themselves in the wild for more than a day or two. They were my only friends before Brynn. I owe them more than death at the claws of a bobcat or a black bear, so I decide to take them into town tonight. I’ll tie up Annie at the store entrance. I’ll leave the girls in a covered crate by the door. Hopefully the people who work there will find homes for them. At least they’ll have a shot at survival.
I don’t want to risk being seen, so I’ll leave at one a.m., when the world is darkest. In the meantime, I can get myself ready to go, to leave this place behind.
Annie nudges me with her head, bleating softly, and I grab the metal bucket from the wall, placing it under her teats and kneeling beside her.
“I’ll take you to the store later,” I tell her. “I’m sure someone there will find a home for you. Hope so.” The only sound is the patter of milk hitting the metal bucket.
“I let Brynn go,” I confess to Annie, my heart still beating, even though it’s dying. “I had to. I’m no good for her.”
I hope no one bothered her. I hope a kind police officer woke her up and helped her figure out where she was. I debated leaving the note pinned to her shirt, but in the end, I decided to do it. I know how hard it was for her to say goodbye to Jem. She’s the sort of woman who loves long and hard, and if I didn’t at least attempt to give her some closure, she might waste time grieving us. I hope my note tells her just enough to let me go and gives her a jump start moving on from our month together.
A month.
It took only a month to change my entire life.
When it started, I was lonesome, but I knew who I was.
Now? I know what it is to love someone. I know what it is to be loved in return. And I know that I’m turning into a monster, just like I always feared.
I’m not one for self-pity, but damn if I don’t feel a little sorry for myself right this minute. I wasn’t born to a happy fate. I know that. But how I longed for it. And with Brynn, I almost tricked myself into believing that it was possible.
But it wasn’t.
It was never possible.
The sons of murderers don’t deserve to be happy.
They are born paying for the sins of their fathers.
I finish up with Annie and take the bucket of milk outside, dumping it into the woods. No need for it anymore since I’ll be leaving sometime tomorrow.
I usually take the bucket, rinse it out, and put it back on the hook in the barn, but there’s no point in doing that either, so I drop-kick it away.
Walking toward the cabin, I keep my head down until I get to the steps, stupidly hoping to avoid memories of Brynn as I step up onto the porch. But she is
everywhere.
I see her in the rocking chair, naked under a blanket, holding a cup of tea as the sun rises over Katahdin. I see her nestled on my lap, her hair tickling my throat as we watch the sunset together. I hear her sigh when I catch her peeking at me while I chop wood, and licking her lips to tell me she wants another kiss.
I open the door and step inside, and there she is again, watching The Sandlot beside me on the couch, walking through the living room barefoot, her small feet soft on the carpet. She’s in the kitchen, rinsing dishes and frying brook trout and turning to smile at me from the stove. She’s choosing a book from the shelves under the window, and she’s jumping into my arms to cover my face with kisses, and she’s . . . she’s . . . she’s . . .
nowhere.
A choking sob explodes from my throat, and I grab the first thing I see—Gramp’s wooden walking stick leaning by the front door—and I attack the room. I smash little knickknacks that belonged to my mother and overturn the coffee table with my foot. I throw a lamp and hardcover books into the plate glass windows until they shatter, and then I pulverize larger chunks of glass into tiny shards by beating them with the stick. I stalk into the kitchen and throw chairs against the cabinets, destroying both. I lift the table and hurl it into the living room, watching as two legs snap off when it crashes down on the upside-down coffee table.
I hate this house where I have hidden for most of my life.
It will never, ever be a home again.
Panting with exertion, I throw the walking stick away from me and brace my hands on the sink, bowing my head as a desperate, keening noise rises from my throat. My body shakes with a sorrow so profound and so complete, I can’t think of a single reason to keep on living.
Brynn is everywhere.
Brynn is nowhere.
I am lost.
Brynn
When we get back from the hospital, it’s afternoon, and I ask my father if I can use his laptop to do some research. He sits with my mom in the living room of the suite, watching TV, while I open the doors to the deck overlooking Ferguson Lake and do a little cyberinvestigating of my own.
I am almost certain that Cassidy Porter and Jackson Wayne Jr. were switched at birth, but while I know for certain that “Wayne” was the son of Paul Isaac and Rosemary Cleary Porter, I don’t have any proof that “Cassidy” (my Cass) is the son of Jackson and Nora Wayne. I need that proof before I return to him.
My wrist bothers me as I type, but nothing’s getting in the way of my search. I take an Advil, powering through the ache of the sprain.
I start with Theresa Humphreys, searching the web for any information I can find on her. An obituary comes up readily in the North Country Register. Theresa (Daario) Humphreys was born in Bangor and moving to Millinocket with her husband, Gabe, in 1962. She worked as head nurse in the maternity ward of Millinocket General Hospital until April 30, 1990, and died on May 22, 1990.
I pause here for a moment, looking at the dates carefully and wishing the obituary offered more information about the cause of death. She retired only twenty-two days before she died? Was she sick? Or was it a coincidence that the two events were so close together?
Frustrated, I scan the rest of the obituary quickly, my eyes locking on the very last sentence: In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations are made in Mrs. Humphreys’s name to the National Brain Tumor Foundation.
My lips part as I reread the short sentence, and Betty Landon’s warning returns to me: Theresa Humphreys died in May 1990. Look into it.
A brain tumor.
Theresa Humphreys must have had a brain tumor, and Bett
y Landon knew it.
I open a new internet session and type in “brain tumor symptoms.”
The Mayo Clinic lists several symptoms for a brain tumor, including headaches and nausea, which Theresa Humphreys could have been explained away as one of a thousand other benign conditions. But the most troubling symptom for me is “confusion in everyday matters.” For someone like Nurse Humphreys, who’d been trusted with the lives of babies for almost three decades, caring for infants would have been an “everyday matter.” But switching them on an especially chaotic evening could have been a result of “confusion.”
It’s a small victory and makes my baby switching theory more plausible, but I still don’t have proof. How could I get proof? I wonder. That’s what I need before I go to Cassidy with all this information. Cold, hard proof that he’s not Paul Isaac Porter’s son.
Opening up a new internet window, I type in “Nora and Jackson Wayne.” If the Waynes were willing to give a DNA sample that could be compared to Cassidy’s, I could get definitive proof.
A web page for the United Methodist Church of Windsor, Rhode Island, comes up immediately, and I click on it, leaning forward in my seat. A New England–style white clapboard church decorates the home page, and I click on the “About” tab, then on the “Our Ministry Team” tab. And when Pastor Jackson Wayne’s face comes up on the screen, I gasp.
Sudden tears blur my vision as my fingers rise from the keys to trace the lines of Jackson Wayne Sr.’s face.
It is Cassidy’s face thirty years from now.
The blond hair is white, and the skin is weathered, but this face is a carbon copy of my Cass’s, right down to the three mesmerizing moles on the pastor’s left cheek.
“Oh, my God,” I murmur, staring back at an aged version of the face I love more than any other in the world, something galvanizing within me.
I have zero doubts in my mind that Pastor Wayne is Cassidy’s biological father, and if there is no other way to prove it, I will drive down to Rhode Island myself. But that would take a full day away from getting back to Cassidy, when I was hoping to scour the survey map this afternoon and evening for an approximate location of his cabin. My father has already rented me an ATV tomorrow from the Golden Bridge Store that Cassidy mentioned once or twice.
Before frustration gets the better of me, I remember that I never did see birth records for the two boys. Maybe I can start there tomorrow.
In the meantime, I need to go downstairs, to the hotel business center, and print everything out: information about the 1990 storm, Nurse Humphreys’s obituary, and this picture of Pastor Jackson Wayne. Tomorrow I’ll stop by the police station and ask Marty or Lou for a copy of the DNA report proving that Cassidy Porter was the name of my attacker.
I still need solid proof that my Cassidy was born Jackson Wayne Jr., but I feel like I’m getting closer.
Wait for me, Cass.
I’m coming.
***
I am at the town clerk’s office at nine o’clock on the dot the next morning with my growing folder of information, and to my great relief, Ms. Dolby is working at the desk again.
Today I’m hoping to get copies of Theresa Humphreys’s death certificate, plus birth certificates for Cassidy Porter and Jackson Wayne Jr. I have looked up the requirements for requesting duplicates of such documents, and technically I am supposed to be related to these people in order to ask for their vital records. However, Ms. Dolby was so helpful and sympathetic yesterday, I am desperately hoping she will prove as amenable today.
Her warm smile tells me I might just get lucky.
“Miss Cadogan. You’re lookin’ well this morning!”
“Thank you, Ms. Dolby. Please call me Brynn.”
“Well, then, you’re lookin’ well, Brynn.” She raises her eyebrows. “What can I do you for today?”
I decide not to beat around the bush. “I was hoping to get copies of the birth certificates of Jackson Wayne Jr. and Cassidy Porter.”
“Hmm,” she says, pursing her lips. “Cassidy Porter ain’t a problem, ’cause he’s dead. But Jackson Wayne Jr.? I don’t know. You ain’t kin, are you?”
I take a deep breath. “What if I was?”
“Well, then, I couldn’t stand in the way of you seekin’ out your kin, could I?” she answers shrewdly.
I smile. “Ms. Dolby, I’m looking for the birth records of my cousins Jackson Wayne Jr. and Cassidy Porter. Also, if possible, the death record of my aunt Theresa Humphreys.”
She nods at me. “Just fill out this form, Brynn. I’ll go make copies for you.”
I fill out the form, checking “cousin,” “cousin,” and “aunt” on the records, and wait against the counter for Ms. Dolby to return with the copies.
The birth certificates will show that the boys were born on the same day, and Theresa Humphreys’s death certificate should show that she died of a brain tumor, corroborated by the detail in the obituary. My next stop will be the police station, to get a copy of the DNA test on Cassidy Porter, and then I need my parents to drive me to the Golden Bridge Store, where I will collect my ATV. My father and I spent about two hours leaning over the survey map last night, and if my calculations are correct, it’s about fourteen miles to Harrington Pond from the store. I was there twice. I’m going to circle the pond, looking for Brynn’s Rock, and try to walk from there to Cassidy’s homestead by memory.
And then? Oh, God. My heart races. And then I’ll share everything I’ve learned and hope against hope that our story is just beginning.
“Here you are, now,” says Ms. Dolby, placing the three documents on the counter. “Was there anything else?”
“No, thank you,” I say, sliding the papers into my manila file folder. “Thank you so much for helping me.”
“You didn’t even look at them,” she says.
“I will. But they’re more for someone else than for me.”
“Hmm,” she hums. “Curious note on J.J.’s birth certificate. Never noticed it before.”
I search her eyes before flipping open the file. The first document is Theresa Humphreys’s death certificate, and just as I thought, the cause of death is listed as a brain tumor. If she died only three weeks after her retirement, she probably had been making mistakes for weeks, if not months. No wonder Nurse Landon didn’t want to talk about it. But I silently thank her in my heart for leading me in the right direction.
I flip to the next document, the birth record for Cassidy Porter. I review the names of his parents; the location, date, and time of his birth; and his gender and race. Everything looks to be in order, and the document is signed by Elias Maxwell, M.D.
My fingers tingle as I flip to the final document, the birth record of Jackson Wayne Jr., also signed by Elias Maxwell, M.D., placing it beside Cassidy Porter’s for comparison. Names of parents, check. Location, date, and time of birth, check, and almost identical to Cassidy Porter’s. The boys were born nineteen minutes apart, which only adds to the notion of a chaotic maternity ward.
Gender, male. Race, Caucasian. Check. Check.
Hmm. I squint, leaning closer to the photocopied document.
Next to race, there is something else. A small scribbled note beside the word Caucasian. My lips part in amazement and relief as I realize it says “congenital heterochromia iridis.”
“Congenital heterochromia iridis,” I breathe, looking up at Ms. Dolby with eyes, no doubt, as wide as saucers.
She shrugs. “And ain’t that the strangest thing? Because my memory’s pretty good, and I remember Cassidy as the boy with different-colored eyes, not J.J. Oh, well. Gettin’ old, I s’pose.” She pats me on the hand as someone enters the office behind me. “You take care now, Brynn.”
I turn away from her, feeling my smile start in my toes, which curl into the rubber bottoms of my flip-flops. That feeling of elation—of happiness and hope and grace—rises from there, up my legs, to my belly, to my heart, to my head, and I stand there in the Millinocket Town Clerk’s Office with hap
py tears streaming down my face, grinning like I’ve just won the lottery.
And I have.
This is my proof.
This birth certificate, signed by the doctor who delivered Jackson Wayne Jr., has a scrawled note detailing the unusual color of his eyes. Maybe because it was so rare. Or maybe because he’d noticed that Nurse Humphreys was confused and needed a bit of extra information to tell the babies apart.
I don’t care why.
I only care that it’s there.
I only care that it gives me and Cass a chance to be together.
***
“Sweetheart, are you certain you’re up for this?” asks my mom after the owner of the Golden Bridge Store explains how to work the top-of-the-line 2017 Outlander and gives me a helmet. “You were up at the crack of dawn. And your wrist isn’t healed yet. Let your father go instead.”
I am already seated on the quad, but I look up at my mom, reaching for her hands. “Thank you for everything. I can’t wait for you to meet Cassidy.”
“Brynn, please let your father—”
“I love you, Mom,” I say firmly, dropping her hands and putting on the helmet. “I’m going.”
“You know where you’re going, bug?” asks my dad, putting his hand on my shoulder.
“Not exactly,” I say, shaking my head. Then I grin at him, and he hands me the manila folder, which I tuck into the side compartment. “More or less.”
“It’s noon. When do you think you’ll get there?”
“Well, it took him about three hours to get to the store and back. So . . . I have no idea.”
“You know where to go?”
I look at the GPS my father picked up at the hardware store. It’s strapped onto my wrist with Velcro, and we’ve loaded the coordinates that we believe correspond with the location of Harrington Pond. From what I can tell from Google Maps, it will be a smooth trip for about ten miles, but there could be a little—what did Cass call it? oh, yes—bushwhackin’ after that.
