Remarkably Bright Creatures(56)

Moments later, the child’s mother joins them, and the three of them shuffle along to stare at the sharp-nosed sculpin exhibit next door, unaware of the treason that will one day cleave their family.

You ask, how do I know? I observe. I am very perceptive, perhaps beyond the bounds of your comprehension.

Thousands of genes mold an offspring’s physical presentation, and many of these pathways are as clear to me as letters on a page are to you. For one thousand, three hundred and twenty-nine days of this wretched captivity, I have honed my observations. In that particular case of the sporting son and his quarterback-cuckold guardian, the list of traits would be too long to name here, but: the shape of the nose, the shade of the eyes, the precise position of the earlobe. The inflection of the voice, the gait. Ah, the gait! That is always an easy tell. Humans walk alike (or, in this case, unalike) far more than they realize.

But the former cleaning woman and her replacement. They walk alike.

There is also the heart-shaped dimple that sits, unusually low for such a feature, on each of their left cheeks. And the greenish golden flecks in each of their eyes. The toneless manner in which they both hum while they mop (quite annoying, to be honest, although the whir of my pump muffles it, mercifully).

Circumstantial, you say with a dismissive wave. Coincidental. Heredity works in strange ways. You point to the doppelg?nger phenomenon; nearly identical humans of no relation born on opposite sides of the world.

You know, as do I, that the woman has no surviving heir. You know her only child died thirty years ago. You know, too, of her grief. Grief that has molded her life. Grief that, for the time being, drives her into seclusion. Eventually, I fear, it may drive her to something worse.

Your skepticism is understandable. It appears to defy logic.

I could go on with more evidence, although now, I must rest. These communications exhaust me, and this one is getting very long.

But you would do well to believe me when I tell you this: the young male who has recently taken over sanitation duties is a direct descendant of the cleaning woman with the injured foot.





Hard Left, Cut Right


One morning in late July, Cameron finally lands a promising clue.

Elusive real estate tycoon Simon Brinks spends summer weekends at his estate in the San Juan Islands, a lavish Tuscan-style villa tucked up on a cliff overlooking some obscure strait. This is according to the old magazine article Cameron dug up on some obscure website. Once he had the town and photo, it was easy enough to unearth the address. It’s a two-hour drive from Sowell Bay.

That would be four hours in the car alone. Cameron scrolls through the address book on his phone. His thumb hovers over Avery’s number.

Would tagging along for a shakedown of a man who might be his biological father be a weird date? It would. Is Avery weird enough to be down with it? Possibly. Everything seems fifty-fifty with Avery, and even though they’ve managed a few coffee dates and a late-night dinner, once, at the pub down in Elland, half the time she develops some snag with her schedule and has to cancel, which seems oddly complicated for a single woman. Paddle store stuff, Cameron assumes. What would he know about owning a business? Holding his breath, he places the call.

“Hey, you.” She sounds happy to hear from him.

“I’m going on a little adventure today. Wanna come?” Cameron explains his plan.

Avery’s sigh seeps through his phone speaker. “Can’t, I’m on duty at the shop. But we should do something later this week.”

“Sure. Later this week.”

“I mean it,” she says earnestly. “We’ll go paddling. I’ll check my schedule.”

He says goodbye to Avery and sets his phone on the bumper of the camper, where his feet are propped, as he sits in one of Ethan’s lawn chairs. It was gross and rainy when he first got here, but now the weather is perfect. All of the colors seem impossibly vivid, from the wide blue sky to the thick green trees. Nothing like the oppressively hot, dusty oven that Modesto becomes in the summertime. He outstretches his right hand, examining his fingers, then flexes and throws a shadow jab upward at the cloudless summer sky.

Life is finally going his way.

For one thing, Avery. He’s never caught the attention of a girl quite like Avery before, and somehow her strange evasiveness only adds to her appeal.

For another thing: he’s about to do a face-to-face with his maybe dad.

And for a third thing: He’s held an actual job for weeks now. He doesn’t even hate it. Who knew? Chopping up fish guts. And cleaning! Not glamorous, but the solitude suits him, especially in the evening. Half the time, he’s the only one at the aquarium when he cleans. On those nights, he smacks the vending machine until it drops something, a package of cookies or stale snack cakes that nobody wants to buy anyway, pops in his earbuds, and zones out while he washes the floors. The other half of the time, the weird lady is there. Tova. She keeps showing up, even though she’s supposed to be on medical leave. Cameron promised he wouldn’t rat her out. He doesn’t mind having her around. Her obsession with that octopus is bizarre, and he hasn’t made much progress making friends with Marcellus, but her company is weirdly enjoyable.

Behind him, a screen door bangs. A second later, Ethan appears around the back side of the camper. A faded Led Zeppelin T-shirt a little tight across his torso. He squints at Cameron. “Lovely mornin’, innit?”