Long Bright River

by Liz Moore

  —Aunt Lynn’s birthday party was at the beginning of November, says Kacey.

  * * *

  —

  —Don’t tell me you were there, I say.

  * * *

  —

  Kacey looks confused. She furrows her brow. Why? she says.

  * * *

  —

  —I saw them two weeks after that, I say. At Thanksgiving. They all knew I was looking for you, I say. All the O’Briens knew it. Why did they lie to me?

  * * *

  —

  Kacey inhales, deeply. She is measuring her words. Deciding whether or not to say something. I can still read her face.

  * * *

  —

  —Look, she says, they don’t trust you.

  * * *

  —

  I laugh, once, harshly.

  * * *

  —

  —Me? I say. It’s me they don’t trust? That’s the most backward thing I’ve ever heard.

  * * *

  —

  —You never come around, says Kacey. You’re a cop. And, she says, but she stops. Pulls her punch.

  * * *

  —

  —And what, I say.

  * * *

  —

  —Say it, I say.

  * * *

  —

  —And everyone knows you took Thomas.

  * * *

  —

  I laugh.

  —Is that what they say?

  * * *

  —

  —That’s the truth, says Kacey. Whatever the circumstances. They know you took Thomas.

  * * *

  —

  I think of the looks on their faces, that day at Ashley’s. All the O’Briens. Shifting and formal and strange. Stiff when I approached them. All of them knew about Kacey. None of them let on. A slow humiliation spreads from the center of my chest outward, a sensation I recognize from childhood, so potent that it almost makes me cry. This is the feeling that being around the O’Briens has always given me. That I’m an outsider, a foundling, someone who doesn’t belong.

  I stand up, abruptly, and walk to the edge of the room. I face away from my sister.

  * * *

  —

  —I’m their family too, I say at last.

  * * *

  —

  I hear Kacey breathing. Considering what to say next. When she speaks, her voice is delicate.

  * * *

  —

  —I don’t think any of them knew you cared, she says.

  * * *

  —

  I clear my throat. Enough of this, I think. Enough.

  * * *

  —

  —Was Bobby there, I say.

  * * *

  —

  —Where?

  * * *

  —

  —At Lynn’s party.

  * * *

  —

  I turn to face her. She nods.

  * * *

  —

  —Bobby was there, she says.

  * * *

  —

  —And what did your face look like?

  * * *

  —

  She winces. Perhaps I was too blunt.

  * * *

  —

  —You mean, she says. You mean was I still beat-up-looking? Yeah. I was. I told him it was an ex. I didn’t say who.

  * * *

  —

  —That explains it, I say.

  * * *

  —

  —What?

  * * *

  —

  —I told Bobby you’d been dating someone named Dock. He must have put two and two together. Because apparently Bobby took matters into his own hands after that.

  * * *

  —

  Kacey fights a smile. You’re kidding, she says. Bobby did that for me?

  * * *

  —

  I shrug. I don’t approve of her reaction, of her satisfaction.

  * * *

  —

  —I’ve always liked Bobby, says Kacey.

  * * *

  —

  —I haven’t, I say.

  * * *

  —

  The whole time we’ve been talking, Kacey has been sitting up on the bed. Now she lies down awkwardly on her side. Head on pillows. She’s tired.

  * * *

  —

  —What happened at the party, I say finally. At Lynn’s birthday party.

  * * *

  —

  —Ashley asked me how I felt about inviting Gee, says Kacey. Lynn and Gee see each other, you know. I hadn’t seen Gee in years but I said sure, why not. One of the steps is about making amends, and I have a lot of amends to make, and I figure I could start with Gee.

  That night, at Lynn’s party, Gee was great. I mean, she was ornery, she was herself, but she was pretty nice. She said I looked good. Asked what I was up to. I told her I was on methadone maintenance but that I’d been clean besides that. She said I was doing good. Told me to keep trying. Just don’t fuck it up, she said, because Gee is Gee.

  By the end of the night I had decided to tell her about the baby. She was going to find out sooner or later, I figured. Might as well break the news. I walked outside with her and stood there with her while she waited for the bus.

  Gee, I said, I have to tell you something.

  She turned on me with this look of absolute horror.

  Oh no, she says. Please tell me you’re not gonna say what I think you’re gonna say.

  I started to feel nervous. My hands were shaking, I was sweating.

  What do you think I’m gonna say? I said.

  Gee’s got her eyes closed now. She’s just saying, No, no.

  I’m pregnant, I say.

  And Gee actually starts to cry. Have you ever seen her cry in your life, Mickey? I’ve never seen her cry in my life. She puts her face in her hands. I don’t know what to do. I put my hand on her back.

  But as soon as I touch her she whirls around on me and brushes my hand off her. She lost it, Mickey. She screamed so loud. I thought she was going to hit me. She told me she was through with me. She goes, Who’s gonna be this baby’s mama when you start up with that same old shit? She told me she was done taking care of other people’s babies. And that you were too. She told me you had enough trouble on your hands without taking in another little bastard of mine. She used that word. Bastard.

  * * *

  —

  Kacey pauses for a second, waiting for me to react, before continuing.

  * * *

  —

  —She said, I’m not gonna watch you do to this baby what your mother did to you.

  * * *

  —

  —Did you hear me? Kacey says to me.

  * * *

  —

  I nod.

  * * *

  —

  —No, Kacey says. No. Do you understand?

  —Understand what? I say.

  * * *

  —

  —I knew you wouldn’t notice it, Mick. But I’ve always wondered. To you, is what Gee said. Not you and Mickey. Not you girls. Not to us both. To me.

  I said to Gee, What do you mean, to me? And she said that Mom had been getting high when she was pregnant with me.

  But not Mickey? I said.

  Mick, I swear to God she smiled.

  Not Mickey, she told me, like she was satisfied to be telling me this. Lisa started that shit after Mickey was born.

  * * *

  —

  I wait a moment, letting the information settle.

  Then I say, Oh, Kacey. She could have bee
n lying to you. She could have been trying to scare you. I wouldn’t put it past her.

  But the question lies there, between us, hovering.

  Kacey shakes her head.

  * * *

  —

  —I wanted to believe that, she says. That she was lying.

  I thought about it while I was walking away from Gee. She was still shouting at me. She was saying, I feel sorry for that baby. I feel sorry for that child.

  I thought about it all night. I couldn’t sleep.

  Ashley didn’t know what had happened between me and Gee. She didn’t know any of this. In the morning, I left a note for Ashley, saying I was safe. Then I snuck out before anyone was awake.

  I took the bus to Fishtown. I walked to Gee’s house. I figured she’d be at work. I was right. I knocked a few times, but she didn’t answer.

  I haven’t had the keys to her house in years, but you know the alley door comes loose if you hit it hard enough, so I popped the lock and walked through the alley to the back of the house. I checked the back door and it was locked. I broke the glass and let myself in.

  I know it was wrong of me. I don’t care.

  I went down into the basement. I just wanted to know if it was true, what she said. It had become important to me to know.

  You know that filing cabinet Gee has in the basement? There was this folder in it, in the bottom drawer, called Girls.

  I pulled it out. There was a big stack of documents in it. Your birth certificate was in it, Michaela Fitzpatrick, and a photo of you from the hospital, and your birth weight and length and all, and a few papers certifying that you were healthy. That was it.

  Mine was different. My birth certificate was in there, just like yours. But my discharge papers were like an instructional manual. Care for the substance-dependent newborn. It said I might be more irritable than other newborns. That I might cry more. There was a prescription for phenobarbital. So I guess I’ve been using since I was born.

  * * *

  —

  I know that paperwork, I want to say. I received a similar packet when I took custody of Thomas.

  I stay quiet.

  * * *

  —

  Kacey goes on.

  —I kept looking through the filing cabinet. And I found other stuff, too. I found this whole folder marked Dan Fitzpatrick, says Kacey.

  * * *

  —

  I nod.

  * * *

  —

  —You know this part, says Kacey.

  * * *

  —

  I nod again.

  * * *

  —

  —You found them. The cards and the checks.

  —I did, I say.

  —That’s good, says Kacey.

  She pauses, thinking.

  —I guess I left them there on purpose, she says. I guess I thought you might find them there, if you were ever looking for me.

  * * *

  —

  —I needed to leave, says Kacey. I needed to get out of that house. I took all the paperwork from the hospital where I was born, and I took one of the cards from Dad. A birthday card he sent to me when I turned sixteen.

  I left Gee’s house a mess. I didn’t try to hide from her that I’d gone through her things. I didn’t care. I walked back through the alley and left. I walked all the way down Girard to the on-ramp to 95 South, and I stuck out my thumb, and I hitchhiked to the return address on the card I was carrying with me. I didn’t even know if he lived there anymore. But I was desperate.

  That was at the beginning of November. I’ve been at his place ever since. He’s been taking care of me, Kacey says. Making sure I have what I need. Making sure the baby will have a good home when she’s born.

  * * *

  —

  She looks at me, and for the first time I register the presence of fear in her expression.

  —We’ll have everything we need, she says.

  And I tell her, Kacey. I believe you.

  This is not something Kacey asks for. But I have the notion, suddenly, that I should bring her to see Thomas.

  Quietly, the two of us walk toward his room. Quietly, I open the door. Low light from the hallway spills in. By that light we can make out his shape in the bed, a landscape of covers and sheets and pillows and, curled inside them, my son.

  Kacey looks at me, asking permission, and I nod.

  She walks to the foot of his bed and kneels down before it. She puts her hands to her knees and gazes upon him. She stays like that for a long time.

  * * *

  —

  We had five books in the house as children. One was the Bible. One was a history of the Phillies. Two were Nancy Drew books that had been Gee’s when she was small. And one was an ancient compendium of Grimms’ Fairy Tales, wildly illustrated and frightening, full of witches and woods. The same one I gave to Thomas, this year, for Christmas.

  In this volume, the story I liked best was the one about the Pied Piper of Hamelin. It frightened me: the way he came from nowhere to lure the children away. I was frightened, too, by the helplessness of the parents, the way the town failed them, the way they, in turn, failed their children.

  Where did those children go, I wondered. What was their life like after they left? Were they hurt? Was it cold? Did they miss their families?

  I have thought of this story every day of my life on the job. I picture the drug as the Piper. I picture the trance it casts: I can see this trance quite clearly every day that I work, everyone walked around, charmed, enthralled, beguiled. I imagine the town of Hamelin after the story ends, after the children and the music and the Piper have gone. I can hear it: the terrible silence of the town.

  * * *

  —

  Now, looking at Kacey as she kneels at the foot of the bed, repentant, I see the possibility, very faintly, that one day she might return.

  * * *

  —

  Then I look at Thomas, and I am reminded, as always, of the ever-present threat of departure, of permanent loss. It hovers there, foreboding, a faint, high melody that only children can hear.

  Kacey and I return to my bedroom, and to my laptop, on the bed.

  She points to Eddie Lafferty again.

  —This guy, she says, used to come around all the time while I was living with Connor. It was before I got sober. It’s hazy. I remember him, though, because he talked to me. He was friendly. He talked to me and kind of eyed me up. I thought maybe he was looking for a date, but he never asked me for one. He and Connor usually went off someplace together. I don’t know what they were doing. I thought he was just there to get high. Connor dealt. Still deals, I guess.

  —Try to remember more, I say.

  Kacey looks up at the ceiling, then down at the floor.

  —I can’t, she says.

  —Try again, I say.

  —There’s a lot in my life I can’t remember, says Kacey.

  Both of us go quiet for a while.

  —We could just ask him, Kacey says suddenly.

  I look at her, incredulous.

  —Connor? I say. Dock? You want to ask Dock for help after what he did to you?

  —Yeah, says Kacey. I know it’s hard to believe, but he was a pretty good guy. Treated me better than any other guy has treated me, at least.

  —Kacey, I say. He attacked you.

  She pauses, considering this.

  —But I bet I could get him to talk, she says, finally.

  I’m shaking my head now.

  —Absolutely not, I say.

  Kacey turns away.

  —We’ll figure it out in the morning, I say. Both of us need sleep.

  Kacey nods.

  —All right, she says. I guess I’ll get going.

  She doesn’t move
, though. Neither do I.

  —Do you mind if I just take a nap? she says.

  * * *

  —

  I turn off the light. Both of us lie down, awkwardly, next to each other on the bed. There’s silence in the room.

  —Mickey, says Kacey, suddenly. It startles me.

  —What, I say, too quickly. What.

  —Thank you for taking care of Thomas, she says. I’ve never said that.

  I pause. Embarrassed.

  —You’re welcome, I say.

  —It’s funny, she says.

  —What is? I say.

  —All the time you were trying to find me, she says. I was trying to hide from you.

  —Funny is one word for it, I say after a while.

  But I can hear, by her breathing, that she’s already asleep.

  * * *

  —

  It’s been sixteen years, half of our lives, since we slept next to each other in the back room of Gee’s house. I picture us, just children then, telling each other stories to get to sleep, or reading books, or looking up in the dark at a domed ceiling light that rarely contained a working bulb. Below us, the hoarse voice of our grandmother, complaining on the phone, or chanting to herself in anger about somebody’s misdeeds. Put your hand on my back, Kacey would say, and I would comply, remembering tenderly the way my mother’s hand felt on my own skin. In retrospect, I believe it is possible that I was trying to bestow some sense of worth upon her; to be the vessel through which our mother’s love poured, posthumously; to immunize her against the many hardships of the world. In that position, my hand on her back, we’d both drift to sleep. Above us was a flat tar roof, poorly engineered for winter. Beyond the roof, the night sky over Philadelphia. Beyond the sky, we couldn’t say.